Global Collapse

Thinking about the distribution of the Upside-Down City, Xu Xingcheng said to Gu Mian, "Earth has set up this thing here, and various game worlds have also set it up. You saw the Upside-Down City there when you went to the amusement park not long ago."

Not only that, on her way out of the Secret Forest to deliver packages, Gu Mian also encountered a newly born upside-down city and almost dragged it into the sky.

“This thing exists in both the real world and lower-dimensional worlds. It must be an important arrangement on Earth, and there might be a ‘manager’ on it,” Xu Xingcheng continued.

"The manager?" the fat man asked curiously.

"Yes, managers. Just like a car needs a driver and a ship needs a captain, if there is no one in charge of management on board, it is difficult for it to play its role. There always needs to be a leader."

But neither of the two people who went up there mentioned meeting any managers.

Anzhi Tinglan spent a short time on the surface; after being taken up there, she spent most of her time underground, didn't see anyone, and knew nothing about what was happening on the surface.

Guigu's friend didn't mention this either, only focusing on the happiness and stability mentioned above.

“If you can find the administrator after you go up there, it will save you a lot of trouble. You can directly ask the administrator about the purpose of the Upside-Down City. Bring your torture tools; they will be a bonus when you interrogate them.” Xu Xingcheng’s eyes kept glancing at the saw in the corner, fanning the flames.

"Doctor, if you're going up there, then I'm going up there too," the fat man chattered on the side. "If we go up to find people, one more person means one more effort."

As he spoke, he pulled out a stack of A4 papers from behind his back, ran to the cabinet by the window, grabbed a transparent ruler, and gestured with it: "If the doctor goes up, everyone will definitely follow. I'll make a form and hand it out so everyone can fill out an island-going intention form. Time is a bit tight; we need to finish the statistics before Sunday... Hey, doctor, look at what's below?"

The fat man was pondering how many centimeters of blank space to leave at the edge of the table when his attention was suddenly drawn, and he turned his head to look out the window.

While looking around, he called out to others, "Come and see what's going on down there!"

What? A city hanging upside down has appeared in the sky? Could something be happening on the ground too? We can't exactly move the dungeon entrance down to his house. What a miserable fate it would be if he had to face a dungeon every time he opened his eyes.

Gu Mian walked over and did not see the tragic scene she had expected. The area below was relatively normal, except for an extra group of people.

people?
After the global game started, the human population plummeted, and the recent closure of the death protection mechanism in the dungeon has made matters worse for the already small number of survivors.

Gu Mian hadn't seen a group of people larger than three in this city for a long time; humans had become a rare species on Earth.

But at that moment, a group of rare animals gathered downstairs at his house.

At a glance, there are about twenty or thirty.

Where did all these people come from?

Gu Mian suspected that the people from the Upside-Down City had come down in a group, as her friend from Guigu had mentioned that there were quite a few people in the city.

But it's not Sunday yet, and the trains traveling between the ground and the Upside-Down City haven't started running.

Furthermore, once they come down from up there, they are not allowed to return to the Upside-Down City, and he doesn't think the people up there would give up their ideal world just to visit this apartment.

Gu Mian immediately noticed that everyone downstairs was wearing the same uniform.

These uniforms look increasingly familiar.

The fat man was the first to recognize them: "Aren't they wearing supermarket uniforms? These look like NPCs in the supermarket. Ah! That's the cashier at our supermarket. He's the one who usually pays my bill when I buy things."

Upon closer inspection, Gu Mian indeed recognized several familiar faces; they were indeed supermarket employees. What were these people doing here instead of staying in the supermarket? Sightseeing?

A group of people were making a lot of noise downstairs. The fat man's voice caught the attention of a few of them, and someone looked up at the window.

Someone called out, "Gu Mian is out!"

Immediately, the group scattered like birds and beasts, fleeing to places where Gu Mian could not see them—places they thought were invisible.

Gu Mian saw two of them hide behind a broken broom in the corner, pretending to be thinner than the wooden stick.

The fat man scratched his head, wondering what the people below were doing: "What do the doctors mean by this? They came to our apartment and saw us, then hid. If they weren't looking for someone, what were they here for?"

“They seem to have something they can’t say,” Gu Mian said understandingly. “Why don’t I go down and ask them what’s going on?”

The fat man quickly grabbed Gu Mian, who was about to leave, saying that if Gu Mian went down, the servants would have to run even further.

Therefore, the fat man took on the role of a diplomat and went to negotiate.

Gu Mian was looking down from the window.

He saw the fat man run downstairs. The people who had been scattered all peeked out when they saw the kind-looking fat man coming down and surrounded him.

They seemed to have something to say, and a group of them kept talking to the fat man, glancing up at the window every now and then.

The fat man would occasionally speak to the person opposite him.

After talking for about ten minutes, the two sides finally finished their exchange.

The fat man jogged back to the apartment to report the situation to everyone.

"What did you say?" At this moment, Guigu also came to the window. He saw that the people below had dispersed and were heading back towards the supermarket. It seemed that they had finished explaining everything they needed to.

"They came to ask what the doctor had been doing in the dungeon lately, saying they'd lost contact with the game world. They asked supermarkets in other areas, and it was the same; they'd all completely cut off from the game." The fat man said with a serious face. "I told them our doctor hadn't done anything; it's just that the game's developers made such a shoddy project that it'll fall apart in no time..."

"They didn't ask any more questions after they heard that you weren't doing anything in the dungeon, and they just left." The fat man scratched his head.

Chu Changge came up behind the fat man: "The supermarket has lost contact with the lower-dimensional world. It seems that the game's collapse is more severe than I thought."

“I have a question,” the fat man thought for a moment and asked a serious question, “The goods in the supermarket are all transported from the game world, right? Now that the supermarket can’t contact them, does that mean the freight channels are also closed? Does that mean the supermarket won’t be receiving any more goods, resources will keep decreasing, and we won’t starve to death?”

Shortly after the global game began, most of Earth's resources vanished into thin air, and humanity had no choice but to purchase supplies from the game's supermarket to survive.

If supermarkets stop supplying goods, our future survival resources will be in serious trouble.

Guigu shook his head: "There aren't many surviving players right now, so the resources won't be depleted too quickly. The supermarket's inventory can last for a while... What I'm more concerned about is the extent of the game's collapse. Judging from the current situation, the game might completely crash before we even run out of supermarket resources..."

Then it won't just be starving to death; we might face an unknown way to die. (End of Chapter)