23. Esper vs. Fallen Demon Hunter 1

I am Zhuang Cheng.

I am not a person who cannot endure solitude, but when forced into a state of prolonged isolation without knowing if I could ever return to civilized society, even I could not maintain a normal state of mind.

There were too few clues in this basement, and not many objects that could help me form positive associations. Before long, my mind began to drift aimlessly, much like watching a documentary on astronomy. In a sense, I was like those bored people who, having forgotten their phones while using the restroom, are left to contemplate the meaning of life and the end of the universe. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to properly deduce how to escape this place; it was just that I happened to be in the restroom at the moment.

However, after some time, as I lay flat on the floor like a fish washed up on the beach, trying to find some revelation in the texture of the concrete ceiling, a spark of thought suddenly ignited in my consciousness.

I sat up abruptly, scouring my memory for clues and scrutinizing the inspiration I had just received.

I think I have figured out the rules governing the appearance and disappearance of the cave.

The disappearance and appearance of the cave likely follow the same set of rules. At first, I thought, "merely knowing why the cave disappears is not enough," but I was wrong. Agent Kong and the witcher woman might have thought the cause of the cave lay outside the ritual circle, but that was incorrect; the answer is the "ritual circle" itself.

Agent Kong once mentioned that the purpose of the ritual circle was to "open certain alien spaces that overlap with reality," and it was judged a failure because it "lacked the final part of the magical symbols."

I am not entirely clear on the specific principles of magical symbols, but since the cave appears, it should mean that the missing symbols of the ritual circle were completed by some accident.

So, what exactly was it that completed the missing symbols of the ritual circle?

The object I currently suspect is that black plush rug.

Strictly speaking, it is the letter pattern on the black plush rug.

It is not that those letters are equivalent to magical symbols, but perhaps the lines forming the letters happened to meet the requirements of the magical symbols. At the same time, I have circumstantial evidence to support this deduction.

Recalling the situations where the cave appeared and disappeared, every time Chang'an and I went through a cycle of covering and uncovering the black plush rug, the state of the cave would shift between appearing and disappearing.

This morning, Chang'an and I uncovered the rug, and the cave appeared; then we covered it, and when we uncovered it again in front of Agent Kong, the cave disappeared. Later that afternoon, when Agent Kong checked the room alone, he covered the rug, and when I arrived alone at night and uncovered it, the cave appeared.

The same situation occurred the night before last, when Chang'an first witnessed the cave. After he first uncovered the rug, he discovered the cave and called the police, and then he "uncovered it again" in front of the police—yes, he explicitly mentioned "uncovered it again" when he told me about it—which meant he had covered the rug before the police arrived.

Why would he cover the rug in between? Because he was afraid. When he was with me today, he said he was worried about whether there were any filthy things hiding beneath the cave, so he chose to seal the wooden lid along with the rug the night before last.

In this series of events, the black plush rug seemed to act as a "switch," with all changes directly related to it.

Is my deduction correct? Can I be certain?

No, wait, wait... I missed a very important link!

That is why the entrance to the cave disappeared after I entered it.

If the state of the cave only changes after the action of covering the black plush rug, then the cave should not have disappeared on its own after I entered.

Unless... unless after I entered the cave, an "unidentified person" snuck into the room on the fifteenth floor and closed the cave.

I had been monitoring the surroundings, but I could not monitor the reality outside the cave. Moreover, the cave disappeared while I was being pulled into an illusion by the black jade, which made it impossible to observe whether anyone was outside.

Furthermore, this reasoning has another desperate problem.

That is, just like my initial bad premonition, the opening and closing of the cave can indeed only be done from the outside; it cannot be opened from this side.

I am truly at a dead end.

No, I have not fought to the end yet; it would be too pathetic to just raise my hands and surrender. Since I yearn for adventures that transcend reality, I should not just sit and wait for death so easily. To struggle until the last breath—that is in line with my aesthetics.

So, how should I struggle? My location and the ritual circle outside are not even in the same space... Wait, Agent Kong mentioned earlier that this alien space should overlap with reality. If it overlaps, it cannot be simply regarded as "not being together."

In other words, if I draw the letter pattern of the black plush rug on the ceiling, could it also overlap with the ritual circle outside?

Still, there is a problem. First, the surface of the ceiling and the surface of the floor are not entirely on the same plane... but the pattern on the black plush rug is not entirely on the same plane as the ritual circle on the floor either. If it works over there, perhaps I can try it here. Although the degree of deviation between the two sides is quite different, how many centimeters thick is this floor slab again...

Never mind, thinking too much is not as good as putting it into practice. Let me try!

I raised my right hand, pointing my fingers at the spot on the ceiling where the entrance to the cave had been. Suddenly, flames appeared out of thin air, like tiny snakes slithering at high speed through the air, climbing onto the surface of the ceiling.

The letter pattern on the black plush rug, when put together, means "rug." I remember that clearly. Then there is the style and size of the font... As I recalled, I adjusted the posture of the fire snakes until they matched my memory.

After completing the task, I let out a long breath and watched the ceiling with trepidation.

Nothing happened.

I couldn't help but feel deeply disappointed.

Is it still not possible? Is it because they are not in the same space, or is the floor too thick, and the deviation between the two planes is too great?

Or is it because I shouldn't have used flames to trace the pattern? The ritual circle was drawn with blood; perhaps I should use blood... but the letters on the black plush rug aren't blood either. Could it be that because that dirty rug was an object from a murder scene, it was stained with blood...

I craned my neck to observe, moving around to view the fiery letters I had pieced together from different angles. After all, I might have spelled the word wrong.

Moving around in this position easily made me dizzy. Before long, I felt a bit unwell, so I lowered my head and closed my eyes for two seconds to rest.

And when I opened my eyes again, something incredible happened.

Before me, a staircase made of concrete had appeared out of nowhere.

After a moment of shock, my gaze moved up the staircase, and there, on the ceiling at the top of the stairs, was a light brown wooden lid.

The entrance to the cave had reappeared!

***

Why the entrance did not appear immediately after I traced the letter pattern with fire is a matter I only reached a tentative, unverified conclusion about afterward.

The conclusion is somewhat laughable: initially, I was standing directly beneath the cave, and the concrete staircase appeared in that very spot later. Just as in a strategy game where the location of a new building cannot overlap with other targets, perhaps it was because I was occupying the space where the staircase was meant to be that it and the entrance could not manifest in time.

To avoid further accidents, I acted immediately upon seeing the entrance, climbed the stairs to the wooden lid, pushed it open, and returned to the floor of the room on the fifteenth floor.

I had finally returned to the real world.

I looked around and let out a long sigh of relief.

At the same time, I vaguely felt that the enlightened state of mind that had emerged while facing loneliness and death beneath the cave was slowly receding.

That enlightened state of mind must have been a special one that only appears under special circumstances; having survived, I could no longer retain it. But I believe that state of mind must have left a special mark on my heart.

The current me is a completely different person from the one who had not yet entered the cave.

I ruminated on my thoughts and looked back.

Setting abstract questions aside, let's look at the practical problems.

In the process of pushing open the wooden lid, I did not feel the black plush rug that should have been covering it. And after coming out, I saw the rug piled to the side as before. This means that while I was beneath the cave, no "unidentified person" had entered the room on the fifteenth floor to cover the rug.

Since my method successfully allowed me to escape, it means my deduction about the rules of the cave's appearance and disappearance was correct. But if there was no "unidentified person," how can I explain the previous disappearance of the cave's entrance?

I was at a loss, and then I looked back at the cave entrance.

This cave, this basement... I thought I had figured it out, but in fact, there were still many unknowns.

For one thing, I still don't know what the black jade I obtained from the basement is, or what the misty illusions and the three shadows I saw earlier were about.

There are still secrets hidden below that I don't know about.

Should I... go down again?

Although it is inappropriate to think about going back right after escaping death, this cave will be destroyed by tomorrow. If I don't finish exploring it now, I probably won't have another chance.

I had originally thought about this, but then, another anomaly made me temporarily set this plan aside.

All the "fireflies" I had set up in the real world had disappeared. Needless to say, this was because I had disconnected from them while in the basement. And the biggest problem was that I had lost my surveillance of Mazao.

I couldn't stay here any longer.

Mazao frequently talked about leaving me, and if I had only lost surveillance of her for a short time, it might have been acceptable—I could just go there and back quickly, which was my original plan. But now that I had lost surveillance of her for a long time, the nature of the matter was different. If she were to leave during this time, I would never find her again.

It is possible that it was Mazao's "jinx" constitution that allowed me to encounter these strange events; I am not so foolish as to fail to distinguish between "one full meal" and "being full every meal."

I had no way to explore the basement while simultaneously sending "fireflies" home, so I had to give this up for now.

However, before leaving, I still took photos and videos of the ritual circle and the black plush rug from different angles. Perhaps I can replicate this ritual in other places in the future.

After doing all this, I turned and left the room on the fifteenth floor, walking all the way out of the residential building.

Looking at the moon in the night sky, I finally felt the sensation of "seeing the sun again."

However, before I had gone very far, a strange-shaped shadow emerged in a bizarre way in front of me, blocking my path.