Global Collapse

Guigu still remembers the previous announcement about the Upside-Down City event.

The special event 'Upside-Down City' is coming to Earth soon.

[Trailer: This is a haven without storms, humanity's last refuge. The first batch of 'Upside-Down Cities' will descend upon Earth after December 1st. The 'Upside-Down Cities' will exist permanently, and everyone is welcome to move in.]

When the announcement was made, Guigu had just escaped death from a dungeon, and he was leaning against the crumbling wall outside the ticket booth, lighting a cigarette.

Cigarettes are considered a luxury item nowadays. People don't even have enough game currency to buy food, so how could they have extra money to buy something like this?

This cigarette pack was found when everyone was moving scaffolding from the base. It was half a pack, and it was buried under stacks of steel bars. It looked like it had been there for a while.

He remembered that he had just lit the cigarette when the announcement about the Upside-Down City popped up. Guigu stared at the announcement for a long time, stunned, until the cigarette in his hand burned out in his daze.

"A haven without storms, humanity's last refuge... does such a thing really exist?" he asked himself.

If the Upside-Down City is really that good, then their entire base can move in. Guigu forced himself to ignore the suspicious aspects of this activity, thinking that if the entire base could really move into the Upside-Down City, then he could finally unload his burdens.

At the time, their base organized several discussions about this "Upside-Down City" event.

Still shaken, Hao Laoshi reached out and grabbed the wall beside him, staring wide-eyed at the land that was now completely upside down in the distance: "Upside-down City? Is that the event everyone's been talking about, the one that looks great in the description but is probably full of traps?"

Hao Laoshi also participated in the discussion about the upside-down city.

The event description sounded too appealing, leading most people in the base to suspect a scam, and they preferred to maintain the status quo. They said they wouldn't go even if the Upside-Down City appeared near the base, and declared they would continue to follow Guigu.

Hao Laoshi actually had high hopes for this event. At that time, he thought that if the Upside-Down City really appeared near the base, he would be willing to take the lead and help everyone see what it was like inside.

But unexpectedly, before the Upside-Down City even appeared, he and Guigu were teleported here. Dramatically, the Upside-Down City appeared nearby at the same time. However, he figured the people here probably didn't want to enter the Upside-Down City, and didn't need him to lead the charge.

“It’s not far from here.” Guigu looked out the window at the sky.

At this moment, the piece of land that had ascended to the sky had completely flipped over and stabilized in the air, and the ground beneath their feet had stopped shaking.

The commotion just now naturally attracted the attention of others as well. Guigu heard several doors opening in the corridor outside, followed by the voice of a young woman.

"Did you see that? Ground outside is rising into the sky." Coco noticed the unusual sight outside the window immediately. She quickly tried to tell others about it, and as soon as she opened the door, she saw Liu Ruyan, who had also just opened her door.

“It’s the Upside-Down City,” Liu Ruyan looked back out the window and saw that the piece of land that had become a “sky island” was still crumbling down. “Didn’t Gu Mian and the others say after they came back from Paradise World that the Upside-Down City in Paradise World was formed like this, flipping up from the ground and flying into the sky?”

Coco nodded slightly. Gu Mian had witnessed the creation of the Upside-Down City in the Paradise World and had told them about it when she returned.

But hearing about it from others is different from seeing it with your own eyes. When Gu Mian told her about it, Keke imagined a small piece of ground rising into the sky with little resistance, leaving only a bottomless pit on the original ground.

But the actual scene was far more shocking than imagined. At first glance, the ground that had risen into the sky was almost half the size of a city. It blocked the sunlight that was shining down from the sky above, shrouding the surrounding ground in darkness.

As the two were talking, they heard a creaking sound from the side, and another door opened.

Coco looked towards the newly opened door and saw Guigu and Hao Laoshi's faces. Earlier, when Fatty and Liu Ruyan brought the two down to choose rooms, Coco had opened the door and asked about their situation, learning that they had come from the previous instance with Gu Mian.

Guigu greeted the two somewhat awkwardly, then fell silent, unsure of what to say next. Back at the base, he was always the one giving orders, and everyone waited for him to make decisions when difficulties arose. Here, however, he could finally remain silent and wait for others to make their choices.

Liu Ruyan had no interest in the Upside-Down City, but she could tell that Guigu seemed interested in visiting it: "That place isn't far from here, Gu Mian and the others will probably go there. If you want to go too, go up and find Gu Mian and ask him to take you with him when he goes."

After saying that, she closed the door and went back to her room, leaving Coco and Guigu staring at each other in the hallway. Since they weren't familiar with each other and had nothing to say, Coco nodded to Guigu in an awkward silence before closing her own door.

Hao Laoshi slightly opened his mouth as he looked at the closed door: "Their reaction to the Upside-Down City is so mild. If something like this appeared near our base, the people in the base would definitely be in an uproar, and they would hold several meetings to discuss whether it would have any impact on us, and whether we should go to the vicinity to take a look, etc..."

Guigu closed the door and said to Hao Laoshi, "Our base is too fragile, so fragile that even a small change could bring about a devastating blow. That's why people react so strongly to changes in their surroundings."

Hao Laoshi thought about it and realized that it seemed to be true; people who are in a state of anxiety tend to be more cautious about their surroundings.

"But Mr. Gu, how did you recognize that it was the Upside-Down City at a glance?" Hao Laoshi asked curiously. "We've never seen what the Upside-Down City looks like before, and the event didn't mention its specific appearance."

When Hao Laoshi saw a large piece of land rising into the air, he thought it was some kind of newly developed wonder of Earth, but Guigu recognized it at a glance as the Upside-Down City.

"A friend in the game who wasn't at the base told me. That friend told me that landmasses that flew into the sky appeared near their base. After going to investigate, they found that it was the Upside-Down City." That friend was a former colleague of Guigu, who also organized people to build a large base, but it was far away from Hulu Gorge.

His friend had described the characteristics of the Upside-Down City in detail to Guigu, which is why he was able to recognize it at a glance today. However, his friend lost contact with Guigu not long after the Upside-Down City appeared, and even his name was erased from the friend list—a sign of death.

After hearing from Liu Ruyan that Gu Mian would probably go to the Upside-Down City, Guigu thought about it and decided to go there.

Gu Mian and the others upstairs also saw the inverted city floating in the distance, and their higher floor allowed them to see the situation there more clearly.

The fat man pressed his face against the window, watching the floating objects in the sky with bated breath: "It's the Upside-Down City! Doctor, the Upside-Down City has appeared near us!"

Gu Mian's ears hurt from his noise: "I'm not blind, I saw it a long time ago."

Gu Mian had already seen the Upside-Down City twice in the Paradise World, so she was no longer interested in it. However, she still wanted to see it for the first time in the real world, not out of curiosity, but to confirm what the Upside-Down City was really like.

The fat man recalled the description in the announcement: "A haven without storms, humanity's last refuge..."

As he repeated the announcement, he gazed at the upside-down city in the distance. Unfortunately, it was too far away to see clearly what was happening up there. He could only see the shadows of tall buildings, which looked like the original structures on the ground.

"That's the south side, right? Judging by the size, it seems like the entire area south of Lianhua has gone up into the sky. But if the ground is all in the air, how are players supposed to get in and participate in the event? Do they have to fly up there themselves?" the fat man asked.

Just as the fat man asked the question, there was a knock on the door, and Guigu's voice came from outside: "It's me, Guigu. Are you there?"

Gu Mian was a little puzzled. The fat man had just seen Gui Gu downstairs not long ago, and he hadn't even had a chance to sit down properly, so why was he so eager to come back up?

Chu Changge casually opened the door for Guigu near the entrance.

After entering, Guigu first thanked Chu Changge, then rubbed his hands together and looked at the people inside.

Seeing Gu Mian and the fat man looking at him, he opened his mouth but couldn't speak. Although he had come with a clear purpose, Guigu hadn't had a normal conversation with anyone for a long time, so he didn't know how to start. After about half a minute, he finally spoke: "You've seen the Upside-Down City, right? Liu Ruyan said you might go there to take a look." "It's so close to us, the doctor will definitely go check it out." The fat man scratched his head, understanding Guigu's purpose in coming. "Do you want to go see it too?"

Guigu nodded: "Actually, besides what I learned about the Upside-Down City from the announcement, I've also heard descriptions of the Upside-Down City from other people."

He paused for a moment before continuing, "It was a colleague of mine before the global game started. They had also set up a base there, but it was quite far from Hulu Gorge. We became friends not long after the game started..."

The fat man asked curiously, "After the global game started, all communication was cut off. How did you know each other's nicknames and add each other as friends when you weren't together?"

"After the game started, many of our colleagues actually chose rather formulaic names, such as place names plus their job titles and their own names," Guigu explained. "I entered similar names in the search for friends section to see if I could add colleagues from other places, and to my surprise, I actually added a few."
“One of my colleagues told me that they had also organized a base there, with nearly two hundred people, even more than Hulu Gorge. Not long ago, he sent word that an upside-down city had appeared near the base. A group of people went to investigate the area several times and got some understanding of the situation. He told me that there is a train running between the upside-down city and the ground, coming from the upside-down city every Sunday at midnight and returning from here.”

Is there a train?
The fat man was stunned. He turned to look at the city hanging in the sky outside the window, but he didn't see any railway tracks or anything like that.

Guigu continued, "That train could carry people from the ground to the Upside-Down City, and it could also carry people from the Upside-Down City back to the ground. That's what the train described, but no one had gone up to that city at that time, so we don't know if the train's description of being able to return to the ground was true."

"Was there no one in the Upside-Down City when it was formed?" Gu Mian remembered that there were many lower-class people in the Upside-Down City she saw in the Paradise World. It must have been that the lower-class cities in the region went up to the sky together when the Upside-Down City was formed.

Guigu nodded: "Yes, although the population density there is very small, when the Upside-Down City went up into the sky, it should have taken a group of people with it. But when people below look up, they can only see a blurry shadow, like a mosaic. They can only see a blurry figure moving up there."

This is different from the upside-down city that Gu Mian saw in the Paradise World. In the Paradise World, Gu Mian could see the people and things on it very clearly. Is this Earth's way of treating people differently?
The fat man turned to look at the city in the distance in the sky outside the window. It was too far away for him to see clearly whether it looked like a mosaic.

“My friend observed the people above from the ground for several days, but because the figures were too blurry, he couldn’t be sure what the people above were like. On the first Sunday morning, they waited at the station on the ground to see if any of the people above would come down. From the ground, they could see the blurry station above the Hanged City. They noticed that as Sunday morning approached, there were several groups of figures waiting next to the station of the Hanged City, looking as if they were about to come down.

"But in the end, none of those people boarded the train, and only an empty train got off."

“Those above might know some rules that those below don’t,” Gu Mian said. “If that vehicle could carry people back and forth between the ground and the Upside-Down City indefinitely, those above wouldn’t hesitate to get on. I think there must be a rule above that says, ‘Once you leave the Upside-Down City by vehicle, you can’t go back.’”

Guigu also agreed with Gu Mian's words: "My friend analyzed it the same way at the time. Because it was the first week after the appearance of the Upside-Down City, they had too little information, so on the first Sunday, no one in the base got on the bus. They planned to observe for another week. However, a few people who were not in the base got on the bus. They were players who lived nearby and seemed to be doing poorly."
"Actually, their base was also in a state of resource shortage, and because of the appearance of the Upside-Down City nearby, the people in the base became somewhat lax. It's like a drowning person clinging to a piece of driftwood who has been in the water for a long time and suddenly sees someone coming to rescue them. They no longer struggle and drift with all their might as before. They feel that their hope has come."

While the concept of the Upside-Down City may seem somewhat suspicious upon closer inspection, it does offer a degree of room for imagination. People in high-pressure environments tend to relax subconsciously once they have hope.

"Does that car only make one round trip a week, first coming from the Upside-Down City to the surface and then returning from the surface to the Upside-Down City?" the fat man asked.

Guigu nodded: "Yes, we'll first come to the ground from the Upside-Down City, stay here for ten minutes, and then return to the Upside-Down City."

The fat man sorted out the order: "If we go back and forth in this order, people on the ground who take the train to the Upside-Down City and want to come back will have to spend a week inside and wait for the train to depart next Sunday."

"Yes, so my friends decided to observe from the ground for another week to see if those people who went up from the ground would come back when the train starts moving next week."

The fat man's curiosity was piqued: "Did those people come back?"

Guigu shook his head: "No, no one came down from up there in the second week. Just to be on the safe side, I think they should observe for a while longer, but some people in the base are getting impatient."

"For two weeks after the appearance of the Upside-Down City, the base continued its normal operations. People entered the dungeons to earn game currency as assigned. Of course, some people died during this period. Some people thought that the deaths during this period were meaningless. They felt that the beautiful oasis had appeared in the vicinity, but people were not allowed to enter. This was all because the base leaders were slow to make a decision to go to the Upside-Down City, which led to the unnecessary casualties in these days. Some even speculated that the base's higher-ups wanted to monopolize the Upside-Down City."

“In a densely populated, high-pressure environment, such conspiracy theories spread very easily. Soon most people in the base began to complain about my friends’ hesitation.”

History always repeats itself, and Gu Mian knew that if things continued to develop this way, a rebellion would break out in the base.

"At this point, someone in the base stepped forward and said that he was willing to go up and take the lead for everyone. My friend knew that if they delayed any longer, something would definitely happen to the base. Now they had to send someone up to take a look. But it was absolutely unacceptable to send an unprofessional and irrational person to the Upside-Down City first. He might be misled and make wrong judgments, pass on wrong information, and mislead the others in the base."

The fat man understood this principle: "It's like one day I made a dish that was not only unpalatable but also poisonous. The first doctor who ate it was fooled by me and exclaimed that it was delicious. When the others heard the first doctor say that, they all picked up their chopsticks and rushed to eat my dish. In the end, we all got food poisoning."

Guigu felt his eye twitch, but he quickly processed the fat man's abstract description: "That's roughly the idea. The experience of the first person to put it into practice is often more convincing. If there is danger in the Upside-Down City, but the first person to go up there is blinded and sends back a message that it is safe, then the entire base will be in danger."

The fat man said thoughtfully, "Yes, it's like seeing a contract that can save your life in this world where you could die at any moment, and someone has already proven its authenticity. If it were me, I would definitely sign this contract at all costs, and anyone who tries to stop me is up to no good."

“Yes, if the first person to go up is misled and sends back the wrong information, then the people in the base will flock to the Upside-Down City and there will be no way to stop them. So the first person to go up is extremely important. They must have a clear mind and sufficient judgment. That’s why my friend decided to be the first person to go up the city. He is thoughtful and very smart.”

The fat man listened intently: "And then what happened? After he went up to the Upside-Down City, was he still able to contact you?"

At this moment, Guiguzi wore an incomprehensible expression, as if he had recalled something perplexing.

The fat man thought he was about to reveal a bizarre and terrifying twist, but things didn't go as he expected at all: "Okay, actually we were all prepared that he wouldn't be able to contact the ground after he went up to the Upside-Down City, but we didn't expect that he could still contact people through his friend list up there."

“I asked him what was going on up there, and he said it was very strange. It was like before the global game started. Being up there was like going back to the past. The dungeons he experienced in the global game were like a nightmare.”

Actually, looking back on life before the global gaming world started, it wasn't particularly happy. But being tall is all about comparison, and compared to now, life before the global gaming world started was like paradise.

The fat man asked curiously, "Did he tell you the specifics of the Upside-Down City, such as who lives up there, and how the buildings are different from those on the ground?"

Guigu frowned as he recalled, "There were many people. He also found it strange after he went up. Although the area of ​​the ground that rose into the sky was large, according to the population density at the time, the number of players who were taken up there was at most twenty or thirty, and with the few people who went up later, it was at most forty. But there were many people up there, not to mention forty, there were even four hundred."

Gu Mian reasonably suspected that the group of people above were not players, but rather NPCs placed there to liven up the atmosphere.

"At first, he couldn't be sure of the identities of those people, but after careful contact, he discovered that they weren't fake or fabricated, but real players. They knew about the global game and knew they were in the Upside-Down City. They were having a great time in the Upside-Down City, which felt very strange. It was like you were eating in a restaurant and all the other tables around you were fighting, but your table was still eating and drinking happily."
"The buildings above are the same as on the ground, but they've all been repaired once you get up there. At the start of the game, both the convenience store and the shopping mall were vandalized and looted, but all the damaged buildings were repaired once you got up there, restored to their original state, and everything inside was brought back."
"There is indeed a rule that once you leave by train, you cannot return to the Upside-Down City, so none of the people up there have gone down."
“My friend stayed inside for several days and told me that there was nothing unusual in the Upside-Down City. The people inside were very happy and content, and even he felt happy up there…”

Guigu fell silent at this point, seemingly realizing that his friend's reaction was inappropriate.

"Are you sure your friend will still be your friend after they go up there?" a voice suddenly came from the side.

Guigu was startled by the sudden sound behind him and turned around to see Chu Changge. He had been sitting next to him without him noticing, but Chu was engrossed in his book and didn't look up at him.

Guigu calmed himself down and said, "To be honest, I've had the same doubts. Sometimes I even doubted whether the person I was talking to was really him. I even asked him some questions, both overt and covert, to test whether he had been switched."

"As I just mentioned, he is very smart. When I asked him those questions, he realized that I suspected him and said several things that only we knew. What he said was very accurate, and I basically confirmed that he was still the same person I knew and had not been replaced."
“I asked him if, since things were so good up there, we should send everyone from their base to the Upside-Down City right away. He told me he wasn’t quite comfortable with it yet and planned to observe for another week before making a decision.”

Guigu paused at this point.

"And then?" the fat man asked impatiently, wanting to hear more of the story.

Guigu gave an awkward smile: "That's it. That was my last conversation with him. He disappeared shortly after that; he vanished from my friends list." (End of Chapter)