Chapter 2: This Idiotic Game
Chapter 2: This Idiotic Game
Pei Ye felt a dull pain in her forehead, and it seemed as though something heavy had glued her eyes shut, making them impossible to open.
That thing...
Was probably eye discharge.
“The patient is awake!”
With great effort, she opened her eyes. What entered her vision was a snow-white ceiling, and her nose was filled with the strong smell of disinfectant.
As soon as she moved slightly, the muscles in her limbs felt like a rusted old machine on the verge of being scrapped, emitting an ear-grating Creak. She had not experienced such total weakness in many years. Pei Ye’s first reaction was that her physical condition had worsened again, but she quickly realized this was not a Federal hospital. In fact, it was somewhere she had never seen before.
She looked around. There was a bed on both her left and right, yet she was the only person in the room.
She was a retired legion commander of the Federation. Even after concealing her identity and temporarily living on a frontier planet, her residence had been a high-security luxury apartment.
If she had fallen ill and been sent to a hospital for emergency treatment, the conditions couldn’t possibly be... this crude, could they?
Even rural clinics on remote planets would be equipped with one or two second-hand machines, yet there was nothing here.
Pei Ye also recalled the female voice she had heard when she first woke up, and her brows furrowed even more tightly.
She could understand a language she had never heard or studied before?
Pei Ye heard unfamiliar footsteps coming from outside the door.
“Patient in bed twenty-three, what’s your name?”
“Where is this place?”
The two spoke simultaneously.
“My name is Pei Ye.”
“This is a hospital.”
On the surface, Pei Ye appeared calm, but inside she was overwhelmed with shock.
The words she had just blurted out...
Were not the Federation Common Language at all!
Not only could she understand this unfamiliar language, she could also speak it and communicate with others?
Pei Ye did her best to suppress her emotions and asked the nurse in an apparently calm manner.
“This is a hospital? Why am I in a hospital?”
The nurse’s gaze swept over the colorful full-arm tattoo on Pei Ye’s right arm. The strange patterns stretched from her shoulder all the way to the back of her hand. At a glance, she looked like some delinquent girl mixed up with gangsters. Still, the nurse couldn’t show any abnormal reaction despite her private guesses, so she casually replied, “You were sleeping by the roadside before dawn and someone brought you to the hospital.”
What respectable girl slept on the side of the road in the middle of the night?
Most likely she had gotten drunk at a bar and been picked up by someone.
Young girls these days had no self-respect and didn’t know how to protect themselves.
Sigh...
The nurse thought she had hidden her thoughts well, but how could Pei Ye fail to notice?
The nurse reminded Pei Ye to pay her fees later.
“Pay fees?”
“The person who brought you here only left a deposit of one hundred. It’s not enough to cover your IV treatment and hospitalization fees. You’ll need to make up the difference.”
Pei Ye responded perfunctorily, “I’ll pay it later. Thank you.”
The nurse measured her temperature and pulse, reminded her of some basic precautions, and then left.
Once the nurse shuffled away in her hole-covered slippers, Pei Ye lifted the blanket and got out of bed.
The soles of her feet touched the cold tiles, and the icy chill shot straight to her head. The completely realistic sensation of touch and sight made her frown deeply.
The highest realism level in Federation holographic games was eighty percent, while the Heavenly Brain network could reach ninety-five percent. These limitations existed as safeguards so people could distinguish reality from illusion. Yet Pei Ye discovered that the place she was in had one hundred percent realism. The people, language, and surroundings were all unfamiliar to her. Just where exactly was this place?
“There’s a door here?”
Looking at the doorknob, she reached out and twisted it...
With a loud Crack, the fragile doorknob instantly detached from the door.
She stared silently at the broken doorknob for two seconds.
“Even an unbranded knockoff product would have better quality than this.”
She casually tossed the doorknob back onto the hospital bed and pushed open the door.
The furnishings behind it were simple. A toilet, a washbasin, a rubbish bin, a mirror, and a showerhead.
After staring for quite a while, Pei Ye finally recognized the room as a bathroom.
“Just where is this place?”
Everything before her was an exhibit one would find in a historical museum. According to records, these were antique items used before humanity left its original home planet.
Pei Ye saw the unfamiliar face reflected in the mirror, its forehead wrapped in bandages, and several images suddenly flashed through her mind.
The dark study, the shameless friend, the damned game...
Pei Ye remembered now. She had lost consciousness after accidentally pressing [Enter Dungeon].
Even if she had been forced to retire from the military because of her physical condition, that didn’t mean she was weak enough to be manipulated at will.
She refused to believe someone could knock her out, transport her here, and even replace her body without her noticing anything at all!!!
Unless...
There was something strange about that game.
Pei Ye took a deep breath and suppressed the prehistoric power surging within her.
“This has to be a virtual space created by the Heavenly Brain. Only that thing has the authority to create a virtual space with one hundred percent realism...”
However, she quickly overturned that conclusion.
No matter how realistic a virtual space was, it could only deceive the five senses. It could never fool her spiritual perception.
This was a real world!
A real world that was not the one she knew.
Beep beep beep
A sudden sound echoed through the small space.
Pei Ye instinctively raised her hand and touched her pocket, her fingertips brushing against a cold, flat, box-like object.
“A mobile phone?”
Another relic from ancient times.
The phone’s screen lit up. The interface was clean and simple. All the icons were unfamiliar except for one that made Pei Ye want to smash the phone.
A flashy pink heart icon with four words beneath it.
[Love and Raising a Child]
“This broken game is still here?”
She wanted to throw the phone, but her fingers honestly opened the app instead.
She had no choice. She had awakened in an unfamiliar environment, and this was the only thing she recognized. It might contain some clues.
After opening the app, she saw the familiar little room. The egg on the stool still had the words [Ah Zai] floating above it.
“No clues?”
She tapped the skull icon once, and the screen finally changed.
[Congratulations, player, for entering the dungeon (The Stunning Good-for-Nothing Celestial Master Has a Red Packet Group).]
Pei Ye: “???”
She continued tapping, and several more lines immediately appeared.
[Battle! Hero: The Stunning Good-for-Nothing Celestial Master Has a Red Packet Group!]
[Team 2/2]
[Completion 0/6]
[Investigate the mystery of the seventy-year-old grandmother’s tragic death (Incomplete)]
[Investigate the mystery of hundreds of sows screaming every night (Incomplete)]
[Investigate the mystery of the missing convenience store condoms (Incomplete)]
[Investigate the mystery of the stolen women’s dormitory underwear (Incomplete)]
[Investigate the mystery of the stolen dormitory bedsheets (Incomplete)]
[Investigate the mystery of the blooming chrysanthemums of handsome young men (Incomplete)]
Pei Ye: “???”
Was this game serious?
She had thought it was taking the route of a proper horror game, yet in one second the style became pure comedy.
[Reward: 2,500 Merit points, 100 Fortune points]
PS: Looking at the words Merit and Fortune, player [Your Dad] feels a strange longing in their heart. You decide to work hard to complete the mission.
Pei Ye: “...”
Which idiot wrote this copy?
When had she ever felt a strange longing for Merit and Fortune?
“I want to leave!”
The moment Pei Ye spoke, several more lines popped up on the phone screen and successfully changed her mind.
[Name]: Pei Ye
[Birthday]: May 14
[Height]: 178 cm
[Account ID]: Your Dad
[Partner Child]: Ah Zai
[Age]: A 333-year-old old woman who lies about her birth date to pretend she’s younger
[Status]: Sinner Under the Heavenly Punishment Evil Curse
PS: Looking at these numbers, player [Your Dad] vaguely realizes that Merit and Fortune are related to the collapse of her spiritual domain. In order to uncover the truth and find a way to extend her life, you decide to work hard to complete the mission (A warning from the game’s creator: All rights of interpretation belong to the Heavenly Brain. Even if you disagree, you still can’t hit me!).
Pei Ye: “Heavenly Brain, I censor-beep your grandfather!”