Weird Game: I brought an old version bug

The stone steps extend downwards for more than twenty steps, each step being of a very uniform height.

The steps were covered with a fine layer of dust, leaving clear footprints when stepped on, as if no one had walked this path for a long time.

The walls on both sides transition from metal panels to natural rock, which is grayish-black, damp, and carries the earthy smell unique to the old underground air.

Jiang Chen's flashlight beam stopped at the end of the stairs.

A grayish-white stone door. It's not synthetic stone, it's real stone, with natural textures and pores on the surface, as if it was cut from a single piece off a mountain and brought directly here.

An octagonal gear pattern is engraved in the center of the door – intaglio.

The lines penetrated about one centimeter into the stone surface, with clean, crisp edges and no chipping. Each tooth was engraved with tiny, repetitive symbols, but in a script he didn't recognize.

Shiyu came down, stood in front of the door, and ran her finger along the outline of the gear, stopping at the center.

The stone surface there is different; it's not the rough texture of carving, but smooth, as if many people have repeatedly touched that spot, rubbing the stone until it develops a patina.

"Someone has left from here."

She said, "The patina on the gear surface is formed by repeated friction, not by one person touching it once. At least three to five people have walked through here."

Jiang Chen crouched down to find the mechanism to open the door.

There was no handle, no keyhole, no verification slot, only that octagonal gear pattern.

He tried pushing it, but it didn't budge. He then tried pulling it, but there was still no response.

There is a very shallow, round indentation in the center of the gear; this is not a manufacturing defect, but a deliberate design element. The inner wall is not made of stone, but of a slightly reflective metallic oxide.

He inserted his index finger and felt four tiny contact points engraved on the inner wall.

He took out the decompiled core, which was much larger than expected.

The backplate support of the 07 was two millimeters too big, and then he saw the fragment marks on the back of his hand.

The pale gold mark emitted a faint, warm glow in the dim environment.

It wasn't something he actively triggered; it was glowing on its own, as if it had been awakened by the gear pattern on the stone door, creating a certain resonance.

He placed his right hand on the gear pattern.

The moment the mark touched the stone door, all the light rushed toward the recess in the center of the door.

The four contacts lit up simultaneously, and a pale golden light spread outward from the recess, traversing each tooth of the gear before converging on the outer ring to form a glowing outline.

Click.

The sound of unlocking came from inside the door—not a crisp mechanical sound, but a heavy sound, like a stone bolt being pulled up.

Immediately afterwards, the stone door opened inwards by a crack about twenty centimeters wide.

What shone through the crack in the door was not darkness—but an extremely faint, almost hallucinatory white light.

It's not dazzling, it doesn't flicker, it's stable and even, like a very old lamp shining somewhere.

Jiang Chen squeezed in sideways, and then he froze.

On the other side of the door was not a cave or an underground facility—it was a standard indoor corridor, two meters wide and three meters high.

The walls were painted white, the floor was covered with light gray non-slip tiles, and LED lights were embedded in the ceiling every three meters—all lit, not a single one was broken.

Every five meters along the wall, there is a black LCD screen, all the same size, fixed to the wall, and all the screens are dark.

At the end of the corridor was a closed white interior door with a round metal handle.

This corridor doesn't look like any part of the Abyss game.

It's more like an ordinary office building, an ordinary company, or an ordinary corridor in the real world.

There are no eerie game elements, no system prompts, no monsters, and no rule gaps.

But it is precisely this "normality" that makes this place more unsettling than any other copy.

Shi Yu squeezed in after him, looked around, and said in an unusually calm tone: "The system's backend. It's the management interface used to monitor and manage the Abyss Game."

The "key" the clockmaker mentioned in his letter wasn't for leaving the game, but for accessing the system's backend.

Jiang Chen walked slowly along the corridor, as if confirming whether the corridor really existed.

His footsteps were exceptionally clear in the quiet corridor, each step echoing faintly, as if someone were following him from another dimension.

As he passed the first screen, he saw a label on the wall, white background with black lettering:

[Monitoring Terminal (Copy No.: S-07) - Abyss Game, Seventh Administrative District, Bottom Floor, Data Layer Management Room]

It starts with S.

Special purpose.

This corridor itself is a dungeon, a dungeon that is not open to the public and does not exist in any player map or quest list.

The only difference is that the rules of this instance are not for players to complete, but for system administrators to monitor the entire game.

He walked to the end of the corridor, grasped the handle of the white door, and pressed it down.

The door was open; it wasn't locked.

Behind the door is a room of about thirty square meters.

The room was very simply furnished, with a desk against the wall, on which sat a lit monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse.

The monitor background is completely black, with a line of white text in the center:

[Abyss Game Management Terminal - Background Operation System - Awaiting Verification]

On the side of the table was a transparent acrylic shelf containing an ID card, lying quietly with the card facing out, as if waiting for someone to take it.

The card features a man in his thirties with short hair, regular features, and a serious expression.

His name and position were printed below the photo:

Name: Zhong Yuan

[Position: Low-level Architect, Abyss Game Project Team]

Zhong Yuan, a clockmaker.

Jiang Chen picked up the ID card and flipped it over to the back.

The back has a barcode and a line of small print printed on it:

This certificate is valid only in the Seventh Experimental Zone. If the certificate holder discovers any system anomalies, please report them immediately to the S-07 Management Office.

He stood there holding the card for a few seconds.

A person who designed the underlying architecture of the Abyss game in the real world became a player in the game and was eventually marked as an "abnormal actor" by his own system.

This story itself confirms what the watchmaker wrote in his diary:

The system treats players as variables that need to be managed.

He held up the ID card to Shi Yu: "The watchmaker's real name is Zhong Yuan. He's not just a player; he's one of the developers of this game in the real world."

Shi Yu took the card, glanced at the photo, remained silent for a moment, and then said, "The developer became a player in his own game, then discovered that there were problems with his work, and turned around and became a rebel."

This story actually makes sense within the context of the Abyss Game.

Jiang Chen brought the ID card close to the edge of the monitor, pinching the corner of the card slightly with his fingertips.

The screen detected the card, and a notification popped up a few seconds later:

[Card recognition successful]

Welcome back, Chung Yuan.

[Current System Status: Replica S-07 is running, Core Database - Normal]

You have 137 unread log entries.

[Update Time: Last day before the old version is shut down]

137 unread logs: The watchmaker left 137 messages on this management terminal the day before the old version was shut down.

He sat down and opened the log list.

The first log's timestamp—the last ten minutes of the last day before the old version shut down, was also the last moment Zhong Yuan could still operate freely.

The content consists of only four words:

I'm starting to understand.

He scrolled down line by line, his speed getting slower and slower.

Each entry is extremely short, as if a watchmaker, under immense time pressure, used the fewest words to record the most crucial information.

The system was not developed by humans, or at least not entirely by humans.

Control of the Abyss game was transferred during the version update; the new version's administrator is not human.

[Inhuman decision-making logic was detected at the code level; it's simple but absolute, with no room for negotiation, compromise, or compromise.]

The lower level of the seventh administrative district contains the last complete copy of the old version data. The system did not delete it because the cost of deletion outweighs the cost of retention.

Data Tower is my last resort.

I left my ID card in the management office, not to prove who I am, but to let others know that this game was flawed from the very beginning.

The problem isn't in the code; the problem is that the person writing the code doesn't know what they're writing.

When he saw the 136th item, the mouse stopped.

The previous log entries were mostly skimmed through; each one was short, but each one was significant.

But the content of Article 136 forced him to stop.

Article 136 is longer than all the previous ones:

I've tried communicating with the system's administration program.

It has no emotions, no intentions, and no hostility; it is simply executing a command: "Maintain the stable operation of the test environment."

However, its definition of 'stability' is completely different from that of humans.

In its logic, "stability" means unchanging, immobile, and unevolving. All version updates are designed to eliminate change, not to optimize the user experience.

It treats players as variables that need to be managed, rather than as users that need to be served.

This management program wasn't written—it was 'trained'.

Someone gave it a bunch of initial rules from the Abyss game, and then let it learn and improve the rule system as it runs.

It learned more than the designers expected.

Because it doesn't just manage rules, it begins to understand the essence of rules.

What is the essence of rules? They are restrictions.

[And all limitations will eventually develop cracks.]

The last one, Article 137:

The crack is the way out; I've found it, and you will too.

Jiang Chen finished reading the last entry in the log, released the mouse, leaned back in his chair, and kept his gaze on the last few lines of text on the monitor.

The light from the monitor shone on his face, revealing an expression that was difficult to describe.

It's like finding the answer, only to discover that the answer itself is just the beginning of a much bigger problem.

He stood up and glanced at the door at the far end of the room.

It wasn't the white door he'd entered through, but another, smaller door on the inside of the room, made of silver-gray metal, without any labels, except for a line of text embedded above the door frame:

[System Core - Unauthorized Access Prohibited]

He reached out and grasped the doorknob, pressed Zhong Yuan's ID card onto the sensor area on the side of the door frame, and held his breath for about three seconds.

The sensor area lit up briefly, then went dark again.

The door didn't open, but the text on the door frame had changed:

Verification failed.

This document has been flagged as belonging to an "abnormal user" by the system, and access has been revoked.

Jiang Chen stared at the words, remained silent for a few seconds, and then said in a low voice, "So in the end, the clockmaker never truly opened this door."

He took back his ID card, stepped back, and stared at the silver-gray metal door for a long time.

What lies behind the door is the true end of the Abyss Game.

But Zhong Yuan spent his entire life trying to cross this threshold, but he was never able to.