CH 114

The institute was covered in dark clouds.

The plot took a turn for the worse again.

Lu Nan did not become the center of the storm of public pressure as planned. His reputation wasn’t defiled nor was he reviled by thousands of people and was subjected to endless harassment and mental torture—moreover, he also he did not go the other way and became a plaything for venting desires of the rich and powerful.

On the screen, the criminal’s pain value was a dazzling bright red “1”.

And the sole source of pain was the electric shock that the research institute used to punish him for deviating from the mission.

After looking back at how well each task was accomplished, the researchers could hardly believe the results.

A total of five tasks have been released in this world, four short-term tasks and one long-term task.

Only one short-term task was left unfinished.

The plot went off rails undeniably nonetheless.

And each value was far from the expected value.

But! For some reason, at the bottom of researcher’s hearts there was a vague ‘as expected’ feeling.

——After all, this was not the first time.

Before they knew, they already got used to it.

But the director obviously didn’t think so.

He was checking the data from the virtual world over and over again with a gloomy expression.

They originally assumed that after fulfilling Zuo Yan’s task, everything would be on the right track, and the automatic monitoring machine did not alarm them after the time multiplier was turned on  — that means that in the period after that, Ge Xiu did not do anything too outrageous, nor anything that could threaten the original plot trajectory, not stirring up any trouble — but even so, the plot still managed to go astray.

What had gone wrong?

The director’s brows furrowed even tighter, his complexion so bad as if it was about to drip water.

The operation of Pandora was a black box at first. After the virtual world was successfully constructed, the outside world could not observe or even interfere with its existence. This time, they forcibly reduced the operation rate and sacrificed part of the stable value of Pandora. With this limitation, it was possible to control the operation inside the virtual world.

But they can’t maintain the state of low magnification operation for a long time.

Not only the mental power threshold of the criminal couldn’t reach the standard, but even Pandora couldn’t guarantee the efficiency of work operation in a long-term unstable state.

In case something happened, people from the Secret Service would definitely come to ask for an explanation.

Therefore, they could only monitor the inside of the virtual world through a device that automatically detects abnormal data. Once the monitored person makes any behavior out of line that interferes with the world plot, it will automatically sound an alarm, and then the research institute will deal with it rest.

But this time there was no alarm.

In fact… in the previous few virtual worlds, the alarms rarely appeared, at most one or two times in a world.

It stands to reason that with such a small number of alerts, it would be difficult to cause such an alarming deviation of the world line.

——Unless, the problem lies outside the virtual world.

But criminal who was sent into the virtual world was completely isolated, making it impossible to get any help.

The director narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

He stood up and ordered to the researchers: “End this world, even if it continues, there will be no better results.”

The best thing to do now was to act decisively and stop losses in time.

Start the next virtual world.

The researchers got busy under his orders.

The director then added: “This time, there is no need to give the criminal a break, throw him directly into the next world.”

“Yes.” The researchers replied.

Looking at the busy scene in front of him, the director’s expression was obscure and gloomy.

In any case, this time, they must find out who was doing the trick.

.

Ge Xiu suddenly woke up.

There was noise in the ears.

Laughter, noise, footsteps, knocking sounds… Countless noises converged into a torrent of noise, instantly flooding him like a tidal wave. The huge flow of sound that suddenly rushed over made his nerves unbearable for a while, resulting in short circuit moment for a while.

What was… this place?

He blinked slowly, and the layer of shadow and mist that was blocking his eyes gradually dissipated.

Ge Xiu’s eyes gradually focused.

In front of him was a dark yellow tabletop close at hand, the surface of which was bumpy and covered with dull nicks and graffiti, flashing at the junction of shadow and light.

He’s lying on the table…?

Ge Xiu raised his head slowly, following his movements, there was a rusty cracking sound from his shoulders and neck, and the stiff soreness spread instantly, affecting the whole body like a chain reaction.

In front of him was an unfamiliar room.

There were dozens of tables and chairs neatly placed in the not-so-big room. There was a low platform at the front of the room. In front of the dark wall panel was a simple table facing the room, with a few books covered in white dust scattered on it.

Male and female people in the same uniforms shuttled in the aisles between the tables, their young faces still had traces of childishness as they as they giggled and laughed cheerfully between each other.

A classroom?

Ge Xiu was stunned.

He didn’t have any memory nor any experience of going to school, and even if he had, it couldn’t have been such a primitive scene.

However, in the previous world, Lu Nan’s web drama had a youth campus theme. Although Ge Xiu was not a good actor, in order to complete the task, he still knew the lines and the plot very well. In addition, he had also searched the Internet for related topics. Therefore, he was a little familiar with the classroom scene, and he could roughly figure out his current situation.

So, did he directly transport to another the world in his sleep?

Ge Xiu lowered his eyes thoughtfully, raised his hand and rubbed his still somewhat stiff neck.

——Are the people outside in such a hurry?

Ge Xiu had already analysed through and figured the rules behind the one behind the scenes behaviour. If his mental state did not fluctuate too much, or if he did something unusual to recast the world, he would often suffer through organ failure. This way he would be slowly drawn from the world.

On the contrary, the outside world decided to stop the loss in time and disconnect him from the virtual world at the fastest speed.

But this time was different.

In order to gather more observations, Ge Xiu felt that he was very low-key in the last world — especially compared to the previous worlds.

However, this time, he was directly pulled out of the world. The whole process was fast and abrupt, and he could clearly feel the urgency in it.

——Did they notice anything?

Or were they simply in a hurry?

Ge Xiu gently slid his fingertips against the tabletop, feeling the uneven texture.

At moment, suddenly rang the harsh class bell.

Students in school uniforms rushed from outside the classroom and walked towards their seats. In just a few minutes, the empty classroom was already full of people.

A rigidly dressed middle-aged teacher stepped into the classroom with a stack of books and started the class.

Ge Xiu’s position was in the penultimate row and was rather unconspicuous.

The strange thing was that now he had been in this world for more than twenty minutes by now, but he still didn’t hear the prompt sound.

There was no world introduction, no plot, no character settings.

In the previous world, although the timing of the electronic reminder sound was also slightly different, it had never been silent for such a long time.

Was it a mistake? Or a deliberate action?

Taking advantage of the time when the teacher started to lecture, Ge Xiu started flipping through the books on his desk, trying to find clues about his current identity.

The signature on the book said “Chen Ziyan”.

The handwriting on it was clear and neat, the pages of the book were filled with dense notes. It was obvious that he was a good, serious about studying, student.

Ge Xiu picked up the pen and wrote a few random words on the pages imitating Chen Ziyan’s handwriting. After a few tries, the handwriting written from his pen was no different from the remaining handwriting on the book.

He put down his pen and looked around the classroom.

The teacher’s lecturing voice was monotonic, dry and hypnotic, all the students sitting below bowed their heads and looked lifeless.

Ge Xiu noticed a strange characteristic of this class.

There were about forty students in the class, most of them were very ordinary, but among the forty people, there were four or five students who seemed a bit special — they all wore metal collars around their necks, with exactly the same regulation, seeming unlike a personal choice of clothing, but more like something forced on them.

Those mysterious collars shone with a cold silver light under the classroom lights, making them look dazzling.

He subconsciously touched his neck.

empty.

The world was clearly not as ordinary as it appears.

Unfortunately, this time Chen Ziyan was a student and did not carry any communication tools capable of connecting to the Internet, which made it impossible to search for information online.

At this moment, Ge Xiu’s eyes fell on another corner of the classroom, and he couldn’t help being slightly taken aback.

A teenager was sleeping on the table.

His shoulders were strong and broad, his hair was short, almost touching his scalp, but even if he didn’t lift his head, he brought a strong presence that couldn’t be ignored.

Appearing indifferent, withdrawn, isolated.

Once again, Ge Xiu recognized “him” without hindrance.

He was a little surprised — there were very few worlds where they could meet immediately at the beginning, and this time they were even classmates.

Moreover, “he” also wore the same silver collar around his neck.

Ge Xiu was not going to appear in front of the other party rashly — if his conclusion from the last world is correct, the other party’s identity this time may not be simple. Right now, in absence of any world background and plot hints it’d be better to be more cautious.

Time flies.

The school bell rang.

The hustle and bustle of joy sounded again, and the classroom was shrouded in noise once again. The students were talking and laughing together while packing their schoolbags.

Ge Xiu slowly packed his things and drifted to the other corner of the classroom without a trace.

He lay silently on the table, motionless, not even raising his head when Ge Xiu left the classroom.

Ge Xiu walked out of the school gate.

The afterglow of the setting sun dyed the street a dazzling orange. He had seen Chen Ziyan’s mailing address on his student ID card before, so after asking a few passersbies, Ge Xiu could accurately determine where was his place of living this time.

He walked along the empty road, then followed the directions into an alley.

The sky gradually darkened.

Ge Xiu felt a strange feeling slowly grow.

His stomach turned upside down, some kind of weird itching and soreness spread under the skin,he could hear his blood rushing in his ears, along with the heartbeat hitting his eardrums. The entire world seemed to be spinning as a strong sense of dizziness flooded him.

Ge Xiu raised his hand with difficulty and held onto the cold and damp wall beside him, barely maintaining his balance.

The last rays of the setting sun in the distance have faded.

The edge of the sun sank below the horizon.

Ge Xiu’s eyes darkened, he stumbled and fell to the ground. The sudden weightlessness made him defenceless and he fell down violently.

The fall seemed endless.

Immediately afterwards, there was a dull pain of his back hitting the ground, but it seemed that something had cushioned his body, and the pain was not severe.

Ge Xiu opened his eyes, the weirdness, dizziness and itching just now faded like a tide.

But it was pitch black in front of his eyes, as if a heavy layer of material covered his head.

He struggled, trying to break free.

The next second, Ge Xiu  found the exit between the accidental crashes and hits. He lost the support under his feet, he fell sharply forward and then rolled several times on the ground.

The alley where he fell just now appeared in front of him again.

But…For unknown reason…everything seemed to have become magnified several times.

There was an eerie sense of dissonance everywhere.

Ge Xiu stood up, but lost his balance in the next second and fell heavily to the ground again. He was startled and subconsciously let out a low sound from his throat:

——”Mi.”

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Ge Xiu: ? ? ?