So the man woke up.

It was as if it was really just another dream, and the man was still lying heavily on the floor, his glasses falling to the side, his vision blurred, and the muscles and joints of his neck and shoulders were hungry for better treatment.

Is it really a dream? The man asked himself silently, he remembered every detail of everything that happened in that "dream", as if it were not happening in front of him but in his mind. There has never been a dream that has been as real as it has just been and filled with a sense of trust.

That's right, trust, a man has an indescribable trust in everything that happens in that dream, including the options proposed by the dream fairy before waking up:

Borrow a new identity in a new world and start your journey to the top again.

Or do you think this has never happened, and continue to be a relatively successful man in this world.

With those generous guarantees and conditions, men don't hesitate for too long on this multiple-choice question, but only if both options are true.

No matter how unconditional the trust is, a normal person will have the slightest suspicion of such a situation that is beyond common sense, or even beyond the laws of the world.

The man struggled to get up from the floor again, no lighter and more vigorous than in the dream, and in this reality the man was tired of his body, and it was difficult to say anything about health.

He tried to lean his upper body back, until there was a muffled "click" in his right shoulder blade, and he felt that his body had recovered somewhat, so he rubbed his eyes again, picked up the glasses frame from his feet and put them in front of his eyes, and then he saw the living room that he was already very familiar with again.

The man shook his shoulders, habitually trying to pull out his phone to confirm the time, but felt empty in his pockets - not only did he not bring a cigarette, but he didn't seem to have anything with him, so he had to look up at the wall clock on the wall of the main hall...... But there, the man did not see a wall clock. It was not at all the same as the clock he remembered, and on the wall hung a set of old and delicate gear sets, colored streamers instead of axles flowing in the gears, and this delicate mechanism seemed to have no other purpose.

Except to tell the man that he was indeed working on that multiple-choice question.

When it came to the end, the man did not have any nervousness, but as if he was facing his fate coming step by step, his heart was full of peace and calmness. He was even in the mood to look around, once again taking a serious look at the living room, which he had long been more familiar with:

The team that I run is here - eat here every day, the cooking skills of the training base aunt are not bad, the two young players especially like her good dish of shredded back to the pot, they have eaten here together for half a year, and have engaged in dozens of team building in the form of werewolf killing, and then broke up unhappily.

The core veteran left to establish a new team, although he is still under his own club, but he is no longer training here, the two main players of the team, it can almost be said that they played with themselves on the debut, and the young players who played together are also a little absent-minded, which is also helpless, and it is wrong to say anything without results.

Maybe he really wasn't a qualified coach or a qualified manager, the man shook his head and walked to the dining table in the center of the living room and sat down. His expectations for this team are very high, and it can be said that every position is a player who has been carefully selected, talented and accomplished, but this team has never been able to applaud him once in an official competition, and he has also handed in a blank sheet in all the Dota teams' annual big test World Invitational tournaments, and he has not even been able to qualify.

What went wrong, the man thought about it more than ten times and a hundred times, and finally came to the conclusion that it was nothing more than that: Ci is not in charge of the army.

As the core of the team, the two young players played with him, and won the Asian Major in 2017 with himself as teammates, but he did not take into account the atmosphere of the players when he formed the team - these two players were hot in the transfer market when they first formed the team, and every reorganized or newly built team that wanted to play an olive branch was thrown to them, but they resolutely chose the team they built. The team didn't even have a training base.

But unlike what they imagined, after the team was formed, the real core position was a player who had a good relationship with him, and in this veteran, this should be more important, because the man was the only friend left who could joke with each other after the veteran player offended all the people in the circle. He came here to see his face, and even did not hesitate to fall out with the original club again.

He is reluctant to let go of any of these three people, but the facts have also proved that such three people cannot play the effect that fame should have.

The wolf wept and the stars sank into the sea.

Of course, some people persuaded him, saying that the team played like this because the chemistry of the team members was not good enough, and there was no need to take all these things on his head. But the man really couldn't bear to tell these people that they weren't suitable for this team, and the man hoped that the self-esteem of the once victors and the shame of defeat would spur them to do better, but what he didn't expect was that they would even simply make a mess.

Failed, and this time his attempt to form his own team was even more unsuccessful than the attempt of the player in his own seat on the field.

If it were to do it all over again, the man couldn't help but think that maybe he wouldn't have formed this team at all, and let the players who should show their talents go where they could, instead of being in this team with no achievements by his little face.

He's really not the material to lead the team, and he's more suited to being a thug, unfortunately he didn't know until a long time later.

The man shook his head, dispelling these indifferent thoughts, the mistakes he had made here could not be remedied, although in the eyes of others he may not be the one with the most responsibility, or just the boss who was dragged down by the unmotivated team, but only he knew how guilty he was.

It's useless to feel guilty, after all, you have to look forward.

The man stood up again and looked at the group of machines on the wall that he couldn't explain in place of the clock - it seemed that he could really find an opportunity to avoid committing the same mistake.

For the first time, and probably the last, he cleaned the table in front of him: although there was nothing to say about the mess on the table now, except for the littered packaging bags and newspapers and books, it was what he had always wanted to do. After the team members have eaten every day, he actually wants to help the cooking aunt clean the table top, and for no reason, he is a hidden deep cleanliness addiction, at least he will feel that when cleaning an item to its original state, his heart may also return some of its original color.

It's been 12 years and he's changed really a lot.

Although Dota has the world's highest tournament prize money, the unhealthy cup system allows less than 10 of the world's top teams to share more than 95% of the project's legitimate income. Second-tier teams, even those who can barely play some games, have become accustomed to hiding dirt.

"None of the people in this circle are clean." Someone once said this, he was not convinced, and he also wanted to refute it, but this is the case in this circle. No one is innocent, can't squeeze into the top ranks, and the vast majority of teams that can't rely on prize money turnover can only rely on match-fixing to make a profit from the betting window, and in such an almost erosive competitive environment, there is simply no possibility of any newcomers emerging from the grassroots team.

The vast majority of the new generation of players who have thrown themselves into these clubs are rejected because of their strength, and those young people who have shown their strength and are favored by the club may not be able to get ahead. They will be absorbed by the club's second- and third-tier squad and become part of the reserve squad. After Dota's operator, W Company, made it clear that each club could only have one team representing the club in official events, these reserve teams also found themselves in an extremely awkward position.

They don't have a big tournament to play, they don't get the opportunity to practice on the field, in other words, they are not qualified to compete with the main team lineup, and if they are not qualified to compete for the main team lineup, they can only continue to crawl and play in the reserve lineup, but because you have the strength, the club can't easily let you go to other teams with strength and position to pose a threat to yourself, unless there is an accident in the first team, otherwise this young man will not have any breakthrough in his entire career.

These are commonplace, and there is nothing surprising about it.

It is commonplace to be idle and cut off the history of Jiangnan thorns.

Why don't men want to change this situation? But who can't help it, people can't fight against the environment.

In the live broadcast, he openly scolded another "mongrel" of the losing domestic team because they made themselves lose 50,000 yuan in the betting market.

In the game, there are professional players who try their best to let the other party get ten heads first, and even jump to death at the cost of completely tearing their faces and blood, insulting all the spectators.

There are clubs that blatantly operate betting sites to manipulate matches in the dark, and when asked about this, they ask "why don't you go to the police".

Because of the huge bets in the betting market, the player plays well and wins the game, but he is extremely insulting, such as the so-called fans who have met the enemy of their father.

No one does anything wrong, and if everyone is doing something, then it's not wrong, not to mention that most people just want to live.

The man finished cleaning the table, but found that his heart had not been cleaned at all, it was still in a mess, still beating anxiously.

Not a good thing.

He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, as if to dissipate some of the heat from his chest. Then I couldn't help but glance again at the row of low cabinets at the other end of the hallway, where he and his boss had once prepared to display the trophies — storage cabinets, of course, which were publicly stated to be storage cabinets — and of course, there was almost nothing there.

Don't think about it anymore, the man meditated, and then went upstairs, ignoring the memories that lingered on the first floor.

The upstairs belonged to his family.

————————————————

Of course he has a family.

That's why I ask, "If I really choose that side, what will happen to this side?" ”

The man didn't know what he was doing, and if anyone else was here, he would probably have thought he was talking to himself, but he was the only one who knew he was asking about a being, and he received a quick answer.

"It's not this side and that that is important, it's only you who matters."

"You said that if I had to do it all over again, there would be no me in this world?"

"No, I can't erase your existence here," Dream paused, "There will be a world that already has you, there will be no more world without you, everything that has you will still work as before, and there will naturally be no one more person on the side that doesn't." ”

"And who will replace me here?"

"It's still you, it's always been you, you have never and will never leave here."

The man was silent again, he stopped in the middle of the stairs, as if the examinee who was raising his pen to write the answer on the exam paper stopped the tip of the pen in mid-air because of hesitation.

He's a man.

Men should be responsible.

Men should not act impulsively.

Men should be responsible.

Men shouldn't be tossing around without a goal.

Men should learn to keep their ways.

Men should not act but have no plan.

No matter who looks at it, men cannot, or at least shouldn't, abandon the success they already have in front of them.

He himself will have such considerations.

"If you had to choose, what would you do?" The man asked himself softly.

"I don't have to choose, because I'm just dreaming." But the shadow-like "dream" answered for himself.

"In that case, then come and talk to me for a while, you're not an invigilator, and I'm not a student," the man leaned against the handrail of the stairs and looked at the ground on the first floor, as if the elf who appeared from the light at the end of the dream was standing there, "What the hell are you—wouldn't it be a bit abrupt for me to ask, you said you were a dream, but the so-called 'dream' in my impression is not so messy...... Ability. ”

"That's what you think of as a dream," as if he could fully understand the man's mind, and before his eyes, on the ground where his gaze was focused, the apparition of the "dream" reappeared, "If you are not used to using that word, you can also call me 'possibility' or 'world', after all, these things are the elements that make me up." ”

"In other words, if I nod my head in the affirmation, will I go to another world?" The man shifted his gaze upwards, shifting his focus from the girl's thin, even barren body to the center of her eyebrows.

"No, that's the only one in my world...... Why can't you assume that this world is a dream? ”

"You mean," the man frowned, carefully combing the thoughts that were swirling through his mind—strangely enough, the impact of this incident should have been greater than he could have imagined. But the girl in front of her really seems to have the kind of magic that can make people completely trust, and she has not tried to prove that she does have such and such abilities from beginning to end, but the man has not had any doubts about this matter itself, the only surprise is that he can stay calm like this:

"You're saying that the world is just a possibility?"

The dream elf nodded.

The man is not stupid, on the contrary, his professional fame is not mainly based on sharp operations, but on the extremely precise control of the situation, he can grasp the strong and weak periods of each lineup, and this grasp can even be fine-tuned by accurate to the difference in the level and equipment of each hero. At the peak of a man's career, teammates are extremely relaxed, they only need to follow the man's pre-set game process to do what they need to do, as long as the mistake is not too big to make up for it, then when the man says the phrase "this wave can be played", the pointer of the game is already biased towards victory.

And now, although the man's competitive state has declined, he can still be said to be a smart person:

"If that's the case, then it makes sense, but of course it's another thing to accept it or not."

The man shook his head, as if he had forgotten that he didn't seem to have any doubts about this matter at all: "So, as you said, you are this 'dream', right?" ”

The answer is yes.

"Why me."

"Because it's you." The elf smiled, "Dreams that don't change are so boring, I think it's the ones you said you dreamed of, and in those worlds, you're only one step away from there anyway." I couldn't go there, but it was definitely a dull world of despair. ”

"So you want to see more possibilities?"

"You can think so, but if you refuse, then you can't help it."

The man's head was a little dizzy, and he still looked like a candidate at both ends of the key question in the exam paper. If you calm down and think about it, this matter is too evil, even if you may have accepted these things, but the suspicious places will pile up as long as you analyze them, but-

Let me give you a call.

The man asked for this, and the girl did not veto.

He went back to his room, and the girl who called herself "Dream" or the world didn't follow, but he closed the door anyway, picked up his phone, and dialed his wife, who was waiting to give birth in the hospital - he certainly had a family.

That's why he hesitated, a ship with a safe haven would never want to face the wind and waves.

What's more, he doesn't just have a safe haven now, a man who stands at the top has too many things to think about.

The man looked at the words "Dialing" floating on his phone, and his fingers hesitated for a long time on the undialing position. He could have said nothing goodbye, just as the whole thing today was a strange dream, and after waking up from the dream, he was still the most successful loser, and the wealth and fame he had worked hard for more than ten years were enough for him to make the family live a good life in the foreseeable future. But

But if you don't really want to finish that dream, who would think of giving up now?

The phone has already been dialed, and the man hesitated for too long this time and didn't have time to give up, maybe it's a good thing, but who knows.

"Wife......" he pursed his lips, roughly organizing the language, "we're eliminated." ”

"Well," the woman on the other side of the phone sounded calm, as if these things had nothing to do with her, "then don't think about it?" If you feel uncomfortable, you either go out for a walk or come and talk to me? ”

"No, it's actually quite open," the man almost gave up this chance to do it again on the spot, ran out of the door and rushed to the hospital to hug the woman he loved the most, but he raised his eyes, as if he was seeing the burning of his own.

The demons are for a lifetime.

He had given up too much and compromised too much. At least this time it should-

"If I say I want to keep fighting, I ...... You'll, well, what would you think. ”

"What else could I think? This is your career, you have to fight hard, our mother and son can only support it, is it possible to say: 'Stop fighting, you are this life'? The woman's words were light but powerful, "You are not this fate, I said it a long time ago."

"So, husband, if you really want to make any decisions, don't treat us as a burden to you, as long as you miss us, don't be bitter about the children, you still have to fight."

"Thank you......" The man suddenly became a little incoherent, and his farewell was weak like a joke in the face of the woman's words, and he sighed, and the woman made arrangements for him first:

"What are you going to do? Do you want to make a comeback again? ”

"Yes, one more comeback, tomorrow...... No, it will be officially announced later, I am also the top 30 carry on the ladder, and I can still produce and sell it myself. ”

"Well, that's fine, if you make up your mind, that's fine."

……

As the man put down the phone, he saw the girl standing in front of him.

"What would happen to her if I chose to do it all over again?" The man asked.

"It's not a restart." Again, the dream reinforces this, "You will just be there as a variable in another possibility, where everything will continue as it is"

"Are you sure they'll be okay?"

"I'm not sure, no one is sure. Human life is never a straight line, nor is it an island, and they will continue to follow their trajectory – and yours. ”

"You should lie to me by now, they'll all be happy." The man smiled and reached out without hesitation, "Come on." ”

There is no reason to hesitate, if his understanding is not wrong, he will not disappear in "this world", and he who "chooses another possibility" will go to another world line that is subtly different from this world.

No worries, probably.

"I'm not going to lie to anyone." This was the last answer the man heard, and the only confession of the elf or god-like girl.

Subsequently, the man lost consciousness.