Global Collapse-Chapter 532 - 501: No way, no way, there’s really an author who can’t write ten thousand words a day? _1
Gu Mian pushed Xiao Hong’s face away with disgust.
Xiao Hong’s attempt to enter lapdog mode failed, so he retreated under the bed with a dejected expression—or whatever could pass for dejection on his face.
Gu Mian looked around and saw that everyone else had returned.
Everyone else was still in the same position as when they had entered the instance. Liu Ruyan was still standing by the door; before they entered, she had been discussing the Old World with Gu Mian, but shortly after, the world fell apart.
Liu Ruyan’s face was somewhat pale, probably due to dust from the instance.
She staggered slightly, then immediately propped herself against the wall. Looking up, she gave Gu Mian a peculiar grin. "How I’ve missed this world. I never thought I’d be back so soon."
Gu Mian knew she was referring to the Old World. He wondered how she felt about what the Old World had become.
She seemed to have no desire to express her thoughts. Gu Mian saw her straighten her posture and pull her hand from the wall. "It’s already late," she said. "I’d better go home... Oh, and I need to check on those people downstairs."
"Those people" referred to "Accompany me next year" and the others. He still didn’t know if that girl had successfully hanged herself.
Su Xiaocha had probably survived thanks to the instance’s collapse.
As Liu Ruyan slowly walked away and disappeared into the darkness, Fatty made a strange noise. "But Doctor," he said, "this time we didn’t see any game announcements, and no compensation has been issued."
It seemed compensation was the only thing on Fatty’s mind.
Chu Changge sat on the sofa, just as he had before they entered the instance. On the table before him was a cup of rose tea that would never cool. "Moreover," he said, "the Old World was slower in ejecting players from the instance this time."
Gu Mian nodded in agreement. Indeed.
He had thought the Old World would teleport them out of the instance when the first crack appeared in the sky, but it hadn’t.
Consequently, Gu Mian had nearly torn his Law Code in two, which resulted in a downpour of bone ash in the Old World.
Gu Mian figured the Old World wouldn’t have been thinking, ’Even if it cracks, I don’t believe Gu Mian can really tear me apart.’
It should have wanted to kick them out the moment the first crack appeared, but it might not have succeeded.
"Perhaps it was hindered by Earth. You know, Earth is quite happy to see all parallel worlds destroyed. There’s also another possibility," Chu Changge said, looking at Gu Mian. "When the first crack appeared, some of its functions might have been damaged, like the ability to kick players out of the instance."
Gu Mian rubbed his chin.
Fatty contemplated, "If it’s the second scenario, does that mean the Old World couldn’t kick us out when the first crack appeared? Did it then hurriedly rally NPCs to repair the function, fix it in under a minute, and then immediately kick the Doctor out?"
It might have even cursed something like, "To hell with you!" while doing so.
Fatty continued logically, "Of course, it’s also possible the Old World is completely gone. If the instance disappeared, we would naturally come out."
But Chu Changge shook his head. "A world doesn’t vanish so easily. Besides, Gu Mian didn’t tear the true original. To destroy a Low-Dimensional World, one has to find its corresponding anchor in a higher-dimensional world."
"Speaking of the Old World’s anchor... it must be related to the Law Code. If not the Law Code itself, then something similar. But I don’t believe such a Law Code exists in the real world." Gu Mian had returned to his bed. Seeing him sit down, Xiao Hong crawled out from under it and lay spread-eagled on Gu Mian’s bed, pretending to be a corpse.
No country in the world had a system resembling that of the Old World.
It was a pathological system, one that even novel authors would find too absurd.
At this moment, Fatty, who had been an avid reader of web novels his entire childhood, suddenly chimed in, "Since the anchor of the Second World is a novel, could the Old World’s Law Code also be a setting from a novel?"
They could only seek things that didn’t exist in reality from the realm of fiction.
What Fatty said made sense, but Gu Mian suddenly thought of a question. "If the Law Code originates from a novel, wouldn’t the world created from that Law Code be even more subordinate than the novel’s world?"
"It’s like if I wrote a book," Gu Mian mused, "and the protagonist was an author who, in turn, also wrote a book."
"I would belong to the real world, my protagonist to a Low-Dimensional World, and the book written by my protagonist would belong to a dimension even lower than that Low-Dimensional World."
Fatty looked a bit lost. For some reason, this reminded him of the story about an old monk telling a story to a young monk.
While Fatty was racking his already limited brain cells, an announcement appeared.
[Notice of Temporary Closure of Special Instance]
[Due to force majeure, the special instance "Metamorphosis" will be closed as of today.]
The announcement didn’t mention the Old World at all, which was expected, as other players were unaware of the existence of Low-Dimensional Worlds.
Although the announcement was extremely short, Gu Mian had a feeling: the shorter the notice, the more serious the situation.
Chu Changge glanced at the time. "This notice was issued twenty-one minutes after we left the instance. It suggests the situation is so severe they barely had time to post it."
"Exactly," Fatty chimed in, recalling his past. "When I worked at a fireworks factory, if there was a minor incident, the boss would immediately focus on how to draft a press release, how to reassure everyone, and how to talk about future prospects. If he had the chance, he’d even share his heartfelt sentiments with all the workers, going on longer than a college entrance essay. And by ’minor incident,’ I mean something like a small pile of goods catching fire."
Gu Mian listened with interest.
Fatty continued, "Then, the factory actually blew up. And when I say ’blew up,’ I mean the kind of explosion that takes out everyone and the warehouse, the whole lot. That time, the boss issued only one sentence: ’On XX date of XX month, a fire incident occurred at our factory. The company immediately implemented emergency measures, and the fire has now been successfully extinguished.’"
The fire was extinguished, and so was the boss, in a manner of speaking.
That was the last statement he ever issued before he was locked up.
Hearing Fatty’s story, Gu Mian thought the new notice sounded quite a bit like that fireworks factory boss’s final statement.
Just a few minutes later, another notice appeared.
[Notice of Immediate Suspension of All Instances]
When Gu Mian first saw the title, he thought the entire global game was shutting down. Reading further, however, he realized it was just going into maintenance.
[Effective immediately, all game instances worldwide will undergo maintenance for a period of fifteen days, from today until June 25th. All ticket booths will be closed, and players will be unable to enter instances. The game supermarket will remain operational.]
[We look forward to bringing players an enhanced gaming experience post-maintenance.]
In other words, all instances globally would be shut down for half a month. It seemed he’d wreaked quite a bit of havoc this time. The previous Lantern Festival event had only caused a long list of instances to shut down; this time, a global suspension was warranted.
