Chapter 890: Chapter 854: Thank Goodness It’s Gu Mian, We’re Saved!
"With Hero Gu Mian here, we’ll definitely be able to defeat the evil Upper Class People!"
"The Upper Class People have oppressed us for so long, it’s about time their good days came to an end."
"This time might just be a small victory, but it’s the first time we’ve ever defeated the Upper Class People."
"Once we overthrow the evil Upper Class People, this world will belong to us lower-class people... no, by then we’ll be the Upper Class People, and those pale dumplings will be the lower-class ones."
What the hell? What are they calling me?
By now the blinding light had completely faded, and Gu Mian could see his surroundings clearly. This was a rather barren little village, with nothing around but old-looking mud-brick and tile houses.
And Gu Mian was standing right in the "village square" of this place.
Calling it a village square was generous; it was really just a slightly more open patch of ground. People crowded all around him, their faces sallow and gaunt, clothes ragged and torn. They were gathered around him, chattering away in exuberant tones about something.
Their topic was nothing more than what Gu Mian had just heard.
On the ground of the village square were a dozen or so big tables, piled full of food. Although the tables looked packed, a closer look showed the spread wasn’t actually that lavish. Stewed potatoes, fried potatoes, steamed potatoes took up more than half the table space; the rest was all "healthy" green vegetables, with hardly any meat in sight.
A few more fireworks exploded overhead.
Gu Mian looked up at the sky.
It was daytime, so the fireworks were barely visible. Honestly, even if it were night, these fireworks would hardly show.
They were practically just firecrackers chucked into the sky, useful only for making noise.
Clearly, this was a victory banquet.
Judging from what the people around were saying, it was a victory banquet celebrating how "Hero Gu Mian" had led them in defeating the evil Upper Class People for the first time.
What, I’ve been sent to the Paradise World grind? And it doesn’t even seem like the normal timeline.
Gu Mian had heard the story of the Evil God Warrior from Slaughter: they’d originally come to this world to act out a Hero vs Evil Dragon scenario, but that story had been smashed to pieces by the evil Earth through repeated timeline resets.
Slaughter had guessed that the Evil God had defeated the Evil Dragon countless times in that story, but all those efforts had turned to bubbles with every reset.
And now time seemed to have returned to that hopeful beginning, but the protagonist of the story had changed—from the "Evil God Warrior" to "Hero Gu Mian."
The situation in front of him was clearly the Evil God’s handiwork.
Was this really the Paradise World? Or a game fabricated by the Evil God?
Gu Mian thought of that Angel Redemption instance, the one where Chu Changge, 007 and Fatty became three useless save points.
That instance was essentially a game created by the Holy Daughter, stitched together from her own life experiences.
He wondered if what he was seeing now was like Angel Redemption, just another instance crafted by the Evil God.
Just then, a man in ragged clothes stepped forward, speaking to Gu Mian with a tone full of reverence: "Hero Gu Mian, we’ve already driven the Upper Class People back to the nearest Upper Class residential area. That area’s not far from here—should we take this chance to pursue and slaughter them?"
Gu Mian looked at the man’s face.
Although his tone was overflowing with admiration, his face was filled with panic that did not match his voice at all. His eyes were darting around in a flustered way, glancing all over the place, with a hint of confusion in them as well.
Taking a closer look at the faces of the others, Gu Mian discovered that without exception, everyone present was filled with panic and helplessness.
It was bizarre—their facial expressions and their tone of voice clashed way too much.
At that moment, another person stepped forward.
"Hero Gu Mian, I say we should press the attack and wipe out those remaining Upper Class soldiers in one go—they’re no match for us at all."
This man’s tone and expression were just as mismatched. His voice was full of anticipation and arrogance, but his expression was utterly terrified, as if he’d just heard himself utter some unforgivable heresy, as though these words weren’t something he wanted to say.
"Yeah, that’s right, that’s right." The others around them chimed in as they crowded closer.
As they gathered, they used every flattering phrase they could think of to praise Gu Mian, and every vicious word they knew to curse the Upper Class People. Yet their faces all bore the same shared terror and confusion, as if they couldn’t understand why they dared to say such things.
Looking at the ring of fear-stricken faces surrounding him, Gu Mian formed a few guesses in his mind.
"My god, that Hero named Gu Mian from the lower-class is terrifying. He’s so brave in battle, practically unstoppable. I feel like we Upper Class People are going to be defeated by him... damn it, what the hell am I even saying?"
"What on earth is going on? Why did the Jile Island we live on suddenly become this shabby? It looks like it’s been looted... This time we barely managed to hold off Gu Mian’s attack. If he comes to attack Jile Island again, we probably won’t be able to stop him."
"Report, hurry up and report, report to the two Founders, and have the nearby Upper Class districts come support us against Gu Mian... What just happened? Who is Gu Mian? Why can’t I control what I’m saying? And can someone tell me why our place has suddenly become such a dump? This is supposed to be an Upper Class residential area!"
A few minutes earlier, the world had suddenly undergone a drastic upheaval. The Upper Class people discovered that their formerly luxurious residential district had suddenly turned dilapidated.
The beautiful, flat marble floors of the district vanished, replaced by pothole-ridden cement roads; the boutiques that had provided exquisite food disappeared, turning into roadside stalls; all those beautiful, towering high-rises had become low, plain apartment blocks.
It was practically a downgrade in standard of living.
More frightening still, the Upper Class People realized that their bodies, actions, and speech seemed to be controlled by something. They kept saying bizarre things and doing bizarre things.
Almost all the Upper Class People were talking about "Hero Gu Mian."
But in their hearts they had no idea who Gu Mian was. They only felt their mouths opening and closing without their control.
What was this supposed to be, some kind of forced role-play?
Gu Mian could tell that these lower-class people in front of him weren’t under their own control. It was like someone had input a set of mandatory commands into their brains, forcing them to cluster around "Hero Gu Mian" and follow the Hero to crusade against the Upper Class People.
This seemed to be the real Paradise World, but rewound to before everything had happened.
Yet judging from these people in front of him, they clearly still retained their memories from before the reset.
They were thin and frail, their clothes barely covering their bodies, the very image of lower-class people who had been abused for a long time.
But at this point in time, the treatment of lower-class people shouldn’t be this bad yet.
Gu Mian guessed that this reset was probably orchestrated by the Evil God. He’d somehow managed to wrest control of the rewind function from Earth’s grasp; who knew how he’d pulled that off.
It seemed that after the Evil God seized the power to rewind, for reasons unknown, he wanted Gu Mian to walk the same path he once had, just like the Holy Daughter had done back then.
But the Evil God’s abilities were clearly limited—he’d only rewound time, not people. So he’d had no choice but to resort to methods of forcibly controlling these people, making them act according to a preset script, making them follow Hero Gu Mian.
Which was how this awkward scene of people speaking against their own will had come about.
Gu Mian pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a slight headache; he had no idea what the Evil God was playing at.
"Is this supposed to be him making me finish what he couldn’t? But if he already has a rewinding method and can control these people, why doesn’t he just come out and do it himself?"
He really wanted to drag the Evil God out and interrogate him, but unfortunately there was no sign of him, alive or dead; he’d been missing for a long time.
Meanwhile this mess in front of him needed someone to clean it up, and that someone was apparently him. Gu Mian looked at the group of lower-class people surrounding him. Luckily, he knew the basic outline of the script and could follow the plot: he just had to lead these people to defeat the Upper Class People, right?
