My Exclusive Dream World Adventures-Chapter 77: Where is person 0?
Chapter 77: Where is person 077?
Yang Jinxia gazed at Chen Xu’s face until he felt a bit uncomfortable and asked her, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing.”
She beamed a smile, one that came from true inner joy, “I just think that you really are a good person.”
Chen Xu felt somewhat uneasy inside and said, “Hiss, it feels like you’re praising me, but somehow, that phrase always makes one feel weird.”
“I mean it.”
She rested her chin in her hands and said, “I know, when the constraints of law and morality are lost, and we find ourselves in tough situations, people can become utterly limitless and capable of doing anything. I’ve always been so grateful that it was you I met. With any other man, my fate surely wouldn’t have been so good.”
“It’s not about whether someone is a good person or not.”
Chen Xu shook his head and, perhaps because he’d kept things bottled up inside for too long, he was especially talkative today, “Let me tell you a story.”
“I have a cousin who is two years older than me. When I was in the fourth or fifth grade of elementary school, the person I envied the most was him.”
“His mother really doted on him, giving him a lot of pocket money. He bought all sorts of tasty snacks and toys, and often skipped classes to go to internet cafes and play games. He led a very carefree life. His mom never managed him, and when his dad tried, she would stop him. With his mom backing him, he became even more brazen in playing hooky.”
“Back then, every holiday, I would hang out with him, snacking and playing around. One weekend night, we were out playing very late, almost midnight, and I wanted to go home, but he refused. Suddenly, he suggested we start a fire for fun and lit up a bike repair shed by the roadside.”
“The fire grew bigger and bigger, and I was terrified, so I hurried back home. Because I came home so late, my family scolded me. That night, I was so scared that I couldn’t sleep at all.”
“Later, I heard from others that it was fortunate the nearby residents noticed early on. They extinguished the fire before it spread too much and prevented greater damage.”
“This incident scared me for many months. Afterwards, I secretly asked him why he did it. He said it was just boredom. I simply couldn’t understand. He had so much pocket money, could buy whatever he wanted, skip classes whenever he wanted, and go to internet cafes. That was like living a life of the gods. And yet, he said it was boredom?”
“After that, I became a bit afraid of him and didn’t hang out with him much.”
“A few years later, he went to high school, and his life became even more carefree. He hung out with some friends from society, driving around in a small car every day, taking girls out for rides. He had one girlfriend after another.”
“It was only after my middle school exams were over that I heard he was arrested. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised at all; someone like him who messed around all the time was bound to run into trouble sooner or later. But what I didn’t expect was the seriousness of his crime.”
“He and some others raped a girl and stabbed her boyfriend. The boyfriend died on the spot.”
“Later, my dad, for some reason, decided to take me back home to visit him at the detention center. My dad asked him why he did it. He was very remorseful and said that they just wanted to have some fun and didn’t expect things to get so out of hand.”
Yang Jinxia listened quietly without interrupting.
After Chen Xu finished speaking in one breath, he smiled and said, “Ever since then, whenever I’m under a lot of pressure, especially tired, and feel like giving up, I think of him and then ask myself, if you let go of everything and do whatever you want, will you be happy?”
“Not necessarily. Even if he had not been caught, I think his life seemed pretty empty.”
“Thinking about it that way, life doesn’t seem so tiring after all.”
Having gotten everything off his chest, Chen Xu felt much better. Seeing that she still hadn’t started eating, he said, “Hurry up and eat, or the noodles will get mushy.”
“Okay.” Yang Jinxia picked up her chopsticks and said, “You eat too.”
While eating, she glanced over at Chen Xu.
…
After settling into this refuge, Chen Xu wasn’t as homebound as before. Apart from spending two or three hours a day reviewing materials, he wandered around the rest of the time.
This place was much larger than the previous refuge, with a total of seven floors structured like a pyramid. The topmost layer was the smallest, and as you went down, each floor was larger.
The top four floors were residential areas, and the bottom three floors were production areas, with various types of factory workshops. The entire refuge was like a miniature kingdom, almost self-sufficient.
However, by now, most people had already left with the rescue team. Apart from the first floor, the remaining six floors had been abandoned.
After getting permission from S01, Chen Xu went down level by level and indeed found quite a few things.
When the people of the refuge left initially, they had no time to take everything with them. Each room had a lot of items left behind, mainly daily necessities. Occasionally, he also found some electronic items, probably left behind accidentally by the previous owners.
After a few days of exploring, he was almost certain that the only remaining inhabitant of the entire refuge was S01, a single robot. As for humans, there were no signs of anyone. He always remembered that S01 had mentioned a small group of people still remaining here.
So the question arose, where had these people gone?
He asked S01, and it replied that it was confidential, and he didn’t have the clearance to know.
Thus, apart from searching for useful items, he also wanted to find where those people might be.
After nearly a month, he had scoured all six lower floors, checked every room, but to no avail.
On the second floor, in a rather luxurious room, he found a personal terminal resembling a handheld computer. He tried logging in and was successful. It must have been connected to the mainframe.
Within this terminal was a complete map of the refuge. He used this map to search every room.
Although he hadn’t found any people, he did bring back a few useful items.
“Look what I’ve found.”
Upon returning, Chen Xu eagerly went to find Yang Jinxia.
“What is it?”
After a month of recuperation, Yang Jinxia had fully recovered. She was tending to a potted plant in the hall. After Chen Xu went down to the very bottom floor, he had found some soil and brought it back for her, planning to grow some vegetables or something similar.
In a month, the vegetables and meat they had brought from G5232 were nearly gone. The quality of their food had dropped a notch.
Chen Xu said happily, “Look, three mini meat synthesizers. From now on, we won’t have to worry about not having meat to eat.”
“That’s great.” Yang Jinxia was also pleased, as having meat to eat was indeed good news.
The source of this c𝓸ntent is freewebnøvel.coɱ.
Chen Xu then brought up a serious topic, “I just couldn’t find the people. I’ve searched everywhere, no sign of anyone.”
Yang Jinxia nodded and said, “That means they could only be in one place now.”
