Light in the Darkness Chapter Thirty-Three Hope of Escape

Song Qianwen was ultimately escorted home by the man, and she suddenly noticed something unusual about his shadow.

Under the glow of the lights, the man's shadow seemed to move on its own.

She thought it was a trick of her imagination—she had been through too many strange things today—and assumed she was simply frightened, so she instinctively rubbed her eyes.

She led the man inside, while he looked around, taking in the decor of her home.

Returning from fetching water, Song Qianwen stood motionless at the kitchen doorway, staring fixedly at the man's shadow.

He paid no attention to the oddity of his own shadow, still absorbed in examining the room.

Suddenly, the man's shadow waved and greeted Song Qianwen, startling her so badly that the glass in her hand fell to the floor, water spilling out.

Bang—

The sound of the cup hitting the ground shattered the silence of the room.

The man immediately came over to check on her, while Song Qianwen watched his figure draw nearer, yet his shadow remained in its original spot, frozen in the previous gesture.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” he asked, glancing at the fallen cup with concern.

“Nothing… I’m just a little distracted.”

“By the way, do you… believe in ghosts?” Song Qianwen stumbled through her explanation, then abruptly changed the subject.

The man touched his chin thoughtfully, replying earnestly, “Yes… I do. Because I’ve actually seen one.”

“Why do you suddenly ask that? Are you still thinking about what happened today?”

“No… it’s nothing…” Song Qianwen hesitated, swallowing her words. Perhaps she had simply imagined it; she comforted herself with this thought.

“I was just frightened today…”

By now, it was midnight. After sitting for a while, the man decided to leave.

Fear gnawed at Song Qianwen’s heart—she dreaded encountering anything else bizarre.

She suggested he stay the night and leave tomorrow instead. After considering, he agreed.

After washing up, Song Qianwen returned first to her bedroom, retrieved Tang Li’s clothes for the man, and, once he had finished, led him to the guest room.

Closing the door, she collapsed weakly behind it, recalling all she had experienced that day. The terror of facing the unknown left her shaken.

She didn’t dare turn off the lights, and, like a frightened rabbit, hurried back to bed.

Meanwhile, in an endless gray space, the voices of a man and a woman echoed quietly.

“We’re not getting out, are we?” the girl asked, dejected.

“No, usually failure means death. But we’re still alive, so there’s hope we can escape…” the man comforted her, and himself, refusing to give up hope.

These two were Jiang Li and Fei Ling, drawn into the mirror world. In this gray space, there was no sense of time; neither knew how long they’d been there.

Here, there was no hunger, no thirst, no awareness of time passing.

At first, they kept walking in a straight line through the endless space, but as time wore on, the monotony unsettled them, and they paused periodically to rest.

The timer on the left hand of the Ghost Record had already hit zero; after the task ended, they had not encountered any more malicious spirits. The mirror world, once resembling their school, became an infinite gray void.

“Jiang Li, you know, from the very beginning, your shadow lingered in my heart. Now that we can’t get out, I fear these words will never be spoken again.”

“I feel the same. I’ve never had many friends, nor experienced affection. From the moment I first met you, I was captivated, but at that time, survival itself seemed an impossible dream.”

“For people like us, love is such a distant, unattainable dream…”

Jiang Li listened to Fei Ling’s confession, recalling their first meeting.

Fei Ling slowly walked over and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

“If I were alone here, I would have already lost the will to live. But having you here, at least when I die, I can die in the arms of someone I love…”

“We will get out, believe me. The first thing we’ll do when we escape—let’s go to the registry office and get our marriage certificate, okay?” Jiang Li gently stroked Fei Ling’s hands as she held him.

“Mm…”

He released her hands, turned, and embraced her tightly, breathing in her unique scent.

Fei Ling felt the masculine energy envelop her, her mind blank as Jiang Li’s face drew closer. She closed her eyes instinctively.

They held each other tightly, encouraging one another. Gazing at the beloved in his arms, Jiang Li suddenly felt parched, then kissed Fei Ling deeply.

“Mm…” Fei Ling murmured, feeling Jiang Li’s firm chest, their passionate kiss seeming to exclude everything else from existence.

Heat rose between them, lips and teeth unfamiliar yet tender.

Next door, the man slept heavily, snoring thunderously.

Unable to sleep, Song Qianwen reached for her phone under the pillow, wanting to call her boyfriend Tang Li. Glancing at the time, she hesitated—it was too late, Tang Li must be asleep.

By chance, she noticed a fleeting image in the mirror—a man and a woman.

She curled up beneath her blanket, nervously peeking again at the mirror near the door. The mirror reflected everything in the room, including her own anxious, frightened face.

Song Qianwen finally breathed a sigh of relief; it was just her imagination, scaring herself.

Elsewhere, after their long, heartfelt kiss, Jiang Li and Fei Ling suddenly noticed a door appear in the gray space.

Jiang Li took Fei Ling’s delicate hand, and together they opened the door.

Beyond it was no longer gray void, but a three-bedroom apartment.

Fei Ling stared at the room, momentarily bewildered.

“What’s going on?” she asked, dazed. She realized her question was somewhat foolish—Jiang Li must be wondering the same.

Contrary to her expectation, Jiang Li actually answered.

“I think we can get out now,” he said, surveying the apartment.

“Why?” Fei Ling was confused; since Jiang Li had entered the mirror world first, she didn’t know that the mirror world could change according to the real environment.

“I think we’ve entered the next task. The mirror world adapts to the real world, so we might have stumbled into a new incident.”

“The most reasonable explanation is that the mirror world was an endless gray space, but as soon as the door appeared and was opened, we entered a room generated from the real world.”

“This incident may have started unrelated to us, but since we’ve entered, I suspect it will soon involve us.”

“If we manage to escape the mirror world, we’ll return to reality.”

They searched the apartment, and in the second room, found the man who had brought Song Qianwen home, as well as Song Qianwen herself, sleeping with the lights on. But in this world, only Jiang Li and Fei Ling truly existed.

Everyone else was merely a projection, copied from the real scene by the mirror world. These two—the man and the woman—were the only real ones outside the mirror.

The people and objects before them were mere illusions created by the mirror world.

Suddenly, Song Qianwen, asleep, heard voices—a man and a woman speaking in the living room. Cautiously, she opened her bedroom door, but found the living room empty.

Earlier, Fei Ling had entered Song Qianwen’s room, and Jiang Li the man’s, so Jiang Li only knew there was a man and a woman in the real apartment.

But he hadn’t seen Song Qianwen’s face before; now, as she opened her door, Jiang Li saw her clearly.

“How can it be her?”

Jiang Li recognized Song Qianwen—she was the spirit who had warned him repeatedly in the mirror world that leaving meant death.

“You know her?” Fei Ling asked, puzzled.

“She’s the spirit who kept warning me I would die. What’s going on? Could the previous incident be connected to this one?”

“But that doesn’t make sense. In the last incident, this girl became a malicious spirit in the mirror. How can she now be living a normal life in the real world?”

“Maybe… the previous incident was actually the outcome, and this one is the true beginning—the cause. In other words, the sequence was reversed: normally, the cause comes first, then the effect. But for some reason, the effect appeared before the cause.”

Fei Ling processed Jiang Li’s words and offered a hypothesis.

“You mean cause and effect are reversed? If so, it makes sense. But if we know the outcome from the start, can we change it by altering the beginning?”

Jiang Li wondered aloud—if the outcome was known, could changing the start alter the result? Maybe the girl wouldn’t become the malicious spirit in the mirror, and he and Fei Ling wouldn’t enter the mirror world at all.

“That shouldn’t be possible. The outcome is predetermined. No matter how we try to change it, the rules of the Ghost Record will always prevail.”