/
It’s a sticky situation for Mu Jiashi.
In the village, besides their fellow students, all the villagers are quite likely enemies.
Even among the fellow students, there may be almost-traitors like Tan Ming, and outright traitors who Fei told him about.
Never mind their goal is to escape, which is best achieved if they can clearly identify who is an ally and who is not.
He shakes his head. His senses tell him the key to resolving the situation would not lie on the villagers.
They are all merely Difficulties
 He thinks.
He has confused himself immediately with that thought.
‘Difficulty’? What ‘Difficulty’? Why would he be describing the villagers with this peculiar terminology?
And, ‘merely’? What is lethally threatening to their lives would be described with this limiting adverb?
He is trying to work out his thought processes, but he has no answer. It’s like the grey fog has also smothered his brain shut. He cannot remember. He does not recall, the important, and shocking truth behind these questions of concern.
Mu Jiashi gives up thinking soon enough after realising its futility.
He then asks Tan Ming, “if it’s that bad
 Are you not going to fight back?”
Tan Ming shakes his head, looking over the rolling hills in the far distance with a rather unfocused gaze.
Then he mutters, “no
 this might be, what this land wants of me
 yes
 I was born here, raised here, and now, it’s time I paid my debts
”
Mu Jiashi can’t help but steal a glance at his ‘fellow undergraduate.’
Great. It looks like all the villagers are insane. Only that they’re insane to different degrees.
He sighs, deeply.
Quite possibly because of this topic, their conversation ends abruptly, and along the rest of the way to the feast, they do not utter another word. The mood is at its lowest.
About three to five minutes, they finally arrive at the location of the feast──The elder’s house.
Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ and Ye Lan are looking at each other nonplussed.
Of the ten──Well, now eight──Cell Nightmares in front of XĂŒ Beijin, Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ and Ye Lan had the most bewildering experience.
They two first went into different cells, and either by luck or by skill, they’ve found the doors to the Cells and escaped their first scene.
Then they run right into each other, and start staring silently at each other like this.
This is because of the environment they’re in. They’re on this empty plaza, where tens of thousands of people are sitting around in black robes. So are the two of them.
They are sitting there quietly, like they’re waiting for some grand ceremony.
The silent, solemn mood is heavy enough to drain the air out of Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ and Ye Lan’s lungs.
The two of them happen to almost face each other, but there is still a slight angle, which allows them to see slightly different things.
Some kind of strange sixth sense crept into both their minds, telling them that the other person is different, just like them.
They’re distinct from the atmosphere of this whole place. There is no way they would fit in, either.
Though the heavy mood is still heavily suffocating, robbing away their ability to speak.
Perhaps the sound of conversation would break the peace. Perhaps, it’s just some kind of preservation instinct in face of danger.
Their senses continue tingling, warning them not to speak, not to move randomly.
So they sit there in silence, waiting.
Both of them are the patient kind of Missiontaker, fitting well with their rather taciturn and collected personality.
Even if the air is scorching hot and the sunlight is burning their backs through the black robes like flames, they are still maintaining their forms expressionlessly. They merely exchange glances every so often.
If it were He ShujĂŒn or Wu Jian here, it’s about time they’d give up and yelp out in discomfort.
Eventually, after a very, very long time, so long that even Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ finds himself drowsy, a sudden rumbling sound originating from the centre of this plaza strikes him head on, snaps him awake, and he looks up reflexively.
What is that?
His eardrums could rupture──Or quite possibly have ruptured, as a burning, disorienting guff of hot shockwave knocks him over immediately, and he is flying far up into the sky. He is completely frozen.
What an
 unforgettable experience.
Shortly after, he dies.
It’s like something being ground to dust, dissipating in the air
 it’s difficult to put into words.
Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ finds himself unable to describe the experience. He merely finds that, his consciousness seems to have shut down.
He doesn’t even have a clear sense that he is dead.
He has simply, literally, been wiped away from this world. Chemical, physical changes, and he ends up a pile of mush unceremoniously, then
 darkness.
When everything restarts, Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ is still wondering, if he really experienced all that.
Maybe it was simply a fake dream he had during a slip of consciousness? It should be. It didn’t feel realistic at all

However, when he looks up, and sees that at the near opposite of where he sits, Ye Lan’s face looks as pale as a ghost, he realises that, no. It wasn’t a dream. It was real. It was something they experienced. It was
 death.
He faces Ye Lan, nonplussed for a moment, before simultaneously jumping up into the air together. Ignoring all the cusses and curses from the nearby robed men, they are desperately prying their way through all obstacles, to escape.
It was definitely not a good experience, to melt in extreme heat.
Even if it happened so quickly, quickly enough that Shen YĂŒnjĂŒâ€™s brain didn’t even know what happened before he died, but
 what a Nightmare.
They escaped without further incident; and Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ thought the same again.
As far away from the plaza as possible. Their survival instincts are driving their rickety ol’ feet forward still, to leave the terrifying experience behind, until
 Ye Lan suddenly says, “stop
”
Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ did, and then he heaves a weary sigh, saying, “running won’t do any good.”
Ye Lan looks back at the plaza where the robed men in black are seated, packed like sardines. They’re at least three, four hundred metres away, now.
But that’s useless. They are right at the centre of some kind of disaster. This short distance will do no good.
Ye Lan turns to Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ next, and asks calmly, “how long do we have?”
“Half an hour
 or 40 minutes, possibly,” Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ says, “I can’t recall clearly.”
“I’ve got about the same estimate,” Ye Lan nods and says, “so the problem is, we have to find a door
 a door, so that we could leave.”
Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ quietly adds, “yes. That’s how, I escaped before.”
The two of them look at each other, then simultaneously wonder aloud, “but where’s the door?”
This is a plaza, maybe something like a central park of a city, surrounded by empty space and greenery──Although most of it is wilted here.
But then, where could the door be? This place is completely empty. There isn’t even a single building in sight.
Ye Lan thinks for a moment, before saying, “should we, keep going?”
Shen YĂŒnjĂŒ nods to agree.
Regardless, the secret and the truth are likely hidden in the surrounding scenery, whether it’s information relating to the robed men in black, or
 the door.