The floor trembled, and the crowd around frantically rushed to escape.
Ada stood frozen, stunned for a long ti before he finally regained his senses. He took one step, then another, and walked out of the hospital...
During this ti, he didn’t look back, not even once.
...
He didn’t return to regroup with the others, nor did he bother to conceal his face. His pace quickened, speeding up until he was almost running down the street! Finally, he dashed into the nearest service station by the hospital!
He found the leaderboard for the Queen’s Nest in the categories list and saw that the top-ranked team was still the NB Team!
points.
But their team na had turned grey.
Grey ant that this team no longer existed.
—During the event, teams cannot disband voluntarily. However, if the team leader dies, and the remaining team mbers haven’t been on the team for at least a month, the team is still dissolved.
Ada stared intently at that now-greyed-out na.
The na he had mocked and ridiculed countless tis, the team he had unexpectedly stayed with for more than a month—it was gone...
It no longer existed...
...
The mountains were unbroken, lush and seamless.
The shadows of dark green leaves danced as sunlight filtered through, enveloping the houses in their dim glow. The old structures exuded an added chill of desolation.
This was the most remote house among all of Nick’s properties.
By the ti Ada returned, it was already late. Bai Youwei was in the living room scribbling and drawing. When she saw him walk in, she raised her hand to greet him.
"Ada, I’ve got good news for you! Of the remaining two dungeons, one has a shortcut. We can clear it quickly, and if all goes well, we’ll finish off all the dungeons today~"
Ada smiled faintly. "Really? That’s great."
Bai Youwei looked at him and tilted her head slightly. "What’s wrong with you?"
"Nothing’s wrong." Ada kept smiling. "...I’m fine."
Compared to those less fortunate, I really am fine.
...
They eventually cleared all the dungeons smoothly.
Upon completing this goal, all four of their personal panels displayed the sa ssage:
[Teleportation is about to begin. Please prepare yourselves. The countdown starts now—
23:59,
23:58,
23:57...]
They waited the full 24 hours, doing nothing but staying indoors—sotis staring into the distance, sotis gazing at the sky.
They wondered what teleportation would be like. Would the beings from the skies appear? Would soone co to pick them up? What would happen when they arrived in the Sky World?
Filled with countless questions, they waited patiently. But for so reason, their consciousness began to blur. Uncontrollably, they grew drowsier and drowsier.
In the end, even Bai Youwei couldn’t resist it. She slumped over the table, losing consciousness.
When she woke up again, she was in a container resembling a hibernation pod, just having been awakened by soone.
Alongside her, Shen Mo, Ada, and Nick were also being awakened at the sa ti.
Due to the prolonged hibernation, their bodies were extrely sluggish and weak—so much so that even speaking was a challenge, as their tongues seed tied in knots.
They were taken to a facility akin to a rehabilitation center, where they underwent a seven-day recovery program and gradually learned about this so-called "Sky World."
This world was not much different from the Human World Bai Youwei rembered—sa towering skyscrapers, sa congested traffic. The difference was that resources here were incredibly scarce, and the population was overwhelmingly large. As a result, the rulers forced a portion of humanity into hibernation to conserve resources.
At first, only prison inmates were put into hibernation.
Later, it expanded to include vagrants, scavengers, patients unable to afford dical treatnt, debt-ridden poor people, the ntally deficient, and so on and so forth—they were all put into hibernation.
Those forced into hibernation had their mories uniformly erased, their bodies placed into hibernation pods, and their consciousness transferred into a live-stream world to "live" in another form.
Now, they were awake, and all their mories had returned.
Ada rembered that he had an ailing fiancé. To fund her surgery, he had taken the fall for a wealthy scion in exchange for a reward.
Nick rembered being an entrepreneur who had built his business from scratch, only to be deceived by a partner and left with insurmountable debt.
Shen Mo also rembered why he and Bai Youwei ended up here in the first place.
Was this truly the real Human World?
Bai Youwei didn’t know.
The rabbit wasn’t by her side anymore, and she began to lose the ability to discern what was real. She could only watch as a man in a work uniform in front of her opened and closed his mouth, speaking lodiously as he explained:
"RB Group has established a live-stream charity fund. Each year, only the best-performing team is selected—you are this year’s lucky winners! Next, you will serve as RB Group’s ambassadors, promoting the company’s products as part of a year-long endorsent campaign!
Congratulations, stars! Soon, we will arrange your debut appearance. We’re looking forward to your fans going wild with excitent!"
Bai Youwei and Shen Mo exchanged glances.
Was it real?
Or was it fake?
Could this be...yet another heart-wrenching puppet world?
No one knew.
...
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