Courtyard House: My Long and Hard Body Makes Me Play with All the Women in the Courtyard

The gray-robed man nodded slightly: "You are the last group of beings with free will. Either stay and face your fate, or enter and rewrite the rules."

Everyone looked at each other, and no one spoke.

After a while, Su Ting walked to the table and reached out to take the blue terminal.

His voice was so soft it sounded like a sigh:

"Since I was born to be the key to open that door... then I should stop asking where the exit is."

Lin Su stood up, walked to his side, and patted him on the shoulder: "I'll stay with you too."

An Ran snorted and a cold smile appeared on her lips: "Fine, I have nothing better to do anyway, going to hell to take a look isn't a bad idea."

Xiao You clutched her head in despair and wailed, "You're all crazy!! I... I'm really going to die here??"

Chu Mo glanced at her, then turned and walked towards the door: "Go change your equipment first. You guys can be crazy as you are, but you still need to complete the mission."

"Hey!" Xiaoyou shouted, "So you've agreed? Tell me quickly, have you agreed?!"

"...I suppose so." A voice drifted over from afar, tinged with helplessness.

Ji Yan finally stood up, looked at the flickering light of the terminal in his hand, and said in a low voice:

"Then let's go."

The gray-robed man slowly put on his hood, and as he turned around, a dim silver halo flashed in his eyes.

His last words echoed in the air:

"Preparing to land at Mirror Abyss."

"Wait a moment!"

Su Ting's hand hovered over the terminal's start button, his eyes fixed on the screen, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

"What's wrong?" Lin Su asked in a low voice.

Chapter 1048 The Terminal Screen

Su Ting didn't answer, but stared intently at the terminal's screen. A few seconds later, a new interface slowly appeared:

—【Welcome, Key Holder】

Immediately afterwards, a line of small red text popped up:

[Permission verification in progress... Connecting to the "Mirror Abyss" main entry node]

An Ran leaned closer and whispered, "You haven't been locked into the system, have you?"

"It's still uncertain." Su Ting gritted his teeth and continued to stare at the changes on the terminal.

Suddenly, a piercing high-frequency "buzz" filled the entire space, and everyone felt a tingling sensation in their bodies, as if some invisible force had invaded their senses.

The gray-robed man suddenly reached out and grabbed another terminal, a look of surprise flashing in his eyes: "It has detected it."

"Who?!" Ji Yan quickly approached him.

“It’s not it,” the gray-robed man whispered. “It’s her.”

Everyone's hearts tightened suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Xiaoyou's voice trembled. "'Who is she'? Could it be... Shen Zhixue came in too? But she clearly—"

Before the words were finished, the text on the screen updated again:

Welcome to "Zero Boundary Corridor," I am your lingering memory.

Please choose: Enter/Abandon/Surrender

"...What the hell is surrender?!"

Chu Mo scoffed, "This is fucking melodramatic."

“This isn’t the language style of a program.” Lin Su’s expression changed. “It’s more like… a prompt written by a human.”

The gray-robed man spoke in a deep voice: "It's a guidance system left behind by Shen Zhixue. She's trying to prevent us from truly contacting the core consciousness... but she herself hasn't completely controlled the system's logical flow."

"Then stop talking nonsense!" An Ran kicked over the table in front of her. "Hurry up and select 'Enter'! Have you dawdled enough?"

"Wait!" Su Ting pressed down on her arm, his eyes sharp. "This 'memory echo'... might be a projection of her consciousness left here. If we rush in, it might directly trigger the 'emotional confrontation protocol'."

"You mean—we need to overcome her past first?" Xiaoyou's voice trembled.

"To be precise, it's our past."

The atmosphere was heavy and oppressive.

After a long while, Su Ting raised his head and said to everyone, "Prepare for a cognitive shock; this is not as simple as playing a game."

"Alright, alright," Xiaoyou sighed. "Anyway, I'm already halfway crazy, so going crazy one more time won't hurt."

"Then... let's get started."

The terminal emitted a blue-white beam of light, which projected onto the wall to form a huge holographic image, and a blurry yet familiar figure slowly emerged.

It's Shen Zhixue.

But those eyes were lifeless, as if some force had stripped their souls away, leaving only a mechanically copied emotional module.

You've come. I've been waiting for this day for so long.

Her voice was ethereal and indifferent.

An Ran roared, "Are you real or fake? Where is Shen Zhixue?!"

I am not her, I am merely a part of her—those abandoned memories and self-denial. My purpose is to make you stop.

"Ridiculous," Lin Su sneered. "She'd have to have the ability to stop her if she wanted to."

The screen flickered slightly.

[Since that's the case... the game begins.]

The air suddenly turned cold, and the walls began to show strange data fluctuations, as if the entire space was collapsing and being reconstructed.

"Hold on to the terminal! Consciousness synchronization is about to begin!" the gray-robed man shouted.

Everyone gripped their respective sensors, and the world before them instantly distorted and shattered, turning into countless rays of light that receded rapidly, as if they had fallen into an abyss.

Chapter 1049 The Smell of Burning

Darkness devours everything.

When their vision returned, they were no longer in the same spot, but in a dilapidated city ruin.

The sky was filled with red lightning, and the air was thick with the smell of burning metal.

"This is... a data image scene?" Xiaoyou looked around in horror.

In the distance, Shen Zhixue's figure reappeared.

But this time, a completely different figure stood behind her—

A woman in a white coat looked at them with a complicated expression.

“We’ve finally met…” she said softly. “I thought you would never come.”

Su Ting's pupils contracted slightly: "You are... her from the research institute? Are you Shen Zhixue, or... the Shen Zhixue of the past?"

The woman smiled, neither denying nor admitting it.

“I want to play a little game with you,” she said. “Whoever can make me cry can pass this level; if not… stay and stay with me forever.”

An Ran stepped forward and sneered, "Is your guilt hers? Do you think you can stop us with this little bit of emotion?"

The woman gazed at her, her voice gentle yet cruel:

"I don't need to stop you, I just need you to hesitate for one minute."

Lin Su's expression changed: "Be careful, she's there to create a mechanism for delaying decision-making."

"Then shut her up!" Ji Yan raised the combat terminal in his hand; the energy gun was already loaded.

The woman did not run away; she simply stood there, watching them, her eyes gradually revealing a range of emotions.

A near-real emotion.

Xiaoyou couldn't help but ask, "If you were one of those she left behind... then why would you want to hurt what she cared about most?"

The woman was stunned.

A few seconds later, she smiled softly, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She pointed to the broken wall not far away: "That's the first gate."

"Thank you... for waking me up."

Her figure vanished in the light.

The group looked at each other, and a moment of silence fell over them.

"This is only the beginning... and it's already so heartbreaking," Xiaoyou muttered as she wiped away her tears.