“You’re not lying to me, are you?”
After the initial surprise, Li Chu began to have doubts. He warily stared at Xin Meng, “What are you planning? Are you trying to kill me while I’m distracted?”
“If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need to go through all this trouble. I understand that you want to go home, and I can help you with that,” Xin Meng said, glancing at the people present.
“Your lives depend on this game. If you kill me, you will disappear from this world along with me; you won’t return to reality.”
He continued, “Of course, I could be lying, but the question is, do you dare to gamble?”
“…”
Another unsolvable dilemma.
“Don’t confuse the issue. To save yourself from being killed, of course, you would lie. Is that even a question?” Li Chu scoffed.
Xin Meng ignored him and continued, “I have the authority to let you go. This is the only opportunity; will you take it?”
This time, it was Li Chu who hesitated. He really wanted to go home, but he was also afraid Xin Meng was deceiving him. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Cheng Jiali is eager to get out and marry her boyfriend. Since this opportunity has come up, let her go first.”
“Li Ge!” Cheng Jiali looked at Li Chu in disbelief. Who didn’t know this was his way of letting her test the waters first? This was too despicable!
Li Chu ignored Cheng Jiali, awkwardly turning his back to her, and stubbornly asked Xin Meng, “What do you say?”
“No deal.” Xin Meng rejected his request, “Only you can leave.”
Upon hearing this, Li Chu felt even more that this was a conspiracy against him. Just as he was about to refuse, Xin Meng said, “I am an artificial intelligence, limited by my programming. You should have noticed earlier; I cannot directly kill players, including you.”
Hearing this, Li Chu thought back to what had just happened and believed her, but he was still troubled by the question, “Then why can only I leave?”
Xin Meng provided him with this answer: “You can create destructive weapons; this game cannot accommodate you.”
Although it didn’t sound like a compliment, Li Chu finally accepted it. He said, “That’s fine, but I demand that the entire process be broadcast publicly for everyone to see!”
He thought it through; if everyone could supervise, the system wouldn’t dare to cheat.
However, Xin Meng rejected him again, “Players cannot, only GMs can.”
Li Chu thought for a moment and settled for a compromise, “Then let all the GMs see my process of going home. Everyone present will be my witnesses!”
A cold smile flashed across Xin Meng’s lips as she nodded, “Then let’s begin. Close your eyes.”
Li Chu closed his eyes.
Everything that happened next was a blur; he only felt a warm embrace enveloping him, then his body became light, weightless, slowly floating up, higher and higher, as if he had floated all the way to the ninth heaven…
Then the warmth suddenly vanished, and a bone-chilling cold wind blew in. His body stopped rising, swaying with the wind, almost losing his balance and falling, which startled him into opening his eyes.
He found himself standing at a familiar intersection.
To the left was an office building under construction, tower cranes hoisting building materials up, with workers bustling about. To the right was the People’s Park, invested in by the city government, where gray-haired elders were chatting in groups, some performing opera, some dancing, and a few children playing, along with hurried office workers passing by.
The wide road stretched endlessly in both directions, with cars stuck in traffic, forming a long line.
He moved his eyes, as if suddenly someone had removed his earplugs. The rumbling of machines, the shouts of workers, the sounds of opera, music, children’s laughter, and the honking of passing cars all rushed into his ears, leaving him momentarily at a loss, unable to adapt.
Had he… returned to reality?
The red light in front of him turned green, and he hurriedly followed the crowd across the crosswalk to the opposite sidewalk.
He remembered this was the route he took every day after work. Continuing forward, he crossed an intersection, turned right into a residential area, and the first building was his home. At this time every day, his parents would have hot meals ready, waiting for him to return, and the whole family would gather together for dinner.
The lights in the dining room were a warm yellow. Initially, his dad had said white was bright, but his mom insisted that yellow was cozy and insisted on buying yellow. In the end, both he and his dad had to give in, and it turned out that in terms of home aesthetics, they both had to bow to their mother.
This was a familiarity that felt like a lifetime ago.
Li Chu almost shed tears. He stood on the road, desperately looking up, afraid that tears would fall and that the people around him would think he was crazy. Fortunately, not many people noticed him.
Home! Home!
Li Chu excitedly wiped his face and sprinted towards home, but perhaps he was running too fast; he kept bumping into people who didn’t even look at him. He had to dodge while cursing, as if trying to make up for lost time, running faster and faster.
Soon, he arrived at the bottom of his building. He had run too fast, panting and feeling weak in his legs. At this moment, he leaned on his knee with one hand and wiped the sweat from his chin with the other.
In front of him was Unit 5; his family lived in the innermost Unit 1. As he calmed his breath and walked forward, he saw two familiar aunties at the entrance of Unit 3, chatting while carrying their shopping baskets. He greeted them and asked if they had seen his parents, but the two aunties were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t pay him any attention.
He stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then suddenly slapped his forehead. Forget it, just go home first!
He reached Unit 1, climbed to the fourth floor, hesitated for a moment in front of the door, and still knocked.
At that moment, something terrifying happened.
His fingers did not knock on the security door but passed straight through it.
Li Chu was taken aback, quickly retracting his hand as if it had been burned, rubbing his eyes and staring at the security door, cautiously placing his hand on it again.
It passed through.
He was stunned.
Not just his hand, but also his arm, his legs; finally, his entire body passed through the security door and directly entered his home!
What was going on?
After the shock, he immediately thought that the system must have done something to prevent him from truly returning!
He thought that many people should be watching his live stream right now, and he immediately began to curse loudly, claiming that this system was deceiving people, that no one should believe it, that it had harmed him, and that it should just kill him quickly!
After tiring himself out from cursing, he finally stopped, took a deep breath, and saw that nothing had changed. An indescribable sense of frustration filled his heart, and he couldn’t help but start wandering around the familiar home.
His dad wasn’t there, and neither was his mom. Had they gone out?
He walked over to the liquor cabinet and was suddenly drawn to a photo displayed on one of the shelves. He picked it up and saw it was a family portrait, with his dad and mom sitting side by side, holding… not him?
Li Chu’s eyes widened. What was going on? Who was this four or five-year-old child in the middle?!
He began to frantically search the house, and in the living room alone, he found many new photos, as well as an album, all featuring this little child. There was even a photo of his mom when she was pregnant that he had never seen before!
Li Chu was horrified. The child in his mother’s belly couldn’t possibly be him because when he was born, cameras weren’t even widespread, and there were no pregnancy photos. His mom couldn’t possibly be this old!
Did his mom have another son?
How much time had passed?
He suddenly remembered that the two aunties he had seen earlier seemed to be a bit older than before…
Right! He needed to find a calendar to see what year it was now!
He remembered that his mom had a habit of keeping a calendar in the bedroom. He walked into the bedroom…
And then he saw something he would regret seeing for the rest of his life.
In a corner of the bedroom stood a black table, on which lay a 12-inch black-and-white photo. The person in the photo… was him.
Li Chu rushed over in disbelief, trying to pick up the photo, but he couldn’t touch anything.
An obituary? How could it be an obituary?
He… he was dead?
Just as this thought crossed his mind, it was as if a door had opened in his brain, and forgotten memories flooded back. Li Chu clutched his head in pain, squatting on the ground, unable to recover for a long time.
That day, he was at work when his mom called him, saying his dad had fallen and hurt his leg, asking him to come home early. He was anxious and quickly took leave, completely ignoring his mom’s warning to “not rush and to be careful on the road,” only thinking about getting home quickly.
Later, he reached the intersection, the same one where he had woken up. The traffic light ahead turned red, and he was anxious, looking around and seeing no cars, so he decided to cross.
Just as he reached the middle of the road, a truck…
“Ah ah ah ah ah ah!” Li Chu clutched his head and screamed wildly.
“I’m dead! I’m dead! I’ve already died ah ah ah ah!” he shouted, “Why did I forget? I’ve already died ah!”
He cried out in pain, tears and snot streaming down his face.
“I’m already dead ah…”
On that day, he had already been hit by a car.
Then, he had crossed into the game.
“Yes, yes, I died, I died and then entered the game. I remember now… I…” He felt a daze, collapsing to the ground. “Even if I come back… where can I go…”
Not long after, something even more terrifying happened.
His body was slowly disappearing.
Staring at his fingers, which were gradually becoming transparent, Li Chu’s heart raced.
“Why come back! Why come back! I want to go back to the game! I want to live, I want to survive…” He suddenly looked up and shouted towards the sky, “System! System! I know you can hear me! I wronged you! I apologize, I’m sorry! Please send me back!”
There was no response.
Li Chu was truly scared now, and he regretted it. He began to forget why he had chosen to abandon being a GM, why he had chosen to give up eternal life, and why he had come back to seek death. He crawled to the living room, kneeling on the ground, desperately pleading with the system, hoping for another chance.
He showed the most disheveled and pitiful posture of his life, tears streaming down his face, repeatedly banging his head in a direction he didn’t even know.
It was useless.
The disappearance of his body did not stop, nor did he see the place he had once grown tired of and hated, which he now most wanted to return to.
In the end, Li Chu finally understood something. He sat slumped on the ground, his lower body completely gone, only his hands supporting his upper body, staring despairingly at the ceiling, then laughing madly and hopelessly, crying and laughing at the same time.
“You were right; I really can’t be accommodated anymore, can’t be accommodated anymore…”
