Chapter 902: Chapter 865: We Sincerely Apologize for Any Inconvenience Caused
Those born on stage don’t know where to escape, their lives are all drama.
Even knowing they’re on stage, they can’t find the way out, let alone change the stage that traps them.
But Gu Mian is different.
He can come down from the stage to the stage, and he can leave the stage, even destroy the stage.
Thinking of this, he understood something: "So that’s it, every time I start over, I repeat the ’stepping onto the stage’ step, I understand now..."
"What are you talking about?" Slaughter couldn’t understand Gu Mian’s words.
"I’m saying, I can save you all, I can save this world." Gu Mian looked at the distant phantom of the crowd.
In countless struggles, one party among the crowd had already gained control of the world’s narrative, they seemed happy and carefree, entirely without the need for anyone’s "salvation".
But Gu Mian didn’t care what they thought.
Whether they need saving or not, it wasn’t up to them to say.
Slaughter seemed to understand what Gu Mian wanted to do, he took a deep breath.
"Can you do it?" He didn’t look at Gu Mian, just at the far-off phantoms of the joyous crowd.
"I’ve stepped on and off the stage countless times, I used to be able to do it many times. But back then, I didn’t know what was in front of me, now I know."
"It’s long overdue." Torture, lying on the ground, spoke, the grass underneath him had turned into a desert, he stared at the sky, motionless, half his body buried in the sand, "This damned world should’ve been scrapped long ago, I can’t stand another minute."
As they spoke, the settlement panel in front of the three began to gradually turn transparent.
The surroundings started to darken again.
Gu Mian watched as Slaughter and Torture’s faces started to fade away beside him, the cheers and laughter from the distant crowd grew further away, until they disappeared completely.
Surrounded by darkness, Gu Mian knew this was the prelude to the story beginning anew.
He knew he had now left the stage.
Familiar light spots flickered again in front of Gu Mian, a step he had to go through before each restart.
Gu Mian used to not know what it was, but now he knew.
He had heard the cheers from the light spots before, they were the sounds of the world, the voices of the characters on the stage.
This is the Paradise World.
Although he didn’t know why it appeared this way from the outside, there was no time to think much about it now.
Soon, it would pull the curtain of light, enveloping Gu Mian in the stage.
This time, Gu Mian didn’t give it the chance to pull the curtain.
At the first moment the light spot appeared, Gu Mian reached out and tightly grasped it. He felt the light spot in his hand trying to expand, stretch, and swallow people.
But Gu Mian held it tightly, not giving it any chance to take him on stage.
Without the light, Gu Mian was in boundless darkness.
He heard something shatter in the darkness, coming from his hand.
He saw shattered light spill through his fingers, he heard soft music coming from his hand, but gradually the light became dimmer, and the music softer.
He felt the world in his hand becoming smaller, until it seemed to solidify.
After a long while, when Gu Mian was sure the world in his hand had completely calmed down, he opened his hand to look.
He saw lying in his hand... a seed?
Wait, is there light?
He could see what was in his hand now.
Where did the light come from? Gu Mian looked around, only to see an ancient tree trunk.
The trunk was massive, the grooves on it were almost as wide as an arm.
Gu Mian didn’t understand why a tree suddenly appeared in front of him, he wanted to take a few steps back to see the overall view of the trunk, suddenly a sense of weightlessness hit him, he seemed to be falling down.
The surrounding scenery kept changing, finally freezing.
"Doctor!" A eardrum-piercing voice came to his ear, it was from Fatty.
Gu Mian turned his head to look around; this was his room, he had already returned to Earth.
Fatty was crying out loud: "Doctor, you finally came back, doctor, do you know how I got through these three years?"
Gu Mian turned to look at the calendar hanging on the wall, which Fatty specifically bought to record the birthdays of everyone in the apartment, Fatty diligently circled every birthday date and noted down the names next to them so he could remember everyone’s birthday.
"Three years? Wasn’t it just three days?" Gu Mian looked at the calendar that only showed a few days had passed.
"I felt like three autumns had passed during a single day." Fatty quickly argued.
Then he started to circle around Gu Mian, looking him up and down: "Doctor, where have you been these days? We found you missing after exiting the Fierce Ghost Exhibition instance, scared us terrible."
"Went to play house in the Paradise World."
"Play house?" Fatty was puzzled, "How did the doctor go? If you bury people in the ground, they can go to Paradise World?"
Gu Mian wasn’t clear on how he reached Paradise World either, after being buried in the dirt he seemed to float in darkness, until he encountered the light spot of Paradise World.
Now Paradise World was no longer in its original place.
Gu Mian looked down at his palm, had it turned into a seed that he brought into the real world?
Honestly, he couldn’t understand why the world turned into a seed, it felt like something magical would happen if he planted the seed.
Would the Paradise World directly grow in the real world after planting the seed?
He didn’t know how the NPCs and people in Paradise were doing.
Also, what was that tree he saw before returning to the real world, at that time he didn’t see the full view of the tree, he only saw the ancient bark. Before he could see clearly, he began to fall, as if he fell from the tree.
During the fall, he seemed to see something hanging on the tree, densely packed, but before Gu Mian could see clearly, he was back in the real world.
Gu Mian had many questions, but no one could answer them now.
At this moment, hurried footsteps sounded from outside, followed by the Fortune-teller’s voice: "That person, the one wearing the cloak, was walking in front of me just now and suddenly twisted his foot and hit his head on the wall, passing out. I wanted to drag him to his room but I couldn’t do it alone..."
The Fortune-teller rushed into the room, immediately seeing Gu Mian sitting on the bed.
She was stunned for several seconds before responding: "When did you come back?"
"Just now." Gu Mian asked, "Who did you say hit the wall?"
"The one with ’Anonymous’ on his head, he calls himself Xie Bi’an." Xie Bi’an usually didn’t interact with others much, with a big red ’Anonymous’ above his head, so the Fortune-teller took a few seconds to remember his name.
Was it because Paradise was brought into the real world by me, last time when Twilight Gods World had problems, Xiao Qiao fainted, now Xie Bi’an is?
"He probably didn’t pass out because his head hit the wall." In his heart, Gu Mian added, it was because he fainted that his head hit the wall.
He thought of the scene in Jinche Room at the end of the Fierce Ghost Exhibition instance: "Did something happen to Xiao Qiao?"
"There was a little issue." Fatty nodded, "Miss Xiao Qiao fainted and fell down the stairs, but she woke up yesterday, and now she’s lively again."
It seems the problem in Twilight Gods World isn’t too serious, it can still hold on.
Last time when something happened in Twilight Gods World, Guardians from other worlds also sensed it, not sure if they sensed anything this time.
Thinking of this, Gu Mian glanced around the room, not finding Chu Changge: "Where’s Chu Changge?"
"I’m here." A voice came from outside the door.
Gu Mian looked towards the door, he saw Chu Changge standing outside the apartment, Liu Ruyan following behind him.
At this moment, Liu Ruyan was looking at Gu Mian with a hesitant expression, after several seconds she finally spoke: "I feel like something went wrong with Paradise World... No, I can’t seem to sense Paradise World anymore. You went to Paradise World during your disappearance these days, right."
Liu Ruyan can’t sense Paradise World anymore.
Gu Mian knew there were certain links between Low-Dimensional worlds, he didn’t know if Paradise World’s disappearance affected other worlds.
At this moment, Fatty suddenly called out: "The game has posted a new announcement."
Gu Mian didn’t need to look to guess what the new announcement said.
Paradise World was simply gone, the instances in it naturally disappeared too, the new announcement would just be a long list of instances going out of service.
Sure enough, a long list of Paradise-themed instance names were listed in the announcement, informing players that due to data errors those instances would no longer be available.
The last line had a very official apology — "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you."
