Ye Shu had fled far away, and at its current pace, the black hole would take months, at the very least, to catch up.
"Sister Ye, are we just going to sit here and wait?" Fu Shiyi placed a bowl of freshly washed fruit by Ye Shu's hand, concern flickering in her eyes as she glanced at the woman sprawled lazily on the sofa.
"Well, Xiao Shiyi, do you have a better idea?"
Ye Shu plucked a piece of fruit and ate it with leisurely satisfaction.
"Uh, no."
Fu Shiyi's reply was nothing if not honest.
"There you have it. Let's just wait and see."
When the cart reaches the mountain, there will be a road.
There was no way she was going to let herself get swallowed by a manmade black hole.
"Attention viewers in Hua Guo, the black hole that appeared in F Cheng has been confirmed as the same giant pit that appeared three years ago... It is currently moving towards the city district of S Shi. Anyone residing nearby, please evacuate immediately... I'll say it three times because it's that important: leave the S Shi city area at once. Our military forces will assist with the evacuation..."
Ye Shu absentmindedly forked up another slice of fruit, but her gaze never left the livestream on her phone.
The reporter was in a helicopter, focusing the lens directly on the black hole.
Comments on the livestream scrolled so fast they blurred together.
[Guest10074: What the hell? It really is that giant pit from a few years ago? Why didn’t they just bomb it back then? My house—my life’s savings—was swallowed up. All gone!]
[Heizhimei Mei: Agree with the above. I’m from F Cheng too. It happened so suddenly—my whole family’s gone, I was the only one to make it out alive... The authorities owe us an explanation. If I hadn’t reacted so fast, I’d have fallen in myself.]
[Zuguo de Xiao Baby: Support human intervention. Who knows if this thing will keep growing bigger? It’s better to handle it now—any longer, and S Shi will be gone, too.]
[Xiao Qingwa: Jeez—F Cheng is really a wasteland now!!]
Ye Shu swept her gaze over the avalanche of comments but said nothing.
If ordinary weapons could solve this, she’d admit defeat.
Even if it was a black hole conjured up by the game, humanity was nowhere near possessing the means to fight it off—at least, not for now.
Still, this black hole... was, in a word, indescribable.
What was once a thriving city had been reduced to a cratered wasteland, while the culprit seemed intent on lumbering steadily toward S Shi. Was the plan to swallow the entire planet?
Ye Shu froze for a second.
Knowing this cursed game’s temperament, it was entirely possible.
Last time, when the white mist covered the planet, humanity had been forced underground—and still, in the end... they perished.
A sweet female voice piped up from the livestream, echoing in Ye Shu’s ear: "...We’ve named the deep pit from three years ago Black Hole-18. Its diameter has expanded from the known 10 meters to 200 meters—correction, 230 meters. Its speed has increased from ten to twenty miles an hour..."
Ye Shu, half-dozing off to the monotone broadcast, was jolted awake by a sudden scream.
"It’s getting bigger again!"
"Not 'seems'—it really is expanding!"
She turned to the screen. Black Hole-18 was growing larger at a pace visible to the naked eye. Blackness swept over buildings and mountains, effortlessly engulfing them, erasing them in utter silence.
She noticed, too, that the scenery around the black hole seemed strangely warped.
"Is it just me, or has the landscape around Black Hole-18 gotten all twisted?"
"Dang, I thought it was just my crappy phone signal. Guess my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me after all!"
"Hey, isn’t that a black hole? Even a small one should have serious gravity, right? For safety, maybe the livestream should pull back—the feeling is getting bad."
"Hurry up and get out of there! The black hole’s area of effect looks like it’s getting even bigger."
It wasn’t just Ye Shu—countless viewers spammed the comments, demanding the helicopter flee immediately.
"Dear viewers... it’s not that I don’t want to leave... but the craft can’t move right now..." The camera jerked upward for a final, fleeting glance at a human face. The vivacious, clear-eyed host now wore a mask of terror—her mouth gaping silently, voice shuddering in fits and starts.
The next instant, the screen lurched and went black.
Some, still clueless, continued spamming the chat.
[Guest122: What just happened? I just stepped away for a few seconds—did something go wrong?]
[Qicai Yangguang: Did they crash?]
[Janjiao Tu Boshou: Looks like it. Prayers up—hope the crew survived.]
Ye Shu wasn’t surprised in the least.
Livestreaming at the edge of a black hole was an act of wild recklessness. Sooner or later, someone was going to get dragged in.
With the loss of real-time broadcasts, netizens grew ever more agitated, with threads ballooning by the tens of thousands.
By nightfall, word spread: S Shi had been consumed.
Posts on the forum backed it up with screenshots, even providing animated GIFs.
The bad news? The footage was genuine.
Ye Shu had been to S Shi before—she recognized that battered strip of earth in an instant.
Worse still, the black hole’s rate of devastation was accelerating, moving faster than she had predicted. At this pace, the entire planet would be wiped out in less than half a year.
Late at night.
Su Bai sent word.
Apparently, another city had been devoured.
[The Sultry Cockroach in Fishnets: Shushu, you probably don’t know—I almost fell right into the black hole! Scared me to death. It was pitch black—couldn’t see a thing—I really thought I was dead. Sob sob... that was rough!]
Ye Shu frowned and clattered away at the shimmering screen, fingers typing lightning-fast.
[I Am Your Daddy: Didn’t you escape long ago? Come on, spill the details—don’t leave anything out.]
Just last night, Su Bai had messaged: safe in a protected zone.
Now she was saying she’d nearly fallen in.
[Sultry Cockroach: Some stuff happened—couldn’t get away. I only told you I was safe to keep you from worrying. Someone tried to use me as a scapegoat, but it’s sorted—the person’s so dead they’re past recognition. Don’t worry about me, I handle my business.]
[Your Daddy: ...]
[Your Daddy: The black hole by you only swallowed one city? Over here, we’re already at double that. And the one in District D has existed for three years—the other copies only just showed up...]
They discussed the various scenarios for a long time, ruling out everything except the possibility that the District D copy was purposefully harder, or maybe there was a game-breaking bug.
……
Day five of the game.
The black hole had devoured five cities.
Its diameter now exceeded three hundred meters.
Now it wasn’t just real-time streams—the moment any aircraft came near, it was pulled in.
"Deploy nuclear arms!"
"Deploy nukes! Give us back our home!"
Ye Shu still wasn’t awake. Even in her dreams, the voices of protestors parading through the streets echoed in her ears.
That’d started yesterday.
Nearly everyone thought Black Hole-18 posed an existential threat to humanity and demanded military intervention. Only a small minority worried about the inevitable fallout from nuclear weapons.
They lived at the far northernmost edge of Hua Guo, while the black hole was still working its way up from the south.
That night, the authorities officially opened up a nationwide voting channel.
[Other People Throwing Your Dad at Me: Five cities, how many lives is that? They should’ve done this earlier! What’s the point of a vote? I’ll be the first to cast mine.]
[Loving Fried Chicken the Most: My home’s gone—all because of that damned black hole! Forced me to leave everything behind, now I’m on the street, relying on handouts. I’ve never been this humiliated. Damn it all.]
[Boluoboluomi: Look, has anyone actually tried using big weapons on it yet? Is something as unnatural as a black hole really vulnerable to normal firepower?]