Chapter 2: Trust Crisis
1430 Words
System Notification:[Current Phase: Path Divergence.][Remaining Time: 30 Minutes.][Those who fail to make a selection will be classified as stragglers, and the system will initiate resource reclamation.][Countdown activated.]
The cavernous hall was dimly lit by faint red and yellow glows filtering through two metal doors. The red light sliced across the metallic floor in a sharp, unbroken line—like a gash painted with crimson ink.
Yet anyone standing too close would flinch back instinctively. The air began to shimmer, as if some invisible presence had pressed a cold fingertip gently against the base of every person's spine.
The crowd was forced to face a choice—one with no hints whatsoever.
But they all saw it.
The cold-faced girl who'd reacted first, stepping through the left door without a moment's hesitation, had vanished behind it.
No explanation was given. No one else dared follow.
Until now…
The crowd fell into a dead hush. Not a soul moved; not a word was spoken. Then a low murmur cut through the stagnation:
"…What the hell made that girl pick the left door?"
"Does she know something we don't? Or was it just… a blind guess?"
"She didn't guess."
"I saw her foot twitch right before she walked over—like she was stepping on something… Did any of you catch that?"
"Stepping? You mean a pressure pad?"
"No… It's… the floor didn't echo when she stepped on it."
"More people are picking the right door, right? At least if we die, we'll go down together."
The voices trailed off into mutters, fading into anxious whispers. Arguments, doubts, panic—they spread like a silent plague.
Ji Yuan lingered at the edge of the crowd, his gaze dark and steady as ever. He said nothing, but he watched.
The door hadn't closed. After the girl entered, the left door remained utterly still.
That detail mattered more than any other.
His eyes flicked to the red light pulsing along the left doorframe—slow, but with a rhythm so precise it felt deliberate.
A thought clicked into place. He glanced up at the surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling.
They were still in the observation phase.
Just then, movement.
A tall, gaunt young man stepped forward, his brow furrowed, his legs trembling as if cornered by fear, left with no choice but to surrender to the unknown.
He planted one foot through the left door. No alarm blared, no mechanism triggered. It was a silent message:
Choosing wrong wouldn't kill you instantly.
Then came a second figure—a short-haired girl in a red T-shirt, jaw set tight—who strode after him without hesitation.
"I refuse to believe she picked it at random," she said.
Her voice was soft, but it cut through the murk—like she was speaking to the crowd, and to herself.
Lu Zhibai's bold move had cracked the dam of hesitation. A third person followed. Then a fourth.
Strangers all, yet bound by a shared wariness—an instinct to reject the false safety of the majority.
Within five minutes, seven people had stepped through the left door. Including the girl who'd gone first, that made eight.
Then the system chime blared, cold and sharp:
[Left door capacity reached.]
A ripple of unease shuddered through the crowd.
A man who'd lunged for the left door at the last second got half his body pinned between the closing metal panels, his hand nearly crushed. No warning from the system. The door had clamped down on him, a ruthless bite of metal.
Someone clicked their tongue. "So you can't just barge in whenever you want."
More people quietly withdrew their feet, which had hovered tentatively toward the left door.
Eight souls split off from the pack. Sixteen onlookers remained.
Ji Yuan stood rooted to the spot, his face impassive, yet he committed the face of every left-door chooser to memory.
Like her, these people were the action-first type.
They might not have been rational, but they acted—without hesitation.
The right door began to draw a throng.
Shen Zheng finally stirred.
He'd been leaning against the wall like a spectator waiting for a show, not moving until the left door locked shut with a heavy clang. He walked up to the right door, then paused suddenly, casting a casual glance over his shoulder as he muttered:
"Just because more people choose it… doesn't mean it's the one that keeps you alive." He smiled, then stepped through the threshold in a single, fluid motion.
Ji Yuan didn't follow immediately.
His attention was fixed on another figure—the man in black-rimmed glasses, standing silent and observant.
He hadn't lifted a pen, but his eyes scanned the crowd rapidly, as if categorizing every choice being made.
"This man doesn't seem like he's facing a choice like this for the first time," Ji Yuan thought, his guard rising.
On the other side of the hall, a short, fidgety young man huddled in the corner, a shadow cut off from the world, staring at the lights by the door, completely motionless.
Ji Yuan approached slowly.
"What are you looking at?"
The figure looked up—it was a girl named Yi Ran.
"Have you seen the lights? Their frequency changes… it speeds up whenever our emotions run high."
She paused, then pressed on: "I suspect it's reading our emotions… or judging our response patterns."
Ji Yuan: "Are you certain?"
Yi Ran: "Not really. But I don't dare choose the door with no answers… she went in too quickly."
A flicker of recognition crossed Ji Yuan's eyes before he said, "She didn't go in to gamble—she went in to verify."
Yi Ran's lips trembled. "Does she really know something?" She knew she shouldn't panic, yet her fingertips were ice-cold.
"Maybe she knows too much," Ji Yuan murmured.
He said no more, turning on his heel and walking straight toward the right door.
The remaining people filed after him one by one. But the surveillance camera in the corner twitched slightly, as if locking onto someone who'd fallen behind.
[Countdown expired.][Left door sealed. Right door sealed.][Free time restored.]
The doors slid shut slowly, as heavy as coffins.
Inside the right door.
Dim yellow light spilled over metal bed frames and concrete walls. The space was far smaller than anyone had expected.
The sixteen people filed in, and the atmosphere shifted instantly—scrambling, probing, hostility simmering just beneath the surface.
"Hey, you're crowding me."
"You're standing on my bed."
"Bed? This is just a metal slab."
"Exactly. And I want you off my slab."
He twisted open his water bottle and splashed its contents all over the bed, sneering:
"Now you want it? Sleep on the wet spot, then."
The argument was about to escalate when a deep voice cut through the noise from a corner:
"Cut it out. You want to get poisoned again?"
The voice was quiet, but it silenced the commotion instantly.
Silence settled over the room once more, broken only by the sound of resentful breathing.
Ji Yuan sat down in a corner, closing his eyes, but his ears were sharp—recording every footstep, every toss and turn, every lingering stare.
He noticed Shen Zheng had chosen a spot by the door, as if exposing himself deliberately… or guarding the exit.
The man with black-rimmed glasses squatted by the wall, running his fingers along the baseboard as if searching for a sensor blind spot.
Yi Ran quietly picked a dark corner to rest in—right next to Ji Yuan.
None of these people were ordinary.
Meanwhile, the room behind the left door was eerily quiet.
But under the bed frames, someone moved cautiously, trying not to make a sound. He dared to creep forward only a few steps before retreating, as if his instincts screamed of danger he couldn't see.
As for her, she remained motionless.
After a moment, she opened her eyes. "System," she said, her voice quiet yet sharp as a blade.
"System, have I completed the spatial selection phase?"
"Are there any additional tasks?"
"What is the estimated observation period?"
The system's reply was cold and emotionless:
[Estimated observation period: 24 hours.]
Lu Zhibai looked up at a camera on the ceiling, her gaze seeming to pierce the black lens. Confirm. Validate. Verify.
She closed her eyes again, intending to wait out the 24 hours in perfect silence.
But suddenly, she heard footsteps—footsteps that didn't belong to anyone on this floor—coming from directly above.
End of Chapter 2
- Writer
