Vol 3: Chapter 3-2.

Lori tried her best to open her eyes. Her pale face broke into a smile. “Pervert, hurry and run, you don’t want to carry Lori anymore?”

Tears streamed down Zheng’s face. Lori’s face seemed turn into that of ten years ago, when all her hair fell off, when she was skinny as a skeleton, yet she kept this same smile, calling him the same pervert, and he… didn’t want to lose her a second time.

Even though Zheng was heartbroken inside, he still carried Lori and sprinted upstairs. “Lori, talk to me, don’t stop talking to me… don’t fall asleep, Lori, you promised to stay by my side until our hair turns silver, I kept our promise and survived, so don’t break your promise again… please, live on with me!”

“But what should I say? I’m so sleepy, pervert, I want to sleep… want me to sing you a song?”

Zheng was running faster and faster, then:

Pah!

His left leg snapped at the point of the gunshot. Unprepared for it, he fell backward and rolled down the stairs. He embraced Lori in his arms to protect her from the fall.

Luckily Zheng was only up a few steps up this set of stairs and the fall didn’t cause much injury. He got up as soon as he landed then bound Lori on his back with the vest. He started climbing the stairs using his hands and knees. Yet dragging that broken leg slowed his speed in half.

Zheng clenched his teeth, raised the knife and slashed at his left leg. He was still in the unlocked mode, the muscles on the cut off point squeezed together to stop the bleeding. Zheng continued climbing up the stairs.

~~~

Lyrics

“Childhood”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRKTOZmX2cE

~~~

Lori’s singing echoed by his ears, yet that song felt so sentimental. Tears had blurred his vision. His nails soon flipped and torn under the intense climbing, leaving his hands looking bloody and horrifying.

Her voice was getting weaker and weaker. Zheng screamed like an animal. He sprinted toward the floor of his office and rammed at the door. The office was bright as in daylight despite that none of the lights were on. The brightness came from a computer screen. Zheng raised his head and looked forward. Outside the windows floated several helicopters. They were probably attracted by the brightness also. As soon as they saw Zheng, the snipers aimed their rifles at him. Almost simultaneously, their communication device rang.

“… Yes, sir. They… disappeared!”

The same half awaken staten. When Zheng regained consciousness, he saw the people in front of him looking surprised. They were Jie, Lan, Zero, and… Xuan!

He carried Lori then shouted to God, “God! Hurry and heal her injuries…”

Jie suddenly shouted, “Wait, wait!”

He ran over and took over Lori. “God, heal her injuries and deduct the points from me!”

Zheng was still in shock, but Jie shouted, “Hurry and heal your own injuries. I know you don’t have too many points left. If your points are negative you will get erased! Hurry and heal your injuries!”

He watched as a beam of light shone down on Lori. She immediately floated to midair, her pale face started to gain back color. “God, heal my injuries!”

The repair process cost Zheng over 400 points. His left leg also grew back. Lori had been waiting for him on the ground. Once he landed on the ground, she jumped into his arms.

“Lori… stand behind me.”

Zheng smiled at her then charged at Xuan with the knife. Only Zero reacted in time, he threw Xuan to the ground but that knife still took an arm off Zero.

Jie immediately got ahold of Zheng and shouted, “Zheng! You gone mad? What are you doing to your own people?”

“Our own people? F*ck! I spent the points and reward to go back for everyone but do you know what he did? He put the positioning device from his watch in this knife! You know why I came back like this? I was chased back! Social Security arrested me, I struggled to come back at the last second! Do you still think he counts as one of us?”

Everyone looked at Xuan. He got up from the floor as if nothing happened. “Is that so? Then my conjectures are correct…”

Zheng kicked at his chest and knocked him over ten feet away. Blood gushed out of Xuan’s mouth.

“F*ck!” Zheng screamed. “Is my life so worthless? Just for your stupid conjectures? And we were even allies, I risked my life in the last movie! Is this how you pay someone back? I will kill you now!”

Jie tried to hold him back, but Zheng was so much stronger than him. As Zheng walked toward Xuan, Lan shouted, “You want to kill Lori? Killing someone will cost you 1000 points. Do you have 1000 points now? You can kill yourself if you want to but why do you have to drag her along?”

Zheng stopped his steps, his face looked less crazy but still hideous. “Xuan, I don’t know how long the Social Security will lock up my parents. I won’t kill you but I will cut off your limbs. You can repair them but I will do it again! You will either starve to death or get erased because you can’t get into the circle of light!”

Xuan sat up and brushed off the blood on his mouth. He said calmly, “What about the positioning device? You threw it away?”

“Of course, do you think I will bring it back to you?”

Xuan nodded. “Then I can promise that nothing will happen to your parents. In fact the positioning device can also store a limited amount of information. I entered the existence of this world and also exchanged blueprints of some advanced technologies. If you left the positioning device in the real world, they will release your parents and even give them better care. This I can promise.”

Zheng had started to calm down a bit. He said coldly. “How can I trust you? And why did you do this? Why do you do this even if it breaks our alliance? If you don’t give me a reason, I will cut off your limbs!”

Xuan smiled calmly. “Good, then listen to my reasons… I have three reasons why I wanted to do this.

“First, to test whether the ‘Real World’ you go to is the original world we were from. Because since God can create the horror worlds, that real world may also be a virtual world. The only way to prove it isn’t is if something you’re unexpecting of happens. Just like me putting the positioning device on your knife. You don’t know about this. Only the military base from my memory can receive a signal from that device. If you came back without a scratch, that means the real world you went to was created by God. But if you encountered people from the Social Security, then that is the actual real world. Judging from your injuries, we’ve entered God’s world with our body. That also means the things we exchanged and our body enhancements can also be brought back. This is the first point I wanted to prove.

“Second, I think God probably gave you some limitation when you went back. Can you tell us the limitations?”D

Zheng replied coldly, “Yes, first you can’t tell anyone about God’s world in any way. Second, you must go back to where you were transported at a fixed time; like I pressed YES in front of my computer, so I must go back there in thirty days. Third, you must be in contact with everything that belonged to you. Otherwise those items would be left in the real world. If the item could only be obtained from God’s world, then it would be erased.”

Xuan adjusted his glasses. “As expected, almost identical to my speculation. Can’t tell the other world about God’s world? Yet I haven’t been erased, so my second point is God doesn’t have the ability to think. It is just a supercomputer that’s running a program!

“Because I got you to bring the positioning device to the real world when you weren’t aware of it. You didn’t know the information it contained, yet it revealed the existence of God’s world. According to the rules, the one disclosing this information will be erased, but I am still here. That means this rule only applies to people returned to the real world. I was still in God’s world so even if I disclosed the information, nothing will happen. Similarly, because you don’t know anything about me doing it, you didn’t get erased. Therefore I can assert that God doesn’t have the ability to think. It will only follow a set of rules. It is only a supercomputer and not an organism with thinking ability!”

Zheng shouted, “So what?! I don’t care if it’s a computer or whatever, because of your setup, we almost lost our lives! Just for your conjectures?!”

Xuan ignored him and continued. “Once you know it’s a program, then we can get around its limitations for many things. It will be the same in horror movies…It’s pointless saying this to you. The third reason, I wish to bring some advanced technologies back. If the first two conjectures are sound, then the government should have those blueprints. They should have also received my message. In my message, I told them to find some special agents and hypnotize them to be disappointed with life. Then have them stay in front of the computers all day long. This way we might get some special agents in our team and that will increase our chance of survivability by a lot…

“Sorry that got you in danger. This was off from my speculations. I thought they could find you earlier. Once they found the positioning device on the knife, you could come back safely… This is my fault. If you still want to kill me, go ahead, I won’t resist.”

Xuan stood there calmly after saying all this. Yet Zheng hesitated, then he threw the knife on the ground. “F*ck! If you’d let me know this earlier, it’s not like I don’t love my country, I would’ve brung the positioning device back. I hate how you set up your allies, don’t you have any normal emotions in your thinking?”

Xuan replied calmly, “I couldn’t tell you anything beforehand. If you had these details in your memory, then God could erase you accordingly, because this could be seen as a way of you sending out the message. It had to be done when you were completely unaware of everything.”

Zheng took a deep breath. “I can’t trust you anymore! No matter how dangerous the next movie is, we will terminate our alliance! Don’t ever set me up again, otherwise I will kill you with my own hands! I promise!”

Zheng took Lori’s hand and walked back to his room in silence. Jie and Lan both sighed and went to their rooms. The only ones left in the platform were Zero repairing under a light beam and Xuan…

He picked up the knife then walked back to his room in silence…