Volume 3:

Shadow of the Grudge

The third point was more shocking than the other two combined. Everyone stared at Xuan crazily. After all, anyone who experienced such terrors, no matter how disappointed with the real world he was, this person would lust for the real world and not stay to suffer without an end.

Zheng looked at Xuan with doubt, then said carefully, “You plot too much, I am suspicious of whether you have something up in your sleeve... So, how do we get back to the real world?”

Xuan smiled calmly. “I am not forcing you to do anything, it’s your freedom to choose whether you want to go back... Jie, you never looked at the Days exchange category carefully, right? I checked it yesterday and found that not only can you exchange for days to live in the previous movie worlds, you can also go back to the real world.”

Jie sneered at him. “We don’t need you to tell us. Anyone can go back with 50000 points, do you think we have the points? Are you trying to tease us or what?”

Xuan glanced at him and said, “Did I say that you can go back completely? At where you exchange regular days, I found a Record function. It recorded these five movies: Nightmare on Elm Street 1, Scream 2, Final Destination, Resident Evil, and Alien. Other than the horror movies, there’s also another world, and that is the real world!”

Jie turned pale when he heard these names. He muttered, “Those are all the movies I’ve experienced, why is there a record? What about the ones before those?”

Xuan shook his head. “There are no records of anything before them. God probably deleted them. After all, you are the only one among us that survived five movies. This is not the key point. The key point is you can unlock these worlds. After you unlock them, you can go into any of them, including the real world!”

“You use a rank D reward to unlock a world in the records, then you can exchange for days to live in that world, but you have to spend five times as many points, that is you have to pay the high price of 50 points a day (10 points a day in the previous world they just experienced). In order to go back to the real world temporarily, you need a rank D reward and a lot of points.”

Everyone fell into silence. Jie had already told them about the rarity of the ranked rewards. If Zheng didn’t exchange his Qi and Vampire bloodline, then he couldn’t have survived Alien. For something that directly concerned their life, how can anyone just use it up so easily? Furthermore, not only did you need a rank D reward, you also needed a lot of points. The cost was too high for just going back for a few days.

Xuan shook his head as they remained in silence. “I don’t have any intention to make you waste your rewards and points. To temporarily go back to the real world, at least getting one of us can go back is an urgent matter. I don’t know if you ever thought about this world. I have two hypotheses, one is our consciousnesses were transported here and our bodies are still in front of the computer. Second is our bodies were transported here along with our consciousnesses. I think you also obtained info from your women: No matter how long we stay in the horror movies, when we come back, only a day has passed in this dimension. In other words, God can control both space and time. This is...

“This is like a real god!” That was the only phrase Xuan could come up with to describe God. He muttered, “Perhaps you don’t feel that this matters too much, being able to control space and time, to create independent worlds and real living beings, I can only describe it as a god. This is the important thing I want to say. If only our consciousnesses are in this world, then the enhancements and everything else are just illusions. This would be like a virtual reality game. Similarly, our bodies will go into a vegetative state. If we don’t confirm it as soon as possible, then our bodies might be ruined by other people.”

“Of course, if our bodies were transported here also... then this is the world of a real god. If so then all these enhancements... they are the infinite possibilities of human evolution! We just have to survive, then we will be able to become a real god!”

Zheng rubbed his head. “Becoming god is too far away, I think I understand what you’re trying to convey. If our bodies are in this world, then we can forget about everything in the real world before we have the points to go back. We just have to focus on surviving. But if only our consciousnesses are here, then nothing can be brought back to the real world, and our bodies are also in danger.”

Xuan snapped his fingers. “Correct. So my suggestion is, we select someone to go back to the real world, even if it’s only for a day and confirm whether our bodies were also transported here. This is the most important thing concerning our lives. What do you think?”

They all agreed with Xuan. Yet Zheng sighed. “Even though I don’t have any reason nor evidence, but I feel that there’s a trap in your words, as if it’s waiting for us to jump into it... No, it’s an overt scheme, you tell us everything every time, yet we can only follow your plans, then you think that I should be the one to go back?”

Xuan nodded, but Jie objected. “Hey, Xuan, why does Zheng have to be the one to spend the points? If it wasn’t for him, we would have all died. Right, Zheng, how many points did you spent on the body repair? We can exchange something for you together as a compensation.”

Zheng smiled at Jie. “It’s not necessary, I killed the Queen and got 3000 points after all. I still have a lot left after the repair... As to why I am the one to go back, it’s because I am the only one that enhanced Qi and Vampire bloodline. I can confirm whether these abilities can be brought back, and at the same time, I don’t need the ranked reward as much as you guys. But you will need them to enhance yourselves.”

After it was decided, Jie suggested everyone help Zheng get a set of equipment. Of course, he still had to exchange the expensive parts himself. They still got him a bulletproof vest, a pair of shoes that can reduce the impact from falls, a small submachine gun, and a progressive knife (Eva).[1]

Each of them got Zheng an item, but that knife was the most expensive, it cost over 600 points. It was something that hadn’t been invented in the real world. Zheng got more suspicious when Xuan handed the knife to him. He was certain that Xuan was plotting something.

They met up in Jie’s room for dinner. The precious and rare materials combined with Nana’s cooking made them eat like a beast. Even Xuan was the same, he was actually digging into the food more fiercely than anyone else.

After dinner, they agreed to meet up at 10am the next day and see Zheng off... Even if it was only temporary, going back to the real world was a wish that they would beg for. Compared to the terrors, the ordinary world was heaven.

The next day at 10am, everyone stood on the platform in silence. Zheng was communicating with God with his eyes closed. After a while, he looked at his ring. Xuan asked, “You exchanged something?”

“Yes, I got one cubic meter of platinum. My family isn’t rich. My parents just have enough from their pension. If these things can be brought back to the real world, then this is the least I can do for them. And Lori’s parents spent a lot of money for her illness, their financial state hasn’t been too good... Since we have to test it anyway, I can feel relieved in this world if they can live well.”

Lori stood next to Zheng, when she heard about her parents her eyes turned red. Lan took out a handkerchief and handed it to her.

Zheng got a hold of Lori’s hand then checked his items. He put the submachine gun, knife, vest, some left over bandages, hemostasis sprays, and the platinum in the ring. Basically he brought everything he could, now he just needed to confirm whether these things can be brought back... and that included Lori.

This was also one of the reason he agreed. He wanted to confirm if Lori can go back to the real world and was not just some illusion created by God. Dreams are good but he will wake up one day. Instead of investing his feelings then getting hurt, he’d rather face the the problem right now. He needed to know whether all of this was just illusions.

“Then... let’s go!”

𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Zheng exchanged thirty days of time in the real world. That was 1500 points. He used 10 points for that platinum, and enhanced his muscle density and reaction speed by 100 stat points each. So he had 660 points left.

His current stats were reaction speed 387, muscle density 402, intelligence 187, mental capacity 232, cell vitality 321, immunization 331. In simpler words, the two enhanced stats were about four times stronger than a normal person.

Zheng held onto Lori’s hands tight, he almost couldn’t control his strength. After communicating with God, he finally exchanged for time in the real world.

Everything in front of him flashed for a moment, then he fell into a half awake state. Time passed by, perhaps it was just a blink of an eye or perhaps it was took very long. By the time he woke up he was standing inside an office. This was the place that he went to work at in the real world, and beside him...

Lori was smiling with teary eyes. Their hands were still holding onto each other.

The progressive knife comes from the biomechanical mecha anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. The blade of the knife vibrates at an extremely high frequency, increasing its cutting sharpness to the point that it can cleave the matter of a target object at a molecular level. A giant version of this blade is the standard close combat weapon of Eva pilots.