NFM Chapter 21

“GitHub is a famous website for same-sex friendships among monks. In the deep, dark nights when your roommate snores and grinds his teeth, only its black interface and colorful text can bring solace to your heart. No matter how lonely your soul feels, the rhythmic tapping of your fingers on the elastic surface will never leave you truly alone…”

Lin Huai: “What you’re describing sounds more like ‘Pornhub’ than ‘GitHub.'”

“It’s ‘GitHub,’ not ‘Pornhub.'”

“You clearly said ‘Pornhub.’ I heard the ‘P’ sound.”

“Young man, instead of thinking about spending 996 hours in the lab, you’re spending your days using the library’s VPN to browse Pornhub. That’s not healthy,” Chu Tianshu said, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “Let me help cleanse your mind…”

“…”

“Money lost can always be earned back,” Chu Tian comforted him. “Losing things isn’t a big deal. Just participate in more Games in the future; there are plenty of fun Game items to be had.”

Lin Huai looked up: “Really?”

“Cross my heart.”

Lin Huai stood up, brushing off a few leaves from his pants, and finally smiled happily. When he looked back, the entire villa was in a strange quantum superposition state, trembling and distorting in the light, and completely dissolved into the dusk when observed by Lin Huai.

The area they were in was still a villa district, but what Lin Huai and Chu Tian faced now was a barren wasteland. The sounds of bustling traffic and chirping birds once again crossed the villa’s walls, echoing in the air. Lin Huai knew that as the sunset clouds turned black, the city’s myriad lights would come on. Among those rivers of light were the homes of countless people.

He and Chu Tian walked one after the other, neither speaking. When they reached the neighborhood gate, Chu Tian said, “Once you go out here, it’s the main street. Turn left, and you’ll find the bus stop. You have your bus card, right?”

The direction he pointed was the tree-lined avenue Lin Huai had entered under the guidance of Gaode Map.

Lin Huai hummed in acknowledgment and asked, “Actually, I still have a few questions…”

Chu Tian, with his hands behind his head, shuffled along lazily: “Hmm?”

“After I leave here, will I ever see you again?”

Chu Tian, who was walking ahead, stopped and said, “Every Game participant, no matter what they experience or who they fight alongside in the Game, will forget the names and faces of their companions when they leave the Game. This is one of the Game’s rules. Once you leave the Game, you’re back in reality. This can also be considered a form of protection for the players.”

“Why is it protection?”

“Probably to avoid getting beaten up after leaving. But once you enter the Game again, all memories of the Game will return, as if splitting into two threads,” Chu Tian explained. “This shows that memory is the most unreliable thing; it can be easily altered…”

“Oh,” Lin Huai said, somewhat disappointed.

Chu Tian asked him, “Do you still have battery on your phone?”

“Yes, why?”

Chu Tian took out his phone: “Let’s add each other on WeChat. Even though memories can be altered, Ma○teng’s data will never be deleted, unlike Li○hong…”

Lin Huai squinted at him: “Didn’t you say that even if we add each other on WeChat, you’d forget who I am?”

Chu Tian replied matter-of-factly, “Having more WeChat friends is always better. You’re still young; you don’t understand the importance of WeChat friends for forwarding votes and ‘help me cut the price’ campaigns.”

Lin Huai: …

He took out his QR code for Chu Tian to scan. The original owner’s phone had been shattered during the fall, so he later bought a new SIM card and created a new WeChat account under his roommate’s guidance. After the friend request was accepted, Chu Tian put his phone away, looking quite satisfied.

After exchanging WeChat, it was time for the final farewell. Lin Huai walked ahead of Chu Tian, stepping over the neighborhood gate, but at that moment, he heard a voice from behind: “Crow.”

It was a tone used to call someone. Lin Huai paused for a moment before turning around: “What?”

“Nothing,” Chu Tian shrugged casually. “I just mistook you for someone else.”

But his expression clearly showed he hadn’t mistaken anyone. Lin Huai looked at his feigned innocence and felt an itch in his hands.

After Lin Huai left, Chu Tian closed his eyes and unconsciously bit his thumb.

This was a habitual action when he was deep in thought. In his mind, two figures were slowly overlapping.

‘What is this…’ he thought, ‘No, I need to observe further.’

‘I need to find a way.’

Only when he reached the bus stop and squeezed onto the crowded bus, holding onto the handrail, did Lin Huai remember something.

He could no longer recall the face or the name of the human who had left a deep impression on him.

Before leaving the Game, he heard a system notification: “The portable item ‘Raincoat’ you obtained has been stored in your backpack and will be issued in the next Game.” He had originally planned to stay in the villa to explore the depths of the Game, but the Game didn’t leave him any loopholes.

The Game’s power was indeed formidable, far beyond his current strength. It could even distort his memories after the Game ended.

But if it could simply crush the rules, it wouldn’t be as interesting. Lin Huai loved taking on those who thought themselves exceptionally powerful. If the Game had the strength to play with him, then… Lin Huai wouldn’t mind seeing it through.

Thinking this, he tried again to recall the name of the person he had already forgotten. After ruling out the options of Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana, the bus conductor shouted, “The one at the back, yes, you, S University is here.”

Getting off the bus, a wave of heat hit him. The body Lin Huai was currently using belonged to a college student whose school was located in the suburbs of the bustling S City. A month ago, this body had climbed the school’s clock tower in the middle of the night and leaped down to embrace the earth.

At that time, Lin Huai had been wandering around the school. In recent years, he had been cultivating his character, lying dormant in a tomb in Wen County. But then an archaeology professor dug up his grave, infuriating him so much that he ran three hundred miles to destroy the most expensive instrument in the professor’s lab. S City was beautiful and densely populated, so he thought, since his cultivation had reached a certain level, he might as well find a corpse nearby to possess and experience the warmth of human life.

Just as he was about to ascend from the overwhelming yang energy of S University’s 7:1 male-to-female ratio, he encountered this perfect, affordable corpse. The corpse lay on the ground, soulless, with a handsome face. Following the principle of “waste not, want not,” he took over the body without hesitation and spent the entire night repairing it into a usable state.

When Lin Huai was resurrected, he was prepared to face strict professors, endless assignments, a girlfriend who cheated with three people, and a GPA below 1.7—typical reasons for a college student’s suicide. But as he sorted through the original owner’s information, he realized it wasn’t the case.

The original owner’s parents had divorced due to emotional discord, but they were generous. Despite living alone, he received tens of thousands in living expenses each year. He was reclusive and emotionally detached, so there was no risk of being troubled by love. Additionally, while his academic performance wasn’t top-tier, he was still an excellent student who could win school awards. Committing suicide over academic life was out of the question.

So Lin Huai wondered if the original owner had borrowed from illegal online lenders. With this body’s looks, he could probably borrow tens of thousands. He was on edge for a week, ready to crawl through the phone line and scare anyone who called. He was quite looking forward to it, even studying how Sadako crawled out of the TV, but unfortunately, no such situation arose, leaving his skills unused.

The original owner had no girlfriend, no boyfriend, and only a distant relationship with his three roommates. He was always alone, so when Lin Huai first arrived at the dorm and greeted his roommates, all three were startled. The roommate playing Zhuge Liang was so scared he played like a chess piece, sending troops one after another.

But now, Lin Huai had established a deep father-son bond with his roommates. As soon as he pushed open the dorm door, he smelled the aroma of dry pot frog mixed with the stench of dirty socks. One of his roommates was in the lab, another was at the street dance club, and the last one was eating takeout while playing The Witcher 3 on his desktop.

Lin Huai stood behind him, watching his gameplay. The roommate playing The Witcher 3 was named Lu Jin, with a likable baby face. His ancestral home was Lanling, Shandong, but he grew up in Sichuan, with a second-level Mandarin proficiency, often confusing “n” and “l.” It took Lin Huai a long time to realize he wasn’t from Nanning but from Lanling, Shandong. And there was no such person as the “Prince of Nanning.”

Lu Jin sighed in satisfaction after getting a kill reward and leaned back, only to feel Lin Huai’s cool breath. He shouted, “Damn! When did you get back?”

“Just now.”

“Dad, why do you walk so quietly? You scared me to death,” Lu Jin patted his chest. “You’re back from house hunting. How did it go?”

Lin Huai shook his head and sat opposite him: “Not great.”

Lu Jin “oh”ed and said, “Actually, you don’t really need to move out. Our dorm is pretty good except for the internet cutting off at midnight. You could just use a hotspot; unlimited data is only a few dozen yuan a month.”

Lin Huai didn’t really care about the internet cutting off at night. What bothered him was the smell in the dorm. As a former Specter, his senses were highly sensitive. What others could tolerate smelled like a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood to him.

But even though it was his first time being human in a hundred years, he understood the ways of the world. He didn’t mention the smell, just said, “I’m not used to living here.”

Lu Jin said, “You’ve been here for two years; why is it only now that you’re not used to it? Finding a place outside is expensive, and a lot of the properties nearby are bought by speculators. The occupancy rate isn’t high; it might even be haunted.”

Lin Huai said, “That’s fine. I like livelier places.”

Lu Jin: …