At this moment, right in front of Song Yang.
The young man's appearance was as handsome as ever.
His black hair drooped slightly, and the ends of his hair could not cover his pair of narrow, beautiful phoenix eyes. When these eyes stared at others, no one could remain unmoved.
Slender hands, cool fingertips, clear voice... This young man is like the most perfect work of art in the world, and people dare not touch him easily.
And at this moment, this perfect work of art became a piece of ceramic covered with cracks.
Those cracks seem to be alive.
The moment Song Yang touched Xia Jing's arm, a thin crack appeared on Xia Jing's skin under his fingertips.
Song Yang was completely frozen.
After the other one hundred or so players recovered and saw this scene, they also fell silent.
Seeing Song Yang's expression, Xia Jing raised his eyebrows and asked, "Did you get scared?"
He stood up and said, "Before I completely collapse, I can use the faceless woman's mask to hold out for a while..."
As he spoke, he raised his hand, wanting to touch the small icon on the back of his neck.
Song Yang froze and reached out to grab his wrist.
Xia Jing stopped and tilted his head to look at Song Yang, as if trying to see what this man was thinking at the moment.
Song Yang's eyes had completely darkened, as dark as ink.
Jia Qing said in a trembling voice: "Brother Jing, why...why did you become like this?"
At this moment, almost everyone knew Xia Jing's identity.
Bian Ya and You Ye looked at Xia Jing with complicated expressions. Sun Qianqian covered her mouth, unable to believe that Xia Jing had become like this.
Zheng Shu was stunned. He didn't expect Xia Jing's true appearance to be so beautiful, and he didn't expect Xia Jing's true identity to be so mysterious.
Tang Yi asked worriedly, "Brother Xia, are you okay?"
There are many more people -
Liu Yi, Wang Yueran, Sha Yu, Yang Leliu, Gu Chen and Gu Xing who had fought side by side with Xia Jing in the dungeon, Chai Feng who had fought with Xia Jing, those who had entered the safe house, those who had discussed the beautiful store manager together on the forum... They all looked at this scene with different expressions, some were shocked, some were worried.
Someone stood up, eyes red, and said, "Manager, you're not trying to save us..."
Song Yang asked the young man in front of him in a hoarse voice: "Is this the price you pay for entering the Chaos Zone?"
Xia Jing paused, his tone still as calm as before: "I guess so."
Song Yang tightened his grip on his hand slightly.
The next second, Song Yang stood up completely.
He pulled Xia Jing into his arms and whispered to Feng Shi, "Please take care of this place and don't let anyone mess around."
After saying that, he took Xia Jing and walked straight into the depths of the corridor.
After walking a few steps, he simply picked up Xia Jing, opened a room, and slammed the door.
*
The safe house is falling apart.
Under the attack of those shocking cracks, some walls inside the house have begun to collapse.
Outside the safe house is a black chaotic world. Looking up, you can see a huge gray vortex that is still spinning.
However, the chaotic space could not affect them for the time being.
This cabin acts as a protector, just as it has every time the player has seen it in the past.
There are many more sofas, tables, chairs and other furniture in the safe house, and many more guest rooms have been added. Xia Jing must have foreseen the current situation and used most of the monster body parts to expand the capacity.
Feng Shi knocked on the door of Song Yangxia Jing's room and asked for their opinion.
Then he opened all the doors of the guest rooms in the safe house. After some players moved into the rooms to rest, the entire house finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Lu Chenfei and the others sat around the dining table.
Fei Shengxiao held the wilted Tuanzi in his arms - the golden retriever's body was now covered with cracks.
It looked like it was sick, with its tail hanging down and looking a little listless.
Fei Shengxiao gently stroked Tuanzi and said with mixed feelings, "I wanted to enter the safe house out of curiosity before. Back then, I never imagined that one day we would all hide here for refuge."
The safe house became the only place where they could breathe in the storm.
"Everyone used to be curious about the safe house and the store manager. It was a bit of a way to find joy in misery." Lu Chenfei said with his eyes downcast.
But now, no one is happy anymore.
He glanced around and said in a deep voice, "I don't think the safe house will last much longer."
Li Mian's voice was a little bitter: "Then Xia Jing..."
What will become of that young man?
No one spoke anymore.
Everyone's mood is a little heavy, and at this moment, there are people who are suffering more than them.
…
In the room at the end of the corridor.
After Song Yang closed the door, he walked straight to the bed and put Xia Jing down.
Xia Jing sat on the edge of the bed.
He kept paying attention to Song Yang's expression.
Song Yang half-knelt in front of him, looked up at him for a moment, and said in a hoarse voice, "Will it really collapse completely?"
"Yes, it won't last long, just like the safe house," Xia Jing said, "but I told you it might turn out like this, didn't I?"
That's right.
In fact, the two of them had discussed this topic long before they realized that the people who opened Smiley City more than 200 days ago were probably not the same people who created Smiley City four years ago.
At that time, in Song Yang's personal space, Xia Jing told him a bold plan.
Xia Jing analyzed with him how everything might turn out, what he would become, and what they both needed to do.
No one knows that the current situation has not completely exceeded their expectations.
Everything is still within their plan.
Just seeing Xia Jing like this, Song Yang still found it difficult to remain calm.
Just like when he saw the safe house in pieces before, he was still afraid and didn't want Xia Jing to stay in this place anymore.
Song Yang actually didn't want the situation to turn out like this.
——Because the plan they prepared was a risky one, a path he absolutely did not want to embark on unless it was necessary.
Song Yang has never been a person who is afraid of risks, but the premise is that the person facing the risk is not the most important person to him.
Xia Jing raised his hand and gently stroked Song Yang's face, saying, "Actually, forcing my way into the Chaos Zone is only part of the reason why I became like this."
"'They' are currently forcibly rebuilding Smiley City, and naturally they want to take this opportunity to completely eliminate me, the 'heretic'. Before I came to find you, I was already under attack from 'them', and cracks were beginning to appear."
"But this suits me just fine."
"I'm actually worried that if they fail to destroy the safe house in one go, they'll just lock me up in the Chaos Zone and call it a day. That would only make things more complicated. I have to decide whether to use the remaining monster parts to repair the safe house and wait for the next opportunity, or just execute the plan now."
Xia Jing said calmly, "They're attacking the safe house and me so desperately, saving me the trouble of having to make a choice."
If Xia Jing wanted to fight back, things might not have turned out like this.
However, continuing to be stuck in a stalemate will only waste time. If you want to truly solve the problem, you need a clear decision.
Xia Jing has been waiting in the Smiley City for too long.
He didn't want to wait any longer.
He had chosen to enter the four-star dungeon again with Song Yang and the others in order to speed up everything.
Now that the four-star dungeon has been cleared, the people behind Smiley City have begun to make big moves.
The safe house is about to be destroyed, and Xia Jing will be reduced to ashes along with it.
But in fact, this is what Xia Jing ultimately wants.
This was their transition to the most important stage of their plan, a strategic counter-attack.
Song Yang held his hand tightly.
At this moment, there are actually many things he wants to confirm.
Everything will go as they planned, right?
Their plan will definitely succeed, right?
They'll leave Smiley City together, right?
However, when these questions came to his throat, Song Yang fell silent again.
Simply because trust is a topic that they no longer need to discuss.
Xia Jing trusted him.
He also trusts Xia Jing.
In this world, there is no problem that the two of them cannot solve together.
Perhaps sensing the somewhat oppressive atmosphere, Xia Jing said, "Doctor Song, we'll soon be apart for a short while. Are you sure you don't want to take advantage of this last bit of time to chat about other topics?"
Song Yang's Adam's apple rolled.
He said, "Just now, the space in Smiley City was distorted, and we all saw a corridor. That place seems to be Smiley City four years ago. Back then, Smiley City was still called 'Shadow'?"
"Ah, did you see that?" Xia Jing raised an eyebrow and said, "Yes, Smiley Face City was a prison-like place like that four years ago."
Song Yangmin asked: "Have all your memories been restored?"
"Well, at the moment those people completely crushed me," Xia Jing volunteered, "'Shadow' was indeed something created by Jiang Ying."
"Jiang Ying is a person with superpowers. His powers are so powerful that his body stopped growing at the age of seventeen. His parents and the people around him are very afraid of him, and he is also very afraid of his own superpowers, which has made him feel inferior and cowardly. Although he is a twenty-seven-year-old adult, he is still often bullied by those much younger than him."
This was the first time Song Yang heard of such a case.
Is it possible that someone's physical growth has stopped because their superpowers are too strong?
Xia Jing continued, "His superpower is also related to 'shadow'. Shadow City is the product of his superpower explosion."
"The Shadow City operates similarly to what we previously suspected. Jiang Ying created a framework, and the subsequent continuous energy replenishment comes from the players' fear, despair, sadness, and other negative energies."
"Jiang Ying has kidnapped many people, including those who bullied him and strangers he had just passed by. He wasn't just seeking revenge; he also enjoyed torturing others, even if they had nothing to do with him."
"Those near-death dungeons, and that rule where you can leave after reaching 5,000 points, are all meant to torture you."
It gives people a breath of fresh air and an unreachable hope.
All the players were constantly suffering from both physical and mental torture. Jiang Ying watched excitedly as these people tossed and struggled in his palms.
The power he once feared finally brought him the satisfaction of controlling the life and death of others.
Song Yang frowned and said, "Then you were kidnapped by him because—"
Xia Jing: "Jiang Ying lived very close to my school. He actually had some mental issues. His parents hadn't cared about him all year, so he'd always run away from home and go to the back door of our school to watch student activities. I once saw him being beaten up and helped him."
Song Yang was stunned.
Xia Jing helped Jiang Ying, but was eventually kidnapped by Jiang Ying and taken to Shadow City?
"But I'm not a very kind helper, you should know me." Xia Jing said.
Xia Jing is not a good person.
Of course he is not a bad person.
He walks on the boundary between light and shadow. Whenever he reaches out to someone, it is always because he is interested in that person or that thing.
This kind of "interest" that will disappear in a flash is obviously not what Jiang Ying really wants.
Therefore, the initial gratitude slowly turned into fear and hatred after Jiang Ying gradually understood Xia Jing's true nature.
When Shadow City appeared in this world, Xia Jing also became one of the people Jiang Ying wanted to torture.
However, Jiang Ying's feelings for Xia Jing are obviously more complicated.
He hated Xia Jing. He wanted to see Xia Jing show fear with his own eyes. He also wanted to enter the dungeon with Xia Jing, expecting Xia Jing to protect him as he had done before.
"He was a fairly interesting person," Xia Jing simply described what happened that year, "but he and Shadow City were destroyed."
Song Yang stared at Xia Jing.
"That's not quite right," Xia Jing said slowly. "Back then, I reached 5,000 points and successfully accessed his energy. I devoured his spirit and energy completely and closed Shadow City. But I'm not a psychic after all, so I can't completely digest his energy and make it my own."
"So, in the end, a small portion of his energy became my energy. This small portion of my energy managed the majority of his energy, causing it to lie dormant for four years... until over two hundred days ago, when a strange psychic found this energy and reactivated it."
Xia Jing spoke the truth in a few words, which was enough to shock all the players outside.
Song Yang took a deep breath and said, "So, the reason why Shadow City turned into Smile City is..."
Xia Jing smiled and said, "Well, it's because of me."
Xia Jing can only destroy Jiang Ying's spirit, but cannot truly destroy Jiang Ying's power.
When Jiang Ying's energy block was awakened again, Xia Jing was unable to stop the Shadow City from starting to operate again.
He can only use a small part of his own power to change Shadow City and give players some breathing space.
Thus, the City of Shadows became the City of Smiles.
The oppressive prison disappeared, a huge game hall appeared, and comfortable personal space for players also appeared.
The official supermarket appeared, large and small holographic screens appeared, more tools and props were provided to players, and copies were divided into different star-level difficulties for players to choose from.
In order to maintain this transformation, Xia Jing's energy is difficult to separate from Jiang Ying's energy.
If he wanted to go deep into Smiley City and find out who was behind the incident, he could only split a small part of his energy into another small part and turn it into a physical entity.
Then, the humanoid Xia Jing and the safe house appeared.
The safe house is an external creature and cannot retain its power. Once damaged, it can only be repaired by external forces.
Xia Jing is power itself. Power circulates in his body and will not escape easily, so he will not die easily.
It seems very powerful.
However, in reality, because Xia Jing's power was restrained by Jiang Ying's inorganic energy and the strange psychic, he lost his memory as a small part of the entity, and he was unable to move freely in the entire Smile City.
The safe house is his medium to travel to different copies.
Every Monday is an opportunity he works hard to create for himself.
In the final analysis, all of this is the result of the restraint and counter-restraint between the energies of Xia Jing, Jiang Ying and the strange superpowers.
The reason why Smiley City and Xia Jing have become like this is naturally because the strange supernatural person has finally taken over.
Xia Jing took a step back on his own initiative.
He chose to wait in the shadows for the enemy to show up.
Song Yang quickly digested this amount of information.
He suddenly thought of something and said sharply, "Just now in the spatial vortex in Smiley City, the first players to be strangled were those who dragged their feet and didn't even make it to the four-star dungeon. Does this have anything to do with you?"
Xia Jing replied: "
After sensing the changes in Smiley City, I allocated some of my energy, which was still tied up with Jiang Ying and the strange psychic, to the more than 400 four-star copies."
These are things that Xia Jing learned after he recovered his memory and re-established the connection with the other part of the energy block that belonged to him.
Let's call himself Little Xia Jing, and the larger energy block that still covers the entire Smile City and is still in a stalemate with Jiang Ying and others, Big Xia Jing.
At that time, under the invasion of strange people with special abilities, there was very little that Da Xia Jing could do.
It can only project its energy into more than 400 four-star copies.
Players who have entered the dungeon have successfully absorbed his energy and naturally gained his protection.
Players who did not enter the four-star dungeon were equivalent to facing the turbulent Smiley City nakedly, and naturally became the first wave of people to be killed.
As Xia Jing spoke, he looked at Song Yang thoughtfully, "This isn't quite like my style. Perhaps, without realizing it, you've really had a significant impact on me."
Xia Jing would never spend so much effort to protect people who have nothing to do with him.
But Song Yang can.
Song Yang is a good man. This is a fact that Xia Jing became very clear about when she first met this man.
Song Yang whispered, "But didn't you sacrifice yourself four years ago to close Shadow City and protect more people?"
Xia Jing paused.
Although Xia Jing didn't say it, Song Yang could guess it.
Xia Jing's body must have been reduced to ashes during the destruction of Shadow City and Jiangying.
Of course, Xia Jing himself would definitely have another explanation for this.
For example - devouring others seems to be a very interesting thing, he just made a bold attempt.
Song Yang could easily imagine Xia Jing saying this.
However, no matter what, the essence behind all these events is still that Xia Jing protected others.
Song Yang stared at Xia Jing and said, "Xia Xia, humans are complex creatures. It's perfectly normal for two contradictory emotions to appear in the same person. People often do things that aren't their style. This is because humans are complex individuals with multiple emotions and motivations."
"Your actions are enough to prove that you are still a human being."
Song Yang gently rubbed Xia Jing's cheek with his fingertips: "A warm person."
Xia Jing also stared at him.
After a moment, he raised the corners of his lips and said, "Song Yang, you make me look forward to returning to the real world even more."
Crumbs began to fall from his body.
The collapse has officially begun.
Xia Jing suddenly tilted his head and asked, "What time is it now?"
Song Yang said hoarsely, "It's Tuesday morning, so it should be around five o'clock now."
"It's around five in the real world, so there should be some morning light."
"Well, the sun always rises early in the summer."
"I wonder what the sunrise will look like."
"We'll see together later."
Xia Jing said softly, "Song Yang, I want to see your home and your room."
Song Yang pressed the back of Xia Jing's head with a little force, and gently pressed his forehead against Xia Jing's: "When we return to the real world, you can watch as much as you want, and you can sleep in my bed every day."
"Doctor Song's bed should be very soft?"
Song Yang smiled.
He added, "By the way, I wanted to ask you before, were you still a high school student when you first entered Shadow City?"
"Well, I was seventeen when I went in, and eighteen when it was destroyed. After these four years, I should be twenty-two, right?"
"One year younger than me." Song Yang paused.
If Xia Jing had studied and lived normally, he would not have graduated from university yet.
The two were silent for a moment.
They were both imagining some illusory past that could never be repeated, and some vague future that they might be able to touch if they stretched out their hands.
After a moment, Xia Jing blinked slowly: "Although my current disintegrated appearance looks a bit scary, but, Song Yang, do you want to kiss?"
Song Yang looked at him: "Don't say that, you will always be the most beautiful in my eyes."
This is also the reason why he didn't allow Xia Jing to use the human skin mask.
He didn't need Xia Jing to continue pretending in front of him.
They can always face each other with their truest selves.
Xia Jing chuckled when he heard Song Yang's answer.
Then he lowered his head and Song Yang pressed his head down.
The two hugged each other and kissed.
After this, they will be separated for a short time.
A short separation is for a more permanent reunion.