I slay demons and monsters in a bizarre city.

Chapter 44 Virtual World?

Li Changgeng struggled to open his eyes. He had woken up because he had fallen asleep on the coffee table. His memory was of the last time he went to get the coffee, when the coffee cup hit the white cat's head. Now, of the three cat heads, only the black cat's eyes were lit up.

The black cat head represents the present, the white cat head starts a red countdown, so what does the red cat head mean? Li Changgeng looked at the eerie red color and felt very uneasy. Lin Jiuge's office was too strange, and there was also this separate small study. Li Changgeng suspected that Lin Jiuge had deliberately brought him here.

Thinking about it now is useless, so Li Changgeng picked up the broken pieces of the coffee cup from the ground.

He would have to live in this place for a long time from now on. It was never good to be dependent on others, but he had no choice at the moment and had to make a living. His original home had been destroyed by those two evil spirits.

The coffee cup shattered very neatly, which made Li Changgeng suspicious again. Logically speaking, a glass cup that falls to the ground cannot shatter so neatly, because there is randomness involved. In short, it was very strange.

Inadvertently.

Li Changgeng looked up and saw the clock hanging on the wall. Just as Lin Jiuge had said on the ghost train, the clock on the wall was round, and there was a cat pattern in the middle. There really was such a clock.

Outside, it was night, and mist shrouded the earth. Li Changgeng had an urge to jump straight off the building. This was the 99th floor of KMS Games Company. Would he die if he did that?

Boil water, eat instant noodles, and drink cola.

Li Changgeng took out braised eggs from the refrigerator. These are probably his favorites and a common meal for those who work overtime.

Perhaps the countdown in red numbers has already ended.

Li Changgeng took a bite of instant noodles, not bothering to think about the scene in the Ghost Train. He turned on his computer and continued coding, finishing the first dungeon of the game, the infinite flow dungeon, "Ghost Train".

The night seemed endless. Li Changgeng worked quickly, and with the help of current AI technology, the script for the first dungeon of the game, as well as the settings, character dialogues, and world view, were all set up in less than five hours.

Li Changgeng remembered Lin Jiuge's last words to him: about how every employee at KMS Games Company didn't have a real name, only a code name or a number.

It's a pity the countdown ended, otherwise he would have heard what his code name was. It wouldn't be any more vulgar than buck-toothed girl, silly butt, mustache, or cross-eyed.

The night remained as dark as ink.

Looking down from the 99th floor, the streetlights appear extremely dim.

This was the first time Li Changgeng had lived at such a high altitude; his previous home was a single-story house similar to a small courtyard house.

"Remember to take your medicine!"

Li Changgeng took out the pills and swallowed them without hesitation. He had to take the medicine and couldn't stop.

What is the truth about this world?
How much longer can it survive?

How wonderful it would be to live in the sky above the sea, to escape this terrifying city forever.

The first phase of the game's dungeon has been completed, and Li Changgeng is much more relaxed. Taking advantage of the quiet of the night, why not go and investigate KMS Game Company? It's three in the morning, the time when the eternal night fog is at its thickest.

Li Changgeng took his employee badge and boarded a special DC elevator. This elevator was very strange; it only had three buttons: 99 floors, one underground floor, and two underground floors.

As Li Changgeng entered the elevator, she was enveloped in a strange red light that intertwined with green and red. It was a bit odd, like a camera using special lighting to monitor her.

It's a well-known fact that there are cameras in the elevators. At KMS Games, these cameras are specially made high-definition versions, designed to monitor employees' every move. "He took the elevator downstairs? Should we…"

The room was filled with various Buddha statues, ritual implements, blue and white porcelain, and other antique artifacts. The person speaking was a young man wearing a baseball cap.

"Don't be nervous, take it one step at a time! Can he escape my grasp? He only sees what we want him to see. Li Changgeng is an exception; he might change the course of human history, even the history of Earth." The old man's forehead was shiny, and his voice was unclear. Many years ago, he injured his vocal cords. Despite the advancements in technology, the bald old man did not want to use medicine and technology to change his vocal cords; he wanted to retain the most basic human elements within him.

"What if it gets out of control? After all, it's not under our program's control." The young man in the baseball cap stretched out his mechanical prosthetic arm. One of his arms had been bitten off and swallowed by the monster. In order to regain his arm, he had made a metal prosthesis. Now this arm is even more useful than before. It is not afraid of high temperatures, not afraid of impacts, and has greater strength. The outside of the metal prosthesis is the skin of a cyborg, with blood vessels and pores clearly visible.

Modern technology, artificial intelligence, and the application of supercomputers have opened the door for humanity to a future, other-dimensional world. KMS Games is doing just that.

"Li Changgeng is a miracle. Just like the law of survival of the fittest in nature, he has already evolved naturally within the program! This is what we want to see!"

The bald old man stared at Li Changgeng's every move on the screen, the cigar in his mouth glowing intermittently.

“However, the higher-ups want us to carry out the elimination plan. Li Changgeng is an uncertain factor that may affect the overall situation.” The young man in the baseball cap pointed at Li Changgeng on the screen and said, “They detected that in addition to the people and monsters he encountered on the ghost train, Li Changgeng also encountered an unknown X.”

Unknown X?

The bald old man frowned. "What do you mean? Weren't all those people there arranged by us?"

The man in the baseball cap said cautiously, "There's one person who isn't. We can't find any information about him. There's only one possibility: this person doesn't live in the present, but..."

The bald old man said confidently, "Living in the past? We've seen this before, so we don't need to worry about it. It's a low-probability bug! Li Changgeng must live; he might be able to give us more insights."

"No!" the young man in the baseball cap immediately said, "This unknown X comes from the future; it's someone from the future who came to our world."

"Interesting." The bald old man chuckled awkwardly. "This excites me. Tracking unknown X-codes?"

The young man in the baseball cap said cautiously, "It's difficult. The information we've gathered is limited. Every word he says is specially encrypted, and we're still cracking it. We don't know his true purpose in coming here to find Li Changgeng. This should be the first time we've detected a future energy source entering our mythological world."

"However, everything is under control. When this guy comes again next time, we will use technological means to track him. We can control the past world, but we know nothing about the future."

The bald old man took a big bite of his cigar and exhaled bluish smoke. "It's very interesting. If we change the world now, will it affect the future? For example, if we kill someone, they won't be able to have children with other people, and there won't be any next generation. Human reproduction will cease!"

"I don't think so, sir. This is like the grandmother paradox, something that neither science nor metaphysics can explain." The young man in the baseball cap said with great certainty, "Could Lin Jiuge also have some problems? She's also on the verge of losing control. And some employees of KMS Games haven't been behaving normally lately, especially that number 15!"

“Ignore them, let it go! We need a fault-tolerance mechanism, don’t we?” The bald old man stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray, smacking his lips contentedly. “Step back, I’m going to take a nap. Sleep is the most precious thing for humans. Those cyborgs’ sleep is just a programmed state of momentum! How pathetic, how lamentable, how regrettable!”

Li Changgeng couldn't feel the elevator going down; the distance to the 99th floor wasn't short.

ding dong...

The elevator doors opened, and the intertwined red and green rays of light blinded Li Changgeng.

This is the second basement level of KMS Games Company, and it's Li Changgeng's first time here.

Li Changgeng was utterly shocked by what he saw. He saw an endless line of people, dressed differently and with different appearances, standing neatly and quietly on the ground as if they were asleep...

(End of this chapter)