Chapter 69 Back to the Real World [VIP]

Which one to choose?

Which one would you choose?

Will you return to the home you long for, or choose this NPC controlled by data?

Time seemed to stand still. The movements of the people who gradually surrounded her became slow motion. On one side of Ziyu's eyes were the email information in black and white from the main system, and on the other side was Tang Zuo's smug grin.

Qin Yuzhen was pinned down by the men Tang Zuo had summoned. He struggled desperately to break free, shouting, "Ziyu!"

"go back!"

"Shut up!"

Tang Zuo suddenly fired a shot into Qin Yuzhen's thigh. The bullet pierced through flesh, and blood gushed out. Qin Yuzhen cried out in pain, gritting his teeth tightly.

Ziyu's eyes widened in fury as he shouted, "Yuzhen!"

When a person is thinking critically, the brain will redirect all bodily functions to thinking, causing the brain to operate at high speed.

In a mere second, Ziyu made her choice.

An orphan living a lonely life in real life was pulled out of the mire by a pair of hands with distinct knuckles. That person had a warm smile and equally warm palms. That person was his only attachment and memory of the real world.

But the same applies.

Qin Yu Town running towards him through the cave, Qin Yu Town with only himself in his eyes under the fireworks show, Qin Yu Town shielding himself when the building collapsed.

Arrogant, heartless, indifferent, awkward, affectionate, humble, cautious...

"I choose," Ziyu said.

Tang Zuo smiled, no longer maintaining that eerie and frightening smile, and reverted to his gentle and proper demeanor. He said, "Which one have you chosen, host?"

"Go back, or this scumbag seme?"

Instead of answering directly, Ziyu asked, "If I transfer this opportunity to you, will the assistant cleanup process clear my data and the game data here?"

Tang Zuo straightened up, raising his eyebrows slightly: "Not bad, quite clever."

He said, "Don't worry, the main system is always humane. You can email them now and ask them to maintain the data of this game world until you die before cleaning it up."

"Don't listen to him..." Qin Yuzhen gasped for breath, suppressing his pain, "Go back! Ziyu! You have to go home!"

"Didn't you hear me tell you to shut up?!" Tang Zuo, unable to bear it any longer, raised his heel and stomped hard on Qin Yuzhen's injured back.

"Ugh!" Qin Yuzhen was in extreme pain.

"Tang Zuo! You beast!" Seeing this, Ziyu trembled with rage.

"Hurry up and choose! Stop talking nonsense!" Tang Zuo stared at Ziyu with a sinister look.

The sticky and gloomy gaze made Ziyu feel nauseous and wanted to vomit. The thought that he had ever worked with such a person made him want to vomit.

“If you hurt him again, I’ll leave immediately,” Ziyu threatened. “You should know how powerful my protagonist aura is in this world.”

Upon hearing the term "protagonist halo," Tang Zuo's face contorted with rage.

The protagonist's halo! The protagonist's halo!

If the world hadn't been so enamored with him, how could he have failed time and time again!

It was so close!

But it was alright. Tang Zuo's expression slowly returned to normal. He glanced at Qin Yuzhen, who was powerless to resist, and a smile returned to his face.

As long as this idiot voluntarily gives up his system panel, he can leave this place and obtain a real body, no longer just system data that can only exist in the game world.

"I won't hurt him anymore, as long as you give me the panel and the opportunity..." Tang Zuo softened his voice and coaxed, "Don't worry, I'll take the opportunity and leave immediately, I won't stay here."

The people around him didn't react much, as if they already knew about it, and were only focused on keeping a close eye on Ziyu and Qinyuzhen.

Ziyu took a deep breath and asked cautiously, "How should I give this to you?"

Tang Zuo's face lit up with joy, and he quickly said, "It's very simple, just click the transfer button at the top of the system panel—"

His voice faltered, and then he thought of the NPC beside him. He added, "Come here, I'll do it!"

Ziyu walked over slowly, his steps steady, as if he were estimating a specific location.

But Tang Zuo, caught up in his ecstasy, failed to notice Zi Yu's strange behavior.

He had been working for far too long, countless days and nights had driven him crazy, and now that this goal was about to be achieved was right in front of him, how could he not be overjoyed, how could he not be excited?

But just as Ziyu was about to reach Tang Zuo's side, Ziyu suddenly stopped.

Tang Zuo's joy was abruptly halted.

"Why don't you keep coming over!" Tang Zuo shrieked. At this moment, the opportunity he had been longing for was right in front of him. He could no longer perfectly maintain this physical body. A green light flowed in his eyes, and his voice gradually became electronic.

Ziyu calmed down and sneered, "With so many people on your side, if I get tied up as soon as I go over, what's the point of the exchange?"

Tang Zuo finally managed to calm down from his euphoria. He looked around at himself and realized that he had brought almost everyone around him with him, fearing that Ziyu's protagonist aura would ruin his plans again.

Ziyu's worries were not unfounded.

“Unless you come over here,” Ziyu said, spreading his arms wide. “You know that my appearance with Qin Yuzhen this time was completely spontaneous. I didn’t bring any weapons with me.”

Tang Zuo naturally knew this matter much better than Zi Yu.

"Ziyu! I'm not worth you staying!" Qin Yuzhen saw that Ziyu really wanted to give the chance to go back to Tang Zuo, and even ignored the pain in his leg, he tried his best to break free, which forced two more big men to come up and completely suppress him.

"Then I'll come over."

Tang Zuo searched his memories from his investigation, confirmed once again that the other party did not know about that matter, cautiously handed the gun to the burly man who was suppressing Qin Yuzhen, and walked towards Ziyu.

"Come any closer," Ziyu said coldly.

Tang Zuo finally stopped ten steps away from Qinyu Town, where the Lizi Jade was nearby.

“That’s enough,” Tang Zuo said. “Now you can open your panel.”

"You can see that?" Ziyu asked in confusion.

“Of course,” Tang Zuo said with a sneer, “I used to be your most capable system.”

Ziyu looked disgusted.

"Hurry up!" Tang Zuo broke down when he saw the look of disgust on that face. If he could attack the "players" instead, he would have strangled Zi Yu right now and gone to hell with him!

Ziyu slowly opened the system panel, and Tang Zuo excitedly reached out again, eager to snatch it away—

"Tang Zuo, my system." Just as Tang Zuo was about to touch the panel, Zi Yu responded with a mocking laugh, "Let me give you a piece of advice."

A sudden alarm bell rang in Tang Zuo's mind.

Ziyu spoke each word with the ferocity of a knife: "I will forget you, please rest assured."

Tang Zuo's eyes widened, his terrifying, inorganic green eyes fixed on Zi Yu. He leaped up suddenly, his ten fingers like sharp eagle claws, aiming viciously for Zi Yu's neck, while shouting, "Kill Qin Yu—"

Ziyu seemed to have already guessed what he was going to say. Even though she was afraid of being strangled to death, she stepped forward and covered Tang Zuo's mouth tightly with her hand, preventing him from making any sound.

At that very moment, Tang Zuo, who was still fiercely gripping Ziyu, began to glow with an eerie green light, and his limbs began to emit English and numerical codes—!

His limbs began to dissipate.

"No—no!" Tang Zuo cried out in terror, "You have to die with me!"

The people brought by Tang Zuo could no longer maintain their composure and knelt down in terror.

Even the burly man who had been suppressing Qin Yu Town trembled all over, unable to hold his gun properly, his voice shaking as he cried out, "It's...it's divine punishment...! It's divine punishment!"

"Divine punishment has occurred! Divine punishment has occurred!"

"We will all disappear! We will all disappear!"

The more Tang Zuo tried to strangle Zi Yu, the faster his body dissipated. The strictly forbidden rule was like a death warrant. Tang Zuo could only watch helplessly as Zi Yu, whose face had turned purplish-blue from being strangled, slowly regained his rosy complexion.

"No—why! How could you possibly have discovered that?!"

I've planned it all out!

He never expected that Ziyu would guess it after just one meeting with the child.

"The real 'divine punishment' is my memory." Tang Zuo's hands completely disappeared, and Zi Yu coughed several times, his lungs filled with fresh air again. He mocked, "Is that right? Proud and arrogant System Master."

"Ziyu!"

Qin Yuzhen noticed that the strong man's strength had decreased, so he immediately broke free and snatched the gun from the strong man's hand. Ignoring his leg injury, he stumbled and ran desperately toward Ziyu.

He hugged Ziyu tightly, a narrow escape from death.

Tang Zuo hated the scene before him. His entire body was screaming with resentment and lamentation, filled with boundless hatred!

Why—why!

"You're just daydreaming." Ziyu seemed to have guessed what he was thinking, his bright black eyes like two sharp beams of light piercing straight into Tang Zuo's heart.

"You forcibly reversed the world for your own selfish desires, bewitched NPCs, destroyed ordinary people's families, and created so much chaos." Ziyu knew that some NPCs would not actually disappear. It was the system that was unwilling to accept that there were too few marginal NPCs, so it forcibly killed the families that the NPCs cared about.

He clearly doesn't treat NPCs as human beings, yet he accuses them in a grand and righteous manner.

He is not a fool, nor a saint; he will not sit idly by and wait for death when others have repeatedly tried to kill him and harm his loved ones.

He had already guessed that the NPCs who intended to kill him actually had no names.

They weren't supporting characters in his storyline; they were just ordinary netizens who were mentioned briefly in the story.

It was Tang Zuo who deliberately used his system identity to drag them into this accident and fabricated the "divine punishment".

And "divine punishment" does indeed exist.

That is his memory.

The disappearance of the little boy remained etched in his mind. He kept replaying the events in his mind and finally pinpointed the clue in his memory.

He deliberately feigned weakness in order to guide Tang Zuo to relinquish control of the gun. In this way, even if he succeeded, the enraged Tang Zuo would only be able to physically harm him, rather than execute Qin Yuzhen.

Moreover, he guessed from Tang Zuo's previous words that Tang Zuo could not harm him on his own initiative. Otherwise, given Tang Zuo's deep understanding of him as his former system, there would be no need for Tang Zuo to go through so much trouble to kill him.

Of course, all of this was just his guess, with no reliability whatsoever; it was all gambling.

And as it turns out...

He won his bet.

The protagonist's halo.

In the end, Tang Zuo's resentful eyes were taken away by the dissipation of the last code, and the people he brought had long since scattered like birds and beasts, running away cleanly.

"We won." Ziyu hugged Qin Yuzhen, who was clinging to him, and chuckled. "We survived."

Qin Yuzhen looked at Ziyu with a complicated expression, his gaze falling on the purplish-blue finger marks on Ziyu's neck.

"We need to get your injury to the hospital right away..." Ziyu realized the seriousness of the situation after laughing, and quickly got up to carry Qin Yuzhen on his back.

Qin Yuzhen suddenly said, "I saw it."

"What?" Ziyu paused in his act of getting up.

Qin Yuzhen's gaze slowly fell on the system panel that had been unfolded in front of Ziyu, and he said clearly, "I see it."

"Your panel."

Ziyu stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

Qin Yuzhen's gaze lingered on the countdown and the stark reality of cleanup.

Qin Yuzhen always knew that he was a bug in this game world that needed to be cleaned up.

It shouldn't exist; it creates a bug that generates too much self-awareness.

During Ziyu's moment of confusion, Qinyu Town held Ziyu's hand.

Firmly and irresistibly, it was pressed onto the "OK" button.

Ziyu panicked and struggled to his feet. Even when dealing with Tang Zuo, he had been rational and calm, never as flustered and helpless as he was now.

"What are you doing! Are you trying to undo this? Where's the undo button?!"

Ziyu's voice sounded like he was about to cry. He could feel an unseen force pulling at him, and he cried out in despair, "What are you doing! Are you crazy?!"

At this moment, Qin Yuzhen seemed to have reverted to the scumbag CEO he was at the beginning. His face was cold, and his expression was arrogant and stiff, just like when he first glimpsed that gentle and ignorant young man during freshman enrollment. He looked at Ziyu with the same eyes.

At that time, he thought that this person had a beautiful face that always made people's hearts soften, and whoever fell in love with him would suffer for a lifetime.

And so, he suffered torment for a lifetime.

Now, this torment is finally over.

"You have to go back," Qin Yuzhen said arrogantly. "This world doesn't belong to you."

This is fake, everything is fake.

—Even I am fake.

Qin Yuzhen lowered his eyes, desperately suppressing the urge to cry from an angle where Ziyu couldn't see him.

But I love you.

This is true.

A note from the author:

Finally, I've gotten to writing about my jealousy! Finally, I've gotten to writing about my jealousy! Finally, I've gotten to writing about my jealousy! I've written about my jealousy! I've written about my jealousy! I've written 230,000 words of dumpling wrappers!!!