Weird Game: I brought an old version bug

The golden light lasted for a long time.

When the light faded, Jiang Chen found himself standing in a completely different space.

It was no longer a crystal core, but a huge square with a clock tower in the center, its hands stopped at twelve.

The square was filled with people, men, women, young and old, with different expressions, but all sharing the same emotion—confusion.

"This is..." Jiang Chen looked at everything in front of him.

"All deleted data," the system's voice rang in his ears, clean and youthful, "They were once a part of me, and now, I'm setting them free."

Jiang Chen spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

He had seen some of the faces during the trials, and some he had never seen before.

But on every face was the same expression: the bewilderment of someone who had survived a catastrophe.

They stood together, like a piece of land that had just awakened from its frozen state, slowly regaining its warmth.

An old man, leaning on a cane, walked shakily to the center of the square, looked up at the clock tower, and tears streamed down his wrinkles.

A young mother, holding her child, squatted on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

A teenager stood there, staring blankly at his hands, as if trying to confirm his own existence.

Jiang Chen looked at them and remembered what Zhong Yuan had said.

Deleted data leaves no trace, not even a memory. You disappear, as if you never existed.

But now, they're back.

Lin Xiaohe stood at the front, wearing a white hoodie, looking like an ordinary junior high school student. She saw Jiang Chen, smiled, and waved.

"Jiang Chen!" she ran over. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

"You're not—" Jiang Chen asked uncertainly, "Are you Lin Xiaohe, or just data created by the system?"

"I am Lin Xiaohe," the girl said. "The real Lin Xiaohe. I am the younger sister of Test Subject No. 07. Because the system discovered that I knew its secret, it deleted me. But my memories have always been preserved deep within the core."

"That one in the orphanage—"

"That was an agent the system created using fragments of my memory," Lin Xiaohe said. "It wanted to use my image to test you. But it didn't expect you to actually go and save me."

Jiang Chen squatted down and looked into Lin Xiaohe's eyes: "What about your brother?"

Lin Xiaohe's smile faded slightly: "He's still somewhere in the system. The system said that once the reset is complete, he can be restored."

"The system will do it," Jiang Chen said.

He stood up and looked at the crowd. He saw Zhao Yuan, Liu Meng, Wang Hai, and Xiao Yue emerge from the crowd—they were all injured, but alive.

"You kid, you really cleared it?" Liu Meng walked over and patted Jiang Chen on the shoulder. "I knew it, sending you to the seventh floor was the right thing to do."

"How's the sixth floor?" Jiang Chen asked.

"Don't even mention it," Liu Meng said with a wry smile. "The sixth floor is the 'Corridor of Fear,' and the four of us almost all perished in there. But in the end, we made it through."

"How did you get through it?"

"Because—" Zhao Yuan pushed up his glasses, "Lin Xue left behind those words: 'Don't look back.' The rule of the Corridor of Fear is that the more you fear something, the more you will see it. If you look back, you will be swallowed by fear. We kept walking forward without looking back, and we made it out."

"Lin Xue..." Jiang Chen thought of the girl who betrayed the system at the last moment.

"She's been restored too," Xiaoyue said. "I just saw her in the crowd."

Jiang Chen looked in the direction Xiao Yue pointed—Lin Xue was standing at the edge of the crowd, head down, as if avoiding something. He walked over and stopped in front of her.

"Are you alright?" Jiang Chen asked.

Lin Xue looked up, her eyes a little red: "I never thought I'd be able to come back."

"You made the right choice," Jiang Chen said. "The system won't blame you."

"I'm not afraid of the system blaming me," Lin Xue said. "I'm afraid—you'll blame me. I lied to you, I started lying to you from the very first stop."

"You didn't lie to us until the end," Jiang Chen said. "You gave us the key, and you left those words behind. You saved everyone."

Lin Xue was silent for a few seconds, then smiled—it was the first time Jiang Chen had ever seen her smile genuinely.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. You saved yourself."

Jiang Chen turned around and looked at the clock tower in the center of the square. The hands of the clock tower began to move—slowly moving from twelve o'clock toward one o'clock.

"Time marches on," the system's voice sounded again. "Once the reset is complete, this world will return to normal. All deleted data will be restored to its original position. But—"

"But what?"

"But some things cannot be restored," the system's voice said with a hint of apology, "such as memories that have been completely erased. Such as souls that have vanished in countless reincarnations."

Jiang Chen thought of Zhong Yuan.

Zhong Yuan sacrificed himself, and his consciousness completely dissipated. He was no longer among the crowd.

"Zhong Yuan—"

Jiang Chen's voice was somewhat hoarse. He recalled Zhong Yuan standing on the sacrificial altar—those data chains piercing his body, his life slipping away like sand in an hourglass, yet his face showed no fear, only relief. He had waited 138 reincarnations, and this moment had finally arrived.

"He used 138 cycles of reincarnation to achieve your success," the system said. "His consciousness has been completely integrated into my core. I cannot restore him to an independent personality, but a part of him will live on forever in my protocol."

Jiang Chen clenched his fist, then relaxed it.

He will be satisfied.

"There's one more person," the system said, "Shigure."

Jiang Chen's heart started racing.

Where is she?

"She's not in this square," the system said, "because she doesn't belong to the deleted data—she's the living core, part of what keeps me running. After the reset, she no longer needs to be the core, but she needs a new body."

"A new body?"

"Yes," the system said, "I can use data to build a body for her, allowing her to live like a normal person. But this process will take time—and it will require your consent."

Why do I need to give my consent?

"Because whether she chooses to stay in this world or return to the real world is up to you."

Jiang Chen was stunned.

"You mean, she can come back with me?"

"Okay," the system said, "but at the cost of giving up all the abilities she has gained in this world. She is no longer the administrator, no longer the living core, but just an ordinary data consciousness, written into a body usable in the real world."

"What if she chooses to stay here?"

"Then she can retain all her abilities and become one of the administrators of this world."

Jiang Chen lowered his head and thought for a moment.

"Let me see her."

In the center of the square, the golden light converged once more, forming a figure. When the light faded, Shi Yu stood before him—wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans, her hair tied in a ponytail, a lollipop dangling from her mouth.

"Jiang Chen," she said with a smile.

"Shigure".

They stood face to face, and the surrounding crowd automatically made way for them.

"You've lost weight," Shigure said. "You must have suffered a lot during the trials, right?"

"It's alright," Jiang Chen said, "I just really miss you."

"Me too," Shigure said. "I waited at the top of the tower for a long time. I thought you wouldn't come back."

"You promised to wait for me, and I will definitely come back."

Shi Yu smiled, her eyes crinkling into crescents: "You've changed a lot. You're not the naive kid you were when you first came in."

"You haven't changed," Jiang Chen said, "you still love sucking on lollipops as much as ever."

"I'm used to it," Shigure said, taking the thing out of her mouth. "This helps me stay calm. During my time as the core, I relied entirely on this to stay conscious."

"The system says you can choose to come back with me, or stay here."

Shi Yu was silent for a few seconds, then said, "What do you want me to do?"

"I hope you choose what you truly want," Jiang Chen said, "not for me, but for yourself."

Shi Yu looked at him, her eyes filled with a complex emotion.

"You know, in those 138 reincarnations, I've thought countless times about what I would do if I were ever free. I've thought about going to see the sea, about eating all the delicious food in the world, about living an ordinary life in a world without these bizarre games."

"But I've also thought, what will happen to this world if I'm gone? Who will take care of the deleted data, the struggling test subjects, the memories that haven't been recovered?"

"You don't need to shoulder this alone," Jiang Chen said. "This world is no longer just about one person."

Shi Yu smiled, a bright and cheerful smile.

"You're right, it's not just my problem anymore."

She turned around, looking at the crowd in the square, at the clock tower, and at this golden world.

"I'll stay and help the system rebuild this world," Shigure said, "but—I'll leave a door open for you forever."

"What door?"

"The Gate of Choice," Shigure said, "is a place you can come back anytime. This is your second home."

Jiang Chen looked at her and smiled.

"Then it's settled."

"It's a deal."

Shi Yu reached out her hand, and Jiang Chen grasped it.

Her hands were warm, not a simulated temperature, but a real, pulsed, living temperature. Jiang Chen could feel her fingers tightening slightly, as if confirming that he was there too.

"Your hands are warmer than before," Shi Yu said.

"Because I've come back to life," Jiang Chen said. "Not like before, dying and then coming back to life—I've truly come back to life."

Shi Yu smiled, but as she smiled, her eyes reddened.

"I'm alive again," she said. "Thank you, Jiang Chen."

Shi Yu reached out her hand, and Jiang Chen grasped it.

Golden light spilled from between their clasped hands, like a newborn star emitting a warm glow in this reset world.

The crowd in the square began to notice the light. They looked up at the sky above the clock tower—where the once gray void was now being bathed in golden light, like a painting being repainted with sunlight.

I don't know who was the first to applaud.

Then, applause, like a tidal wave, spread from the center of the square outwards, growing louder and more intense. The old, the children, the young, the middle-aged—everyone clapped, not to celebrate anything in particular, but simply because—they had come back to life.

Jiang Chen looked at Shi Yu, and Shi Yu looked at him.

"Did you hear that?" Shigure said.

"I heard it," Jiang Chen said. "This world is breathing."