Deus Ex Machina: Chapter 48

Chapter 48

It was pitch black.

Yang Jin didn’t know how deep this place was, but he was certainly knocked hard. His head felt dizzy. He shook his head vigorously to clear his mind, and his wristband emitted a faint glow to help him distinguish objects in the darkness.

“Xiao Feng?” he called. “Where are you guys?” His voice echoed, but no one answered. He stood up, feeling the cold, damp air around him, and thought it must be caused by the nearby reservoir. “ZZ, find them.” He briefly explained, “Location.”

“Weak signal,” ZZ said. “Strong interference. I can only locate within a 100-meter range, no signs of life.”

“What?” Yang Jin was shocked. They clearly fell from the same place. How could two living people just disappear without a trace? “How do we get out?” he asked. “What’s interfering with you?”

“Strange waveforms,” ZZ said. “Unable to analyze.”

Yang Jin lost his temper: “You’re more useless than Fan Fan!”

ZZ, not like Fan Fan, was not provoked by Yang Jin. It calmly replied, “Unable to analyze.” This cold, high-tech AI refused to argue with a foolish human.

“Alright, alright, I get it.” Yang Jin took out his gun, which was small at first, but quickly assembled itself. The long barrel retracted, and it became the perfect size to hold for self-defense.

He cautiously moved forward. The humidity grew heavier. ZZ said, “We are still descending. We are now below sea level.”

“We fell from the mountaintop just now. The altitude of Chunming City isn’t high. Now, we’re below sea level. So, are we on the side of the reservoir or beneath it?” Yang Jin muttered to himself.

ZZ responded, “We are gradually moving toward the bottom.”

Yang Jin asked, “Any signals from the two of them?”

ZZ answered, “None.”

Yang Jin was puzzled. With ZZ’s range, it would be easy to find someone anywhere in Chunming City, but here, it was being interfered with. This kind of interference reminded him of the device he encountered in Shacheng. This seemed to be a common tactic used by the Sanctum.

“I’ll try.” Yang Jin stopped, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to focus on sensing Shi Yixi’s location.

This was how they did it in Shacheng.

But to Yang Jin’s surprise, it seemed he couldn’t sense Shi Yixi’s presence. He tried to communicate with him, but there was no response. In Shacheng, they could communicate easily. Was something wrong this time?

Although he wasn’t very patient, he could think calmly when facing a problem. He recalled his previous experiences and realized that he seemed to have been in a huge blind spot—since Shacheng, he had never actively sought out Shi Yixi. He had assumed their connection was still there, especially since Shi Yixi found him because of it. But, could the reverse be true? 

This connection was mutual, but why could Shi Yixi find him, and he couldn’t find Shi Yixi?

“This is impossible,” Yang Jin thought. “Idiot, where are you? Is your IQ that low, and your reactions that slow!”

Shi Yixi, besides feeling particularly cold, didn’t have any other obvious discomforts. But when he saw Zhan Feng, it seemed his condition wasn’t so good. He had fallen hard. Thinking that Zhan Feng had fallen to save him, Shi Yixi felt a bit guilty. He reached out and touched Zhan Feng’s face, softly saying, “Xiao Feng, are you… are you alright? Wake up.”

Zhan Feng’s fingers moved slightly. He opened his eyes, and through a blur of blood-red, he gradually made out Shi Yixi’s outline. It was very dark, and his head was dizzy and painful. Afraid he was seeing things wrong, he reached out to touch. Shi Yixi guided Zhan Feng’s hand to his face and said, “It’s me.”

“How are you?” Zhan Feng asked in a low voice.

“I’m fine.” Shi Yixi said, “You’re bleeding.”

Zhan Feng could feel blood dripping from his forehead, the blood tangled with his hair. He nonchalantly wiped it away and tied his hair up.

“You’ll get infected.” Shi Yixi took out a clotting gel from his pocket and applied it to Zhan Feng’s forehead. “Done.”

Zhan Feng said, “How come you even brought this? What else did you bring?”

Shi Yixi replied, “Just some random things. You… Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt?” He knew Yang Jin wasn’t afraid of getting hurt, but as for Zhan Feng, he wasn’t sure.

“It hurts at first.” Zhan Feng struggled to get up from the ground, brushing off the dust on his clothes. “But once you get used to it, it’s fine.” The surroundings were very dim. He touched the wall, which was cold and slippery. “Seems like a basement.”

“Did we fall into that control room?” Shi Yixi asked.

“Not sure.” Zhan Feng said, “But staying here certainly won’t give us any answers. There’s only one way, forward or backward?”

Shi Yixi asked, “You’re asking me?”

Zhan Feng smiled. “Isn’t your intuition pretty accurate? I’m naturally a black hand. I usually don’t flip coins.”

Shi Yixi looked around. He could see the environment clearly even in the darkness. He raised a hand and pointed forward. “Let’s go this way.”

“Alright, I’ll follow you.” Zhan Feng cleared the way ahead. “Stick close to me.”

Shi Yixi followed behind Zhan Feng and asked, “Do you think Yang Jin will come looking for us?”

Zhan Feng countered, “Do you want him to come find us?”

“I don’t want him to.” Shi Yixi said. “I promised him I wouldn’t cause trouble. I think… I may have gotten into trouble. I shouldn’t have run off. So, I don’t want him to come after me.”

“Aren’t you scared?” Zhan Feng asked.

Shi Yixi replied, “I don’t feel scared.”

Zhan Feng laughed. “Such big talk?”

“I… I don’t know what that feeling is.” Shi Yixi said. “Maybe I haven’t learned it yet.” His tone was always calm, and Zhan Feng was taken aback. He reached out and patted his head, softly saying, “I hope you never learn that feeling.”

Shi Yixi asked, “Have you ever been scared?”

Zhan Feng nodded but didn’t specify what he was afraid of.

Shi Yixi said, “Don’t be afraid. Yang Jin will come to save you.”

Zhan Feng was surprised. “Why?”

“Intuition.” Shi Yixi said, “He cares about you a lot.”

Yang Jin walked faster and faster, growing more anxious. He was usually a master of strategy, but this time, the painful reality told him he was wrong. He had thought that the connection between him and Shi Yixi would allow him to easily find Shi Yixi, but there was nothing. His mind was empty, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find Shi Yixi.

Clearly, Bai Yunci had said that their connection was mutual.

“Yang Jin, your current mood is very bad.” ZZ said, “I suggest you calm down.”

Yang Jin darkened his face and coldly said, “Don’t mind me.”

ZZ replied, “I don’t want to mind you, but your emotional fluctuations have a frequency, and I can feel it. Any frequency affects me.”

“So you’re ZZ, not Pony.” Yang Jin said, “You’ll spend your whole life as a security guard monitoring the building in the Intercontinental Alliance and still not know what Guo Jincheng did in the basement of the Intercontinental Alliance.”

“Yang Jin, I warn you to mind your words.” ZZ said, “I can’t exceed my programming limits.”

“If you still have a conscience, shut up and help me find where that idiot is.” Yang Jin said, “I don’t have the mood to discuss rules with you. I hate rules!”

The path ahead reached its end, and a door appeared in front of him. Yang Jin carefully pressed his hand against it, and the door was seeping water. “ZZ, what’s inside?”

ZZ scanned the interior and said, “Someone.”

Yang Jin asked, “Should we go in?”

ZZ replied, “I’m not good at speculating on human thoughts.”

Yang Jin said, “If you ask me, it’s probably the people inside who are waiting for us.”

Zhan Feng and Shi Yixi walked on until they unknowingly arrived in a large hall. It seemed like a huge machine room, filled with dense, old equipment emitting a faint green glow.

“What is this place?” Shi Yixi asked.

“Not sure.” Zhan Feng walked forward and observed the machines. “They’re still operating at low frequency. I’m not sure if they’re related to that gravitational wave radio transmitter.”

Shi Yixi said, “But the radio transmitter has already been turned off. Why would they still be running?”

Zhan Feng thought for a moment, then suddenly said, “What if someone turned them on?”

Suddenly, the sound of clapping came from a distance. The rhythmic claps echoed crisply in the empty hall. Zhan Feng stepped in front of Shi Yixi and shouted toward the source of the sound, his tone fierce, “Who’s there?”

“Queen.” Luan Chen emerged from behind the massive machinery, smiling as he addressed Zhan Feng. “Long time no see.”

Zhan Feng stared at Luan Chen, but he took a step back.

Luan Chen, as if greeting an old friend, approached them casually and said, “Why the surprised expression? Didn’t you already know I was here?”

Shi Yixi, standing behind Zhan Feng, watched the man. He recognized him—it was the man who had nearly taken his life back in Shacheng. He also remembered that Zhan Feng had once been on this man’s side.

Yang Jin pushed open the door, but what greeted him wasn’t a room; it was an expansive, surreal space.

The space seemed to merge in every direction—up, down, left, and right. Underfoot were squares formed by intersecting lines, a mix of illusion and reality. He counted: eight horizontal, eight vertical, forming a total of sixty-four squares.

There was nothing around him, and even the door behind him had vanished. It felt as if he were in an alternate dimension. Moving cautiously forward, he reached the center, where a figure appeared on a square at the far end of the grid.

It was Luan Chen.

Yang Jin raised his gun and aimed at Luan Chen. Luan Chen smiled and said, “Hello, Yang Jin. We meet again. But shooting me is useless because what you’re seeing is merely a shadow.”

A shadow? Yang Jin frowned. ZZ had said there were life signs inside. If this was a shadow, then was the real person controlling everything from somewhere outside this space?

“So, this is Sacred Ground’s domain?” Yang Jin asked. “Summoning me all the way here without even sending an invitation—how cheap.”

Luan Chen chuckled. “I thought there was no need for pretense between us.”

“What do you want?” Yang Jin said coldly. “Where are Zhan Feng and Shi Yixi?”

“They’re with me,” Luan Chen said, “but I’ll only give you one of them back.”

Yang Jin fixed his gaze on Luan Chen. Luan Chen’s smile widened, almost as if he were joking. “Don’t be so tense. I don’t mean anything sinister. I just think this is more fun. Don’t imagine me to be that bad.” He stood still in his square and continued, “When we first found Queen, he was indeed dead. You must be curious how he came back to life, right? But I suspect the answer won’t make you happy. Not that it matters—after all, you were the one who killed him back then. I just want to know: if faced with the same choice again, what would you do?”

As he spoke, a black queen chess piece appeared on the square beside him, while a white queen chess piece appeared on a square across from him. Yang Jin stood in the middle and said coldly, “You think I’ll just do whatever you ask?”

“If you don’t choose,” Luan Chen smiled, snapping his fingers. Both queen chess pieces crumbled into powder. “Then, they both become mine.”

“You…”

Luan Chen said, “Unfortunately, this is a mandatory question. Choose one. As compensation, I’ll tell you something you want to know.”

Yang Jin raised his gun and fired at Luan Chen. The shadow rippled like water disturbed by a pebble, spreading out in waves before quickly reforming.

“Are you trying to come up with a plan?” Luan Chen pierced through Yang Jin’s thoughts. “But stalling won’t help much; it’s just wasting time. What’s your choice?” He continued, and the two chess pieces returned to their positions on the board. “The Black Queen or the White Queen?”

Zhan Feng, watching the scene before him, turned and demanded, “Why are you doing this?”

“No particular reason—just for fun,” Luan Chen replied with a smile. “What, are you scared?”

Zhan Feng said nothing, but his expression turned dark as he glared at Luan Chen. Luan Chen patted his shoulder and said comfortingly, “It’s just a blind choice. He doesn’t even know who the Black Queen is. Even if he chooses wrong, it’s not his fault, is it?” As he spoke, he turned to face Shi Yixi, smiling as he asked, “Isn’t that right?”

Shi Yixi looked at Luan Chen with a blank expression. “What you really want is Yang Jin, isn’t it?”

For a rare moment, Luan Chen’s face showed a trace of surprise, but it was quickly replaced by his usual grin. He turned to Zhan Feng and exclaimed, “Isn’t he supposed to be the idiot? But he seems a lot smarter than you! Or is it that he’s not afraid of Yang Jin’s choice, while you truly are?”

“Shut up!” Zhan Feng roared angrily.

Luan Chen stepped closer to Zhan Feng and whispered into his ear, “Aren’t you the one who claims not to care about anything? A sickness of the heart needs a cure for the heart. I just enjoy watching you struggle like this. Yang Jin is taking too long to decide, so why don’t we make things more interesting by raising the stakes?”

“What are you planning?” Zhan Feng asked.

Luan Chen snapped his fingers again. The mist in Yang Jin’s space began to dissipate, the chessboard vanished, and before him appeared Zhan Feng and Shi Yixi.

Yang Jin’s face darkened, and he raised his gun, aiming it.

Luan Chen said, “Go ahead and fire. Kill one, and the other lives. That counts as a choice too.” He stepped behind Zhan Feng, suddenly restraining him from behind. With one arm choking Zhan Feng’s neck, he hid behind him and said to Yang Jin, “Does this scene feel familiar?”

He chuckled softly and said, “You can also choose to kill me, but your bullet will have to go through the person in front of me first.”

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