The Fugitive Has Nowhere Left to Run

At the end of every adventure story, the hero always rides off into the warm sunlight with his beloved girl, vanishing past the green grassland on an old horse he named Cabbage. But to earn such an ending, first you had to break through the Demon King's Castle and kill the Demon King. As a level 5 Heavenly Mandate [Adventurer], Bai Zhou had that resolve. Until he saw the Major come charging through the sky with an entire world on his shoulder. So breaking through the Demon King's Castle really meant breaking through it in the literal, physical sense? Bai Zhou's jaw dropped, then he made an instant decision and yanked the handlebars. "Run!" He didn't know how the Major had pulled this off, but Bai Zhou wasn't some hot-blooded fool who didn't know when to duck. "Whoosh!" Without a moment's hesitation, the front of the tricycle whipped around, and he drove his feet down. The pedal chain whirred back to life, its surface covered in dense, glowing ritual symbols that kept the old thing from falling apart even when sparks flew. The "old horse" groaned with a reluctant but stubborn creak, carrying Bai Zhou and the two passengers in the cargo bed as it rattled off in the opposite direction from the incoming flying world. At the foot of the winding mountains, fleeing the pursuit of a world— A real, objective, physical world. Bai Zhou had once read a story in Eight Thousand Questions of Naughty Black Cat about a moving castle: an old man who, because of a promise to his beloved wife, resolved to fly the home they had built together into the sky. Back then, Bai Zhou had imagined how nice it would be to have his own flying castle. He would build a glass prison inside it and throw in everyone he didn't like. The moment anyone so much as twitched, the fragile glass would shatter, and they would plummet from tens of thousands of meters up and become a smear of meat paste. But now, compared with the Major's moving Demon King's Castle, a mere moving castle hardly seemed impressive at all. Next to such a colossal flying world, the pedal tricycle racing along the mountain road at the foot of the peaks was even tinier and more insignificant. Out they fled, into the rolling mountains! Zhenlu Mountain was merely the tallest of several nearby peaks. The whole highway shrouded in the rainstorm had small hills stretching endlessly on both sides. They rushed backward past the pedal tricycle and blurred into phantom shapes, while the massive world sweeping through the sky was steadily closing the distance. "To run into you late at night—what a delight." Major Luo's voice drifted down from the far reaches of the sky, neither quite male nor quite female, godlike and demonic, lofty yet seemingly gentle and compassionate. Yet with hundreds of kilometers separating them, the Major could deliver his voice so clearly, as if whispering right beside their ears. Bai Zhou and the others felt a jolt of alarm. Still... "A chance encounter? Say that again with your conscience covered, I dare you." Bai Zhou sneered. "A stalker shouldn't pretend to be some noble young gentleman you happened to bump into—disgusting." Bai Zhou's voice mixed into the howling wind and rain as he tossed out the retort, focused on pedaling, not caring whether the Major, standing inside that enormous world hundreds of kilometers away, could hear him. Clearly, the man heard every word. "Bai Zhou..." Major Luo's voice was faint, like a sigh, its tone layered and complex. "How strange. We aren't even remotely close, yet I feel I have already killed you ten thousand times." "Brother Luo, has anyone ever told you you're bad at trash talk?" Bai Zhou rolled his eyes. "Soft and mushy—sounds like sweet nothings." Bai Zhou's tongue was dipped in the fierce venom of Troy's ruined civilization, yet those were also his honest feelings. "Sweet nothings...?" Yet the Major did not grow angry. Instead, he seemed to let out a soft laugh. "In fact, you really are within my aesthetic range. What a pity, though—we are enemies bound to fight until one of us dies." "Fate chose you as my tribulation for Ascension to Sainthood. A nemesis can never become a lover." "?" Bai Zhou felt a wave of revulsion. "Get lost, you shit-stirrer!" Bai Zhou spat. "Old pervert—a deviant with orientations like yours would have been burned at the stake where I come from!" For the first time in his life, Bai Zhou was experiencing what it felt like to be a girl harassed by a creep. And indeed it was greasy—so greasy it was like downing a whole can of lard on an empty stomach. He was so disgusted he wanted to leap into a vat of sulfuric acid to cleanse himself. He just hoped that old pervert wouldn't give him an opening. Otherwise, he would absolutely impale the creep on a spear from below, run him clean through, then carve off every slice of his flesh with a purple-gold saber. "There is no need to try to provoke me." The Major's voice came calm and even. "One who ascends to sainthood must have the magnanimity of a Saint. My state of mind will not stir so much as a ripple because of you." "Is that so?" Bai Zhou raised an eyebrow. He thought for a moment, then tilted his head up and said with utmost seriousness into the wind and rain: "You've eaten shit!" "..." Major Luo fell silent. "You've eaten all the shit from Base 36!" Bai Zhou added. Major Luo: "..." "You even ignored the no-defecating-in-public signs and ate shit in front of everyone—no public decency at all. Can someone like that even become a Saint?" On the tricycle, Bai Zhou wore a pained expression, as if recalling the black fireworks he had left for the base the day he walked out of Base 36. Major Luo said nothing. But the flying world's course abruptly shifted. Its speed surged, and as the distance shrank— "Whoom!" A beam of white light that brooked no resistance shot without warning from the underside of the flying world, locking precisely onto the tricycle racing along the highway! The beam carried no destructive spiritual pulse whatsoever, only an immense pulling force, as if a milky-white giant hand had descended from the sky to seize Bai Zhou and his group. "Creak!" Bai Zhou twisted the handlebars hard. The tricycle shrieked against the wet pavement, sparks nearly splashing against his face as he barely scraped past the beam's edge. Behind him, Fang Xiaoxia's cry was drowned out by the howling wind and rain. The road where the beam had grazed vanished as if erased by a giant eraser, leaving a gaping crater that made the heart lurch. Even the gravel and standing water at its rim floated upward, sucked straight into the sky by the invisible force. Bai Zhou's heart tightened. The next instant, another beam descended in silence. "Hah—even a Saint loses his cool?" Though scrambling to dodge, Bai Zhou was amused. "What, suddenly struck mute? Because Saints don't like to talk?" Behind him, in the cargo bed, Fang Xiaoxia and the Gem Witch exchanged a speechless glance, their expressions peculiar. Watching the constant back-and-forth between Bai Zhou and Major Luo, they suddenly felt, by unspoken agreement, that they were a bit superfluous. The Major had come for Fang Xiaoxia, yet the moment Bai Zhou appeared, the two of them had eyes for no one else—only the pure urge to kill each other. To the death! Just a moment ago, sitting in the jolting tricycle, Fang Xiaoxia had thought this scene, for all its danger, was also rather romantic. A flying world hundreds of kilometers per hour spanned half the city. Because of its enormous size it looked slow, but it was really like a giant monster—a single casual step would take an ordinary person half a day of full sprinting to cover. High above the city, amid the wails of the multitude, if the story followed its course, any moment now the beloved superhero should appear before all eyes... And then, would Bai Zhou feel the bond between them? Would the two of them shout things like "light" and "bonds," combine and transform into a giant with a timer on its chest, and send decapitating light-rings flying with a wave of the hand? But now Fang Xiaoxia suddenly felt her thoughts were a bit superfluous. She herself felt a bit superfluous. Maybe she shouldn't be in the cargo bed. Maybe she should be under it... "Whoom! Whoom! Whoom!" The second and third beams fell in succession! One blocked Bai Zhou's path; one cut off his flank. They worked together with perfect timing. "Here they come!" Fortunately, a certain human-shaped navigator's warning came faster than the eerie beams. "Left turn!" Bai Zhou trusted Crow's directions without question, turning before he even lifted his head. Even so, the edge of the cargo bed clipped the rim of a beam. The powerful suction made the whole vehicle lurch downward, as if an invisible hand had grabbed the side and yanked it with a clang. "Damn it!" Bai Zhou staggered. Amid the startled cries from behind, he pedaled with all his might while the glowing ritual on the frame fought to keep the tricycle balanced, and only then did they tear free. Water sprayed everywhere. Sparks flared and died in an instant. The rear wheel even carved a deep gouge into the concrete highway. Bai Zhou kept provoking the Major and cursing as if he were relaxed, but that was partly to keep the two behind him from panicking. The real situation was known only to Bai Zhou—and it was far more dangerous than they could see. The Gem Witch gripped the edge of the cargo bed, her face somewhat pale, yet her eyes behind the mask burned with startling brightness. She looked up at the colossal thing rapidly closing in overhead and called out, "Those beams are getting more accurate—I think it's adapting to your driving habits. And there's no cover out here at all. This is bad!" "Bad?" Bai Zhou ground his teeth. "Then I won't let him adapt!" With a screech, the tricycle swerved and charged straight up a steep slope, plunging into the dense forest. "Da-da-da-da-da!" The frame rattled violently. "Re-re-re-re-re—reckless!" The two girls in the back were jolted into stutterers. "Lo-lo-lo-lo—look at the road!" Bai Zhou's legs pumped furiously, the chain nearly throwing sparks—drifting, fishtailing, one-wheel slides, airborne leaps, even springing off rock faces. He was absurdly nimble. A desperado roaming earth and sky—the limits of man and machine were wrung dry at this moment. Bai Zhou, utterly focused, was like a monkey swinging through the mountains. The previous owner of this pedal tricycle would never have dreamed that this rusty old vegetable-selling cart could pull off so many near-acrobatic stunts in its lifetime. Even if it broke down the next second, it could brag to the other tricycles in the underworld for ten thousand years. The mind-linked ritual was still active. In the gaps between the forest's curves, Bai Zhou remembered to ask Crow: "We can't keep running forever. Any chance to hit him back?" Bai Zhou clenched his teeth. He wanted to counterattack. The spear-head in his Fate Principle that was meant to slay demons had been itching to strike, but Bai Zhou knew this might not be the right moment to use it. "I can't figure it out... how did he suddenly get this strong?" Bai Zhou was baffled. The Major from before didn't have this kind of power—carrying an entire world and flying it here? If you had this kind of strength all along, why bother with schemes and conspiracies? Just become the top figure in Tinghai City and settle whatever you want behind closed doors with the other big shots. "This Major Luo..." Crow stood in midair with arms crossed, gazing from afar at that world sweeping across the sky. Her eyes traced past the white hemisphere suspended between sea and sky, back toward the direction from which it had come. Ritual symbols flowed densely behind her eyes. The howling mountain wind, the falling rain, the swaying leaves—all carried distant messages to her. The night's biggest news in this city, or rather, the utterly unhideable commotion from far away, was drawn to her through the ritual. "..." Before long, Crow's face paled for an instant. Clearly, such a long-range, high-intensity information-gathering ritual placed no small burden even on her. Fortunately, she could confirm that the site of the event was Longluo Private High School. Using Bai Zhou as the intermediary medium who had turned Longluo into a sea of fire, Crow had gleaned fragments of information from there. Simple deduction combined with the known facts let Crow roughly piece together what Major Luo was going through. "Major Luo's Ascension to Sainthood Project is probably already halfway complete!" Crow shook her head, her voice grave. "But an incomplete Ascension is no Ascension at all!" "Good news—that arrow of yours did have an effect after all. And the Gem Witch may have contributed as well." Crow glanced at the Gem Witch perched on the edge of the cargo bed. "A lot of big names converged on Longluo Private High School and forced Major Luo to show himself properly in front of them. Nowhere to retreat, no road to heaven, no door into the earth." "Creak—" While Crow spoke, the tricycle swung a heart-stopping arc along the slick mountain road, the cargo bed behind rattling and swaying amid the girls' cries. Bai Zhou pedaled for dear life while stealing a moment to reply: "So then... he actually went up to heaven?" "Right." Crow nodded. "In an ancient text over two thousand years old—the San Wu Li Ji, compiled by certain Extraordinary predecessors—it is written:" "Heaven and earth were混沌 like a chicken's egg, and Pangu was born within it... The clear yang became the sky, the turbid yin became the earth. Pangu dwelt within, transforming nine times a day—divine in heaven, sage on earth!" "Though no one alive has truly witnessed it, the Extraordinary ones speculate that so-called Saints and demons, these two naturally opposed yet inconceivable existences, are born of heaven and earth themselves, and are protected by heaven and earth during their formation, with strange phenomena appearing at their birth in celebration." "Just as an eggshell protects the embryo within—the 'womb' formed by heaven and earth likewise shields the embryo inside." Crow's voice rang clear through the howling wind. "According to this theory, in rituals of demon worship and demon summoning, the Extraordinary ones deliberately cultivate a 'womb' made of flesh and blood as the key to the rite, and it often works." "You've seen this for yourself in the Reflected Ruin Realm." Bai Zhou nodded, recalling the blasphemous scenes he had witnessed in the Reflected Ruin Realm, and felt a chill run through him. "But now it seems the facts bear it out. We are both fortunate and unfortunate—fortunate to have confirmed what most Extraordinary ones over the years could never be certain of: that this layer of 'eggshell' truly exists." Crow turned to look at the white hemisphere bearing down with unstoppable force, and said in a low voice: "Over a hundred years ago, an Extraordinary predecessor of the alchemist pathway sought to forge an 'artificial heaven'—something akin to this kind of 'eggshell.'" "Of course, some called such a thing by names from myth—Niflheim, the Mist Country, and so on—just as people also borrow those names for the Reflected Ruin Realm." "People hoped to gain eternal life within such a world, free of all the troubles of the mortal realm." Crow shook her head. "But now it seems the eggshell's greatest function is simply to keep outsiders out—a world utterly incompatible with the one we live in." Bai Zhou's thoughts stirred. "Isn't that the same as the Reflected Ruin Realm?" As he spoke, Bai Zhou cranked the wheel hard, and the tricycle nearly tipped as it plunged down a steep grade, wheels flinging mud and water. "Yes, but a Reflected Ruin Realm that outsiders cannot enter—one that has an owner." Crow confirmed it, then turned toward the vast world sweeping through the sky and let out a strange, quiet laugh. "But now... this world is extending an invitation to you!" "Tell me something I don't know." Bai Zhou rolled his eyes. "I'm not interested in his invitation!" "Mm... right turn!" Crow prompted again. Bai Zhou bent low and drove his feet down without lifting his head. The wheels spun, sparks flew, and the tricycle seemed to gain another notch of speed. Amid the dense, rugged mountain forest, a bizarre chase was playing out. Above, a pure white hemisphere radiating holy light closed in slowly, like a divine sun descending—below, a youth carried two girls on an old pedal tricycle, fleeing madly across every kind of terrain. Between them, beams of light fell again and again, weaving into a vast white net that mercilessly leveled layer upon layer of forest—like a monstrous net being slowly drawn shut. Bai Zhou knew this one. In those "Unsolved Mysteries of the World" from Eight Thousand Questions of Naughty Black Cat, aliens did exactly this—sailing flying saucers under cover of night and lowering light beams onto the heads of sleeping people. By the time the victims opened their eyes on the operating table, they were surrounded by hideous aliens. Bai Zhou figured that maybe this was the work of people like Major Luo too. Weren't those deformed aliens just a copy of the Luo family's nine Deformed Children? Major Luo really was a terrible person! "Actually, you are already counterattacking." Crow spoke up. "What do you mean?" Bai Zhou blinked. "The countdown hanging at the top of the world—you've seen it, right?" The countdown hung in the sky like an electronic clock, letters scrolling across it: 【Time remaining until the exam ends...】 【5:50:20】 Amid the tossing leaves and howling wind and rain, Bai Zhou glanced back over his shoulder with the corner of his eye, then nodded. "I've seen it." "I believe that is the countdown of Major Luo's life." Crow analyzed. "This is the strongest moment of Major Luo's entire life—or you could say, the final flare of a dying man." "Before dawn, if he cannot obtain Fang Xiaoxia, the Saint will never be born. A miscarried Saint will vanish along with that world. Conversely, if he does obtain her, he wins—he completes his Ascension to Sainthood and turns Tinghai into the pool of his divine kingdom." "This is his true last stand, forced into it with no way out!" Weighing all the intelligence gathered so far against the Major's current display, Crow delivered her verdict in a grave voice. "These six hours are the last gamble of his life!" "He is no match for the official forces. Cornered by all of you, he was forced to activate a half-finished ritual and push himself into a temporary state of half-Ascension." "But even half-Ascended, he still cannot handle the official heroes—so he needs to hide inside this 'eggshell' to survive." Crow said grimly, "In these six hours, the officials will try everything to break the shell and kill Major Luo, while Major Luo will try everything to kill you before they kill him." "This is a chase, and a war of attrition." "Time is on our side. There is no need for you to go into his stronghold and trade blows with him at his peak." "After all, so long as we drag it out for these five-plus hours..." Crow's words carried a double meaning. "The sky will brighten!" "I see." Bai Zhou understood. "So that's the countdown of Major Luo's life." "And the last five-plus hours before dawn." Having grasped this, Bai Zhou set aside the idea of fighting Major Luo to the death for the moment. Only a fool would fight to the death with someone already dying. The tide had turned—the initiative was now on Bai Zhou's side. Every minute and second of his flight was another drain on Major Luo's life. The world rumbled across the sky like a massive train running the star-road, and Bai Zhou's role was that of a thief who had hopped aboard and then jumped off. He mentally weighed the edge of the Dark-Red Spear in his Fate Principle space a couple of times, and felt somewhat steadier. If the Major stayed holed up inside that world, Bai Zhou's spear truly could not touch it—but after six hours, Major Luo would die on his own. Even if the Major managed to drag Bai Zhou inside, Bai Zhou would find an opening to loose the spear, and at worst it would be an even fifty-fifty chance. A Bai Zhou killed by the enemy would still get one chance to loose the spear before he died. He was certain the other side would not come out unscathed. But the spear had to be released at the most critical moment—when he was certain the target really was Major Luo himself, and when a killing blow was assured. He hadn't managed to fully kill the demon last time... This time, he could not make that mistake again! So if he could simply drag the man to death, that would be the best, most perfect outcome—and it would save him a one-time trump card. The mere existence of that trump card gave Bai Zhou peace of mind and let him flee with an easier heart. With Crow's analysis, Bai Zhou, having sorted it all out, was no longer so tense. Instead, he faced forward with his head high and chest out, as if the cargo bed behind him carried not two girls, but a full load of weapons, ammunition, rockets, and bombs. Behind him spread the terrifying web of interlocking light. The pedal tricycle rattled forward without hesitation—the knight charging valiantly and gloriously in the opposite direction from the enemy! Rain fell in unbroken threads, wrapping the winding mountain road in a hazy veil of vapor. A black-and-white traffic patrol car sat parked not far from the mountain road's entrance, its roof light rotating slowly, casting red and blue flashes across the wet, dark pavement. Two uniformed officers, one older and one younger, were chatting inside the car. "Those people really are useless, aren't they? So many of them and they can't catch a single Maserati?" The older officer pulled his uniform jacket tighter and lit a cigarette in the car. "Even if they couldn't catch the lead car, they didn't catch the ones behind either?" "Maybe the driver has connections?" The younger officer was hunched in the passenger seat, gnawing on a piece of bread. Rain pattered against the window beside him, tinted red and blue by the patrol light. "Street racers—how many of them don't have connections?" The older officer snorted twice, recalling a memorable encounter not long ago. A yellow flash, utterly oblivious to his authority, had blown past him as if he didn't exist, speeding off without a care. The speed—321 kilometers per hour—had blown out the newest smart speed detector. The wind pressure from that bastard had even plucked the half-smoked cigarette right out of his hand. That was worth several yuan! "I told you that smart speed detector was broken!" Thinking of the detector again, the older officer grumbled. "Heard the old-style detector next door never broke—delicate little thing, nothing but trouble!" As he spoke, the older officer instinctively glanced to the side. The old-style speed detector, newly back on duty, stood silently out in the rain, without a sound. The younger officer immediately turned to look. "So that three-hundred-kilometers-per-hour reading really was a malfunction?" "Not exactly." The older officer shook his head. "Heard the speed it measured was even higher." Younger officer: "..." "Creak—" A harsh sound came from inside the car. In the driver's seat, the older officer rolled down the ancient window. The wind and rain outside suddenly became piercingly clear, mingling with the clammy damp cold as it seeped into their ears. "Ptui!" He spat out the window, lifted the cigarette butt in his hand, and let the curling blue smoke drift into the black rainy night. "This damned weather, this hour—they pull us two out to stake out this godforsaken wilderness. There's probably some venting involved." The older officer rolled his eyes. "And the excuse... they got word that someone might be street-racing on the mountain roads around Zhenlu Mountain late at night?" "A more ridiculous reason than my great-great-grandmother rising from her grave in the deep mountains at midnight. Who in their right mind would race on these switchbacks, on a night where the road is slippery enough to kill?" It was plain the older officer was brimming with overtime resentment, and he dismissed it with a snort of contempt. "If you want to die, just jump off the mountaintop—no need to wreck an extra car doing it." "Master, watch your words, don't go talking about death and ghosts..." The younger officer glanced up at the pitch-black forest outside the car and the drizzling mountain rain, and couldn't suppress a shiver. "After all, this is a place where even birds won't—" He didn't finish. "RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!" A distant sound, like the roar of a wild beast, mixed into the sky-filling wind and rain, abruptly came from the direction of the forest, reaching their ears. "What is that?!" The older officer snapped upright in his seat, professional instinct putting him on instant alert. "It's not on the highway—it's behind us!" The younger officer jolted. "In the woods behind us!" "Swish swish swish swish swish swish swish!" Something utterly unlike an engine's roar, and unlike a beast's roar either—more like wind-fire wheels spinning madly—raced toward them. Faintly, they could hear chains and gears groaning under extreme load. "What the hell is that..." The older officer muttered, poking his head out the open window and looking back. The next instant— "CRASH!!!" At the edge of the dense forest behind the car, a thicket of bushes burst apart to both sides! As shredded branches and mud flew, a blurred shape shot out of the woods like a cannonball—in full flight. "CLANG! CLANG!" Under the dumbstruck gaze of the two officers, the thing that had burst from the forest crashed heavily onto the highway. Its iron frame buckled with a strained groan, and sparks spat furiously across the pavement. The thing lay across the road. In that brief instant, by the light of the patrol car's headlights, the two officers finally managed to make out what it was— A pedal tricycle covered head to foot in mud, rust, and suspicious scratches! And a thoroughly battle-damaged one at that. Two figures sat in the cargo bed. The one pedaling at the very front, in that split second upon landing, turned to glance at the two men in the patrol car. Their eyes met. In that moment, both sides felt the other looked somehow familiar. But Bai Zhou had no time to dwell on it. In the glare of the headlights, he flashed the two inside the car a friendly grin, then leaned forward and drove down on the pedals again. His legs spun like windmills, so fast they left afterimages, and the old tricycle's wheels, with a few sharp screeches, tore straight down the highway and away. Launch and gone—the old tricycle and the three people on it vanished from the two officers' sight in an instant. A massive blast of wind swept past, plucking the half-smoked cigarette from the older officer's fingers as if pulling a radish. The whole thing was over in a flash. From the tricycle bursting out of the woods to its disappearance, the entire event lasted less than three seconds, leaving them almost convinced they had hallucinated it. But then— "Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!" Beside the patrol car, the old-style speed detector that had just been set up—its screen numbers flickered wildly once, then with a snap, settled on 321 km/h. A familiar number. But the device wasn't broken. It simply toppled over with a crash, carried down by the wind pressure. And the familiar cigarette snatch. Only this time, what had appeared before them was an old pedal tricycle. "That fork up ahead leads to the highway, right... is this tricycle getting on the highway?" The absurd, bizarre sight left the older officer's expression almost blank. At the edge of the open window, even the hand he raised was trembling, two fingers spread as if still pinching that half cigarette butt. "Can't go opening car windows so casually anymore." His face ashen, he muttered, then turned to the apprentice beside him: "We two might really have seen..." "Seen—seen a ghost!" Silence all around. Only the fallen speed detector remained, drenched by rain, its red light blinking, beeping its alarm... just like before. Twice in one night. The chase between the old tricycle and the white world went on. With the mountains and this city as their map, the two figures—one in the sky, one on the ground—were both racing against death. "They can't see the world flying overhead, can they?" Bai Zhou had noticed. "Ignorance is a mercy." Flying beside him, Crow shook her head calmly. "If they did see it, they'd probably think the world was ending and faint dead away." Bai Zhou nodded. "Good thing old Luo's attention is fixed entirely on us right now—he won't bother with ordinary people." The old tricycle hadn't gone far on the slick highway before it took a fork onto the expressway. The ETC sensing arm at the entrance didn't even have time to lift—the tricycle sailed over it atop a whirlwind. The whole highway seemed abandoned outside of time, stretching straight into the thick, impenetrable darkness ahead. Endless torrential rain shrouded everything in sight, and white mist rose in unbroken waves. The tiny tricycle on the highway reminded Bai Zhou of how, not long ago, he had driven a Maserati across an overpass. "Splash—" The old tricycle passed a public service billboard: "Fatigued Driving Harms Others and Yourself." The slogan made Bai Zhou think of the exhausting toil of pedaling all this way. But weary as he was, he had to keep charging. A boy racing against death had no spare breath for complaining about fatigue. Beside the public service billboard, the guardrail was pitted and dented, as if struck by a car—as if using the most direct means to remind people what fatigued driving leads to. Behind the guardrail stretched an endless expanse of farmland. Past this stretch of highway, they would re-enter the inner districts of Tinghai from the suburbs. Behind him, that pure white small world still hung high at the far edge of the night. Yet for some reason, the frequency of its light beams had begun to drop. Originally, even with Bai Zhou drenched in sweat and giving it every ounce of strength he had, bolstered by all manner of acceleration rituals, Major Luo had been steadily closing the gap. From over a hundred kilometers at first, to dozens, to the few kilometers that left Bai Zhou gasping for air... Just as Major Luo, shouldering the white world, was about to catch him and hover right above his head— It began to lose steam. Its speed gradually fell, and the distance between them slowly widened. "That's it, Major Luo?" Bai Zhou didn't dare slow his desperate pedaling, only staring back at the white world with uncertainty. "Do you two feel something's off?" he asked the pair behind him. "Not really..." Prompted by Bai Zhou, the Gem Witch began scanning their surroundings warily but could find nothing amiss. "What's wrong?" "I can't put my finger on it." Bai Zhou shook his head. "I just feel Major Luo shouldn't be running out of steam this fast... He's not as strong as I expected." Bai Zhou had already steeled himself to be caught, cornered with no retreat, forced into a last stand. But just as he was mulling it over, the white world behind him suddenly accelerated again, closing the distance. For some reason, Bai Zhou was no longer nervous about Major Luo's approach—he even felt vaguely relieved. He couldn't help recalling Crow's words from the past... Sure enough, in the mystical world, the unknown was the most terrifying thing of all. But just as that world was about to catch Bai Zhou— It began to slow once more. Like a rubber band stretched to its limit, then released a fraction. ...It cycled through this twice more, and Bai Zhou's unease deepened. The "Fatigued Driving Harms Others and Yourself" public service billboard passing by seemed to console him—perhaps he was simply tired, so exhausted that his mind was conjuring worries. "No!" Bai Zhou suddenly snarled, his heart pounding wildly. "What is it? What happened?" Fang Xiaoxia and the Gem Witch behind both asked with concern, and even Crow beside him shot him an inquiring look. Bai Zhou didn't answer right away. He widened his eyes, his gaze fixed on his surroundings. The "Fatigued Driving Harms Others and Yourself" public service billboard? And that pitted, dented guardrail beside it, looking as if it had been hit by a car?! "That billboard!" Bai Zhou shouted. "How many times have we passed it?!" At his words, the Gem Witch behind him jolted as if waking from a dream, her whole body going rigid. "The... the fourth time!" Fourth time? Bai Zhou shot back, "On a single highway, would there be four identical billboards—down to the exact same damaged guardrail beside it?" The Gem Witch drew a sharp breath. "Unless... it's the same billboard, and we've been through it four times!" A sinister chill shot from their spines straight to their brains, and cold sweat instantly soaked their backs. "So we've been... going in circles?" Bai Zhou's voice came out dry. No matter how fast the tricycle pedaled beneath them, they were only going round and round on the expressway. What should have been a straight highway had somehow become an endless ring. They seemed trapped in some kind of loop, riding a tricycle around inside it, forever doomed never to stop. This wasn't right. Even the white world chasing them from behind... Bai Zhou twisted around in the tricycle—only to find that the white world, which had relentlessly pursued him and never given up, had vanished at some unknown point. A black curtain of rain shrouded the expressway, and the whole road seemed abandoned outside the world. The endless straight stretch turned Bai Zhou cold all over. "Screech—" He wrenched the handlebars, and the pedal tricycle—having run who-knew-how-many hundreds of kilometers tonight, hardworking and exhausted—skidded to a stop. The slick roadside sent the tricycle sliding far, and with a boom, it slammed into the guardrail beside the public service billboard. Bai Zhou's gaze sharpened. "This is..." The front of the old tricycle and the existing dents in the guardrail fit together in that moment with seamless perfection. As if those dents in the guardrail had been made by this very tricycle crashing into it. "Did I hit this?" Rain pounded against Bai Zhou. On this pitch-black, broad expressway, he heard the hiss of falling water, and his sharp eyes carefully swept the surroundings. Then— "Rustle..." An out-of-place sound threaded into the rain. "This is...?" Exam papers, yellowed with age, appeared like big-character posters across the guardrails on both sides of the highway, densely packed and stretching endlessly outward in both directions. 【Before answering, candidates must fill in their name and admission ticket number on the answer sheet...】 【If p: | winter 2, q: winter a, and p is a sufficient but not necessary condition for q, then the range of values for a is ( )】 【Which of the following analyses and appreciations of the text's content and artistic features is correct? ( )】 【What associations and reflections did the above material inspire in you? Please write an essay. Requirements: choose the right angle, establish your thesis, determine the genre, and set your own title...】 【Suppose you are Li Hua, a student of Longluo Private High School. Your Western Federation friend luoluo plans to contribute to the Today column of their school newspaper, intending to focus on the development achievements of the Eastern Federation. He has emailed you for advice. Please reply to him in English...】 ... The exam papers stretched on, dense and endless, all the way to the far end of the highway. They were all silently "watching" Bai Zhou. The rain falling from above gradually turned black, becoming a torrent of ink pouring down, thick with a pungent, stinging smell. The highway was like a living thing waking up. In that moment, every detail squirmed and transformed with shocking changes. "Yi! Hit! A direct hit!" Suddenly, a joyful shout rang out across the entire highway. "What is that?" Bai Zhou's pupils contracted; his unease peaked. Then— "CLANG!!!" A golden gong was struck, its piercing sound crashing over everything, deafening. Then came several great drums, a clash of cymbals, mingling with the lilting notes of a flute and an erhu. Finally, a suona blared out in a soaring cry— Treading upon the gongs and drums, a man in red appeared at the far end of the highway, framed by the dense thicket of exam papers on both guardrails, making his entrance amid the endless rain of ink. His face was painted with heavy greasepaint, a long beard hanging from his chin, his eyes smeared a grotesque, ludicrous black. "This is...?" Bai Zhou and the others were all dumbfounded. Even the ever-composed Crow couldn't help but start. "Where did this opera singer come from?" Fang Xiaoxia looked like she'd seen a ghost. Lifting the hem of his ink-stained red robe, hitching up his scarlet trouser legs, he stepped high to the side, and in an eerie, husky voice, he began to sing in operatic style. He said—or rather, he sang— "Dressed in a great red robe, swaying here and rocking there, up onto the Golden Turtle Jade Bridge I go..." Swaying his great red-robed frame, three steps to a lurch, walking and singing: "You sit up day and night and burn your heart's blood for the test; it squanders your finest years like so much dust!" "You can't tell the seedling from the weed; you can't lift with your arms or carry on your shoulders!" "Your hair turns white, your teeth all fall out; your back bows and your shoulders hunch!" With each line, the swaying man took a few steps out of the mist, his tall figure growing clearer in their eyes. "Test, test, test! Test, test, test!" "Tested every year, tested every month—tested to death..." The operatic voice paused for a beat, and then the singer's eyes suddenly went wide with fury, glaring at Bai Zhou, his voice rolling out like thunder— "Tested to death—one life is all you get!" The instant the song ended, with a rustle, the man flung his sleeve again. The ink on his sleeve all fell to the ground, and the greasepaint on his face receded like a tide, revealing the face Bai Zhou knew well. Major Luo. He looked at Bai Zhou, neither smiling nor frowning, the operatic cadence still in his voice: "Do not laugh at Fan Jin passing the imperial exam—today, you too... have fallen into my snare." "CLANG—" As if answering the aria, gongs and drums thundered. With a series of rumbling sounds, countless arms in school uniforms reached out from the exam papers. Then came the numb heads, then the torsos... No legs. One after another, half-bodied figures in school uniforms surged out from both sides like a tide. Then another suona sounded—like a rooster crowing at the break of dawn. "Ding—" Amid the shrill suona, at the far end of the highway, a "sun" rose— Or rather, something like the sun—that familiar white world—slowly rose at the end of the highway. The thing that had vanished from behind him was now waiting there, quietly. More precisely, whether before Bai Zhou or behind him, at both ends of the highway, identical white worlds had appeared on the horizon. "So that's it..." With the two "suns" waiting fore and aft, Bai Zhou understood. After chasing for so long without result, Major Luo had simply stopped chasing from behind. The white world behind him had seemed sometimes fast and sometimes slow because—unknown to him—it had long since ceased to be the real white world! It had only meant to herd Bai Zhou onto this highway. Because this highway was precisely the bridge Major Luo had laid—a bridge leading into the white world! From the moment they set foot on this Ring 8 expressway, Bai Zhou and the others had walked into the trap. No matter which way they went, the end could only be the place where Major Luo stood. "Hum—" The blade sang. Looking at the man in the long robe before him, who seemed so cheerful and festive, Bai Zhou silently drew his purple-gold saber and Light-Shadow Harmony. Weapons in hand, Bai Zhou felt a measure of confidence return. "Rustle..." Fore and aft, left and right, countless exam papers fluttered in the wind and rain, like countless eyes fixed upon Bai Zhou's figure. In that moment, Bai Zhou knew— They, these desperados who had ridden an old pedal tricycle across the wind and rain, fleeing halfway across the city, At last had nowhere left to run!