The three girls standing beside Zheng Yingxiong couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy when they saw his expression.
The child’s eyes were bloodshot and brimming with tears, yet he stubbornly pressed his lips together, refusing to let out a sob.
Having spent some time with him, they had never once heard him voice what he truly wanted. This might have been the first time he had ever spoken up.
“Give them some time,” Tian Tian said softly, pulling three “Dao” from her pocket and handing them to Zheng Yingxiong. “We’ll wait for you outside.”
The three of them nodded in unison, and Zheng Yingxiong carefully accepted the three “Dao,” turning to pass them to the Man-Monkey.
The Man-Monkey’s gaze pierced through his rotting mask, nodding slightly at the trio as if in gratitude before naturally taking Zheng Yingxiong’s hand and leading him into his game area.
The two of them looked like long-lost brothers—one wearing a decaying baboon mask, the other crowned with a newspaper-folded tiara—their silhouettes casting an eerie yet oddly heartwarming shadow.
But Yun Yao couldn’t wrap her head around it. What could have possibly happened in a place like this to make a “Zodiac” and a “participant” reunite after so long?
Despite the Man-Monkey’s terrifying mask, none of them felt he was truly malicious or that he would harm Zheng Yingxiong.
As the door opened, the three glimpsed the interior—a starkly simple game area with just a table and two worn-out cardboard boxes.
Yun Yao had seen this room once before. It resembled a sealed-off bathroom, cramped and windowless, not a single ray of light penetrating inside.
In most cases, a tiny room and a rudimentary set of game props constituted the entirety of a human-level “Zodiac’s” existence.
Even if they spent every waking moment, they might never gather the 3,600 “Dao” needed to hand over to their overseeing earth-level “Zodiac.” And even if they miraculously did, it still depended on whether their “teacher” was willing to bother submitting a “Zodiac Ascension Gambit Contract” to the “Heavenly Dragon” on their behalf.
If, by some stroke of luck, they passed that hurdle, they’d then be trapped in the “interview room” for years—either doomed to an endless cycle within it or defying infinitesimal odds to rise as a new earth-level “Zodiac.”
And when they finally clawed their way to that new height, only to find the leap from earth-level to heaven-level even more impossible, these “Zodiacs,” who had fought relentlessly for survival without ever losing their memories, would plunge headlong into the abyss of “sunk cost.”
After all, no one wanted to abandon years of toil just to revert to being a “participant,” nor did anyone dare step out of line and risk becoming a mindless “ant.”
Though the truth stared them in the face time and again, none could accept that earth-level was the end. So they remained, serving the “Heavenly Dragon,” clinging to the faintest sliver of hope.
Ahead lay fog; behind, a cliff.
No way forward, no retreat.
Yet this path held a twisted logic—
No one had ever promised the “Zodiacs” anything. Each believed they had found the true “path,” willingly donning their masks.
No one had ever uttered the words “consequences at your own risk,” yet that unspoken price was seared into their hearts the moment they masked themselves. Once a “Zodiac” mask was worn, no guarantees followed.
The Man-Monkey before them was but one of many tragic “Zodiacs.” The cruel irony? He had barely begun his journey when he realized there was no turning back.
He turned, gently shutting the door before flicking on the dim room light.
Zheng Yingxiong stared at the familiar-yet-strange figure, a thousand words lodged in his throat. But fear held him back—fear of the “Zodiac” rules, fear that a careless word might erase this person forever.
In the entire “Land of Finality,” few mattered to Zheng Yingxiong. Gu Yu was one of them.
The Man-Monkey moved the two cardboard boxes aside, his back turned as he fumbled with something for several minutes before returning them to the table.
“Man-Monkey…” Zheng Yingxiong finally spoke. “Don’t you have anything to ask me?”
“Seeing you here alone… perhaps I don’t need to ask,” the Man-Monkey replied bleakly. “The ending was decided long ago. Time hasn’t changed that.”
Zheng Yingxiong said nothing, nodding slightly before turning his gaze to the boxes.
“Three ‘Dao’ in each box. We’ll decide the order by rock-paper-scissors,” the Man-Monkey said.
“No need. You go first,” Zheng Yingxiong replied.
The Man-Monkey nodded, retrieving a single “Dao” from the left box. It was clear he wasn’t playing to win—only to prolong their time together.
“Look at this ‘Dao,'” the Man-Monkey murmured. “Three in the box, and it’s the first to leave. Though it escaped first, it has no say in where it goes. It just sits on the table, waiting for the ‘winner’ to claim it. Even it doesn’t know its own fate.”
“I know,” Zheng Yingxiong whispered sadly. “But maybe you’ll win. You could take it, decide its path.”
“I can’t win,” the Man-Monkey said, his voice hollow. “I should’ve realized this from the start. On my own, I’ll never win. I can’t take this ‘Dao.’ I can’t decide its future.”
“Is that so…?” Zheng Yingxiong stared at the “Dao” on the table and nodded. “But it’s free now.”
“Free…?”
“No matter who takes it, it’s out of the box. That’s a good thing.” Zheng Yingxiong gently touched the golden sphere, his voice heavy. “I searched for this ‘Dao’ with another Man-Monkey once. But his scent was unfamiliar. In the end, I had to come here.”
Gu Yu nodded. “Yes… because every ‘Dao’ in the box is always trying to escape.”
One by one, they drew the “Dao” from the boxes. When only two remained in one, Zheng Yingxiong reached for one—
But his fingers slipped.
The “Dao” tumbled to the floor, rolling away until it vanished into the shadows of the room.
Only then did Zheng Yingxiong’s tears finally break free.
“But she’s gone…” he sobbed. “Sis is gone… There were only two of us left in the box… and she left first…”
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