Chapter 5

Just as she was alone amidst the chaos, a dilapidated pickup truck came driving down the road from the opposite direction. It had already passed Jiang Xiaoyuan but slowed down and backed up. A man in his forties leaned out of the window and asked, "Sister, where are you going all by yourself?"

Jiang Xiaoyuan, once resplendent, has now faded into oblivion with the passage of time. At this moment, she is wearing a dull gray short-sleeved shirt, and Jiang Xiaoyuan truly does not wish to elevate it with the term "clothing"; she can only perceive it as a rag with holes.

Suddenly, fashion and jewelry, with their continuously evolving displays of wealth, seemed to have become a bizarre daydream for her

"This is a one-way road" These shocking words lay quietly on her dead phone, Jiang Xiaoyuan bit her lip hard, tasting the rusty flavor of blood, with nowhere to go, she could only continue her journey along the way

The other party did not respond. After a moment, the last message rushed into her phone: "Do not respond to Mingguang! Do not come back! This is a one-way road!"

At this moment, the top priority is to leave this place. Jiang Xiaoyuan's first reaction was that she should call the police, but she needed to carefully consider how to phrase it. While she was pondering, a text message popped up.

Her silhouette lying on the ground grew longer, the mountain road undulated, appearing flat, yet the vehicle's movement was hardly noticeable. Walking on her two legs was quite laborious, and she felt both thirsty and hungry, realizing she was somewhat dehydrated, not even daring to cry anymore

"I will call the police for you when I leave." Jiang Xiaoyuan reached out and patted the big tree, thinking, "I am truly sorry, thank you."

The driver involuntarily reached out to grasp the demon-slaying staff hanging from the rearview mirror, staring with wide eyes, carefully verifying Jiang Xiaoyuan's species

Jiang Xiaoyuan looked at him with confusion, completely unaware that her face was already wet with tears.

When she was so exhausted that she could not walk any longer, she stopped and stood still at the edge of the cliff, thinking: "I might as well jump down."

There are only two one-hundred-yuan bills in the cash, while the rest are crumpled small change, resembling the earnings of a beggar

This cloth is neither long nor short, just hanging down to the edge of her thighs. The skirt does not resemble a skirt, and the top does not resemble a top. Below, she is wearing a very dreadful pair of three-quarter black leggings, with no socks on her feet, stepping into a pair of faux leather sandals, and a limp ponytail tied at the back of her head.

What about browsers? What about social media apps? What about taxi-hailing apps? What about review platforms? What about weight loss assistants? What about makeup applications and shopping recommendation software? What about games? What about Meitu Xiuxiu!

It is a pity that despite her thoughts, she ultimately did not dare to act. If she were not afraid of death, she surely would not be here at this moment.

Jiang Xiaoyuan finally succeeded in replying to a text message: "Who are you?"

Did she fall down by herself? No, this is a long winding mountain road, with sparse traffic and even fewer pedestrians

However, she had not yet caught her breath when a series of text messages suddenly flooded her phone, and due to the length of the messages, they were automatically split into several pages

Jiang Xiaoyuan looked at the man's dirty face, his greasy work clothes, and then at the car that was drafty all around. Instinctively, she shook her head and carefully hugged her bag tighter.

She escaped from a car that was about to crush her, falling into a strange lighthouse, and confusedly signed a contract whose meaning she did not understand. Bewildered and unsure whom to trust, she found herself in a foreign world, trapped in a dilemma with an unfamiliar identity, possessing only five hundred yuan in various denominations.

After Jiang Xiaoyuan swallowed hard a few times, she opened her eyes while coughing and wanted to express her gratitude, but as soon as she spoke, her voice nearly cracked.

The driver spends years on the road, often for ten hours or more at a time, making it impossible to pay much attention to personal hygiene. Her hands are dark and thin, resembling chicken feet, with dirt and grime lodged beneath her nails, rich in connotations. Despite Jiang Xiaoyuan being overwhelmed by the enticing aroma of food, her mind buzzing, she still struggled to overcome her base appetite with great spirit upon seeing such "utensils" and declined the offerings from the pouting monkey.

When Jiang Xiaoyuan opened her eyes again, she found herself standing by the side of a desolate road, with no village in front and no shop behind, just a cliff at her back. Beneath her feet lay a disturbing array of chaotic traces, including tire tracks, footprints, shallow grooves left by heavy objects being dragged, and bloodstains. There was even a small piece of torn clothing.

Jiang Xiaoyuan's overwhelming frustration eased a bit upon seeing this countdown

Her heart full of sympathetic indignation was extinguished halfway under the cat's affectionate gaze, and in such attire, she felt an itch all over her body, wishing that the passage she had spoken of so openly would be completed in the next moment, so she could return and shed a layer of her skin.

Jiang Xiaoyuan searched her entire body and finally found a plastic wallet in her handbag, which contained an identification card, five hundred and twenty yuan and five jiao in cash, and a mobile phone

Jiang Xiaoyuan suddenly felt a twinge of guilt, and from this guilt, a wave of sadness arose. She crouched down, picked up a thin and flat stone, left a mark on a tree by the roadside, and then deeply embedded the stone into the muddy ground by the road, as if erecting a monument.

Jiang Xiaoyuan was overwhelmed with sorrow and resentment, nearly throwing the "remote control" away

It is simply a situation of mountains and rivers blocking the way... there is absolutely no road!

Why her? Why didn't she stay in the office to play on the computer, but instead chose to humiliate Feng Ruixue? Why couldn't she calmly wash Huo Boyu's face with coffee, but had to run out by herself? Why was it only on that day that she didn't wear a seatbelt?

Jiang Xiaoyuan : `` ... ... ''

Jiang Xiaoyuan turned her head in a daze under the car lights, just in time to meet the driver's gaze.

Jiang Xiaoyuan clumsily opened the text message, almost deleting it by mistake. Upon opening it, she saw the message: "Countdown to the successful construction of the passage: 50 days. Please refrain from becoming immersed in another space-time—Mingguang."

Jiang Xiaoyuan seems to have stepped into a bizarre nightmare.

There is also a shameless otherworldly visitor who has usurped her identity

Jiang Xiaoyuan stood frozen in place, as if she had fallen into an icy pond on a frigid winter day, feeling a deep chill

Finally, he asked: "Are you really not leaving?"

The fourth piece of information: "Do not become an illegal nail, do not respond to Mingguang"

So, was she harmed by someone?

In addition, she carried a cloth shoulder bag at an angle, which seemed to have never been washed since it was bought, now almost indistinguishable from its original color. One could only vaguely discern that its value did not exceed fifteen yuan, and in the center, there was an embroidered image of a crooked and deformed cat head, grinning at Jiang Xiaoyuan with a twisted and sinister smile

Jiang Xiaoyuan hesitated for a moment, glancing at the road ahead and then at the path behind her. Recalling the various terrifying rumors circulating in society about single young women hitchhiking, she weighed her options and resolutely shook her head, watching as the pickup truck rattled and drove away from in front of her.

The sun had already tilted towards the west, and the wind began to carry the unique chill of the night. Jiang Xiaoyuan wandered aimlessly for a moment, finally realizing that if she did not leave soon, she would have to spend the night on the mountain path. With no other choice, she stood up, took hold of her only possessions, and stumbled forward along the mountain road on foot.

Ah, the man mumbled something, his accent very thick. Jiang Xiaoyuan could not understand him at all, so he raised his voice and shouted at her again, "Get in the car, I will take you for a ride"

Jiang Xiaoyuan almost exerted all her strength to turn around and extended a hand towards the driver: "Save ... ... "

The third piece of information: "Those who are killed by the law are different from others who die; time and space will no longer acknowledge your existence. Thus, there will be a permanent vacancy in your original time and space identity, which someone in the lighthouse can occupy. This person will find ways to survive the accident, become you, and replace you"

So, did she, who originally lived in this world, die here

At first glance, Jiang Xiaoyuan could not fully comprehend it, yet several key phrases sent a chill down her spine

Jiang Xiaoyuan focused her gaze and saw the first line that read: "Do not reply upon receipt. One of the most important rules of parallel space is that there must never be an intersection. If you jump from space one to space two and then return to space one, you will become an illegal intersection in both spaces. This illegal intersection is referred to as a 'nail'"

She uttered a single word and then collapsed on the spot, losing all awareness of her surroundings

When Jiang Xiaoyuan awoke from her brief state of shock, she found that she had been moved onto a truck, where a somewhat stale odor pervaded the air, and the driver was pouring water into her mouth

Jiang Xiaoyuan watched it three times in a row, and the more she watched, the colder she felt all over. Her hands trembled so much that she could hardly hold her phone. Just as she was about to reply, another long message came in.

What is going on? Is Mingguang still a chatterbox?

When the sky had completely darkened, Jiang Xiaoyuan was fortunate to encounter a large truck transporting goods again

The driver was a middle-aged woman, dark and thin, as if she had just finished hauling bananas from the Philippines. Her appearance was quite peculiar, with large eye bags resembling a wrinkled, puckered monkey. The two of them startled each other.

Jiang Xiaoyuan took five seconds to calm down in place, peering down at the bottomless cliff behind her—anyone who fell from here would be lost without a trace. Although she found it difficult to glean anything from the chaotic array of clues, the cold words from Mingguang, "She is already dead," sparked boundless associations in her mind

The man let out a sigh and went on a lengthy discourse, leaving Jiang Xiaoyuan's head buzzing, and she understood not a word of it

"Speak slowly, speak slowly." The female driver patted her on the back and broke off a small piece of bread, holding it up to Jiang Xiaoyuan's mouth

Only after completing these tasks did she have the leisure to reflect on herself, discovering that her image had undergone a significant transformation that was difficult to accept

This identity card is both familiar and unfamiliar, bearing the name Jiang Xiaoyuan, of Han ethnicity. The girl in the photo bears a striking resemblance to her, yet the other information is completely different from her own— the registered address is a rural town in another province that she has never heard of, the date of birth differs from hers by nearly six months, and the identity card number is entirely incorrect.

At this moment, she was on the verge of blowing out the lamp and pulling out the wick, swaying left and right to keep her mind clear. Unintentionally, she stumbled into the center of the road, forcing the truck to come to a halt. The driver leaned out, looking ahead in fear at the swaying figure of Jiang Xiaoyuan, unsure whether this encounter in the dead of night was with a human or a ghost

Mingguang also advised her not to become obsessed, but Jiang Xiaoyuan felt that he was being overly concerned—who would become infatuated with such a role? It's not like they are a masochist

The second point: "Nails cannot exist; the laws will automatically correct you, which means obliteration. The moment you pass through the so-called 'safe passage' and return to your original space, you will be torn apart by two timelines."

Jiang Xiaoyuan squinted her eyes and gazed at the sides of the winding mountain road, which were devoid of any signs of human presence. If that were the case, no one would know that a person had once died here, no one would report her missing, and perhaps her family would look for her. However, with no living person to be found and no corpse in sight, they would likely handle it as a case of disappearance.

This message flashed only for a moment, and the phone, which had almost a full battery just moments ago, suddenly dropped to empty, flickering twice before shutting down.

Moreover, in this desolate place, who is there to witness the tears?

As for the mobile phone, it is even more terrifying—this device looks just like an air conditioner remote control! The screen is only the size of a fingernail, and it is surprisingly black and white. Every time a button is pressed, this strange object emits a "beep" sound, and then the black and white screen emits a shimmering grass green light. Jiang Xiaoyuan spent a full five minutes in a flurry trying to figure out how to use this cursed thing.

Everything she saw, heard, and experienced was beyond her common sense and capacity to accept, leaving her in a state of confusion; yet she did not dare to lose her composure—because it was possible that she could inadvertently bring about her own demise.