Thanks to the middle-aged woman's earlier warning, everyone in the room—except the fat man—became noticeably guarded, warily eyeing one another. Even Jiang Tian, the alluringly seductive woman, turned her gaze toward Yu Jing.
Yu Jing shoved both hands into the pockets of his coat, pulling his hood low to conceal half his face. Maintaining this posture, he sat motionless in his chair.
During the hour and a half of rest before the test, the room remained cloaked in silence. But Yu Jing found this tense quiet oddly familiar. At the Academy of Potential, he had often endured this kind of atmosphere—isolated, guarded. His time there had been spent largely alone, and the bad-tempered peers in his dorm had only worsened things.
What surprised him, however, was that despite the oppressive mood, the fat man who had stuffed himself earlier was now sleeping soundly. His loud snores gradually filled the entire room.
Time seemed to pass quickly in the silence. With only twenty minutes left until the test's scheduled start at 8:00 p.m., a wave of fatigue suddenly washed over Yu Jing.
"What's happening?"
In the days leading up to the test, he'd gotten used to sleeping past midnight and waking at six, remaining sharp and focused throughout the day. Yet now, not even 8:00 p.m., and he was suddenly overwhelmed by drowsiness?
He glanced around. Among the seven of them, excluding the snoring fat man, even Jiang Tian—whom he'd had brief contact with earlier—was now slumped over the table, fast asleep.
Everyone's faces were etched with the signs of fatigue—everyone except the girl sitting behind him: Yu Xiaoxiao.
"Something's wrong."
Yu Jing attempted to stand and check on the others, but as he rose, an even stronger wave of exhaustion surged through him.
His head felt like it had been filled with molten lead. He stumbled and collapsed to the floor, slipping into unconsciousness. Though his academic performance was decent, Yu Jing had never been much into sports. His average physical condition couldn't fight off the induced sleep. Within moments, he fell into a dreamless sleep.
When he awoke, it was as if dragging himself out of a heavy fog.
His blurry vision gradually focused on what looked like the inside of a run-down apartment. He was lying on a shabby sofa.
"Where… is this? Don't tell me—"
His first instinct was to check his body. Lifting his shirt, he inspected his abdomen. No stitches, no signs of tampering. It seemed none of his organs had been harvested.
"So this isn't some organ trafficking ring… But there was definitely a neural suppressant in that dinner—something like a sedative. That's why we all passed out. But… is everyone else here too?"
For reasons he couldn't explain, Yu Jing felt an odd concern for the girl named Yu Xiaoxiao. She seemed more frail than the others, and he couldn't help but worry about her.
"Creak—"
He pushed open one old, rotting wooden door after another, only to find empty rooms. Not a single soul in sight.
The apartment consisted of three bedrooms, a living area, and a large bathroom. Every window had been tightly nailed shut with crooked boards and rusted nails. The outside world was completely sealed off—no view, no sound, no escape. Screaming for help would be pointless.
The main door was bound shut by over a dozen rusted iron chains. With Yu Jing's strength, forcing it open was out of the question.
"My phone must've been taken while I was unconscious. So this… this must be the test location. But there's no instructions, no explanation. Could this be some kind of escape room trial, using only the items in here?"
He considered the possibility. "Those nailed-down boards might be a clue. But if it were as simple as prying them off and escaping, then this 'test' wouldn't really mean anything."
Still, he decided to test the idea. In the bathroom, he found a hollow metal clothes hanger. Reinforcing it with fabric for strength, he began prying at the nails.
"Crack, crack!" One by one, the boards came loose. The effort drained his energy, but he pressed on, only to be greeted by a wave of despair:
Behind the window was not a city street, not even open air—but a solid wall of concrete.
"Stay calm." He forced himself to breathe, quieting his spiraling thoughts. He needed to analyze this logically.
"Wait… this place doesn't look like Chinese architecture. It has a Western design. And those paper scraps I found in the drawer—they had international characters. If this is some foreign building, could there be a hidden ventilation shaft? I remember seeing that kind of design in Western movies…"
Holding onto the idea, Yu Jing began tapping the walls with his knuckles, searching for that telltale hollow sound.
From the living room to the study, and finally to the bedroom and bathroom, he tapped every surface. Then, beneath the sink in the bathroom—thud. A hollow echo.
"There's something there. A shaft, maybe?"
He needed something heavy to break through. Heading back to the bedroom, he grabbed the solid copper desk lamp from the nightstand and hauled it into the bathroom.
Lifting it high, he brought it down hard on the wall.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
After three heavy strikes, Yu Jing's arms were already growing numb—his physical strength not exactly his strong suit. Still, he finally managed to smash a sizable hole through the thin cement wall.
But what lay beyond was not at all what he had expected.
There was no ventilation shaft—no ducts, no grates. Instead, embedded within the hollow wall was a deep, pitch-black tunnel, narrow and perfectly straight, disappearing into darkness. The oppressive void inside the passage limited visibility to no more than five meters. Even after fetching a desk lamp to light the way, Yu Jing could barely see twenty meters ahead. The end of the tunnel remained hidden in impenetrable shadow.
"What is this…"
Staring into the abyss, a wave of unease surged through him. The sheer depth of the blackness seemed to reach into his soul.
"This has to be it… The only way out of this sealed room—and my only chance."
A realization dawned on him. "Maybe this is the real test. A game of escape, set up by the research institute. A psychological trial, disguised as a physical one. I've done everything required up to this point—now I just have to conquer my fear of the dark, make it through that tunnel, and I'll have passed."
"Three and a half million yuan," he reminded himself. Enough to cover his mother's surgery, in full.
Bracing himself against the damp, claustrophobic walls, Yu Jing steeled his nerves. The narrow passage barely allowed him to move through it; the musty air clung to his skin like mold. No one could say for sure what lay at the end of that tunnel—or whether it was even the end at all.
Still, he pressed forward.
His only option was through.