Hourglass Project - Chapter 13

At this moment, Huang Jijun really wished she could borrow Li Moyao’s acting skills.

Faced with a few players who had found and surrounded her, she appeared calm on the surface ,and calm underneath as well.

“You’d better hand over the Ring. For the sake of us all being Chinese, we might spare your life!”

One player threatened her.

“Yeah! Don’t force us to get rough! This isn’t a law-abiding society anymore!”

Another chimed in.

With a cheerful smile, Huang Jijun swept her gaze across them, then suddenly tossed out her dagger. Under their eyes, it transformed with her ability into a long blade—mechanical design, the edge sharp and sleek.

“Sh1t! She’s got an ability!” one player cried out in shock.

“You idiot, didn’t you say she didn’t have powers?!” another scolded.

“I do have powers! But not that badass, okay?!”

The hardest words spoken with the most cowardly attitude.

Gripping her transformed blade, Huang Jijun smiled faintly. “You know the saying, ‘Don’t hit someone who’s smiling.’”

They all instinctively thought she was talking about herself, and just as one player was about to joke—

“But you’re not smiling.”

They froze, and regretted not smiling only when the blade came swinging toward them.

The fight, all things considered, wasn’t too difficult.

After putting away her weapon, Huang Jijun turned and left, ignoring the groaning players on the ground. She pulled out her smartwatch and sent a message to the group:

Jun: “About 21 hours left until day three ends.”

Seeing that, Huang Yuhan let out a long sigh. “Damn it, still that long…?”

Tao Luo stared at the blue screen and typed:

Luo: “Where are you guys?”

Li Moyao was sleeping on one of the beds nearby. Huang Yuhan sat beside her. The catgirl was unconscious on the table, her body now back in human form. They were holed up in an abandoned shack.

Lin Yi glanced around her surroundings and replied.

Yi: “Next to a toilet.”

She couldn’t help but laugh after sending that. After putting her smartwatch away, she stepped out of the bathroom and saw the man fiddling with a [redacted weapon].

She moved to the window to check outside. The two of them were in another abandoned building, maybe because it was a small town, there were plenty of empty places for players to hide.

Leaning against the wall, she relaxed after seeing no one pass by for five minutes.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“…We’re in a cooperation-based relationship, so by the rules, you’re Passerby A and I’m…”

‘Cannon Fodder B.’

“Cannon Fodder B?” The man said what she was thinking and smiled. “What about Hooligan C and Bandit D?”

Surprised that he knew the reference, she looked back at him with the smile of someone finding a kindred spirit. “You’ve seen it too?”

He chuckled. “My wife loved it. I watched it with her.”

She raised her eyebrows, about to ask something but stopped short.

Knowing what she wanted to ask, the man said, “My wife died in the first global micro-space challenge.”

Lin Yi turned her eyes back to the window, feeling a bit awkward.

The man looked apologetic. “Sorry, that must’ve dampened the mood.”

“No…” Lin Yi opened her mouth to reply but got choked up, and in the end, could only say, “My condolences…”

The man looked down, fingers idly rubbing the hilt of his weapon. He didn’t say anything else.

Silence settled between them.

“The micro-space challenge titled ‘Snatch the Ring I’ has concluded. All surviving players have completed the system’s mission. Remaining player count: 12.”

CJ007 made the closing announcement. He turned to the group and said, “Player Lin Yi, please hand over Ring I.”

Lin Yi hadn’t expected her name to be announced aloud and wordlessly tossed over Ring I.

The players who thought Huang Jijun had it were stunned!

“What the hell?! How did she have it?!”

“I have no idea…”

CJ007 glanced at Ring I, then turned to Lin Yi. “Player Lin Yi has earned the final reward of the ‘Snatch the Ring’ micro-space challenge: the [Inept Guardian].”

Lin Yi looked down. A card had appeared in her hand. Without checking the details, she stuffed it in her pocket.

“Safe travels to all players.”

As soon as the envoy finished, their vision was enveloped in blue mist.

Card Name: Inept Guardian
Owner: Lin Yi
Usage Instructions: Before use, say “Fix your flaws.”
Usage Limit: Duration is 30 minutes. Once activated, it cannot be canceled except by expiration. Cooldown time is three days.
Origin: A former city guardian deemed unfit in many ways, now repurposed as a carryable card—but still carries many defects.

The front of the card showed a soldier in armor holding a silver sword, with a background matching the city’s sky and a looming hourglass.

“Sh1t, are they kidding me?” Lin Yi was speechless after reading the description. “They didn’t even list what the flaws are!”

Huang Yuhan giggled. “At least you got something. We didn’t get anything.”

From the bed, Li Moyao chuckled and wiggled her fingers with her eyes still closed. “No~ we did~”

“The annoying thieves finally got kicked out!”

“Good thing they didn’t steal Ring I.”

The two curators of the Platinum Crossing Museum chatted as they walked in, only to scream moments later.

From that day on, the people of the border town knew that two artifacts had gone missing from the museum:

A velvet panda and a teapot.

“You really are something, Yaoyao,” Huang Yuhan muttered as she held the tiny plush panda. She finally understood where Li Moyao had disappeared to earlier. “But what’s this thing even do?”

Lin Yi held the teapot and laughed. “I don’t even want to put water in this.”

“Well~” Li Moyao laughed along, then answered, “What does it do…? I don’t know either.”

Both of them stared blankly.

From the passenger seat, Huang Jijun suddenly shouted, “Yaoyao!”

“Hmm?”

“…The GPS says we’re no longer in China.”

That one line shut up all the noisy chatter. Huang Jijun looked back at them and said, “We’re in India.”

Li Moyao slumped in her seat, clothes slightly disheveled, and smiled. “Well, we’ve got to care about the other children too~”

The Master of the Curtain wouldn’t stay in China forever. He had to visit other zones and see how other countries were doing.

They were all his children. He couldn’t play favorites.

“So… are we still going to Beijing?” Huang Yuhan asked.

The car hadn’t stopped.

“Of course~ Let’s see if he left a residence there~” Li Moyao replied lazily.

Lin Yi adjusted her clothes. “There’ll be some traces, surely.”

“But there are so many countries,” Huang Yuhan said. “If the Curtain Master checks each one, that’ll take at least a month. What are we supposed to do in the meantime?”

Li Moyao’s gaze drifted out the window, watching a flock of crows fly across the sky. She yawned. “Adapt and act accordingly~”

Huang Jijun turned back to watch the Master’s movements. Lin Yi leaned against the seat with a sigh.

They reached Beijing before dark and checked into a hotel.

Barring surprises, they planned to stay a month or two.

Actually, they were in the middle of a “surprise” already—thanks to the Master of the Curtain’s equal concern for all.

Li Moyao lay in bed staring at the fading light outside when suddenly she turned and saw Double Huang emerging from the Boundary Arts Pocket Dimension.

That dimension was portable and its size adjustable. Its weight changed with size, but to a Boundary Arts Practitioner, it felt feather-light.

Double Huang had just finished showering. Seeing only Moyao present, she asked about the others.

“They’re still bathing~” Moyao smiled.

She was the first to finish~

Huang Yuhan lay beside her, staring at the ceiling, zoning out. Huang Jijun had gone out to scout for threats, since they hadn’t been discreet entering the hotel. Their car was still in the parking lot.

“…I feel like playing a game.”

After a while, Huang Yuhan blurted out.

Li Moyao yawned, eyes watery. “Then go ahead and feel that way~”

“……”

Night fell.

Not a soul stirred in Beijing. Crows perched silently all over.

A heavy stillness blanketed the city.

The players were trapped in a deadly game. They feared the crows would cry out—feared that call. But for now, all they could do was adapt.

A peaceful night’s sleep was out of the question.

A teenage boy crept toward the bed, then squatted by the sofa to reach for a backpack. Just as he touched it—

“You should be asking yourself why you were able to enter this room.”

BANG!

“S-Sis, spare me!!”

Huang Yuhan pinned the boy to the ground with her knee in his back. Even in the dark, she could see his face, at most fifteen years old.

Though she herself wasn’t an adult either.

“You’ve got the wrong room, kid. You should’ve hit the one next door,” she said, smiling.

“…Sis, there’s no one in the next room…” the boy murmured.

She raised an eyebrow. “And now, do you still think someone is better than no one?”

The boy fell silent.

…Yeah, no one’s definitely better.

From the window, Lin Yi sighed. “Man, I wish the police station was still open.”

The boy cut in again. “Sis, even the cops are thieves now.”

She turned to look at him. “So unromantic.”

What she meant was: if the police were still functioning, that would mean Earth was fine. The “Hourglass Project” didn’t exist. They were still just normal humans.

The boy didn’t reply. They quickly kicked him out and told him to go rob the next room.

After the door slammed shut, the boy cursed under his breath and opened the door next door, only to find it completely empty.

Nothing good to steal. He grumbled and found a random room in the hotel to crash for the night.

“You said we’d lie low!” Huang Yuhan scolded. “And yet we’re already being tracked?”

Lin Yi gave her a side glance. “Who drove? Who didn’t follow the plan?”

They all remembered Huang Yuhan had taken over the wheel on the final stretch into Beijing. She’d bragged about not getting caught, then drove boldly to the hotel.

And now she had the nerve to complain?

Huang Yuhan froze, mouth open. “Y-yeah… who would be that dumb…”

Lin Yi let out three flat, emotionless “ha”s.

The backpack theft was a minor episode. The two didn’t dwell on it and soon drifted back to sleep.

Anyway, the bag was empty. It was just for a show.