Chapter 84
The time was six months ago.
Back then, Zhang Xiaochen was worried about Jiang He’s expenses. Various money-making ideas had been tumbling around in his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to make a decision.
It was at this time that a young man calling himself Qiao Ke knocked on his door.
Zhang Xiaochen remembered it clearly. It was a cloudy summer day, and the muggy wind was almost suffocating. He was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan. When he opened the door, his actions were rough, and his tone was tinged with irritation.
“Who is it?” He looked Qiao Ke up and down. Seeing that it was a stranger, he frowned and was about to close the door when the young man calmly reached out to stop him and directly pulled out a bank card.
“Zhang Xiaochen, twenty-three years old, currently worried about your brother’s tuition fees. Am I wrong?”
His voice was calm and self-possessed, as if he had everything under control. His gold-rimmed glasses glinted coldly in the light, making Zhang Xiaochen pause his action of closing the door.
At the time, he didn’t think much of it, just assuming some shady platform had gotten his information and was trying to trick him into taking out a loan. His tone was still aggressive. “What’s it to you? Get lost, get lost!”
Qiao Ke wasn’t angered by his attitude. Instead, he continued on his own, “This is the bank card under your name. I’ve already paid off all your debts, and the money inside is enough for your brother’s tuition and living expenses for the rest of his life.”
It sounded like some kind of bluffing scam, but after checking it several times, Zhang Xiaochen had to believe it was true.
The bank card that had been in his wallet had somehow ended up in Qiao Ke’s hands, and the balance inside was an astronomical figure he had never seen in his life.
Seeing Zhang Xiaochen’s stunned expression, Qiao Ke just gave a mysterious smile and said meaningfully, “Have you ever heard of the Lost Way Game?”
***
Zhang Xiaochen’s words came to an abrupt halt. He suddenly looked up at Jiang Liu with a strange expression. His eyes were extremely complex, as if he were caught in some kind of internal struggle, and he seemed slightly dazed.
Jiang Liu had been listening quietly the whole time.
He was usually talkative, most of the time making inappropriate jokes. It was rare for him to speak so seriously.
Zhang Xiaochen paused for a moment, then sighed and continued.
“Qiao Ke asked me to do something for him. As long as it was done, I could successfully return to reality, regardless of whether I cleared my instance or not.”
Jiang Liu finally interjected, “Is that what you meant by getting rid of me?”
Zhang Xiaochen shook his head strangely, his gaze on Jiang Liu still subtle. He suddenly uttered an inexplicable phrase, “He asked me to help dispose of the ‘Defective Product’.”
At first, he didn’t understand what this concept meant. He was just mechanically thrown into instances under Qiao Ke’s control. The first instance went without a hitch, and he fought desperately to clear it. Then came the second—
Curtain Dream Theater.
Qiao Ke provided him with many props and conveniences, requiring Zhang Xiaochen to guide the target to touch specific items within the instance as much as possible, while also not revealing his own identity.
In order to escape this godforsaken place, Zhang Xiaochen had no room to refuse and could only rack his brains to disguise himself.
At this point, he suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly.
“At that time, I still didn’t understand why Qiao Ke was looking for me. How could a good-for-nothing like me possibly get anything done right?”
It wasn’t until the play began that Zhang Xiaochen realized he had been overthinking it.
At that time, he had only a partial understanding of the game’s existence. He didn’t need to pretend when faced with the strange events of the instance; his fear and worry were all genuine.
A bitter smile appeared on his face. Jiang Liu had a feeling and suddenly pulled a photo from her pocket.
It was the one that had fallen from Chen Xiu after her death in the first instance, a picture of Chen Xiu herself in a cheongsam.
“So the first thing you did was put this photo on Chen Xiu?”
Zhang Xiaochen nodded. “Yeah, I tried many ways at the time, but you were too alert. You’d notice if I got close, so I had to find Chen Xiu when I snuck out.”
The things Qiao Ke could provide him were beyond Jiang Liu’s imagination, including the ability to go out at will without following the rules, and even obtaining a legendary-grade item.
That dagger was originally meant to be used to set up Jiang Liu, but he found it useful and wanted to keep it for self-protection for the time being. He never expected it to end up in Jiang Liu’s hands by a twist of fate, which was why he never asked for it back.
Hearing this, Jiang Liu couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.
The photo in her hand was the catalyst for her suspicion of the game itself. If it weren’t for this, she might not have become so vigilant so quickly.
But what was Qiao Ke’s purpose?
He had repeatedly warned her that there was someone with ulterior motives around her. Was he hoping she would discover Zhang Xiaochen’s identity and they would become suspicious of each other, or did he have other plans?
She opened her mouth, deliberating on how to ask, but it was as if Zhang Xiaochen had seen through her.
He grinned and waved his hand at Jiang Liu. “Don’t be in a hurry to ask questions. It’s almost dawn. Let me finish first.”
Zhang Xiaochen pursed his lips and continued to reminisce.
“I also made many arrangements, like the layout of Xu Xiu’s room and the furnishings in the living room in the garden, but it seems none of it had much effect.”
While helping Qiao Ke, as he gradually learned more about the system, he himself couldn’t help but have doubts about this supervisor.
Why was Jiang Liu, a normal person who knew nothing about the system, being called a Defective Product?
It wasn’t until Yang Caisi’s appearance that Zhang Xiaochen felt he had finally found the answer.
“Look at this.” As if he had prepared it long ago, he took out a snapshot from his pocket.
The photo was crumpled and creased, covered with marks. Many parts were already torn, making it impossible to see the full picture, but Jiang Liu recognized it at a glance. It was the home from her memories.
She and Yang Caisi were sitting side-by-side at the dining table, on which were several delicious-looking home-cooked dishes. Although the colors had faded a lot, it could still make one’s mouth water.
Neither of them was looking at the camera in the photo. They were smiling warmly, as if completely unaware, and it seemed to have been secretly taken from a tricky angle from behind.
Jiang Liu took a closer look, and a picture flashed through her mind.
That was when Yang Caisi got her first job after graduation. She had excitedly bought a bunch of ingredients to cook and celebrate, and Jiang Liu had even specially opened a bottle of champagne to mark the occasion.
At that time, only the two of them were at home. Neither of them had noticed a hidden camera aimed at them, taking such a picture.
The thought that her past life might have been monitored sent a chill through Jiang Liu’s heart.
Zhang Xiaochen had been observing Jiang Liu’s expression the whole time. Seeing a flicker of cold light that was not easily detected in her eyes, he knew she had remembered when this happened.
At this point, there was nothing he couldn’t say.
“This was something he asked me to arrange for the second mission, but the situation in the garden at that time was too strange, and you even saved me, so I didn’t have a chance to do it.”
At the time, Zhang Xiaochen thought it was just a mistake. After all, Qiao Ke wasn’t a petty person. To clear the game, one had to go through many instances, and he would have plenty of opportunities in the future.
“So that’s why Xiao Si was suddenly punished, and Qiao Ke became the guide?” Jiang Liu’s eyes flashed, and she suddenly asked a question.
Zhang Xiaochen nodded generously and said frankly, “I’m sorry. Sister Yang’s punishments were all because of my secret reports.”
He thought he would persist with the mission, but he didn’t expect to encounter an accident along the way.
A thought moved in Jiang Liu’s mind, and a name jumped to the forefront. “Jiang He?”
Zhang Xiaochen grunted in agreement, looking a little dazed. His gaze finally moved from his feet, and from his high vantage point, he looked towards the iron cages by the sea.
He never expected that Jiang He would also enter an instance for his sake.
Chen Ping was just a pawn in his and Qiao Ke’s hands, carrying out what Qiao Ke wanted. The points arena and the team kit were just a scheme that Qiao Ke had calculated in advance.
Running into each other repeatedly the first time could be called a coincidence. Besides, to make it look plausible, Zhang Xiaochen had also pulled in Xu Meng to ensure Jiang Liu wouldn’t be suspicious.
But if they were matched into the same instance every time, Jiang Liu was bound to suspect something. Qiao Ke himself was an extremely cautious person and certainly wouldn’t let things go wrong over such a detail.
So Chen Ping appeared, and they competed for the kit in the arcade. But he never expected that among the people Chen Ping had unscrupulously roped in, there would be Jiang He.
His brother’s appearance caught Zhang Xiaochen completely off guard. He risked exposing himself to prevent Jiang He from being punished and even questioned Qiao Ke overnight about what was going on.
At this point, Jiang Liu could already deduce his thought process.
Her eyes were fixed on Zhang Xiaochen, and she finished his sentence for him. “So you started to question the meaning of what you were doing, and you didn’t want Jiang He to be controlled by Chen Ping all the time, so you tried to find a way to remind me to understand all this.”
His evasiveness in the photo studio wasn’t because he didn’t want to say it, but a clever tactic to make Jiang Liu suspicious of him, thereby increasing her curiosity about Jiang He, and then using Jiang He to understand everything.
Zhang Xiaochen scratched his head, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed. “Couldn’t it just be that my conscience got the better of me, and I thought you were a pretty decent person, so I couldn’t bear to do it?”
He was still in the mood to joke, which gave Jiang Liu a glimmer of hope. She smiled along with him. “I understand. After all, my charisma is irresistible.”
Hearing this self-praise, Zhang Xiaochen couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth, then he couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s true.”
As they spoke, the sky gradually brightened. Most of the scene on the rooftop looked hazy. Zhang Xiaochen gripped the railing, thinking to himself that his time was running out.
He put away his playful expression and took out a phone, pushing it towards Jiang Liu. “I still have some props I haven’t used. There are photo records of them on here. Pay attention to them in future instances.”
“Although Qiao Ke didn’t specify his purpose, he repeatedly referred to you as a Defective Product. If it’s really as I suspect, and you’ve been in this game before, then Qiao Ke was most likely your supervisor.”
Zhang Xiaochen couldn’t forget Qiao Ke’s tone when he mentioned Jiang Liu. His expression was half mocking and half wary, as if he was utterly disgusted with this Defective Product, yet couldn’t help but admire that this person was indeed difficult to deal with.
He both looked down on Jiang Liu and acknowledged her ability. This complex emotion was suppressed in his heart, making the young man seem somewhat schizophrenic.
“What you need to do is remember why you entered the game in the first place. This is very important. If you can’t remember the wish you made after clearing the instance, then all your efforts will have been in vain.”
Zhang Xiaochen spoke quickly. As his voice fell, a ray of morning light rose from the sky—
Dawn had broken.