He was exhausted, but he was forced to open his eyes again. He found himself wandering aimlessly in another strange world, at the end of which were huge and gloomy mountains that could not be climbed, and red clouds fell above the hills. There are only two colors in this world - red and black.

Sneaky shadows whispered around him, smoke morphed into mysterious shapes, and distorted faces stared at him in the chaos, but all this was not the most terrifying thing for Jacob to get used to. So Jacob just walked on and ignored it.

Where is the destination? He didn't know. He's on the run. The whole world was silent, and only the whispers of something lying on his back could be heard.

Something that crouches on his back......

What is that? Jacob wanted to know, but he knew that he must not look back, he did not dare to look back. The road ahead was filled with shadowy figures, but Jacob didn't expect them to lend him a helping hand. No one can help him.

He was so tired that he almost fell asleep. But it is undoubtedly absurd to fall asleep in a dream. So he stretched out his hand and waved it helplessly.

The canopy is falling.

The figure in front of him gradually became clear.

"Hey!" Jacob shouted, waving his hands in sweat. The sound could not penetrate the mist, so the mud cow entered the sea.

A white light slowly rippled on the horizon. The light swayed like satin, stretching along the horizon as Jacob advanced, eventually forming a soft white line in front of the vision. Jacob understood that it was a river, and the dazzling light seemed to come from the moon that shone on the previous life.

Jacob stood on the shore, struggling to look out into the middle of the river. A flat boat gradually emerged from the thick light of the mist, and the figure on the boat seemed to be chanting some incantation:

Windy and windy, sparkling and rippling;

Gathering also becomes soil, and scattering also becomes a river;

Gale and windy, and its whirlpool;

scorching like fire, with beetles in it.

Jacob was wondering if he could get on the ship, but someone behind him turned him around with irresistible force and pushed him to the shore.

However, when Jacob turned back, he was shocked to find that it was a shadow at all, projected on some invisible plane, and when it turned around, it was like a piece of paper being rolled up.

Jacob saw its face and woke up screaming loudly.

He was covered in a cold sweat, and he had not completely broken free from his dream. When he calmed down, he found himself lying on an ornate round bed, with a mysterious piece of glass resting on the extendable table on his right. Jacob frowned and reached out to the telescopic table, trying to pull it over to see what it was—

"Hey, don't touch my computer!"

Jacob was startled and almost fell to the ground. He noticed his neck stretched out stiffly, his right hand and right foot hanging dangerously from the edge of the bed. At the door, Chacha Luke, dressed in pajamas, was staring at him in shock.

"What did you dream about?" Cha Cha frowned and asked, "Why are you scared like this?" ”

"What's that-" Jacob slowly turned to Cha Cha, and then slapped his thigh hard: "My number—is my number in Rasheng dead?" ”

Cha Cha seemed to want to laugh a little, but she finally showed a little compassion and sympathy: "yes, I can't hold you - you fell off the suspension bridge of the Feather Kingdom." ”

"Holy shit." Jacob instantly lost the courage to re-enter the world of Rasheng. "I'm afraid I'm going to fall into a pulp. Don't know what that thing is? ”

"Maybe it's a new copy." Cha Cha picked up a pillow and threw it at him, "Tell me, what did you see in your dream?" ”

"I-I seem to have dreamed of Mr. Ji." Jacob thought for a moment and confirmed.

"Is it because we talked about him before?" Cha Cha slapped her head, "It's my fault." Maybe I should always tell you which star is more appropriate for your age. ”

"Do you have this kind of dream every time you die in the game? This particularly real dream? ”

"In fact, when everyone dies, there's a line on the screen: GAME OVER."

"And then?"

"And then you can't get in anymore. It's going to take three months. ”

"Don't you dream?"

"If you want to talk about dreams, the last time I was reborn CD, I had spring dreams every day, and I was tied up and. Having said that, there seems to be a natural disaster in Rasheng's world this time, and many people have died. ”

"Did they say it was going on?"

"Who knows?" Cha Cha spread his hands: "But a few decoders told me that the server is not very stable now, and there are a lot of strange things." A few weeks ago, a coder known as Number 48 went insane after entering the Rebirth CD. ”

"I have a lot of friends whose characters would probably go crazy if they died."

"The problem is," Cha Cha hesitated, as if to prove in a serious tone that she wasn't making up a story. "Recently they discovered that the mentally disturbed person was still active in the game. And his body is in the hospital, under close surveillance. ”

Jacob knew that Rason's password was the player's retina, and no one could log in to the game in his place. "It's kind of scary."

"yes, he seems to have become an NPC in the game, telling people something about what he doesn't have. He told his former colleagues that the dungeon of 'Descending of the Holy Lord' had gone too deep, so deep that it touched an ancient secret that they could not bear. ”

"Wait a minute." Jacob couldn't stand the tense and weird atmosphere: "Are we still talking about a game?" ”

"For these decoders, it's really hard to say which game is Rasheng or life. Have you ever thought about being one of them? ”

"Yes, who wouldn't?" Jacob said casually. Right now, he wants to leave school, let alone become a decoder.

Cha Cha looked at him thoughtfully. Jacob could see that he was pondering the feasibility of something.

"I might be able to get you an internship."

"Decoder? Moorbay company? Decoder? Not a waiter? Jacob asked incredulously.

Cha Cha shrugged.

"And maybe it's a waiter, if there's a position. Heck, don't get too excited, it's just an extracurricular internship. Besides, if a person is in a difficult situation without the help of friends, then it is strange. ”

"What a mess that man has to be." Jacob laughed.

"Believe it or not, that kind of person is not rare." Cha Cha said sullenly, "Do you want to take a shower and go to the company with me?" ”

Seven o'clock in the morning is the second time zone, and a few warmly lit breakfast vans are parked in front of the community of Shenyue No. 5, and the hawkers release these cars three times a day, walk four to five blocks, and return with a full load to bring back the harvest of this time zone. Jacob also has one such breakfast cart in a corner of the city, which is part of Eurostar's social welfare.

"It would be nice if life was like pie." Jacob couldn't help but say.

"I think so, too." Cha Cha said and took a bite of the pie, "It's sweet and crispy, this is life." It's a pity that my life doesn't taste like this. ”

"You?" Jacob asked, a little skeptical.

"Stay in the company for a while, and you'll know." Cha Cha grimaced wearily and motioned for Jacob to board the brightly colored Maserati.

"The foreign affairs minister of the Moorbai company is called Simuin, and he works in the second time zone." Cha Cha sat in the main control position and told Jacob, "'Outside Information Department', how interesting is this name?" The department that maintains the world of Rasheng is actually the decoding department, and the people in it are all your senior brothers from that school. Having said that, I heard that your senior buddies ...... me Alas, there are quite a few criticisms of me. ”

"Grandpa Lan used to say that a person who works hard and lives seriously will always be a bad person in someone's story." Jacob said.

Cha Cha laughed dryly. "They have nothing to be jealous of. At the age of fifteen, I completed 10 years of political science and law school. Every day, Jack Sun forced me to learn two time zones and read The Wealth of Nations in three languages. That old man! Cha Cha showed a fierce expression, "Even if I sleep with a man from the whole planet, it won't be his turn." ”

"Why are you always trying to get someone on your mind?" Jacob said embarrassedly.

"It's fun."

They passed through the Red River District, and on the other side of the city, the Ueno District was in the air, and the towering tree-like buildings were like a bridge to the sea of stars. The trunk traffic along the planned path is rushing in an orderly manner under the guidance of quantum brain big data. The smoothness of Glanka's heading onto an upward track makes Jacob marvel at the power of money. They sat on bar stools by the window and watched the slender curves of these buildings leap towards the sky, and the top floors were joined together to form a solid piece of aerial land, with artificial forests and wide meadows forming an aerial green field. The green field has a complete hydrological system, with a small river flowing quietly, and the lake that converges is reflected in the bright lights hanging on it, and its downstream is directly poured into the inert layer at an altitude of about 700 meters through the skyscraper waterfall at the edge of the complex, where it is rapidly volatilized and absorbed.

As they walked through the sky, the people in the second time zone hurriedly got off work, and most of them took the elevator straight down to the living quarters of the lower urban area, where they got into the VR capsule and started their own happy hour in the world of Rasho.

The pentagram-shaped building in a prime location is the Moorbay Industrial Building. Compared to other buildings on this man-made aerial land, the industrial edifice is lackluster, and the metal façade has even begun to rust under the ravages of the early Eurostar atmosphere. However, as a temple that every graduate of a self-divided school aspires to, the appropriate traces of time can add to those widely circulated legends.

Jacob remembered that it was the first time he had seen this building, and suddenly felt a little unremarkable. He's a man who gets disillusioned, let alone a career as a decoder that wasn't very interested in him in the first place. But at the end of the day, people will always be attracted to beautiful and decent things, whether it is physical or famous.

Cha Cha threw a potato into the mouth of the raw material in the car in the morning, and now it has become a box of crunchy and burnt fries. They took their fries and parked their cars on the ten-story platform.

Jacob noticed that people here weren't staring at Cha Cha as much as they were outside, which may be why she seemed more at ease than usual. But there are still occasional young people who are at a loss in front of Cha Cha, and Jacob can see it clearly. Perverseness and laziness can't cover Cha Cha's innate strange charm, but these traits that make her have a mixed reputation are amazingly completely integrated.

They ate their fries while boarding a capacitive elevator, which Jacob had heard of making people feel uncomfortable when it catapulted up at a rapid pace, so he deliberately held a few fries in his hand and didn't eat them, but the moment of acceleration still startled him.

"How is it downward?" He asked.

"No matter how good the materials of the superstructure are, they are susceptible to unpredictable factors. Some technical concerns led them to set up the decoder's headquarters on the ground floor, I heard about a computer? ”

"It's 'Qiming', right? Rayson World service terminal? ”

"Possibly. I've heard that if Qiming is blown up, Luo Sheng will be paralyzed. ”

Jacob opened his mouth and said nothing. Cha Cha's words sounded like he had seriously considered blowing up Qiming. She seems to have always had a tendency towards self-destruction, and has something like "reluctant to self-destruct, but willing to try a path closer to destruction". What a crazy brunch.

A woman with triangular glasses and a bumpy figure walked in and raised her chin to Cha Cha almost arrogantly. Jacob felt that he was a little afraid of this woman, but Cha Cha leisurely accosted her: "Is Simuin here?" ”

"I want to be there, Director." The woman didn't mean to be arrogant when she spoke, presumably Jacob himself thought too much, "I was about to go to him." ”

"That's great, I've heard that you're trusted by Minister Simu, Faian. I beg you to introduce me to this little brother of mine, a sixteen-year-old genius at the System Language School. ”

"Intern? I think no problem. Rayun looked at Jacob, "He looks likeable." ”

Jacob was a little uncomfortable, he felt like they were talking about a horse.

"He's okay? Or am I okay? ”

"You're okay." Fei An said kindly, "The work of the Ministry of Foreign Information is sometimes very stressful, and I hope that this child can be competent for heavy labor. ”

"Well, Faian, I'm not a competent bureaucrat, and you have to tell me how to answer in this situation."

Fei Anhao has red lips, and she is a beauty who laughs vividly. The most important thing in this era is beauty. The elevator slowed down, and when they stopped, there was a corridor straight ahead, flanked by a very chaotic landscape: waves crashing against the shore, clouds raging, night hazy, silver moon hanging in the sky.

"Presumably, it was with the help of the power of 'Qiming' that this kind of landscape was created, right?"

"It's a departmental benefit." Fei An said.

"Is that the moon?" Cha Cha couldn't help but ask.

"Of course not, that's Enceladus' 'Satu', President Yu doesn't want the earth's landscape to appear on the wall, that's an insult to the spirit of independence."

"Maybe he'll change his Earth name as well." Cha Cha said with a yawn.

The giant host of "Qiming" is said to be hidden in a locked room in this building. Jacob curiously surveyed each of the doors that appeared in front of them as they walked by, wondering where the god-like being would be enshrined by the coders.

They turned a corner, and Fean stood where the sea and the sky met, and a different-looking door appeared, and an electronic eye looked at them suspiciously. The electronic eye lingered on Fei An for a moment before moving to Cha Cha, who waved at him.

The door opened, but it was not Smoothin who came.

Jacob never imagined that his adventures weren't over. However, the coincidences in life are like the carnival bubbles in the tea house, sometimes in a string, one after another catches people off guard. So when Gao Yuan appeared at the door and scratched his head at them with a tangled expression, no one understood what was going on.

Gao Yuan reacted first, and after the corners of his mouth twitched, he showed the most polite and stiff smile to Cha Cha and Fei An. When Jacob entered the room, he could almost feel Takato's textured eyes, which were questioning him: What are you doing here?

Jacob didn't look at the expression behind Simin's bushy beard, but he was wholeheartedly hoping that Cha Cha had already greeted him before he came. Because judging from the inquiring look in Simuin's eyes when he took the coffee from Fayne's hand, he was unprepared for the sudden appearance of so many people in the office. The warm light in the room flickered, but only indifference and boredom were reflected in Simin's eyes. And Takato has always been a bully in Jacob's eyes, but the quiet changes that happened to this senior at this moment made Jacob even more uneasy: Takato was engrossed in observing the others: to be exact, he was watching Cha Cha's actions while waiting for Simun's instructions in order to react as quickly as possible.

Gao Yuan is simply a different person. Jacob sighed, and only Cha Cha, who sat leisurely on the sofa, seemed to behave most naturally in the room, while Simuin's expression was slightly stiff, and Fayan showed excessive enthusiasm.

"Come, Jacob." Cha Cha patted the seat next to him and said.

Jacob felt embarrassed to stand stupidly and at a loss, and couldn't help but secretly complain that Cha Cha didn't explain the rules to him clearly.

"I'm here to thank you for your generosity in providing great talent for my own small business, man." Cha Cha tilted her head and waved her hand at Si Muyin to express her gratitude, "I have nothing to repay you, I have to think about getting some fresh blood for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you see, this is the Jacob Lan I mentioned to you!" Very fresh! ”

Jacob was very suspicious that Cha Cha had never mentioned him to Simin, because if he had the slightest confidence in his ability to read words and looks, he would have assumed that the two men had barely communicated recently. But maybe "mentioned" is some kind of code word between bureaucrats.

Simuin seemed to be a little interested in him: "A child prodigy? Is his grade point average green? ”

It's broken. Jacob's heart rose to his throat. He can't make up nonsense to deceive this big man, Gao Yuan listened from the side.

"Lights! Lamp! Cha Cha exclaimed, "You are really rigid, Brother Si Mu!" Why does the color of the lamp affect your hiring? Before Simuin could speak, Cha Cha said again, "Could it be that your lamp back then was like those lovely lush woods in your corridor before?" Be generous, give him an internship, and I guarantee that this kid will be as green as a ripe vegetable in the future. ”

Simuin tugged at the collar of his shirt under his beard and took a sip of coffee: "Director Luke's fancy person will not be wrong, I will definitely work hard to cultivate." ”

"Don't you dare." Cha Cha laughed pompously and shook hands with Simin.

Jacob sang in his heart, and the realization that he had just declared a near-total victory over Takato on the morning in this time zone was enough to make him happy for a while.

It was raining in the hallway, and Jacob remembered that Cha Cha didn't like rain, and at the moment she just walked silently next to Jacob, looking at the thick clouds on the sea in the distance.

"Why are you happy like this?" Chacha noticed that Jacob was grinning and asked in confusion.

"The player in Minister Simu's house is an acquaintance of mine, and he's a little bit of- how can I say it......"

"You don't like him?"

"He's a little annoying. Airs. ”

Chacha scratched her head and stopped in the middle of the hallway, as if remembering something. Light raindrops fell on the surface of the sea, and the silent waves lapped at their feet.

"I have a great idea." She said, "Why don't you try to get rid of your fear of him?" ”

"Who said I was afraid of him?"

"Jacob, to someone your age, hating and fearing are often the same thing."

In fact, Jacob doesn't like Cha Cha and always talks about "people your age", but at this moment, refusal seems to be easy to be looked down upon by Cha Cha. While he was hesitating, the door behind him opened again, and Gao Yuan reluctantly retreated, turned to look at the waves under his feet, and frowned as if thinking about some important issue. Until he met Jacob and Cha Cha, Gao Yuan was stunned for a moment, and then burst into a flattering smile.

"The weather was nice." Cha Cha took the initiative to take the stubble, and Gao Yuan seemed to be flattered.

"Yes, Director." Takato tried his best to be enthusiastic, but he couldn't seem to decide what to say and what not to say, "You know each other? ”

"Old friends for many years." Cha Cha patted Jacob on the shoulder: "Count it as my little brother." ”

Although not very reluctant, the expression on Takato's face that was almost like a critical blow made Jacob want to cheer.

"That's what it is...... Reason. Gao Yuan didn't know what to say, "Looking forward to working with you, Lan." ”

Cause? Jacob wishes he could come up with the most vicious way to fight back against Takato, and he's starting to get a little jealous of Chacha's talent for humiliating others. But in the end, all he said was: "Me too, Brother Yuan." ”

Just as he was feeling sorry for his bad performance, Cha Cha said something that surprised him: "You don't look very likable." If I were a minister, I'm afraid I wouldn't want you. ”

"I know, so I studied hard to get the approval of Minister Simoo and enter the Decoding Department. It's pretty much the best way out for someone of my origin. After saying that, Gao Yuan looked up at them defiantly.

"Come on, don't think so badly of the incubation center." Cha Cha waved his hand. Gao Yuan suddenly became serious about the topic, and she didn't want to continue.

Satu rolled behind the clouds, and the three of them walked silently in the light of the satellites. For a moment, Jacob felt like they were walking on a late-summer beach, not under an elevator tower tens of meters deep. "Qiming" hides in the shadows, showing her strength.