Lin Jianyuan walked into the restroom.

Once again, he couldn't help marveling at how f**king luxurious the sales office was.

The restroom was not only spacious and enormous, but the moment he stepped inside, he could smell expensive perfume.

The lavish decor went without saying. Even the floor was so spotless that it looked as though no one had ever stepped on it.

The mirrors and sinks had been polished until they were absolutely immaculate.

Lin Jianyuan was just about to pee when he passed the large mirror above the sink. He suddenly stopped.

“Hmm?”

Lin Jianyuan couldn't help taking another couple of looks at himself in the mirror. “Why do I look so damn handsome today?”

It wasn't his imagination.

Lin Jianyuan narrowed his eyes and looked himself up and down.

Indeed. Although his outfit today was utterly ordinary, it somehow gave him an effortlessly dashing, carefree air.

He hadn't done much with his hair either, but the loose strands falling over his forehead looked casually unruly.

His whole person radiated the aura of a six-foot-one ridiculously handsome guy who was basically saying, I know I'm handsome, so I don't bother dressing up.

Lin Jianyuan: “...”

He couldn't help wanting to take out his phone and send a selfie to his wife...

“You really are handsome. Your Majesty, Your Majesty, why did you suddenly get so handsome today?”

Squishy poked its head out of his pocket.

“I have to disagree with that.” Little Stone also popped out. “Our King is this handsome every day.”

Angel Eyeball: “Yes, I think so too.”

As it spoke, it smacked Abyssal Maw in the face with one of its wings.

Abyssal Maw: “Huh? ... Oh, oh, oh. Right, right, right. I think so too. I think so too.”

Socially Anxious Lego: (shiver, shiver, shiver)

“There isn't anyone here. What are you shaking for?” Lin Jianyuan asked suspiciously. “Has your social anxiety evolved to the point where you can't tolerate a human being within 50 meters of you?”

“I-I-I-I-I don't know...” Socially Anxious Lego continued to tremble. “I-I-I-I-I can't control m-myself... I-I-I-I...”

Lin Jianyuan was just about to put it under the faucet to help it calm down when Socially Anxious Lego suddenly said something terrifying:

“S-so s-so s-so... s-so many people!!!”

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

A chill suddenly ran down Lin Jianyuan's back.

He abruptly raised his head and looked toward the mirror.

Thank goodness, thank goodness. It was only an illusion.

The restroom reflected in the mirror was completely empty. There was nothing there.

“Your social-anxiety radius is getting a little ridiculous.”

Lin Jianyuan frowned and pulled out some paper towels to dry Socially Anxious Lego off. “If you're really this terrified of people, maybe you should just stay at...”

He hadn't even finished saying “home” when an intense sensation suddenly surged up beside him.

Someone is here!

A visceral sense of discomfort, as though his territory had been invaded, swept through his entire body.

Lin Jianyuan abruptly looked up, only to find that there was no one beside him.

There were only the three mirrors, arranged at specific angles and continuously reflecting one another, displaying countless images of his own figure.

Lin Jianyuan's brows knitted tightly together.

This was called Mirror Abyss.

When two mirrors were placed facing each other, looking through one mirror allowed you to see the reflection of the other.

As the two mirrors reflected one another, countless mirrored surfaces would appear within each other's reflections.

It was like an endlessly overlapping abyss of parallel worlds.

In a movie, this kind of design could serve as visual language expressing an “infinite loop” and the intertwining of reality and illusion.

In interior design, it could visually extend the perceived distance, creating a sense of depth and vastness.

But staring at it for too long could easily make you dizzy.

It gave you the feeling of...

being swallowed into it.

“Your Majesty!” Squishy suddenly shouted. “Something's wrong!”

Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Jianyuan reached out and scooped Squishy up. Squishy obligingly hopped into his palm.

Pfft!

Squishy pursed its tiny embroidered mouth and spat out a huge chunk of time.

Time nearly came to a standstill.

Within that almost-frozen flow of time, Lin Jianyuan slowly looked around.

Mirrors. Countless mirrors.

Countless overlapping, infinitely repeating mirrors appeared around him, and every single mirror contained countless versions of himself.

Countless versions of Lin Jianyuan and countless mirrors surrounded the Lin Jianyuan standing at the very center.

Lin Jianyuan looked up.

The upside-down Lin Jianyuan above him slowly looked up.

Lin Jianyuan looked down at his feet.

The upside-down Lin Jianyuan beneath him slowly lowered his head.

Lin Jianyuan looked around. Countless versions of himself in countless mirrors stared back at one another in super slow motion.

Lin Jianyuan: “...”

Lin Jianyuan pulled out his phone and started recording a short video.

After recording it, he sent it to his wife and pressed the voice-message button. “Wife, wife, look at this. This is so funny.”

Squishy: “...”

Little Stone: “...”

The other little toys: “...”

Squishy was exasperated. “Your Majesty, stop playing around. You've already been completely surrounded by yourself!”

“True.” Lin Jianyuan gave a perfunctory response. He scratched his head and frowned. “Why is it taking forever to send? Oh. The flow of time has changed. Oh, it went through. Squish, in the end, you still can't outrun electromagnetic waves.”

Makes sense. After all, electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light.

What did relativity say again? The speed of light is the maximum speed at which information and energy can propagate through the universe, and no object with mass can exceed it?

Yeah. Something like that.

Squishy: “...”

Aaaah! The King isn't worried at all, but I'm going to worry myself to death!!!

Although Lin Jianyuan remained calm, he wasn't taking the situation lightly.

The successful delivery of his message meant there was a signal here.

And if there was a signal, that meant he could make a phone call.

If he could make a phone call, that meant he could summon his wife.

Well... technically, he didn't actually need to make a phone call to summon his wife.

A phone call + the palm imprint = double insurance.

He could summon his wife anywhere, anytime, using either of two methods. So what was there to be afraid of?

With his ultimate safety net in place, Lin Jianyuan naturally wasn't panicking.

He began observing his surroundings.

It was an enclosed space formed entirely by mirrors.

Because of the mirrors' reflections, countless mirrored surfaces seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance. Staring at them for too long made one's head spin and gave the sensation that one was about to fall over.

But he had to admit, he looked really handsome in the mirrors.

Ding-dong.

His phone rang.

Lin Jianyuan picked it up and saw that his roommate had replied.

Xie Yu: “So handsome.”

Xie Yu: “Where is this?”

Lin Jianyuan: “Maybe inside the stomach of some Aberrant.”

Xie Yu: “?”

Lin Jianyuan: “Baby, you go ahead and do your thing. I'm going to play around for a bit.”

Xie Yu: “Okay.”

All the little toys: “...”

Fine, fine, fine.

You've got an S-class safety net, so of course you're feeling all high and mighty!

But then again, Lin Jianyuan wasn't just carrying a whole pocketful of A-class Pokémon. He also had an S-class bronze imprint, Remorse, hanging around his neck.

He was decked out in full gear. Seriously, it was almost difficult for him to lose even if he wanted to...

And anyway, even if things went south, there was nothing to worry about.

If things went south, he could just make a phone call.

Or point his left hand toward the sky and shout, “Wife! Save me!”

...Now that he thought about it, there really wasn't much to be nervous about...

The little toys looked at one another for a moment, then gradually calmed down as well.

Click.

Lin Jianyuan fastened the bronze circuit.

Nothing happened.

Lin Jianyuan thought for a moment, then reached out and touched the mirror in front of him.

The mirror felt completely real. It was cold and hard to the touch, emanating an inorganic, ruthless chill.

Lin Jianyuan asked, “Squish, Stone, can you sense the presence of any other Aberrants?”

Squishy's feelers twitched. “No.”

Little Stone said, “Our perception isn't as strong as an S-class's. If they're far away, or if they're around the same rank as us, we can't sense them.”

Lin Jianyuan glanced at his mobile terminal.

The terminal indicated the presence of Contamination nearby, but the concentration fluctuated quite a bit. And because the other party was an unregistered Aberrant, the terminal couldn't identify what exactly it was or how many there were.

Judging solely from the terminal's dashboard, the Aberrant's distance from him seemed to be constantly changing, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away.

Lin Jianyuan said, “I remember they taught us in Introduction to Aberrants that if we want to identify an imprint, we can collect Contamination or an Aberrant's derivatives. The original body works too. The original body is the most efficient, right?”

Squishy: “Yes.”

“In other words...” Lin Jianyuan picked up Little Stone and raised his hand toward the mirror. “If we pry off a couple of pieces of this mirror, we can register and identify it.”

Squishy: “?”

Little Stone: “??”

Clang!

Before the little toys could even react, a deafening crash rang out!

Lin Jianyuan slammed Little Stone into the mirror with all his might!

The mirror cracked under the impact!

“O-oh, wow, wow, wow.” Squishy was absolutely awestruck. “Our King is really making progress. At least this time he didn't just use his bare hands to invite the other side to eat a righteous iron fist.”

Little Stone, thoroughly dazed by the impact: “@_@...”

What was behind the mirror?

As Lin Jianyuan pried off the fragments one by one, this question surfaced in his mind.

The answer was...

Another mirror.

Lin Jianyuan placed the mirror fragments against his mobile terminal. While waiting for them to be identified, he looked around again.

There were still mirrors behind the mirrors.

Which meant...

“Even if we smash every single mirror in here, we still won't be able to get out,” Squishy suggested. “How about we call upon our esteemed Queen...”

“No need.” Lin Jianyuan picked up Little Stone and asked,

“That ‘whoever you touch gets unlucky’ ability of yours, does it work on Aberrants? If I throw you at it, can you hit the weakest point of the mirror by chance and make the entire thing explode?”

Little Stone, gradually recovering from its dizziness: “Ah... I can. But I can only smash one mirror at a time. I can't do more than that.”

“That's fine.” The corner of Lin Jianyuan's lips curled upward. He slowly backed away, unfastening the bronze circuit with one hand while raising Little Stone high in the other. “One mirror is enough.”

“Because,”

“art,”

“is explosion!”

Click.

The instant the bronze circuit disengaged, the angular Little Stone was hurled forward, striking the mirror dead center!

“Your Majesty?! Why would you...” Squishy shouted anxiously.

Crash!

The mirror shattered on impact! Countless razor-sharp fragments exploded outward!

Fragments of all sizes shot straight toward Lin Jianyuan, trapped in the cramped space and completely defenseless!

“Your Majesty!!!” Squishy screamed.

Lin Jianyuan raised his index finger and held it vertically against his lips, making a “shh” gesture.

The next second.

Click.

The mirror shards, shooting through the air at high speed, were just about to pierce Lin Jianyuan's body when they suddenly bounced away!

Bang!

Bang, bang!

Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!!!

The shards instantly ricocheted back. The rigid collisions preserved their maximum momentum, sending them hurtling chaotically in every direction at incredible speed and with immense force!

Crash!

The second mirror shattered!

Even more shards sprayed outward, only to be deflected by the bronze imprint!

Then came the third, fourth, fifth...

Crash! Crash!

Clatterrrrr!

“Squish.”

Countless shards of mirror flew chaotically through the air, every single one reflecting Lin Jianyuan.

He calmly took out his phone and switched to the wide-angle camera.

Then he whistled.

“Release time.”

Only then did Squishy remember that time around them was still flowing at a reduced speed.

Squishy didn't really understand what he was planning, but it did as instructed.

It took a deep breath and began gulping back all the time it had previously expelled.

Clatterrrrrrrr!

The shards, already flying at tremendous speed, accelerated in an instant to a velocity so high that even the naked eye could no longer track them!

Every mirror shattered at the same time!

All that remained before their eyes was a bizarre spectacle of reflections and refractions.

At this very moment, there was only light.

Only light could keep up with such speed.

“Baby.” Lin Jianyuan held up his phone, pointing it at the dazzling spectacle exploding beyond the bronze imprint, smiling as though he were filming fireworks filling the night sky.

“Isn't it pretty?”

Xie Yu's smiling voice came through the phone.

“Very pretty.”