Chapter 65 This is divine punishment... [VIP]
Qin Yuzhen swore that this was the fastest his heart had ever raced.
The screams were terrified and filled with fear, but at their highest point, the last note abruptly dropped, as if someone had covered their mouth, swallowing all the sound back down their throat.
The bloody scene of Ziyu being pierced through the chest by a steel bar in my dream reappeared before my eyes.
— Despair, suffocation.
The emotions he had experienced in his previous two lives attacked his heart with terrifying speed.
This emotion finally settled back into his heart when he kicked open the door again and saw Ziyu unharmed.
At this moment, Ziyu was looking incredulous, standing straight in front of the wardrobe door. Although he was not injured, his face was pale.
I heard the sound of the door being opened.
Ziyu raised his face and looked in the direction of the sound. A pair of bright black eyes turned to him, and the unease in his eyes was magnified, making him look very pitiful.
Qin Yuzhen strode up to Ziyu, cupping her cold, pale cheek in his warm hand, and asked in a deep voice, "What happened?"
"It's gone..."
Ziyu murmured.
The scene he just witnessed was completely beyond his wildest imagination.
He's gone.
Qin Yuzhen frowned. He was anxious, but seeing Ziyu's expression, he knew that being anxious would be useless. He could only patiently ask again, "What's missing?"
A glint seemed to flash in Ziyu's eyes.
He suddenly opened his eyes wide and slapped Qin Yuzhen's hand on the back of his hand!
"Qinyu Town! I understand! I know what 'divine punishment' is!"
Qin Yuzhen asked, "What is it?"
Ziyu said, "It's me!"
Ziyu exclaimed excitedly, "I am that god, and the 'divine punishment' is my decision!"
Qin Yuzhen's pupils contracted sharply. Before he could react, his hands, which were covering Ziyu's cheeks, had already overreacted and flung Ziyu away, causing him to stumble back several steps.
"Qin, Yuzhen...?" Ziyu stared blankly at Qin Yuzhen's wary appearance.
Perhaps influenced by the previous and current playthroughs, Ziyu's belief that Qin Yuzhen would not object to her was deeply ingrained in her mind. Seeing Qin Yuzhen like this, Ziyu felt a dull ache in her heart.
Qin Yuzhen, however, appeared quite confused. His temples throbbed, and upon hearing Ziyu's words, he felt an overwhelming nausea and vomiting, even experiencing stomach pain.
If he hadn't known that the young man standing in front of him was his lover, he probably would have acted impulsively out of sheer pain.
"What's wrong with you!" Before he could even savor the dull pain, Ziyu keenly realized that Qinyu Town's guardedness wasn't because of him.
He quickly took a few steps forward, but was stopped by Qin Yuzhen's stern shout before he could get close.
"Don't come any closer!"
Qin Yuzhen said sternly, "Tell me, what do you mean by that?!"
"What do you mean you're that 'god'?"
The excitement of discovering the truth vanishes instantly upon hearing this sentence, replaced by a truth that cannot be ignored.
This is a game world.
No matter how realistic this game world is, or how unique the characters are...
Nothing can conceal this truth.
This is a game world, and they are all NPCs in the game world.
And he, Ziyu, a corporate slave from the real world who died suddenly due to overwork and cutthroat competition, is the only player in this world.
—The only player from the real world with true human consciousness.
main character.
Ziyu thought about what had happened after he entered the room.
He soon discovered the little boy shivering in the closet.
He didn't mean to scare the little boy. After all, as an orphan, he naturally knew that if his father was sentenced, the boy would follow the same path as him.
Ziyu tried to soften her eyebrows and eyes as much as possible, and carefully tried it out.
I won't hurt you.
Strangely, the little boy seemed to recognize him, and even though Ziyu tried his best, the little boy remained wary and fearful.
"I only want to ask about your father."
Upon hearing his father's voice, the little boy visibly relaxed, but still asked nervously, "Won't you punish me?"
"Why should I punish you?" Ziyu asked, puzzled.
Perhaps it was Ziyu's harmless demeanor and the content of their conversation that emboldened the little boy.
“My dad said the people in the photo will punish us.”
Ziyu tilted her head slightly, puzzled.
The little boy said, "He can make us disappear. That's how my mother disappeared. No one remembers my mother except for me and my dad."
Seemingly touched on something sad, the little boy lowered his head and said forlornly, "They all say I only have my dad, but my mom was teaching me how to do my homework just a few days ago."
The little boy slowly approached and asked, "Big brother, can you tell me where my dad went?"
“Your father…he may need to stay at the police station for a while.”
Thinking about the possible fate of older police officers, Ziyu didn't know how to tell the little boy in front of her.
Hearing this, the little boy silently shoved himself back into the closet and covered himself with his clothes, as if that would give him a greater sense of security.
Ziyu asked, "Do you know what your father has been preparing for the past few days? Has he met with any other people?"
The little boy shook his head: "I don't know. After Mom disappeared, Dad has been looking at a photo."
It seemed there were indeed no clues to be found with the little boy. Ziyu's expression turned grave as he slowly straightened up, preparing to search the room for clues.
The little boy stared intently at Ziyu's figure, then suddenly asked, "Big brother, if my dad comes back, can you tell him you haven't seen me before?"
"I'm afraid my dad will be angry."
It's unlikely.
Ziyu thought to herself, "They've already torn down your front door, your father must know about this."
But to comfort the little boy, Ziyu said slowly, "Don't worry, I won't tell your father. I'll forget about you, and then we'll have nothing to do with each other."
The little boy breathed a sigh of relief: "Thank you, brother."
Ziyu turned to look at the little boy, her eyes softening once again.
Then, the next second, Ziyu's eyes widened suddenly, and he froze on the spot—the little boy's limbs in the wardrobe were surrounded by an extremely strange and bizarre green light, and the numbers and English letters symbolizing code were slowly, as if being eerily stretched, twisted, and wriggled all over the tender skin, gradually devouring the body of this still ignorant and innocent child.
Finally, only a head remained, still smiling at Ziyu, a child's voice saying, "This way, Daddy won't hit me anymore..."
"clatter."
The green light disappeared completely, and the little boy also vanished completely.
Ziyu couldn't help but let out a scream, then quickly covered her mouth.
The recollection ended there, and Ziyu looked at Qinyu Town, who was still in a highly defensive posture.
Qin Yuzhen repeated, "Tell me, what do you mean by that?"
His temples throbbed even more violently, the person in front of him became blurry, and a strong feeling of jealousy and hatred welled up in his heart.
—Kill him.
Kill him, and it will all be over.
Qin Yuzhen took out a razor blade from his pocket, which he carried for self-defense, and plunged it into his thigh!
The intense pain caused those strange sensations in his mind to vanish instantly.
...I'm awake now.
Qin Yuzhen was breathing heavily.
Ziyu was startled by his behavior.
"Qinyu Town." Ziyu had also calmed down. "What I'm about to say might be beyond your comprehension. I don't know if you can handle it."
After the unbearable nausea and pain subsided, Qinyu Town gradually returned to its previous state.
Ziyu looked up: "Do you really want to know?"
"I want."
Qin Yuzhen repeated, "I need to know."
Ziyu looked into Qin Yuzhen's eyes, which were pupils darker than an abyss, like a vortex or the night.
"...You are an NPC."
Ziyu: "This is a game world."
It's neither a fictional world nor an alternate world.
It is the most unbelievable game world.
"You are one of the romanceable characters in the game, a scumbag domineering CEO, Qin Yuzhen."
"And I am a player who wins your heart by completing the storyline." Ziyu revealed everything she knew.
"Your level of difficulty is too high. Many players are unable to achieve your desired ending and have complained to the game company. The main system, which is also the game company's chief planner, wanted to prove that following the storyline would guarantee success in conquering you. So, they pulled me, who was supposed to die suddenly, into this world so that I could conquer you. But because I failed in the game, I was forced to start a second and third playthrough."
"So I guess I must be the god they're talking about."
If a novel's world has enough beliefs and ideas, it might be able to form its own little world, but a game world cannot, especially when there is only one player in that game world.
The game's NPCs don't understand why the world is experiencing these changes.
"So the clouds in the sky don't move, there are very few departments in the hospital, and the characters that appear either like me or hate me. These are all settings of the game world."
Ziyu spoke these secrets that had been buried deep in his heart for many years in one breath, and at the moment he finished speaking, he felt a sense of relief and ease.
He always said that since he was already there, he should make the best of it and just keep working, but in this vast game world, he also felt a sense of loneliness.
Now, someone is willing to share this secret with him.
Ziyu's words essentially reshaped the entire worldview of Qinyu Town.
No one can accept that the world they have always lived in is just a game world provided for others to play.
Qin Yuzhen finally understood why he was always so anxious and uncertain during his first timeline.
Because Ziyu said she loved him, but she didn't actually love him.
Qin Yuzhen's heart sank.
"Does it hurt when you're injured?"
Ziyu never expected that Qin Yuzhen's first words after listening to his long speech would be this.
Ziyu felt a tightness in her chest.
He said, "I didn't adjust the pain level when I came in, so it was 100% pain."
Qin Yuzhen thought that the pain when his chest was pierced by steel bars, when his leg was broken, and when he went blind were all real.
How could a protagonist have to suffer so much for someone they don't like?
Qin Yuzhen silently approached Ziyu, and as he got closer, the pain in his brain surged up again.
Qin Yuzhen remained expressionless, suppressing the pain.
He grasped Ziyu's hand, devoutly and gently.
"I'm sorry, I fell in love with you too late, making your pursuit so painful."
Ziyu was speechless; he didn't know what to say.
Ziyu awkwardly changed the subject.
"The little boy has disappeared."
Qin Yuzhen was somewhat disappointed by Ziyu's response, but he had already guessed that Ziyu might not love him as much as he had imagined, so he accepted it.
He readjusted himself and asked, "Is it because of 'divine punishment'?"
Ziyu nodded: "Yes."
"He just vanished right in front of me like code."
Qin Yuzhen thought of the evidence he had found and showed the photo to Ziyu. After seeing that the person in the photo was himself, Ziyu became even more certain of his guess.
But there was one thing Ziyu couldn't understand: "If their disappearance was 'divine punishment,' then what did I do to make them disappear?"
The air quieted down, and all sounds were captured; even the faintest rustling of leaves in the wind could be heard…
etc.
After raising this question, Ziyu realized once again that there was an even more serious problem.
They haven't been here long, and this is a densely populated, old residential area.
But when they came over, they were kicking the door loudly and screaming.
If it were an old residential area, it would be absolutely impossible for it to be this quiet with all that noise from them!
Inside the wardrobe, the red light of the electronic watch, which had been hidden among the clothes since the boy disappeared, lit up again.
"Oh no! Run!"
Ziyu shouted.
In an instant, the building shook violently as it collapsed!
"boom!"
The building collapsed!
A refined-looking man stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, casually tossing the controller in his hand aside.
Tang Zuo smiled.
"Host, I'm curious, will you be able to survive this time?"
A note from the author:
Actually, the incident of Ziyu being pierced by a steel bar was always an addition to the plot for Qin Yuzhen. Simply put, it was a fake story that never happened; it was something Qin Yuzhen imagined himself. But he didn't know it and it became an obsession (similar to a mental demon in cultivation novels!).
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