Don't Look in the Mirror for More Than Ten Seconds

Ten copies, ten closed spaces, ten rules. Lin Guan is a data analyst who woke up one day and found himself trapped in a hotel. The rules are written on the wall, if you break them you will die. There are three people accompanying him: retired security guard Zhao Ye, who does not analyze but only does things, and carries a paper knife with him; recorder Su Wan, who writes down all the disappearing names in a book; Gu Yan, who has a background in psychology, tracks every subtle change in Lin Guan throughout the process, waiting for the opportunity to ask the question - **Are you still you? ** The four people entered the dungeon again and again and came out alive again and again. But the costs are piling up. Lin Guan's pause before speaking shortened from three seconds to zero, and he began to replace "person" with "individual" and use data to process emotions. Su Wan forgot his father's voice and how to write his own name, but the names of every deceased person in the record book were as neat as before. In the seventh story, Zhao Ye left the paper knife to Lin Guan and only said: **"If one day you feel something is not right, just stop and take a look at the knife."** Ten copies, the rules are becoming more and more basic, and the price is becoming more and more hidden. Until Lin Guan went to the source of the rules and discovered that the system was not the enemy—it was a buffer established by human civilization to prevent it from being crushed by higher-dimensional anomalies. And it requires one person to stay in it forever to support its operation. Lin Guan rejected this logic. He chooses the third way. The last scene in the book shows Zhao Ye helping an unknown stranger carry a bag on an ordinary street. He didn't know that person at all.