Another female mercenary couldn't help but ask, "Why does it take so long?" Kaplan said without turning his head, "The Empress of Flames is an intelligent computer; her defense systems are comprehensive. If her firewall could be breached so easily, she wouldn't be used as the main laboratory computer..." As he spoke, there was a soft click, and the tightly sealed door finally began to open slowly. Matthew Addison nodded, "Load the equipment!" With that, he turned back to look at Zheng Zha and the others.

"You all stay here."

Behind the door was a corridor over ten meters long, but both sides were lined with glass walls, completely different from the steel walls outside the main entrance.

After speaking, Matthew Addison walked inside on his own, moving with extreme caution, every step radiating deliberate care. Even so, when he reached the middle of the corridor, he started abruptly, as the surrounding glass walls suddenly lit up. This abrupt flash was enough to make an ordinary person’s limbs go weak with fright.

Kaplan’s voice came through the communicator: "Relax, it’s just the automatic sensor lights, nothing to worry about."

(It's clearly the defense system's lasers, what automatic sensor lights... nothing to worry about...) Zheng Zha thought to himself. He suddenly wanted to say something, but then a small hand pulled at him. When he turned his head, he saw the girl with glasses standing beside him, gently shaking her head.

Matthew Addison had already placed the transmitter by then—a device resembling a mobile phone, which he simply set upon the door's sensor. Kaplan immediately started tapping away at his keyboard again. Before long, with another soft sound, the door leading to the central computer finally began to open slowly.

Matthew Addison let out a breath and gestured toward those waiting outside the corridor. "Good, bring the gear over."

Alice suddenly asked, "What gear? What is that?" Kaplan, who was closest to her, replied, "This is the device that can shut down the Empress of Flames. It emits a powerful current to scramble the host system and force a reboot..." At that moment, the mercenary carrying the instrument was about to enter the corridor. Zheng Zha finally couldn't hold back and exclaimed loudly, "Wait, hold on a minute, don't you guys think something is strange? This intelligent computer seems too useless; if you can just restart it like this, I don't think it'll be that simple. This corridor probably holds something unusual."

The mercenaries immediately halted, all staring at him oddly. The girl with glasses sighed, released his hand, and moved far away to stand next to the protagonist, Alice.

Matthew Addison walked out of the corridor. He looked silently at Zheng Zha, and after a long moment, he finally said, "Alright then. You, and you come in with us."

He pointed at Zheng Zha and the middle-aged man, Mou Gang.

Zheng Zha and Mou Gang felt an immediate chill deep in their bones. Anyone who had seen this movie knew that the corridor was a death trap; anyone who entered was guaranteed to die, even the most skilled mercenary captain perished under the lasers, and his death was gruesome—his body sliced into countless tiny fragments.

Zheng Zha finally understood the look Zhang Jie had given him. Yes, he couldn't help but want to change the plot, but the inertia of the plot itself would not be altered, and even if it were, the 'Main God' might increase the difficulty manifold, just like this.

Mou Gang suddenly clutched his head and screamed, "No, I don't want to! I don't want to go in!" As he shouted, he bolted back the way they came. Before Zheng Zha and the others could react, the mercenaries had already drawn their guns and shot him, sending him flying. When he landed, he was already a corpse riddled with bullet holes.

"Ugh!" Zheng Zha and Li Xiaoyi violently vomited. A living person had been shot dead right in front of them. Zheng Zha felt particularly awful, as this man had essentially died because of his meddling.

Matthew Addison looked at him coldly. "I suspected you from the start. Although your identities are registered in the company files, you don't look like company security at all. Are you still planning to stop us from rebooting the Empress of Flames? Fine, Zheng Zha, you’ll come in with us."

Zheng Zha felt ice-cold; his stomach still felt unsettled from vomiting. Matthew Addison showed no mercy, dragging him along as the mercenaries marched inside.

As soon as the group entered the corridor, just as it happened in the movie plot, the doors on both sides slammed shut. Matthew Addison had no time to worry about Zheng Zha; he and the other mercenaries cautiously scanned their surroundings with their weapons, while simultaneously asking into the communicator, "Kaplan?" Kaplan replied urgently, "Some kind of dormant defense measure. If too many people pass through the gate, it will activate after entry."

Matthew Addison ordered, "Then let it stay dormant!" Kaplan was already sweating profusely, his hands flying across the keyboard as he replied, "I'm trying!" Addison sighed helplessly to his subordinates, "Stay put, don't move."

Hearing this, Zheng Zha's blood ran cold. He knew the plot sequence had begun, and he was now a part of it. Indeed, as expected, the lights on the opposite two walls dimmed suddenly, and a thin laser line appeared between the glass panels. As soon as this line formed, it sliced violently toward the mercenaries and Zheng Zha! Matthew Addison reacted fastest, throwing the two men beside him to the ground. Zheng Zha, having been focused on that direction, had already dropped instantly to the ground the moment the laser line appeared. Thus, the line only grazed past his shoulder. The sharp, scorching sensation felt as if it had scraped right past his skin, and beyond that, his mind went blank.

"Medic! Medic!" Matthew Addison’s frantic shout jolted Zheng Zha out of his daze. He turned his head to look: the female mercenary who served as the medic's head was slowly drifting downward, then dropped right in front of him. Her wide, fixed eyes seemed like a curse, or perhaps a mockery.

"No, don't! I don't want to die!" Zheng Zha screamed wildly, but paradoxically, the more he shouted, the calmer he became internally. He began to recall every segment of this scene from the Resident Evil movie in his mind.

Matthew Addison was supporting a mercenary whose finger had been severed by the laser line. At that moment, another mercenary yelled, "Sir, here comes the next one!" This time, the laser formed at leg height. Zheng Zha racked his memory for the details of this sequence: he remembered this line would pass the first mercenary, then swing high when the second mercenary jumped, subsequently dismembering him. He had only one chance to choose; failure meant death by laser! He didn't know if the plot would change here, so he had to choose to trust the movie plot known to his mind.

The laser line began to sweep rapidly toward the four of them. The mercenary on the ground, unable to move, was quickly killed. The remaining two mercenaries retreated continuously. Zheng Zha stared intently, focusing entirely on the movements of the other mercenary. One second, two seconds—at this moment of life and death, Zheng Zha felt as if time had momentarily stopped. He could hear nothing; everything around him seemed to slow down.

"Mental Threshold Broken! Reward Points: Five Hundred! Spirit Value Increased by Twenty! Neural Reaction Speed Increased by Thirty!" A stiff yet solemn voice echoed near Zheng Zha’s ear, but he could hear nothing else. He could only focus intently on the mercenary’s action. Finally, the instant the mercenary jumped, Zheng Zha slammed himself flat onto the ground. The laser line flashed past his eyes, its white light like the scythe of the Grim Reaper. In that moment, Zheng Zha believed Zhang Jie’s words: they truly entered this so-called game with their physical bodies. This was the masterpiece of gods, or perhaps the game of demons—they… would die! As expected, the laser swung upward the moment the mercenary jumped, completely slicing the jumping mercenary into pieces. After the line passed, Zheng Zha sprang up from the floor. He looked back; through the glass opening of the steel door behind him, the girl with glasses was standing outside, her eyes filled with tears.

Zheng Zha only managed a slight smile toward her before he dragged Matthew Addison, pressing tightly against the door near the entrance they came through. Now, he could only pray the plot wouldn't deviate in the slightest. This laser would terminate near the door; there was no point trying to evade it, as it would turn into a net to tear anyone apart. His only recourse was to press himself against the main door, begging heaven that it would conclude according to the script! Matthew Addison struggled desperately. "Let go of me! We'll both be cut in half in this position! Let go!" Zheng Zha gripped his collar tightly. "Trust me! Trust me! We can't dodge this time. Pressing against the door is our only chance! Trust me!" The third laser line was beginning to form, rapidly sweeping toward them as it materialized. According to its trajectory, it was set to slice them both at the waist. Matthew Addison desperately tried to drop to the floor, but Zheng Zha held on tight, refusing to let go. Zheng Zha himself pressed his entire body against the door, even slowly closing his eyes.

"Survive. I want to survive, even if it means struggling like this, I want to live!" Perhaps a deity opened an eye, or perhaps Zheng Zha’s prayer took effect. As the laser line approached them, it suddenly transformed into a net. Matthew Addison only managed to utter a curse before, in his moment of despair, the laser net gradually dimmed, then vanished inches from his face. A faint heat still washed over his features on the air current. In that instant, he seemed unable to believe he had survived.

Zheng Zha opened his eyes. He hadn't seen the laser net dissipate, but he knew he had succeeded. The familiar plot had once again forced its inertia, and he had finally clawed his way back from death. In his twenty-plus years of life, he had never been so close to death—the trajectory of demise had grazed his shoulder, so incredibly near! "What is this?" As Zheng Zha marveled at his luck, he suddenly noticed a small sphere of light emanating from the collar of Matthew Addison’s jacket he was clutching. Curious, he picked up the sphere, which, only a few centimeters in size, vanished between his fingers. A warm sensation seemed to flow from his finger into his body—a strange and wonderfully comfortable feeling.

"B-Rank Horror Branch Plotline Complete. Reward Points: Five Thousand!" The previously stiff yet solemn voice sounded again. Zheng Zha then recalled hearing something when the laser line had passed earlier. Recalling carefully, it seemed he had received five hundred reward points, twenty points for spiritual power, and thirty points for neural reaction speed. Calculated, this amounted to one thousand reward points—the rewards one could gain from experiencing a horror movie, as Zhang Jie had said.

As for the five thousand reward points, it felt like a massive pie dropped from the sky, shaking Zheng Zha to his core. Whether it was the joy of survival or the surprise of the reward, he couldn't tell. In any case, when the door opened and several people rushed toward him, he was still standing there, looking stunned.

The young Li Xiaoyi rushed to Zheng Zha's side and slapped his shoulder hard. "You were amazing! To survive under those conditions!" The slap brought Zheng Zha back to his senses. He managed a wry smile, but his heart was filled with an indescribable complexity. He didn't even know what to say right now; having just survived a brush with death, the shock was immense for an ordinary man fresh from a mundane world.

The girl with glasses, Zhan Lan, also approached. "You brought this on yourself. I kept warning you not to change the plot, but you wouldn't listen. Zhang Jie was actually right: our greatest reliance here isn't luck, but our familiarity with the plot. Your luck can't follow you forever. Don't be so impulsive in the future; none of us want to die here."

Zheng Zha shook his head but remained silent. He wasn't sure if he should mention the rewards. What did "B-Rank Horror Branch Plotline" mean? Did it mean altering the plot’s direction? Or saving characters who were supposed to die? Or perhaps passing through an extremely perilous scene? He didn't know, because everything that just happened was terrifyingly close to death, and the middle-aged man, Mou Gang, had practically died because of him. Therefore, he dared not attempt to change the plot again. Perhaps Zhang Jie and the others wouldn't let him, because if the direction became unpredictable, everyone might die here—including them, the scripted characters, and even the film's protagonists! This was a horror movie; no one was absolutely safe. Everyone could die; they were all just struggling insects, fighting desperately for life! Jump to