Mu Ke opened the black leather notebook and spread it out for everyone to see. On the upper-left side of the page, a faxed report had clearly been pasted in.

Mu Ke pointed to the alphanumeric code in the lower-left corner. “The code here is 0807. You should all be quite familiar with this date.”

“0807,” Liu Jiayi read aloud. She seemed to realize something and looked toward Bai Liu. “That’s the date we entered this game.”

Liu Jiayi was already somewhat familiar with this sort of routine. Thinking back to the design of the previous game, she became even more certain of the conjecture Bai Liu had told her.

—The mastermind behind this game was deliberately targeting Bai Liu, specifically making instances manifest in the real world in ways connected to him or to the people around him.

This feeling of being plotted against from behind the scenes...

Liu Jiayi pursed her lips in displeasure.

Bai Liu’s gaze fell on the faxed report from one year ago. The English on it was relatively simple, so he could understand it.

The fax had been sent from another base called Taishan. The name was clearly Chinese, so this should have been a fax sent from a domestic observation station to Edmund Base.

The general contents of the fax were as follows:

[We are deeply sorry that such a tragic accident occurred while our plane was landing at the ice airfield during the transport of dangerous goods... The five escorts aboard the plane also passed away at the scene...]

[Although this outcome is heartbreaking, it is not entirely beyond our expectations. Surviving in ice and snow is a nightmare for everyone.]

[And the sole meaning of our presence here is to study more past and future trajectories of meteorological development, to slow the rate of global warming, and to struggle until the very end so that all of humanity may better coexist with nature. This is the meaning of life for every Antarctic worker...]

[...All observation station personnel participated in the search and rescue of the aircraft. However, during our inventory, we discovered that three sealed boxes were missing from the cargo hold of the crashed aircraft. The number did not match the original count. Although I do not wish to speculate about you in this manner, in Antarctica, it is not easy for dark metal boxes to disappear across the vast white land without human intervention...]

[I know that researchers who remain in Antarctica for long periods maintain an intense curiosity toward mysterious foreign objects in such an extremely monotonous environment. You always want to explore and analyze everything, always believing that whatever is hidden inside may be the key to saving humanity and slowing global warming...]

[Edmund, I must warn you solemnly: those boxes are extremely dangerous. I cannot tell you what is inside them; that information is not permitted to be made public. I can only tell you that those boxes were originally meant to be buried beneath the “Pole of Inaccessibility,” never to be touched by anyone...]

[But Edmund, there are always certain dangerous things in this world that are worth holding in awe, not touching or studying. Not everything, like the weather, possesses only objective harm...]

[If you discover any trace of those three missing boxes, please be sure to tell me. I need to seal them beneath Dome A immediately.]

The signature read:

[Your friend—Taishan Observation Station]

“This was a mass fax sent to all observation stations, likely not only to Edmund Observation Station.” Bai Liu reached a conclusion after finishing the report. He raised his eyes and scanned the surroundings. “Those three boxes were probably hidden by researchers from other observation stations.”

“Based on the main storyline of this game, we should first find the boxes, then use the boxes to find the cause of global cooling. One of them should be hidden inside Edmund Observation Station.”

Bai Liu looked at Mu Ke. “Mu Ke, you and Liu Jiayi stay at the original station and search for other clues. Tang Erda, Mu Shicheng, and I will gather food and bring it with us as we prepare to visit other nearby observation stations and search for the remaining boxes.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and split up to carry out their tasks.

Bai Liu turned his gaze toward Tang Erda, who had been silent and grim-faced. “Captain Tang, please come here for a moment. I’d like to speak with you privately.”

Tang Erda’s silhouette paused just as he was about to turn and leave. Then he turned back and silently followed Bai Liu into a living cabin.

Bai Liu closed the door behind them.

Inside the cramped five-square-meter cabin, the two men were silent for a while. Although Bai Liu had said he wanted to speak with Tang Erda, he showed no intention of opening the conversation first. He merely crossed his arms and lowered his eyes calmly, as though waiting for Tang Erda to speak.

And so Tang Erda spoke first.

His expression was heavy, and his voice was hoarse. “...I’m sorry. My judgment was flawed. I shouldn’t have let you hand the corpse pieces over to the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau. I didn’t expect it to...”

After receiving this apology, Bai Liu finally followed Tang Erda’s words at an unhurried pace. “The fault isn’t entirely yours. This decision was also something I considered for myself. Objectively speaking, I really did not have preservation conditions as complete as the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau’s, which is why I decided to leave the corpse pieces in the flower field for the Bureau to excavate and seal.”

But subjectively, although Bai Liu knew that this situation had been pushed from behind the scenes by someone and would have been unavoidable regardless, and although he also knew that the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau had already done its best—

After learning that Xie Ta’s body had actually ended up in such a state, Bai Liu’s mood was still faintly, subtly unpleasant.

Bai Liu had originally intended to preserve Xie Ta’s body himself in the real world. But considering the influence of the body, as well as the fact that Bai Liu did not have a residence of his own in reality—he was still living in a cheap rental house—he had eventually compromised after discussing it with Tang Erda. They decided to leave the corpse pieces where they were and allow the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau to take them over.

It could be considered Bai Liu giving Tang Erda some face.

But he had not expected to be proven wrong so quickly.

Tang Erda was worried about the five escorts in reality while also painfully accepting Bai Liu’s seemingly nonchalant, yet actually barbed, questioning. For a moment, his heart filled with an indescribable bitterness, and he was even somewhat distracted. His eyes bloodshot, he lowered his head and said hoarsely again, “...It’s my fault. Otherwise, those five escorts wouldn’t have lost their lives...”

“It isn’t certain that they’re dead yet.” Bai Liu calmly cut Tang Erda off.

Tang Erda abruptly looked up despite himself. He stared straight at Bai Liu. “You have a way?!”

For one instant, Bai Liu felt as though Tang Erda’s ears and tail had popped out with a shua.

This Coach Tang was uncompromising and strict with everyone during training, which often made Bai Liu forget that this man originally had the personality of a canine animal.

But after Tang Erda blurted that out, he seemed unable to hide his shame. He looked away and clenched his fist tightly, forcibly changing his words. “It’s fine if you don’t. I’ll try logging out of the game first and see whether I can stop the plane from taking off...”

From Tang Erda’s point of view, this situation was mainly his fault, and Bai Liu could even be considered a victim. Yet now, he was asking that victim to help think of a solution...

In short, it was not something Tang Erda was capable of doing.

Bai Liu had already had one exchange with the person behind the scenes during “Rose Factory.” Based on his understanding of that person, they were not the sort of game designer who would mercifully leave them a loophole to exploit.

He calmly stretched out a hand, stopping Tang Erda from tapping open his panel. “The plane has most likely already taken off. If you log out of the game and return to reality, it will only accelerate the passage of time. It would be better to clear this game first, find out why things developed this way, and look for a way to salvage the situation.”

Tang Erda slowly lowered his panel. “You have a plan for the game?”

Bai Liu nodded. “I do, but I’m still lacking information. This game was designed with the real world as its background reference. You said earlier that you received training in Antarctica in reality, so you should be relatively familiar with the situation here. Tell me the specifics.”

“Where should I start?” Tang Erda asked.

Bai Liu lifted his eyelids. “Start from the beginning and go through everything. For example, why did you come here to receive training?”

Tang Erda took a deep breath. “...I was stationed here for a year. I flew helicopters for a while, carrying out the ‘District Four Plan.’”

Bai Liu raised an eyebrow. “District Four Plan?”

Tang Erda explained, “The ‘District Four Plan’ was a project to investigate whether Antarctica’s geographical environment was suitable for establishing a new Heretic Management District. Because Antarctica is sparsely populated, it’s very suitable for sealing away Level S Dangerous Heretics.”

“Then why wasn’t it built in the end?” Bai Liu asked.

“Because it was too difficult to avoid observation team members from other countries during large-scale construction here. The domestic observation team members knew a little about the ‘District Four Plan,’ because the matter of building a new district had been communicated to them. But the foreign observation team members knew nothing about anything related to heretics.”

Tang Erda sighed. “Antarctica’s permanent population in summer exceeds five thousand people. We had no way to risk revealing the existence of heretics to everyone by building a new district here. In the end, the ‘District Four Plan’ was abandoned.”

Bai Liu asked, neither warmly nor coldly, “Then why did his corpse pieces make you restart this plan?”

“The archived data from the ‘District Four Plan’ showed that, if a highly dangerous mental-pollution-source heretic needed to be sealed, this would be the safest sealing location,” Tang Erda said.

Bai Liu shifted the topic. “Do you have any impression of this Edmund Observation Station?”

Tang Erda paused slightly and thought back. Then he replied, “No. There is no such observation station in the real world.”

Bai Liu asked, “What about Taishan Observation Station?”

Tang Erda shook his head honestly. “If my memory isn’t mistaken, the domestic observation station isn’t called that either.”

Bai Liu nodded as though he understood.

It seemed the situation was the same as in “The Last Train to Blast Off.”

The person behind everything had referenced reality, but had not completely substituted reality into the game design.

Bai Liu changed the way he asked. “Then, in your memory, do you know of any observation station located near the Pole?”

Judging from the Antarctic map posted on the wall of Edmund Observation Station in the game, Edmund Observation Station was located about a hundred meters from the South Pole.

Tang Erda frowned. “...Yes. There is an observation station from Country A located there.”

Bai Liu followed up. “Then do you know what kind of research they’re mainly conducting now?”

Tang Erda realized what Bai Liu wanted to ask. He answered slowly and with some difficulty. “...I’m not clear on the specifics. Publicly, their research concerns the impact of special low-temperature organisms on climate recovery. When I was here, I heard other team members tell me that the special low-temperature organisms they study include two forms: living and dead...”

“Bai Liu—”

Mu Shicheng rushed in hurriedly, holding something unknown in his arms. He did not even knock. Panting, he excitedly stuffed the thing in his hands into Bai Liu’s arms.

“Look at this!”

Bai Liu lowered his head and looked at the object in his hands.

It was a square package tightly wrapped in waterproof cloth, with a waterproof label pasted onto it.

Written on the label in English was:

[Special Low-Temperature Organism Fragment Section (Cells Still Active) and Record of Surface Temperature Change Research]