Chapter 2 Second Playthrough
"Ziyu, why are you still sleeping? It's ten o'clock!"
Ziyu heard shouts coming from afar and stopping in front of his bed. He tried to open his eyes again, but only felt his eyelids getting heavy.
What's going on...?
What about the system? Is it still alive?
"Hey! Ziyu? Are you alright? Wake up!"
The speaker had red hair and a clear voice. He reached out and nudged Ziyu's body a few times, but found no sign of waking up. The red-haired youth frowned.
Ziyu felt as if someone had climbed onto his bed in the rush.
"Is the youngest one exhausted?" another concerned voice rang out. The speaker was the dormitory head. Before the red-haired youth could reply, the gloomy-looking youth on the other side gave a sarcastic laugh.
"Ha! I told you long ago, serving a young master like Qin Yuzhen is simply inhuman. You have to take care of his daily life and look after that lousy entertainment company. The artists are both obscure and useless. You're busy until 11 or 12 at night every day. It's no wonder you're exhausted."
"Stop talking, Ziyu is really acting strange today, come and help."
The red-haired youth was already used to his remarks. He took the opportunity to lift Ziyu's upper body and tried to press on his philtrum to wake him up.
"Ha! I told you long ago, serving a rich young master like Qin Yuzhen is simply beyond human capabilities. Bringing him breakfast? Does he even need to be served? He just sidled up to him as soon as he said he wanted to start a business. People like that deserve to be exhausted!"
The speaker's tone was contemptuous, and he was gritting his teeth.
"Why are you so interested? Do you have a crush on someone?" the red-haired youth couldn't stand it and said sarcastically.
"bump!"
Unexpectedly, no sooner had the words left her lips than the person who had been cursing stood up abruptly, as if her thoughts had been exposed, and her voice suddenly became shrill: "Ziyu would better die along with her cargo-loading boyfriend!"
"Hello!"
Before the other two could even speak, he strode out of the dormitory, slamming the door shut with a loud bang that startled even Ziyu, who was still half-asleep.
What's going on? Where's the system? Wasn't it supposed to be the ending? How did it suddenly turn out like this?
Before Ziyu could think about it any further, the two people beside him had already begun to struggle to lift his body down.
Ziyu tried to open her eyes again, but her efforts were in vain.
Ziyu heard all the arguments clearly, but her body felt as if it were being pressed down by something, making it impossible for her to move.
Ziyu screamed desperately in his mind.
[System, system!]
The system is gone.
That means that everything he just experienced was not a dream, but real.
Ziyu's nerves tensed instantly, and her heart pounded violently.
[System, are you still there?]
There was no response.
The silence in her mind was eerily profound. Ziyu forced herself to calm down, and recalling the conversation she had just overheard, she realized something was wrong.
The voice and the name sound so familiar.
This looks like the university he attended when he first came to this world; the three people outside are his roommates from his university days in this world.
The one who likes to address people by their birth order is the dorm leader, and the other one is the third oldest, with whom he gets along well.
The problem is, they all went their separate ways after graduation, so how could we possibly hear their voices again?
He thought of the "plot flashback" he had heard before he fell into a coma.
So, did he start a new game?
Has he traveled back to the very beginning of the script?!
Really?!
【system! 】
Ziyu gritted her teeth; something she never imagined had happened to her.
My eyelids were still pressed down hard, and I couldn't open them.
What on earth is going on?! System? Stop playing dead!
Ziyu struggled with all his might and could barely move one of his fingers.
What exactly happened?!
"It seems like the youngest one moved a little," one of them said in surprise.
“This must be Ziyu’s distress signal. We need to carry him away right away.”
Don't!
Ziyu still remembers that he wears SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas to bed, and he doesn't want to become a social outcast!
If you keep playing dead, I'll bite my tongue and kill myself!
The money's gone, and we have to start over. What do we want from him now? To work for free?
The two men outside had already started shouting work chants.
"three!"
【system! 】
"two!"
[This is the system assistant. You can ask the system assistant questions while the system is offline. Thank you for your participation.]
The moment the mechanical sound rang out, my heavy eyelids snapped open.
Don't lift me up!
The sound of her voice when she spoke almost startled Ziyu.
His voice was hoarse and strained, as if he had done something the night before that caused him to scream until his throat was hoarse. This explained why he couldn't shout anymore.
The two roommates were startled by Ziyu's sudden voice, and quickly let go after noticing her voice.
"Ah, ah, thank goodness you didn't faint..." The oldest roommate immediately realized what was happening and awkwardly touched her nose. "We were worried something had happened to you. Honestly, Mr. Qin really doesn't seem to care about your health..."
Seeing that Ziyu was alright, the third brother was relieved: "You've been sleeping all day and we couldn't wake you up no matter what we did. You told us yesterday that you wanted us to remind you to go to Qinyu Town tonight. It's already 10 p.m. and it's almost curfew. Are you still going to go out to see Qinyu Town?"
"What……?"
The system assistant was silent again. Ziyu pressed his throbbing temples and remembered.
This is his first day in the game world.
He had just died suddenly at that time, and the system directly kicked him into this world and instilled a series of plots into him.
In short, it's an extremely clichéd story about a scumbag seme and a submissive uke.
The protagonist, a timid and submissive character, lost his parents at a young age and was taken in by his aunt. However, life as a dependent was never easy, especially since his uncle disliked him. The protagonist was also cowardly and didn't know how to fight back when bullied. It was only after he was stopped by thugs when he was a teenager that the male lead, who happened to be passing by, intervened and helped him. This made his middle school years a little easier.
The submissive character was moved by this small act of kindness and from then on followed in the footsteps of the scumbag seme to get into the same school as the seme.
However, the seme already had a white moonlight love interest and didn't remember helping the uke when he was young. Naturally, he ignored the uke who took the initiative to fawn over him. It wasn't until his love interest went abroad and rejected the scumbag seme that the seme, in a fit of anger, agreed to the uke's confession.
The scumbag seme treats the masochistic uke as a backup, but the masochistic uke is overjoyed and thinks he has found true love.
And so, the story begins.
A scumbag seme starts a business and a slut uke accompanies him; the scumbag seme wants someone and the slut uke seeks them out; the scumbag seme cheats on him and the slut uke cries.
But we won't break up.
Ten years passed like this until the protagonist's beloved finally returned to the country and married him. At that moment, the submissive protagonist finally realized what was happening and asked for a breakup.
Of course, the protagonist's stubbornness didn't last long. He came over and knelt in the rain for several days before the other protagonist forgave him, and the story ended happily.
Although the scumbag protagonist is constantly criticized, he has quite a few fans.
The reason lies in that face that is so outstanding it seems unreal.
Even Ziyu herself, whenever she was angered by the scumbag, would deflate as soon as she saw his face.
Therefore, many people rushed to this future game, all wanting to conquer this arrogant and scumbag. However, the seemingly simple task turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Due to the numerous failures, people questioned whether the game could be perfectly completed. The game developers had no choice but to contact the system, which then found the soul of Ziyu, who had just died suddenly in the past world, and brought him in.
Currently, only Ziyu has reached the final storyline. If it weren't for a system error, Ziyu would have been the first player to complete the game.
But the problem is, Ziyu worked diligently for two or three years, finally making it to the happy ending, and was about to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions, but what happened now?!
Looking at the familiar face in front of him and the system that remained silent no matter how he called out to it.
Ziyu's vision went black, and he fell back down.
—Starting over?!
"Hey, hey, youngest, youngest!" The dorm leader quickly grabbed him. "Are you alright or not?"
Ziyu wanted to cry.
His money, his life, everything he had...
We've started all over again...!
"Let me be alone..." Ziyu painfully shooed her kind roommate off the bed and buried her head in the soft pillow.
The two roommates looked at each other, and finally decided to give each other some time to calm down, so they quietly went outside to buy food.
[System Assistant, shouldn't you explain this to me?]
This is the system assistant. Please leave a message if you need anything.
If you keep saying these repetitive things, I'll kill myself and I'm not going to follow the plot anymore!
Of course, he was just lying to his assistant. How could Ziyu, who cherishes life so much, possibly commit suicide?
[Host, please wait a moment... What is your problem?]
Ziyu suddenly sat up, his face grave.
"Where did the system go? What happened?" Ziyu asked the question that mattered most to him. "And what about my money?"
The system assistant in my mind emitted a crackling sound, and it took a while before it explained.
[Hello host, after inspection, it has been confirmed that there was a system error. The main system has been recycled and rectified. To ensure the smooth operation of the game world, we have had to enter a second playthrough. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.]
[What's the point of saying all this now?!] Ziyu was so angry he could hardly breathe. How was his current situation any different from sudden death in real life?
However, for the smooth operation of the game world, you need to proceed according to the original storyline once again, and both your storyline score and strategy score need to reach 100%.
"A second playthrough of the game? Doesn't that mean you have to do the job all over again?" Seeing that Ziyu's mood was getting worse, the system assistant immediately added.
As compensation, this time players will not have any character restrictions; they only need to complete fixed major storylines. Furthermore, upon completion of the missions, we will add an extra 100 million yuan in bonuses! We will also provide a stable job with four days on and three days off, five social insurances and one housing fund, and a base salary of at least 10,000 yuan!
Upon hearing about funding and work, Ziyu immediately sat up straight, his expression serious.
[Mission guaranteed to be completed!]
What a joke! Such a great job, why not take it? It's just two more years, but you can earn 200 million yuan in four years. That's something most people wouldn't even dare to dream of!
He doesn't mind if such system errors happen a few more times, not at all.
*
Ziyu stood downstairs at the dormitory building in Qinyu Town, carrying breakfast.
To be honest, it's such an old-fashioned, childish, and melodramatic story. How many young college students these days bring breakfast to someone they're pursuing? Bringing lunch would be more like it. What college student doesn't have classes in the morning? They'd sleep until noon and then have lunch.
It means that the scumbag boyfriend himself has a healthy lifestyle, otherwise he wouldn't be able to eat breakfast.
Ziyu glanced at the beautifully decorated dormitory building and sighed. It was so unfair. How could the author divide the scumbag seme and the slut uke like this? They were from the same school, but even their dormitory buildings were different.
Qin Yuzhen originally owned a house, but was kicked out by his family last month after coming out as gay. Now he can only reluctantly move into the best single-room dormitory building at the school.
However, no matter how good the dormitory was, Qin Yuzhen didn't stay there often. He was already a senior, nearing graduation, and also had a small entertainment company that was still developing. So he didn't spend much time at school, and the dormitory was just a place to sleep.
Such a nice dorm room would be better given to Ziyu, who is only a junior in college. He has a lot of classes to attend!
The current plot is that Ziyu finally confessed her feelings successfully, and it's the second month since she got together with the scumbag.
The poor slut doesn't know that Qin Yuzhen came out of the closet to show his feelings for his white moonlight, and thinks that Qin Yuzhen came out of the closet so that he can be with him openly.
Qin Yuzhen, that scumbag, didn't deny it and tacitly agreed to Ziyu's idea. He even shamelessly proposed to start his own business and make Ziyu work for him for free.
In his past life, Ziyu pretended to be all love and compassion to help Qinyu Town, but in his heart he was already cursing him.
If it weren't for the 100 million yuan promised by the system, Ziyu would have run away long ago.
Although we're starting all over again now, at least we have the experience from the first playthrough, so the second playthrough should be much easier.
Probably.
"Hey, what are you waiting for, you idiot?"
A harsh, sarcastic voice came from the stairwell directly in front of the dormitory building. Ziyu looked up and met the gaze of the boy standing in front of her.
Behind the boy was a group of people, all of whom Ziyu recognized; they were the boy's cronies.
"Delivering breakfast..." The boy glanced at what Ziyu was carrying and scoffed, "You country bumpkin, such outdated stuff."
Ziyu nodded frantically in his mind; he also felt it was outdated.
The boy was Qin Yu Town's cousin, and he had always been a fanatical admirer of his older cousin. Naturally, he had no good feelings towards the pig who had taken his cabbage, and he looked at Ziyu with disdain.
“My brother left a long time ago. Even a dog should know what it means to be a dog. Next time, remember to remember my brother’s schedule before you come.” When the word “dog” was mentioned, the boy’s cronies behind him burst into a mocking laugh.
"oh."
Ziyu nodded, picked up her breakfast, and prepared to leave.
"Um……?"
The younger cousin was caught off guard when his older cousin's sycophant left so decisively, and he stomped his foot in frustration.
"Didn't you even ask where he went?!"
Ziyu paused in his steps, turned around and looked at his cousin in confusion. His cousin got goosebumps from the look on his cousin's face, which made him look like an idiot.
"I'll reluctantly tell you," the cousin sneered, his expression turning pity towards Ziyu. "My brother is seeing Xiao Qiao off; you should understand who he cares about more, right?"
Xiao Qiao, Xia Xiao Qiao, is the white moonlight used to torture the submissive protagonist in this story.
Today's plot is rewinding. As soon as I got back, I kept pestering my assistant with a long story. Ziyu hadn't even remembered what the plot was today until my cousin mentioned the name of my white moonlight.
In this story, the submissive protagonist (uke) and the scumbag protagonist (seme) start dating. Even though he is the legitimate boyfriend, the scumbag protagonist still only has eyes for his beloved. Everyone can see that the submissive protagonist is just an emotional substitute for the scumbag protagonist, but he refuses to accept it.
Today's plot is the first heart-wrenching moment.
Yesterday, the submissive protagonist went out with many people and drank for the sake of the scumbag protagonist. He rushed back overnight and still had to complete various practical assignments given by the scumbag protagonist at school.
In his past life, even though he was exhausted after doing all this, the submissive protagonist still got up early the next day to "serve" the scumbag gong. Unexpectedly, he saw the scumbag gong and his white moonlight being all lovey-dovey, and his cousin and his men caught them in the act, mocking them and even physically assaulting the submissive protagonist...
Ziyu's temples throbbed.
This is a plot point, meaning he can't just leave; he has to go through the story first.
"Stop dreaming of marrying a swan. Only Xiao Qiao is good enough for my cousin—"
My cousin's cronies behind him also chimed in with laughter.
"You've said everything you wanted to say, may I leave now?"
Ziyu said calmly.
"Leave? Did I say you could leave?!"
My cousin grinned and snatched the breakfast from Ziyu's hand. Ziyu looked up to grab it back, but was pushed into a corner by his friends.
My cousin pushed aside the others and stood in front of Ziyu.
Actually, my cousin isn't bad-looking. After all, he shares the same bloodline as the scumbag protagonist. He has sword-like eyebrows and bright eyes. If it weren't for the dark circles under his eyes caused by excessive indulgence over a long period of time, he might be one of the romanceable characters instead of a cannon fodder NPC.
"Actually," his cousin looked Ziyu up and down, "you're not bad looking, but you don't quite look good standing next to my brother. If you were with me, I could barely accept you."
He raised his hand, as if to touch Ziyu.
"What are you doing!"
A note from the author:
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