Lin Yue has never been afraid of being alone.

At twenty-four, he has already lived through more than most people ever will—not in grand, tragic ways, but in quiet, suffocating ones. Growing up as an orphan passed between cold institutions and indifferent guardians, he learned early that attachment leads to pain. By adulthood, he lives a detached, monotonous life, working night shifts and avoiding unnecessary human connections. To him, living is simply continuing.

Everything changes on a rain-soaked night when he returns to his apartment. The hallway feels wrong—too long, too silent. Then, a voice calls his name from behind. Calmly, without hesitation, Lin Yue ignores it and keeps walking. That single decision triggers something unseen.

When he reaches his door, the number has changed to “404.”

The moment he steps inside, reality fractures.

Lin Yue is pulled into a game called the Flow, a system of endless horror instances where players must survive deadly scenarios governed by obscure and shifting rules. Failure means erasure. Survival means being dragged into the next nightmare. Unlike other players, Lin Yue adapts quickly, relying on observation, emotional detachment, and his ability to remain calm under pressure.

But something is wrong.

Despite breaking rules and defying logic, Lin Yue is never punished by the System. Instead, he is marked—singled out by an unknown force. His actions begin to distort the behavior of instances, as if the world itself cannot fully process him.

That is when he notices him.

Gu Yanchen, known as the Arbiter, is a being feared by all players—an enforcer of the System who exists to maintain order and eliminate anomalies. Cold, precise, and seemingly inhuman, he should have killed Lin Yue the moment he deviated from the rules.

Yet he doesn’t.

Instead, Gu Yanchen watches.

As their paths intertwine, Lin Yue is forced to confront something more terrifying than death—connection. Gu Yanchen, who should be nothing more than a mechanism of judgment, begins to act with intention, even obsession.

Faced with this impossible choice, the Arbiter hesitates—for the first time. That hesitation fractures the system itself. Rules collapse, instances distort, and the Flow begins to unravel.

In a world where everything is designed to erase humanity…
What happens when two people refuse to let go?

“The System wants me dead. But its Arbiter won’t allow it.”

The training grounds occupied the lowest level of the Game Hall, past two checkpoints and a stairwell that always smelled faintly of ozone, as if something down here was perpetually charging up for use. Lin Yue had found it during his second week as a survivor and had been coming back ever since, mostly because it was one of the only places in the entire Hall where nobody expected him to talk.


Chapter 74 - Chapter 74: The Proposal