In the night, a massive motorcycle edged with yellow-brown patterns flashed past, kicking up clouds of dust in its wake.

They were getting closer and closer to the factory that was about to explode.

The factory that had been discovered to still be secretly manufacturing rose perfume had been built in the suburbs. At this hour, Su Yang and the others happened to be conducting their investigation.

Su Yang held a gun specially made by the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau close at his side. With his back pressed against the factory door, he cautiously leaned in and looked inside.

After checking both sides, Su Yang stepped out. He lifted his collar and spoke into the small transmitter attached to it.

“Everyone, it’s clear.”

At the same time, a response came through his earpiece.

“Vice-Captain Su, nothing on our side either. It’s clear.”

“District Two is also clear.”

“...District Three is also clear. Vice-Captain Su, this is very strange...” The voice in the earpiece hesitated for a moment. “It doesn’t look like anyone works here at all. The floor is covered in dust, and the freshest footprints are our own.”

“When we inspected this factory last time, it wasn’t like this. This time, it looks as if it’s been abandoned for years...”

Su Yang’s eyes were clear, his expression calm.

“Don’t panic. It’s very possible that a new heretic connected to Dried Rose Leaf has appeared, or that this new heretic has derived Dried Rose Leaf.”

“This should be that heretic’s ability.”

Su Yang continued searching downward. He crossed the open-air plaza covered in withered branches and fallen leaves, then arrived at the dormitory where the processing workers had lived. He stared intently at the old dormitory door, warped to an unnatural degree, then raised his foot and kicked without hesitation at the gap where the damp-swollen bottom of the door had curled upward.

The corpses lying on the dormitory beds opened their eyes.

They twisted their limbs and stood up, their rotting eyeballs rolling toward the unsteady door that was about to be kicked open. They moved their limbs and crawled off the beds, using hands that were nothing but white bone to drag themselves toward the door.

At the same time, on the first basement level of the factory.

The team members pinched their noses as they moved forward through this prison-like imitation floor, where the stench was almost beyond imagination. They looked at the rows of neatly arranged iron cages with complicated expressions, while a team member at the back held a night-vision camera and carefully filmed the internal structure of the factory.

The glowing green screen of the night-vision camera cast an ominous light through the dim basement.

“...I don’t know what these cages were built to imprison...” One team member frowned and walked a few steps farther in. “And when we came to seal this factory a month ago, it wasn’t like this at all.”

“Yeah,” another team member agreed. “Not only that, we’ve had people closely monitoring this place the entire time. There was no way this factory could have been operating. I don’t know what method they’re using to keep producing and transporting perfume.”

As they spoke, they continued walking inward.

Inside the cage at the very end of the first basement level stood a gigantic cylindrical glass container, three meters tall and so thick it would take four people with their arms outstretched to encircle it. The container had an unsealed opening that continuously released rose-pink smoke. Looking inside, one could see that the container was filled with brilliantly colored Dried Rose Leaf Gas perfume liquid.

A timed bomb was attached to the glass cabinet, with less than ten minutes remaining.

If Bai Liu were here, he could probably estimate that this amount of perfume liquid was enough to equal a year’s wages for all the employees of the Rose Factory in the game.

Dried Rose Leaf Gas was a flammable and explosive liquid. If this amount of liquid exploded, the scent of roses would spread across the entire neighboring Jingcheng, which was still asleep.

Even though Bai Liu already knew how to use Blood Lingzhi branches to resolve the problem of Dried Rose Leaf, in the early stages of the disaster, before any order had been established and set into motion, a considerable number of people with low tolerance for Dried Rose Leaf would wither because of it.

—For example, nursing mothers and newborns only one month old.

The group of team members cautiously walked to the end of the cages. Someone sniffed, frowned, and said, “...I smell a very strong rose fragrance.”

That single sentence instantly put all the team members on high alert. They raised their flashlights and carefully searched the dungeon, walking back and forth past the enormous glass container full of rose liquid several times.

But something strange happened.

It was as if they could not see the glass cabinet at all. They could even walk straight through it—

—as if they and this glass cabinet that was about to explode existed in two different dimensions of the world.

“...Strange. I definitely smelled it, so why can’t I see anything?” The team members looked at the empty final cage, frowning in utter confusion, but in the end, they chose to turn and leave.

They walked toward the exit of the first basement level, switched on their communicators, and reported to Su Yang.

“Vice-Captain Su, we can smell the rose fragrance on the first basement level, but there is nothing on this floor.”

Behind them, the countdown on the timed bomb skipped down by one second, dropping from 9:00 to 8:59.

On the first floor of the factory, outside the door of the processing workers’ dormitory, Su Yang kicked the door open.

Su Yang walked into the dust-covered dormitory floor, raised his gun, and swept the surroundings alertly. In the end, he tucked the gun back behind his waist.

He frowned as he looked at the empty dormitory, then lifted his collar and reported, “First-floor dormitory building. I haven’t found anything here either, but I just smelled a very strong scent of decaying corpses...”

“I thought I might be able to find those dozen or so missing employees here. It’s been a month, and they still haven’t been found...” Su Yang let out a sigh, then quickly pulled himself together again. “No news can be considered good news. Maybe they’re still alive.”

“Everyone, stay sharp. Besides searching for the machinery used to secretly manufacture rose perfume in this factory, pay attention to the dozen or so employees who disappeared from the employee list when we searched this factory a month ago...”

“Most of these employees were mobile, high-risk populations from out of town. No one would notice if they went missing. They may still be alive. Have the team members ready to carry out rescue operations at any time...”

As he spoke, Su Yang walked outside.

In another space behind Su Yang, over a dozen pairs of rotting, maggot-infested eyes watched him without moving.

There were eight minutes and forty-seven seconds left until the explosion.

“There are still eight minutes and forty-seven seconds.” Looking at the dashboard, Bai Liu calmly announced the time.

“This is already the fastest speed!” Mu Shicheng gritted his teeth. The motorcycle’s tires were spinning so fast they were almost striking sparks against the cold, hard road. He was so anxious he started swearing. “Damn it! If it’s an explosion on the same scale as the one in the game, there should be a huge container for the perfume. Why can’t the people investigating see anything?”

“It’s impossible for them not to see it,” Bai Liu said faintly. “In order to minimize the harm caused by the rose perfume, the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau’s investigation intensity has already crossed the line into ‘prevention before the fact’ by trying to capture me.”

“Normally speaking, let alone a bottle of rose perfume, it would be impossible for them to miss even a single rose seed.”

Mu Shicheng froze. “Then why...”

“Because the existence that arranged for the game Rose Factory to descend into [Reality] has higher world authority than they do, just like ordinary people in this world cannot hear any words related to the game.” The night wind blew Bai Liu’s hair back from his forehead, making it flutter. He looked up at the factory not far away. “These ordinary people who want to protect others cannot see or touch the world related to the game.”

“In order to protect the factory and allow it to operate normally in [Reality], the game designer created a [Hidden World] for that factory manager, allowing him to hide the real Rose Factory.”

Mu Shicheng exhaled a breath that felt cold to the bone. “Just like the design of the Rose Factory game, right?”

“Yes.” Bai Liu narrowed his eyes against the fierce night wind. “According to my understanding, Tang Erda and his people monitor these factories that might produce perfume twenty-four hours a day. Yet this factory is still able [N O V E L I G H T] to continuously produce rose perfume for export under that kind of surveillance. That is illogical in itself.”

“Unless they complete the perfume production inside the Hidden World, then flip it back into reality for sale?” Mu Shicheng asked. “That way, it would be completely untraceable, right?”

Bai Liu said, “Correct.”

Bai Liu continued, “Not only that, the newspaper in the game stated that before the explosion occurred, members of the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau searched the factory repeatedly, but they didn’t issue any emergency evacuation notice to the city’s residents. Instead, they remained on-site and continued searching until the bomb exploded.”

“That proves they didn’t see anything dangerous.”

“It’s very likely,” Bai Liu said, looking up at the factory that was getting closer and closer, “that what they are seeing is only an empty factory flipped out as a decoy.”

“There won’t be anything inside.”

—

“Vice-Captain Su, it’s an empty factory.” After searching the entire factory, the team members reported the results to Su Yang. “There’s nothing inside.”

Su Yang’s brow was locked tight. He looked up at the factory, dilapidated and old beneath the night sky, and the sense of foreboding in his heart grew heavier.

He turned around, intending to go back to the car and retrieve special night-vision equipment for another search. But the moment he opened the car door, a pair of hands, as if they had long expected Su Yang to come back for the night-vision equipment, reached out and handed it to him.

Su Yang looked at the person sitting in the car and was startled.

“Why did you follow us? Didn’t I tell you to stay at the Management Bureau and rest properly?”

Lu Yizhan, sitting in the back seat of the car, scratched his head and gave a bitter smile.

“Captain Su, I thought about it. This matter is related to Bai Liu. If he really did it, then as a civil servant who was around him, I failed in my duty of supervision and bear responsibility. So after thinking it over, I still came along.”

Lu Yizhan looked up, let out a deep breath, and looked at Su Yang.

“Please, Captain Su. Let me search with you!”

Su Yang was silent for a while. In the end, helpless against Lu Yizhan’s gaze, which was practically boring a hole through him, he nodded.

“It’s an empty factory. There’s no danger. If you want to come, then come.”

Lu Yizhan breathed a sigh of relief, got out of the car, and followed Su Yang and the others, who were preparing for a second search, into the factory.

Six minutes and thirty-one seconds remained until the explosion.

The motorcycle hummed and came to a steady stop at the factory entrance with a sideways turn.

Bai Liu swept his gaze over the scene and immediately saw several cars bearing the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau logo parked in front of the factory.

On the way to the Management Bureau, Bai Liu had ridden in one of those cars, and that eerie octopus logo had left a deep impression on him.

The moment Bai Liu and Mu Shicheng got off the motorcycle, they found a place to hide. People from the Management Bureau were patrolling outside. Right now, the two of them were an escaped heretic and a criminal who had assisted in a jailbreak; they were both wanted by the Management Bureau. Showing their faces would only get them captured immediately.

Being captured was secondary now, since Tang Erda could help handle it, but dealing with an arrest would waste their time.

“How do we get in? Force our way through?” Mu Shicheng looked at Bai Liu. He glanced at his electronic watch, and his expression darkened further. “There are only six minutes left!”

Bai Liu’s gaze remained fixed on the factory.

“We walk in openly.”

He touched the inverted cross and the system coins at his collar, both returned to him by Tang Erda.

[System Warning: It is forbidden to use items unrelated to core desires in reality—zzt zzt—for—bid—den—]

The buzzing sound of the resisting current gradually weakened.

[System Tip: Does player Bai Liu wish to use the transcendent item, Inverted Eyeball?]

[This item can peek into the hidden evil reality.]

[Confirm.]

Bai Liu took out an eyeball shaped like a glass marble. In the center of the eyeball, a rose floated and bloomed. He held it up between himself and Mu Shicheng.

“Close your left eye and look at this eyeball. We can enter the factory’s Hidden World.”

Before Mu Shicheng could even think about why Bai Liu was asking him to do this, he subconsciously obeyed and closed his left eye.

The rose inside the eyeball slowly bloomed, sending a dizzying sensation through him. The lush scenery around them decayed at an accelerated speed, and the howls of rotting corpses and unknown skulls appeared beneath their feet.

Mu Shicheng sucked in a sharp breath. He covered his head and pushed the eyeball away, staggering two steps back.

Mu Shicheng, who had not felt any discomfort even after racing at such a terrifying speed for so long, felt as if he was going to vomit after looking at this eyeball for just one second.

There was a nauseating sense of mental pollution.

They had entered a dark, realistic [Hidden World].

Bai Liu did not seem affected at all. He put the eyeball away and turned to look at the factory behind him. The originally silent factory was now brightly lit, with shadows of things that might have been humans or ghosts shuttling back and forth through the dim yellow light, carrying baskets used to transport roses.

—It was exactly the same as the scene in Rose Factory.

Bai Liu grabbed Mu Shicheng’s wrist and ran inside.

“Go.”

“Wait! Do you know where the bomb and the perfume are kept?!” Mu Shicheng tried to pull Bai Liu back. “We at least have to confirm the location before rushing in, right? Otherwise, isn’t this just sending ourselves to our deaths?”

“I suspect it’s in the last cage at the end of the dungeon on the first basement level.” Bai Liu looked back at Mu Shicheng as he ran. “Someone told me.”

Mu Shicheng was dazed. “Who told you?”

There was no expression on Bai Liu’s face.

“Lu Yizhan. An idiot.”

“Hey! Hey! Why didn’t I know when he told you? Was it while you were locked up by Queen of Hearts? Tell me about it, Bai Liu!”

Bai Liu remained silent. He paid no attention to Mu Shicheng’s yelling and simply dragged him into the factory.

In the Rose Factory game, the place where Lu Yizhan had been imprisoned as test paper was the very last cage in the basement prison.

And for that idiot Lu Yizhan, if he had been captured together with a group of people after an explosion, then in order to protect the others, he would definitely have applied to be imprisoned in the place with the most severe perfume pollution and fragrance damage, enduring the harshest torture in their place.

—And in the entire Rose Factory, was there any place with worse pollution than the site where the explosion had occurred ten years ago?

Bai Liu felt there was not.

And he guessed that idiot Lu Yizhan had felt the same.

—So he had been imprisoned at the site of the explosion for ten whole years.

Bai Liu bypassed the factory’s defenses and entered through the back door. As they passed through the corridor, Mu Shicheng nimbly took down several swaying rotten corpses, and then they turned into the entrance to the first basement level.

Mu Shicheng switched on the flashlight on his phone and followed Bai Liu down. They continued all the way in until they reached the final cage.

A giant glass container was continuously releasing pale pink smoke from its opening. The entire cage was filled with a rose fragrance that made one feel almost weightless.

The countdown on the glass container had already reached four minutes.

“How do we handle this?” Mu Shicheng covered his nose and mouth, asking Bai Liu in a muffled voice. “Move it out? Or just smash it?”

Bai Liu stared at the container for less than a second before speaking calmly.

“It’s too late.”

“What do you mean, too late?!” Mu Shicheng’s mind went blank. He subconsciously looked at the countdown on the bomb. “Aren’t there still more than four minutes left?”

Bai Liu’s gaze moved down to the bomb at the base of the glass container.

“Smashing it is useless. The real bomb isn’t this timed bomb. This bomb is just a [lighter]. The real bombs are the perfume liquid and the gas being released from it.”

“Dried Rose Leaf Gas. This perfume should be a liquid-gas analogue of some kind. Even if we smash this glass jar or remove this bomb, as long as these liquids remain here, and as long as someone brings even a single spark, the explosion will still happen successfully.”

“If the game designer is determined to make this factory explode tonight, then they can use any person in this factory and the large amount of perfume liquid here to trigger it. We cannot guard against that.”

Having said this, Bai Liu still showed no sign of panic.

“—Unless we consume all of the raw perfume liquid stored in this factory at once. Otherwise, they can create an explosion from within the Hidden World at any time, then flip it into the real world at the moment of detonation.”

Mu Shicheng lowered the hand covering his nose and mouth. His face was tense.

“Then what do we do?”

“Evacuate the people.” Bai Liu looked up. “Then blow up this factory first.”

——————

Tang Erda had commandeered a high-end private car passing by, and now Mu Ke was driving it at full speed toward the factory.

Mu Ke and Liu Jiayi were sitting in the back seat. Originally, the owner of the commandeered car had been unwilling to lend it to them, but Mu Ke had directly thrown over a credit card with more than three million on it and bought the car outright, allowing Tang Erda and the others to rush toward the factory.

“Are the calls still not going through?” Mu Ke asked anxiously, looking into the rearview mirror.

Tang Erda said in a deep voice, “They most likely won’t go through. They turn off their phones while on missions. If we want to contact them, we must return to the Management Bureau headquarters and use wireless frequency modulation to intervene.”

“There’s no time.” Liu Jiayi rejected this suggestion without even thinking. “Bai Liu and the others should have arrived already. Call them and ask about the situation over there.”

As soon as Liu Jiayi finished speaking, Bai Liu’s call came through.

He had called Tang Erda.

“Captain Tang, is there any way to evacuate the citizens within the explosion range in a short amount of time?”

“City-wide air defense siren.” Tang Erda answered quickly, but soon clenched his fist. “But activating that requires a large amount of evidence proving that a high-risk situation is about to occur. My privileges only apply to heretics within the Management Bureau. I have no way to activate a siren at that level.”

“But we also have no way to prove it. We can’t even prove to people who haven’t entered the game that the factory is about to explode, because that is content from inside the game. We’ll be muted if we try to say it, right?” Bai Liu asked.

Tang Erda leaned back powerlessly against the car seat.

“...Yes. They won’t be able to hear it at all.”

“The explosion... is still going to happen, isn’t it?” Tang Erda raised a hand to cover his eyes and asked hoarsely.

Bai Liu answered him honestly.

“Yes.”

“However, perhaps it will be only an explosion.” His voice was still detached and calm, without the slightest ripple. “Captain Tang, you said just now that if someone can prove an extremely dangerous event such as a rose gas explosion is about to happen, then the siren can be activated, correct?”

Tang Erda slowly sat up straight. He realized that Bai Liu seemed to have found some kind of method, but he could not imagine what that method was.

“Yes.” Tang Erda’s breathing grew heavy. “But no matter what method you use, they simply cannot receive the information you want to convey. They might even think someone has gone insane if they’re told to run.”

“How are you going to prove that such a terrifying thing you personally witnessed is really going to happen?”

A lazy trace of amusement entered Bai Liu’s voice. He said something that seemed to come out of nowhere.

“Captain Tang, with your privileges, remember to fish me out.”

Then he decisively hung up, leaving Tang Erda completely bewildered.

————————

Under the night sky, with dawn approaching, the wind whistled.

Having logged out of the Hidden World, Bai Liu was adjusting the black trench coat he was wearing, which did not fit him very well.

After he smashed the glass jar and threw the timed bomb far away to detonate, the Rose Factory people in the Hidden World did indeed discover them as outsiders.

Because they had obstructed the factory workers from carrying out this explosion meant to popularize rose perfume, Bai Liu and Mu Shicheng were chased all over the place after being discovered. At the same time, those employees busily used the stored raw rose liquid to manufacture a second explosion—exactly as Bai Liu had predicted.

To stall for time, Bai Liu left Mu Shicheng, who moved quickly, inside the Hidden World to cause trouble for the employees preparing the second explosion. Meanwhile, he himself logged out of the Hidden World to take responsibility for making the city’s people move out of the area affected by the blast.

Before Bai Liu logged out of the Hidden World, Mu Shicheng had asked him the same question Tang Erda had asked.

How are you going to make these people believe that something like this will happen?

How are you going to make these ordinary people, who are not in the game, believe that their world is a cruel game filled with monsters?

Especially when you are still being muted.

The temperature in the real world was somewhat low. Bai Liu wore a trench coat he had taken from the Hidden World to keep warm, not knowing who it originally belonged to.

Step by step, Bai Liu walked from the hidden stairwell behind the factory toward the rooftop of the Rose Factory. Hanging from his right wrist was a red-and-white plastic megaphone that looked as if it was used for training and shouting at employees. This was also something Bai Liu had taken from the Hidden World.

The moment he reached the rooftop, he was discovered by the team members who were conducting a strict inspection of the factory below.

“There’s a figure on the roof!”

“Is it the factory manager who’s on the run? Shine the high beams up there and see who it is!”

“Level One alert!”

Two blindingly bright beams of high-beam light swiveled upward and locked onto the figure on the rooftop. Bai Liu narrowed his eyes against the harsh light shining directly into his face, but he did not move. He stood steadily on the highest terrace.

The cold night wind blew at the stray strands of hair falling beside Bai Liu’s face and at the hem of his ill-fitting long trench coat. Morning dew seemed to hover around him, faintly present and faintly absent, with the lingering scent of roses at his feet.

The people below had already recognized who he was.

“—It’s Bai Liu!”

“Why is he here?! Quickly notify the Management Bureau! Escaped Heretic No. 0006 has appeared at the factory!”

“Captain Tang said he is extremely dangerous! He has the ability to control all heretics! What is he doing here?!”

Su Yang and Lu Yizhan looked up in disbelief at Bai Liu, who seemed to have descended from the sky.

Bai Liu wore his usual smile as he raised the megaphone to his lips.

“Good morning, everyone.”

“It’s like this. Before I run away, I’ve decided to do something that suits my identity—” Bai Liu lifted his eyelids, his smile deepening in the wind that gradually grew stronger. “As someone diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and currently unemployed, how could I possibly not take revenge on society?”

“I lost my job, my friends, and everything I had for no reason—yet I can’t find anyone who should be responsible for it. Instead, I’m branded as a monster and locked in a cage by you.”

“How could I not take revenge?” Bai Liu curved his lips and said softly, “I’ve decided to let all of you taste what it feels like to become monsters.”

“I’ve decided to blow up this entire factory, let Dried Rose Leaf spread throughout the world, and turn all of you into my slaves.”

After a few seconds of silence, someone shouted at the top of their lungs:

“—Contact the city! Sound the air defense siren! Have all residents evacuate the explosion range!”

“Someone is maliciously spreading an addictive gaseous substance!”

Su Yang looked with creeping horror at Bai Liu, who stood on the rooftop with one hand in the pocket of his trench coat.

Across the morning wind and the fading night, that person smiled at him with interest and lazily shaped the words with his mouth:

“Does the rose fragrance on your body smell good, Captain Su?”

—

Author’s Note:

Everything here, including the Jingcheng air defense sirens, is fake. Reality is not like this. Please do not apply any of this to the real world. Jingcheng is a city I made up, and the operations inside this fantasy city are also fabricated by me. They have absolutely nothing to do with reality!

Please, everyone, definitely do not apply this to reality. Thank you, thank you!