Chapter 27: Sea Without Light 27
Kui Xin regained her composure.
She jumped out of bed, not even putting on her slippers, and rushed to the window, abruptly pulling back the curtains. The only streetlight in the dilapidated old neighborhood glowed defiantly, illuminating the way home for late-returning individuals.
Under the dim yellow light, the outlines of the trash bins were blurred, and the slate pavement was marked with numerous cracks. The surveillance cameras in the alleys silently operated, and the entire complex was eerily quiet; there was nobody around.
It seemed like an ordinary night, where people returned home and fell asleep as usual, waiting for the sun to rise to have breakfast and go to work, starting a routine day.
But Kui Xin knew that the seven days of adventure she had experienced were not a dream; they had truly happened to her.
She held her breath and silently murmured, “System?”
The game panel flickered into existence.
Her skill descriptions and the extraordinary abilities she had acquired during her traverse appeared distinctly on the screen, and she noticed that the investigation progress for the port bombing case had inadvertently risen to 25%, all information laid bare before her.
Kui Xin gasped, her heart stopping.
She had returned to the First World, yet she could still summon the game panel. Whether entering the game world or returning to reality, the game system followed her… so how clear was the boundary between the game and reality now?
No holographic game could be as real as “Crimson Soil.” Kui Xin understood that world was real, but she had to treat it as a game, finding ways to clear it to the end. The game system was one of the signs that helped her distinguish between game and reality, reinforcing her belief so she would not get lost.
But now, she had a game system in the real world!
People could easily separate games from life because things in games couldn’t be brought into reality, and things in reality couldn’t go into the game. If one died in the game, they could be revived. Players could slaughter NPCs without guilt, but in the real world, everyone was normal, and no one would do such things.
“Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought…” Kui Xin murmured.
She walked to her desk and pulled out a craft knife from her pencil case, cutting her finger without hesitation.
Blood flowed out, and the wound healed within two seconds!
This time, Kui Xin completely lost any sense of false hope; leaving the Second World, the ability of regeneration was still within her.
The boundary between game and reality had been broken! The abilities gained in the game still took effect in the real world. Reality and illusion, game and reality, their boundaries had thus become blurred.
It was as if Kui Xin was originally playing “Cyber Online,” but after quitting the game, she found that the game system had followed her out, and her reality had turned into “Earth Online,” the world had been gamified.
The First World and the Second World, two gaming arenas!
What was even more terrifying was that “Cyber Online” was not a single-player game; it was an online game with other players beside Kui Xin. As many players playing “Cyber Online” existed, so did players in “Earth Online.”
If other players had also gained extraordinary abilities in the Second World, then they would bring those abilities back to the First World.
Kui Xin vaguely anticipated that after tonight, the players who awakened extraordinary abilities would greatly disrupt the order of the First World.
She stepped back a few paces and sat back down on her bed, taking out a silver card from the bedside cabinet.
The text on the card was incredibly clear: “Remover · Kui Xin. ID: 233.”
It was like an identity card, a mark of identification; Remover was the profession, Kui Xin was the real name, and the ID was the identification number. Things had gone wrong the moment she received this silver card.
It served as a pass, granting Kui Xin the qualification to traverse worlds.
Kui Xin set down the card and picked up her smartphone, which had been off-screen, entering the lock screen password.
The phone lit up, showing the current time: July 27, 00:02.
She entered the game at midnight and exited at midnight. After spending seven days in the game, it felt as though time in the real world had hardly moved; everything had frozen.
In the class group chat, a few classmates who were up late chatted excitedly, messages flooded in on the screen. Kui Xin caught sight of their conversation, which just happened to relate to “Crimson Soil.” They wanted the game developers to quickly open the second batch of beta testing so they could play the game sooner.
Play a game? It was more like playing with lives.
Kui Xin smiled bitterly.
She hesitated before logging into the “Crimson Soil” beta player forum.
What met her eyes was a gruesome survival count: 9630.
After spending a week in the Second World, more than three hundred players had died.
Kui Xin had gained a powerful start after her traversal and was like a pawn walking the tightrope, constantly facing the danger of death. Chai Jian also had a powerful start, but if Chai Jian stayed quietly in the psychiatric hospital, he would live a normal life. Another player, Xi Liang, started as an ordinary person; although slightly poorer and had bad luck getting hit by a car, he was not in any life-threatening situation.
Kui Xin believed that those with a powerful start who died immediately upon entering the game were a minority. Still, even so, over three hundred players had died; behind each number could potentially be a life lost.
Scrolling down the forum, Kui Xin’s finger froze as her pupils constricted, her heart racing as fast as when she had just returned to the First World.
Three posts marked with the “official” prefix were pinned in red; all three had very simple titles.
The first post: List of Fallen Players Released.
The second post: Player Profession Explanation.
The third post: Basic Rules Introduction.
Kui Xin couldn’t afford to read other players’ posts; she clicked on the first one immediately.
The first post contained an endlessly long list of names. The real names of players were not disclosed; only player IDs and death dates were published.
It felt like an obituary, yet it had an inexplicable, eerie sensation.
“Proxy 1, died on July 27. Proxy 16, died on July 27. Proxy 536…”
Kui Xin quickly browsed through, realizing that the highest number of deaths occurred in the first two days after entering the game. The number of deaths gradually decreased afterward, perhaps because players began to adapt to the world, understood the rules of the Second World, and learned to hide, leading to fewer fatalities.
When she reached the middle of the list, one line of text protruded from the lengthy scroll, standing out due to its length.
This line read: “Proxy 1368, killed by Remover 233.”
Kui Xin’s eyes widened in shock.
Remover 233 was herself! The game officials had directly published the fact that she had killed Chai Jian!
Kui Xin felt dizzy.
After exiting that post, she glanced at the forum homepage and counted; there were dozens of posts in different languages containing “233.” Most of these posts ended with question marks or exclamation points, with some going so far as to fill their endings with an entire string of question marks and exclamation points.
Upon refreshing the page, a stream of new posts containing “233” continuously emerged.
Kui Xin could comprehend the Chinese posts; several titles floating on the homepage were actually related to her!
“Who is Remover 233??”
“Why did Remover 233 want to kill their own kind?!”
“Is Remover 233 insane? Innate antisocial personality? Are you kidding? They killed someone! This isn’t a game; we’ve entered a real world filled with living people! Living people!”
“Damn it, during those days in the Second World, I worked so hard to make money and live cautiously, too scared to overstep, while Remover 233 is amazing, killing someone right off the bat, and it was their own countryman.”
Kui Xin covered her forehead, getting up and pacing around the room to calm herself down.
She couldn’t panic; panicking wouldn’t help. There were still two official posts left unread… she needed to finish reading the official posts first; they usually contained the most crucial information.
Kui Xin went to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of cold water, and gulped it down. Once her mind cooled and she regained her composure, she opened the second post—Player Profession Explanation.
The first line of the post stated: “There are two main professions in this game.”
“Remover: A profession that relies on hunting special ability users to deprive them of their extraordinary abilities to gain power.”
“Removers cannot awaken extraordinary abilities on their own, nor can they enhance themselves with power from substances containing special powers. The way Removers gain strength is solely through deprivation, taking away from everyone but themselves. The extraordinary abilities they extract from others cannot be upgraded, and to continue improving these stolen abilities, they must hunt others with similar abilities to achieve upgrades or evolution.”
“Proxy: A profession that walks the world with a human body to gain power comparable to the gods.”
“Proxies can awaken extraordinary abilities on their own and can also gain power through potions containing special forces. Compared to Removers, the path for Proxies to achieve extraordinary status is less treacherous, but the enhancement of their abilities requires talent and opportunity; some people may only be able to remain at low levels throughout their lives, while others can gain power powerful enough to rival the gods.”
After finishing the introduction, Kui Xin pressed her lips together and gained a more specific understanding of the game.
Remover was a bloody path to advancement, while Proxy’s growth was a traditional “leveling-up” route.
Looking at the replies below.
1L: Who is the game official?! I don’t want to play this game anymore! I want to exit!
4L: Why set it up this way?! Is it fun watching players kill each other?
13L: You could have explained these basic settings before we entered the game! I will blow up your ancestor’s tomb!!
25L: Is Proxy just prey? We enhance our abilities and wait to be hunted by Removers?
36L replied to 25L: We can fight back!
48L: How many Removers are there in the game, and how many Proxies? The number of Removers should be far less than that of Proxies, right? Currently, the death list released by the officials shows that all over three hundred dead are Proxies.
50L: Removers could hunt beings from other worlds instead of players, right? To the Removers lurking here, at least have some humanity; don’t harm your own kind.
56L replied to 50L: Someone is already harming others; look at that Remover 233…
60L replied to 50L: Can beings from other worlds be killed without consequence?? Do you really think this is a game? What game causes deaths? What game is this real? Every single person is a living being.
68L replied to 60L: Rather than let Removers target us, it’s better to let them harm those from other worlds; I don’t want to die.
Kui Xin stopped scrolling, her gaze locking onto the 85th reply.
85L: Is this why the officials gave us those six pieces of advice? Treating the game as a real world, in which death cannot be revived… and do not disclose your player identity to anyone. If a player’s identity is exposed, we will not only attract suspicion, imprisonment, interrogation, and dissection experiments from beings in the Second World but also face hunting from Removers.
86L replied to 85L: Remover 233 set a bad precedent; if there are other Removers, they are likely to follow in 233’s footsteps and hunt Proxies. Seven days have passed; everyone should have gained some understanding of the Second World. Think about it, is it easier to kill in the technologically advanced Second World, or in the underdeveloped First World? If we don’t rise up against it, we will inevitably become prey for the Removers! Don’t think that temporarily quitting the game will ensure everything is alright; the First World we are in is also a hunting ground! A hunting ground for Removers!
To Kui Xin, the Second World felt cold and cruel.
However, the First World also showed trends of evolving into the Second World.
She was playing a cyber game, and also a survival game. She was the hunter, and others were the prey. The prey didn’t want to be captured, so they were plotting to fight back against the hunters.
Kui Xin exhaled, exited the second post, and began reading the third one about the basic rules of the game.
The first line stated: “Players can traverse between the two worlds, but only possess one life. Death in any world means no revival.”
“The cycling period between the First World and the Second World is seven days, with login times based on the Chinese time zone; the game begins at midnight and ends at midnight.”
“While staying in the First World, if a player dies, the fallen list updates in real-time. If a player dies in the Second World, the fallen list will be announced upon their return.”
“For further rules, please explore on your own.”
After carefully reading through this post, she noticed that one of the first replies stated: “If the game we are participating in has puppet masters behind the scenes, then those puppet masters must be from China because why follow the Chinese time zone…”
If there truly was a puppet master, who could it be? A deity?
What significance did a god find in selecting so many players for the Second World? Or perhaps it had no meaning at all; it was just a deity’s joke?
Having finished reading all the official posts, Kui Xin returned to the forum homepage to look at the players’ threads.
“How do I exit the game? Can I call the police? Is reporting going to help?!”
1L: Exiting is impossible. You already used your one chance to exit when signing the contract; once that opportunity is missed, there will be no next time. The officials state that the only paths available are clearing the game or dying.
2L: If you’re not afraid of your identity being exposed and being taken as a little white mouse, then go ahead and call the police. I don’t think any government can handle such bizarre matters; this isn’t war; it’s the intersection and fusion of two worlds. We are pioneers and experiencers who should live comfortably in this other world and not cause trouble. Experiencing high-tech wonders, I find it quite valuable; just consider it a vacation.
This player’s mindset is quite good… Kui Xin decided to learn from them.
“Are there any fallen players who can speak up? Did they really die? I can’t believe it…”
1L: How can they speak if they’re dead! I lean towards the belief that they are truly dead.
“How do I gain extraordinary abilities? Has anyone awakened and can share experiences?”
After some meaningless replies, finally, an effective response came.
12L: I awakened, but I don’t think I have any experience to share because I tripped and awakened; I won’t disclose my superpower to avoid drawing attention.
13L: What stunning luck is that!
“I believe we have crossed into a parallel world, here are my points.”
1L (OP): My name in the Second World is exactly the same as in the real world. As one of the ten thousand players, I don’t feel like a unique case; other people’s names should likely mirror mine in the First World.
2L (OP): Although my appearance in the Second World is not exactly the same as in the First World, it resembles it remarkably well, probably about seventy to eighty percent! Moreover, the most crucial point is that my personality in the Second World is very similar to in the First World; even my interests and hobbies are the same! It’s impossible to have such coincidences. I believe I’m not playing a game; I’ve crossed into a parallel version of myself.
3L: You are correct, OP. I must tell you, I have parents in the Second World, while my parents in the First World passed away in a car accident a month ago. Guess what? My parents in both worlds look identical! Their habits and speech patterns are very similar too! The first time I crossed back and saw them, I cried. I don’t want to exit this game at all; it’s a blessing from heaven, a compensation from fate. I cannot regard that world as fake; it is real! I believe it is real!
4L (OP) replies to 3L: Best wishes to you, my friend.
5L: I have parents and relatives in the Second World as well, but they are different from my family in the First World. Perhaps the third floor is a rare exception.
6L: The resemblance between our two worlds is too close, making identity exposure very easy. Everyone should be careful.
“When I returned to the First World, I was sitting on the toilet. Now here’s the question, if I cross back to the Second World, can I continue my business?”
1L: Midnight goes out at midnight; there’s no time alteration. Don’t worry, you’ll definitely be able to finish what you started when you go back.
Kui Xin refreshed the forum again.
Many new posts had emerged.
One post title caught her attention.
“Public Enemy of Players—Remover 233. I hope nobody disagrees with me on this?”
