Chapter 571: No One Wakes Up From

    He reached Shang Hao’s room as he spoke, yet the door was firmly locked.

    Several doors nearby cracked open as students poked their sleepy heads out, asking, "What’s going on?" "Who’s screaming just now?" "Did something happen?"

    But Gu Luoxin couldn’t afford to pay attention to their questions right now. Taking a few steps backward, he steeled himself and kicked the door open! As an Elite player, Gu Luoxin’s physical strength had far surpassed that of a normal human. With this single kick, the thick wooden door instantly blasted off its hinges and crashed to the ground with a deafening BAM!

    Ignoring the gasps of shock behind him, Gu Luoxin charged in like a raging bull, only to find the room empty. Even the bed was smooth and untouched as if no one had slept there for the whole night.

    He’s not here.

    Gu Luoxin’s mind buzzed. A wave of dizziness hit him like a sledgehammer, causing him to stagger, barely able to stand on his feet.

    "H–Hey..." a student braced himself to approach him, albeit still keeping some distance. "Don’t be angry, bro. If there’s a problem, just talk it out instead of—" In the next second, he saw a dark shadow flew past him, and the person he was talking to had vanished from the spot.

    He looked around, utterly flabbergasted, "...Huh? Where did he go?!"

    Gu Luoxin rushed into the emergency stairwell and continued to sprint his way up, taking two or three steps at a time. It was because earlier, he’d faintly heard Shang Hao’s voice murmuring, "It’s so cold here at the top..."

    Was it the rooftop? Had the other person been there all along?! Gu Luoxin dared not think of the consequences if he had gotten it wrong. No, he dared not even think of anything right now— whether his buddy had really been dragged into the Nightmare Cycle, what he was doing on the rooftop at this wee hour in the morning. He really dared not. He was afraid that he would break down into tears right here and now.

    All he could do was channel every last ounce of his energy into his legs and propel himself forward like he needed no air to breathe.

    Faster... he had to go faster!

    He had to make it in time or else—

    BANG!

    He burst through the last door connecting to the rooftop and his heart gave a sickening lurch when he caught sight of a familiar silhouette standing at the edge of the roof, outside the safety fence.

    "SHANG HAO—!" Gu Luoxin yelled on top of his lungs, his chest heaving violently— whether from the exertion or the suffocating panic choking his throat, he could no longer tell. "W-What the hell are you doing there?! Don’t you know how dangerous it is?! Come on, I– I’m not angry. I believe you, I believe everything you said! So please..." a gush of tears suddenly spilled forth his eyes, leaving a wet path down his pale cheeks. "Please get away from there, okay? Come on, I will help you—"

    Shang Hao turned his head bit by bit, his movements stiff and jerky. He was still clad in his pajamas, the wind fluttering his hair and the hem of his shirt, making him appear particularly thin and fragile.

    Against the backdrop of the winter night sky, his expression distorted in a mixture of sheer horror, despair, confusion, and raw desperation. His facial muscles spasmed as he slowly, slowly squeezed a smile onto his trembling lips that looked a thousand times more heartbreaking than tears. Bloodshot eyes locked onto Gu Luoxin, pleading, begging,

    "I– I don’t want... to die... save me... save me, Xinxin..."

    Gu Luoxin’s pupils dilated. In that split second, everything around him seemed to fade away and all he could see was Shang Hao. Without even thinking, he threw all caution to the wind and lunged forward, arms outstretched, determined to grab him—hold him— save him no matter what! He had to!

    But in the end—

    He grasped onto nothing but empty air.

    He could only watch as his best friend— his good buddy for years who had always stood in the front row to defend him whenever he was bullied— leapt into the air, embracing the chilly wind with his arms open as he plummeted all the way to earth, just like a kite that had barely soared before its string was severed mercilessly by a sharp blade of wind...

    Right in front of his eyes.

    Right in front of his very eyes, without him being able to prevent it from happening.

    An agonizing wail echoed distantly around him, and it took Gu Luoxin a while to realize that it had come from his own throat.

    He crumpled to the ground, his knees giving out under the sheer weight of his despair, hopelessness and disbelief. His once bright eyes were now dull and vacant as they fixated on the empty spot before him – the space where Shang Hao should have been – tears drenching his pallid face.

    Oh how desperately Gu Luoxin wished that this was all just a nightmare, that everything would be over once he woke up, like Shang Hao had mentioned earlier. But no, he was too sober for this. The gut-wrenching agony in his chest, the suffocating sadness that left him hollow and numb, and the bitter wind lashing against his tears and sweat-soaked body— they were real. They felt all too real for this to be a mere nightmare.

    But then again, hadn’t this always been a nightmare all along? From the very beginning, they had been trapped, forced to search for an exit which might or might not exist.

    This was the kind of nightmare one could never wake up from.

    Why... why was this happening?

    Why Shang Hao, of all people? Why his best friend?

    Why—?!

    Alas, no matter how many times Gu Luoxin screamed the question in his heart, no matter how raw his throat had become from crying, there was no one who could give him an answer. No one.

    "Don’t you want to know the truth?"

    Shen Nianzu’s words suddenly echoed in his mind, leaving his mind in a daze. "Why are we the chosen ones, what exactly is the Nightmare, and how to end these endless Cycles... don’t you want to find out the answers?"

    "I want to know..." Gu Luoxin muttered hoarsely to himself, black dots flickering on the edge of his vision. The overwhelming shock and emotional devastation was too much for him to take, and his body finally gave in. He collapsed sideways on the cold and desolate rooftop, his consciousness slipping away like fine sand, "... the truth... I want, Xiao Shen..."

    Those were the last words he uttered before the darkness swallowed him whole.