What was she thinking?
How did she have such confidence in her judgment that she dared to charge headfirst into smoke so thick it felt impossible to tear apart?
Why hadn't she mimicked grand prize's voice before acting? Was it still possible to turn back now?
Countless regrets and fears surged to deafening volume in an instant, nearly making Lin Sanjiu stumble. She glanced back, but there was nothing to see but dense, murky fog. Not a hint of red remained in sight. Was it already too late? Would she be buried alone in this leaden sea of smoke? The thought chilled her.
Something darted across the ground through the haze, startling her back to awareness as cold sweat spread over her skin.
It seemed to be a rat or some other small creature. In a blink, it scurried away, the faint rustling quickly fading. Lin Sanjiu took two deep, shaky breaths and checked her limbs again. Her arms hung stiffly at her sides under her conscious control, and her feet stayed grounded.
She couldn't summon the courage to speak to "Mrs. Manas." When enveloped in near-blinding fog, it took very little time to lose all sense of direction, distance, and even the passage of time. How far had she run? Twenty meters? A thousand?
Assuming the worst, the red brick wall might still be stretching out to her right. To confirm whether she had escaped its influence, there was only one option.
Blow away the smoke again and take another look.
Those cracks and damages that seemed perfectly natural at first glance revealed a parade of figures—heads tilted back, arms raised, eyes wandering, their poses absurd—one after another, extending like a long, endless chain. She knew better than to look too closely. Just confirm the wall's presence, then turn away and keep running.
A sudden shiver ran through Lin Sanjiu as she realized the [Tornado Whip] was once again clutched in her hand.
She hesitated briefly. Blasting away the fog would ensure she wasn't being followed by those figures anymore...
"Mrs. Manas?" Lin Sanjiu forced herself to call out.
Silence filled her mind.
Sometimes, she wondered if the smoke had seeped into the gaps between her eyelids and eyeballs, infiltrating her skull and obscuring Mrs. Manas completely.
Clenching her teeth, Lin Sanjiu put away the Tornado Whip and took a large step forward.
"Mrs. Manas?" she called again.
"There's someone ahead," the red brick wall woman's voice said softly after a pause.
Lin Sanjiu's body reacted before her brain could fully process the meaning; cold sweat erupted, and every muscle tensed. She whipped out a vortex of air, the word "Who?" catching in her throat.
The swirling gust tore through layers of leaden fog, sweeping them away until a faint, rounded shadow began to emerge—a person's head, viewed from the back. 𐍂𝔞Nо฿ÊȘ
The body below was swallowed by the thick haze, leaving only a neck visible beneath the head. The voice in her mind grew excited.
"There's more. Look to your right."
Lin Sanjiu turned her head slowly.
Indeed, to her right and ahead, another shadowy head emerged. This one had its neck half-turned, revealing a flat, swollen, lead-gray side of the face, silently staring at her from the corner of its eye.
In the midst of a long silence, Lin Sanjiu slowly realized that the person could no longer move.
The air vortex howled from above, scattering the smoke. As more of the leaden fog receded, the scene became clearer: not just in front and to the right, but countless shadowy heads rose from the thinning fog. They loomed at various heights and angles, standing in clusters, blocking her path forward.
Some shadows stared upward, some looked down, while others, like the one to her right, had their heads half-turned as if peering at whoever came after. Though their arms were frozen in mid-air, their knees lifted in exaggerated poses, none of them moved. Each figure stood perfectly still, like a group of sculptures created by a modern artist.
Lin Sanjiu crept closer to the silent crowd, holding her breath.
She could see the nearest shadows clearly: they had hair matted with grime, clothes shredded by corrosion, and skin that had turned the same dull gray as the smoke.
These figures were close together, all in identical poses, hunched over with their knees raised like characters from a shadow play sneaking forward. Lin Sanjiu noticed they all carried identical backpacks, so worn and decayed their colors were indistinguishable.
"Cloudwalk Heights Currency Circulation Bureau."
Though the words were faded and incomplete, they matched across the different backpacks, making it easy to piece together their original meaning.
Lin Sanjiu stood for a few moments among the silent, crowded figures. She drew a small knife and sliced open one of the backpacks. The figure wobbled slightly from the force, then settled back into position, while flakes of skin peeled off its face like shedding fur.
What fell from the torn bag was so corroded it was unrecognizable. One pouch disintegrated into fragments as it fell, releasing a cloud of black dust that scattered everywhere.
So this workgroup had been here all along.
"What will you do now? This is the direction you need to go," the red-brick wall woman said in a faint, half-mocking voice. "Looks like you'll have to walk through these people."
Lin Sanjiu swallowed with a dry throat.
She bowed her head and slipped under the raised arm of a motionless figure. Was this person dead? Or something else? Why were they in this state?
The farther she walked, the denser the figures became. It was like a crowd at a concert, bodies tangled and contorted to unheard music. Lin Sanjiu did her best not to touch anyone, but with the fog closing in again, moving forward grew increasingly difficult.
Soon, what surrounded her could barely be called people. This area was rarely visited; whether posthumans on missions, duoluozhong, or creatures wandering through the fog, they all received the same treatment near the red-brick wall. Regardless of their original forms, they froze in exaggerated poses as they followed the wall's figures—until they could walk no further.
The still figures piled up like snowdrifts, accumulating silently.
Lin Sanjiu carefully, hesitantly made her way through the shadows. She could see nothing now. Each step had to be probed with a stick to find safe ground. She had no doubt that if she hadn't realized what was happening, she would have joined these figures herself.
"Mrs. Manas?" she whispered as she emerged from the crowd.
After a brief silence, Mrs. Manas's familiar, normal voice replied, "We finally made it out!"