Wu Sansheng was forced to take action. She observed for a moment, then said: "Pay attention to the wind direction, raise the sails against the wind." She herself went to the helm and began trying to steer.
The ghost ship was still being tossed about by the waves, drifting with the current, but whether it was because of their tentative attempts at operating it or just sheer luck, the ship really did start drifting toward the skull.
…
"What's going on, why haven't they quit the game yet? They're heading toward the Black Mirror vortex?" The ghost in charge was completely overwhelmed, having to contact the underworld to send people to rescue the vanished mermaid, while also contacting the Taiyin Ghost King nearest to the coast, and still having to keep an eye on those troublesome players—yes! The monsters their game had sent out were weak! Every single one of them useless, just cannon fodder for the players. But that didn't mean the five of them could just grow bold enough to charge straight into the Black Mirror vortex!
Who the hell recruited these players? Don't they have any sense at all? —Oh, they're from General Ji's household, then that's fine.
Just as Mu Anqi and the others were drawing closer to the Black Mirror vortex, they suddenly received a prompt:
[Game has been interrupted due to special circumstances. Exiting early will grant a compensation score. (This does not affect game rewards)]
[Do you wish to end the game early?]
No.
They were almost there, so why end it now? This message… it even went out of its way to add that not only would the rewards be unaffected, but there would also be game compensation. The ghost in charge of guiding the route seemed really worried about the players' safety. Surely these ghosts didn't actually think they were heading to their deaths, right?
[Game has been interrupted due to special circumstances. Exiting early will grant a compensation score. (Compensation: score level increased by one tier!)]
[Do you wish to end the game early?]
No.
Mu Anqi once again refused to end the game early. After all, rewards didn't have legs to run away—once they came out of the Black Mirror vortex, wouldn't they get double rewards? But looking at the repeated pop-up prompts, Mu Anqi's feelings were complicated. Honestly, just a moment ago they had been at each other's throats in the game, yet the moment the Black Mirror vortex appeared, those ghosts actually started worrying about them. This was really…
Something that left her at a loss for words.
[Ding! You have entered the Black Mirror vortex's range. Do you wish to enter?]
[Reminder: It has been detected that players are currently in a game. Entering the vortex will automatically pause game progress. Once cleared, the game can be continued.]
"This is it." As soon as the notification popped up, Mu Anqi stopped on the deck. Wu Sansheng and the others came closer together. "Count to three, and enter the Black Mirror vortex all at once."
"Hold hands so we don't get separated." Xia Yun said as she grabbed Wu Sansheng's and Mu Anqi's hands. Wu Sansheng then grabbed Fang Yunjiao, and Fang Yunjiao held onto Fang Xunjiu.
"Three, two, one!"
[Ding! Entering the Black Mirror vortex…]
[Ding! Detecting game progress and team status, processing…]
[Beep! Sub-instance activated: Spirit-Ghost Voyage — Deadly Pollution!]
[Entering… please wait…]
[Beep! Passive skill · Chosen One activated!]
[Congratulations, player has obtained 2166+500 Guan Si.]
Before their eyes appeared city-like buildings, only overhead was a deep blue wave, as if they were beneath the sea. Even though they were clearly underwater, able to feel the current's flow, strangely enough they could still breathe freely.
The architecture of the seabed was extremely strange. Mu Anqi looked at the buildings shaped like mineral water bottles in a daze—the tallest and largest were giant drink bottles, then there were regular bottles, and some especially tiny houses shaped like soda cans. Beneath their feet was a plastic road, seemingly pieced together from a mixture of many types of plastics, in all kinds of colors. As for aesthetics… it did have a certain odd beauty.
Only, not a single monster appeared along the road.
"So this is the Black Mirror vortex? Deadly Pollution is…" Fang Xunjiu looked at the underwater city. Even someone like him, who didn't like to think too much, couldn't help but connect all these mineral water bottles and plastic roads to "ocean pollution." Ocean pollution? Plastic pollution?
Where was the crisis point?
Not a single monster in sight. Even if they wanted to force their way through with violence, there wasn't even a target. Mu Anqi put herself in General Ji's shoes—if it were her… would she just destroy this entire underwater city?
But she didn't have that kind of power, nor did she have a nuclear weapon.
Colorful plastic bags slowly floated above the city. After a moment's hesitation, Mu Anqi and the others decided to go into the city to take a look. What if there were clues inside those bottle-shaped buildings?
This street seemed to be a snack street.
They stopped outside a shop and peered in—and finally saw "people"! A group of human-like marine creatures. Mu Anqi saw a sea turtle draped in a dark green fishing net, sitting inside, eating something from a disposable plastic bowl. And the shopkeeper of this place was actually a "person" assembled entirely out of different plastic fragments! Mu Anqi and the others exchanged wary glances. Xia Yun drew her life-bound sword, Mu Anqi also pulled out her handgun, and they carefully stepped inside—only to see the sea turtle gulping down mouthful after mouthful of "food" from the bowl.
Those were bits of screws and unidentifiable broken plastic fragments from some component, with two pieces of green plastic bag floating on top, looking very much like "vegetable leaves."
It was only after entering the shop and getting closer that Mu Anqi and the others realized the green fishing net on the turtle had already embedded itself into its shell, leaving a grid-shaped mark across it.
"Th-this…" Fang Xunjiu was at a loss for words.
Mu Anqi had never experienced this kind of Black Mirror vortex before. The ones she had gone through in the past were all vicious criminal events—she only needed to kill the culprit to resolve them. But this pollution… Nirvana Space had even named this Black Mirror vortex "Deadly Pollution." Solving pollution was unimaginably difficult; it wasn't something that could be handled by simply killing a murderer. In fact, the "culprit" behind this deadly pollution couldn't even be called a culprit at all—its scope was far too vast.
Just as Mu Anqi and the others didn't know what to do, the door of the shop opened again. An extremely thin seabird stepped in on its long legs, flapping its gray wings. Its feathers looked somewhat dull, malnourished even, with patches missing in places. It acted as though it hadn't seen the players at all, sat down beside the turtle, and flapped its wings toward a shop sign Mu Anqi couldn't understand. The plastic shopkeeper then turned around and began to busy itself.
This bird couldn't make a sound. Its head was stuck inside an orange plastic ring, the kind that comes from beneath a bottle cap. The ring was wedged in the middle of its beak, keeping even its tongue from moving properly, and its mouth couldn't close at all. Mu Anqi couldn't even imagine how that ring had gotten onto it in the first place.
The plastic shopkeeper didn't use any real ingredients. Instead, it raised its right hand in a receiving gesture. The "bottle cap" of this beverage-bottle food shop twisted open, and a handful of gears mixed with screws fell into the plastic person's hand. It casually tossed the handful of "food" into a pot, then raised its hand again to catch another handful of plastic fragments and threw those in as well. Stirring and flipping the contents in the pot—it even tossed them twice—finally, it reached out again to catch two slowly drifting pieces of green plastic bag and placed them into the pot.
The dish was done. Served up. A plastic bowl full of this "food" was set in front of the seabird, and the plastic shopkeeper went back to standing still. It didn't seem to care whether its customers ate or not, nor about their suffering. Once the meal was handed over, everything else was no longer its concern.
The seabird struggled desperately to try and put the plastic into its mouth, but the ring blocked it; no matter what it did, it couldn't get it in. Its mouth could neither close nor speak—it could only repeat the futile motion again and again, looking utterly pitiful.
This didn't feel like a Black Mirror vortex at all—it was far too absurd, too surreal.
The sea turtle that was eating suddenly flinched. It spat out a sharp, slightly bloodstained piece of rusty metal—tiny, but it seemed to have cut it. The turtle's expression, however, didn't change. It was as if a human had accidentally swallowed a fishbone and gotten pricked; it simply tossed the shard onto the rim of the bowl and continued eating.
Mu Anqi pulled out a dagger. She glanced at her companions. "I… should try?"
"Go ahead."
With her teammates' consent, Mu Anqi carefully approached the seabird. The seabird seemed completely unaware of her, continuing its futile efforts. Mu Anqi hid a substitute paper figure in her palm, and with her other hand cautiously placed the dagger against the back of the seabird's head. Then, carefully flipping the blade, she cut at the ring without harming the bird.
Luckily, the seabird truly seemed unable to see or feel her. The whole process was undisturbed; Mu Anqi only needed to match the dagger's movements with the rhythm of the seabird's attempts to eat.
—Snap! Broken!
When the seabird tried to eat again, the plastic ring fell into the bowl. It looked down at the ring with a hint of puzzlement, and its forced-open beak finally closed. Just as Mu Anqi thought it might return to normal, it suddenly lowered its head and slurped up the broken ring like a noodle, then continued eating together with the turtle.
"…It didn't work?" Mu Anqi felt a bit disappointed. After some thought, she carefully cut away the turtle's fishing net piece by piece as well. This time, instead of leaving the net behind, she collected it in her hand. Even with the net removed, deep marks still scarred the turtle's shell—marks that might never heal.
The creatures appearing in the Black Mirror vortex… perhaps their future had already vanished long ago.
"These creatures that are eating now—within the background rules of the Black Mirror vortex, are they considered 'alive' or 'dead'?" Wu Sansheng looked at the turtle and seabird, then at the plastic shopkeeper, unable to help asking.
This underwater city was built entirely from all kinds of garbage, and even the shopkeepers inside were patchwork figures of plastic. In the self-contained background of this vortex, the turtle and seabird, looking comparatively more "alive," actually seemed out of place. Even though they were eating plastic that they could never truly consume, still…
"Let's go check out the other shops."
"There are so many shops here, all kinds of buildings—if we look through them all, we'll probably understand."