That shout of “Jiang Ye” startled Jiang Ye quite a bit!

Because right now, he was still wearing the Disguise Mask, looking like the Bald Guy.

The people who knew this bald appearance was called Jiang Ye…

Should only be the top players from Apartment 9999.

But if it were one of the 9999 players, they should be more familiar with Wan Xin.

He was even closer to Wan Xin, so he should have called out “Wan Xin” instead.

Yet this black shadow didn’t seem to recognize Wan Xin.

And the way he said “Jiang Ye”…

It sounded genuinely familiar.

Not like how the strangers from 9999 would call him.

A sudden answer flashed through Jiang Ye’s mind, but he felt it was impossible.

Before he could ask—

The black shadow trapped by the Light-type circling around him actively returned to human form, revealing his appearance.

And sure enough, it was exactly who Jiang Ye had thought of!

He was—

“Yang Wenchao?!”

“You—you’re here?!”

And clearly, Yang Wenchao already knew—

That the mysterious Bald Guy who went up to the rooftop to “save” Jiang Ye was no savior.

It was Jiang Ye himself!

Actually, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

After the Light-type appeared and before Jiang Ye’s main body entered his Personal Instance, he had a half-revealing conversation with Yang Wenchao.

Yang Wenchao had realized that Jiang Ye possessed impressive strength.

So figuring out that the Bald Guy was Jiang Ye was a logical conclusion.

Even the Blackened Replica that looked exactly like Jiang Ye—Yang Wenchao probably realized it wasn’t some powerful ally but just another one of Jiang Ye’s Replicas.

And the fact that Jiang Ye had Replicas wasn’t much of a secret anymore.

Only the Blackened Replica with a different appearance remained a hidden trump card.

At this moment, the Light-type that had been circling around Yang Wenchao backed off.

Before retreating, it left a message for Jiang Ye:

“I’m not convenient. You go question him.”

After the Light-type departed, both Wan Xin and Yang Wenchao visibly relaxed.

Yang Wenchao scanned the surroundings, frowning slightly.

He quickly answered Jiang Ye’s earlier question and added:

“And you guys? How are you here? I entered a Secret Realm through the Red Light Elevator. Just when I was about to clear it, I found a coffin.”

“I struggled like crazy to open it, but then something inside swallowed me up.”

“After that, I guess… I ended up inside the coffin?”

Hearing this, it seemed like Yang Wenchao didn’t even realize he had died?

Wan Xin immediately pressed him: “You’re a game player, right? Did you bury an account in 4444’s Graveyard?”

“Yeah.” Yang Wenchao answered straightforwardly, his expression thoughtful.

Wan Xin, the chatterbox, blurted out: “Then you should be the same as me. You died and revived inside the coffin. But you’re dumber than me—you don’t even know you died.”

“……” Yang Wenchao looked thoughtful, a bit surprised: “So this is the Underground Graveyard of Apartment 4444?”

Wan Xin, being naturally chummy, nodded quickly, then frowned in shock:

“But something’s not right! You’re the same as me… so why aren’t you afraid of Light?!”

Yang Wenchao, still partly lost in thought, casually answered:

“…Maybe because I have AIDS?”

???

Jiang Ye’s face instantly filled with question marks.

The next second, Wan Xin abruptly raised his voice, sternly objecting:

“No way! Absolutely impossible!”

“I have AIDS too, but I’m scared of Light!”

Jiang Ye: ?????

Wait, what???

What are you two talking about? Why do I feel like I can’t even join this conversation???

Are we even in the same chat room??

Why do I suddenly feel so out of place???

Jiang Ye was mentally flooded with question marks, even starting to question life itself.

Meanwhile, Yang Wenchao finally snapped out of his thoughtful state.

He looked at Wan Xin oddly, paused a moment, and calmly said:

“No. I was just joking. I don’t have AIDS…”

Wan Xin: ??????

No? No??? NO???

I…

Wan Xin looked like he had lost all strength and reason.

Finally, Jiang Ye managed to jump into the conversation and asked Yang Wenchao:

“So? What’s the real reason?”

“Why aren’t you afraid of Light? And what did you mean by saying you were once Light?”

Yang Wenchao, having worked through his thoughts earlier, answered smoothly and calmly now:

“It doesn’t mean much. I just wanted to express—”

“I once had a noble, dignified soul;”

“I once was unyielding, with iron bones.”

“I once… was my own Light.”

“As for why I’m not afraid…”

“Because I’ve experienced fear, experienced despair;”

“Because I overcame fear, conquered despair;”

“Because I tamed my body with my own will, and told it who its true master was—”

“My will, not my brain.”

When Yang Wenchao spoke, his tone was calm.

Wan Xin, still mentally collapsing beside him, was a little shocked.

Jiang Ye, too, felt a small jolt in his heart—but more than that, he felt suspicious.

Because what Yang Wenchao was saying, while it sounded pretty reasonable, actually felt kind of—empty, boastful, and vague.

Yang Wenchao seemed to sense his skepticism and continued indifferently:

“It’s actually simple—”

“Fear is just an emotion.”

“And all emotions have thresholds.”

“And humans can, through training, raise these thresholds.”

“For example, a horror movie that could scare you to death—your first time watching it, you’d be terrified;”

“Second time, still scared; third time, still scared…”

“But when you’ve watched it ten thousand times, you go numb.”

“Just like a forensic doctor—the first time performing an autopsy, they’ll be scared, nauseous, have nightmares.”

“But a seasoned forensic doctor? No feelings at all.”

“And I…”

He paused, still looking calm as he continued: “Once forced myself, through all kinds of methods, to face every kind of fear head-on.”

“Of course, that process was dangerous.”

“I could’ve… fallen into depression, even self-destructed at any moment.”

“But just like that saying goes—”

“What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

“So—”

“The me that didn’t get killed, personally made myself stronger.”

Yang Wenchao’s expression stayed light and steady as he said all this.

It gave the feeling of—

A small boat passing through countless mountains, everything already behind him.

Jiang Ye felt a ripple inside.

He vaguely remembered hearing from classmates that Yang Wenchao had some mental problems.

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time—gossip was gossip.

But now, he suddenly realized—

Maybe…

What people saw as his silence, his strangeness, his inability to fit in…

Was actually his own path of self-cultivation.

Jiang Ye believed that Yang Wenchao was telling the truth.

He had indeed forced himself, through all kinds of brutal methods, to overcome various fears.

But he still felt—

The tone when Yang Wenchao said “I too was Light” didn’t just mean “I was my own Light.”

Still, Jiang Ye didn’t question him directly.

Instead, he had the Light-type Huang Bo flash over from a distance.

Huang Bo’s tone was extremely rude, domineering from the get-go:

“That kind of bullsh*t might fool Jiang Ye, but it won’t fool me!”

“I’ll give you one more chance—”

“Explain clearly: what exactly did you mean by saying you used to be Light.”

“Otherwise, I’ll show you—”

“You might not have been able to kill yourself, but I sure can help you!”

Huang Bo and Jiang Ye had very different personas.

Yang Wenchao glanced toward the Light, then looked at Jiang Ye.

Jiang Ye sighed, shook his head, lowered his voice as if warning:

“He’s really the kind who kills without blinking.”

“He even wrecked the entire 4444 Apartment so badly, the destruction time got pushed forward to the next midnight…”

That was a heavy statement.

Yang Wenchao’s expression grew serious. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke.

This time, his tone wasn’t as calm and casual as before, but serious and deliberate:

“I once possessed a Light-type Ability in the game.”

!!!

The moment those words came out, Jiang Ye and Wan Xin both widened their eyes!

Yang Wenchao took a deep breath, looked toward the Light, and asked:

“You’re a game player too, right?”

The Light was still rude and overbearing: “Just talk about yourself. Don’t even think about prying into me.”

So Yang Wenchao didn’t ask again, simply continued:

“Like I said earlier, the reason I played the Doomsday Apartment game was because of its horror effects.”

“So, my approach was different from others.”

“Wherever it was scariest, that’s where I went—always eager to dig up even scarier secrets to challenge myself.”

He paused: “I came into contact with the main storyline, about the Doomsday Apartment being destroyed on Day 11.”

“I encountered a concept—Entropy Increase Law, and Reversing Entropy Increase.”

At this point, he didn’t explain much, just gave a simple summary:

“The basic idea is: reversing entropy increase is possible, just like in-game data overflow, where the data jumps instantly from the positive end to the negative starting point.”

“So this game universe would cycle too—from destruction to birth, then destruction again, then rebirth…”

“Just like the Beginner Apartment—it endlessly loops.”

“Of course, I didn’t join any big factions in the game.”

“So even after touching the main storyline, I didn’t follow the big factions to explore.”

“I used my own method—I created tons of accounts, specifically to study the Beginner Apartment’s cycle.”

“During this process, I discovered—”

“In the Beginner Apartment, there are lots of starting Abilities, and Dark-type ones were almost as common as the elemental ones.”

“But Light-type Abilities—were nearly nonexistent.”

“And combining that with the game’s main story—”

“About the birth of the universe, ‘God said, Let there be Light.'”

“I started wondering…”

“Was the birth of the Doomsday Apartment also tied to Light?”

“Is that why Light-type Abilities are so rare?”

“In order to explore this secret, I kept creating and abandoning accounts, trying to roll a Light-type Ability.”

At this point, Wan Xin was completely stunned!

He swallowed hard, the chatterbox in him completely unable to hold back, and immediately asked:

“So… h-how many accounts did you abandon? All buried in the Graveyard?!”

Yang Wenchao nodded: “A few hundred at first. Later, to save time, I started just deleting them.”

“Because rolling a Light-type Ability was insanely difficult. At one point, I even suspected—maybe the game didn’t even have Light-type Abilities.”

Jiang Ye followed up, guessing:

“But eventually, you managed to roll an account with a Light-type Ability?”

That must be the real reason he said, “I too was Light”!

Yang Wenchao nodded again, glanced at the Light, and continued:

“But unfortunately, I wasted too much time creating and deleting accounts.”

“By the time I finally got a Light-type account, I barely had any time to research anything before the game shut down.”

“I was hoping that when the game reopened, I could continue studying it.”

“But I never expected—the game didn’t reopen. Instead, we were all dragged into the real Doomsday Apartment…”

Yang Wenchao sighed as he spoke, sounding genuinely regretful.

However, Huang Bo the Light wasn’t willing to let it go, still pressing skeptically:

“That’s it? You rolled a Light-type account and didn’t discover anything else?”

“What about the Light-type Personal Instance? You should’ve cleared it, right? What’s inside?”

But Yang Wenchao shook his head:

“When I saw the Light-type on my Data Panel, I immediately realized—”

“This Light-type account would be hated by every Dark-type player.”

“To protect the Light-type account, I didn’t dare reveal it at all.”

“Plus, I was a student, and most of my time was spent studying. The Light-type account never really had a chance to develop, and I didn’t clear the Personal Instance before the game shut down.”

“If you really want to know if I discovered anything—”

“I figured out how to hide the Light-type identity.”

“In the game’s settings, Dark-type players had special reactions to Light-type players.”

“So even without using skills, it was very hard for a Light-type to hide.”

“My early research focused on how to conceal the Light attribute.”

At this point, he paused, glanced at Wan Xin, and continued:

“The reason I joked about having AIDS earlier—was because I got an item in the game called 【AIDS Blood】.”

“That item, when combined with certain herbs, could help a Light-type hide their Light aura, making Dark-type players unable to instinctively detect them.”

“…” Wan Xin: D*mn it!

Seeing Jiang Ye also looking over, Wan Xin suddenly forced himself to suppress his fear of Light and solemnly said:

“Actually, I was just joking earlier too. I don’t have AIDS.”

Jiang Ye: “You think I’m buying that?”

Wan Xin looked utterly defeated, but kept arguing:

“Even if I did have AIDS—don’t you think, now that this world is extraordinary, everything’s different?”

“After I got my Ability, I had no AIDS symptoms at all. Even when injured, I recovered just like normal people.”

“So I believe, here in the Doomsday Apartment, I don’t have AIDS!”

“Besides, according to what Brother Yang said, 【AIDS Blood】 seems like a pretty powerful item. No way it would be something just anyone could have!”

“Plus, I just revived once! My Data Panel matches the one from the game now, which further proves—I probably don’t have AIDS anymore!”

Clearly, Wan Xin was desperately trying to prove—

Even if he had once had AIDS,

Now he didn’t, and he was totally normal!

But Jiang Ye wasn’t about to let him off easily. He immediately said:

“Better still draw some blood, just to be safe.”

But Yang Wenchao raised an eyebrow: “You have a container for preserving special blood?”

“…”

Jiang Ye thought for a moment, then changed tactics and said to Wan Xin:

“Alright, we’ll save it for later.”

He patted Wan Xin’s shoulder encouragingly:

“Hang in there. Stay alive.”

“…” Wan Xin cursed inwardly, first time realizing—apparently even AIDS could have ‘benefits’ here…

He let out a long breath and muttered:

“I was just selling blood back then…”

Jiang Ye patted his shoulder again:

“It’s alright. I get it.”

Wan Xin: You get it my a**! I really was selling blood!!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep