Chapter 137: Questioning Chen Shuya
[Why? If they’re alive, can’t they just come out when the instance opens again?]
[Heh, if that were the case, wouldn’t all players who failed to clear an instance before it closed be able to come right back out? Impossible. It’s just a matter of dying sooner or dying later.]
[As far as I know, no player has ever encountered someone lost in an instance before.]
[Right, didn’t someone say before that it might be due to different time and space? Every time an instance opens, it’s actually not in the same spatiotemporal plane as the last time.]
[Hard to say, but what a pity.]
[Pity for what? He brought it on himself! He kept breaking the instances and was targeted by the game long ago. The game’s probably been itching to kill him off for a while now.]
[Besides, can just anyone break an instance whenever they want? Every time people cleared a stage with him, they’d die because he turned the instance into a complete mess. Someone like him had it coming!]
[The keyboard warrior above, put your real name down if you have the guts! Come say that to the Yongrui Guild!]
[Dumbass keyboard warrior. Our guild leader destroyed those instances to find a way to destroy the game sooner! You guys sit there spouting cynical rubbish—why don’t you all go die in the game earlier then?]
The comment section degenerated into an outright brawl after that.
“Sis!” Xu Shengsheng’s voice called out, and Bai Cha closed the interface panel.
“Are you alright?” Bai Cha looked Xu Shengsheng up and down.
“I’m fine! I was just curious and asked a few extra questions.” Saying this, she looked around. “There are so many people! Are there really this many players?”
“Yeah. Let me get out first.”
“Okay.” Xu Shengsheng nodded obediently.
Bai Cha had actually intended to drop by the Yongrui Guild, but… she doubted their guild would see her right now anyway, and she wasn’t familiar with them to begin with.
Besides, even if she went, what could she accomplish? Her current strength was no match for Xu Ming-wang’s. If even Xu Ming-wang had suffered a tragic end inside the instance, what hope did she have?
It was just that owing a favor she couldn’t repay left her in a foul mood.
When something like this happened, she would inevitably end up losing things elsewhere.
Returning to reality, time remained frozen at the moment right before they had entered the game—just as dawn was breaking.
Xu Shengsheng wore her hair short because her mother firmly believed that long hair would steal nutrients from the brain, preventing her from studying hard.
Upon waking up, she froze momentarily, rubbed her messy hair, and ambled into Bai Cha’s room.
“Sis, so time really doesn’t advance? I thought…”
“Mhm. Time inside the instances sometimes syncs with reality, and sometimes it doesn’t. Just in case, if an instance isn’t too dangerous, you still need to remember to study.”
Bai Cha reached out to stroke her hair, smoothing out the tangles for her.
Xu Shengsheng pulled a long face.
“I know… I’ll study hard. Otherwise, my mom will definitely force me to repeat a year, and I really don’t want to repeat a year.”
Bai Cha let out a soft chuckle and briefly explained the general structure of the instances to her, including player ranks and rank advancement.
Xu Shengsheng’s head spun as she listened.
“Furthermore, if you die in an instance, I should still be able to remember you, but your parents will forget you. Every trace of your existence in this world will be wiped clean.”
Xu Shengsheng choked on her breath.
Then, on second thought, her expression softened.
“Isn’t that actually pretty good? At least they won’t be sad.”
Bai Cha fell silent for a moment.
“I haven’t met anyone who has actually experienced having a truly important person wiped out. I always feel that… this forgetting isn’t absolute.”
Traces of a person’s life were easy to erase.
People who had only spent a short time together would naturally forget one another over time anyway.
However, for people who had lived together for decades and shared deep bonds of affection, could they really forget?
Or rather, even if memories could be erased, what about habits?
“In any case, survive as best as you can. We will break free from this game eventually.”
“Mhm… By the way, Sis, what was the deal with the plot of that instance anyway?” Xu Shengsheng changed the topic, finding the current mood a bit too heavy.
Bai Cha explained the story to her while getting up to make breakfast for her.
Xu Shengsheng stayed by her side to help out.
“Ah… that’s so pitiful…”
By the time she finished listening, tears and snot were streaming down Xu Shengsheng’s face.
“If only Ji Xiaolan hadn’t been born deep in those mountains.”
If she had lived in a place that wasn’t quite as ignorant and backward, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.
“Without Ji Xiaolan, there would still be a Li Xiaolan or a Liu Xiaolan.”
Bai Cha ladled out the food. Seeing the girl crying so heartwrenchingly, she helplessly freed a hand to wipe her tears.
“We can’t choose where we are born, but we can change ourselves, and we can change others. Though the latter is difficult, there will always be people willing to try.”
“Sobbing…”
“Alright, stop crying. Hurry up and eat your breakfast so you can get to school.”
Xu Shengsheng: “…”
After Xu Shengsheng left, Bai Cha pulled out the ink orchid.
She hadn’t brought this up with Xu Shengsheng because she didn’t want the girl to know that these events might have actually taken place in reality.
Keeping the game and reality completely separate was the best thing for Xu Shengsheng at her current stage.
It would be best to let her gradually learn more only after she cleared a few more games.
Ideally, it would be after she finished her college entrance exams.
Bai Cha wasn’t intentionally nagging Xu Shengsheng about the exams every single day; rather, she was terrified that Xu Shengsheng might gradually give up on reality.
Just like now—having returned from the game, she felt so physically exhausted that she only wanted to lie there, unwilling to move even a single finger.
Her entire body ached with discomfort.
She had developed another fever. It wasn’t high, but her head throbbed with a persistent ache.
She had been enduring it all along, never showing a hint of it on her face.
Yet once Xu Shengsheng departed, the exhaustion on her face could no longer be concealed no matter what.
She let out a quiet sigh and checked her phone. The professor had sent a notification asking her to attend her thesis defense tomorrow.
And then there was this ink orchid in her hand.
The overwhelming rush of busyness brought on by all these mounting tasks that she simply had to handle made her feel so exhausted her spine felt ready to buckle.
Forcing herself to sit upright with a surge of willpower, Bai Cha dialed Chen Shuya’s phone number.
She had made a conscious effort to memorize it while checking the messages back in the instance.
If Chen Shuya’s phone number hadn’t changed, there shouldn’t be any issue. Worse comes to worst, she could also add her on QQ or WeChat—she had memorized those accounts as well.
She just hoped she could succeed on her first try, because she was truly running on empty.
“Hello? Who is this?” a voice answered on the other end of the line.
“Is this Chen Shuya?”
“Yes, and you are…?”
Bai Cha pressed her icy cold hand against her forehead to grant herself a moment of relief, though her brows still furrowed tightly despite herself.
Speaking at a somewhat slow pace, she said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I have something that Ji Xiaolan left behind. I wanted to ask if Ji Xiaolan is around?”
The sound of a chair scraping across the floor echoed from the other end.
“Ji Xiaolan? What item?” Chen Shuya’s voice spiked with intense emotion.
“A flower—an ink orchid. She left it in my care back then and asked me to contact her in September this year. But something came up on my end recently, so I wanted to reach out early, only to find I couldn’t get through to her.”
Bai Cha’s voice sounded frail and weak, genuinely conveying the impression that she was unwell.
Chen Shuya didn’t doubt her in the slightest.
“So that’s how it is… Xiaolan has already passed away. She died several years ago. It was the lake water in their mountain village. A heavy rainstorm hit that year and flooded the entire village. No one survived.”
Her tone sank, unable to mask her desolation.
Bai Cha’s half-closed eyes snapped wide open.
“Flooded?”
