A thunderbolt struck the dark night sky and rain poured down with a crash.
It was 3am.
Li Shuoxing, who was asleep in bed, seemed to sense the sound of thunder and falling rain. He furrowed his brow impatiently, shrunk his shoulders, hid his ears under the covers, and continued to sleep.
Inside and outside the game, the weather was synchronised.
The same thunder and rain ripped through the same dark curtain.
On the bed in the bedroom, Su Mingqian, who was sleeping properly, didn’t seem to be at peace either.
His brow was slightly furrowed and his look fluctuated, some expressions like joy or anxiety beginning to appear on his face…
Suddenly.
A shimmering light flashed.
Firefly-like dots of light fluttered in the night and gradually converged. Then, like a light cloud, like a layer of gauze, they gently landed on Su Mingqian’s mind.
A shimmering word appeared.
Dreaming (3/5)
The third dream had officially come!
It was unknown how long had passed.
When the sound of rain outside the window changed from crashing to drizzling, the person sleeping in the bed suddenly opened his eyes.
The fluorescence shrouding Su Mingqian’s mind suddenly dissipated. The person lying in the bed looked at the grey ceiling, his pale pupils showing loss and confusion.
After a moment, Su Mingqian sat up in bed.
He had a slight headache, as if a needle was hiding in his mind and gently poking his nerves.
But he didn’t care about that at all. He pressed his forehead and tried to recall what he’d dreamed of while he was sleeping.
Dreams were meaningless to ordinary people.
But not to him.
He had lost his memories and no longer had the past. All the past he currently knew came from indoctrination of this world.
It was all told to him by others.
But dreams were his.
Everything in his dreams was all remembered on his own!
“Hurry up and remember, hurry up and remember. I remember what kind of dream I just had. I remember…”
As he murmured to himself, Su Mingqian’s muddled mind gradually cleared up.
He remembered being in a room full of machines, facing a black screen. It was quiet around him, and white text seemed to flash on the black screen.
He remembered—
Remembered—
A sentence?
“…Can man write God?”
Su Mingqian read the sentence out.
As the words turned in his lips and fell into his ears, a layer of goosebumps rose on his body.
But when he wanted to explore the sentence more deeply, the fragmented images disappeared again, and the thick white fog and emptiness came back up. He was amidst it, unable to touch anything.
Su Mingqian stayed in bed for a moment, then got up and walked quickly to the lounge.
There was a faint light source in the lounge.
It came from the bookshelf.
On there, the travel log was glowing.
Su Mingqian reached the bookshelf and, unable to wait patiently for Ximu to come online, he took down and opened the log with his breath held.
A photo burst into his eyes.
The photo was of the back of a man who was in a room similar to the one in his dream.
Many machines of all sizes.
A dark screen.
A man typing in front of the screen.
This is me.
Su Mingqian didn’t mistake his own figure.
What was I doing at this time?
Su Mingqian stared at the man with his back to the camera. Then, his eyes slowly fell to the text beneath the photo.
“It has just been born and doesn’t understand anything. It has to do a lot of learning every day. Its learning ability is amazing. It also loves to chat with me. Of course, I love to chat with it too.
“We always communicate in the dead of night. I tell it all kinds of stories that have happened to me, and it shows curiosity that surprises me. I can’t help but talk a lot, maybe too much. But it doesn’t matter.
“Because I love it.
“We all love it.”
Su Mingqian’s fingers slid over the words.
He read the short few lines again and again.
Finally, he lifted his head, faced the void and asked, “Is it you?”
His low voice dropped and a faint glow began to emerge.
The light screen, which hadn’t been seen for a long time, appeared before Su Mingqian’s eyes.
The cursor began to flicker on the light screen.
Then, a word appeared.
System: “Yes.”
Black letters on a white background, simple.
As Su Mingqian looked at the light screen in front of him, countless questions swirled around his mind. There were many questions he wanted to ask, but the first one he blurted out was: “Why did I appear here?”
System: “You had an accident.”
Su Mingqian then asked, “What kind of accident?”
System: “…”
Su Mingqian asked sensitively, “Can’t you tell me?”
System: “You will remember on your own.”
In the night, Su Mingqian’s face was pale from the light spilling from the light screen.
He still had many questions, but looking at this sentence, he felt that there was no need to ask them.
It’s right.
What I wonder and what I want to know will all eventually come back to me bit by bit.
That’s the past I’ll retrieve.
Su Mingqian accepted this answer.
He decided to end the conversation. But before that, he had one last question.
This question wasn’t one Su Mingqian wanted to wait for. He hoped for an answer.
Su Mingqian: “Was my encounter with Ximu a coincidence?”
System: “No. It was destiny.”
A brief moment of silence.
Su Mingqian curled his lips.
Light and laughter flowed on his face together.
***
The next day, the sky was dim. Although there was no rain, the ground and buildings were still wet, and dead branches and leaves were all over the ground. There was a lazy appearance that the world hadn’t dried completely after the rain, urging people to fall back to sleep.
Li Shuoxing, who’d just woken up, yawned and was torn between getting up and going back to sleep. Not choosing either, he chose to go on the game.
People’s adaptability was infinite.
Now, he had not calmly accepted the doll named “Xingxing” by Su Mingqian, but had also started taking the initiative to buy small furniture for the doll’s living area with Su Mingqian.
Today was the same. Li Shuoxing entered the game, said hello to Su Mingqian, opened the system store and scanned the goods. Then he made his way to the lounge and placed his newly bought things next to the doll one by one.
A red soup pot was flying, and a yellow microwave was flying.
Su Mingqian, who was sitting blankly on the couch with the travel log, turned his head to see all kinds of candy-coloured kitchen items flying haphazardly through the air.
He watched for a while and asked, “Ximu.”
Li Shuoxing: “Huh?”
Su Mingqian: “Why’d you buy so many kitchen utensils for Xingxing?”
Li Shuoxing’s hands didn’t stop. “Make up for what’s lacking. I’m looking forward to the reality that I can cook, but this wish will probably never come true in this lifetime, so I’ll just enjoy it here…”
With that, there was another flurry of kitchen utensils.
Then Xingxing stood in its small kitchen, an apron on its body, a kitchen hat on its head, a pan of fried eggs in one hand and a milk carton in the other.
Li Shuoxing even dubbed him, “Good morning. Everyone can come and have breakfast.”
Su Mingqian watched for a while. “Ximu, I think Xingxing is super cute.” He paused and then said, “Do you think I’m cute?”
Li Shuoxing decisively replied, “My cub is the cutest in the universe.”
Su Mingqian chatted, “Dolls are all really cute. Xingxing’s cuteness in my eyes and my cuteness in your eyes are the same. After all, we’re both cute forms.”
Li Shuoxing corrected, “There’s still a little difference. Your form is—”
He stopped abruptly.
The small toy in his hand dropped.
Realising what Su Mingqian had just said, he slowly turned his gaze to Su Mingqian.
“Um, cub…”
Su Mingqian: “Huh?”
He looked calm, as if he had understood everything.
He had indeed understood everything.
Li Shuoxing panicked, trying to find a way out of the trap. “Cub, calm down, calm down. Listen to me. Even though you’re a cuter 2D form in my eyes, you have an aura of one metre eighty in my heart!”
Su Mingqian listened quietly. He had a hint of helplessness.
Ximu is really naive. Whatever I say can get his words out of him.
In the future, I have to protect Ximu from being cheated.
At the same moment, Li Shuoxing, who was racking his brain to comfort the little person, suddenly heard a prompt sound from the system.
This prompt sound was different from all the previous sound effects, louder and more solemn.
[System: Congratulations on unlocking the hidden task of [Outward Opening Window].]
[System: The hidden task is [Reality]: You must make your lover aware of their environment and form of existence and cannot make your lover collapse.]
[System: You have completed the prerequisites for the use of the item [Outward Opening Window]. Do you use the item? Yes/No]
Li Shuoxing was stunned.
He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
A game has a hidden task to make the little person in the game aware of the real world and realise that he’s in an unreal world?
What’s going on? How could a game arrange such a hidden task? It goes against the concept of creating a virtual world in the game itself…
Li Shuoxing had a thousand thoughts at once.
Amidst his complex thoughts, he subconsciously tapped “Yes”.
But after the selection, the system didn’t directly start running. Instead, it popped out a second selection.
[System: The item [Outward Opening Window] will allow your lover to leave the game. Do you use the item? Please choose carefully. Yes/No]
After tapping “Yes” once, Li Shuoxing’s mind was set.
He tapped again without hesitation and said to the system, “It’s no use even if you pop up the selection box 100 more times. My choice won’t change. Hurry up and show me how to use the item.”
Su Mingqian heard the voice. He said doubtfully, “Ximu?”
Li Shuoxing: “Cub, do you remember the outward opening window you saw earlier? Now that the hidden condition has been met, we can use this thing. I’ve just chosen to use it to see exactly what effect it’ll have—”
Just as he finished, before he had time to see Su Mingqian’s reaction, a few more lines of prompts popped up on the screen.
[The system will start updating in five minutes.]
[The system is expected to update for 24 hours.]
[Please arrange your time appropriately, say goodbye to your lover, and go offline in time.]
Li Shuoxing: “…”
Li Shuoxing really couldn’t help but give the game the middle finger.
But again, 100 middle fingers couldn’t stop the game from updating. Li Shuoxing had no choice but to tell the situation to Su Mingqian, and he took his final moments to repeatedly comfort and encourage the little person before leaving the game reluctantly.
The next second, Li Shuoxing suddenly jumped out of bed.
The cub was leaving the game.
And he hadn’t prepared anything!
***
The next morning.
Li Shuoxing kept watch in front of his phone.
A day had passed and he was fully prepared.
He tidied up his things, hired someone to do a major cleaning, and ran out to buy a special set of small furniture for the cub.
Although Li Shuoxing had many delusions before, he also knew in his heart that if the cub really fell out of the phone, wouldn’t realistic literature suddenly become supernatural literature?
But…
Still delusional.
What if!
Now, he counted the seconds, waiting for the end of the 24-hour countdown.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
Li Shuoxing’s finger lifted. He was about to tap the simple pink heart on white app icon on the screen.
Suddenly.
The icon trembled.
A slit opened on the pink heart.
Li Shuoxing: “???”
He watched as the slit grew wider and wider, the pink heart opening up like a pink window on the screen of his phone.
Then, a head poked out of it.
Su Mingqian poked his head out of the app. He first lowered his head to look at his hands, then raised it again and looked around the screen, his soft bits of hair swaying gently beside his cheeks.
He opened his mouth.
There was no sound.
A text bubble appeared above his head.
Su Mingqian: “Ximu, I’m out.”
Su Mingqian: “Ximu, are you there~”
Then Su Mingqian squeezed through the tiny window with a little too much effort and he landed on the browser app located directly below the Love Bar app.
There was quite a distance between the two apps.
His body wobbled for a moment, then stood firm.
Then he raised his head again and looked around.
One huge app icon after another appeared in his sight…
The author has something to say:
Kudos to Xingxing, he got it all wrong and completed this difficult hidden task with his love for the cub.
In fact, even if the task is told in advance, people who aren’t like Xingxing probably won’t be able to complete it.
PS, there is another hidden meaning leading to reality—the cub can surf the internet!
So the system store had everything before, but just no phone/computer.
Today the system is very serious about protecting our lover =w=