Gao Ming looked at himself and examined his heart. He saw the blade that pierced from the future.
“My killer is Gao Ming.”
Concluding his many death memories, even though Gao Ming hadn’t seen his killer, he had a few guesses. To ensure the plan went without a hitch, he gave Fan Li a mission to find Gao Yun in the death realm of the past and future.
To confirm the uncertainty in his mind, before Gao Ming left the death realm and returned to Han Hai, he used the God of the Future’s power to deprive his mind of the memory he had with Gao Yun. Therefore, he didn’t even know that the baby on the bus was Gao Yun. To trick fate, Gao Ming had to trick himself first.
Reality proved that he was right.
The God of Flesh and Blood and the flame of the figurine fragment and death portraits couldn’t stop the killer. The other party knew about every part of Gao Ming’s part… except the part that involved Gao Yun.
The one second that was rewound was a second outside of Fate’s script. Due to this second that shouldn’t exist, Gao Ming saw his killer, himself.
The rising water droplet paused. The tunnel started to shake. Two worlds collided.
The killer’s face started to crack and shed. It seemed that there could only be one living Gao Ming in this world. Once the killer, who hid inside the tunnel, was seen by Gao Ming, his body started to disintegrate.
The last time Gao Ming entered the tunnel, he turned around at the last moment of his death and saw another version of himself inside a bus that was caught in the storm.
This time, he turned around to see a killer who had his exact face. His killer dissolved right before his eyes. It was like a taboo had been shattered. One cracked in the dark, and the other gripped his fists in the flames.
There were no shrill honkings or blinding light from the headlights. Gao Ming heard the killer’s last mumbling. “Fate has decided everything. Everything has its own place. However, everything is going out of control now. You might have the chance to escape fate’s control.” The eerie pressure faded away. The killer said one last thing. “I know that our names aren’t Gao Ming. I hope you can do it this time.”
The killer disappeared into the past like he had never been there in the first place. Gao Ming stared at where his killer stood.
He remembered that when he was killed last time, the killer helped fate to give him a mission, and he mentioned a crucial statement, “From now on, your name is Gao Ming.”
The same killer said something else after Gao Ming did everything in his power to kill him, “Actually, our names are not Gao Ming.”
“The two statements are wildly different. The killer in my tunnel murdered me again and again to collect my bodies. He appeared to be fate’s accomplice, but he had never stopped me from starting again or trapped me inside the tunnel. He merely stopped me from knowing the truth.” Sometimes, knowing too much wasn’t a good thing. The killer was more like a gatekeeper. He murdered the unqualified Gao Mings. This way, Gao Ming could achieve metamorphosis through death and eventually gain enough power to deal with the killer.
An absurd thought appeared in Gao Ming’s mind. ‘Could he have killed me so many times to protect me?!’
The pain of death shook Gao Ming’s body. He looked at the tunnel encased with corpses, and his brain couldn’t function. Gao Ming bit his tongue. When he calmed down, he looked down the other direction of the tunnel.
Different from before, after the killer disappeared, the bus from the past didn’t show up. The cycle had been broken.
“This time, there is no restart! Perhaps I can leave the tunnel and exit Han Hai!”
He was excited because of this thought. However, the killer’s final words worried Gao Ming. The world outside of the tunnel might be more dangerous than Hai Hai. Perhaps the killer knew that. It was why he hunted Gao Ming down so that Gao Ming could gather his strength at fate’s blind spot.
“Lu Zang has set up a plan to hunt fate, but his actions at Li San Hospital prove that he doesn’t know that this killer has been killing me inside the tunnel. This killer has nothing to do with Lu Zang and Fate. He said that he hoped I could do it this time. This time? Have I been close to success before?”
The presence of the Unmentionable filtered into the black mist. The ghosts on the bus howled anxiously. Gao Ming’s thought was interrupted.
“The cycle has been broken, so I have no choice but to retreat and move forward!”
Even though Gao Ming didn’t encounter the bus from the past this time, he drove a ‘school bus’ he made in Han Hai.
“The problem has been resolved. Everyone, get back onto the bus! Be on the highest alert! We are planning to exit the tunnel and leave Han Hai!”
Leaving Han Hai was something that was impossible for most humans and ghosts.
The corpses in the wall bowed. Gao Ming returned to the Class 13 bus and grabbed the steering wheel.
No one from Class 13 dared to speak. They previously thought Gao Ming was a slightly-powerful normal citizen. However, Gao Ming’s series of actions shattered their worldview. What kind of person would possess a whole tunnel made with their corpses?
Every version of himself died in a different manner. Every face carried pain and despair. The bus drove down the tunnel as if they were going through Gao Ming’s Museum of Death.
Gao Ming stepped on the pedal. He could sense something approaching from the black mist.
Without the protection of the flame, Gao Ming used the power of the God of the Past and the Future to see through the mist. He drove for a long time, but he still couldn’t see the exit.
As he started to question everything, the straight tunnel in his memory changed. A split in the road appeared before him.
The black mist dispersed between the two paths. The left path had broken walls. Waste and old construction materials littered the ground. The right path looked normal. It was no different from the path they had been on.
“Granny Shen predicted that… there is an unexpected damage in the exit that leads to the outside world.”