PTM 88

Chapter 88: Then I Would Have Waited a Lifetime

When I opened my eyes, the transparent dome and the starry sky above me were no longer there, but a dark green canvas.

For a moment, I was gripped by overwhelming fear, as if I had fallen back into the endless cycle of dreams where I lost something and then regained it, only to lose it again upon waking.

I quickly sat up, looked around, and realized that I was probably in a military tent.

The tent wasn’t small, but it wasn’t spacious either. I slept on an inflatable mat, still wearing the outfit I wore for the celebration, covered with a crumpled green blanket.

Seeing this outfit made me calm down a bit. Then, I began to examine my hands.

The only light source in the entire space was an orange tent lamp next to the floor mat. The dim light softly spread across my hands. It wasn’t bright, but it was enough for me to see every thin callus and every scar on my palms.

No. Although there were some signs of labor, my hands were still very “clean,” which was perfectly in line with my age of over twenty.

I clenched my fist, and to make a final check, I raised my hand and touched the back of my neck.

It didn’t take long for my fingertip to touch a slightly raised, hard bump, which was the key to the nerve tentacles’ ability to combine reality and virtuality.

I remembered when the celebration ended… after the fake celebration ended, I came out of the neuro-navigation pod and felt very uncomfortable. At that time, I subconsciously touched the back of my neck, trying to confirm whether I was in the metaverse or the real world, but something interfered with my cognition, causing my finger to slide over that spot, and I was completely unaware that the chip had disappeared without a trace.

My muscles and bones were sore, and my stomach also slightly ached, but it was no longer stolen contentthe kind of severe cramping that could make me faint. It was more like a normal reaction to prolonged fasting and dehydration.

On a folding table not far away was a plate of hearty sandwiches, a glass of milk, and my terminal.

I used the floor mat for support and stood up. I walked to the table, and picked up the terminal first.

The screen lit up, and the battery still had charge, but the signal bar in the upper right corner was completely empty. The signal was blocked. At this point, besides displaying the date and time, it was useless, essentially a piece of scrap metal.

I checked the date. In my mind, five years had passed since the celebration day, but on the terminal, it was only the second day after the celebration day, at two o’clock in the morning.

Not even 24 hours had passed…

Unexpectedly, days of hunting geese led to my eyes being pecked out by the geese. I spent years deceiving Zong Yanlei… and in the end, he outmaneuvered me.

I put down the terminal, picked up a sandwich from the plate, and stuffed it into my mouth. As I chewed, I lifted a piece of the adhesive curtain covering the window and looked out through the crack.

Several large searchlights illuminated the open space outside the tents, their cold white beams shooting straight out in all directions, turning the surroundings as bright as day. Squads of heavily armed soldiers patrolled back and forth in the shadows of the searchlights, their steps orderly and their expressions solemn.

In the distance, the temporary spherical glass building in the square was brightly lit, and several heavy military trucks could be seen guarding the entrance.

It was Zhong Xiaoshan’s army. It seemed the entire Zhongyang District had been taken over.

I let go of the curtain and slowly retreated back into the tent.

After finishing the sandwich, I drank the milk in a few gulps, glanced at the knife on the table, and picked it up.

Not sharp, but it was good enough.

I sat back down cross-legged on the mat, and groped for the chip with one hand while holding the knife in the other. I took a deep breath and slowly inserted the tip of the knife into my skin.

A sharp pain erupted from that point, but I didn’t stop.

The blade slowly cut through the subcutaneous tissue, making a soft “click” sound when it touched the small, hard piece. I gritted my teeth and used the tip of the blade as a pry bar to peel it away from the muscle fibers connected to the nerve endings.

Blood gushed from the wound. It trickled down my neck and quickly soaked my collar.

I pinched the bloody chip, which was no bigger than a fingernail, and pulled it out of my flesh.

This tiny thing connected the entire metaverse. Hundreds of millions of people used it to enter virtual space, make friends, work, fall in love, and hav fun… An entire civilization rested upon this fingernail-sized surface.

Just then, footsteps sounded outside the tent. The next instant, the curtain was lifted, and Zong Yanlei walked in.

“You—” He saw my “miserable state” at a glance. He froze for two seconds, his face turned pale, and then quickly green.

He took two steps towards me, snatched the knife from my hand, and threw it to the ground, the metal clanging against the floor with a piercing sound. Then, he grabbed a napkin from the table and pressed it against the wound on the back of my neck, pressing so hard that my head slumped down.

“Are you crazy? Do you know what you’re doing?” His tone was urgent and angry. He used his free hand to pinch my chin and lift my face to check my pupil response. “Press it yourself. I’ll call the doctor right now…” With that, he turned to leave.

“Don’t go!” I threw aside the blood-stained visit our site chip and grabbed his wrist. “I’m fine, don’t go.”

He paused, then turned around.

We looked at each other. The tent was quiet, with only the muffled sound of footsteps and sporadic static from the walkie-talkies coming from outside.

I tightened my grip, used a little more force, and pulled him toward me.

“It’s just a minor injury. Don’t go, stay with me.” I pleaded, “Let me take a good look at you.”

He took two steps forward as I pulled him, and felt the force dissipate, so he stopped resisting.

“…What’s wrong with you?” His tone gradually softened. He resignedly knelt on one knee on the mat and took the napkin from the back of my neck again. “Do you have some kind of masochistic tendency?”

“No.” I clutched his collar, moved closer to him, and said, “I just don’t want to enter the metaverse anymore.”

The pressure on my wound tightened for a moment, then quickly eased. Zong Yanlei remained silent for a while, then raised his other hand and touched my face.

He rubbed under my eyes twice, but didn’t feel any liquid, and then exhaled very softly.

“Are you angry with me?” As he spoke, he shifted his weight back, and sat down cross-legged. At the same time, he reached under my armpit with his other hand and lifted me up like a piece of luggage before encircling me between his legs.

I leaned against him, inhaled the scent of his perfume, and felt a long-lost sense of peace.

“I’ve never been angry with you. Besides, getting angry won’t solve anything about what’s stolen content already happened,” I said.

“Still so rational, Messiah.” He said with a smile, his voice resonating softly from his chest.

We nestled together for a while.

“Don’t you have anything to ask me?” He loosened the napkin and moved his hand away when he saw that the bleeding had stopped.

I lifted my face and looked into his eyes: “Is the person you are now the real you?”

“One hundred percent,” he replied confidently.

“What about you in the metaverse?”

“That’s real too.” He paused. “And before I entered, I had Balaka erase part of my memories.”

“Why?”

What I wanted to ask was why he erased his memories, but he misunderstood me, thinking I was asking why he went in.

“Because I don’t want a bunch of data to replace me.” His eyes narrowed dangerously, and the hand around my waist tightened. “If I hadn’t gone in, the person kissing and making love with you at the Prime Minister’s residence would have been a fake ‘Zong Yanlei’.”

…Well, that was a legitimate reason.

The muffled, distant sound of changing guard commands drifted from outside the tent.

“So for those five… four years, you believed it was real just like me? How did you manage it, with the key?”I raised my hand and caressed his face with the back of my fingers.

“Yes,” he explained, “It was a highly realistic simulation sandbox. After all participants entered the neuro-navigation pods, Balaka would drive the entire world to operate based on each person’s true personality and behavioral patterns. Even for those who had not entered this sandbox, Balaka could perfectly simulate it using existing data.”

This also explained why Ye Shuer did not enter the metaverse on the celebration day, but still appeared in those false five years.

Who else hadn’t entered the neuro-navigation pods? Or entered and exited quickly? Wuxi Li? Chu Luo? Zhong Xiaoshan?

If everything after the celebration day was just a simulation, then did the scandal of the old emperor and the pope stealing bodies actually spread in the real world?

I had many questions. Perhaps I should try to contact Ye Shuer immediately, find out more details about Zong Yanlei’s plan, and inquire about the whereabouts of my ally, Yu Xuan… However, it was still so late at night, and my body was still very weak. Even taking an hour to recover my strength would not be too much to ask.

“Does it hurt?” I leaned in and kissed Zong Yanlei’s neck.

He shuddered and let out a low groan.

“It doesn’t actually hurt much when you’re beheaded, it’s too quick.” As he spoke, his Adam’s apple bobbed gently beneath my lips. “The pain was in the first four years.”

Four years.

This number felt like a needle piercing the softest part of my heart.

After I faked my death, he searched for me for four whole years. Until he was beheaded [unauthorized copy]by Jin Ke, we never truly saw each other again.

“I don’t want to bring up the past, so I won’t pursue your behavior over the past four years.” After a while, he added, “But there won’t be a next time.”

Upon hearing the last sentence, I smiled.

“How long did you wait for me in that garden?” I asked again while stroking his neck.

“I don’t remember. Due to the time compression, it might have been a few months?” His tone was as casual as if he were saying, “I went to the convenience store and bought a cup of coffee.” “Balaka set the trigger conditions. As long as you ‘died’ in the metaverse, the simulation would end, and it would guide you to my space.”

If he and I perceived the same flow of time, it meant that he waited for me alone in that garden for a year.

“You couldn’t have known when I’d die, right? What if I lived a long time in the simulation, and then died peacefully in my eighties or nineties?”

He did not answer immediately.

After several seconds, his chest rose and fell, as if he were sighing or laughing.

“Then I would have waited a lifetime.”