Chapter 1 A Fleeting Glimmer

A faint golden radiance slanted down into the city, awakening the peaceful little town from its nightly dreams. Hao Ren watched as the surrounding streets gradually came to life, with the breakfast stalls and small supermarkets opening early, their lights flickering on. The shopkeepers lazily greeted each other while opening their doors. Someone was loudly chatting about a ball game from the night before, while some elderly people doing morning exercises discussed the strong winds of the past few days—everywhere was a scene of the most ordinary everyday life, as if this peaceful and tranquil existence had continued for decades.

If he hadn't known the truth about this world, Hao Ren might have mistakenly thought he'd been transported to a mundane, Earth-like planet upon his first arrival. But now, looking at the scene before him, he only felt a strong sense of unease seeping from his bones, a sense of unease mixed with an inexplicable anxiety. The development was not right. Although this illusory world had suddenly put on a seemingly beautiful performance, it probably wasn't a good sign.

Nolan had said that this world's reset cycle was not fixed, with the longest lasting decades or even centuries, and the shortest resetting within a few years. But in any case, it would never suddenly switch "scripts" after only two days of running a new stage, and switch to such a baffling era of peace and prosperity, as if those dozens of world wars were just a joke that had been erased.

Hao Ren speculated about what was controlling this world behind the scenes. He instinctively ruled out the "human" factor, because this world's simulation program and operating characteristics were more like a program.

And the current situation might mean that the program was losing control.

Of course, it was also possible that everything was due to his rashly touching the "boundary," resulting in data overflow that forced the program behind the world to temporarily reset the entire sandbox. But that still couldn't explain the sudden change in script style.

Following the guidance of the navigation signal, Hao Ren arrived in the center of town. Before him was a gently sloping road leading upwards, lined with beautiful poplars on both sides. At the end of the slope, he could see a school that looked like a high school. Everywhere on the slope were boys and girls hurrying to school, wearing school uniforms and carrying backpacks, and from time to time someone would stop and look curiously at Hao Ren, a strange uncle holding strange equipment and taking pictures. Hao Ren ignored the students. He sighed slightly about his long-gone campus life, then jogged to the end of the slope, where a gray-haired figure finally appeared in his sight.

Nolan was standing somewhat bored at the school gate, watching the students come and go. She was also wearing the same student uniform, and the end of her sentinel scepter was poking out from the corner of her backpack: it looked like the handle of an umbrella. She seemed a little troubled by her new identity. Although she had indeed had a student life in one of the past cycles, that was at least a thousand years ago in her memory. The dozens of cycles of experience fighting in wars made her quite unaccustomed to this sudden peaceful life, until Hao Ren's greeting freed her from this trouble.

"Nolan!" Hao Ren called out to the gray-haired girl ahead. The latter turned her head and looked over in surprise, then immediately trotted over.

"Hao Ren?" Nolan looked at Hao Ren in surprise. "I thought you'd been reset to a place far away. I didn't expect you to be in this town too?"

"It's a long story. I did go to a very far place," Hao Ren said, looking around. "Do you know what's going on?"

Nolan shrugged. "I don't know. It seems like the world suddenly reset. I woke up and found myself walking to school, and then I suddenly remembered my current identity halfway there."

She pointed to herself with a slightly amused expression. "Student council president—can you believe it?"

"My PDA can run and jump, so what's there for me not to believe," Hao Ren said casually. He noticed that more and more students were looking over here out of curiosity, so he immediately lowered his voice. "Can we find a place to talk? I feel like something's wrong."

Nolan didn't waste any time. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked away. "Okay, let's go."

As soon as she took a step, a middle-aged woman who looked like a dean of students popped out of nowhere and shouted in a shrill voice, "Nolan? What are you doing? Class is about to start..."

Nolan waved her hand without looking back. "I'm taking a leave of absence. I won't be coming today!"

After saying that, she pulled Hao Ren and ran towards the other end of the slope, leaving behind a group of stunned students and a dean who hadn't yet reacted. It wasn't until the two of them ran to an intersection that they heard the teacher's shouts coming from behind. Nolan winked at the slightly dazed Hao Ren. "My setting in this stage is a good student with excellent character and academics. I didn't follow the script in the very first scene."

As she spoke, she suddenly laughed, and the laughter grew louder and louder, from a smile to a burst of laughter, until she was almost out of breath. Hao Ren silently watched the other party act like a madman, and when he couldn't bear to watch any longer, he raised his hand and patted the other party's shoulder. "Well, you've laughed enough..."

"Sorry, I just feel like this is really ridiculous," Nolan took a few breaths to steady herself, and sighed softly. "We were fighting desperately on the battlefield just two days ago, and suddenly we're thrown into a place like this... There should be a limit to how乱来 the script is."

"So you don't know how this script suddenly changed like this either?" Hao Ren looked at Nolan suspiciously.

Nolan didn't answer directly, but changed the subject. "Actually, don't you think this is very good? It looks like there's peace everywhere... I've talked to some people, and it seems like there are no signs of war in the entire world. Regardless of whether this world is real or fake, if this situation can continue, it would actually be pretty good... Even if it can't continue forever, it would be nice to have a few more days like this."

Hao Ren finally confirmed some of the guesses in his heart. "You do know something after all, don't you?"

Nolan looked up at the morning sun in the sky, and was silent for a long time before finally sighing. "...This is probably the last beautiful dream."

The Surface World.

Hao Ren's "dive" had lasted for several days. Nangong Wuyue was humming a little tune while wiping Hao Ren's "coffin lid" with a rag. At this time, the hibernation pod suddenly opened a crack, and the data terminal嗖 (sou) shot out from inside. Wuyue immediately stiffened, coiling herself into a series of springs, and shaking her upper body to see what the heck shot out.

After seeing that it was the data terminal, she relaxed. "Oh, it's Terminal Brick—why hasn't the landlord woken up yet?"

The first thing the data terminal did was to quickly circle in the air twice, and then sigh with human-like satisfaction. "噫 (yi)—this body is really easy to use. I don't even have to turn my neck to look around... Oh, Wuyue, you quickly call everyone over. There's serious business! Hao Ren might be preparing to pull off something big, and we need people to come and hold down the fort!"

At this time, Lily had already heard the noise and ran downstairs. "What's going on? Where are we going to kill, and how many?"

"It's still uncertain," the terminal whistled as it flew around. "Speaking of which, do you guys know? This unit suddenly discovered that it has a maiden's heart诶 (ei)..."

Nangong Wuyue and Lily: "?"

For every inspector, the data terminal is their most important assistant—its importance even exceeds all of their armed rations and personal spaceships. Data terminals not only come with all the assistant programs needed to carry out tasks, but they can also replace their owners in performing many of the tasks that originally required the inspector to perform themselves. Inspectors can issue temporary permissions to their data terminals, allowing them to control their personal space and various weapons and equipment. In this case, their functions are almost equivalent to a clone of the inspector.

Although this clone is sometimes a dogsbody...

Soon, everyone was gathered and entered the Dream Plane through the Tanagus Rift. The data terminal successfully opened Hao Ren's personal space through the "transfer" method. The real Tortoise Rock Platform was indeed parked properly inside.

"Oh oh oh! This slot is really the best for this unit!" The terminal screamed excitedly as it was stuck in its dedicated throne. Being able to reconnect to the slot made it feel like its entire PDA had been reborn. "You guys don't know, this unit tried its best before and couldn't squeeze in. I really don't understand what's good about becoming a human... Or maybe this unit's ass is too big?"

The terminal was acting like a madman on the console, and the surrounding abnormal creatures looked at each other. Izhaks glanced at the console and whispered to Vivian next to him, "Is this thing... broken?"

Vivian curled her lips. "It might be short-circuited. I told you that the landlord shouldn't let Dou Dou play with it all day. Electronic products can't get wet..."

The terminal turned a deaf ear to the surrounding people's comments. Being able to control the spaceship again made it extremely happy. Following the navigation signal transmitted by the exploration drones, it started the Tortoise Rock Platform's jump program. In the next instant, the spaceship had arrived in a strange and distant star zone.

Previously, it and Hao Ren had successfully sent out a little bit of navigation information at the "boundary" of that virtual world. That information was enough to guide the exploration drone群 (qun) scattered in the Dream Plane to a roughly five-light-year radius. Fortunately, although this area was remote, the jump engines of the drone群 (qun) were still able to quickly reach this place. By the time the Tortoise Rock Platform arrived, those drones had successfully found the planet that was suspected to be Zolm.

The real Zolm, not the virtual world, but the Zolm located in the real universe.

The Tortoise Rock Platform joined forces with the reconnaissance drone that had made the contribution, and then hovered over the target planet. Looking at the spectacular and terrifying scene before him, the data terminal let out a long sigh. "卧 (wo)—槽 (cao)—"

Vivian immediately turned her head and looked at the silver-white hibernation pod placed next to her. She nervously pressed the coffin lid of the latter. "The landlord's consciousness is on that planet?!"

The terminal screamed. "Notify him immediately! This unit calculates that this damn place probably won't last more than forty-eight hours!"