The floor trembled. The crowd around him panicked and fled toward the exits.
Ada stood frozen in place for a long time before he finally found his way back to his own consciousness. He stepped forward—one foot after the other—and walked out of the hospital…
The whole time, he never looked back once.
……
He didn’t return to meet up with the others. He forgot to conceal his face. His footsteps quickened, growing faster and faster, until he was nearly sprinting down the street. Then he plunged headlong into the nearest service station to the hospital.
He pulled up the ranking list for the Queen’s Nest and saw that the top-rated team was still the “Damn Awesome” squad.
999 points.
But the team name had turned gray.
Gray meant the team no longer existed.
——During the event, teams could not voluntarily disband. But if the captain died, and the other members had been on the team for less than a month, the team would dissolve regardless.
Ada stared fixedly at that grayed-out name.
The name he had mocked and teased countless times. The team he had broken his own rules to stay with for over a month. It was gone now…
No longer existed…
……
The mountain range was unbroken, lush and continuous.
The leaves cast deep green shadows, and the house nestled within them felt old—old and desolate, carrying a cool, vacant stillness.
This was the most remote property among all of Nick’s holdings.
By the time Ada returned, it was already late. Bai Youwei was in the living room, writing and sketching. She looked up when she saw him come in and raised a hand in greeting.
“Ada, I have good news for you! One of the two remaining instances has a shortcut—we can clear it quickly. If things go smoothly, we should be able to knock out all the instances today~”
Ada smiled. “Really? That’s great.”
Bai Youwei looked at him and tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Ada kept smiling. “…I’m fine.”
*Compared to those who weren’t so fortunate, I really am fine.*
……
In the end, they successfully cleared all the instances.
After completing this objective, all four of their personal panels received the same message:
【Transmission is about to begin. Please prepare. Countdown starting now—
23:59,
23:58,
23:57……】
For twenty-four hours they did nothing, simply staying inside the house—sometimes gazing into the distance, sometimes looking up at the sky.
None of them knew what the transmission would be like. Would people from the world above appear? Would someone come to receive them? What would happen once they arrived in the world above?
Carrying all kinds of questions, they waited patiently. But for some reason they couldn’t explain, their consciousness grew thinner and thinner, drifting beyond their control, heavier and heavier.
In the end, even Bai Youwei couldn’t resist. She slumped forward onto the table and lost consciousness.
When she woke again, she was inside a container resembling a stasis pod, having just been roused by someone.
Awakened alongside her were Shen Mo, Ada, and Nick.
After such a long period of suspended sleep, their limbs were extraordinarily sluggish and weak, and even their capacity for speech faced difficulties—opening their mouths to talk felt as though their tongues were knotted.
They were brought to a place resembling a rehabilitation center, where they underwent seven days of recovery training. During that time, they slowly came to understand what this so-called “world above” actually was.
This world was not so different from the human world Bai Youwei had known—the same towering buildings, the same congested traffic. The difference was that resources here were extremely scarce while the population had ballooned far beyond what the land could sustain. So the rulers had forced a portion of humanity into mandatory sleep in order to conserve resources.
At first, only criminals in prisons were put to sleep.
Later, vagrants and scavengers followed. Then patients too poor to afford treatment. Then debtors who couldn’t repay their loans. Then those deemed intellectually deficient. And so on and so on, the list only grew longer.
Those forced into mandatory sleep would have their memories wiped clean. Their bodies lay in stasis pods while their consciousness entered the livestream world, “living” in another form.
Now they had awakened. And all their memories had returned.
Ada remembered that he had a fiancée gravely ill with a serious disease. To raise money for her surgery, he had taken the blame for a wealthy heir’s crime in exchange for payment.
Nick remembered that he was an entrepreneur who had built his business from nothing, only to be deceived by a business partner, leaving him buried under enormous debt he had no way to repay.
Shen Mo also remembered the reason he and Bai Youwei had come to this place.
Was this the real human world?
Bai Youwei didn’t know.
The rabbit wasn’t by her side, and she found herself unable to distinguish what was real from what was false. She simply watched the man in a work uniform before her, his mouth opening and closing as he introduced their situation in a melodious tone:
“The RB Group has established a livestream charity fund. Each year, only the best-performing teams are selected to come out. You are this year’s lucky ones! From here on, you will serve as brand ambassadors for RB Group, promoting its products under a one-year endorsement contract!
Everyone, you’re celebrities now! We’ll arrange your debut showcase shortly—look forward to your fans going wild for you!”
Bai Youwei and Shen Mo looked at each other.
Was this real?
Or was it another illusion?
Could it be… yet another puppet world designed to overturn everything you believed in?
No one knew.
……
*This side story has come to a stopping point. I’m going to take a few days to clear my head. Barring anything unexpected, next up should be Su Man and Lu Yuwen. Bai Youwei’s new world might get more stories later—or it might not. Depends on how I feel. I write side stories very casually… you all can be casual too~ Nice and easy~*
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