You reap what you sow. Huang Yin’s effort had been repaid in multitudes, even people around Han Fei were talking about him. This showed how famous he was. Opening the social media, Huang Yin had completed the dreams of many actors, which was to dominate all the hot searches. This mysterious man had an overwhelming charm, attracting everyone’s eyes.
Numerous gaming studios, players and even in-game mods were observing Huang Yin. He was more than a little famous. After chatting some more with the crew, Han Fei took out his phone to send Huang Yin a message.
Perhaps because Huang Yin had marked Han Fei as a special number on his phone, not long after the message was sent, Huang Yin returned with a request for a video call. Han Fei didn’t dare to accept the call casually. He found a secluded corner before he accepted the call. “You’ve exited the game?”
“I’ve been playing since yesterday midnight. I’m taking a break for lunch, then I’ll go back to the game.” Huang Yin looked surprisingly glowing, it probably had to do with the fact that he was using the top of the state gaming hub.
“Watch your health. In that case, I won’t disturb you anymore.” Han Fei trusted Huang Yin fully.
“Wait a minute.” Huang Yin on the phone said after some hesitation, “There are a few things that I need to notify you about.”
“What is it?” Han Fei was surprised. From what he heard, the surface world was perfect and sunny, there was nothing worth noting about it.
“Something’s wrong.” Huang Yin’s expression was serious. “Since the game enters OB, it is taken over by the photon computer, there are many places which are different from CB. From the mannerism to the NPC to the progression of the plot, everything is changing. Other than that, there are a lot of inconspicuous missions related to the supernatural.”
After a pause, Huang Yin ended the call and resumed through an encrypted call, “Using the items that we’ve prepared, while most players were still in tutorial, I had entered the zones current players shouldn’t be able to assess. I notice the NPC there are no different from actual living humans. In fact, it felt like a living person’s souls had been attached to them. I often had the impression that I was not playing a game but had entered a different lived-in world.”
“Before Deep Space Tech and Immortal Pharma released the game, they collected a large amount of citizenry information and purchased many electronic traces left behind by netizens after they passed away. It’s not impossible for them to reconstruct authentic NPC from these digital memories.”
“No, the feeling I had was not plausible with just reconstruction of digital memories.” Huang Yin stressed. “I can’t really explain it. In any case, no one has seen the so-called 7th generation photon computer before. I suspect certain things have spiraled out of Deep Space Tech’s control.”
“Can you give me an example?” Han Fei noticed Huang Yin’s arguments were not as logical as before, it was like the man had been recently traumatized.
“I’ve already gained the profession of Blood Doctor, I’m the only person to gain a profession in the whole server. Technically speaking, if I don’t wear the mask that can’t hide my presence, there would be warrants out for me throughout the server and I would be hated by the NPC. That is the property of the profession defined by the system. However, after I left the Blood Doctor’s home, I ran into the victims whom I saved. I wasn’t wearing any mask but they were still willing to communicate with me and thank me. In fact, even their families were willing to give me refuge.” Huang Yin was silent as he looked at his hands. “I’ve chosen to kill the previous Blood Doctor and become the new Blood Doctor. In the future I might be wanted by the whole server and become the game’s first Grade S criminal. However, the people I saved didn’t turn hostile against me as the system dictated. Instead they had made their own choices to aid me.”
“You’re saying the NPC are becoming sentient?”
“Compared to CB, they have already started to violate some set game rules. I suspect this has to do with the explosion that happened at the intelligent city not too long ago.” Huang Yin said and then shook his head as if denying that suspicion. “Actually I can understand giving the NPC the ability to think, but the thing that really scares me is…” He was conflicted for a long time before Huang Yin voiced his other concern. “According to the prediction of the photon computer, no player should be able to reach level 10 and enter the zone for level 10 players in such a short amount of time, but I did. After I completed the mission for the Blood Doctor, I noticed the discrepancies with the NPC’s behavior. But as the other players slowly caught up to me and more players reached level 10, I returned to the area for level 10 players and by then most of the NPC had returned to normal again.”
This observation by Huang Yin grabbed Han Fei’s attention, this was a valuable discovery.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Maybe…” Huang Yin scratched his beard, he hadn’t shaved them for days already. “After being at your place, I was really affected. If your place is dominated by complete darkness and despair, then the normal Perfect Life should be enveloped in complete light and warmth but can there really be a world that is so clearly black and white?
“For example, I saw light in your world too, like the woman who had saved me and looked like my mother; in the surface world, I also saw NPC who shouldn’t fit in here, like the crazed Blood Doctor that I killed. The difference is your world is shrouded in darkness, hiding all the sins and hope; and in the surface world, any kind of imperfections and ugliness would immediately be discovered, and then forcibly changed by the system. I’m not saying that this is not good. I just have this feeling that the so-called Perfect Life doesn’t really exist. The reason the surface world is so perfect is that the system had shoved all the NPC’s evilness into the cryptic world.”
Huang Yin took a deep breath. “After seeing such a warm and beautiful world, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the endless darkness where you are. I feel like the Perfect Life that I’m playing is just a part of the real Perfect Life. The surface world is like an iceberg floating on the ocean. We play on the sea surface, bathed in the sunlight. But the real Perfect Life is under the sea surface. The area that is completely submerged in the deep dark water, no one knows how big it really is and no one knows what kind of evil it represents. Human beings are both good and evil. If one day, the iceberg tips over, everyone will fall into the dark sea.
“In the past, I thought the photon computer represented the ultimate future, but now I’ve changed my mind.” Huang Yin was deeply affected by his experience. “I’ve been playing for too long. My brain is in a bit of a fritz. I need to ponder about this some more. If I discover anything new, I’ll inform you.”
After so many things that happened, Huang Yin saw Han Fei as his best friend and buddy. It was fate that they had run into each other. After hanging up, Huang Yin resumed his game while Han Fei considered what Huang Yin had said. Huang Yin didn’t know about the black box and the choice Han Fei had to make. 2 different paths would face 2 different challenges.
“Each new generation of Deep Space Tech’s photon computer has a categorical improvement, the 6th generation can already control a whole intelligent city so the 7th generation has to be better. However, the 6th generation photon computer faced some problems on the night before the global OB of Perfect Life and caused the database centre for both Deep Space Tech and Immortal Pharma to explode, is that really a coincidence?” Han Fei stood at the corner with his head lowered, “The Butterfly flapped its wings in the cryptic world and it might create a storm in the real world and the surface world.”
There had to be monsters scarier than the Butterfly in the cryptic world but there won’t be that many monsters that had power similar to Butterfly. This could be seen from the unique talent acquired by Huang Yin. His unique talent was a result of him being repeatedly tortured by Butterfly in his nightmare. This meant that in the whole surface world, only Huang Yin would have the Nightmare talent, this showed also the rarity of talents related to nightmares.
“The giant black cocoon under the Ziggurat is also still a mystery, I need to keep a close watch over it.”
The crews were slowly moving into place. Han Fei’s expression returned to normal. He put away his phone and entered the set.
The shooting for Thriller Writer had almost reached its end. The movie’s budget wasn’t that high but many people had great anticipation of it. All 9 actors were skilled actors. There were already voices on the internet, trying to guess who would be the best actors among them.
The shot continued until 7 pm. Han Fei who would never work overtime prepared to leave. He had already finished his scenes for that day but he was halted by Director Zhang. Director Zhang planned to use this film to fight for another big award so he treated this project seriously. He would check every single frame and if there was any flaw, he would edit or reshoot the scene.
However, this led to the result where Han Fei had more and more screen time and a side character’s appearance slowly became more weighty than the female lead. No one had expected this before the shooting started. But now neither Director Zhang nor the producers were willing to cut Han Fei’s scenes, so they had to call the man over.
Among the 9 actors, Han Fei was supposed to have the least amount of screen time. As the killer, his main scenes would be at the end when the twist was revealed. And after this twist, there was another twist where the Spider killed off all of his other personas. Han Fei had handled this double twist perfectly. Other than these two scenes, Han Fei didn’t appear that much in other parts of the movie, his presence was purposely weakened in the early parts of the movie.
Since he was supposed to only be a side character and Han Fei wasn’t that famous, in the original contract, Han Fei was also paid the least among the 9 actors. For young actors, to have a chance to work with Director Zhang was worth more than the salary.
However, now that Han Fei had become the soul and centre anchoring the whole movie, this early contract felt quite unfair to Han Fei. Due to various considerations, the producers decided to raise Han Fei’s salary and also hoped that they could work with Han Fei in the long term.
Han Fei had not encountered something like this before. After he looked through the new contract and was fine with it, he agreed. Another windfall entered his bank account, Han Fei was glad to see that.
When he returned home, Han Fei didn’t wait for midnight to log into the game. After all, there was still a player exploring the ‘hidden map’ in the cryptic world, Han Fei had to go ensure his safety. Entering the gaming hub, Han Fei put on the gaming helmet. As blood fell, Han Fei felt there was someone looking at him. He thought it was the Singer but as he turned around, Han Fei saw a bloody man standing right behind him.
His eyes flew open!
Han Fei was inside the room where he logged off. He whipped his head around and there was no one there. Taking out his phone, Han Fei summoned all of his neighbours. Now that Han Fei only had 1 Life Points, he didn’t dare to stay too far away from them.
‘Was the bloody man real? How come I didn’t see the Singer this time?’ In the past, Han Fei thought the period where he logged in and out of the game was the safest but as he encountered more Unmentionables, that sense of security had been shattered. Han Fei took some time to calm down and then he opened his profile page to examine his reputation and afterlife karma. His reputation didn’t change, it was still 34 but his afterlife karma had risen to 86.
‘Looks like helping the victims and their families in real life can really increase my afterlife karma!’ After Han Fei knew how this attribute worked, with his neighbours escorting him, Han Fei went to check up on Zeng Haicheng.
The young man was not bad, he had passed Feng Ziyu’s test and Feng Ziyu had managed to draw out all kinds of information from the young man. From his job experience, to the first porn he watched, Feng Ziyu now knew everything about this man. Han Fei had no idea what Feng Ziyu did to Zeng Haicheng but he realized Feng Ziyu was very capable, he had found a great talent.
Before Resurrection’s timer refreshed, Han Fei found the tenants of Ziggurat and updated them about the events in real life.
After the businessman heard about his mother, his expression changed, it turns out there was something more important than money in his heart.
Lai Sheng’s parents were informed about their son’s current state. Han Fei promised them that he would help Lai Sheng, and with that, the couple gained more friendliness with Han Fei.
Han Fei went through the rooms spreading the good news. In the past, the tenants were afraid of Han Fei but now they truly welcomed him. As the tenants accepted Han Fei, his reputation increased by 2 but that was still far from 100.
‘Bad news always travels faster than good news, maybe I should really do something about that.’
As midnight arrived, Han Fei approached the fainted Zeng Haicheng. After checking that the man was physically fine, he used Resurrection on him. After Zeng Haicheng was sent back, the system notified that Han Fei had gained some reputation and afterlife karma. ‘Sending back the players who had accidentally entered the cryptic world will also increase my reputation and afterlife karma? Does that mean I will be able to use Brother Huang to farm these 2 attributes daily?’
Han Fei studied his profile. He felt more and more like a mod in the cryptic world and the system appeared to be grooming him according to that goal as well.
