A mobile phone lied on the floor. It rang for a moment before stopping.
Within the living room, a bottle of cola was lying horizontally on the floor. A drop of cola dripped down onto the floor.
A fat adorable cat came over and gave it two licks. It then turned around with disdain; jumping onto the sofa, it nestled itself behind a pillow.
Within the living room… not a single person was in sight.
As for the door to the house… it was left open.
…
Chen Xiaolian had already run out through the staircase.
He did not take the elevator and had instead chosen to run down the staircase in a frenzy.
After rushing out of the building, he gasped heavily for breath, inhaling the fresh air.
What is going on? What is going on? Just what on Earth is going on argh?
Earlier, he had been feeling relaxed. It was a feeling of being the final survivor, born of the realization that everything on the plane was a dream. That joyful mood has now completely disappeared!
It is not a dream!
It is not a dream!
If it was, then where did that shitty cat come from?
In his anxiety, Chen Xiaolian rushed out from his residential area and came to the roadside.
What do I do?
Call the police?
Chen Xiaolian’s face turned bitter. What am I supposed to say when I make a report?
Am I to say… I may have had a dream? That dream then turned real?
Would the police officers send him to the mental hospital?
His thoughts became confused… surprise… panic… there was even fear!
Liquor!
That is right! I need to drink a glass of liquor!
En, there was no supermarket on the roadside. Chen Xiaolian instead burst into a small pub located within one of the residential streets.
“A bottle of beer! Quick!”
“Do you want Snow or Tsingtao? We have the Horizon Trekker Special…”[1]
“Like I care! Just give me one quickly!”
Behind the counter, a middle-aged uncle cast a peculiar glance towards Chen Xiaolian. He then casually took out a bottle of beer… the most expensive one.
“Ten!” The middle-aged uncle then inquired. “Do you want us to prepare some extra dishes?”
Chen Xiaolian raised up the bottle of beer and bit the cap off the bottle. He then gulped down several mouthfuls.
He retrieved the money from his pocket and placed them on the counter.
As he was about to leave, the middle-aged owner who was behind the counter suddenly said something.
The middle-aged owner’s face was originally petty; but in an instant, he appeared to have transformed into a different person.
“The truth is… that was truly not a dream.”
“Pu!”
Once he heard those words, Chen Xiaolian sprayed out a mouthful of beer. His face was no different from one who had bumped into a ghost as he stared at the owner.
The owner looked on with a serious expression. “Are you curious? I can give you an explanation…”
“Explain your sister! I do not want to know anything! I do not want any part of it!”
Chen Xiaolian turned tail and ran.
After Chen Xiaolian ran out of the pub, the owner became momentarily stunned. He then scratched his head as he looked about in confusion. “En? Did my mind turn blank again?”
…
Chen Xiaolian charged out of the pub, his face set into a mask of panic as he reached the traffic junction. The traffic light was currently red leading to Chen Xiaolian waiting helplessly together with a number of pedestrians as the vehicles drove to and forth before him.
Suddenly, an aunt who was carrying a vegetable basket right beside him turned her face. With a serious expression, she stared at Chen Xiaolian. “You were so brave and decisive back in the instance dungeon, why are you panicking so now? Truth be told, even though it was not a dream, perhaps it could lead to you acquiring even more…”
“A a a argh!”
Chen Xiaolian let out a wretched scream. He ignored the fact that the traffic light was red; he left the crowd of pedestrians and dashed through the river of vehicles until he reached the other side.
The aunt’s body shuddered a few, then she glanced at the vegetable basket in her hand. “Eh? Did I blank out?” Catching sight of Chen Xiaolian who was running awkwardly through the incoming vehicles in the middle of the road, she uttered. “Hmph, youngsters these days have no character, running red light…”
Chen Xiaolian ran madly. Halfway through, he saw a taxi stopping by the roadside. Coincidentally, its passenger was coming off. Chen Xiaolian got in and shouted. “Quick, move! Quick, move!”
“Where to?” The driver turned around.
“Go downtown! Quick!”
Chen Xiaolian then uttered the name of the most bustling street – he was now panicking and instinctively thought of that place.
The taxi began to move…
Along the way, Chen Xiaolian nervously kept an eye on the driver’s face. He was fearful that this driver would suddenly say something weird.
When none was forthcoming, Chen Xiaolian felt his heart becoming slightly calm.
He saw that the taxi had to stop due to a red light at an intersection. Chen Xiaolian then anxiously looked out the windows.
The driver slowly spoke out without turning his head. “Even if you are afraid, do you not want the reward for completing the instance dungeon? That was something you obtained by risking your life.”
Chen Xiaolian. “…”
“It is pointless. No matter where you go, as long as there is someone else beside you, I will be able to talk to you,” The driver looked at Chen Xiaolian through the rear view mirror. He grinned to reveal a set of teeth that was yellowed from smoking. “In this world, you cannot escape from me.”
“You are mad!”
Chen Xiaolian forcefully opened the car door and ran out… running towards the other side of the road…
At that moment…
A black Land Rover roared forward. Seeing Chen Xiaolian about to be knocked over, the Land Rover fiercely decelerated. The front side of the car then made a turn to avoid a direct hit, resulting in it only lightly grazing Chen Xiaolian.
Even so, Chen Xiaolian remained knocked over by the vehicle and fell to the ground.
The Land Rover stopped.
A black, longhaired girl wearing a mouth muffle came out. Her eyes were cold, with traces of suppressed anger in it.
“Are you all right?”
The masked girl squatted down beside Chen Xiaolian.
Seeing Chen Xiaolian getting into a seated position, the girl finally let out with a furious tone. “You crazy fellow! Why are you running around in the middle of the road? Are you looking to die? No matter how urgent your situation may be, you should not take your life as a joke!”
Chen Xiaolian sat down, then looked blankly at the girl. His eyes suddenly turned sharp. “We… we met before!”
The masked girl. “What?”
“Airport! Airport!” Chen Xiaolian shouted out and jumped up. He disregarded the fact that his elbows and knees were scraped raw. He got up and grabbed onto the masked girl’s shoulders. He shouted out in excitement. “Outside the airport! Do you remember?’
“Ah! You are the perverted freak who was harassing my sister!” The masked girl’s eyes turned round and wide.
“Your sister… your sister…” Chen Xiaolian’s face suddenly turned heavy. He stared at the masked girl, and spoke in a trembling but serious voice.
“I am going to ask you a question! Please tell me the answer! It is extremely important! It is very, very important!”
This attitude from Chen Xiaolian caused the masked girl to become shocked. “You… what did you say?”
“Your sister! Your sister… her name! Is it Soo Soo?”
“… … … You sicko! You actually dare to set your eyes on my sister! Spit it out! How did you find out her name?”
The masked girl became enraged and let loose a fist, which connected with Chen Xiaolian’s nose! Chen Xiaolian grunted before collapsing down. However, the masked girl followed it up with several vicious kicks!
“Freak! Sicko! You dare set your eyes on an under aged girl!”
Many passers-by quickly gathered around…
Next, a uniformed police officer squeezed himself in after pushing the crowd aside. “Stop! Stop fighting! Stop now!”
…
… …
Half an hour later, in a police station located in the vicinity.
Chen Xiaolian had a wad of cotton stuffed into his nostrils, his expression a blank as he sat there.
The masked girl was seated upon another table.
“That person is a perverted freak! He stalked and even secretly inquired about my little sister! My little sister is only ten years old! He is a paedophile! We had already met before at the airport. Unexpectedly, he actually followed me all the way. I do not even know how he managed to find me! Police officer!”
The masked girl emotionally shouted out.
The officer who was seated across her, listened quietly and replied in an indifferent tone. “Take off your mouth muffle! We are currently taking down statements! Answer what I ask of you first! First, explain why you are beating people up in the streets!”
“…” The masked girl seethed with rage. She viciously cast a glare at Chen Xiaolian who was seated not far away.
Then, following the officer’s order, she took off her mouth muffle.
The face revealed was one filled with an aura of youth. In addition… it was unexpectedly beautiful!
A delicate oval face with soft facial lines, straight nose and bright eyes. At the moment however, those eyes were filled with constrained fury.
“Name?”
“… Qiao Qiao. Qiao from arbour tree (qiáo mù). Maiden name Qiao, surname also Qiao,” Qiao Qiao scowled and continued. “18 years old, ID number XXXXXX… occupation, student. My school is XXX high school. Residence at XXX Street XXX number…”
The officer raised his head to look at Qiao Qiao. “Yo, you are quite practiced at this eh.” Having said that, he typed in something into the computer before raising his head to look at Qiao Qiao. “It turns out you have experience! Looking at your records, you have been detained twice in a year due to fighting cases. Heng… It seems you have yet to learn your lesson. This time, it’s assaulting others on the street?”
Qiao Qiao gritted her teeth without saying anything.
The officer sighed. “I have seen many little girls like you who rely on their status as a minor to go on a rampage. I will give you this advice: Little girl, you are already eighteen. Protection for minors could no longer shelter you. If you continue causing problems in the future…”
“Officer! He really is a perverted freak! He has his sights set on my little sister!”
Qiao Qiao shouted.
Chen Xiaolian was seated not too far away. However, his gaze was fixed upon the wall as he looked on in stupor.
Soo Soo…
The little girl’s name is really Soo Soo!
Hehe… hehe… hahahaha…
What else could he say? What else could he hope for?
The pet cat emerged from my own luggage.
Then, I met someone who said something bizarre to me…
Chen Xiaolian who had been pressured to the point of collapse was betting it all on the masked girl’s answer.
Soo Soo!
That is right! That little Korean loli is indeed called Soo Soo!
With this, there was no way for him to consider it as fantasy.
A strange smile appeared on his face. Then… He suddenly stood up.
…
Chen Xiaolian turned to face the police station hall and shouted out:
“Hey! Are you still there? Didn’t you say that I cannot escape from you? Very well! I will not escape anymore! I want to talk about it now!”
Everyone in the hall turned to look at this youngster; their faces etched with bewildered shock.
At that moment, a uniformed middle-aged man walked forward and stood before Chen Xiaolian.
“Are you willing to talk now?”
“En,” Chen Xiaolian smiled bitterly. “My emotions have settled down.”
“Good, come with me.”
The middle-aged man led Chen Xiaolian out of the police station hall with a swagger.
Seeing this, Qiao Qiao became shocked. “He, how could he be allowed to go?”
“What do you care? That man is our instructor! He is probably taking him to get his wounds examined! Little girl, first take care of your own matters! Why did you beat up someone else?”
A table within a small pub.
Chen Xiaolian and the middle-aged man were seated facing one another.
A waiter came with a plate of peanuts and two dishes. Next, he brought over a few bottles of beer and two beer glasses.
Chen Xiaolian poured himself a glass of beer, then looked at the middle-aged man. The middle-aged man smiled before turning his glass upside down.
“This host body of mine cannot drink beer. His body is allergic to alcohol.”
Chen Xiaolian cast a glance at him, trying hard to digest the information within that sentence.
“Host body?” Chen Xiaolian pointed at the middle-aged man. “In other words, the current you is not this person sitting before me?”
“No, this is simply a temporary host body that I am borrowing,” The middle-aged man smiled lightly.
“Just like those people I met today? The owner of the pub, the vegetable carrying aunt by the road? And also the taxi driver?”
“Exactly, that is correct.”
Chen Xiaolian quietly drank his glass of beer; he then poured himself another glass. Sighing, he asked. “You… just what kind of person are you?”
“This question is not quite accurate. You should not be using the word ‘person’.”
“… Hehe,” Chen Xiaolian laughed bitterly. “That is true. To be capable of such feats, you cannot indeed be classified as human. Very well, I will rectify my question: What exactly are you?”
“The one who manages, the one who calculates, the one who maintains order, the one who arranges everything so that it operates according to the norm… From your human perspective, I am both omnipresent and omnipotent. Perhaps… all these aspects are consistent with the one you humans call… God? The Lord? Ruler of All?”
Chen Xiaolian gulped down another glass of beer. “I do not like this kind of analogy… surely you know, I am a writer.”
“Very well… I won’t use this analogy,” The middle-aged man smiled. He then looked at Chen Xiaolian in the eye. “You may think of me as… the system.”
Chen Xiaolian’s hand that was pouring beer jerked.
“System… what is it?”
He stared at the middle-aged man’s eyes.
The middle-aged man laughed. “Why does everyone keep asking this question whenever we get into a discussion?”
Chen Xiaolian remained silent and simply looked at the other person, waiting for an answer.
“You have a profession, a writer,” The middle-aged man smiled. “You must have written a story like this before, of one person or a group of people who, due to a peculiar type of power, ended up transmigrating into another world. In this other world, these transmigrants then find themselves going through adventures one after another…”
“Why are you talking about this?”
“This… is the system.”
Chen Xiaolian’s face turned taut; then he drained down another glass of beer.
This time though, the glass of beer was drunk very, very slowly, as though he was trying to digest something.
“I still cannot quite understand. Could you talk more about it in detail?” Chen Xiaolian held onto the glass, his eyes covered by it.
“You do like to play online games often,” The middle-aged man let out a light smile.
This sentence of his was not a question, but a declaration. It was as though he was simply uttering out a fact – a fact that he clearly understood.
“En,” Chen Xiaolian nodded his head.
“Don’t you feel that… the format of these online games and the transmigration stories are very similar? Each player in an online game is just like a transmigrant in a novel. They entered another world, then in that other world, they undergo many perils…”
“Wait, what you mean to say… our current world… is facing a transmigration from others? Newton, Damon, Sara, Du Ya, Pattern Man… Wind Slasher Guild… they are all people who transmigrated over to this world? They are not originally of this world?” Chen Xiaolian immediately spoke out the details that he considered most important.
“Exactly,” The middle-aged man slowly replied. “They do indeed belong to another world.”
“…” Chen Xiaolian suddenly felt his mind becoming confused. “But… why… why would I be able to see them in the plane? Right! That is right! Host bodies! The key point is host bodies! What is a host body?”
“If we are to assume that this world is an online game, then a host body… would be the equivalent of a login account,” The middle-aged man smiled.
“… Login… account?”
Chen Xiaolian deeply exhaled, his voice trembling.
“You mean to say… we… us living humans… are login accounts? But… on what basis could they use us as host bodies? To take us as login accounts? How can they simply… take over? That is right, it is just like taking over our bodies!”
The middle-aged man continued smiling. “Let us discuss about another issue for now.”
“What?”
The middle-aged man smiled. “In your opinion, what is the origin of the world that we are currently in? How did it come about?”
“It was the Big Bang… then the solar system… Earth…” Chen Xiaolian started talking about what he knew as common. However, after saying a few sentences, he suddenly shut his mouth. He looked at the middle-aged man with anxiety.
“Why aren’t you continuing?”
“I think… perhaps you have a better answer.”
The middle-aged man slowly spoke. “In this world, there is a story named ‘Journey To The West’. You know of it, right?”
“Yes.”
“In ‘Journey To The West’, it is written that this world is created when Pangu separated Heaven and Earth.”[1]
Chen Xiaolian became dumbfounded. “No… That is just the background for the story… Or perhaps it could be said that, the author who wrote the story made that setting as the background. All those things about Pangu separating Heaven and Earth, they were but myths, there are no science behind them.”
“What is science?” The middle-aged man shook his head. “Then, your so-called Big Bang, birth of the solar system, birth of the Earth, origin of life, human evolution… all of them, could they not be all a part of a ‘background setting’?”
Chen Xiaolian’s hand that was holding onto a glass of beer began trembling.
He slowly drank the glass of beer.
Putting it down, he took a breath. “What you are trying to say is… we… this world of ours, is one that was ‘artificially created’? A virtual world?”
“Why would you think that if it is an ‘artificial creation’, then it must be virtual?”
The middle-aged man grinned as he spoke. “In human reproduction, there will be ten months of conception, then the child will be born… essentially speaking, is this not the ‘creation of life’?”
He stared at Chen Xiaolian. “Say you start work on a piece of land and planted many plants and flowers to create a garden… then this garden is one you created. In that case, would you say that this garden is virtual? Those plants and flowers are also living things.”
“If we are to adopt a macroscopic view of this world, then the thousands of years of civilization within history, the Big Bang, the origin of life, the Jurassic period of dinosaurs, the era of primitive man, the Greek civilization, the Roman civilization, the Eastern civilization… and the current modern era… all of these are ‘background settings’. Now let us we adopt a microscopic perspective and look at each and every person, those within this current era and those within history. I am talking about every aspect of their lives, their birth, their experiences, their love and hatred, their career, their family, their whole life… these are also a person’s ‘background setting’.”
Chen Xiaolian commented. “It is just like… each character in a movie? Or the NPC within a game?”
“Something like that.”
“However, in a movie… how many characters could there be? One main character, then how many supporting characters could there be? Could it be that everyone within this whole wide world are also…”
“Firstly, this is a world. There is no distinction between a lead character or a supporting character. Everyone here, you, others, all of you form a part of this world. Each of you are your own character, your own ‘individual’. Secondly… you are right. Regardless of how many billions there are, all of them are a character.”
“But… Even with the use of a computer, a game could only have a few NPCs, perhaps tens of them,” Chen Xiaolian smiled bitterly. “Several billion NPCs… if this is a program, then how many lines of code are required? Could that even be calculated?”
“Programming, coding, these are but an analogy made using your own perception,” The middle-aged man’s face was still set with a smile. “However, the fact remains, ‘they’ created this world, then life appeared in this world, those lives then flourished and in turn, humans appeared.”
Chen Xiaolian continued drinking. “In that case… to create several billion NPCs… how do ‘they’ manage that number? How are they to decide what setting to give each of these several billions NPCs? Then there are the things that NPCs should do and the things NPCs should not do. There are also the operations of the world, the changes, the countries, the civilizations… Heavens, if all of these are part of a ‘game’ that was created, then how big would the data involved be?”
“Thus, ‘I’ came into existence,” The middle-aged man’s sentence gave Chen Xiaolian a shock!
Chen Xiaolian stared with wide-open eyes at the middle-aged man.
“If we are to consider this world to be a ‘game world’, then I am the GM.”[2]
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