After the lights were turned off, outside Room 23 in Zone C.

Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong, bundled in thick military green cotton coats, gathered together, shining their flashlights on the brownish-red wooden door with white numbers painted on it.

"Are you really going to try?" Approaching the moment of truth, Long Yuehong was still a little timid.

Shang Jianyao took out his electronic card with his other hand, saying calmly:

"Pay attention to my condition. If anything's wrong, shout immediately."

"Shout?" Long Yuehong subconsciously asked.

Wake him up?

Shang Jianyao grasped the doorknob with the hand holding the flashlight, answering seriously:

"Shout for help."

"..." Long Yuehong was speechless.

Then, he took a breath, adjusting his lungs, ready to shout loudly at any moment.

Shang Jianyao then deftly picked the lock and slowly turned the handle.

He pushed the door open bit by bit, as if it weighed a thousand kilograms.

Finally, the door to Room 23 opened with a very large gap, the scene inside appearing faintly in the afterglow of the flashlight's beam.

"There's nothing unusual this time," Shang Jianyao said as he pushed the door open completely.

Hearing this, Long Yuehong quietly breathed a sigh of relief, then reminded:

"You still have to be careful when you go in."

Shang Jianyao half-turned his body, casting a strange glance at him:

"Shouldn't you go in first?"

At that moment, Long Yuehong felt suffocated.

The next second, he saw Shang Jianyao illuminating Room 23 with the flashlight.

It wasn't big, about the same size as Long Yuehong's original home, with mottled white paint on the walls and standard-issue stone tiles on the floor. Other than that, it was empty, with nothing else.

After the flashlight's beam swept across every corner, Shang Jianyao took a step forward.

He walked very slowly, as if he had become a rusty robot, crossing the open doorway almost by shuffling.

Long Yuehong forgot about the joke from earlier and tensed up again, ready to shout "Help!" at any moment.

It took a full dozen seconds for Shang Jianyao to completely enter Room 23.

He turned around, holding the flashlight under his chin, letting the light cast his face in shifting patterns of light and shadow.

"Long Yuehong..." Shang Jianyao called out in a wavering, slow voice.

"What?" Long Yuehong's body tightened.

Shang Jianyao's voice maintained that eerie feeling:

"Do I look like a ghost to you..."

"..." Long Yuehong wanted to curse.

He exhaled and said in a tactful way:

"It's a good thing I haven't returned the little speaker yet, otherwise playing a song that creates a scary atmosphere at this time would really add to the feeling."

Shang Jianyao looked at him with disdain:

"That would disturb other people's sleep."

Long Yuehong couldn't refute him.

Shang Jianyao then withdrew his gaze, using the flashlight's beam to inspect the situation inside Room 23 inch by inch.

Seeing that he was fine, Long Yuehong mustered his courage and slowly moved past the doorway.

"Not..." Long Yuehong started to say, but swallowed it back.

He wanted to say "Nothing's wrong."

Shang Jianyao looked at him with a regretful expression:

"Why didn't you finish what you were saying?"

I'm not stupid... Although I still don't think there's anything wrong with my luck, it's better to be safe than sorry at times like this... Long Yuehong muttered silently twice, then, with the help of the flashlight's beam, searched for any possible anomalies.

The dilapidated furniture in Room 23 had been removed, allowing Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong to quickly finish their search.

"There's nothing..." Long Yuehong retracted the flashlight's beam from the ventilation shaft above.

Shang Jianyao looked at him, asking with a smile:

"What's your overall evaluation of this place?"

"What do you mean by overall evaluation?" Long Yuehong was a little bewildered, answering according to his own understanding, "It's relatively old here, and it seems a bit colder than outside..."

Speaking to this point, he suddenly paused.

After several seconds, Long Yuehong asked with a slightly fearful tone:

"Don't you think, don't you think this is a bit like the atmosphere inside Di Marco's room back then, only the degree is much lighter?"

He had vivid memories of the gloomy and dark environment created by Di Marco's consciousness life.

"Congratulations, you're right," Shang Jianyao said, lightly patting the side of the flashlight.

Long Yuehong looked around, tentatively saying:

"The feeling is that the abnormality has been resolved, and this is just residual traces."

Shang Jianyao didn't answer him, taking the flashlight and striding out of the room.

"Where are you going?" Long Yuehong hurriedly followed.

He dared not stay alone in Room 23.

Shang Jianyao looked ahead, answering calmly:

"Going back to sleep."

Long Yuehong thought about it and realized there was nothing else to do.

At this moment, Shang Jianyao, in front, lightly left behind a sentence:

"Remember to close the door."

...

The next day was a weekend rest day for "Pangu Biology," and Shang Jianyao took his electronic card to the "Material Supply Market" to buy a pile of things like cloth, canned goods, and bagged rice.

To transport them, he borrowed a cart from the "Material Supply Market."

"Yo, Little Shang, you made so much money on a trip outside?"

"Made a fortune, did you?"

"Is it really that good to go on external missions?"

Along the way, neighbors who knew Shang Jianyao greeted him one after another.

Shang Jianyao didn't act humble, responding directly:

"Yeah, I'm already D5.

"Long Yuehong too."

He acted frankly and openly, almost wanting to grab a loudspeaker and shout it out to the whole street.

"D5?"

"I know other 'Safety Department' employees, how could you be promoted so quickly?"

"You, which unit are you in at the 'Safety Department'?"

The neighbors were either shocked, or envious, or started thinking about introducing Shang Jianyao to someone.

In their impression, Shang Jianyao was an honest child, and he shouldn't lie about such things. Besides, such lies were easily exposed.

Chatting as he walked, Shang Jianyao arrived in front of an open room.

This was Shen Du's home.

Shen Du's child was at the dining table, recognizing the numbers in a simplified textbook.

He looked up at the doorway, not saying hello, nor shyly hiding away, lowering his head to continue looking at those basic numbers.

Compared to how Shang Jianyao remembered him, he hadn't grown much, but he had clearly become more silent.

Shen Du's wife, Tian Jing, was cleaning the room during the rest day. She turned around when she sensed movement at the doorway.

"Little Shang, why are you..." Tian Jing said, holding a dirty rag, a bit flustered.

Shang Jianyao smiled:

"I've been promoted to D5."

"Ah?" Tian Jing's first reaction was, why are you telling me this.

Then, she was a little surprised and very envious.

Her employee level was only D3.

And with just a little calculation, she could know how many contribution points a D5-level employee earned on average per month.

Then, she understood Shang Jianyao's hidden meaning:

"I'm already D5, sending these things won't affect my life."

Tian Jing responded with a slightly bitter expression:

"You've already sent a lot of things before, there's really no need..."

She originally wanted to say that they weren't related, but she instantly remembered Shang Jianyao's words from last time—"You can choose to be my mother."

Shang Jianyao looked at Shen Du's child, looked back at Tian Jing, and said something completely unrelated:

"Don't overwork yourself, you'll ruin your health."

Tian Jing opened her mouth, thought about Shang Jianyao's family situation, and closed it again.

She no longer stopped him, watching Shang Jianyao move the items from the cart into the house one by one.

After finishing, Shang Jianyao waved his hand:

"I'm leaving."

Tian Jing first nodded, then took a breath and said:

"We, mother and son, will always remember you."

Shang Jianyao didn't turn back, pushing the cart away like he was on patrol.

Fortunately, with the cart, he entered the elevator and pressed the "490" button.

There was "Eleventh Orphanage".

...

At noon, Long Yuehong was trying to use various leftover ingredients to make a special dish of the "Rootless" people, "Mixed Stew," when he saw his own mother rushing in, chattering noisily.

"You, you've been promoted to D5?" Gu Hong was both surprised and delighted.

Long Yuehong was stunned:

"How did you know?"

He had planned to get the portable computer, bring it home, and then tell his parents that he had been promoted and received a raise.

"Really?" Gu Hong blurted out.

Long Yuehong nodded honestly:

"I was planning to tell you in a couple of days."

He was still very puzzled as to how his mother knew so quickly.

In an instant, a name floated into his mind.

Long Yuehong tentatively asked:

"Did you run into Shang Jianyao?"

Gu Hong complained with a happy expression:

"Little Shang tells everyone he meets on the street, how could I not know?

"Oh my, how did you suddenly become D5? Now you don't have to worry about anyone introducing you to dates..."

As she spoke, the smile on Gu Hong's face disappeared.

She looked at Long Yuehong, paused, and said:

"Is your mission, very dangerous?"

Long Yuehong subconsciously squeezed out a smile:

"It's okay, and I'll be able to transfer to another position soon."

"That's good, that's good..." Gu Hong breathed a sigh of relief.

...

The next morning, 647th floor, Room 14.

After listening to Shang Jianyao's account, Jiang Baimian pondered and asked:

"You saw yellowish-green mist in the 'Sea of Origins,' and there seems to be a city from the Old World in the mist?"

"Yes." Shang Jianyao gave an affirmative answer.

Jiang Baimian considered her words again:

"You suspect this is a sequela of putting the 'Coward's' aura into your mind world before?"

When dealing with Di Marco, Shang Jianyao had put the yellowish-green aura from the night pearl into his "Sea of Origins."

"It should be like that." Shang Jianyao seemed very calm, even a bit excited.

Jiang Baimian turned to look at Long Yuehong:

"After you entered Room 23 in Zone C the night before, did you feel that it was colder than the corridor, a bit like the environment brought about by Di Marco after he transformed into a consciousness life?"

"Yes." Long Yuehong nodded emphatically.

Jiang Baimian glanced at Bai Chen again, paced back and forth a few steps, and faced Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong:

"I have an idea.

"Maybe it's not a coincidence that you saw the 'Natural Church' members running around naked, even if it was a hallucination, it's not a coincidence."

She paused, and said seriously:

"Could this be related to the yellowish-green mist in Shang Jianyao's mind world?"

ps: Asking for monthly tickets during the double period~