Chapter 203: Facing Death to Live

Armored vehicle driver's cabin.

Lin An sat upright inside, suppressing his emotions as he commanded the convoy to stop.

If they continued driving, any further driver disappearance would still cause casualties.

At this moment.

The people in the armored vehicle's driver's cabin had already disappeared, leaving no trace in his memory.

Only vaguely, Lin An felt as if a piece of flesh had been forcibly dug out of his heart.

The disappeared person...

Probably very important to himself...

This feeling of being toyed with in the palm of one's hand almost drives one to collapse.

We can't drag this on any longer.

Since his rebirth, this was the first time Lin An felt a hint of fear from the depths of his heart.

Is there really any hope?

One of the three great desperate situations from his past life—can he really resolve it?

He feared that if he delayed any longer, Mo Ling and Wen Ya would vanish from his memory and from this world, as if they had never existed.

Even himself...

Wait a moment.

Lin An's gaze stalled, his steady hands trembling slightly.

I...

Will I disappear?

He suddenly recalled a clue he had missed.

Why haven't I disappeared?

Disappearance order...

Is erasing memory meant to prevent him from deducing the traits of those who disappeared?

I have not disappeared, Wen Ya has not, Mo Ling has not.

I can regain my sanity, while Wen Ya is somewhat lacking.

And Mo Ling shows no reaction whatsoever.

Then does this mean the disappearance order is related to willpower resistance, or perhaps differences in physique?

So do the missing begin with those of weak will, or those of weak physique?

Or...

No, it should be said that both factors are involved.

Then let's reverse-engineer the logic.

Why must this supernatural incident necessarily erase memory, when it could obviously kill everyone in an illogical manner?

But.

Why "play" with memory, making everyone forget the missing?

Why go to such trouble?

The strange disappearance method fits the supernatural incident's illogical ability, but erasing memory to force everyone to forget the missing is logical.

The reason is simple.

Missing = disappearance = oblivion = death.

This line of reasoning can hold.

Just like a saying Lin An once heard.

Human death consists of three stages.

The first stage begins with the demise of the body.

The second stage begins when those who know you forget you.

The third stage is when the world forgets you, leaving no trace of your existence.

If a reasonable explanation appears within a supernatural incident, that is the greatest irrationality.

His breathing grew gradually heavy.

Lin An was like lighting a lamp in the darkness; relying on this faint light, he seemed to see the truth hidden beneath fear.

Heavy rain, oblivion, corpses—these three belong to the same Shi Xian.

If these three key clues correspond:

Tampering with memory, causing oblivion of the missing, can correspond to the second stage of death (forgetting by those who know).

The corpse finally appearing in the stomach corresponds to the demise of the body (first stage of death).

Then...

Heavy rain is...

The third stage of death?

A flash of sudden realization crossed Lin An's eyes.

No... it's not about avoiding the rain!

His earlier speculation was mistaken; it's not that the rain itself is problematic.

Those whose memories were erased should, under supernatural interference, be expelled from the outside world.

Their instinctive resistance in the outside world—that is, leaving traces of themselves in the world.

Therefore, at the end, everyone got into the vehicle and, in unison, said to him that phrase:

(Get in the car... Lin An!)

That's right, this way it can be explained.

He muttered to himself, thinking of the male student whose head had been blown off, thinking of the encampment that did not avoid the rain (the damp soil inside the camp).

The male student crawled out from the overturned truck; he was injured.

So in his own words, he subconsciously saw the traces left by the outside world; when he saw that the third-stage death had already been completed, the resulting mental conflict shattered his brain.

Because he was already in the second stage, the forgetting process.

What he forgot was not only the missing persons, but also the series of events triggered by the missing persons.

The supernatural incident forcibly erased the third stage, i. e., the traces of world information.

When Lin An awakened his cognition, the logical contradiction caused his death.

So...

Lin An took a deep breath, his eyes sharp.

The killing method of this supernatural incident is...

Reenact the death stage!

It reverses the essential death sequence, reenacting the forgotten third stage of the world, all the way to the final first-stage death!

That's right.

Its ability may defy logic, but the logic of death is the law of this world!

Just like a black hole devouring matter, even if this is something humans cannot comprehend, it is equivalent to an illogical cosmic phenomenon.

Black holes also need to obey the "logic of death".

Depriving heat, kinetic energy, breaking down into basic particles, ultimately destroying all observable information contained in matter.

This is one of the world's fundamental laws; before information disappears, nothing is considered truly extinct.

So, this encountered supernatural incident.

Its means is to invert the causal order, thereby essentially erasing the missing persons?

Then, what does the fourth day correspond to?

Lin An pieced together the "four days" into the clues, pondering hard.

Three stages, four days...

After a long while, he couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh:

"The time of death is not four days..."

It seems my previous speculations were all wrong.

Starting from the fourth day, its killing method no longer needs to invert causality, or rather directly accelerates this process.

Thus, on the fourth day, the missing persons die directly, together with the earlier missing persons, dying simultaneously.

So, it should be "three days".

"Three days" corresponds to three stages.

Is this considered good news?

Lin An let out a long sigh of the breath he had been holding in his chest.

If the speculation is correct, perhaps the missing persons in my squad haven't died yet, merely having entered the second stage.

Then there are only two problems left.

First, how does the military region's garrison solve this incident, or rather cut off the disappearance process?

Second, why does the headless infant brought by Mo Ling trigger the supernatural incident!

Lin An probably already has an idea for the first one.

The supernatural incident may be irrational, but human behavior must be rational, having its own logic.

Stationed beside the town, normal logic only has two.

1. Cannot leave the town.

2. The method to cut off must be near or inside the town.

First, the first logic has a loophole: there are survivors at the garrison who fled to the granary.

No big-bellied zombies were found at the granary, thus ruling out the first point.

Then, only the second point can hold!

The method to cut off requires frequently entering the town!

So even if the military region's garrison is dangerous, it must stay nearby; this also explains why the armored vehicles and military trucks at the town gate are brand new.

Because since the military region's garrison discovered this problem, they have never had the thought of relocating!

At least in the short term, they have not gone out again.

So, is the most dangerous place actually the safest?

Then...

The vehicle body trembled, the engine roared.

Lin An gripped the steering wheel tightly, pressed the accelerator to the floor, and without hesitation drove onto the road leading to the town.

Just as where there is poison, within a hundred steps there must be an antidote.

If escape cannot bring hope, then this time.

I choose.

Advance toward death and live!