Chapter 2: Sang Chen Knows Something’s Off (2)

Sang Chen felt it in his gut—something was wrong.

He had rushed into a perfectly normal high-speed rail station on a cold, damp, rainy day. Boarded what should have been an ordinary train, instead he walked into this carriage.

A carriage full of people who were more unsettling than desperate fugitives.

And the only thing they seemed to care about was the date.

Not the precise time, like how many hours or minutes had passed, but what year it was.

Earlier, the middle-aged man across from him had asked if Sang Chen had ever used a three-fold smartphone. That wasn’t small talk—it was a way to figure out what era he belonged to. That was all that mattered to them.

Now, after the wiry man read out the date, the tension in the carriage rippled ever so slightly. The stillness cracked just enough for the atmosphere to feel almost normal again.

A boy with an unexpectedly cute face plucked the phone right out of the wiry man’s hands. “Hey, don’t freak her out, alright?”

He walked over to the girl and handed it back to her with an easy smile. “Here you go, beautiful. No need to be scared.”

The girl’s face turned red, bit by bit.

“Aww, your eyes are all red,” the cute boy murmured, looking at her sympathetically. “That’s just heartbreaking.”

She opened her mouth, looking stunned. Maybe she hadn’t expected someone she’d found terrifying just moments ago to suddenly be so… gentle. She was at a loss for words.

The wiry man grumbled something under his breath, but the cute boy turned to him with a bright, disarming smile. “They’ve been handling this really well. Try being a little nicer, yeah?”

The wiry man held up his hands. “I didn’t even do anything. Can’t afford to be this fragile.”

But in the end, he didn’t push it. He just hopped back into his seat without another word.

The cute boy turned back to the girl. “I’m Mao Ziyu. Would I be lucky enough to know your name?”

“G-Gu Ziyan,” she stammered.

“Miss Gu, it is,” Mao Ziyu said smoothly. He glanced at her ticket. “Looks like you’re in 03A. C’mon, sit down.”

He led her over and had her sit in her assigned seat. Seeing someone who actually seemed approachable, she couldn’t help but ask, “Is this… really G5080?”

“Hmm… how should I put this?” Mao Ziyu leaned casually against the seat, resting his elbow on the armrest. “It was G5080 when you boarded. But right now? You’re not on G5080 anymore.”

Gu Ziyan still looked lost.

Mao Ziyu decided to spell it out. “You—we—have boarded the Game Train. This train takes us to different games. I, him, her, and them—” he gestured lazily at a few people, all the ones Sang Chen had already clocked as not right—”we’re all players.“

“Game?” Gu Ziyan echoed, her voice unsteady. “What kind of game? And when it’s over, we can go back?”

Mao Ziyu’s smile didn’t waver. “Sorry, can’t help you there. Too many game types. Could be anything. And as for clearing the game?” He gave a small shrug. “No one-size-fits-all answer to that, either.”

“But, Miss Gu,” he added with a teasing glint in his eyes, “since you seem to like me so much, I’ll give you a little advice—be careful.“

He leaned in ever so slightly, voice dropping playfully low.

“This isn’t child’s play.”

Mao Ziyu suddenly leaned forward.

Gu Ziyan, already on edge, instinctively flinched backward, nearly losing her balance.

But Mao Ziyu wasn’t trying to scare her—he was just wiping her boots.

At some point, he’d pulled out a tissue, its pristine white contrasting against the dim train lights. With careful, almost delicate movements, he wiped the toe and sole of her leather boots. “Just now, when you tried to push open the door to the next carriage, you couldn’t get it open. You didn’t see what was inside, but you did smell the blood, didn’t you?”

He lifted the tissue for her to see. It was soaked in deep red.

“See? The blood reached your feet.”

Gu Ziyan stiffened.

“The people in that carriage just came out of a game,” Mao Ziyu said casually. “Don’t panic. I’m just reminding you—this game is dangerous. Be careful.”

He straightened up and glanced toward the door at the front of the carriage.

Sang Chen followed his gaze.

For a split second, he thought he saw a shadow flicker past. At the same time, Mao Ziyu’s silver ear cuff caught the light, flashing briefly.

It was a serpent-shaped ear cuff—an intricately coiled silver snake wrapping around the cartilage, its tiny red tongue dangling just past the edge of his ear. When the light hit it, it looked eerily like the snake’s eyes had momentarily flickered open, only to shut again, leaving behind the briefest glimmer of crimson.

It didn’t match Mao Ziyu’s cute and easygoing demeanor at all.

As Sang Chen was mulling this over, Mao Ziyu suddenly turned his head—precisely, directly, unerringly—toward him.

This wasn’t a casual glance or a vague scan of the carriage. It was as if, even before turning, Mao Ziyu knew exactly where to look—right at seat 06E.

Busted.

Sang Chen immediately averted his gaze, acting natural as he turned to stare out the window.

He didn’t look back, but he kept his ears open.

Meanwhile, Gu Ziyan, now even more rattled, asked, “So… does the Game Train take them back after? Once we clear the game, the train will send us home, right?”

“The Game Train does return players who clear the game,” Mao Ziyu said, tilting his head. “But not necessarily to where you think. It takes them back to Game City.”

“Game City?” Gu Ziyan’s voice trembled. “Then… when can we go home?”

Mao Ziyu didn’t answer.

Instead, he stood up, patted her lightly on the shoulder, and gave her a gentle smile—one so soft it carried a trace of sorrow.

“Game City is an interesting place,” he murmured. “Far more exciting than where you came from.”

Gu Ziyan slumped into her seat, as if all the energy had drained out of her. Her eyes reddened, and within moments, soft sobs broke the silence.

A man in a dripping-wet black coat clicked his tongue impatiently. “Enough explaining. We’re about to enter the game. Let them talk about their world for a bit.”

The bald man in seat 01C, still keeping his wits about him, immediately picked up on something. “Wait—what do you mean, our world? You’re not from the same world as us?”

Mao Ziyu gave him a half-smile. “Maybe we are from the same world. But not necessarily the same time.”

His voice dropped slightly. “Do you know what we call this train?”

“What?”

“The Time-Space Train.”

Mao Ziyu leaned back and explained, “This train travels through time itself. Where and when it stops is as unpredictable as the games it takes us to. Just now, it happened to stop on December 7, 2024. And you three—our newest players—stepped aboard.”

“But soon, the Time-Space Train will make another stop. And when it does, we’ll be entering a game set somewhere around the year 2024.”

“Think of it as a kind of beginner’s protection,” Mao Ziyu said. “If the game threw you straight into some completely unfamiliar setting—like a post-apocalyptic wasteland a hundred years from now—you’d be clueless, unprepared, and with zero experience. You’d probably die in no time.”

The sheer weight of that statement left the bald man speechless.

Sang Chen had already suspected that these people wanted information about their time, but he hadn’t expected this.

The passengers in this carriage—they might be from the distant past. Or they might be from a future no one had ever seen before.

His gaze swept over the others once more.

Maybe the so-called Game City had a fashion trend where people wore clothes from specific eras, because at first glance, their outfits didn’t seem too out of place. But when he looked closer, he started noticing little details.

Take the man in the dripping-wet black coat, for example. His cloth shoes—Sang Chen had seen something similar before, on an elderly couple in his neighborhood. The old man never liked modern shoes, always saying they were uncomfortable. His wife would painstakingly sew insoles for him, making traditional cloth shoes by hand.

This man… maybe back when that old couple was young, he had stepped onto a slow, green train—one that wasn’t just taking him to another city, but to another time. And just like that, he became a player.

Sang Chen’s gaze shifted to the middle-aged man sitting across from him.

The man looked right back, as if he could tell exactly what Sang Chen was thinking.

Then, without a word, his artificial eye lit up—glowing like a tiny lightbulb.

That… was definitely not something from his time.

Maybe this man had boarded an advanced high-speed train sometime in the future, unknowingly stepping onto a Time-Space Train instead. And just like that, he, too, became a player.

Games were supposed to be fair—unless they were the kind designed to milk players for money. But a game this vast, this mysterious and terrifying, clearly wasn’t worried about pay-to-win mechanics.

But if players came from different times, wouldn’t that mean huge gaps in knowledge, physical ability, and technology? How did the game balance that?

Did it eliminate unfair advantages? Or was there some kind of built-in mechanic to level the playing field? Game items? Special skills?

Sang Chen was still pondering when someone spoke up.

“Relax, man,” a voice said, addressing the guy in black. “2024 wasn’t anything special. I got on this train in 2027. If anything, the economy was just a little better in 2024. The only real difference? The general vibe was still kinda hostile—same as 2021 to 2023.”

A man in yellow added, “I was born in 2024. Nothing special. Just an average person in an average year.”

As the older players dove into a discussion about 2024, Mao Ziyu suddenly sat down across from Sang Chen.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, new player,” he said, tilting his head.

Sang Chen had spent years as an overworked grunt—he could tell right away that many of the people in this carriage were wary of this deceptively cute guy. And if there was one survival rule for grunts, it was never piss off the boss.

Right now, it felt exactly like being called on by a teacher in school. Or like being put on the spot by a manager at work.

As Sang Chen was trying to come up with a safe answer, Mao Ziyu suddenly flushed red.

“You like me too, don’t you?” he said. “I knew you were sneaking glances at me.”

After a brief silence, Sang Chen answered seriously, “Today is December 7, 2024.”

Mao Ziyu looked at him with sincerity. “Since you like me so much, you can stick by my side in the game.”

Sang Chen, feeling deeply moved: “This rain is so cold, so heavy… I haven’t seen rain like this in ages.”

Mao Ziyu, shyly: “When we choose rooms in the game, we can share one if you want.”

Sang Chen, contentedly: “The wheat in the fields is soaking up the rain. Come spring, it’ll grow beautifully.”

Mao Ziyu, solemnly: “The game is about to start. Hold my hand tight.”

Their bizarre back-and-forth—where neither responded to what the other actually said—was too much. Not only did the middle-aged man across from them look like he couldn’t take it anymore, but even the people who had been sound asleep started stirring.

As Sang Chen turned his head, he caught sight of someone lifting their head from the small table, slowly opening their eyes. The dim yellow carriage lights reflected in them.

Sang Chen froze for a moment.

Damn.

Even in this eerie, unsettling train car, that guy was so ridiculously handsome it was almost blinding.

Boom!

Just as their eyes met, the train slammed into something—like it had crashed straight into the sun. A blinding light burst forth, accompanied by a sound like fireworks exploding.

The train screeched to a halt.

It stopped in a place where the light gradually faded.

As the brightness receded, the scenery ahead became clearer—a small town emerged in the distance.

[Attention, passengers. We have arrived at our destination, Xiangyang Town. Please disembark in an orderly fashion. Do not remain on the train.]

A sweet voice echoed in their minds.

The veteran players immediately got up and headed for the exit. Even the guy who had slept through most of the trip finally stood, lazily stretching before moving at a snail’s pace. Sang Chen followed suit, stepping off the train behind Mao Ziyu.

He was near the aisle, so he got off first, right behind Mao Ziyu. Before stepping down, he glanced back—only to see the sleepy guy trailing behind him. While everyone else took two steps, he only took one. The only reason he wasn’t getting yelled at for blocking the way was because his long legs let him cover more ground effortlessly.

Once off the train, Mao Ziyu turned around and finally got a good look at the so-called sleepyhead’s face.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Sang Chen instinctively asked, “You know him?”

“Not exactly. I don’t even remember his name.” Mao Ziyu squinted at the man. “But his face looked familiar. Last month, in the Game Evening News diary section, they ran a poll, and he was voted ‘The Player Most Female Gamers Want to Keep as a Pretty Boy.’ He’s the newest crowned gigolo of Game City.”

Sang Chen: “…”

His reflex was to take another look at the guy’s face—and, well, his build—only to realize the so-called gigolo wasn’t looking at him.

He was staring at Sang Chen’s stomach.

With a thoughtful expression.

Mao Ziyu followed his gaze and also looked at Sang Chen’s stomach, his face shifting from surprise to something almost… wounded.