Tang Mo listens closely. There’s a soft rustling sound playing in his mind.

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This sound is very faint—if he hadn’t been listening closely, he wouldn’t have been able to hear it—but it’s weird. It’s not the wind, nor is it the sound of leaves. It’s a little bit like a sound that Tang Mo heard when he was little, the hissing static of black-and-white televisions from the last century.

Ever since the Black Tower game officially started, all electronics lost signal. Televisions, computers, and phones all became bricks. Right now, no one’s going to be using electronics, especially old black-and-white televisions.

But Tang Mo is 80% sure that this is the sound of black-and-white televisions.

“The sound is in your mind?”

The other person doesn’t immediately talk about the situation, asking this question instead. Tang Mo doesn’t have anything to do, so he’s not in a rush. “Yes, it’s in my head.”

“Maybe it’s because I contacted you in a different way this time.” The hissing static is even more obvious now. If he listens even closer, Tang Mo can hear the sound of metal clashing, but the man’s voice is very calm. “This time, I didn’t tap the egg three times.”

Tang Mo notices this subtle difference. “You mean…”

“I want to use this egg. Mr. Mo—I’ll call you this for now—I am currently in a very odd Black Tower game. I will not explain the details, but I expect that this game is not easy, so I wish to use this prop to give myself a backup plan.”

Tang Mo understands what the other person is trying to say. His gaze sharpens, and the man says what Tang Mo has wanted to know all this time. “This egg is called Mo Mo, and it is a save file. If you’ve played games before, you’ll know what I mean.”

Tang Mo never would have thought that this would be the function of this rare prop!

Many single-player role-playing games will have a save function. When the player is playing the game, they can save at any time. After saving, the player can exit the game at any time and reload the game when they play the next time and not lose progress. It can also be used to minimize errors; if the player dies in one level, they can simply reload from the save file and restart from there.

A save file. It’s easy to say these three words, but in this Black Tower game, this prop is a heaven-defying miracle!

Tang Mo’s heart hammers in his chest[1], and adrenaline shoots through his veins. No one could be calm after realizing that they own a save file. Tang Mo doesn’t speak, and the man clearly knows how important his words were. He gives Tang Mo some time to adjust and stays silent, because when he received this prop, he too nearly lost control.

After a minute, Tang Mo calms down. “What are the restrictions?”

The Black Tower would not give the players an unrestricted save file. If it truly was unrestricted, then this prop would be used to cheat flawlessly, and that would disrupt the fairness of the game.

The other man had been prepared and answers quickly. “Three restrictions. First, it can only be used once per seven days, non-cumulative[2]. Second, the save time is one hour, and it can only save Black Tower games. After saving, you can reload at any point within the hour. The effect expires if the hour passes. Third, this is the reason why I have contacted you.”

Tang Mo furrows his eyebrows. “What reason?”

“To use Mo… to use the save file, both prop owners must start it at the same time. This means that neither you nor I alone can open the save file.” After a pause, the man continues, “Mr. Mo, the way to begin the save function is to draw an English letter ‘S’ on the egg.”

Tang Mo finally understands why this difficult man would contact him even if it meant exposing the secret of the egg.

If he doesn’t tell Tang Mo, this egg is useless in his hands. It can’t hatch any turkeys, and it might not even taste good cooked. It’d just take up space in his bag.

Tang Mo wants to communicate. He directly asks, “When do you need to open it?”

There are no free lunches in the world.

Tang Mo knows that this Mr. Fu has only told him the function of the egg because he needs his help using the save function. He must tell him the way to use it, otherwise Tang Mo wouldn’t know what to do. Now that Tang Mo knows the function of the egg, he naturally must repay the man.

This repayment is opening the save file.

The man pauses, as if he didn’t think Tang Mo would make a decision so quickly. A while later, he says quietly, “Right now, thank you.”

Tang Mo holds the egg in his left hand and draws an ‘S’ on the white shell.

After he removes his finger, the letter begins to flash blue on the egg, right where Tang Mo had drawn, as if hinting that the save file is working right this moment.

“During the save, the two sides must share information, so I apologize. In the next hour, you will hear all of the sounds from my side.”

Tang Mo doesn’t have anything to do. The kids are asleep in the gym, and Li Wen’s just gone in too. Alone, he walks through the tree-lined road on campus, shoes squeaking on the fallen gingko leaves. Even if he has to listen to a game for an hour, that’s fine with him.

Yet he says, “Mr. Fu, you did not tell me this beforehand.”

This is an endless world of white. The sky is pure white, the ground is pure white too. In this infinitely-wide world, every kind of old home-use electronics is piled on the ground. Single-barrelled washing machines, old-fashioned sewing machines, big-bellied radioes, and hundreds of old static-y televisions. It’s as if they were all trash that was thrown into this pure white world.

A tall, handsome man walks through these electronics. He holds a white turkey egg in his left hand, an ‘S’ flashing on the white shell. The words ‘you did not tell me this beforehand’ broadcast from the egg, and Fu Wenduo stops his footsteps, eyebrows jumping.

“...I also only found out about the restriction after opening the save file?”

“But you’ve disturbed my time,” Tang Mo says coolly.

Fu Wenduo laughs once and stops speaking, continuing to advance through the world of electronics.

Tang Mo puts the egg back into his pocket, his hands behind his back, and walks through the school. He continues to hear odd sounds in his ear. Sometimes it’s the tik-tik-tik of sewing machines, sometimes it’s the sloshing sound of washing machines. But that weird Mr. Fu no longer says a single word.

When Tang Mo said that his time was disturbed, it was a lie. But it wasn’t to tease a stranger; it was to tell the other person: ‘you owe me another thing.’

The other owner of the turkey egg used its function to exchange for Tang Mo helping him open the save file. Thus, neither owes the other anything anymore.

But now Mr. Fu owes Tang Mo another thing, and maybe Tang Mo can use this thing to his advantage in the future.

That Mr. Fu no longer speaks, and Tang Mo wouldn’t speak on his own initiative either. His walk around the school only takes 20 minutes. Then, he returns to the library, sits by the pond, and looks expressionlessly at the crescent moon reflected in the water.

Forty more minutes.

Tang Mo begins to consider what he could do to waste 40 minutes of his life, but Fu Wenduo doesn’t make him wait that long. Five minutes later, a violent battle begins. Tang Mo’s gaze hardens, and he listens closely.

He hears the sound of metal clashing. This sound is very quick, each attack separated by no more than 0.5 seconds. Tang Mo can tell that there are many enemies attacking Mr. Fu. During an entire five minutes, this Mr. Fu doesn’t make any sound at all. After fighting continuously for ten minutes, he begins to breathe more heavily.

The countless objects dropping to the floor seem to hint at how many enemies Mr. Fu has defeated, but the attacks never stop.

More and more sounds of impact. Even the sound of a knife slashing through something heavy.

It has been 55 minutes since they opened the save file. Tang Mo straightens his back and listens closely to the sounds in his head, not letting a single detail pass by unnoticed.

He can’t see what the other person is going through, but he understands just by listening that this Mr. Fu is much too strong. Thirty minutes of continuous battle without rest. He might be battling thousands of enemies, but he’s put up with it all.

He really is too strong.

Boom!

Suddenly, there’s a loud explosion.

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Even Tang Mo is a little shaken, much less Mr. Fu who was actually there at the site of the explosion.

“I can’t make it…” a hoarse voice rasps.

“There’s one minute left,” Tang Mo immediately says. “Load the game quickly.”

“Not enough time.”

Tang Mo starts. He hasn’t understood what this means when suddenly, the sound in his brain disappears. Tang Mo quickly takes out the egg, only to see that the ‘S’ has disappeared and is no longer flashing. Before he can guess what happened, the entire egg glows softly. This is the glow of normal communication.

“I failed the game, so I read the save file.”

Everything happened within ten seconds. Ten seconds ago, Tang Mo remembers that this man’s voice was hoarse and he was panting heavily, as if he was severely wounded. But now, he sounds exactly the same as he did an hour ago, and the familiar static sound is back too.

Tang Mo furrows his eyebrows. “Mr. Fu, you just said there wasn’t enough time to load, so…”

“To save, you need to draw an ‘S’ on the egg. To load, you need to draw an ‘L’[3]. I was battling with a Black Tower creature just then, and it was much stronger than me. I was left with not even a minute. After the minute passed, the prop would expire. I would not have the chance to draw an ‘L’.”

Tang Mo doesn’t understand immediately. “If you didn’t have a chance to load, then…”

“There’s another way to read the file.” The man’s voice is calm. “After the save file is opened, if I die within an hour, the file will automatically load. So just then, I killed myself and directly loaded the save file.”

Tang Mo falls silent.

In this emergency, he unhesitatingly killed himself in exchange for another chance to live… Tang Mo would do the same, but perhaps not so decisively.

“I wasted an hour of your time. Are you still busy? I apologize.”

Tang Mo, who looked at the stars for an hour: “It’s okay.”

No need to apologize, just return the favor next time.

“I was going through the second floor of the tower-attack game.” The man’s voice is low and calm, coolly saying words that would make any player freeze in shock. “After players reach a certain level, they will be forced by the Black Tower to start attacking. This is one of the ways to attack the tower, but I’m guessing there will be other ways as well.”

When Tang Mo hears ‘the second floor of the tower-attack game,’ he opens his eyes wide in shock.

He suddenly guesses who this Mr. Fu is… 

This voice is low and magnetic, with a subtle hint of a smile. “Hello, Tang Mo. My name is Fu Wenduo.”

This time, after the communication ends, Tang Mo does not immediately return to the gym. He sits on the rock by the pond, looking at the turkey egg in his hand.

Fu Wenduo.

Stowaway Fu Wenduo.

The player who started the first floor of the tower-attack game for China, the one who makes all Chinese players clench their teeth in hatred with their desire to kill him. That Fu Wenduo.

Li Wen had joked with Tang Mo before that if he had the chance to see the stowaway Fu Wenduo who pulled all Chinese players into the tower-attack game early, he would hang this person from the ceiling, beat him up, and torture him for three days and three nights in the most violent way possible.

After loading the save file, Fu Wenduo expressed that he would find a chance to leave the game through other means. With his abilities at the moment, he is unable to successfully clear the second floor, so he can only give up for the time being.

Fu Wenduo told Tang Mo about him attacking the tower.

Tang Mo knows that the other person didn’t suddenly believe that he was a great person and could be a friend to tell any secrets to. He’s likely only telling Tang Mo because ‘I wasted an hour of your time.’ But he returned a little too much of the favor, or maybe there were other reasons why he told him.

Regardless, now Tang Mo knows that when he reaches a certain level, he will be forced by the Black Tower to play the game. Fu Wenduo did not start the first floor of the tower because he wanted to, but because he was forced to. In doing so, he accidentally screwed over everyone else in China.

But today, when he was pulled into the second floor, he didn’t screw anyone over. Tang Mo guesses that there are two possibilities as to why.

First, the Black Tower only gives special treatment to the first player who opened the tower. It will announce the event to the whole world and pull the entire region’s players in to attack the tower together. Second, at the moment, the only Chinese player to successfully clear the first floor of the tower is Fu Wenduo. Other than him, no one else is able to attack the second floor, so of course there’s no one to pull into the game.

Tang Mo lowers his head to look at the clear pond. A fish swims by, leaving faint ripples in the water.

“...He heard Chen Shanshan call me ‘Tang Mo-gege’? Then what’s with ‘Mr. Mo’?”

Tang Mo tsks and heads back to the gym to sleep.

After a long night of battle, Tang Mo sleeps until 8 in the morning. Everyone else is even more tired, especially the middle schoolers, and sleeps until noon. These days, they’ve been so nervous and tense that they haven’t been able to sleep well. First, it was the tower-attack game, then the stowaways’ revenge attacks. The kids are tired physically and mentally.

At 2pm, Tang Mo and Li Wen go to the market to get some food and water. After the students wake up, they split the food and eat.

Tang Mo puts two bottles of water and a few boxes of hardtack into his backpack. Then[4], he and Li Wen prepare to leave.

Chubs is shocked. “Tang-ge, Li-ge, you’re not going to stay with us?”

Chen Shanshan knew already, so she stands by silently, but the other students also try to convince them to stay.

Li Wen is a bit hesitant, but Tang Mo is quite calm. “You have a total of five people in your group, two official players and three reserve players, and you’re all students. This kind of group is eye-catching anywhere. If we stayed with you, we would be easy pickings for other people. Of course, you’re easy pickings on your own too.”

The students freeze.

Tang Mo: “I suggest you split into two groups. Don’t stay together. The official players can split up. Chubs and the two boys go one way, and Shanshan and this girl go another way. Become stronger separately, then reunite afterwards.”

Qiao Feifei’s mind seems to go blank. “I don’t want to split up…”

Chen Shanshan thinks for a while, then nods. “You have a point. We are very eye-catching as five people. Most people in the world are reserve players, not stowaways, but in times like these, murderers are no longer limited to stowaways. We are all technically killers. Five middle schoolers together will come into much more danger. We’ll rest tonight and then split up tomorrow.”

The students all listen to Chen Shanshan because she’s always right, but they still don’t want to split up. Whatever they decide, it’ll be up to them.

Before Tang Mo leaves, he looks at Chen Shanshan. “I’m going to find my friend. He also lives in Shanghai, but in Pudong. I can’t take you all with me. After ten days, if I have the chance, I’ll come back to the school.” Tang Mo does not have the ability to keep protecting these kids for the rest of his life, nor can he. If they want to survive, they must learn to rely on themselves.

Tang Mo and Li Wen bid goodbye to the kids at the entrance of the school.

Li Wen still can’t really let them go, but he has things to do too. He needs to go home. Maybe his parents are still alive.

After they leave, Li Wen says, “Right, Tang Mo, you came back really late last night. It must have been 3 or 4? What were you doing outside?”

Tang Mo says casually, “I went on a walk, thought about life before the Earth came online.” He can’t tell him about the turkey egg, and he definitely can’t say anything about accidentally connecting with Fu Wenduo.

Li Wen lets out an ‘oh’. On the way home, he begins to excitedly talk about his family. He sounds happy, but the ends of his words tremble, and he doesn’t walk quickly either.

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Tang Mo glances at him.

This person is trying hard to stay calm, but he’s actually worried that his home will be empty and he’ll be the only person left.

Li Wen’s home is in Jingan District. He and Tang Mo walk for two hours, and at 6pm, they reach a community of villas.

The closer he gets to home, the slower Li Wen walks.

But in the end, they still walk to a three-story villa.

Li Wen stands in front of the big metal gate, afraid to open it. He doesn’t know whether, after opening this door, he’ll see his parents or an empty house.

Tang Mo is going to Pudong, which is on the way, so he came here with Li Wen. And, in this world, they cannot let down their guards at any moment. They have to always be on the lookout for stowaways and other players with ill intentions. Two people walking together is definitely safer than walking alone.

Li Wen stands in front of the gate, occasionally touching the handle, but is unable to push it open.

Five minutes later, Tang Mo suddenly reaches out. With some force, the lock breaks easily, and he pushes the door open. “At least there’s no trap on the door. There’s probably no stowaways here.”

Li Wen starts, looking dazedly at Tang Mo. After a long time, he nods. “Right, not dangerous…”

Using stowaways as an excuse, Tang Mo helped Li Wen open the door.

Some things must be faced in the end. Li Wen seems to have gathered his courage and quickly walks into the garden. When he reaches the door of the house, Tang Mo says, “Careful, in case there really are enemies.”

They exchange a glance, then Tang Mo kicks the door down.

Bang!

The redwood door falls to the ground, kicking up a light layer of dust.

After confirming that there are no enemies in the house, Li Wen rushes upstairs, calling for his parents. But the only responses are empty echoes.

Tang Mo’s parents passed away a long time ago. He doesn’t enter, only stands in the lobby near the door, listening to Li Wen shout for his parents.

Li Wen goes through the entire house without finding anyone. His voice begins to despair.

Suddenly, he shouts excitedly, “My mom is alive, my mom is still alive!”

Tang Mo looks towards the living room in surprise. Li Wen runs over, holding a piece of paper, joy written all over his face and entire body trembling. “My mom is still alive, Tang Mo, look! My mom is still alive! She said my dad suddenly disappeared, but her phone couldn’t get any signal so she couldn't contact anyone. Shanghai’s a mess, so she wanted to go back to her hometown to avoid the chaos. If I’m still alive, she wants me to go find her. Tang Mo, my mom is still alive!”

Tang Mo smiles. “Congrats.”

Li Wen is excited for a bit, then suddenly stops laughing. “My dad disappeared…”

“Go find your mother first,” Tang Mo encourages him.

Li Wen lowers his head silently. After a while, he clenches his fist and nods.

Li Wen’s hometown is near Kunshan. His grandparents passed away long ago, and he doesn’t have many relatives. His only family is his parents. Now that he knows his mother’s still alive, he definitely needs to find her.

They separate at the border between Jingan District and Huangpu District.

Li Wen finds another map of Shanghai from a nearby news station, then draws a route on it.

“It’s closest if you go to Pudong from here. Right now, the ferry across the Huangpu River is definitely closed, so you should go over Nanpu Bridge, then over here…”

Tang Mo memorizes the route, then folds the map. He raises his head and looks at this naive rich kid.

They look at each other without speaking. After a while, Li Wen smiles. “I’m too weak right now. If I went with you, I’d definitely drag you down. I’ll go find my mom now, Tang Mo, see you later if there’s a chance.”

Tang Mo waves the map in his hand. “Thank you. See you.”

Li Wen laughs. “Shouldn’t I be thanking you? Agh, I’m too dumb, I’d better use my brain from now on, otherwise I wouldn’t even know how I died. Really, thank you for these few days.”

Tang Mo says nothing more, and the two leave to go their own separate ways.

Li Wen’s only gone about ten meters before Tang Mo suddenly says loudly, “I remembered something, Li Wen, come over here.”

Li Wen hurries back. “What’s wrong?”

Tang Mo only looks at him, smiling but silent.

Li Wen’s baffled. “Tang Mo?”

“You came back just because I told you to? When I told Chubs to be smarter, I wasn’t just talking to him, but you too.” Tang Mo smiles. “You naive rich kid, live a good life.”

Li Wen: “...So in your heart, I’ve always been a naive little rich kid?! You thought of me like that?!!”

Tang Mo: “...”

Wasn’t the point for you to be smarter?!

They laugh, then truly separate.

After seeing Li Wen leave, Tang Mo begins to walk towards New Pudong District.

It’s not obvious when there are a lot of people around, but now that Tang Mo is alone, he unexpectedly feels a bit lonely. He puts the map in his backpack and walks on the side of the road. Hiding himself in the shadows of the trees, he hurries on his way.

At night, there are much less people on the streets. After the game began, even the biggest cities in the world no longer flourish in the night[5]. The night is more dangerous than the day, enemies hiding in places unseen. No one wants to linger on the streets in the dark.

Tang Mo walks for more than an hour. Near Nanpu Bridge, he stops.

He decides to rest for the night.

He doesn’t know if there are stowaways hiding in the corners. And it may not just be stowaways; even if it’s a stranger, it will be dangerous.

Tang Mo finds an obscure fast food restaurant and walks in. After making sure there’s no one inside, he locks the door. He doesn’t turn on the light, but he props a chair against the door. At the same time, he puts many chopsticks on the windowsill, setting them up vertically along the window. From the outside, people can’t see what’s going on through the frosted glass, but if anyone tries to come in through the window, the chopsticks will fall and make noise.

He takes one of the tablecloths and puts it on the ground.

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Official players’ physical conditions are amazing. Even on this cold autumn night, Tang Mo doesn’t feel cold as he lies on the floor. In fact, he’s not even really sleepy. He came into this store not to sleep, but to find a place to spend the night and prevent any unneeded danger.

It has been four days since the game started. Four days. Other than the stowaways who have already killed people, he cannot let his guard down against official players and reserve players either.

Perhaps their hands are also stained with blood.

Tang Mo lies on the ground and raises his hand. Moonlight streams through the frosted window, immersing the fast food restaurant a soft glow. Tang Mo looks at his hand, expression calm.

He has already killed two people.

One was an accident. Qian Sankun, a thief, wanted to kill him, but Tang Mo accidentally killed him instead.

The other he killed with his own hands. He used the match to split open the fire-breathing man’s head.

Other than them, there have been many people who died indirectly due to him, like the one-armed man and the gunman.

These people’s faces flash across Tang Mo’s eyes. He finds that he can’t even remember what Qian Sankun looks like. When he thinks of them, Tang Mo does not feel anything at all. His heart continues to beat as steadily as always.

“Stowaway, huh…”

Tang Mo takes out the turkey egg from his pocket. The lighting is too dim, so he can’t see the color of the egg, only a round shadow.

“Stowaway Fu Wenduo. Who did he kill?”

One in Shanghai, one in Beijing, separated by more than a thousand kilometers. Tang Mo isn’t scared by that nationally-hated Fu Wenduo. No matter how capable Fu Wenduo is, can he fly all the way to Shanghai to kill him? That’s impossible. If he really had that ability, Tang Mo would die impressed.

Tang Mo’s finger taps on the egg, once, twice. When he’s about to tap the third time, his finger stops in the air. He puts the egg back in his pocket and closes his eyes.

The next morning, Tang Mo leaves the restaurant and continues on to New Pudong District.

On the way, Tang Mo bumps into a young man who actively makes small talk. He looks like a college student and clearly thinks that Tang Mo is too, excitedly running over to ask what’s going on.

Are there really so many naive kids in this world? Are they not afraid of being tricked by strangers?

Tang Mo suddenly wonders whether his heart is too dirty and if he overthinks. Maybe he should live a little simpler and believe that this world is full of love?

Then, as soon as he leaves Nanpu Bridge, he sees two bodies.

Their throats are slit by a sharp weapon, and the bodies have been thrown under the bridge. The bodies have no clothes and their bags are empty, all the contents stolen. By the look of it, they died last night.

…Yeah, he’d rather be a bit dirty.

In the afternoon, Tang Mo walks along the path that Li Wen gave him and finds the community that his friend lives in. This community is deadly silent. When Tang Mo enters, he sees an old man walk out, holding many bags. When he sees Tang Mo, the old man looks at him in shock, then seems to remember something and quickly runs away.

Tang Mo furrows his eyebrows.

This old man’s reaction is a bit weird.

When he walks into the community, he understands why the old man looked at him like that.

This community is very big, split into east and west sections separated by a road. Tang Mo is in the west section. There are six buildings here, and his college friend lives in one of these. Last year, Tang Mo came to live with him for a few days during New Year celebrations, so he knows the way.

The six buildings surround a central garden for the residents to enjoy.

Right now, in the plaza in the middle of the garden, there lie six bodies. Tang Mo looks at them; his friend is not here. There are two middle-aged men, a young woman, and three young men. They all died here for some unknown reason, and by the looks of it, they’ve been here for more than a day.

One middle-aged man holds a chef’s knife in his hand. There’s a puddle of water near the young woman’s right hand. One of the young men has a gaping, bloody hole in his chest, but no weapon in it.

Looking at the wounds on the body, Tang Mo has already come to a conclusion.

The young woman died from the chef’s knife. The young man might have died from some unknown ability.

There’s a 70% chance that these six people killed each other. Of course, other than them, there could have been other participants as well, but only these six died here.

Tang Mo seems to be observing these six bodies, but in reality, his focus never shifts from the surrounding environment. No one knows whether or not these six people’s companions might be hiding nearby. Even when he’s checking the bodies, he can’t let down his guard.

Tang Mo picks up the middle-aged man’s knife and places it in the wound in the young woman’s chest. It fits perfectly; the young woman was killed with this knife.

Unable to conclude anything else, Tang Mo no longer cares about this situation. He touches the match tattoo on his wrist.

The students gave him this match. Chubs said that his ability was too weak and the match was too big and heavy, so he couldn’t use it at all. The other students, out of gratitude, also decided to give the match to Tang Mo, and Tang Mo didn’t refuse.

Expression calm, Tang Mo walks into the building that his friend lives in. He doesn’t take the elevator, instead walking up the stairs. His friend lives on the seventh floor. The entire building seems to be empty. The only sounds around are those of Tang Mo climbing the stairs.

When he reaches his friend’s house, Tang Mo kicks in the door and enters the room to check for signs of his friend.

Not a single person here.

And no note, either, not like Li Wen’s mother.

Tang Mo walks over to the table, seeing a small dish of molded pickled vegetables and half a bowl of congee. There’s a light layer of dust on the congee, muddling the liquid. A chopstick has fallen onto the table and the other one is on the floor, as if the owner’s hand suddenly slipped, causing the chopstick to fall. Or, he could have suddenly disappeared, which is why the chopstick fell… 

The chance of him surviving is no more than 10%.

Tang Mo takes a bottle of water and two packages of ramen from the cabinet in the kitchen and puts the items into his backpack. Before he leaves, he stops at the coffee table in the living room, lowering his head to look at a picture in a wooden frame. In the picture are three young men, all wearing graduation gowns. One is Tang Mo, one is tall and thin, and the other is pale and chubby.

The three boys hug each other in joy, throwing their caps into the air to celebrate their graduation.

Tang Mo looks at this picture for a long time, then reaches out and flicks the chubby boy’s face.

“I’ll continue to live well alone, Haozi.”

He turns and leaves. In the picture, the chubby boy smiles ever so brightly.

The community is still deadly silent. Tang Mo walks downstairs and decides to leave immediately. He walks along the road and turns a corner, suddenly seeing a familiar figure.

The old man who was leaving with a lot of bags is now sitting on the parterre[6] on the side of the road. Hearing noise, he looks up, and his eyes brighten as he sees Tang Mo. He waves, saying loudly, “Kid, I twisted my ankle, can you come help?”

Tang Mo looks at him from afar, gaze sweeping over his foot, and doesn’t say anything.

Ten meters away, by another parterre, there’s a young man and woman. After hearing the old man speak, they come over as well. One of them lifts the old man’s foot. “Oh no, this grandpa has really twisted his foot. What do we do now? How do we treat a twisted ankle? This brother, can you come help?”

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The young woman also says, “I don’t know. Handsome, do you know what to do?”

“No.” Tang Mo gives them a cool glance and steps aside to leave[7].

Suddenly, the old man exclaims, “Don’t let him get away!!!”

In an instant, four people emerge from behind the thick bushes. A middle-aged lady and three middle-aged men.

The moment the old man speaks, Tang Mo turns and runs. Those four never would have thought that he could react so quickly and freeze in place. When they come back to their senses, they are no longer just four people; the young couple and old man join the chase as well, dashing towards Tang Mo.

Tang Mo is extremely fast, having put more than 10 meters of distance between him and his pursuers in just one second.

“You, come back!!”

Tang Mo is almost at the corner when suddenly, an odd gust of wind howls by in front of him. The wind picks up, blowing Tang Mo backwards. He clenches his teeth and reaches his left hand towards the parterre, planning to stabilize himself and rush away. But right when his hand touches the parterre— 

“He touched it!”

“He touched it!!!”

Tang Mo’s heart drops.

“Ding dong! Massive multiplayer dungeon game ‘Mario’s Monopoly Game’ has been activated. November 22nd, 2017, 17:02, players Li Zhen, Yuan Qi, Liu Feihao, Zhao Guo, Lin Bangcheng, Liu Simei, Qi Feng, Tang Mo have safely entered the game.”

“Sandbox loaded…”

“Data loaded…”

The roads, trees, and tall buildings around them vanish completely.

An intense white light flashes in front of Tang Mo, so bright that he can’t open his eyes. The bright white light stains the whole world white, and at this moment, a very familiar electronic game music plays in everyone’s ears.

“Da da, da, dada, da!”

Throughout the entire world, at least 1,200,000,000 people have heard this music before.

Joyful electronic music echoes in this pure white world.

The light fades as the music continues. Tang Mo gradually begins to see again. He raises his head, only to see a two-meter-tall cartoon character descend from the sky. He wears a red cap with a white M on it, has a huge nose, and is wearing a dark blue pair of overalls.

He’s two meters tall and his movements are slow, as if he’s just a giant wooden puppet. A pair of black eyes sweeps across every player, landing lastly on Tang Mo. Then, he suddenly raises his right hand, sweeps it across his chest, and does a classic thumbs-up.

Boom!

A huge Mario descends upon the spotlit stage--

“Everybody, it’s-a me! Mario!”

Notes

[1]	The actual translation here was smth like 'Tang Mo's blood circulation quickens'. That certainly evokes imagery in Chinese, but not in English, so I just changed it to smth a little more standard.

[2]	I think here, 'non-cumulative' means that your previous uses of the egg doesn't count, if that makes sense? Like if you used it seven days ago and have waited for its cooldown to end, that use does not affect any future uses.

[3]	Here, I deleted an explanation: "The 'S' is for save, and the 'L' is for load." Because obviously, this is being translated into English and English-speaking readers don't need that explanation.

[4]	The original sentence was 'At 2pm, Tang Mo and Li Wen prepare to leave' but there were two 2pms? They couldn't eat at 2pm and leave at 2pm too lol.

[5]	Rather than 'flourish in the night', it was 'these are no longer cities that never sleep' but i didn't know if that was a saying in English too. I didn't want to confuse anyone so I just changed it slightly.

[6]	So... I could not find a very good translation for this other than 'flower bed'. But that wasn't quite it either. This is the definition of parterre but this is what I actually meant (and what it actually said): 花坛. Like, you know what I mean? But yeah, I didn't know how to translate that.

[7]	The translation would have been more accurate if I had said 'he stepped around them to leave' but I didn't want to repeat the word 'them' too many times.

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