The mountains remained, the waters remained, but the ways of the human heart proved utterly unpredictable. Wen Shu, who moments before had been weeping with the pear blossoms and rain, begging to save both Hou Dayong and Wang Jue, instantly seemed transformed. A flash of malice surfaced in her eyes, and her face hardened into something fiercely murderous. She swiftly drew back both hands and took two light steps backward with her feet, placing herself a full three and a half feet away from where Hou Dayong was landing. It was precisely the precaution Wang Jue had just urged upon Hou Dayong.

Seeing this, Hou Dayong immediately executed a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree forward somersault. His legs had barely touched the ground before he used the momentum to land on his shoulder and roll forward another two and a half feet. Just as he was about to roll near Wen Shu's feet, Hou Dayong twisted up from the ground in a flurry, sprinting toward the other end of the tunnel as if his life depended on it. Wang Jue watched Hou Dayong disappear from sight, then turned back to Wen Shu, only to see a triumphant smirk on her face. "After Plan A, there is always a Plan B," she declared. Before the words fully left her mouth, the dozen crystal pillars that had stood tall before him suddenly descended with a swish-swish-swish, sinking into the earth until they vanished completely.

Only then did Wang Jue grasp the true nature of Wen Shu. The shy, introverted girl who had spent every day by his side was now utterly disconnected from the person standing before him. She drew a bronze-handled dagger from her waist and began to advance, closing the distance step by careful step. Recalling the events by the jeep, Wang Jue confirmed with chilling clarity that she intended to kill him. Back then, however, with Zhang Yuqiu and Hou Dayong present, the disparity in combatants had been too great. After her initial failure, Wen Shu had adopted this facade of a split personality, leading Zhang Yuqiu to mistakenly believe it was a struggle between two puppet kings, old and new.

Wang Jue sighed inwardly: What a profound misunderstanding she had engineered! It led everyone to believe in her innocence, following her into that mysterious wooden cabin, then down the well, and plunging them all into this inescapable abyss. Wang Jue drew a deep breath, remembering the trust he had placed in Wen Shu over the years, and his heart filled with a crushing regret. If he hadn't clung to even a shred of fantasy or hope regarding her, how could he have ended up in this predicament? Zhang Yuqiu was captured, and he himself was trapped in mortal danger. The only comfort was that Hou Dayong had escaped this hellish, perilous place. If he could choose again, he would never again trust this woman, nor would he ever cast even a sliver of pity her way.

"It would be easy for you to kill me!" Wang Jue stood still, refusing to retreat half a meter despite Wen Shu's relentless advance. "But you owe me the reason. All these years as colleagues, I never imagined I would die by your blade. Xiaoyu was deeply devoted to you, too. You must allow someone about to return to the dust to die knowing the truth."

Hearing Wang Jue speak, Wen Shu paused. She tilted her head back toward the sky with an expression of feigned innocence, then looked at Wang Jue. "Isn't it a bit foolish of you to ask that question now? You surely know the truth about the hospital by now. That desiccated corpse forever standing in the basement—that is the reason you and I became colleagues."

"So everything you said by the jeep was a lie? No one forced you to kill those patients and doctors? And you didn't achieve an immortal body by doing so?" Wang Jue asked coldly.

Wen Shu toyed with the dagger, admiring her reflection in the gleaming blade. "That's only half true! Someone did force me to complete that Life-and-Death Contract, but that was many, many years ago. Killing them merely meant one less zombie for Li Xiaohao. You must understand, that entire city had already fallen. The living were either killing or being killed; the only difference was which faction they stood with. Naturally, we hoped Li Xiaohao's influence would wane."

"Heh..." Wang Jue let out a cold laugh. He realized he hadn't just served a hospital run by the undead for several years; he had been working alongside a living corpse. He mused on the sheer strangeness of this world—one could never truly see the shape of it.