Weird Game: I brought an old version bug

The train stopped.

There were no announcements, no station lights, and no sound of doors opening.

It just stopped abruptly, like the sudden cardiac arrest of a running wild beast, plunging the whole world into deathly silence.

Jiang Chen opened his eyes and sensed that something was wrong.

The darkness outside the window hadn't disappeared, but something new had appeared within it.

The faint, warm yellow light made it seem as if someone in the distance had lights on.

He stood up and walked to the car door, but the door did not open automatically.

He reached out and pushed the door open. Outside was not a platform, but a stone-paved road lined with sycamore trees, their leaves rustling in the night breeze.

There was a familiar smell in the air—the smoky aroma of a barbecue stall, mixed with the sweltering heat of summer.

Jiang Chen was stunned.

He recognized the street. It was the street in front of his university, a street he had walked countless times.

The milk tea shop on the street corner, the pancake stall at the entrance, and the record store that always plays Jay Chou's music.

Everything is still there, as if he had never left.

He glanced back; the train had already disappeared.

He stood on an ordinary street, with no dagger in his hand, no Appendix S in his pocket, and no injuries on his body.

He looked down at himself: T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

I had a cell phone in my pocket, the screen was lit up, and the lock screen showed the date: Saturday, June 15, 2024.

He took a deep breath and pinched the web between his thumb and forefinger with his fingernail.

—It hurts, it really hurts.

[Warning: Reconnaissance skill cannot be activated]

[WARNING: Skill panel cannot be opened]

[WARNING: Backpack system is unresponsive]

There were no system notification sounds, no text panel, nothing at all.

But deep in his consciousness, he could sense that those things were still there.

It was simply blocked by some force, like being pressed underwater; you could see it, but couldn't reach it.

"Jiang Chen!"

A voice came from behind.

He turned around and saw a girl in a white dress running towards him.

The girl smiled, her hair in a ponytail, with a few fine beads of sweat on her forehead, and she was carrying two cups of milk tea.

"Have you been waiting long? I've been in line for ages," she said, handing him one of the cups. "Your favorite, bubble tea, no ice, 70% sugar."

Jiang Chen took the milk tea and looked at the face; he didn't recognize it.

No, he knows him.

He recognized the face; it was on a page of Lao Shen's notebook, in a passage of text in the 07 Team's mobile archives.

But he had never met her in person, let alone arranged to meet her at the university gate.

"What's wrong?" The girl tilted her head. "You don't look well."

"What's your name?" Jiang Chen asked.

The girl paused for a moment, then laughed: "Are you still half asleep? I'm Shen Yu, your girlfriend, the one you chased from freshman to junior year before finally winning her over, have you forgotten?"

Shen Yu.

Shen - rain.

Replace "Shi" in Shiyu with "Shen".

Jiang Chen gripped the milk tea cup tightly, his fingertips turning slightly white.

He understood—this was not an illusion, but a "replacement".

The system did not create a false world, but instead extracted fragments from his deleted memories and pieced them together to create an "if".

If he hadn't entered the eerie game, if he had just been an ordinary college student, if he had never met Shigure.

That's probably what his life was like.

"Are you alright?" Shen Yu waved her hand in front of him. "Did you have low blood sugar again? I told you to eat breakfast—"

"It's nothing." Jiang Chen smiled and took a sip of the milk tea.

It was sweet, and the pearls were soft—just the taste he liked. But he knew in his heart that it was all fake.

It's not that the girl in front of him is fake, but rather that this "if" is fake.

He has already entered the bizarre game, encountered Shigure, and passed through the shadow of 138 reincarnations. It is impossible for him to return to this "what if".

He followed Shen Yu along the street, observing as they went.

The street is very well-preserved; every brick, every street lamp, and every leaf is meticulously crafted.

This shows that the system put a lot of effort into constructing this illusion.

It wasn't just to trap him, but also to make him "not want to leave."

Because this place is just too perfect.

There are no monsters, no rules, no trials, and no death.

There was only the summer night breeze, the sweetness of milk tea, and a girl smiling as she waited for him to return.

They reached the entrance of a residential complex. Shen Yu stopped and turned to look at him: "We're here. Why don't you come up and sit for a bit?"

Jiang Chen looked up at the building—six stories high, no elevator, clothes hanging on the balcony, and one apartment with a light on.

"Is this your home?" Jiang Chen asked.

"Otherwise what?" Shen Yu smiled and took his hand. "You've already dropped me off at my doorstep, why don't you come in and sit down? My parents are away on a business trip, and no one's home."

Jiang Chen stood still, without moving.

He could feel the ground beneath his feet trembling slightly.

It's not a real vibration, but a deeper, more conscious fluctuation.

This illusion is functioning, consuming some kind of energy. And the cost of maintaining it must be considerable.

He needs to find the "core" of this illusion in order to break it, just as he broke the mirror in the mirror hospital and tore out the pages of the library.

"Let's do it another day," Jiang Chen said.

Shen Yu's expression froze for a moment, but she quickly smiled again: "Okay, see you tomorrow then, want to go to the movies with me?"

"it is good."

Jiang Chen watched Shen Yu walk into the building, watched her lights come on, and then turned and left.

He walked down the deserted streets and began to seriously consider the design logic of this illusion.

The system won't arrange a "perfect life" for him for no reason.

There must be a flaw, a loophole, in this place, and some way for him to find an exit.

He needs to find the "rules" of this illusion.

[Fourth Stop: Ideal Land]

[Instance Type: Mental Corruption]

[Completion condition: Find the hidden exit]

[Hint: Everything you own is real—unless you discover it isn't.]

Jiang Chen narrowed his eyes.

"Everything you have is real—unless you discover it isn't."

This hint is quite interesting. It doesn't say that everything is fake, but rather, "unless you discover that it isn't."

This means that in this illusion, most things are real: real touch, real temperature, real emotions.

There must be something fake, and he needs to find out what's fake in order to find a way out.

He needs to create an "anomaly" to cause cracks in this illusion.

The next day, he accompanied Shen Yu to the movies as agreed.

The movie was a domestic romance film that he had never seen before. The plot was very cliché: the male and female protagonists meet in the rain, separate due to a misunderstanding, and finally reunite at the airport.

Shen Yu was very engrossed in watching, and when she saw something touching, she leaned on his shoulder and cried.

Jiang Chen handed her a tissue, but he was thinking about something else.

He noticed that no system prompts were displayed on the movie theater screen.

There's no countdown, no rules, no control panel. This in itself is abnormal.

In this world, the eerie game "does not exist".

But the eerie game is real, and everything he experienced was real.

Therefore, the underlying logic of this world is based on "denying reality".

It denies the existence of eerie games, so anything related to games cannot be presented in this world.

What if he could make things from the game "appear" in this world?

After the movie ended, they walked out of the cinema.

Shen Yu was still discussing the plot when Jiang Chen suddenly stopped and took a piece of paper out of his pocket.

A blank page torn from a book in the library.

He bit his finger and drew an inverted hourglass on a piece of paper.

"What are you doing?" Shen Yu looked at him, her eyes filled with confusion. "Your hand is bleeding!"

Jiang Chen didn't answer. He stared at the paper, anticipating some kind of change.

But nothing happened.

The pages remained blank, and the symbols on the inverted hourglass did not glow.

This world refuses to acknowledge anything related to the game; even external signatures cannot be activated.

He put the paper away and smiled at Shen Yu: "It's nothing, I just accidentally scratched it."

Over the next few days, he tried various methods.

He tried to carve words on the wall, but the marks would disappear the next day.

He tried to bring up the "creepy game" with others, but every time he mentioned the word, the other person would automatically ignore it, and the topic would be seamlessly shifted to something else.

He tried to stay up late at night, waiting for signs of "maintenance" to appear in this illusion.

But every night was normal, so normal that it was despairing.

Shen Yu came to see him every day.

They ate together, went shopping together, watched movies together, and took walks together on the playground.

Shen Yu would tell him funny stories from her childhood, complain about how tiring her work was, and ask him what his plans were for the future.

She was so real, so real, that Jiang Chen sometimes forgot that she was a product of data.

He even began to wonder if he had really gone mad.

Perhaps he never experienced any strange games, perhaps those memories were hallucinations caused by pressure, perhaps he was just an ordinary college student, having an ordinary relationship and living an ordinary life.

But every time he had this thought, he would think of Shigure.

He remembered the look in her eyes when she stood at the top of the tower and said to him, "Jiang Chen, I'm back."

I remember her words when she left behind the Gate of Choice and became the lock: "You will definitely come back."

He remembered her smiling at him in Lab 07, a lollipop in her mouth.

Those memories were so real, they couldn't possibly be fake.

On the tenth night, he sat on the bed in his rented room, looking at the moon outside the window.

The moon was round and bright, but he noticed that its position was exactly the same as yesterday, and the curtains on the opposite apartment building were also drawn in the same spot.

He remembered clearly that the moon should have shifted above the chimney, but it didn't.

He glanced at his phone—Tuesday, June 25th. He suddenly realized that he hadn't seen the date change in the ten days between June 15th and June 25th.

He decided to verify it.

At midnight, he stared at his phone.

00: 00.

The date changed from June 25th to June 25th – no change.

He refreshed and reopened the calendar, but all the dates were stuck on June 25th, as if he were stuck.

He smiled.

He finally found the first anomaly—the "time" in this world was fake.

It appears to be flowing, but in reality, each day is a copy of the same day, only with different scenes and dialogues, giving him the illusion that "time is passing."

Once he discovered this anomaly, the whole world began to "loosen".

The ground beneath my feet trembled slightly, and the moon outside the window began to flicker, like a screen with a poor signal.

Jiang Chen stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open forcefully.

The city outside the window is fading little by little, like a painting being soaked in water.

He heard a voice, not through his ears, but directly within his consciousness:

"You've discovered it."

Jiang Chen turned around and saw Shen Yu standing behind him.

But her expression changed. It was no longer that of a smiling girl, but a calm, scrutinizing gaze.

"You found out," she repeated, "and so what? What are you planning to do?"

"Who are you?" Jiang Chen asked.

"Me?" Shen Yu tilted her head. "I am the image that is closest to 'happiness' in your memory."

The system extracted it from your subconscious and then created me.

I am not your enemy, Jiang Chen. I am everything you once longed for.

Jiang Chen remained silent for a few seconds.

"You're fake."

"Of course," Shen Yu smiled, "but who can say that those things in reality aren't fake?"

Can you be sure that street, that bubble tea shop, that campus are real?

"You're quite the talker," Jiang Chen said.

"I'm just stating your subconscious thoughts," Shen Yu took a step closer, "Do you know why you've been trapped here for so long? It's not because the system is too powerful, but because a part of you wants to stay."

"You're tired, Jiang Chen. You don't want to face those trials anymore, you don't want to die anymore, you don't want to see more people sacrifice themselves because of you."

Jiang Chen did not refute.

Because he knew she was telling the truth; he was indeed tired.

From the moment he stepped into the bizarre game, he hardly ever got any real rest.

Fight, die, resurrect, fight again, in an endless cycle.

He did think about how wonderful it would have been if none of this had ever happened.

"But you still found a flaw," Shen Yu sighed. "Do you know why?"

Why?

"Because in your heart, there is someone more important than me."

Shen Yu smiled, but there was a hint of bitterness in her smile: "Did you notice? In this illusion, I gave you everything."

Milk tea, movies, dates, companionship.

But there's one thing I've never done.

I have never stood beside you, facing danger, like she did.

Jiang Chen understood.

This illusion gave him everything except "Shigure".

Because the system cannot replicate Shiyu, she is a living core, the most unique existence in the entire system, and even the system itself cannot completely simulate her.

"So," Shen Yu took a step back and stood by the window, "you should leave."

She reached out and pushed open the window.

The window didn't open outwards; instead, it cracked open like a mirror, revealing a pure white light behind it.

"Let's go," Shen Yu said. "The next time you see me, I won't be Shen Yu anymore. I'll be part of the system, and I'll do everything in my power to stop you."

Jiang Chen glanced at her, then turned and walked toward the cracked window.

He stepped over the windowsill and glanced back—Shen Yu was still standing there, smiling, waving goodbye like a real girlfriend seeing her boyfriend off.

Then he jumped into the pure white light.

[Fourth stop: Ideal Land, now cleared]

[Customs Clearance Rating: Grade A]

[Reward: Memory Fragment - Anchor Point x1]

[Reward Description: Can mark "real coordinates" to prevent self-awareness from being rewritten]

Jiang Chen opened his eyes and found himself standing in a train carriage.

The train door was open, and a dim yellow light shone on the platform outside.

The bus stop sign reads: 【OBS-07-DEL-04】

He got off the bus.

In his pocket, the blank page was still there, but now there was a black hourglass symbol on it—it wasn't drawn by him, it appeared automatically.

He counted and found three things in his pocket: wildflowers, gardenias, and blank book pages.

He looked up and gazed ahead.

At the end of the platform is a corridor, and the walls on both sides of the corridor are covered with dense text.

It wasn't any language he could understand, but a symbol he had never seen before.

But strangely enough, he understood the meaning of those symbols.

"Welcome to the fourth stop—the end of the ideal world."

"Fifth stop, waiting."

"You still have four more trials to go."

Jiang Chen put the things out of his pocket, clenched his fist, and walked forward along the corridor.

At the end of the corridor, there was another platform, where a train was parked with its doors open, as if waiting for him.

But this time, there was a note stuck to the train window.

The note contained only one line of text:

"Next stop, don't trust anyone."

Jiang Chen looked at the note, smiled, and boarded the train.