Chapter 1112: Chapter 111: My Love (16)
Li Ang slowly raised his hand from his pocket, and for some reason, a black handgun appeared in his palm, exactly the one from the bedside table in the bedroom on the Second Floor of the Spirit Realm.
At the moment of seeing the gun, Steven’s parents’ expressions shifted from shock and disbelief to terror and despair, and then to a kind of helpless acceptance.
The couple hugged each other tightly, standing there without saying a word, already prepared,
while Barbara’s face remained clouded, her lips tightly pressed, her facial muscles tense.
"...Do you really have to do this?"
Barbara spoke slowly, and the cross in her hand shone brightly, dispelling the black fog that pervaded the room,
or rather, the fog didn’t need to be dispelled; it was deliberately released by Barbara to force Steven into action.
"Isn’t dreaming better?
In the real world, you’re a total failure, unloved, with no partner.
Ordinary and mundane, numb and muddled, like a walking corpse, dwelling at the unnoticed bottom.
But here, you have a decent job, a handsome salary, loving parents, children who adore and love you."
Barbara asked in a deep voice, "What the real world can give you, this world can also give you,
and what the real world can’t give you, this world can still give you.
Your life has regained meaning,
so why wake up?"
"Why wake up..."
Li Ang held the gun, leisurely tapped the gun handle with his thumb, and calmly said, "That’s indeed a good question.
For ordinary people, the ultimate aim of a lifetime of toil is to attain happiness.
Physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs, self-actualization, and transcendence needs.
I am not sure what Steven’s situation is in the real world,
maybe he’s a young drifter with no skills and a deficient mind,
enjoying riding motorcycles, speeding down highways, seeking an adrenaline rush to stimulate numb nerves.
Maybe he’s a self-conscious, introverted high school or college student,
who started with dreams of changing the world, gradually realizing the harsh realities and his lacking talents, admitting his mediocrity, becoming despondent and melancholic.
In any case, in the real world, he’s at a lower level in the hierarchy of needs, otherwise, he wouldn’t weave such a sweet dream.
In secular terms, he’s a... failure, a loser."
Li Ang paused for a moment, then said indifferently, "But if we judge a person’s stature by the hierarchy of needs,
then the vast majority of people in the world don’t qualify as human.
Different growth circumstances, innate conditions, and levels of education,
determine the diverse differences between people.
The paintings on the walls in this room are just inferior modern printed artworks,
and the books on the shelves are a mess, with just beginnings, no endings.
Even in a dream world,
Steven can only imagine himself as wealthy but not cultured.
He likes to follow the trend of reading popular books, pursues some obscure subcultures, enjoys reciting a few lines of classic songs or novels, a typical youth,
using ’obscure’ things to dress himself up and show his unique aesthetic taste.
However, that’s not the issue, nor the focus.
The point is, he’s a good person.
In this new world, having gained better starting conditions, he works hard, takes care of his family, accompanies his wife, raises his children,
within his abilities, he’s done everything he could.
And a good person doesn’t continue to deceive others,
erase others’ free will, turning everyone into dolls in his playhouse."
Li Ang paused, looked at Barbara’s expression, and said in advance, "I know what you want to say.
If Steven wakes up, everything in the dream will cease to exist.
Steven’s ’parents’,
Steven’s children,
will all disappear on the dream’s level as he awakens."
"...Robin and Rin are such lovely children."
Barbara remained silent for a long time, then said, "My own death doesn’t matter.
Knowing that I don’t actually exist,
the seventy years of life I’ve experienced,
the people I’ve met, the things that have happened, the love I’ve given and received,
were all imagined and fabricated by someone,
I’ve become indifferent.
But, can you really bear to let Robin and Rin vanish?"
"I am not the creator of this world, nor can I fathom Steven’s mindset while dreaming."
Li Ang said indifferently, "But I can do what Steven needs to but cannot.
Such as, salvation.
In the upper real world, there’s someone about to die who needs me to save them."
"Who... exactly are you?"
Barbara finally reacted belatedly, looking at Li Ang with eyes full of confusion and uncertainty.
"Just a passerby doing it for fun."
Li Ang twirled the gun, stepped out wide strides from the living room, stepped before the main door,
raised the gun, aimed at the door handle, and squeezed the trigger with force.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang!
Six gunshots rang, the door handle was blasted away,
from the hole in the wooden door handle oozed a gentle yellow light, utterly different from the moonlight outside.
"Whew."
Li Ang blew out the smoke rising from the gun muzzle, pushed open the wooden door, and walked toward the infinite light.
————
"Beep, beep, beep—"
The sound of electronic instruments echoed in the hospital ward.
An elderly nurse with Barbara’s face was making the bed again when she heard a rustling movement.
The patient on the bed, wrapped in bandages, sat up.
"You..."
The elderly nurse, with a name tag bearing Barbara’s name, looked at him in stunned surprise, and memories of the patient’s medical record, with multiple bone fractures, flashed in her mind.
"Hello, Barbara, nice to see you again."
The patient nodded politely, showing no trace of broken bones,
as he pulled off the blankets and stood up from the bed,
while casually tearing off the bandages wrapped around him, revealing muscles slightly slack from long inactivity.
"Where is the patient on the bed next to me now?"
"In... the operating room upstairs."
Barbara, instead of rushing to stop him from his seemingly suicidal action, answered his question errantly,
as if unable to lie while looking into his pale blue eyes.
"Alright, thank you."
The young patient nodded,
tore the sheets from the bed and tossed them behind.
In mid-air, the sheet changed color and shape, and when it settled on the youth, it had turned into a high-end suit,
Even the underwear, trousers, and leather boots were all properly prepared.
"Goodbye, Barbara."
The young man snapped his fingers, casually releasing Spiritual Energy,
and gently smiled at the elderly nurse who suddenly fell into a daze, then strode out of the ward into the corridor.
The corridor was filled with a faint scent of disinfectant.
The handsome young man in a high-end suit casually glanced around,
wherever he went, the surveillance cameras in the corridor sparked, temporarily falling into a dysfunctional state.
He took the elevator and went upstairs,
his expression was frivolous, yet no doctors, nurses, or patients’ family members gave him a second glance on the way.
It was as if he didn’t exist in this world at all.
"Operating room, operating room..."
The young man murmured to himself, crossing one ward after another, and finally stopped in front of an operating room door.
On the bench in front of the operating room, an elderly couple dressed decently, their appearance, the young man knew all too well.
The elderly couple had red-rimmed eyes, clutching each other’s hands tightly, anxiously waiting for the result inside the operating room.
Beep——
With a sound, the red light sign saying "In Surgery" above the operating room door slowly went off,
the door was pushed open, and the middle-aged doctor who walked out shook his head with a pained expression at the elderly couple who ran over.
The elderly woman burst into tears, her husband with red-rimmed eyes, held her tightly, preventing her from fainting to the ground.
Life and death, too common in the hospital,
no one noticed, or rather, everyone ignored,
the young man walking into the operating room, ignoring the medical staff cleaning the surgical scene, he came to the side of the operating table, looking at the young girl on the bed.
"We meet again, Mavis."
The young man tilted his head, releasing countless extremely thin plant vines from his palm toward the girl,
the plant vines pierced the opponent’s skin, collecting data, reconstructing the body.
Brain activity resumed, the heart thudded, and even the pale, bloodless face regained its usual warmth.
The young man slowly retracted his hand, turned, and left. As he entered the elevator again,
he could faintly hear from the distant operating room, the incredible cries of the medical staff, and the ecstatic cries of Mavis’ parents.
The corner of the young man’s mouth lifted, giving a faint smile as he exited the elevator, heading to the courtyard in front of the hospital building, where he found a bench to sit.
Admiring the flowers and plants in the courtyard,
while waiting for the countdown to end.
"Hello, may I sit here?"
A voice came from the right,
Li Ang raised an eyebrow and looked over.
The speaker was an ordinary-looking middle-aged white man, dressed in a hospital orderly uniform.
"Who might you be..."
Li Ang tilted his head, his fingers lightly tapping the back of the wooden bench.
He had already released a wide-range Spiritual Energy, everyone within this area would ignore him, or rather, the existence of Steven.
Unless, the person wasn’t human.
"Leopold Christian."
The white orderly pointed at the name tag hanging from his chest and smiled gently, "Of course, you can also call me by another name.
Sibi King."
"..."
Li Ang slowly retracted his smile, calmly looking at the other party.
The white orderly who claimed to be Sibi King smiled and said, "You don’t seem too surprised?"
"Why are you able to appear here."
Li Ang said faintly, "Or, rather, when."
"Hehe, no need to be nervous."
Sibi King laughed, "You should be able to feel it, right? I’m just a mere illusion without substance.
I’m not haunting you,
in fact, at this very moment, I am simultaneously appearing in the script tasks of a total of fifty-three players in the real world."
"Appearing simultaneously?"
Li Ang frowned, and at the moment he uncovered the truth of the Spirit Realm, he regained the Transcendent abilities sealed by the game, even if the other person was the real Sibi King, it might not be impossible to fight,
what’s more, he had just repeatedly checked with Spiritual Energy and Divine Power, the so-called Leopold Christian white orderly standing in front of him was really just an ordinary middle-aged white man,
the only special place might be that the opponent’s God Soul was slightly stronger than that of ordinary people.
"That’s right."
Sibi King naturally sat on the other side of the bench, crossed his legs, and casually said, "In the real world, my remaining body must have triggered some large-scale change,
attracting a large number of players.
In the end, my body was either destroyed by you or self-destructed.
This triggered the identification mechanism of the game, letting those who participated in the action to destroy Sibi King’s body,
simultaneously receive the script task based on me as the prototype."
"Based on you as the prototype?"
Li Ang squinted his eyes, accumulating Divine Power while calmly asking, "What do you mean by that?
What exactly are you?"
"Me? I’m just one of the countless souls of Sibi King remaining in the world."
The white orderly named Leopold grinned and said casually, "Steven is me,
Leopold is me,
Barbara is me.
When you walk down the streets of the real world, you might see one of the millions of me."
"..."
Li Ang narrowed his eyes, thoughts flashed through his mind about the mystic books on the essence of souls he had obtained from the Side Truth, and he slowly said, "You... did you voluntarily split your soul and reincarnate to avoid the game’s hunt?"
"That’s right."
Sibi King nodded, calmly said, "As you know, I am indeed the king named Sibi in the Depilatory city of India’s Jambudweepa Continent in Ancient India,
a history that dates back over four thousand years ago.
You can understand me as an ancient player from several ages ago.
In my era, there truly were God Immortals and Buddha, yokai, and monsters,
the game at that time did not intend to separate the coexistence of the divine and humanity.
I became a player as a king (although we did not call ourselves players at the time),
braving the edges of life and death, growing stronger step by step, possessing power comparable to gods and Buddha."
Sibi King paused, calmly said, "Like other Transcendents from various ages in the game,
those gods and Buddha of our time also faced the test of death.
Even with powers to move mountains and fill seas, when the game wants you dead, no one can survive.
The only way is to rely on the Power of Faith from countless living beings,
to reshape oneself, to survive and continue in the form of gods and Buddha.
At first, I also thought this was the way.
Accepted the so-called god’s (you call him Di Shitian and Vimalakīrti Heaven) invitation, and became a Buddha in the heavens.
But soon, I discovered a problem."
