Chapter 68: How is Chang Xu Alive? |
Liu Pu was a man as ordinary as his name suggested.
In his youth, he lived through the transition from sovereign nations to the Earth Future Federation. His parents died in the war, and his family's savings evaporated overnight with the currency reform.
As a teenager, he secured a loan from a foundation, which allowed him to complete his compulsory education and saddle himself with what seemed like an astronomical debt at the time.
In his twenties, he went to work in a factory with a few close friends, enduring the familiar struggles of every laborer: unpaid wages, forced overtime, and the like. Eventually, he paid off his debt.
Reaching middle age, he thought he could finally live out the rest of his life in peace, but he was laid off by the factory owner. On the foundation's advice, he took out another loan to buy a car and has been driving a taxi in Jiang City ever since.
Today was no different from any other. He stuffed a flatbread into his mouth in a few quick bites, finishing his breakfast, then sat in the driver's seat, fiddling with his ride-hailing app and waiting for a fare to pop up.
At five-thirty in the morning, a long-distance fare to Jin City appeared. The pickup location was in the Near River District, in the lower city.
The Near River District was part of the old city, an area notorious for its lawlessness. Disappearances were common, unclaimed bodies routinely floated in the river, and the district's name often made headlines for vicious serial crimes. It was the kind of place where a falling brick would almost certainly hit a serial killer.
Liu Pu had no intention of going, but... the pay was just too good.
The taxi pulled over to the curb, the sound of its tires on the pavement deafening in the silence.
Startled by the sound, the young man looked up. His eyes curved into a smile, and his lips formed the polite, knowing grin shared between fellow early-risers. Other than his pale complexion, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
This put Liu Pu at ease.
After the young man settled into the passenger seat and confirmed the last few digits of his phone number, Liu Pu started the usual small talk. "Morning, kid. Grabbed breakfast yet?"
"Ate already."
"You're pretty young to be living out here. It's far from the city center, and the commute must be a pain..."
"My parents are here."
"Ah, so you're visiting your folks. If my son were half as devoted as you, I'd die a happy man!"
"Right. My parents are already dead."
Not everyone appreciates the humor behind a deadpan joke. Liu Pu stared blankly for a full three seconds before managing to change the subject. "My condolences... So, young man, are you heading out for a hike? I see you've brought a shovel..."
The young man chuckled. "Something like that. I'm going to dig up a grave in the mountains this afternoon."
Liu Pu: ???
An eerie silence spread through the taxi. At some point, the young man had turned his head, a red glint flickering in his eyes. "My existence, and this conversation we're having... you won't mention them to anyone else, will you?"
"..."
Qi Si watched the driver beside him, the corners of his eyes tinged with scarlet, yet his gaze remained utterly cold.
Within the dark sanctuary of his mind, a blood-red mist condensed into crimson pages, interwoven with the faint, shimmering outlines of golden vines.
[Using skill 'Soul Contract' on Liu Pu, stipulating confidentiality regarding the aforementioned events.]
A quill inscribed the pages with gilded text. The driver named Liu Pu's eyes instantly glazed over, the light in them vanishing into abyssal black pupils, leaving him like a puppet.
Two golden ten-sided dice spun rapidly in the darkness before freezing in place. The numbers facing up were a '9' and a '1'.
A roll of 91, greater than 80.
[Contract signed. This contract is guaranteed by the rules of the world and cannot be defied by any entity.]
A cold notification materialized in the upper-left corner of his vision. Within the ocean of his consciousness, the golden quill disintegrated into dust, scattering with the blood-red mist.
It all happened in the span of a second. Liu Pu's eyes went vacant for a moment, then cleared.
Qi Si asked casually, "Driver, where were we in our conversation?"
Suspecting nothing, Liu Pu opened his mouth to speak, only to realize he had completely forgotten what he was about to say.
He blinked a few times, beginning to doubt his own memory.
Qi Si noted the man's bewilderment and let out a soft chuckle.
Testing the 'Soul Contract' skill in the real world had been an afterthought, but the result exceeded his expectations.
The contractual authority of a god from the Weird Game could actually affect people in reality. This opened up a world of possibilities.
By using clever rhetoric and manipulating probabilities, he could compel specific individuals to agree to outrageous terms. If used skillfully, he could obtain anything he desired, and even—
Become a 'god' in the real world.
Regardless of any hidden traps in the evil god's deal, the 'Soul Contract' skill was a gift of considerable sincerity.
Qi Si was more than happy to extract as much benefit as he could before the deal inevitably blew up in his face.
And, through more experiments, to truly clarify the functions of Soul Contract and squeeze every last drop of value from it.
For now, Qi Si acted like any other passenger, pulling out his phone and scrolling through it as if he wasn't the one who had just uttered those strange, unsettling remarks.
He was calmly playing a match-three game, just about to clear a level, when a QQ message inopportunely popped up.
[Jin Yusheng: That Su Clan Village you mentioned is deep trouble. Some kind of official force, no idea which branch, surrounded it ages ago. Lucky I was on my toes and got out when I sensed something was off. Otherwise, they would've had me trapped like a fish in a barrel!]
[Jin Yusheng: Things are tight lately. A bunch of cities are cracking down on outsiders. If I hadn't forged a temporary residence permit beforehand, I would've been detained. You be careful too. Don't leave Jiang City before the end of the year. I cast a divination for you—your fate clashes with every place that isn't Jiang City!]
Qi Si watched the timer on his game hit zero, a 'Game Over' message flashing on the screen. With a dark expression, he typed back a curt 'K,' a testament to his stubborn refusal to ever listen. It wasn't the first time the Federation had ordered a crackdown on population movement; how strictly it was enforced usually depended on whether the public security bureau needed to meet its quotas.
What concerned Qi Si more was the news about Su Clan Village.
Rationally, he knew that a mass phenomenon like the Weird Game was bound to attract official attention, but running into it firsthand was another matter entirely.
After the 'Dialectic Game' instance, Qi Si had more or less accepted that he was destined to stand against humanity. The intervention of official forces was, therefore, a major complication.
Leaving aside the inextinguishable fire he'd once set in the mountains, his reckless actions in the game alone—his blatant disregard for the lives of others—were enough to make him a thorn in the side of any stability-seeking government agency.
Worse, he was planning to use Soul Contract to control other players' souls through deception and manipulation. If the government found out and launched some kind of anti-fraud campaign, it would be utterly pathetic.
Qi Si pondered for a moment, then went to the game forums and searched for the phrase 'game invading reality'.
The search returned a blank page. No results.
This was unusual. A normal forum search engine would break down the keywords and match them individually against the database; any post containing similar terms should have appeared.
And 'game,' 'invading,' and 'reality' were all common words. It was impossible for there to be no matches.
—Unless the entire phrase had been censored.
Qi Si wasn't surprised. He never fully trusted information from any single platform, and the game forums, despite their deep connection to the Weird Game, were no exception.
No one in their right mind would believe that players could maintain a forum of this size for thirty-six years purely out of passion. There was almost certainly a powerful faction behind the scenes, controlling the narrative and manipulating public opinion.
Any information available to the general public was inevitably filtered, perhaps even distorted. The masses only saw what 'they' wanted them to see.
Qi Si just hadn't expected to hit this information barrier so soon, to brush up against forbidden knowledge that certain powers wanted to keep hidden.
Things were getting more and more convoluted. There was too much Qi Si couldn't figure out, so he decided to stop trying.
He pushed his tangled thoughts aside, and, on a whim, decided to look for some entertainment. He casually searched for the name 'Chang Xu'.
He hadn't checked on Zhao Feng's thread in a while. It had probably accumulated a lot more comments, and he wondered how the flame war over basic morality was going.
The state of the thread was not what Qi Si had expected. At some point, it had been completely derailed.
[Floor 57: I don't think the person the OP was talking about is the real Chang Xu. It must be an imposter. I just got matched with Chang Xu in a dungeon. He doesn't talk much, but he's a really stand-up guy. If it weren't for him, I'm not sure I would've made it out alive.]
[Floor 58: For real, Chang Xu tears through monsters like he's using a cheat code. And he seems pretty simple, not the scheming type. All those points went into strength, not intelligence, lol.]
[Floor 59: You know, Chang Xu reminds me a lot of Fu Jue back in the day. He's got to be the strongest rookie this year, right? So calm and so powerful!]
[Floor 60: Lmao at the comments above. How dare you even compare that nobody to Lord Fu? Does he have half of Lord Fu's intelligence?]
Seeing how far the topic had strayed, Qi Si's eyelid twitched.
Great. So Chang Xu was alive and well. The blame had been lifted from his shoulders, and his name had been cleared of all the slander.
Most importantly... the entertainment was gone!
...
Elsewhere in Jiang City, in a small room.
Chang Xu sat bolt upright in his chair, his expression blank as he listened to the weary-looking Mu Dongxu ramble on. "Little Chang, you know someone's been impersonating you, right? We all agree this is a great opportunity to build some hype. For now, don't say or respond to anything..."
"Sister Ning Xu already told me," Chang Xu's voice was calm, almost detached and cold. "After I cleared the 'Rose Manor' instance, I uploaded Qi Si's physical description to the database and requested that he be placed under surveillance. For some reason, the request was denied. I think..."
"No, you don't," Mu Dongxu cut him off. "Fu Jue from headquarters rejected it personally. Whatever you're thinking, you can just shove it!"
Seeing Chang Xu lower his gaze in silence, Mu Dongxu continued his lecture, his tone full of frustration. "I just don't get it. You've met thirty-six players in your last two instances, so why are you fixated on him? Putting someone on the surveillance list requires assigning at least two investigators, by the book. We just suppressed the Sila Guild, and now the Balance Church is cropping up again. With all this piling up, where are we supposed to find the manpower?"
"Besides, from your description, he's clearly the intelligent type of player we're lacking. Slapping him with surveillance without any real cause will just push him into the enemy's camp, won't it?"
Mu Dongxu grew more agitated as he spoke, spittle flying from his mouth. Chang Xu silently picked up his chair and shifted it back a step, moving out of range.
He waited for the man to finish, then looked up and stared at him, stating coldly, "There are too many suspicious things about Qi Si. First, he intentionally triggered a time reversal once but was extremely secretive about how he did it. Second, Lin Chen, who had only had deep contact with him, attacked me without provocation."
He paused for a moment before adding softly, "Third, I have a deep-seated apprehension towards him. Just thinking about him sends a chill down my spine... My intuition is usually right."
Mu Dongxu sighed heavily. "So, in the end, this is all just your suspicion. You have no concrete evidence, do you?"
Chang Xu stared ahead with a somber gaze, saying nothing.
"Let me put it this way," Mu Dongxu said, pulling a cigarette pack from his pocket and lighting one up. "I had someone look into him privately. He's an old acquaintance of the public security bureau, been on their radar for a long time. His background is cleaner than most of our investigators. They watched him for six years and couldn't find a single shred of evidence that he's broken any laws."
"I think you just have an equal-opportunity dislike for all smart people. When Fu Jue came for an inspection and spoke with you, didn't you get the feeling he was up to no good, too?"
Chang Xu saw Mu Dongxu put the cigarette to his lips and knew the conversation was over.
He stood up. "The Bureau doesn't need to assign anyone. I can do it myself..."
"No private investigations, got it?" Mu Dongxu's eyes sharpened. "If you're really that suspicious of him, then find a way to recruit him. Then you can watch him all day long. How about that?"
Chang Xu fell silent, analyzing the underlying meaning of Mu Dongxu's words and the feasibility of the proposed plan.
A few seconds later, he gave a serious nod and turned to leave.
Mu Dongxu watched him go, his tired eyes reflecting nothing.
After a long moment, the graying, middle-aged man exhaled a plume of smoke and sighed. "There's no time left. As long as someone can clear the Final Instance, what does it matter if they're a slaughter-stream player?"