Chapter 3

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“A power cut?”

Chen Xu thought it was a little strange. To his knowledge, power failure had never occurred in the past two years since he moved in.

Perhaps it began during that year when the environmental agency commenced its operations. Many factories with high pollution and high energy consumption had been shut down. Since then, power rationing was no longer imposed.

As he was thinking, he walked down the stairs and was prepared to drop by the cake shop that he often visited to buy some bread and milk. If he had a choice, he would prefer hot food for breakfast. Regrettably, the bun shop on the street moved away a few months ago because the rent increased too much.

The moment he arrived on the street, he felt that something was very wrong.

Where were all the people?

There was no one on the street.

It is rush hour now, and of the dozens of apartments on this street, there are at least a couple of hundred people living here if not a thousand. Usually, at this time, many people will be rushing to work——

No!

Chen Xu’s mind exploded with the thought of a possibility.

Am I already in the dream world?

With this thought, he dropped his briefcase on the ground.

Staring at the empty streets, he was rendered speechless out of shock.

After quite some time, he muttered to himself, “Should’ve guessed it.”

Sure enough, it was a 100% virtual reality.

There was no glamorous lighting effect nor any staggering big scenes. Everything was exactly the same as reality up to the slightest detail. After he woke up, he had been completely unaware that he was already in a dream.

He pinched the back of his hand lightly and distinctively felt a slight pain.

“Even pain is completely simulated. Is this place really inside a dream?”

He was a little shaken on the inside.

Amidst confusion and disconcertion, he grabbed his briefcase on the ground and ran forward.

On the empty street, phones, wallets, and keys could be seen from time to time on the ground. He ignored them all, ran to the end of the street, and turned to the main road.

He halted, standing at the street corner and looking at the road in front of him.

The road was completely packed with various parked vehicles. Most of the shops on both sides of the road were open, and everything seemed to be no different.

The only difference was that there were no people, not even a single person.

He gradually arrived at the bus stop. On usual days, it would already be crowded with people who wanted to take the bus. Now, there were only a bunch of mobiles, wallets, keys, and various bags lying on the ground.

“So, all humans have disappeared, and only their stuff is left behind?”

Looking at the items on the ground, his scalp tightened as he guessed at the setting of the dream. At some point in time, perhaps at the moment when he woke up, everyone else vanished, leaving only what they had on them on the ground.

Just like pressing the pause button, then wiping out all humans.

That couldn’t be right.

He looked at the cars parked by the road. It had t be a static button.

Otherwise, those cars that were originally in motion would have already collided into a cluster under the influence of inertia after their drivers disappeared.

“In any case, I’m going to the office now.”

He stood there and watched for a while, thinking that he would feel more at ease if he rushed to the company.

However, how would he get there?

He gazed at the bus parked a dozen meters away and felt a little conflicted. Do I have to go on my two legs? He couldn’t walk the journey of seven or eight stations even with an hour.

Abruptly, he got a jolt in his mind. If a person’s belongings stayed at the same place after they disappeared, their car key should still be there.

He walked to the nearest car and looked in through the window. Sure enough, the key was still there.

…

Chen Xu leisurely drove towards the company in a black Volkswagen.

There were too many cars on the road, especially at the intersection of traffic lights. More often than not, they were all clogged by a pack of cars. In this case, he could only drive on the sidewalk.

The driver’s license he acquired in his senior year was rarely used, and he was very unfamiliar with cars. When he drove on the sidewalk, the car was scraped several times until even the back door was deformed.

But at this moment, he couldn’t care less about that as he was observing the situation around him with undivided attention.

When he stopped the car in front of the company building, he was already sure that this place was certainly inside a dream world.

Although this place was no Central Business District, there were still a few office buildings nearby and a commercial street next door. Daily visitor flowrate was immense, especially during early peak hours.

Now, the entire road was remarkably quiet. There was no one. Apart from the noise generated by the engine of the car he was driving, not even a fragment of another sound could be heard.

It was so quiet that it had driven him into a panic.

Chen Xu let go of the steering wheel, rubbed his face hard, and sighed, “This is not the same as what I imagined.”

Shouldn’t there at least have been a ritual-like process when players were about to enter the dream?

At the very least, they should have given him some mental preparation.

He never expected that this system would follow none of the regular procedure and toss him right into the dream world once he opened his eyes.

This was too real. It was so real that it made him a bit confused about whether this was a dream or reality.

Honestly speaking, when he was driving on the way, looking at the vacated cars on the road, empty streets, and the empty shops on both sides, he was getting bouts of goosebumps. This was entirely different from what he had imagined.

“Oh well, since I’m already here, I should think about how I should get through these 180 days.” Chen Xu clapped his own face, chunking away all those messy thoughts. He opened his briefcase and took out a pen and paper. He bent over at the steering wheel and began writing.

Now, if he did not find something to do, he wouldn’t be able to hold out.

He focused his mind and began arranging his thoughts.

First would be food and water. His utmost priority now would be issues regarding food and water.

He wrote these two words in the first line.

He doesn’t have to worry about water. There was a lot of bottled mineral water in every supermarket. Just the water in this city alone would suffice for a lifetime.

Moreover, the retention period of bottled mineral water was generally one year. There was no need to worry about it going bad.

Food was more of a hassle. It was still fine for rice and noodles that had a relatively long preservation time. Both meat and vegetables couldn’t be preserved for a long time, especially meat. In such weather, it would spoil in just one or two days.

“Yeah, I’ll have to scavenge enough meat and store it, or I’ll be eating canned food every day.”

As a carnivorous person, Chen Xu couldn’t endure days without meat. He jotted down meat and vegetables on the second line and set off for his mission.

If someone wanted to find a lot of fresh meat, generally, they would think of food markets and big supermarkets. Chen Xu, however, went to the best restaurant near the company.

In his point of view, the best place to find a food supply was neither a luxurious villa nor a big supermarket. It was the restaurant, especially the classier ones. At these places, he would find ready-made ingredients, and even better, a complete variety of them. He wouldn’t have to bother about collecting them from a market.

Most importantly, the larger restaurants all had cold storage, which is best for keeping meat.

Another point was that it had complete facilities around the vicinity in addition to all the daily necessities that could be found in the few supermarkets.

To make such a place a base camp was perfection.