Mu Shicheng stared wide-eyed at the parrot left behind on the floor.

After a long moment, he turned speechlessly to look at the other three and spread his hands.

“So... did Bai Liu just ditch us here?”

“It’s not as simple as being ditched.” Liu Jiayi’s ears twitched as she looked toward the door. “He also left us with a huge mess. The nursing home director is coming.”

Mu Ke’s expression grew serious. “Looks like we need to come up with a good explanation for why his patient disappeared.”

“Otherwise, on top of the charges Bai Liu already has hanging over him from the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau, he’ll have one more: kidnapping a psychiatric patient.” Tang Erda rubbed his brow, already feeling a headache coming on. “He was a little too impulsive this time.”

“He’s already under surveillance by the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau. If police surveillance gets added to that...” Tang Erda’s expression turned even heavier. “The more ordinary people there are monitoring Bai Liu, the harder it will be for him to enter the game.”

Liu Jiayi sighed. “Yes. So that guy left us here to clean up after him.”

The main reason was that even if they went to Antarctica, they would be useless.

Du Sanying’s destructive power was visibly terrifying. Only Bai Liu could come out of it unscathed.

It was better to leave them where they were.

The director pushed the door open.

He froze in the doorway, dumbfounded, staring at the bed that had collapsed as if it had been shaken apart, the mess of packaging and down feathers scattered across the bed and floor, and the parrot hopping around on the ground.

The parrot bounced and hopped while screeching loudly,

“Bai Liu, bad-bad—! Made Master cry-cry!”

Suddenly, it spread its wings and circled the ceiling. Its thin tongue flicked as its shrill, piercing voice rang out.

“They’re hugging and going up to heaven! Going up to heaven together to hit the pla-ane!”

T/N: This is a wordplay on “hit the plane,” which is also a Chinese slang term for masturbation.

The director’s pupils trembled.

“...Hit what?”

The parrot beat its wings and stretched its neck, repeating loudly,

“Hit the pla-ane!”

Liu Jiayi, Mu Shicheng, Mu Ke, Tang Erda: “...”

Don’t abbreviate “hit the plane down for a safe landing” into “hit the plane”!!!

Does this parrot even know how to speak human?!

Tang Erda sprang up and grabbed the parrot by the wings and beak. Amid its violent struggling, he turned around with his back stiff and carried it to the balcony, where he stuffed it into its cage and gave it water.

“...The parrot hasn’t had water for too long, so it’s screaming nonsense. I’ll take it over there to drink some plane...”

Liu Jiayi slapped a hand over her eyes in despair.

Tang Erda was so flustered he could not even speak properly. Wasn’t this practically a confession?!

The director’s hand trembled slightly where it gripped the doorknob. He looked at the group in extreme terror.

“What did you people do to the patient in Room 906?!”

Mu Shicheng reacted quickly, shutting and locking the ward door to block the director’s escape route.

Mu Ke took a deep breath, stepped in front of the director, and calmly clasped his hands.

“We can explain.”

Caught between them, the director was so frightened that tears nearly came out.

“I-I-I—please let me go! I haven’t hit the plane with a man since graduating university!”

Tens of thousands of miles away, above Antarctica, over the Ross Sea.

Inside the swaying airplane, Du Sanying and Bai Liu, who had only just landed there, rolled around the cabin, unable to stand steadily. Bai Liu was the first to grab a metal support rod, then pulled Du Sanying over so that both of them could stabilize themselves.

Bai Liu kicked the back of a seat, signaling Du Sanying to lower the seat rail and check whether the oxygen masks and parachutes beneath the seats were still there.

Du Sanying was so dizzy from the shaking that he grabbed a random seat and pressed a button. A parachute and oxygen mask instantly popped out, with two thick winter coats prepared beside them as well.

Bai Liu lowered his eyes.

As expected of full marks in luck.

At this point, most of the usable equipment on the plane should already have been collected by the five escorts. What remained should have been things that could not be taken away.

For Du Sanying to hit the jackpot on his first try truly counted as extraordinary luck.

Bai Liu lifted his chin, signaling for Du Sanying to put on the gear first, sit down, and fasten his seat belt. After that, Bai Liu would have Du Sanying hold him steady so he could put on his own gear.

Only then did Du Sanying manage to catch his breath. He clutched his oxygen mask, breathing heavily.

“Where are the five escorts you mentioned?”

Bai Liu covered his face with the oxygen mask and reached out to pull the seat belt across the chair.

“In an emergency like this, the escorts are either in the cockpit or the cargo hold.”

Bai Liu wrapped the parachute pack around his head to avoid being struck by hard objects during the turbulence. Then he pointed to his forehead, signaling Du Sanying to do the same.

Du Sanying shouted from inside his oxygen mask, his voice muffled.

“I don’t need to! These flying pieces won’t hit me!”

As he spoke, he stretched his hand into the long corridor of the plane.

A wrench flew out from beside a fire extinguisher, looking as if it was about to smash straight into Du Sanying’s arm. But at the critical moment, the plane jolted up and down strangely.

The wrench grazed the back of Du Sanying’s hand and slammed into a steel plate, leaving a deep dent. Yet Du Sanying’s soft forearm was completely unharmed. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

“See!” To make sure Bai Liu could hear him, Du Sanying shouted with all his strength. “If you hide behind me, you don’t need to wrap your head! You’ll be fine!”

As they were speaking, the red alarm lights at both ends of the plane’s long corridor lit up. From the speakers above the lights came a mechanical automatic alert.

“The aircraft has encountered abnormal airflow. Unknown cloud masses are continuously surging against the wings, causing severe instability. All passengers, please prepare for emergency landing—Zzt—”

Soon, the mechanical voice was cut off and replaced by a human one. The speaker was talking rapidly, voice filled with panic.

“A team member fainted here in the cargo hold. I knocked him out. Once those five corpse pieces are exposed, anyone who approaches them suffers a mental dimensional collapse. There’s no way to carry the metal boxes and parachute out.”

“Parachuting with the corpse pieces won’t work.”

Static crackled through the broadcast. After a short while, it switched to another voice.

“But those five metal boxes are specially made, and they’re too heavy. If parachuting alone or carrying them with us won’t work, then we can only consider either throwing them into the sea or crashing onto land along with the plane.”

Bai Liu and Du Sanying looked at each other.

This should be the internal communication of the five escorts linked to the plane’s broadcast frequency, making it easier for them to know one another’s situation at all times under such extreme conditions.

The broadcast continued.

“The sea is absolutely not an option. Water is too fluid. If the metal boxes stay submerged for too long and corrode, exposing what’s inside, the corpse pieces could use the seawater to pollute the entire world!”

“But if we crash on land... if the boxes are damaged during the descent, they’ll still pollute Antarctica...”

“Can we wrap them in soft materials, like winter coats?”

“No. Did you forget the Dried Roses? These corpse pieces can alienate anything. Even plant-based materials like cotton can be alienated. Captain Su repeatedly warned us not to use plant-based items to wrap the containment boxes.”

“But there aren’t many synthetic fiber buffers on the plane, and they don’t provide much cushioning anyway. Under airflow impact this strong, unless we use ourselves as human cushions for the boxes—using a layer of high-density bone and muscle—maybe we can buffer the impact of the rapid descent...”

“Even if landing on land pollutes Antarctica, land contamination is still more controllable than ocean contamination! The population density in Antarctica is so low. Even if we sacrifice them...”

“Shut up!!”

A sharp reprimand cut off the argument coming from several sides.

The broadcast went silent for a moment. Then a voice spoke.

“If you treat sacrifice as a trade-off, as something natural and inevitable, then go back and be an ordinary person. Why did you come to the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau?”

“As members of the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau, our existence is meant to prevent the sacrifice of any ordinary person.”

The broadcast fell silent again for several seconds. Only the crackling of static remained.

“How many boxes are there in total?” the person asked.

The person in the cargo hold answered, “Captain, there are eight in total.”

The Captain was silent for a while longer. Then he spoke hoarsely.

“All members, hear my order. The plane’s emergency landing site is Antarctic land. Each person will be responsible for one metal box. Use your physical bodies to wrap and cushion the boxes, preventing them from breaking upon landing and polluting Antarctica, which would pose a threat to the ordinary people living there.”

After a long time, someone answered very softly.

“Yes, Captain.”

Someone else asked weakly, “Captain, there are still three boxes left over. What do we do?”

The broadcast was quiet again for several seconds before the Captain spoke.

“Later, you will divide me into four pieces. Use the muscles and bones of my upper limbs, lower limbs, and back to wrap the boxes.”

“The rib frame around the abdominal cavity has the strongest buffering force. That part should be able to protect one. As for the remaining three...”

The Captain paused wearily.

The strength in his voice seemed to drain away at that moment, his tone growing faint, almost like a murmur to himself.

“That is our dereliction of duty. We failed Captain Su’s trust and failed to protect...”

“The boxes, and the ordinary people.”

—

Author’s Note:

I made up the physical mechanics involving the airplane’s rapid descent, so please don’t take them seriously.

I read in some magazine that the load-bearing structure of human bone is very impressive and can withstand considerable contusion—or maybe it was shear force, or pressure—but I didn’t look up any rigorous scientific papers.

Everyone, please absolutely do not take it seriously. Thank you, thank you!