Crossing the zebra crossing, Li Chengyi carefully avoided the electric motorcycle riders speeding on the sidewalk, then stepped onto a white overpass fitted with an escalator.
He walked to the other side of the road, then followed the stone path on the sidewalk to the right for three hundred and fifty meters.
Li Chengyi finally reached the New Century Building mentioned by Xindela.
Before he could approach the entrance of the building, which was guarded by security, a young woman standing by the door took the initiative to greet him.
"Are you Mr. Cheng Yi?" The woman was dressed in an OL-style black suit with a skirt ending a bit above her knees, which was rather short, revealing fair and slender legs. Her brownish-yellow curly hair draped over her shoulders, her face lightly made up, her eyebrows obviously over-plucked, resembling two pencil leads.
"That's me." Li Chengyi recognized from the address that she must be the person sent to meet him and nodded slightly.
"Please follow me, the company entrance is not from here," she said with a professional receptionist's smile in a soft voice.
"Alright," Li Chengyi said, looking up at the building again.
A sense of urgency suddenly rose in his heart.
According to Xindela, the Blind Spot would come again in two months. This wasn't a game; there were no rewards for surviving, so he had to make all possible preparations to deal with it as quickly as possible within these two months.
Moreover, if he could use Xindela's resources to find a way to evolve his Floral Dress, then his chances of getting through the Blind Spot would increase significantly.
Ever since the first time the Floral Dress tore apart the face monster and he managed to survive, Li Chengyi had understood that his greatest hope lay in the Evil Flower.
In terms of intelligence, he was just at an average person's level; he really wasn't cut out for it...
Following the woman, he went around to the side of the building, entered through an office staff entrance, and took a dedicated elevator.
Before long, the elevator stopped on the nineteenth floor.
Ding.
The door opened.
Inside was a row of neatly arranged office desks and chairs.
White tables and chairs, black floors, silver-white ceilings, and large green plants in the corners.
The staff sat orderly at their desks, occasionally operating a computer or communicating on the phone, looking very busy.
"Here," the woman leading the way reminded with a smile and walked ahead.
"Okay," Li Chengyi followed her through the rows of desks and came to a dark corridor at the far end.
At the end of the corridor was a single room with a half-open door. A man smoking by the floor-to-ceiling window stood inside.
He wore a silver-black suit, a white shirt, a slicked back hairstyle, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other holding a cigarette.
Li Chengyi recognized him at a glance, it was Xindela whom he had met before.
He glanced at the woman leading the way, who stretched out her hand toward him, gesturing for him to enter.
"Ahem." Li Chengyi stepped forward, walked through the corridor, pushed the door, and entered the office at the end.
"You're here?" Xindela turned around and extinguished his cigarette in an ashtray on the table.
"The contract on the desk, take a look. If you agree, sign it, if not, forget it," he said, pointing to the yellow wooden desk to one side.
The office wasn't large; there was a black leather sofa, a low coffee table, a small whiteboard for writing, two movable computer chairs, and a rectangular office desk, all arranged from left to right.
The furnishings seemed hasty and simple, like a briefcase company.
Li Chengyi turned his attention to the office desk, where three drinks sat.
There were two black and one red: two bottles of Cachi Cola and one bottle of Yunshan Mineral Water, all five hundred milliliters.
The contract was held in place by the red plastic-wrapped mineral water bottle.
He stepped forward, moved the mineral water, and picked up the simple sheet of contract paper to read.
The content was straightforward: it was an agreement to work in Xindela's company, to clock in and out on time every day, with no specified work content nor restrictions. However, the salary and benefits were detailed.
With such generous terms, he had no reason not to sign.
Immediately, he picked up a ballpoint pen from the side and swiftly filled in his name.
"Leave your bank card number in the finance office later," Xindela said, turning his head to remind him.
"What about the information, the one about the Blind Spot?" Li Chengyi asked about the part he was most concerned about.
"Let me first ask, do you know how many types of Blind Spots there are?" Xindela asked, slowly walking to the door and closing it.
"Types?"
"Yes, there are many different types of Blind Spots, so you need to tell me what kind of Blind Spot you entered. That way we can find the information accurately."
After closing the door, he took out something resembling a USB drive, silver and black, from his pocket, and handed it to Li Chengyi.
"Just open it against a whiteboard or a wall," he said.
Li Chengyi took the object and examined it carefully. It seemed to be a miniature flashlight. On the side was a simple switch button.
He flipped it over and aimed the bulb end at the white wall to his left.
Clicking the button,
Hiss.
A white beam shot out from one end of the device, casting on the white wall.
Instantly, a colorful, large screen with dimensions greater than four meters squared appeared on the wall.
On the screen were rows of yellow folders neatly aligned, with at least a hundred.
"These are the Blind Spot materials I've collected—quite a lot, right?" Xindela said softly from behind.
"A lot," Li Chengyi narrowed his eyes and carefully looked at the names of the folders, all purely numerical codes.
"First, you need to understand one thing, the most important rule about the Blind Spot," Xindela continued.
"Blind Spots generally only have two ways to leave,"
He stretched out two fingers.
"First, out of the group of people who enter together, each time one dies, the others can temporarily leave once. After two months, they will re-enter it.
That is one of the reasons why we call this phenomenon a Blind Spot,"
Li Chengyi's pupils shrank, as he associated this with his current situation.
"Is that what's happening to me now?" he asked.
"Yes. Someone must have died in the Blind Spot you entered, which is why you were able to temporarily escape.
Of course, the interval between leaving and re-entering is not necessarily fixed at two months, that's just an average we've calculated," Xindela continued.
"The second method of leaving is to completely find the Blind Spot's method of escape.
Each Blind Spot has its unique method of escape, these methods are bizarre and varied, but all have a significant connection to their origins.
For this reason, I established this company, recruited a few special individuals, and assisted me in investigating this matter,"
"How many people, like me, have joined you?" Li Chengyi asked.
"Not many," Xindela replied succinctly.
"How few is 'not many'?" Li Chengyi asked, a sense of unease rising in his heart.
"Including you, just two," Xindela said indifferently. "At most, there were about a dozen people, but gradually, only two were left."
"...They all died?" Li Chengyi felt a tightness in his chest, and his voice lowered as he asked.
"Perhaps, but for those of us who have never entered a Blind Spot, they have all disappeared. Alive, we see no one; dead, we find no bodies," Xindela sighed.
"So, if a lot of people enter a Blind Spot at the same time, couldn't someone die each time, extending survival time continuously until an escape method is found? From this perspective, there should be people who really escaped completely from the Blind Spots, right?" Li Chengyi quickly caught on.
"There are, and there aren't," Xindela replied.
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like," he walked to stand shoulder to shoulder with Li Chengyi, stopped, and looked up at the projection screen on the wall.
"Indeed, some people have found ways to escape from Blind Spots with external help, using the method you described.
But... they also encountered another major problem."
"What problem?"
"Inside a Blind Spot, once people start dying, each time someone dies, the dangers for others who re-enter increase significantly."
"Increase?..." Li Chengyi felt a chill, "To what extent?"
"I don't know," Xindela shook his head, "My son disappeared in there, and I too, want to know if one can truly escape from a Blind Spot..."
"What about those who found the exit?" Li Chengyi asked again.
"They will encounter new Blind Spots after two months, until they disappear," Xindela said.
"..."
Li Chengyi finally understood why this phenomenon was called the Blind Spot.
"Don't worry, the longest record is held by a government official who survived more than thirty Blind Spots. Try hard, and maybe you could too!" Xindela patted him on the shoulder, consoling him.
"So you mean, you want to find your son? Didn't you say he died?" Li Chengyi continued to ask.
"Perhaps he just disappeared."
"Alright," Li Chengyi did not press further, "Where should I start?"
"From beginning to end, how you got in, what it was like inside, how you got out, tell me everything," Xindela said earnestly.
Li Chengyi did not delay; he immediately recounted his initial experience of entering the premonition phase, then going in fully, encountering the monster, and so on.
Of course, anything related to the Evil Flower, including the event where he tore the monster's human face, was omitted.
No matter what, the Flower Language Ability and the Floral Dress from the Evil Flower would be his biggest trump cards, and there could be no leakage.
"Are you saying you encountered someone who brought a gun inside?" Xindela asked thoughtfully.
"Yes. That person was clearly prepared, otherwise, they wouldn't have headed straight for the nook where I was hiding.
Also, I saw strange symbols at the entrance of the nook that suddenly appeared," Li Chengyi replied.
"If the premonition allows you to prepare supplies in advance, it naturally enables others to do the same. If, by chance, someone is legally qualified to carry a gun and can procure firearms, then it's not unusual for them to take guns into the Blind Spot. I'm just not sure if they are official. No... probably not," Xindela stroked his chin.
"What should I do?" Li Chengyi asked, frowning.
"To survive, you must not only face the inherent dangers of the Blind Spot but also learn to deal with threats from other people. Among these threats, the most probable would be various weapons."
Xindela walked to one side, quickly writing a few words on the whiteboard with a black pen.
'Physical fitness, weapons, response mode.'
"These three areas are what you need to strengthen and learn over the next two months if you want to survive."
Li Chengyi put down the projector flashlight in his hand and looked towards the whiteboard.
"Do you have a plan?"
"Of course. I've rented out the entire floor below this one as an indoor training center, for you and another assistant to use.
As for weapons, you need to learn how to protect yourself against various weapons before you learn to use them yourself.
The reason for putting weapon mastery second is because common weapons, including firearms, are mostly ineffective against the dangers inside the Blind Spots. The most effective use of a gun is against people."
"I thought you were backed by some big organization," Li Chengyi suddenly said out of the blue.