Meet the conditions?

Mo Bai raised an eyebrow slightly. She had a rough idea of what "conditions" the system was referring to.

It was the Environmental Assimilation ability.

The system was hinting that she could gain the power to control an instance's domain.

But only an instance boss could command an instance's domain. If she really used Environmental Assimilation, would that mean she'd become a dungeon boss as well?

No wonder the system kept warning her never to use these cards.

Mo Bai put the card away. She had no desire to become an instance boss.

She had once used Environmental Rejection to sense the emotions of instance monsters like the Phantom Butterfly. They were filled with hatred toward humans and the world. Even if they harbored a sliver of love, hatred would eventually swallow it whole.

Mo Bai suspected this was what the system meant by "negative flow."

Inside instances, "negative flow" was everywhere. It made monsters violent, cruel, cold, and merciless. Only the "positive flow" within players could neutralize it.

When Mo Bai merged with the black-clad version of herself, she gained a faint understanding of what this "negative flow" was.

It could also be thought of as emotional waste.

People naturally pursue happiness and positive emotions, and someone trapped in long-term suffering rarely lasts. If they don't choose death, their negative emotions will eventually manifest as a serious illness.

Even someone like Mo Bai had spent the last five years of her life trying to find ways to make herself happy, sealing away negative feelings deep inside.

Just a small amount of such emotion could consume a person's soul. And in the instance world, this "negative flow" was everywhere.

You could say this place was a recycling station for humanity's self-loathing. Instance monsters lived here, constantly affected by this "negative flow." They could never be happy, nor could they feel goodwill toward players.

Even a monster like the Phantom Butterfly, despite developing a vague affection for Mo Bai through their encounters, didn't choose to cherish that feeling. Instead, it chose to destroy it.

A tiny bit of goodness wasn't enough to free instance monsters from the "negative flow."

The only thing that could shatter it was the "positive flow" possessed by players.

Mo Bai also thought about what "positive flow" meant. To her, it was vitality.

Before her death, she had been filled with unwillingness. After being given a second chance, she was full of longing and hope for life.

She asked her teammates about it, and they were all basically people who had been resurrected in this world after death. They fought desperately to clear instances just to keep living.

Even someone like Mo Xiangyou, who constantly endured the suffering of an Observation Group constitution, still wanted to live.

Most players carried this powerful "vitality," this desire to live, which was enough to counteract the instance's "negative flow."

That was how the entire Infinite World operated.

If Mo Bai wanted to assimilate those scene cards, she would have to immerse herself in "negative flow," abandoning the "life" she cherished and embracing "emotional waste."

She didn't believe she would ever make that choice, so the system's concern was unnecessary.

Mo Bai put the scene cards back into her inventory, letting them gather dust alongside the other two Ruins cards.

With all four teammates reunited and the Heart Mirror Room's domain broken, Mo Bai called out, "Magician, I've fulfilled our agreement, haven't I? Why aren't you letting us out? Are you waiting for me to completely shatter your domain?"

The magician's layered, ethereal voice echoed through the corridor. "You haven't completed our agreement."

Mo Bai frowned slightly, carefully recalling the magician's conditions. She vaguely remembered his exact words:

"Tonight, find your companions, free them from the magic, and reunite before dawn. Then I will cooperate with you."

She had already reunited with her teammates before dawn, so what hadn't she fulfilled?

Could it be the part about "freeing them from the magic"?

Aside from the Heart Mirror Room, were there other spells trapping them?

Mo Bai turned to Ding Xun. "Tell me again what happened after you left the mirror."

Ding Xun now possessed memories from both versions of herself, the one outside and the one inside the mirror.

After a moment, she said, "What I said earlier was only half true. I didn't use the Prying Lenses, nor did I control the octopus-headed guard with Synesthesia to open the door.

After I pulled my real body into the mirror, the version of me inside could pass through the mirror and open the door.

But the mirror version of me did capture the octopus-head guard and forced him to take me to you.

While passing your rooms, I saw that your and Gu Tiandong's doors were already open. Only Ye Pingjun's still had a guard outside.

I thought you already left, so I ordered the guard to take me to find you.

He led me through a corridor, where I saw a group of coughing audience members sitting below a stage. They said they were waiting for the afternoon performance. I asked the time, and they said it was 2:30 PM.

I searched the entire circus but couldn't find you, so I brought the guard back here. I checked both open rooms, but still didn't find you.

I thought that he was deliberately avoiding taking me to you, so I killed him, dumped him in my room, and decided to search on my own.

This time I didn't take the same path. I chose a different one, but after wandering around, I ended up back where I started.

Luckily, I found you all here in the Heart Mirror Room."

Mo Bai pondered her words. According to Ding Xun, there were two paths to leave this place.

One was the time corridor Mo Bai had taken, and the other was a maze that looped back here.

When Ding Xun left the time corridor, it was 2:30 PM. But when Mo Bai left, it was 5 PM.

And when Ding Xun left her room, Mo Bai's door was already open.

That meant Mo Bai entered the corridor before Ding Xun, but arrived later.

If they had been in the same corridor, they should have crossed paths.

But they didn't.

"Let's go take a look at those two paths," Mo Bai said.

The previous two times she passed through the time corridor, she had been blind. This time, she wanted to see it with her own eyes.

Led by Ding Xun, the group walked for a while and soon came upon a fork, left and right.

Mo Bai remembered taking the left path, so that should be the time corridor.

But Ding Xun said, "The left is the maze entrance. The right is the corridor that leads to the circus."

This completely contradicted Mo Bai's experience.

"So if we take the right path, we can leave and reach the circus?" Ye Pingjun asked.

"Should be," Ding Xun replied.

The three looked to Mo Bai, waiting for her decision.

After a moment, she said, "Let's try the right path first."

Back then, she couldn't see and couldn't distinguish left from right. Maybe Ding Xun was correct.

They entered the right passage, twisting and turning for over half an hour, only to end up back outside the Heart Mirror Room.

Ding Xun frowned. "Huh? The octopus-head guard definitely led me through the right corridor to the circus before…"

"It's fine," Mo Bai said calmly. "Let's try the left one this time."

They still had plenty of stamina. Another round wouldn't hurt.

Returning to the fork, they chose the left path.

After another half-hour of winding through the corridor, they once again returned to the same spot.

Ding Xun: "……"

She scratched her head helplessly. "Why are both wrong?"

"Could the paths be constantly changing?" Ye Pingjun suggested. "Maybe we need to split up, two people per path, to find the real one?"

"That would only lead us right into the magician's trap," Mo Bai said.

She already suspected that things weren't that simple when Ding Xun's directions contradicted her own, and walking both paths confirmed her suspicion.

After thinking for a moment, she said, "I think this is a magic trick.

It's like guessing a coin. The magician tosses it, catches it, and asks whether it's in his left or right hand.

If you guess left, it's empty. If you guess right, it's empty too.

And when you suspect there's no coin at all, he casually opens one hand, and there it is.

In reality, he hid the coin in his sleeve the moment he caught it. So neither hand has it.

At the same time, there's another coin hidden in the other sleeve, ready to be revealed if needed.

So the audience can never guess correctly."

Their agreement required her to "free all companions from magic before dawn." If they split up, half the team would inevitably be trapped, resulting in her failure.

But what would happen if they failed?

Mo Bai rubbed her chin thoughtfully. The deal was that if she won, the magician would restore her sight, but now that her vision already returned, she didn't need the magician anymore.

Still, failure might trap them with no way out, and she wouldn't know what was happening to the people outside.

She was very worried about Liu Congyi and Sheng Yan.

Seeing her hesitation, Ye Pingjun tried to think harder. "The rules said, 'Don't make choices alone, you'll only choose wrong.' Could that be related to these two paths?"

"What rules?" Mo Bai asked.

She hadn't found any.

Gu Tiandong, Ding Xun, and Ye Pingjun all looked at her. "There have always been rules. The system showed them when we entered the instance."

Mo Bai: "……"

She had been blind at the time, and Xiao Qi couldn't read them aloud either.

The system prompt had flashed briefly and disappeared. Even now, she couldn't see it anymore.

Realizing her information gap, Ye Pingjun quickly tried to recall everything and recited:

"Welcome to the Smiling Circus, where only happiness exists. First, congratulations. You didn't enter Disease Town directly like others. The circus has confined you, but also protected you.

Within the Smiling Circus, please follow these rules:

1. Do not stare at mirrors for too long, unless you can truly love yourself;

2. Before leaving a mirror, check that none of your belongings are left behind.

3. Do not make choices alone; you will only make the wrong choice.

4. Pay close attention to the time in the circus. If you're careless, your time may be stolen.

5. The magician only wants to keep the audience's smiles and harbors no great malice.

6. Because the Smiling Circus is merged with Disease Town, there is no survival rate limit or time limit. Everyone might survive, or everyone might die."

After finishing, Ye Pingjun said, "That's roughly it. Some wording might be off. I couldn't memorize it perfectly. Does that sound right?"

Gu Tiandong and Ding Xun nodded. "That's about what we remember."

Hearing this, Mo Bai almost wished the main system had a physical form, just so she could punch it.

If she'd seen these rules at the start, it would've saved so much trouble.

Now, she already figured most of them out on her own.

Rules one, two, four, and five, she had deduced them herself. Knowing them now was useless.

Rule six was practically nonsense. With Disease Town looming, the Smiling Circus couldn't truly harm the players opposing it. At most, it could stall them like this.

Likewise, unless the Ultra-Star Rank monster in Disease Town was defeated, they couldn't leave the instance anyway.

So, of course, there was no survival limit.

Fortunately, one rule still mattered: rule three.

Do not make choices alone. Making choices alone will only lead to the wrong answer.

Mo Bai pondered on its meaning.

The two corridors were nearly identical. She even closed her eyes and felt the walls and confirmed that they matched the time corridor she'd experienced before.

One was a time corridor. The other was a space corridor.

The time corridor stole time, while the space corridor trapped you in a maze.

Yet no matter which they chose, they always ended up in the space corridor.

Previously, she and Ding Xun entered at roughly the same time, one left, one right, yet both ended up in the time corridor.

Even if they split up, both paths might lead to the space corridor, potentially causing them to get separated.

Just like the coin trick: sometimes neither hand has the coin; sometimes both do.

As long as it's a choice, they can't reach the correct answer.

"Don't make choices alone…" Mo Bai murmured, her gaze falling on the charred monster corpse pinned beneath Ye Pingjun's door.

"Both Ding Xun and I were led into the circus by guards. Maybe 'don't make choices alone' means we need a monster to guide us?" she said.

"That's worth trying," Gu Tiandong said. "But… do we even have any guards left alive?"

All four fell silent.

They acted too quickly, leaving not a single monster alive.