Courtyard House: My Long and Hard Body Makes Me Play with All the Women in the Courtyard

He moved closer to Su Ting and asked in a low voice, "Will you go in?"

Su Ting remained silent for a few seconds before finally speaking: "What do you think? Would I give up the opportunity to find out who I am?"

Lin Su gave him a deep look, then smiled, grabbed his sleeve, and turned to run outside.

"Then tell me—" Su Ting shouted as he ran into the corridor, "If I'm not me, then who am I?!"

Behind them, through thick smoke and shattered glass, Shen Zhixue's voice rang out in everyone's hearts for the last time:

"When all memories return to their origin—you will naturally remember that you never belonged to this dimension."

As Su Ting ran, he kept looking back; the corridor beneath his feet seemed to stretch on endlessly. Explosions rang out one after another, steel beams in the ceiling continued to collapse, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of burning metal.

Chapter 1045 Don't Look Back

"Don't look back!" Lin Su pulled him forward, his tone stern. "Going in now isn't about finding answers, it's about throwing your life away!"

"But she clearly said...that's the truth!!" Su Ting roared, his voice filled with long-suppressed anger and confusion.

Ji Yan's voice came through the communicator: "Listen! This is not the time to argue about this! The control room will fully activate the self-destruct protocol in ten minutes. We only have one chance to escape! If you want to live, come with me!"

An Ran's breathing was laced with anger: "You really think that going through that light screen will allow you to find out who you are? You think it's a door—it might be a trap! You've closed the door to survival with your own hands!"

"I'm not one of you. I can't pretend nothing happened." Su Ting growled, abruptly pulling his arm back and stopping in his tracks.

The group immediately fell into chaos.

"You want to die?" Chu Mo frowned. "Find your own answers is fine, but don't drag us all down with you."

“I didn’t—” Su Ting gritted her teeth, “I just wanted to confirm whether what she said was true or not.”

Xiao You jumped up and down in a panic: "This isn't the time for a philosophical seminar! This thing is about to swallow the entire underground level up!!"

The gray-robed man remained silent for a long time before suddenly speaking in a low voice over the communication channel: "If he wants to go back... then let him."

Everyone was stunned.

Lin Su stopped in his tracks, his expression changing drastically: "What did you say?!"

The gray-robed man said coldly, "He is the 'Executor,' and the system has already responded to him. Perhaps... only he knows what to do next."

An Ran shouted, "Are you kidding me?! You mean we're going to abandon him?!"

“It’s not about abandoning him,” the gray-robed man said slowly, “it’s about giving him a choice.”

As soon as he finished speaking, an escape pod at the end of the passage automatically unlocked and opened halfway.

A gust of wind carrying a wave of heat surged in, and outside was a sloping track leading to the ground.

"Let's go!" Ji Yan gritted his teeth. "Who's staying behind? Who can stay?"

No one answered.

Everyone glanced at Su Ting, then looked at the road leading to survival.

Su Ting stood there, his hands clenched tightly, his chest heaving violently, as if something had gripped the two ends of his soul.

"Let's go." Lin Su turned around and stared into his eyes, but his tone softened. "I know what you're afraid of. But going in now... there's no guarantee of anything. At least let us get out alive. One day we'll come back with enough strength."

"You swear?" Su Ting's voice was hoarse.

Lin Su nodded: "I swear on every remaining dream and every drop of blood I have left."

After a moment of silence, Su Ting finally took a step forward and walked towards the crowd. They quickly rushed into the escape pods, and the passageway was immediately locked.

With a deafening roar, the last section of the corridor behind them collapsed.

Before the hatch closed, Su Ting saw a faint blue light through countless fragments. Shen Zhixue was still floating quietly in the cabin, but a hint of relief and sorrow seemed to flash in her eyes.

The escape pod sped upwards along the track, and everyone fell silent, each with a mix of emotions.

Several minutes later, the group fell into a small base located on the edge of an abandoned city.

As the air cooled down, Lin Su realized that everyone was looking at him.

"Did you already know something?" An Ran stared at him. "Why were you so calm, as if you had been prepared all along?"

Chapter 1046 The Beginning of Memory

Lin Su slowly exhaled and sat down on the ground: "Because I've also heard the word 'Number One' in my dreams."

Chu Mo narrowed his eyes: "What do you mean?"

“I started dreaming about Shen Zhixue three years ago.” Lin Su raised his head, his gaze complicated. “It wasn’t her face, but her talking, saying strange things like the starting point of memories and dimensional return.”

Xiao You was stunned: "You too? But... why didn't you say so?!"

Lin Su smiled bitterly: "Who would believe me if I told them? I don't even believe it myself. I always thought it was a psychological trauma left by that mission that affected me too much."

"But what about now?" An Ran asked.

“I don’t know.” Lin Su looked at the faint light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling. “But now it seems… maybe I’m not the only one having these dreams.”

Ji Yan suddenly said, "So you're all within the influence of 'Number One'."

The atmosphere froze again.

No one spoke anymore, only the mournful sound of the wind blowing through the broken walls.

A few minutes later, the gray-robed man walked up to them, his tone as calm as ever: "Would you like to know more about Shen Zhixue and about 'Number One'?"

Everyone looked up abruptly.

The gray-robed man lifted a corner of his hood, revealing a strange and cold expression: "I can tell you. But first, we must see someone—'Zero'."

The air seemed to freeze for a moment.

“Zero?” An Ran exclaimed. “I thought it was just a code name—a non-existent actual entity?”

“He exists,” the gray-robed man said in a low voice. “He is still waiting for you, Su Ting.”

Su Ting suddenly stood up: "How do you know I'm the person he's talking about?"

"Because in the last encrypted message he left behind—" The gray-robed man took out a chip with an embedded silver core and slowly inserted it into the terminal interface. A line of text appeared on the screen:

"If anyone responds to the fluctuations of the 'Memory Source Point,' please let us know: 'Zero' is still alive in the Mirror Abyss."

The instant the screen went black, all electronic devices in the room simultaneously emitted piercing alarms:

[Level 1 data anomaly detected. The system is requesting access permission for the 'Mirror Abyss Protocol'.]

"The Mirror Abyss Protocol?" Ji Yan's face instantly darkened. "Are you fucking trying to send us all to the data graveyard?!"

“This is something you can’t understand right now.” The gray-robed man calmly turned off the terminal screen, his tone devoid of any emotion. “Zero is still alive, and he needs you.”

An Ran suddenly stood up and rushed in front of him, slamming her hands on the table and roaring, "Who are you? Whose side are you on? Haven't you been helping Shen Zhixue all along? Now you want us to find a code name that even she denies exists? Do you have a brain?!"

"I am loyal only to the truth." The gray-robed man's voice was as cold as the clash of steel.

Lin Su slowly stood up, his gaze falling on Su Ting: "What do you think?"

Everyone fell silent, their gazes fixed on Su Ting's face. It was a face that mixed hesitation and determination, his lips tightly pressed together, and a flame burning in his eyes that even he himself could not comprehend.

He spoke slowly, his pace unhurried, but every word was resounding:

"Whether you go or not, I'm going."

The air seemed to freeze for a moment.

Xiao You frowned and shouted, "Wait! What is 'Mirror Abyss'? Do you even know how to get in? Rushing in like this is suicide—do you think you're the protagonist and can just cheat your way to the end?!"

Chapter 1047 Map and Key Access

Chu Mo stared coldly at Su Ting, his eyes sharp as knives. After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly said, "How do you plan to go? Tell me."

The gray-robed man took over the conversation, took out a miniature terminal with a bluish hue from his robes, and gently placed it on the table:

"Here you have a map and key access to the 'Mirror Abyss Entrance Area'."

Ji Yan narrowed his eyes: "How do you have such a thing? Didn't Shen Zhixue not give you these permissions?"

The gray-robed man said in a low voice, "That was left to me three years ago to deal with a specific situation... and that situation is today."

The atmosphere once again descended into a suffocating tension.

After a long silence, An Ran gritted her teeth and asked, "What will we face if we enter the Mirror Abyss?"

“Unpredictable.” The gray-robed man looked up and stared directly at the crowd. “But we are very likely to encounter the true…system core.”

"The source of the system," Lin Su murmured.

Xiao You swallowed hard: "So what we're fighting against isn't a program at all? It's a consciousness, right? Has it... always known what we're doing?"

“No,” the gray-robed man slowly shook his head, “it is **you**, it is everyone in your life, including the memories you least want to face deep inside your heart.”

The air grew heavy again, even the sound of wind rustling through the leaves outside the wall was muffled.

Chu Mo sneered: "You make it sound so mysterious, so why are you letting us in? To become your test subjects? Or to be directly devoured by the system?"

The gray-robed man glanced at him calmly: "If you don't enter, the 'self-destruct protocol' will be fully activated. Three days later, the 'Mirror Abyss Network' will completely collapse, and at least two-thirds of the world's data will be annihilated. This includes—all of humanity's backed-up memory archives, medical records, and even the central network of artificial intelligence."

Ji Yan's expression suddenly changed drastically: "You mean... this is part of the 'Ultimate Choice' event?"