No one knew how the “higher-dimensional beings” managed to distort time, but the light screens were undeniably there.
Pick a livestream, focus your attention on it, and the image would clearly manifest before your eyes.
After Fu Changxun pointed it out, everyone raised their heads.
Lu Qi had long since run off, burning with anger and shame. Fu Changxun couldn’t be bothered to care.
After hesitating for a moment, he still offered a warning:
“I suggest… everyone prepare a little. Carry some knives or something. The game I participated in was supernatural in nature, and people really do die.”
After saying that, he quietly slipped out of the crowd, turned his head down, and left at a brisk pace.
Outside, things were already somewhat chaotic. Most of the confused crowd chose to go home, so the streets were packed with cars and pedestrians.
The black cat was wrapped up in his arms. Only now did it poke its head out from his collar. “Meow. Meow.”
Fu Changxun pressed his fingers lightly against it and murmured, “I’ll go home first. As for the game… the authorities in Huaxia should handle it. The social system won’t collapse overnight. Do you eat cat food, or do you need incense or something?”
The black cat shook its head, then awkwardly raised a paw and held up one digit.
“Oh. So cat food is fine…?”
He strode past the intersection and was just about to turn into an alley when he suddenly heard someone call his name.
“Ah-Xun!”
Fu Changxun looked up and saw Dong Zi standing across the street, moving toward him against the flow of the crowd.
Dong Zi’s face had been taut with anxiety. The moment he spotted Fu Changxun, he strode over quickly and gave him a careful once-over from head to toe. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”
Fu Changxun had almost forgotten about him. Feeling a little guilty, he replied, “No, no. I’m fine. What about you?”
Dong Zi visibly relaxed. “I’m fine too. I came back here right after clearing the instance. What are you planning to do next?”
“Go home first, I guess…” Fu Changxun hesitated. “Even if it’s the apocalypse, you still have to go home.”
“Alright. Then—”
Before Dong Zi could finish, someone shouted toward them again.
“Doctor Fu!”
Both of them looked up at the same time and saw Xu Zhengyi waving vigorously. “I’m over here!”
Dong Zi’s expression darkened slightly.
Fu Changxun didn’t notice. He was genuinely glad to see a familiar face and waved back at Xu Zhengyi.
Xu Zhengyi ran over at once.
“This time it was really thanks to you guys. That game was way too damn creepy—I definitely couldn’t have beaten those shadows on my own. Oh right, the game also gave me thirty Points, and said I’ve got at most one month and ten days of rest time.”
Dong Zi cut in immediately, “Same for us.”
Only thirty Points?
Fu Changxun’s thoughts raced, but he didn’t expose Dong Zi. Instead, he went along with it.
“Yeah. We’re planning to observe things for a while first—no rush to go back into the game.”
Xu Zhengyi nodded emphatically.
“Exactly. I’d rather never go in again. Tell me, how am I this unlucky, getting picked in the very first wave?” He frowned deeply. “Luckily my daughter didn’t get dragged in. I called her just now…”
Xu Zhengyi’s daughter had mild depression. Fu Changxun was her psychologist, and before they’d entered the game, they’d been discussing treatment plans for her condition.
Fu Changxun knew that this middle-aged man had gained a daughter late in life, only to lose his wife to complications during childbirth. His only concern in the world was his daughter, Xu Xiao.
A ten-year-old child suffering from depression.
“How about this,” Fu Changxun said, genuinely fond of the single father. “Why don’t we form a team? That way, if we enter the game again, we can look out for each other.”
Xu Zhengyi brightened.
“That’d be great. And this gentleman… uh, Mr. Dong, right? Want to add each other as friends?”
Dong Zi wasn’t particularly enthusiastic, but since Ah-Xun thought it was a good idea, he’d go along with it.
Calmly, he said, “No rush. Let’s find a place first and get a clear understanding of each other’s abilities and items before deciding.”
Following the principle of convenience, the three of them found a hotel that was still operating nearby. After renting a room, they went inside to talk things through.
Xu Zhengyi immediately laid all his cards on the table.
“I’m a Participant. You’ve already seen my item—that Direction Wheel. Nothing special about it, just really tough. Can’t be broken. As for my ability, it’s called ‘Brute Force Creates Miracles.’ Literally what it sounds like.” He added, somewhat sheepishly, “I tested it briefly after leaving the game. I can bend steel pipes.”
Simple and crude—but possibly very useful.
Fu Changxun spoke next.
“My ability is close to psychological suggestion. It works on the mental level, not suitable for direct combat. My item is that doorknob for unlocking things. It’s not very useful either.”
He wasn’t being overly modest; at his current level, he couldn’t even fully control a single person.
Dong Zi spoke last.
“My ability is ‘Object Movement.’ More or less like this.”
His gaze shifted to a vase nearby. In the next instant, the vase slid half a meter to the left at an incredible speed, then stopped abruptly, as if inertia didn’t exist.
“As for my item—” Dong Zi took out a brightly colored piece of paper from his pocket. It was the very one he’d pasted paper cuttings onto in the instance.
“This is… a flyer?”
Fu Changxun took it, skimmed it briefly, then looked at him in confusion.
Dong Zi coughed awkwardly, clearly a little embarrassed.
“It’s my lifetime-bound item.”
At the time, he’d casually accepted a promotional flyer on the street and was immediately selected to enter the game. The system informed him that this flyer was his lifetime item, capable of displaying the key phrase needed to clear an instance—for example, in the previous instance, it had shown “the violent one.”
Fake Lu Qi’s personality really was terrible. The hint “violent one” had been painfully obvious. Extremely useful.
“This item’s more practical than ours,” Fu Changxun said. “Dong Zi, are you willing to team up too?”
Dong Zi raised his eyebrows.
“You don’t want to be with me?”
Fu Changxun replied honestly, “Of course I do. I’m just worried I’ll drag you down. After all—”
“You won’t.” Dong Zi said seriously, “You’re the key reason we cleared the game.”
Being praised so solemnly like that was rare for Fu Changxun. Inevitably flustered, he looked away, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and muttered, “O-okay. Thank you.”
They added each other on WeChat.
Perhaps disdainful of low-dimensional communication methods, the “higher-dimensional” beings hadn’t blocked them.
That was why people around the world could still stay in contact, and why governments hadn’t collapsed entirely.
Soon after, Xu Zhengyi headed home. His daughter was still waiting for him there, alone.
Under the front desk clerk’s baffled gaze, Fu Changxun checked out and prepared to head home as well. Halfway down the road, he suddenly turned around—
Dong Zi was following him step for step.
Fu Changxun: “?”
Dong Zi stopped immediately.
Fu Changxun couldn’t help asking, “Dong Zi, what’s the meaning of this? Are you tailing me?”
“No, I was just worried someone might—” Dong Zi stammered. “I mean, things are so chaotic right now. I-if you got hurt, that wouldn’t be good.”
He lowered his head, looking extremely embarrassed.
Like this, he resembled some kind of large dog.
Fu Changxun took a deep breath and walked back a couple of steps.
“Then where do you live? Or… want to come to my place first?”
Dong Zi immediately looked up.
“Is that okay?”
Now he looked even more like a large dog. Fu Changxun could practically see his nonexistent tail wagging furiously.
Fu Changxun: “……”
