Chapter 1 Bai Ye: I can’t see the money when I open my savings card. My eyesight has deteriorated to such a terrible level…
The rain suddenly started to fall, and soon there were clusters of beautiful puddles on the asphalt road. Colorful blue neon lights flickered in the night. A boy in a black hoodie holding a translucent umbrella pushed open a chain hamburger restaurant on the street in front of Solomon Academy.
The store had a sign that read "Okay, Bar Burger" in bright red and yellow cartoon fonts, and a "Closed for Business" sign hung on the glass door that was wet from raindrops. The automatic sensor at the door senses someone coming and automatically sounds an electronic mechanical sound to welcome you.
"Hello."
Bai Ye tightened his grip on the straps of his backpack and lowered his head slightly.
"Huh? You're the high school student who almost killed someone?"
The boss in a red apron was a young man in his thirties with slightly long hair. He was leaning on the table carelessly, wiping the table with one hand out of boredom. When he saw the boy, he lazily put out his cigarette.
Bai Ye did not deny it, but nodded obediently. The boy had fair skin, but it was pale as if he was sick. The dark circles under his drooping eyes were quite heavy for a man of his age, and he looked so weak that he seemed like he would faint in the next second.
"My name is Fangkuai, and I'm the owner of this hamburger chain. You can just call me boss. We should take care of each other in the future."
The young man who called himself Fangkuai, holding an extinguished cigarette in his mouth, led Bai Ye, who was pulling a suitcase, to the back kitchen. In the corner of the back kitchen warehouse, a narrow staircase extended downwards. Bai Ye followed Fangkuai down the stairs and found that it was a clean underground bedroom.
The room in front of him had obviously once been an underground storage room for sundries. Even though the blocks had been cleaned up in advance, there were still a lot of sundries piled up in the corner.
A clean single bed was spread out in the corner with soft bedding. Bai Ye walked quietly to the side door of the room and opened it, and found that the room even had a dry and wet separation in the bathroom.
"You'll just stay here obediently from now on, kid. You have to know that if it weren't for the law enforcers' request, I would never let a minor like you who is suspected of using tag skills to kill people live in my store."
Fang Kuai knocked on the door frame lazily, his brows deeply frowned. When he saw Bai Ye, his expression was as if he had seen a rat in a sewer, full of disgust.
But Bai Ye didn't care. He saw the windows in the basement that were specially made for ventilation by taking advantage of the terrain difference.
Fangkuai's attitude towards a juvenile criminal who attempted to kill someone on the spot using his tagging skills and was arrested by law enforcement officers was much better than he had imagined.
Besides...there was no need for Cube to accept a juvenile criminal like him.
Night City has very strict control over the skills of soul tag owners. Bai Ye was only able to avoid being thrown into the Abyss Prison due to his underage status and attempted murder, but was given a chance to turn over a new leaf - as long as he lives in the residence of a former or current Night City law enforcer for one year and accepts inspections and assessments from the law enforcer every month for one year, and shows no signs of committing crimes again after one year, and is recognized by the citizen "prosecutor", he can be exempted from trial by the Sun Law Enforcement Bureau.
Bai Ye originally thought that he was going to go to jail no matter what, but he didn't expect that at the last minute of the public announcement period, Fang Kuai, who had worked as a civilian law enforcer for a month, would take on this hot potato.
"Boss, don't worry. I won't have any impact on your normal life."
Bai Ye raised his hands towards the cube, and the black electronic pixel bracelet on his pale wrist was particularly bright.
Those are special handcuffs used by the Sun Bureau law enforcers in Night City to suppress tag owners. They are deliberately made into the shape of bracelets to ensure that the restricted person can carry them 24 hours a day. As long as the electronic pixel bracelet made of special materials is worn, no matter what level of the tag owner is, he will no longer be able to use those special skills.
"...Hehe, you'd better help me watch the store at night. If something goes missing in the middle of the night, I will definitely use my law enforcement authority to cut you into eight pieces and throw you into the ruins outside the city to feed those monsters!"
Cube leaned against the door frame with his arms folded. His eyes quickly moved away from the pixel bracelets on the boy's hands. After threatening with two words with his eyes wide open, he left the basement.
It seems like he doesn't want to stay here for even a second.
But it's normal. After all, who would want to stay in a small basement with a juvenile delinquent who actually tried to kill someone?
Bai Ye sighed and resignedly opened the window for ventilation. The sound of raindrops outside the window was like a melodious nocturne. The sound insulation in the basement was poor and the sound of car horns on the street outside was very harsh. Fortunately, Bai Ye was used to packing by himself, and he quickly put the things in his suitcase, which was not big to begin with, into his new living space.
He looked at the made bed. The quilt with a little bear pattern was bought on a group buying app, not because he liked it, but because it only cost twenty or thirty night coins, the cheapest.
After his parents disappeared, it was difficult for a high school student living alone to make a living even with a part-time job after school. Twenty or thirty night coins were already considered a luxury that could seriously damage his total assets for a man like him, for whom a thief would have to throw three coins into his bowl when he entered the house.
No, no, no, it’s definitely because his eyesight has deteriorated severely from playing games and writing fan fiction, otherwise how could he not see the money in his wallet?
That’s great, it must be a problem of declining eyesight. He thought he was really going to die of poverty.
After Bai Ye calmed himself down, he let himself fall down. Although the sheets and quilts were cheap, they were soft and warm enough to allow his numb brain to start thinking about everything that had happened in the past few days.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he saw a design style with a strong visual impact, a dialog box composed of red, black and blue. There was also a mark like UID in the lower right corner of the dialog box: t173.
【Character information:
Name: Bai Ye
Gender: Male
Player status: Awakened
Label:
Soul Tag: [Miracle Magician Under the Starry Night]: You are not only a thief, you can steal everything in the world using the most magical method in the world. As long as your imagination is strong enough, the starry night will give you all the power. However, all thefts must be paid for, even for a magician-like thief - so what is your price?
Soul Tag: [The Unmovable Heart of the Black Sun Righteous]: You have an indomitable heart and will that is not affected by other demonic powers and tag skills, and an undying heart of resistance. No tag skills can take effect on you, and this effect can temporarily affect other people.
When will the next plot anchor point come? ? ? 】
Bai Ye's eyes went dark and he closed them, as if this would allow him to pretend that the dialog box had never existed.
It was like a holographic game interface, a game dialog box floating in the air, which could not be destroyed or erased no matter how hard you tried to destroy it.
It was also the culprit that caused him to be reduced to living in other people's homes and becoming a "juvenile delinquent" with a long criminal record.
Three days ago, Bai Ye, who had been going to and from school normally in his hometown Maitian Town and thought he would spend the rest of his life guarding the house left by his parents, was suddenly bound to this magical game dialog box. He was told the truth about this world - the whole world is actually a stand-alone game called "The Evil City" in a higher-dimensional universe. The protagonist of the main storyline of the game is You Yu, the president of the Squid Detective Agency whom he admires most in this world. He is the main control character of the villain line that was made as a DLC map independent of the main storyline and is used to fill the holes of the main storyline.
In other words, he must follow the established "villain line" under the control of the player, become an accomplice of the final boss, and finally be defeated by the protagonist group Squid Detective Agency, and his consciousness will be forever lost in the darkness of the other world.
In the high-dimensional world, all choices made by the being who calls himself a "player" will produce three options in the option simulator dialog box in front of him, and most of the time those three options are chosen by the "player" in the high dimension, and he can only enforce them regardless of his reluctance. He only has the initiative at certain times, but the power to choose his next behavior is limited to those three options.
The most terrifying thing is that high-dimensional "players" are not like normal people. No matter what the three options are, they stubbornly choose the most abstract one, so the results of their choices are mostly unsatisfactory.
...No, it can't be said to be unsatisfactory. It was so beautiful that he wanted to wash his eyes as soon as he saw it.
At the beginning, he just sent bouquets of red roses to the male teachers in the school and suddenly shouted in the classroom, "Everyone follow my example." Although it was embarrassing and socially awkward, it did not cause a serious impact on Bai Ye.
But... that time, that time three days ago... completely destroyed his ordinary, peaceful and happy life.
Three days ago in Wheat Field Town, it was also a rainy night. Bai Ye, who was about to go home, saw a demon domain forming in the wheat field beside the road. Faust, the captain of the inspection team from Night City, was leading his classmates into the entrance of the demon game. Ordinary people would die instantly if they entered the demon game without being selected. So at the critical moment of life and death, the option simulator that suddenly appeared coincided with Bai Ye's original intention in an instant, so he awakened the so-called demon power and rushed over, but because of the influence of the selection simulator, he could not control his power and almost killed the captain.
In fact, if the two rescued students could report the actual situation to the law enforcers, Bai Ye would not have any responsibility at all. However, the captain who wanted the students to help him explore the way out of his own selfish desires seemed to be a relative of a high-ranking official in the Night City government. Under his operation...
Bai Ye looked at the two classmates standing in the witness stand with an expectation that he himself was not even aware of, but the two victims only dared to shake their heads timidly in front of the law enforcers.
"No, the captain didn't...want to do anything to us. Instead, that classmate suddenly rushed over and used the tag power...wanted to kill the law enforcer, and even wanted to kill us."
Bai Ye closed his eyes.
The testimony of his classmates completely labeled Bai Ye as an "assault on law enforcement officers" and a "juvenile murderer". Bai Ye watched helplessly as he was convicted of false charges and sent to the interrogation room in Wheatfield Town.
Bai Ye closed his eyes. Fortunately, the interrogators and law enforcers in the interrogation room were relatively normal. He was only asked a few questions. After staying in the temporary detention center for three days, he was thrown into Night City. The law enforcers of the Sun Law Enforcement Bureau even helped him transfer schools. Their work attitude and thoroughness were impeccable.
Besides...he was able to save two classmates whom he often met. No matter what the result was, he would not regret it.
Bai Ye sat up, his thoughts pulled out of his memories. He took out his transparent umbrella from the umbrella basket beside the bed and walked out of the hamburger shop, wanting to familiarize himself with the city where he would live next before going to school.
"I hope I won't be unlucky enough to encounter a strange option that suddenly pops up again this time..."
Bai Ye held his forehead and sighed helplessly. His emotions were so heavy that he did not notice that the moment he stepped out of the hamburger shop, the countdown of the option simulator in front of him was infinitely close to the end.
[The next plot anchor point will arrive: thirteen minutes later]
The prompt of the option simulator flashed by.
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