NFM Chapter 71

Lin Huai stared at the photo for a long time before finally turning to Ren Qiu and asking, “You and your sister were very close, weren’t you?”

“It used to be like that…” Ren Qiu smiled bitterly, “but later on…”

When he mentioned “later on,” he stopped his hands from picking vegetables. He gazed at the sky, looking lost in thought.

“Actually…” Lin Huai heard his soft voice, “I’ve always been envious of my sister.”

“She was much healthier than me, smarter, and more beautiful. I often thought, how great it would have been if I had died instead… Have I ever told you that I always wished she was the one who survived?”

“If it were her, she could have done many things I couldn’t,” Ren Qiu coughed twice, “unlike me… a weak… useless person.”

He smiled faintly.

Lin Huai watched him quietly, saying nothing.

“…It’s troublesome, don’t cry. I’m not good at comforting people,” he said.

“…Sorry, I couldn’t help it…” Ren Qiu wiped his eyes awkwardly, “I’m sorry…”

“If you feel sorry for me, then go cook first,” Lin Huai said coldly, “Don’t let your tears drip into the food, it’ll make it too salty.”

Ren Qiu: …

After saying that, Lin Huai patted Ren Qiu on the head, showing a triumphant expression, and happily skipped away.

Not long after, Chu Tianshu returned. The two stayed for dinner before heading back to the Ying family.

Yu Xiu was surprised to see them return, “You’re not staying out tonight?”

“No, we can’t handle it anymore,” Chu Tianshu peeked around, “Huh? Ying Xia hasn’t come back yet?”

“He left early in the morning, who knows where he went,” Yu Xiu shrugged, “He just likes running around the village.”

“Things have been chaotic in the village lately, it’s better for him to stay home,” Chu Tianshu casually remarked.

“Do I have time to look after him? I can barely manage myself, let alone him. He’s always out there messing around, getting his clothes all dirty,” Yu Xiu complained, “Oh, you’re back? You finally decided to come home?”

A young man with phoenix eyes limped in from the door. He seemed slightly injured and didn’t even glance at the others.

“Wash your own clothes!” Yu Xiu shouted. Ying Xia paused, then said indifferently, “Got it.”

“Honestly…” Yu Xiu continued to complain. Lin Huai and Chu Tianshu exchanged a glance and slipped back to their room.

Chu Tianshu lay on the bed playing with his phone, complaining, “Do you think if we order something here, it can be delivered to the Ren family?”

“What do you want to buy?”

“Fridge, TV, washing machine…”

Then, he saw Lin Huai fall silent for a moment before finally saying, “…I actually have those things in my inventory.”

As he spoke, he pulled out five items he had drawn from the system store: a set of paper-made appliances (system note: will stand up when wet), a pile of college entrance exam study materials, a white dress, a property deed, and four high-speed train tickets.

The quality of all items was white, and the notes all read: “Ordinary items, no skills attached.”

“Wow,” Chu Tianshu flipped through the property deed, marveling, “This property deed is for a place in Beijing’s third ring road. You’re lucky.”

“What’s the use of being lucky in the Game? You can’t take it out and use it yourself,” Lin Huai complained, “Forget about the appliances and train tickets… What is this white dress for? Is it for me to wear?! And what’s with the college entrance exam study materials? Are they for burning to keep warm when it’s cold?!”

As he spoke, Lin Huai’s mood worsened. Chu Tianshu looked at his dejected expression and suddenly laughed.

“Even your luck in drawing items reminds me of someone.”

“Who?” Lin Huai asked, “Is there someone else as unlucky as me?”

“An old acquaintance,” Chu Tianshu said, “That person always said he had bad luck, always drawing useless things, but in the end, he always turned out to be the real lucky one.”

There was a hint of complicated nostalgia in his expression. Lin Huai looked at him, puzzled.

“It’s a long story. Do you know the origin of the Game?” Chu Tianshu suddenly turned to look at him.

Lin Huai: “Uh, the Big Bang?”

Chu Tianshu: “…”

“From what we can trace, the Game appeared at least seven years ago. Do you remember the large-scale disappearance incident that happened that year? A private helicopter crashed into the sea, and everyone on board vanished without a trace. There were signs of human activity on the plane, but no one knew who had boarded it. Even the dispatch company had no record of the flight… This was likely the first incident related to the Game. Once a player dies in the Game, all traces of their existence in the real world are obliterated. Only fellow players can remember them. Therefore, we believe that the pilot of that plane was a player accidentally pulled into the Game.”

“From eight years ago to six years ago, that period is known as the ‘Wilderness Era’ by veteran players. The Game had no rules, no system, and was completely chaotic. Innocent players were dragged into Nether Being incidents, some died, and the survivors were pulled into the Game. They would periodically feel a burning sensation in their hearts and be dragged into new Nether Being incidents. The difficulty and content of these incidents were random, not adjusted based on how many times a player had participated, nor did they provide any hints on what tasks needed to be completed. Players could only rely on luck to survive. The mortality rate was extremely high, and everyone was struggling to survive, desperate to escape this hellish place.”

“Six years ago, the Game underwent its first change. It began to issue tasks and adjust difficulty based on the number of times a player had participated. The content of the Game also started to become more logical. We call this the Game’s first evolution. Five years ago, the Game underwent its second change, introducing features like tasker camps, system space, and system stores. The gradually stabilizing Game environment allowed players to communicate with each other, and many teams began to form,” Chu Tianshu said, “After that, an Advanced Zone player discovered a strange set of symbols in the Game.”

“After returning to reality, that player found a cryptography professor to analyze the symbols. The cryptography expert said that the symbols were a piece of program code, and the content of the code was a path.”

“Soon, more players also discovered this path in the Game. Although the forms of expression were different, they all pointed in the same direction. Someone tried inputting this path into the system command line in reality and pressed enter…”

“Then he entered Happy Planet?” Lin Huai asked curiously.

Chu Tianshu: “…The command did receive a response. The system prompted him that he was attempting to connect to the Ultimate Gate.”

“At the same time, the system also informed him that entering the Ultimate Gate required thirty-two dynamic passwords, or so-called keys. After entering this gate, the player would gain the highest administrator privileges, escape this world, and be freed from the endless cycle. For many people struggling to survive in the Game at the time, this was an extremely tempting prospect. The keys to open the path were scattered across various Instances. They could drop from various Evil Spirits, Fierce Ghosts, and viruses—though the drop rate was only about 10%. The first person to gather thirty-two keys would be the first to enter the Ultimate Gate. But each key could only be used once,” Chu Tianshu drew a door with a stick, “After the news of the ‘Gate’ spread, all players were in an uproar. They formed various factions, competing for keys to enter this gate. During this time, many bloody incidents arose. Bloody incidents didn’t just happen in the Game, but also in reality. Some players even doxxed another player’s real-life address for a key, threatening them with violence.”

“…But the current rule of the Game is that after leaving an Instance, memories related to other players’ identifying information become blurred,” Lin Huai pondered.

—This seems like a form of protection the system provides for players.

“Various incidents of key competition caused considerable bloodshed and chaos. For a time, more people died from key disputes than from Nether Beings. In this climate of fear, a team finally rose to prominence. The leader of that team was named Gu Chaosheng, a powerful, virtuous, gentle, and strong person…”

“Gu Chaosheng… sounds like someone who would soon sacrifice himself…”

“They gathered thirty-two keys and entered the Ultimate Gate in front of all players in the tasker camp. Then, the tasker camp collapsed,” Chu Tianshu said indifferently, “All players were kicked out of the Game, countless players in the Game died, and Gu Chaosheng never returned alive from the Game… His teammates received his last message three days later—’Don’t enter!'”