Chapter 58, Chapter Five: The Fantasy Building
White mist swirled within sight.
Wen Ting remembered that she fell asleep in the staff break room.
Looking around at the misty surroundings, she stared blankly, bewildered: Was this a dream?
Walking forward a while, the clouds and mist remained. Wen Ting waved her hand, trying to dispel the fog that obstructed her view.
The cool mist parted from her fingertips, and the scene suddenly opened up, revealing a grand and imposing official residence before her.
This was a large family's residence. Wen Ting stood outside the door as the vermilion door, studded with copper nails, slowly opened.
She hesitated, looking around, but saw no one inside or outside the gate. After a moment's hesitation, Wen Ting stepped over the high gate and walked into the mansion.
"Is anyone there?" She passed through the second door and heard a sharp clanging sound.
Wen Ting's vision blurred as she was blinded by the gleaming sword light.
She raised her hand to shield herself, and after her eyes adjusted, she saw two red maple trees planted in the inner courtyard.
Maple leaves turn red and yellow. An eleven or twelve-year-old boy wields a sword and dances, the wind from his sword causing fallen maple leaves to flutter and sway on the ground.
He turned around and wiped his face, unexpectedly meeting Wen Ting's gaze beneath the hanging flower gate.
The longsword froze in mid-air as a red leaf fluttered down, brushing past the sword tip and deflecting its direction.
The boy was startled and, dragging his sword, turned and ran towards the backyard, his steps hurried.
"Hey." Wen Ting tried to call out to him and ran forward after him.
Passing through the courtyard and across the three gates, the scenery suddenly changes.
Snow piled up on the roof tiles, a blanket of white snow on top, while flames soared into the sky from the courtyard wall below.
The beams snapped and crashed, flames crackled, and hundreds of cries echoed through the air.
Wen Ting stood frozen in place, her vision filled with nothing but raging flames.
Suddenly, she noticed a crack in the large riveted box in the back room, through which a pair of frightened, innocent phoenix eyes peered.
He hid in the box, watching in horror as the entire mansion was reduced to ashes.
Wen Ting was startled and ran towards the back room, wanting to release the person in the box.
After passing through the four gates, the scene changed dramatically once again.
Laughter and shouts filled Wen Ting's ears. The corridor was decorated with lanterns and colorful decorations, and the faint smell of wine and the sweet fragrance of cosmetics wafted into her nose.
She saw long, slanted shadows cast on the paper window opposite, three tall and one short, the shortest of which had its spine bent under the weight.
“Brand this on, and tell everyone it’s a birthmark,” said a tall figure. “From now on, you will be renamed White Butterfly.”
"Let go! Let go of me!" The boy's voice was shrill and hoarse, interrupted by a loud slap.
The slap pierced straight into Wen Ting's heart. Her heart pounded like a drum as she ran toward the house behind the paper window.
She pushed open the door and stepped through five doors.
The scene after the fifth gate seemed different from that after the fourth gate, yet it also seemed no different. It was still noisy with laughter and shouting, and still filled with the smell of alcohol and the presence of women.
Wen Ting observed for a while and found that the building materials had changed. Better bricks and wood were used, reliefs were added to the covered walkways, and even the window paper was thicker and whiter, engraved with auspicious cloud patterns.
Subtle changes have added a touch of understated elegance to this place.
Only a graceful profile remains on the window paper with its subtle patterns.
"Master, the woman who has been loitering downstairs recently has been identified as the third-ranked scholar in this year's imperial examinations."
"The third-ranked scholar." The figure shifted slightly, a clear, gentle voice carrying a hint of disdain, "Even the third-ranked scholar finds this place appealing."
She said she came to find her relatives.
"Um?"
"The young lady said that her family had been engaged to the Gong family ten years ago."
Wen Ting walked forward unconsciously, and before she knew it, she had crossed the six gates.
The waning moon was desolate, and there was no candlelight; this time, she couldn't even see her own shadow.
In the pitch-black darkness, one could only hear voices.
"Is it cleaned up?"
"Yes, Master. All those who knew you when you were the Imperial Librarian, regardless of gender, have been eliminated."
"..."
"...Master! Your subordinate is loyal and would never...spill secrets."
"Hush—I know your loyalty. I will not kill you, but only take your eyes and tongue."
Thump—
There was a sound of a heavy object falling to the ground, accompanied by the slurring of sticky flesh and blood.
"That's good." Qingrun's voice was full of joy. "Fengying, I'm getting married. I'm going to be the husband of the third-ranked scholar. I'm going to marry her. Fengying, I've wanted to marry her since I was a child."
No...no, how could this be?
Wen Ting leaned against the doorpost, staring in shock at the darkness ahead.
This isn't a persona she created!
The character Gong Baidie she portrayed wasn't like that!
Desktop Lovers is a game composed of multiple independent stories, with each character having their own story.
The story of Gong Baidie takes place in a matriarchal society.
He was the young master of the Gong family, which held military power and was feared by the Empress.
The emperor accused the Gong family of treason, and as a result, all the women in the clan were beheaded and the men were enslaved.
Gong Baidie was hidden in a box by her father and escaped the search by the soldiers, but was captured and taken to a brothel during her escape.
He was literate and had studied the Six Arts. The brothel owner couldn't bear to let him work as a prostitute, so he only made him a schoolteacher, where he played the zither, composed poems, and sang lyrics with the female customers.
Because of his exceptional talent in both poetry and prose, as well as his extraordinary insight that was not common among men, he gained the favor of the magistrate's daughter, who recognized him as her sworn brother.
Gong Baidie remained untainted by the filth around her. Seeing the plight of the other men in the brothel, she felt compassion and, together with her sworn sister, drove away the madam and took control of the brothel herself.
The player takes on the role of the female protagonist, who, after passing the imperial examination with top honors, searches far and wide for her childhood betrothed, Gong Baidie.
Gong Baidie, moved by the heroine's integrity, concealed his past as a schoolteacher and reunited with her as the adopted son of the prefect.
After their marriage, the female protagonist still discovered Gong Baidie's experiences over the years. Not only did she not despise him for having been a prostitute, she also secretly helped him settle the men in the brothel.
In the finale of the story of Gong Baidie, the Empress passes away, and the new Empress is the protagonist's best friend and sister. Together, they exonerate the Gong family and restore Gong Baidie's status as a descendant of the Gong family.
It's a very old-fashioned and normal story.
As the protagonist, Gong Baidie is resilient and unyielding; no amount of hardship can break his will.
Listening to the man's deep, rambling laughter in the darkness, Wen Ting wondered if she had entered the wrong story.
That's not right either. The censorship requirements stipulate that all main characters must be positive figures. No matter which story she enters, the main character cannot be a bad guy.
The laughter gradually subsided, and the courtyard was empty, with only darkness and the sound of the wind remaining.
There was nothing behind this door. Filled with doubt, Wen Ting went to the next door.
The seventh door.
She was waiting to see what would happen this time when suddenly, a huge suction force pulled her forward.
After the world spun around her, Wen Ting's vision was filled with fiery red.
The red decorations—couplets, candles, and cloths—shone brightly, illuminating even the glossy canopy bed in the room.
Amidst the exquisitely carved balustrade, sat Gong Baidie, dressed in a wedding gown.
The embroidered dress was dazzling, echoing the red photograph in the room, making Wen Ting feel dizzy.
In an instant, the image of that blindingly red electronic screen flashed through her mind.
In a moment of distraction, her hand spontaneously lifted the beaded curtain beneath the ceremonial crown.
A stunningly beautiful woman with captivating eyes appeared before her.
Those phoenix eyes, with their inner and outer curves, were misty with tears, and all she could see was Wen Ting's figure.
Wen Ting's heart skipped a beat.
It was beautiful, but because it was her own OC, she immediately sensed something was off after being amazed.
Seven years ago, she was just a senior intern and could never have drawn with this level of detail.
Did she wander into some fan art?
No, the scene was familiar. She remembered the wood carvings on the railings of the canopy bed, the golden phoenix on the embroidered dress, and the flower hairpin on the headdress.
These are the paintings she created.
Whom did she paint?
Her memories were clouded, and Wen Ting couldn't recall some things.
Over the years, she has drawn so many things: company projects, outsourced projects, personal works, fan art to capitalize on trends... All sorts of characters and materials have flooded her mind, and she can no longer remember which work this bed, this wedding dress, and this headdress belong to.
All she could be sure of was that this painting wasn't meant for Gong Baidie.
During Gong Baidie's time, her painting skills were rough and simple, and he had never used such good materials before.
The decorations and furnishings are all exquisite, but they are not from the same painting.
The various materials from different periods are pieced together, resulting in an overall image that is not very harmonious. The details at the joints are unnatural, resembling an AI-generated dismembered corpse image. The overall color tone is excessively red, and the saturation is so high that it is suffocating and oppressive.
"My lady..." The handsome man under the beaded curtain looked away, his eyelashes trembling shyly.
Wen Ting had no time to appreciate the beauty; the forcibly pieced-together world of dismembered corpses filled her with dread and unease.
She lowered the golden scales that were lifting the curtain and backed away step by step, trying to leave.
She tripped over something and fell down. Although she was clearly moving backward, the wedding bed in front of her appeared behind her.
My back sank into the soft quilt.
The shirt buttons had been undone halfway, revealing a disheveled wedding dress.
The beaded curtain swayed, and the jade pendants jingled.
"My wife... my wife..."
The phoenixes on the embroidered robes refracted a dazzling golden light, making Wen Ting dizzy. The man on top of her abandoned his restraint and writhed wildly like a seductive ghost.
Beads of sweat trickled down his delicate collarbone to his chest and abdomen, gathering into a glistening line in the grooves of his muscles.
He noticed Wen Ting's gaze, stopped, and leaned down to nibble on Wen Ting's lips.
Her dark hair fell down on both sides, like a curtain enveloping Wen Ting, giving her a dense fragrance of snow orchids.
"My lady," the man murmured, "for all eternity, we will be inseparable, like white butterflies."
Everything was red; even the white butterfly under the man's left eye had turned crimson, making Wen Ting feel dizzy and her eyes hurt.
She gave up resisting, drifting with the crimson waves, indulging in the fragrance of snow orchids in the hair of the beautiful ghost.
I don't know how much time passed, but a chill washed over my confused senses.
The biting cold suddenly startled Wen Ting awake.
She opened her eyes and saw only pale whiteness.
The window paper was snow-white, candle wax piled up beneath the window, tables and chairs were broken, and nets were strung on the corridor.
She sat there in astonishment on the decaying bed, and saw a thin, slender figure sitting at the foot of the bed.
A man dressed in white, with disheveled hair, stood with his back to her.
A wedding robe rested on his lap, the golden phoenix on the red robe trailing on the dusty ground.
Click—
The crisp sound of scissors rang out.
With his back to her, he hummed something, a tuneless, meandering melody, as he sat there slowly cutting the embroidered dress to shreds.
The pale, slanting sunlight shone through the holes in the window paper, illuminating the dust that filled the room and making his long robe appear unreal and white.
Click, click...
The tune wasn't hummed, only a few soft laughs escaped from the strings.
When the wedding dress was tattered to shreds, the man tilted his head and picked up a lock of his black hair.
Click.
Click.
Wen Ting stared blankly and wistfully as her embroidered clothes fell to the ground and her long, flowing black hair drifted down to the floor.
She had been watching for too long, and her fragmented humming paused. The white figure, as if sensing her presence, slowly turned its head—
"ah!"
Wen Ting sat up abruptly in bed, her heart pounding.
The bedside lamp in the staff break room was still on, and its warm light soothed her anxiety.
Wen Ting woke up with a sore back and neck after a good night's sleep.
It seemed like I was dreaming, dreaming about something.
She doesn't remember much, only that the world in her dream was more logical than the world before she went to sleep.
Oh, and the world before bedtime—
As consciousness returned, Wen Ting suddenly became fully awake.
A faint ray of dawn shone in through the window, and the world regained its brightness.
Remembering the strange things that happened before she went to sleep, Wen Ting quickly grabbed her phone and went out. As soon as she opened the door, she saw people.
"Cathy?"
The door diagonally opposite Wen Ting opened at the same time as hers, and a terrified face peeked out from inside.
Their eyes met, and they both froze for a moment before rushing towards each other and pressing tightly together.
"Windy! Is that Windy?!" Cathy cried out, clutching Wen Ting's hand tightly as if afraid she would run away.
"It's me, it's me!" This was the first time Wen Ting had seen Cathy during the day without makeup. Her hair was messy and sticking out on both sides.
"Waaah, that's great! I had a nightmare." Cathy wiped away her tears, reluctant to let go of Wen Ting's hand, and directly lowered her head to wipe her tears on her wrist. "I dreamt that many of my colleagues died, the building lost power, and everyone went crazy! We couldn't get through on the phone, and we couldn't leave! No matter how we ran, we couldn't get out of the door; as soon as we went out, we would return to the break room!"
Wen Ting was taken aback. "You dreamed about it too?"
"What do you mean? You had a dream like that too?"
The two looked at each other, their faces drained of color.
It's not a dream.
“Mela…” Wen Ting’s lips trembled, “Do you know what happened to Mela?”
“Mela? Mela!” Cathy cried out, gripping Wen Ting’s hand as if recalling some terrible memory, “She’s gone mad! She’s gone mad! That O’Ah!”
The manicured nail pierced Wen Ting's hand, but she ignored the pain and asked, "What does this have to do with OA?"
"You didn't know?" Cathy asked in surprise. "By the way, I didn't see you last night. Where did you go?"
“I…” Wen Ting said, “I went to the restroom upstairs.”
"How's it upstairs?" Cathy asked eagerly.
“Aside from the power outage, nothing else happened upstairs.” Wen Ting steered the conversation back on track. “What were you talking about earlier, OA? And what exactly happened to Mela?”
Cathy swallowed hard, then paused to compose herself. "Did you see the notification the OA system sent out yesterday?"
She immediately answered herself after saying that: "You definitely saw it!"
"Drawing a portrait of a dead person?"
“Yes! Mela had a date with her boyfriend after get off work yesterday. I reminded her that she had some work to do on the OA system, but she was unwilling to do it, said a few words to me, and left with her bag.” Cathy recalled, not forgetting to complain, “Ever since she hooked up with the rich second-generation, she has become more and more formidable.”
Wen Ting interrupted her complaint: "And then?"
“She just left, what could I do? I talked to the higher-ups a few times, but they wouldn’t release Mela.” Cathy suddenly shuddered. “Everything was fine until the power went out… It was pitch black, everyone was in a panic for a while, and when I saw it… Gulanda was dead!”
"Flowers grew from his neck, and then bloomed all over his face and body! He died exactly like the sketches he had drawn!"
"What manuscript?" Wen Ting asked hurriedly.
"It's that death drawing from the OA! He kept saying he wouldn't have time to finish it, and I even helped him look at it. In the end, he died before the drawing was submitted! And he died just like the drawing!"
Wen Ting almost immediately thought of Ge.
It's not surprising that someone in Green Forest would die suddenly, but the way they died is definitely not normal.
"And then there's Mela... She'd been off work for so long, and then suddenly she came back after the power outage! She appeared out of nowhere! Standing at her workstation laughing, she was like a madwoman, completely impossible to communicate with!"
Sizzle...
A faint electrical hum passed by, and the next moment, the lights blazed on.
Cathy and Wen Ting looked up and saw that the power had been restored to the corridor.
Another door opened, and Chaochao emerged, still sleepy-eyed: "Oh? Sister Windy? And Sister Cathy, good morning. Are we having a meeting today?"
The two stared in astonishment at Chaochao, who looked completely relaxed.
Wen Ting walked over in a few steps. "Do you know what happened yesterday?"
"What happened?" Chaochao rubbed her eyes. "I worked overtime yesterday."
"That's impossible! You didn't hear anything with such a commotion?" Cathy asked incredulously. "You've been sleeping in the lounge the whole time?"
“Yeah,” Chaochao said, puzzled. “I got into the lounge around midnight. I was so sleepy that I slept until now.”
Twelve o'clock... Wen Ting remembered that the power went out in the director's office after midnight. Chaochao had returned to the lounge before that.
Even so, there's no way she wouldn't have heard such a loud noise; she must have been sleeping very soundly.
“That’s amazing,” Cathy said with a complicated expression. “You couldn’t even be woken up during an earthquake.”
"Huh? Was there an earthquake last night?"
Wen Ting pulled Chaochao aside and told her what had happened.
After a moment of confusion, Chaochao looked at Wenting and Cathy with innocent bewilderment: "Is this some kind of immersive project? Are we going to play a horror game?"
Cathy sighed.
Wen Ting then asked, "Where's DD?"
"He's already booked a hotel room and gone to sleep." Chaochao said, taking out her phone. "I'll ask him where he is."
She sent a message to DD, and Wen Ting and Cathy hesitated to speak. But less than half a minute later, Chaochao showed them her phone. "He's in 0917. He said he'll be in the office in a bit."
"What? How is this possible!" Cathy snatched the phone, staring in shock at the chat interface. "This is so strange! I couldn't get through to anyone yesterday, not even the police. How did you manage to contact them?"
Wen Ting didn't say anything; she immediately ran towards the elevator.
Seeing her move, Cathy immediately followed, and Chaochao, not understanding why, also followed.
The three entered the elevator, and Wen Ting pressed the button for the first floor, waiting anxiously.
8th floor, 6th floor, 2nd floor, 1st floor...
The moment the elevator doors opened, Cathy stepped out before her.
She had realized what Wen Ting was planning to do.
If electricity and communications are restored, then exports are very likely to return to normal as well!
They can leave the company now!
Wen Ting watched helplessly as Cathy ran past her, bursting out of the company gate and disappearing outside the door in the next instant.
The area outside the glass doors was empty; there was no one and no car.
"Where's Cathy?" Chaochao looked outside in surprise. "She's gone!"
Cold sweat beaded on Wen Ting's forehead. She grabbed Chaochao's hand and walked towards the door, unwilling to give up.
The moment she stepped through the gate, a familiar feeling enveloped Wen Ting.
By the time she realized what was happening, she had returned to the lounge once again.
He came back alone again; even Chaochao wasn't by his side.
Wen Ting sat exhausted on the bed, and after a while, she immediately called the police.
At least communication has been restored...
The busy signal shattered their last hope.
Same as last night.
No, maybe there's something wrong with her own phone. Can't Chaochao's phone make calls? Right, Chaochao, where is Chaochao?
Wen Ting regained her strength and went out to look for someone.
As soon as the door opened, she bumped into Chaochao, who was rushing to find her.
The two stared at each other, then heard several screams of despair coming from other rooms.
At seven o'clock in the morning, people began to wake up in the lounge on the ninth floor.
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