Global Collapse-Chapter 499 - 469: Paper Man is Singing_1

This inn was Liu Ruyan's property. Gu Mian had always thought Liu Ruyan's taste was rather inexplicable. The glorious chandelier hanging above, boasting a style reminiscent of the Republic era, had been there before Gu Mian moved in. He had once feared it might fall and hit him. Thankfully, this splendid chandelier had hung firmly from the ceiling for many years and seemed to have no intention of landing on his head.

He had once imagined what it would be like if someone hung from the chandelier. Unfortunately, that thought became reality today. Gu Mian silently looked up at Xiao Hong, who was hanging from it.

She was wide-eyed, her gaze locked on his. Gu Mian remained silent for two seconds. "Could you tell me how you managed to get up there?"

Xiao Hong, her innocent eyes wide, predictably said nothing.

Well, he might as well pretend she climbed up there herself.

Gu Mian shifted his gaze towards the bedroom door. Chu Changge was sitting on the sofa outside, leafing through some pages. Gu Mian realized Chu Changge was often reading whenever he woke up. The "book" Chu Changge was currently engrossed in consisted of about a dozen pages they had found in a file folder last night. Might as well call it a book...

"Where's Fatty?" Gu Mian looked around but couldn't see him.

"He went to the supermarket," Chu Changge said, looking up from his reading. "Said he wanted to buy some food and took the Spirit Car with him."

Speaking of which, Gu Mian had bought his Spirit Car from this very supermarket in Lianhua City. He hadn't expected that after half a year of traveling, it would return here, to be foisted upon the same salesperson.

「Meanwhile, Fatty had already found that familiar salesperson.」

To this day, Fatty still remembered the joy on the salesperson's face when he had managed to sell his first Spirit Car. Of course, that expression was a stark contrast to the one he wore now.

"Um..." Fatty said, looking at the salesperson's gloomy face. He flinched slightly and pointed to the dilapidated Spirit Car he had just brought out. "This is broken. It was bought here. You remember, right?"

Oddly enough, Fatty thought, the salesperson's expression is somewhat similar to the Doctor's "smile" from yesterday.

The salesperson forced a smile. "Of course, I remember. Thanks to you, that's the only Spirit Car I've managed to sell in the past six months. It's certainly memorable."

Because Gu Mian had wrecked the driver's license instance, sales of Spirit Cars had been dismal.

"Ah, is that so?" Fatty laughed awkwardly. "Well, look, we're bringing you business today... I mean, this Spirit Car is under warranty, right?"

"Look, we're your only customer, after all. You were the one who sold us the Spirit Car... It should be under warranty, right?"

The salesperson turned to look at the Spirit Car. Its hood was almost rusted through, both headlights were gone, and the windshield was shattered, with only fragments remaining. It looked completely irreparable. "You're aware I sold you the car, right? So why repay my kindness with such malice?"

Not only had they repaid kindness with malice, but they had also wrecked the event that had descended upon Lianhua City.

The salesperson turned his back on Fatty and walked a few steps away. "It can't be fixed. You should leave."

"Well... The Doctor said if it couldn't be repaired here, he knows an instance that can fix cars, so we wouldn't have to trouble you..."

Hearing this, the salesperson, who still had his back to Fatty, suddenly spun around, his voice now enthusiastic. "No problem! We now offer a trade-in service. You can trade in your old Spirit Car for a new one, free of charge!"

Fatty returned with a brand-new Spirit Car.

"That's a new car, isn't it?" Gu Mian asked, looking down from his bedroom window. He could see Fatty parking the Spirit Car below.

"Yeah," Fatty replied, nodding happily. "The salesperson was really understanding. He said something like, 'It's not like anyone's buying them anyway,' so he let us trade our old one for a new one."

Really now?

Gu Mian stroked his chin. The salesperson in my hometown is really good to me, he thought. To show my gratitude, I should visit the supermarket more often.

While Gu Mian was mulling this over, Fatty returned, carrying a bag full of items.

Fatty placed the full shopping bag on the table in front of Chu Changge and started unpacking. "Summer's coming soon. This is a new shirt for the Doctor, these are new glasses for Brother Chu... I really don't get why you wear glasses with no lenses. And here's lychee soda for Xiao Hong..."

As for Brother, he only ever shouted, "Sister!"

When asked what he wanted, he would just repeat that. So, Fatty automatically ignored his requests.

As he was taking things out, he said, "We haven't entered any instances for a long time, so our Game Coin supply is running a bit low. It's a good thing you busted that event, Doctor..."

Fatty's words seemed problematic, but on reflection, they made a strange kind of sense.

Fatty reached for another bag. "Today's lunch is mutton soup. Since you got up so late, Doctor, you'll have to go straight to lunch. I'm heading to the kitchen."

With that, he walked into the kitchen carrying a scallion, a bunch of cilantro, and a piece of mutton.

Meanwhile, Chu Changge put on his new glasses and continued reading the pages in his hand.

In just that short while, Gu Mian saw him flip through the dozen or so pages several times.

Gu Mian had read these pages last night. The gist was that to prevent a terrifying apocalypse, the world's elite had secretly built such laboratories to create "Adapted Humans."

These dozen pages chronicled the beginning and end of the underground laboratory at Songcheng College.

There wasn't much to say about the beginning—just a group of people creating a batch of children. The end detailed how the laboratory finally achieved success. To prevent the secret from leaking, most of those privy to it, along with the children created, were secretly killed and left underground.

It was worth noting that the pages mentioned countless such laboratories around the world, but only this one had succeeded.

As for what "Adapted Humans" truly were, or what the "apocalypse" entailed, these pages offered no explanation.

At this point, Chu Changge adjusted his new glasses. "I come from there, so I can confirm that these pages were taken from the actual Second World. But there's one problem..."

What problem? Gu Mian wondered.

"Did you notice? The page numbers on these dozen or so sheets are consecutive, from 1 to 14. But looking at the beginning of the first page, it's clear there was content before it. So, this 'page 1' definitely isn't the actual first page of the book from the Second World."

"I have a theory," Chu Changge said. "As we've seen, the Second World has fractured into countless remnants. These remnants have become independent entities. The instances we've experienced are the content of these remnants. Only by collecting all these remnants can we piece together the complete Second World."

Gu Mian was startled. "Why does this setup feel so damn familiar?"

He remembered a cartoon from his childhood about someone who shattered a glass ball and then had to collect all the pieces.

Back then, all the children at the orphanage would huddle together to watch cartoons. If Gu Mian had seen it, Chu Changge had likely seen it too.

"The story isn't going to unfold like that cartoon, is it?" Gu Mian asked, looking quietly at the dozen pages in Chu Changge's hand. "It's not like I was the one who tore up the book..."

If I were the one tearing it, I'd have shredded it to pulp, not neatly page by page, Gu Mian thought.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be like that," Chu Changge replied. "Gu Mian, if you want to understand why you're so special, you just need to find the key page. It's like wanting to know the ending of a novel; you just skip to the end.

"However, I suspect the answer you're looking for might not be in the Second World. We've speculated before that these instances don't all come from one world. Besides the Second World, we don't know how many other worlds exist. The answer you seek could be hidden in one of them."

"Speaking of which," Gu Mian said, looking at Chu Changge, "you don't have any colleagues, do you? From your original world, I mean."

Chu Changge shook his head, his expression unchanging. "No."

He seems quite certain, Gu Mian noted.

Liu Ruyan and Chu Changge were similar in nature; Gu Mian remembered they shared a common designation or title.

If that's the case, then Liu Ruyan must be from another world, Gu Mian mused. He'd been entertaining the idea of tying her up and giving her a good thrashing for a while now. And now I finally have a legitimate reason.

"However..." Gu Mian didn't act on his thought immediately. Instead, he looked at Chu Changge. "You might not know the details, but I still want to ask."

Chu Changge looked up, watching Gu Mian attentively.

"The Second World is considered a Low-Dimensional World, right? Initially, you probably didn't realize you were in one."

"Correct."

"Then... how did you all eventually find out?"

After Gu Mian asked, an unsettling silence filled the living room for several seconds before Chu Changge finally spoke. "An error."

An error?

"Because of an error," Chu Changge began. "At some point, someone suddenly realized that an event from the past, as they remembered it, completely contradicted current records. People's memories contained an error. If it had been something few people knew, it wouldn't have caused much chaos. But this error was too significant; it concerned something everyone knew.

"Take The Internationale, the song everyone could sing. There was a problem with it. People remembered one of its lines as, 'We will eventually meet the sun.' But one day, someone noticed the lyric had become, 'We will eventually meet the sunrise.'

"People started searching, only to find that in books, online records, and even on recordings, the lyric was universally 'We will eventually meet the sunrise,' completely contradicting their collective memory.

"It was as if you'd used the wrong word in an essay, then silently erased it and wrote in the new one, and all existing data then reflected 'sunrise.'

"It was then that some realized... we were living in a Low-Dimensional World."

Chu Changge stated calmly, "Of course, this matter wouldn't become public knowledge. In an age of advanced networks, controlling public opinion isn't difficult. Besides, compared to work and daily life, it wasn't a major concern for most. No one would get worked up over a single song lyric. So, the general public assumed they had misremembered, rather than considering that the data itself had been altered."