That was the driver from before.

He was Qin Dongguo.

The one… who should have disappeared.

And that taxi that carried them earlier, according to Pi Ruan, is still being held as evidence by the police forensic team. How could it be here?

And coincidentally pick them up?

A coincidence?

His body trembled uncontrollably. Fatty's teeth were chattering. Everything that had just happened was more terrifying than a nightmare, simply because... this was reality.

Their reality!

Not that bizarre space behind the black iron door that only opens when they're asleep.

He had a strange feeling, whether it could be called a premonition or not, that the barrier between dream and reality seemed to be eroding.

The boundary between the two was becoming increasingly blurred.

And if left unchecked, the result would be that one day, those ghastly things from the nightmare… would descend upon the world.

Just like what had just happened.

He couldn't imagine… no, he dared not, and forced himself not to think about it.

If the doctor hadn't stopped him, and had allowed the "person" called Qin Dongguo to keep driving, where would they have ended up, following that car that he didn't even know if it truly existed in this time and space?

At the end… would there also be a black door standing?

Or was there an unknown force lurking, surpassing their consciousness?

He vividly remembered the feeling of sitting in that car.

It was like being in an icehouse, where the sunlight had no warmth.

That wasn't the feeling of this world.

The middle-aged man's words to the doctor suddenly surfaced in Fatty's mind, like a needle piercing straight through the back of his head, cold, sudden, yet extremely clear.

So clear it was as if the middle-aged man was standing right in front of him.

"There's still a small group of people," the middle-aged man had said, "They account for a very small proportion, so small that we almost ignored them at first."

"They will be chosen by the Crimson," the middle-aged man leaned forward, his voice hoarse, "Chosen… to invade this world."

Fatty's throat bobbed heavily. His mouth opened slightly, as if wanting to say something, but in the end, he chose to keep it shut.

Across from him, the doctor had already picked up his phone.

"Shut your mouth," the doctor said calmly as he connected the call, "Send a car to pick us up right now. I've sent you the location." He paused, then continued, "Come yourself. If I don't see you in the car, all previous agreements are void."

As soon as he finished speaking, Jiang Cheng hung up the phone.

He didn't seem to have any intention of listening to the other party speak.

Fatty wisely kept his mouth shut at that moment, because the doctor was clearly in a bad mood. He had rarely seen the doctor like this in his memory.

Especially since he knew who the doctor was calling.

That middle-aged man.

The one Chen Xiaomeng brought.

In less than 20 minutes, maybe even shorter, an inconspicuous black car screeched to a halt in front of them. The driver was clearly skilled, stopping in just the right spot.

Jiang Cheng stepped forward and opened the passenger door, then sat down.

Fatty was stunned for a moment. After realizing what was happening, he opened the back door, but he suddenly stopped just as he was about to get in, and then felt uneasy all over.

He swallowed hard, his face turning ugly, of course, with more fear, and the inevitable awkwardness.

A girl wearing a baseball uniform and cap, with a neat ponytail, was sitting in the back seat.

The girl, with her legs crossed, had just withdrawn her lowered gaze from Jiang Cheng, who had gotten in first, and it fell on him. Her sharp, arrow-like eyes sized him up and down, as if she wanted to dissect him.

Curling her lips, Xia Meng symbolically patted the seat next to her, her sharp canine teeth showing at the corners of her mouth, appearing to reflect a cold light in Fatty's eyes.

"Come on," she said with a smile, "Fatty."

Fatty's throat bobbed heavily. He looked at the doctor for help, but the latter's attention was clearly not on him. In the end, helplessly, he could only get into the thief's car.

But he was very sensible and shrunk to the edge of the door, trying not to have any substantial contact with Xia Meng.

The same went for his eyes.

But Xia Meng enthusiastically moved closer. She pulled out a rope from behind her, the one she had bought from the cart-driving uncle to whip donkeys.

It had been confiscated by the police as evidence not long ago, but now it was back in her hands.

When she came, she had an agreement with Uncle Gong: Jiang Cheng was useful and couldn't be touched for the time being, but this Fatty was not within the scope of the agreement. After all, this Fatty had also contributed to threatening her back then.

She very unreservedly touched Fatty's arm, and the latter was so frightened that he immediately moved away, then his huge body clung tightly to the car door, with a determined look of "if you touch me again, I'll jump out of the car."

The interest on Xia Meng's face grew even stronger.

Just as she was thinking about it, and the corners of her eyes gradually curved slightly like a fox, Jiang Cheng's voice suddenly came from the passenger seat. He hadn't said a word since he got in the car.

Neither had the middle-aged man driving.

The two were as silent as two pieces of wood.

"Those guys who are targeting you," Jiang Cheng said, "have found me too."

Hearing this, the playfulness on Xia Meng's face instantly dissipated. She immediately looked at Jiang Cheng, and what reappeared on her face was an unprecedented solemnity. After a long while, she lowered her voice and asked, "What did you say?"

"You heard clearly, so don't ask nonsense," Jiang Cheng said coldly.

The middle-aged man driving seemed very calm. In fact, he had guessed it when he received the latter's call, but he just didn't say it.

After Jiang Cheng briefly recounted the cause of the matter, the atmosphere in the car became extremely oppressive.

Something kept flashing in Xia Meng's eyes. She seemed to want to say something, but before she could open her mouth, she felt a faint gaze sweep over her.

She looked up and happened to see Uncle Gong's eyes in the rearview mirror just as they moved away.

"Their movements are faster than I expected," the middle-aged man spoke for the first time, his voice as unpleasant as ever. Fatty even frowned.

He turned the steering wheel to the right, and the car drove into a very narrow fork in the road.

Obviously few people came here, and the road conditions were very poor, with bumpy gravel. The car was constantly jolting.

After driving forward for a while, several sacks suddenly appeared in the middle of the road.

They were bulging and had a rough, uneven texture on the surface. They seemed to be filled with sand and gravel, but undoubtedly, these sacks were placed here to act as roadblocks.

Sure enough, when they saw their car approaching, several young men emerged from behind the trees on both sides, and without any prompting, they neatly moved the sacks away.

The car continued to drive forward, and in front of them appeared a tall building.