I miscalculated.

The junk food and ice cream didn’t ruin Ma Zao’s stomach, but instead, they ruined mine. That night, I had diarrhea.

Perhaps it was also because I slept on the couch without properly covering myself, which caused my stomach to catch a chill. Ma Zao slept soundly all night, while I had to get up in the middle of the night and run to the bathroom. When I turned back and saw her innocent sleeping face, unaffected in the slightest, I felt like I had shot myself in the foot.

There was more to my miscalculations. When I was under the basement, I had wondered whether the flow of time in the real world was different from that in the otherworld. After returning to the real world, I could have used my phone to check for any time difference, but then so many things happened one after another that by the time I remembered this question, it seemed my phone had automatically corrected the time when it connected to the network.

I could talk to Zhu Shi about the events in the basement, but I couldn’t talk to Ma Zao about it. As for the black jade I found in the basement, I had considered whether I should ask Ma Zao to appraise it. Unlike me, Ma Zao should have knowledge about strange things and might be able to identify something.

But then I thought, if she couldn't identify it, it wouldn't be a big deal. But what if she really identifies the black jade as something strange? That might damage the relationship between us, so I decided to temporarily set it aside.

The next morning, I bought breakfast downstairs and came back to wake Ma Zao up. She found herself in the bedroom bed and looked at me, completely confused, as if she still couldn’t accept my ‘kindness’ towards her.

Of course, I wouldn't specifically explain my sinister intentions; I just gave a more reasonable explanation: "How could I let you, a delicate girl, sleep on the couch while I comfortably sleep in the bed?"

She sat on the edge of the bed and, after hearing my words, uncomfortably shifted her body, then spoke with an unhappy tone: "Why are you saying that again... The apocalypse doesn't discriminate between men, women, or children, and I'm not a delicate girl."

"But this isn't the apocalypse, and I'm not from the apocalypse era," I said seriously. "Besides, in my eyes, you're a delicate girl."

"I'm not delicate."

"Who was it that kept fainting and falling yesterday?"

"..It was me," she reluctantly admitted.

"Well answered." I handed over the breakfast from the plastic bag. "This is the reward."

She immediately forgot all her unhappiness and looked at the breakfast with eager anticipation.

The breakfast was just a simple start. I hadn't forgotten the promise I made to her yesterday to make her something even tastier. By evening, I would make her a heavy, spicy, fish-and-meat-filled Sichuan meal, delivering a powerful blow to her fragile digestive system.

This time, I absolutely wouldn’t shoot myself in the foot again—at least, I hope not.

However, it wasn’t ideal to keep using the tactic where she sleeps in the bed and I sleep on the couch to prevent her from quietly leaving after I fall asleep. I had thought of a new solution, one of which involved making some modifications to the "firefly."

The "firefly" is my dispersed spirit, essentially a sort of clone. Although it cannot think independently like the main body (me), it should have some degree of adaptability.

For example, I could try inputting some "preset instructions" into the "firefly," so that when it detects certain changes in its environment, it will respond accordingly. Taking Ma Zao as an example, if Ma Zao tried to leave me, the "firefly" would detect this change and send an alert through our mental connection, waking me from my sleep.

I am still in the practice and testing phase. Theoretically, it should be possible, but the practical results will depend on how things go in the future.

After finishing breakfast, I told Ma Zao that I needed to go out.

"Where are you going?" she asked, habitually, like a wife suspicious of her husband's infidelity.

It wouldn't be too much to say that this comparison wasn't just my imagination. Living with an attractive person of the opposite sex, doing everything together like brushing teeth, washing up, eating, and then one person saying they need to go out—immediately the other person becomes alert. In such a suggestive situation, most people would probably have this kind of thought.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Though the person who was on guard was five or six years younger than me, and I had only formally met her a day ago.

But I, like a husband accustomed to infidelity, answered calmly, "School."

"School... school?" she repeated, as though the words didn't quite sit right, then suddenly realized, "Right, there are schools in this era."

In the post-apocalyptic era, there were no schools, which was to be expected.

I lied to her again. I wasn’t going to school; I was heading to the room on the fifteenth floor.

This time it wasn’t for exploring a basement, but to observe how Zhu Shi would handle the ritual array. Of course, part of my intention was also to continue trying to establish a connection with Mount Luo.

I had already made up my mind to distance myself from interpersonal relationships in normal society, which, of course, included my interactions with Chang'an.

Zhu Shi, on the other hand, was a demon hunter from a strange world. She didn’t belong to "normal society" and had the ability to protect her personal safety. Maintaining a relationship with her didn’t feel as dangerous as maintaining one with Chang'an. However, she was still the sister of a friend, and if possible, I didn’t want to involve her in any danger caused by me. After officially establishing a relationship with Mount Luo, I would also need to distance myself from Zhu Shi.

Thinking of this, a sense of loneliness grew within me.

If nothing unexpected happens, my connection with Chang'an—and with this friend—will come to an end.

From childhood to adulthood, there have been very few people willing to become friends with me, and in college, it was just Chang'an. The scenes from our journey of becoming acquainted and understanding each other floated in my mind, only to fade away one after another, like a candle flame blown out by the wind.

In fact, I should have done this long before I met Ma Zao. Even if I had never had a "bad luck" aura around me, as someone who pursued the strange, I could have brought disaster to those around me. Forming random relationships was irresponsible behavior.

The experiences beneath the basement were a search for me, but for the people around me, they were nothing but disaster.

Now was the perfect opportunity to kill off my weak self. I was a villain who valued my own desires more than my friendships. If I truly believed that my friendship with Chang'an was more important than the strange world Ma Zao had opened for me, I would never have made such a choice from the very beginning.

After temporarily bidding farewell to Ma Zao, I left the "firefly" behind to monitor from the shadows, then moved toward the complex where the room on the fifteenth floor was located.

The battle I had with the fallen demon hunter in the complex was definitely recorded by surveillance cameras, but no officials came to knock on my door. It’s likely that Zhu Shi and Mount Luo had already filed a report. Last night, there also seemed to be some issue with Mount Luo’s inspection of the fallen demon hunter’s body, which is another part I plan to inquire about.

—This incident might not be over yet.

That’s what Zhu Shi told me.

Although I find it hard to believe the fallen demon hunter would come back to life, there might still be other unknown dangers lurking in the shadows.

Could these dangers potentially affect Ma Zao through me? It’s a thought I’ve had, but unlike my attitude toward Chang'an and Zhu Shi, in my mind, Ma Zao was never a helpless girl to be dragged into something. Instead, she was the mysterious figure who could pull everything around her into a storm. I was also quite curious about how she, who often talked about the apocalypse and disasters, would react when facing something truly strange.

When I reached the room on the fifteenth floor, Zhu Shi had already arrived ahead of me.

To my disappointment, she wasn’t wearing the raincoat and wide-brimmed hat from last night. Instead, she was dressed in a white blouse and a black skirt, carrying a large black guitar case, looking like a band girl who had snuck out of a rehearsal room.

She must have just arrived as well. At that moment, she was walking around the ritual array on the floor, while the wooden lid and the basement beneath it had disappeared. On my way here, I didn’t encounter the agent she mentioned who was supposed to be keeping watch. They probably left after she arrived. Her expression as she looked at the ritual array seemed to be one of contemplation, as if deciding where to start erasing it.

The door wasn’t closed, so I just walked in. I couldn’t have closed it anyway, since the lock had already been melted by me last night. She heard the noise and looked up alertly. When she saw it was me, she relaxed her expression, but her demeanor remained serious.

It seemed that she wasn’t in the gentle “Junior Zhu Shi” mode now, but in the “Demon Hunter Zhu Shi” mode where she would address me by my full name. It felt a little regretful.

"Zhuang Cheng, why are you here?" she asked. "And did you break the door lock?"

"I did," I said. "I’m just here to take a look."

"Just looking? Not planning to enter the basement?" she asked suspiciously.

"I promised I wouldn’t enter," I answered seriously.

She mumbled softly, "So suspicious..."

"By the way... why did the basement disappear?" I asked, now more focused on it, while taking out my phone.

"You really do want to go in, don’t you?" She was startled.

"No, no, it’s just pure curiosity."

Based on my observations, the carpet rolled up by the side of the room was exactly the same as it had been when I left last night, meaning no one had covered the ritual array with the carpet. The basement must have disappeared on its own. To rule out the possibility of a memory error, I even took out my phone to check the photos I took last night.

With this, the reasoning that "the basement's manifestation changes only after the carpet covers the ritual array" was immediately disproven.

Of course, it’s also possible that the basement itself has a natural tendency to disappear after being manifested for a certain period, just like how a phone screen automatically turns off after being idle for a while. This could also explain why the entrance and exit of the basement disappeared automatically after I entered it last night.

Just then, I heard footsteps behind me, and another person entered the room on the fifteenth floor.