Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 310

That feeling was just like when she tried to find something she had left in a corner for days, only to realize it had suddenly disappeared. Then, after giving up, it inexplicably reappeared in front of her.
She didn’t understand why she hadn’t thought of this before.
To test her theory, she took a can of synthetic meat from her bag, slowly approached the cat, opened the can, and placed it down. As always, the cat lowered its head and happily started eating.
Yu Xi then took out a small, high-precision recording device and began filming the cat.
Twenty minutes later, she didn’t see the elevator girl.
An hour later, after returning home and showering, she turned on the holographic screen to watch the news.
Before bed that night, she wrapped herself in a coat and stepped out onto the terrace.
The wind was strong at this height. Leaning against the railing, she gazed down at the unfamiliar city. From this perspective, the slums at the city’s lowest level were hidden beneath layers of neon advertisements from the middle tiers.
She could hear the hum of flight vehicles passing through the airways, the voices of neighbors conversing inside their apartments, the heavy scent of dust in the air, and the lingering taste of a good meal in her mouth. Her hands, resting against the railing, could feel the cold texture beneath her palms.
If her suspicions were correct, then everything around her was far too terrifying.
The next day was not a workday. She purposely chose to leave at noon, coinciding with the time the couple across the hall usually went out for lunch and shopping.
She greeted them casually, pretending to head out as well. As they walked to the parking garage together, she kept her focus on her recording device, appearing to watch a video but actually filming them the entire time.
That evening, she didn’t see the black-and-white cat in the garage.
After the two-day break, work resumed. In the morning, she discreetly recorded the couple’s farewell. At night, she recorded the elevator girl again.
She repeated this for several days until she felt she had gathered enough footage.
Back in her apartment, Yu Xi retrieved her laptop from her inventory, transferred the recorded videos, and carefully sorted them into categorized files. Then, she opened a program and played side-by-side comparisons of the same individuals and the cat, analyzing them frame by frame.
After more than thirty minutes, she had reviewed everything. The results were unmistakable.
A chilling sensation crawled over her skin.
She remembered how Xing Min had once explained the difference between a virtual world and a lower-dimensional reality in devourer’s domain.
A virtual world was pre-scripted. The angle of a blooming flower, the sway of the wind—everything looked beautiful, but if recorded multiple times, it would always follow the same predetermined sequence. No variation, no soul, just a mechanical repetition of programmed actions.
Just like how, in every mission world she had entered, Xing Min had preloaded certain world characters. If she wasn’t present, or if she left, those characters would still behave according to their pre-scripted roles.
Ordinary people would never notice. But those who knew her well, those closest to her, could perceive the minute inconsistencies.
Now, using technology with absolute precision, she had confirmed it.
Across different days, the same people and the same cat—every farewell, every movement while eating, every step the elevator girl took, the rhythm of her voice—all were identical.
Not a single frame was different.
What did this mean?
If a person were real, even if they repeated the same action, spoke the same words, or made the same expressions, there would always be minor, natural differences. They would never be a perfect copy-and-paste replication.
Which meant this world was a virtual world.
These people and that cat—just like npcs, moving forward, turning, and stopping based on preset pathways.
It had all been crafted flawlessly. Yet, thinking back, it was all so crude—so disconnected from the world’s supposed reality, from her own memories, from everything she had sensed so far.
Every memory matched. Every feeling had been real—terrifyingly real.
The logic was airtight, leaving no flaws. It was constructed with meticulous care, so much so that she had never even considered the possibility before.
If this was a virtual world, then why did it exhibit such extreme contradictions?
What was truly going on here?
Was the final station just another stop? But the endless train phone had disappeared. She hadn’t received any new messages.
Yu Xi slowly lifted her head, scanning her surroundings. A new look filled her eyes—one of scrutiny and doubt.
Even if this wasn’t her original world, she had spent nearly a month here, believing it was real.
But now, she realized it wasn’t.
And that realization was far more terrifying than being trapped in an infinite time loop.
Suddenly, the furniture and walls around her started to distort.
A loud, garbled noise erupted in her ears—static, overlapping voices—chaotic, impossible to distinguish.
She thought the walls and furniture were breaking down, but when she tried to step forward, she staggered.
It wasn’t the world that was spinning—she was dizzy.
She gripped the table, shaking her head violently to clear her mind. The dizziness subsided slightly, and the noise became a bit clearer.
She focused, straining to decipher the words buried within the static.
And then, she realized.
It was a voice, repeating the same phrase over and over.
Who was speaking?
What were they saying?
She pressed her palm against her temple, suppressing the nausea, forcing herself to listen.
open…
Open what? What was she supposed to open?
Wait—this voice sounded familiar…
It sounded like… herself!?
A powerful wave of exhaustion crashed over her, as if something wanted to stop her from hearing any more.
It tried to shut her down, forcing her into sleep.
If she fell asleep, what would happen?
When she woke up, would she remember everything she had just discovered?
Yu Xi’s thoughts sharpened in an instant.
A gleaming dagger appeared in her right hand.
She stretched out her left hand and slashed it across her palm.
As the blade cut through her skin, she told herself—
She would be injured.
Her skin would break.
Her blood would flow.
And she would feel it—
Pain.
Real pain.
Her body, enhanced to nine times its original strength, was still cut open by a small dagger, and she had barely used any force with her right hand.
Blood surged from her palm, dripping onto the floor.
Yu Xi stared at her blood-covered left hand, then suddenly laughed.
The flawless, airtight logic had finally cracked.
And the thing that changed everything was her own consciousness.
This place was not just a virtual world. This place was also her consciousness world.
It was like a massive virtual foundation, overlaid and merged with her subjective mind. Everything related to her memories was vivid, logically sound, and incredibly detailed because it was created by her own thoughts and consciousness.
Only her own consciousness and logic could deceive her, could convince her senses that this was truly a mission world’s reality.
But the underlying foundation of this world was rough and hollow. The people, the animals—they only moved along predetermined paths.
As long as she believed in this world, even the flaws in its virtual aspects were easy to overlook.
But the moment she stopped believing, everything began to fall apart.
The pain suppressed the sleepiness creeping into her mind. The static in her ears gradually faded, and the garbled noise became clearer.
She heard it distinctly now.
It was her own voice.
open…
yu… open your…
Fighting against the overwhelming pain, she forced herself to concentrate.
She could hear herself speaking right next to her ear.
yu xi, open your eyes
She gently closed her eyes, then suddenly snapped them open.
suddenly, everything went dark.
There was no reality where the train hovered in the sky. No 103rd-floor apartment. No neighbors, no black-and-white cat, no elevator girl, no training center.
Where was she?
She was drenched in sweat, gasping for breath as if she would suffocate if she stopped.
Her brain throbbed painfully, like a hammer pounding the back of her skull, sharp and relentless. The dizziness and nausea hit her like a tidal wave.
She leaned weakly against the cold wall in front of her, struggling to regain some strength.
The space was still dark, but her senses were slowly returning.
She could feel the narrow, circular wall surrounding her. It was cold and solid, possibly metal, or maybe glass.
Pain throbbed from her shoulders, the back of her neck, and her skull. She raised a hand to touch them, but as soon as she lifted her arm, she felt a sharp pull from something attached to her shoulder, intensifying the pain.
She collapsed again, though this time, she recovered faster.
Her vision gradually adjusted, revealing her surroundings more clearly.
She wasn’t enclosed by metal walls—she was inside a glass chamber.
To be precise, a cylindrical glass pod.
And all around her, countless other identical glass pods stood in neat rows.
Inside each one was a person.
They stood motionless, their eyes closed, as if they were trapped in a deep slumber.
The object piercing her shoulder seemed to be some kind of restraining device, fixing them in place like mechanical dolls.
Yu Xi raised her hand again, gritting her teeth against the pain. She reached for her neck and the back of her head.
There, she felt multiple thin, flexible tubes embedded into her skin. One end burrowed into her neck and skull, while the other connected to the glass chamber above her.
Everyone here must be just like her. Hung up like stored objects, suspended in these pods.
Where was this place? Where were the others?
Her hearing continued to recover, bringing in the sounds from beyond this space.
She could hear a faint, rhythmic rumbling. The sound of wind rushing past.
She was still on the train.
Beyond that, she could hear distant music and lighthearted conversations. The sound was familiar.
Yu Xi suddenly realized—she had never left the golden train.
somewhere in the dark recesses of the train, the sound of shattering glass rang out, followed by the dull thud of something collapsing to the floor.
Yu Xi half-knelt on the broken shards, gasping for air.
Her body was completely exhausted. Just severing the tubes, breaking the glass pod—it had drained a massive amount of her strength.
She barely had time to recover before red warning lights flared up behind her, blinking rapidly.
She guessed she had triggered some kind of alarm by breaking out.
Without hesitation, she got up, rushed toward the glowing red lights, and ripped out the circuit wires of the alarm system.
The red lights vanished. The oppressive atmosphere lifted slightly.
But she remained on high alert.
Pressing herself into the shadows behind an unbroken glass pod, she took out a high-temperature perfume from her inventory, heightening her senses to detect movement.
One minute passed.
Five minutes passed.
Ten minutes passed.
Nothing.
It seemed she had acted fast enough, destroying the alarm system before it could alert the train’s crew.
But the pain in her shoulders, neck, and skull hadn’t faded. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she forcibly removed the tubes, so she had only severed them with a blade instead of yanking them out.
A compact camping lantern appeared at her side, casting a dim glow. She took out a small mirror with a built-in stand.
Under the light, she finally saw her own reflection.
Yu Xi’s face was pale, her forehead covered in sweat, and her lips tinged blue—she looked utterly weak and wretched, as if she were on the brink of death.
This weakness wasn’t just physical; it was more mental. Her spirit seemed to have been excessively drained, now completely in a negative state, which was why she felt like her head was splitting apart, dizzy, and nauseous.
On both shoulders, two metallic claw-shaped clamps were deeply embedded in her body. These were the restraints that had just fixed her in a standing position inside the glass pillar.
When she moved her arm slightly, she could feel the sharp, bone-piercing pain from those spots.
It had been years since she last experienced such pain. Ever since she pushed her body’s strength beyond five times the norm, barely anything could injure her easily. Even if she did get hurt, it was usually just a superficial wound that healed quickly without needing [Restorative Foundation Serum].
She faced the mirror, locked her gaze on the metal clamps embedded in her body, and slowly pulled the foreign objects out, bit by bit.
A searing pain shot through her. Her fingertips trembled, but she forced her brain to start working—analyzing everything, trying to distract herself from the pain.
The post-apocalyptic setting in that virtual reality world had undoubtedly originated from her own consciousness. It was a fusion of the doomsday novels she had read, fragmented memories, and elements from Devourer’s Domain, which made it feel so incredibly real.
If she hadn’t repeatedly encountered the NPC Luo En in the virtual world, she wouldn’t have begun to suspect the reality of her surroundings. Luo En wasn’t just a simulated entity of the virtual world—he was likely a projection created by her subconscious as a reminder to herself.
Just like the voice that had echoed in her ears before she woke up—that, too, came from her own subconscious.
At the end of the day, she was able to wake up so quickly because of her body’s extraordinary resilience…
But even now, she still had no way of determining when exactly she and her companions had fallen into the virtual world and the realm of consciousness. Of the seven or eight days they had spent aboard the Golden Train, how much of it had been real, and how much had been fabricated?
For something to deceive both her and Xing Min, this train was definitely far from ordinary…
A muffled groan escaped from Yu Xi as the second metal claw clamp fell to the ground.
She let out a long breath, swiftly retrieved [Restorative Foundation Serum] from her storage space, applied it to her wounds, and then pulled out an ultra-potent pain-relieving and hemostatic agent she had stocked up on in Devourer’s Domain.
The medication was taken orally and would quickly numb the pain after ingestion.
With the wounds on her shoulders taken care of, she still dared not touch the unseen injuries at the back of her neck and skull.
Fortunately, after drinking the medication, even those wounds seemed to hurt a little less.
She stood up and began searching the surrounding glass pillars for any signs of her companions.
**
The entire space was sealed—windowless, rectangular in shape—clearly another train car. Based on the distance of the music and voices coming from outside, this place was far from the Golden Train’s passenger activity area and suites.
Thinking back, although they had spent seven or eight days on the train, they had never actually explored it in its entirety. The compartments they had visited were only the ones the train allowed them access to. Furthermore, because the train doors had a teleportation function, they always moved between fixed points, leaving them with almost zero knowledge of the train’s full structure.
Each row of glass pillars contained six enclosures, and the entire car had about thirty rows. The number of people here alone already far exceeded the previously estimated passenger limit of the Golden Train.
This meant that one of her past suspicions had been correct: the Golden Train did not have just 180 passengers. That so-called limit of 180 only applied to those residing in VIP suites, the ones free to move around the train’s public areas.
As for people like them, who were placed in these sealed compartments, their numbers were likely five times, ten times—or even more than that.
Now that she thought about it, if most passengers chose to stay on the train after each boarding, how could there be only 180 of them?
When she was trapped inside the glass pillar earlier, she hadn’t noticed, but now that she was outside, she realized that each pillar had a tiny screen attached to it.
The screens were pitch black at first, but when she lightly tapped one, it instantly lit up.
Half of the screen displayed the occupant’s vital signs—heart rate and other monitored data—while the other half showed a video feed. The footage was in first-person perspective: some were eating with family, some chatting with their lovers, some gathering with friends, some skiing in the mountains, some vacationing by the sea…
There was no sound, and the footage wasn’t continuous. One second, it might be night; the next, daylight. Someone could be planning a trip in one frame and already arriving at their destination in the next.
As she watched, a chill ran down her spine.
She knew what this was.
This was a projection of each person’s mental world—their dreams, or rather, the images formed by their conscious thoughts.
These visuals had merged with the virtual world provided by the train, creating a logically coherent reality, making everything feel real and immersive.
If this were merely a virtual reality simulation, it wouldn’t have deceived her—nor any of the other intelligent and perceptive passengers who had made it this far. They would have realized the illusion quickly and woken up, just as she had in the nightmare world at the “White Bird Lake” station. That illusion had been nothing compared to this one.
Only in dreams do things align so seamlessly, allowing people to overlook the inconsistencies.
She had no idea how the train had achieved this or what its purpose was, but clearly, every single person here was trapped—unable to wake up.
And her companions?
Yu Xi quickly moved forward, scanning row after row of glass pillars while calling out to Xing Min in her mind.
There was no response.
Two possibilities: either he was too far away to sense her, or his consciousness was still lost in his dream and the virtual world, preventing him from hearing her.
She quickly checked all the glass pillars, but Ya Tong and the others were nowhere to be found.
Reaching one end of the train car, she tried to unlock the door to access another compartment, but when she raised her hand to scan her bracelet, she realized—the Golden Train wristband was no longer on her wrist.
Had it been removed?
Or… had they all entered the illusion from the very beginning?
Yu Xi knew her emotions weren’t right.
Having survived numerous apocalyptic events, gained immense strength, and fought alongside a team of equally formidable companions, she had developed a sense of assured confidence.
This didn’t mean she lacked caution—it was a trust in herself and her teammates. She firmly believed that as long as they were together, no battle was unwinnable.
That was her conviction.
But now, she was in a weakened state, with foreign objects still lodged in the back of her neck and skull, unable to grasp her surroundings, and had lost track of her companions.
She was anxious. And this anxiety was severely clouding her judgment.
She needed to calm down.
Her body had probably gone a long time without food or water—she could feel the discomfort in her stomach.
Retrieving a cup of hot cocoa from her storage, she found a dark corner in the train car and sipped it slowly, restoring her strength.
At the same time, she allowed her mind to regain its composure.
She needed to sort things out from the beginning. They had received a notification on their phones, instructing them to go to the VIP lounge on the second floor of the departure hall. The VIP rest area and the platform were different from before—fighting between passengers was strictly prohibited…
After that, they followed the phone’s instructions to the platform, where they witnessed strange phenomena. But once they boarded the train, they never received another notification from their phones…
From that point on, all their notifications came from the wristbands provided by the Golden Train. At this realization, Yu Xi’s heart sank, and an unsettling feeling spread through her.
She recalled everything once more. It was true—ever since they boarded the train and put on the wristbands, the Endless Train’s phone had stopped sending notifications.
In other words, every piece of information they received afterward, including the final stop’s arrival and disembarkation process, came solely from the Golden Train—not from the Endless Train’s phone.
What was the difference between the two?
Everyone believed that, within this world, the train was the only “safe” place since all conflicts were prohibited, and violators would be eliminated. But what if… that wasn’t the case?
If that were true… it would perfectly explain everything.
In the darkness, a fire ignited in Yu Xi’s eyes.
If it were anyone else, even if they had reached this conclusion, they wouldn’t be able to verify it immediately. But she could!
Yu Xi put away her hot drink and was about to retrieve something from her storage when she suddenly sensed a gaze fixed on her in the pitch-black silence of the train car.
She abandoned her initial plan and instead let a bottle of [High-Temperature Perfume] appear in her hand. Raising her head, she spoke. “Come out.”
“Oh? How did you notice me?” A soft voice echoed in the darkness.
A figure emerged, leaping down gracefully. Standing about ten meters away, they watched her with a bright, playful smile.
Yu Xi recognized that face. “Meng Sha.”
“You actually remember my name?” Her tone was light, her lips curved into an innocent smile.
“What do you want?” Yu Xi’s expression remained impassive.
“Aren’t you being a bit too heartless? After all, we’ve met before. I happened to pass by and saw you in trouble, so I thought I’d help.”
Yu Xi let out a sharp laugh. “Help me? If you wanted to help, then why did you personally hand me that Golden Team ticket?”
She had already figured this part out earlier.
There was no doubt that the alliance upgrade game in Devourer’s Domain had been triggered by Meng Sha.
She seemed to be very familiar with the station, instigating and manipulating the rioters to gather a certain number of people in that area—causing a qualitative shift through sheer numbers.
Of course, her goal might not have been just to “deliver the Golden Team ticket.” After all, she couldn’t have predicted Yu Xi’s exact circumstances. It was entirely possible that she might not have survived the upgrade game and died there instead.
If she hadn’t coincidentally ended up with the military unit, traveled to Cloud City, and successfully rebooted the mechanical units, they might not have lasted the full thirty minutes.
But no matter the outcome, Meng Sha’s intentions were clearly not good.
“I don’t care who you are. Your actions have already made it clear—you’re an enemy! Maybe you don’t want to—or can’t—kill me directly. Instead, you’re trying to trap me or force me to die in some disaster.”
As Yu Xi finished speaking, Meng Sha’s expression shifted slightly, the smile fading from her lips.
“Who exactly are you?” Yu Xi asked, then suddenly chuckled. “You must’ve thought I’d fight you first and then keep pressing you for answers, right?”
In truth, she hadn’t even wanted to say so much to Meng Sha. Since she had already determined she was an enemy, talking to her was pointless.
Everything she had just said was merely a distraction—concealing the movement of her other hand inside her pocket.
Meng Sha’s timing was suspicious—appearing just as Yu Xi had pieced things together and abruptly stood up.
She didn’t know if Meng Sha had guessed what she was trying to do, but she only had one chance. She had to be even more cautious.
And at that very moment, in the hand she kept hidden behind a glass pillar, the Endless Train’s phone screen had already displayed its final confirmation prompt.
Detected team members. The item will take effect on all members. Confirm use of the Station Reset Voucher?
Yes / No
Without hesitation, Yu Xi quickly tapped “Yes.”
Back at the “White Bird Lake” station, when she had received this reward, she had told her companions: if they ever encountered an irreversible disaster at a station, and all other options were exhausted, this would be their last resort.
But this time, it wasn’t about desperation—it was about proof.
If her theory was correct, she would not only confirm her suspicions but also rescue all of her companions!
The space around her suddenly distorted.
Meng Sha, who had been just ten meters away, now seemed separated from her by an unbridgeable chasm.
It worked!
Meng Sha lunged forward, but despite being so close, she couldn’t get near Yu Xi.
“How do you have a Station Reset Voucher!? There are only three in circulation across the entire station each time a rare loot box appears! A single voucher only drops for every ten thousand rare boxes! The odds are infinitesimal—how could you have obtained one!?”
Outside the warped space, Meng Sha’s expression turned to shock. It was as if she had suddenly realized something—something so jarring that it filled her with rage.
“It was arranged… She arranged all of this for you, didn’t she!? So much effort, all for you… Who the hell are you—”
The rest of her words were swallowed by the distortion of space.
Yu Xi felt as if she had been abruptly pulled from her original surroundings, enveloped in something warm and fluid, like a gentle current washing over her entire body.
She had once wondered—what exactly did the Station Reset Voucher reset? Time? The station itself?
Now she understood.
Yu Xi felt the wounds on her shoulders rapidly healing, the foreign objects embedded in her neck and skull instantly dislodging, and the once-excruciating pain vanishing in an instant.
The thing being reset… wasn’t time.
It wasn’t the station.
It was her!