Ch 91: TGCIR

The game she played was gone.

On her phone, the game never returned to normal. She checked the reviews and screenshots of other players under the same game, but couldn’t find any traces similar to hers.

No matter from which perspective, it seemed like only her phone and her life were abnormal.

Shen Cheng was almost ready to believe that everything she had experienced was just an illusion.

Wait.

She suddenly jumped up and frantically flipped through her phone’s photo album. There, she found screenshots of her game: the first time she poked Zai Zai’s little face, his helpless expression; Zai Zai’s first “thank you” written on the car window; Zai Zai in his uniform; the first time she entered the game and the scene at the base; and the image of them sitting side by side in Zai Zai’s space.

As Shen Cheng looked at these images, memories flooded back. All these screenshots were telling her that this was not an illusion.

With this realization, Shen Cheng immediately jumped up. She quickly searched the X app and found the contact information for the guesthouse where she had stayed. She called them to ask if they remembered the man who had saved her.

The answer was affirmative.

She was exhilarated. She called the second-hand store, and thankfully, the old man still remembered the man who had come to sell Hermès with her. He could even roughly describe Li Weilan’s appearance and height. He vividly recounted all the details of that day, matching Shen Cheng’s memories perfectly.

She wasn’t crazy.

Her memory wasn’t faulty.

It was only her game that had disappeared.

Shen Cheng was certain that he existed, not just as a figment of her imagination.

But as the days passed, Shen Cheng found herself spending her time between boredom and madness. She even managed to level up the normal game character to the maximum level, leading the character and his dog through all the challenges. When the game finally displayed the “the end” sign and started rolling the credits, Shen Cheng stared dumbfoundedly at the screen. Suddenly, she burst into tears.

In the empty room, Shen Cheng cried uncontrollably.

Tears fell onto the black and white screen, and suddenly, the screen flickered.

A line of small black and white text appeared:

“Do you want to purchase the qualification to travel to another world? One hour.”

Shen Cheng stared at the line of text, speechless.

The qualification to travel to another world.

She sniffed and suddenly felt like a fool for crying so much.

She glanced at the price: 299.

299.

Although she knew that 299 might not be significant in the grand scheme of things, for someone who had never spent so much money on a game at once, Shen Cheng couldn’t help but mechanically complain, “299 is so expensive.”

Expensive or not, her fingers didn’t stop clicking “buy.”

But instead of clicking directly, Shen Cheng thought for a moment, went downstairs, bought a small army knife and some portable medicine, and grabbed a kitchen knife before returning upstairs. Then, she clicked “purchase.”

With a swoosh, she disappeared from the room altogether.

Translated on ho lo lo novels dot com.

Surrounded by darkness, Shen Cheng curiously surveyed her surroundings and noticed a timer on her head.

The numbers on it were constantly changing, ticking down from 60:00 to 59:59, and continuing to decrease.

Shen Cheng understood that this timer indicated the time she could stay in this place.

It was then that she realized how impulsive she had been in purchasing the so-called qualification for crossing over. She gritted her teeth, and upon looking down, she noticed something peculiar – she couldn’t see herself.

What was the use of this crossing qualification?

Shen Cheng looked around curiously and realized she was in an extremely dark and damp place, slightly chilly, with a faint smell of blood in the air.

This place didn’t seem like Noah’s Base.

It didn’t resemble any place she had ever been to.

Shen Cheng tried to roam around but found sturdy boundaries on all sides. It seemed like she was confined to this place and couldn’t run out.

Strange, was the 299 yuan purchase just for a confinement experience?

Shen Cheng almost wanted to give it a bad review manually. Suddenly, a glaring white light shone into the area where she was leaning against, and she quickly moved aside. A pungent smell of blood rushed into her nose.

“Taste too?”

Shen Cheng suspected that although she couldn’t see herself, she might be invisible but still had a body and senses.

So she quietly pressed against the wall. The bright light outside was dazzling, hitting the face of the person lying on the ground with his eyes closed.

It was then that Shen Cheng finally saw his face.

Two people in white robes had thrown him into the room and left. Even though only half of his face was visible and his hair was long, Shen Cheng could clearly see that it was him, her little leopard.

It was him.

His sleeves were rolled up, revealing countless fresh scabs from recent deep wounds.

Shen Cheng rushed over as soon as the door closed. She rolled up Wei Weilan’s sleeves and was so angry that she could hear her teeth grinding. She could see clearly that underneath his sleeves, there were numerous scabs covering his arms.

Not a patch of good skin, not a piece of intact flesh.

Shen Cheng couldn’t help but wonder if his body had long been covered in wounds.

What’s going on?

What happened to Zai Zai when she wasn’t playing the game?

How did they make him like this?

Shen Cheng paced anxiously in the room. Just then, there was a “clank” at the door, and a wooden bowl containing a thin liquid was brought in from outside.

The sight of the food seemed to stir Li Weilan, whose long lashes, stuck together by sweat, trembled slightly as if he were about to wake up.

His lips were already chapped, and his complexion was as pale as a ghost. Shen Cheng could hardly believe that this was the same chubby Zai Zai she had nurtured, the one she had stocked up with so many supplies and weapons.

She was on the verge of exploding with anger.

Unable to bear seeing him struggle to reach for the food, Shen Cheng hurried over, picked up the bowl of porridge, and brought it to his lips. She carefully fed him spoonfuls, watching as he weakly drank it down, spoonful by spoonful.

Li Weilan seemed truly exhausted. His lashes trembled slightly, and his lips quivered as he sucked on the meager sustenance, consuming every last drop.

As he finished drinking, Shen Cheng paced angrily around the room. Suddenly, she realized that without the god’s-eye view from the game, her options as a physical entity seemed incredibly limited.

With only a few minutes left until her hour was up, Shen Cheng searched every corner of the room but found no other interactions available.

“This darn game, will it ever get better?” she muttered to herself.

Just as the time was about to run out, Li Weilan’s eyelashes fluttered, and he opened his eyes, looking dazed. His gaze trembled, void of any expression, carrying a cold numbness.

“Lanlan,” Shen Cheng called out to him.

He didn’t react at all. His eyelashes drooped over his eyes, his expression devoid of life.

As Shen Cheng watched the seconds tick away, realizing there were only a few tens of seconds left, she suddenly had an epiphany. She knew what to do.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Swiss army knife, gently placing it beside him and covering the blade with his clothes.

Shen Cheng could feel the presence of the knife, but like everything else she carried, it was invisible to her.

She could bring items back and forth, and when Li Weilan came to see her, he could bring a bag with him. So, could she leave the knife behind? She didn’t know if there were any surveillance cameras in the room. If there were, then the knife might be the only variable, the unexpected element in Li Weilan’s life.

As time reached its final second, Shen Cheng felt the pull again, and a second later, she was back in her room.

When Li Weilan woke up, he felt something at his leg. It was hard, and though he hadn’t touched it yet, he could feel its rigid shape. Li Weilan didn’t make any noise. In the silent darkness, he moved his hand inch by inch until his fingers confirmed the shape and nature of the object. He squinted slightly.

In the research institute, they had never given them any hard objects. Even the utensils for eating were made of wood, to prevent suicides.

But regardless of who provided it, or where it came from, he knew clearly that this was his only way out. He carefully concealed the object in the last intact part of his shattered space.

He knew this was his lifeline.

Twenty-four hours later, researchers came and dragged him onto the research bed. Li Weilan endured it until their research was complete. The healing ability user came to give him superficial treatment, sealing the various cuts around. With nobody around, everyone knew that this was when the subjects were most vulnerable. There was no need for special guards, and they couldn’t do anything.

Li Weilan remained silent. The knife silently rotated from its hidden place under the bed and swiftly sliced through the throat of the healing ability user, who wore a bored expression, as if cutting through cheese. The blade severed his windpipe. Li Weilan’s expression was as cold as a specter as he calmly sat up from the sickbed.

He didn’t even gasp loudly. He watched the man make choking sounds, clutching his throat, but only able to watch his blood gush out like a spring from between his fingers.

Li Weilan stepped on the man’s hand, silently forming a smile. He watched him breathe his last breath.

Then he stripped the man of his clothes and draped them over himself.

He thought, he could finally leave this place.

Meanwhile, Shen Cheng had been waiting until she returned to her room. She saw her phone lying quietly on the table, but suddenly it jumped to the loading screen she hadn’t seen in a long time. That’s when she realized her game had actually come back.    

🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋

Thingyan: so she went back in time and that’s how cub escaped huh 😍😍😍