Chapter 67

41. Dream

This story is a reimagining of an unbelievable tale Rebecca read on the Viva! Apocalypse! US board, based on my own imagination.

Before recounting this unbelievable story, she complained about the food shortage and summoned me to her domain.

As I handed over the food, she suddenly asked me,

“Is there an empty spot there?”

I didn’t give a definite answer.

It was something I had been pondering for a while, but I couldn’t make up my mind.

I was worried about whether I, who was used to living alone, could adapt to having a neighbor right next door. It wasn’t easy for me, who had always pursued individual survival, to suddenly shift to a collective survival mindset.

Instead, I gave her some meat and promised to consider it.

“Skeleton Juice - deal.”

I gave Su the canned yellow peach I received from Woo Minhee, but Rebecca took half of it.

While eating the yellow peach, Rebecca said to me,

“Remember the amazing story I mentioned before?”

She picked up a guitar she had found somewhere and played it like a minstrel.

When I told her her playing was terrible, she immediately threw the guitar away and whispered to Su to start the story.

“Listen well, Skeleton.”

The setting of the story was in China.

In Hangzhou, there is a beautiful lake called Dongting Lake.

On a gentle hill overlooking the lake, the villas of China’s prominent tycoons were densely packed. A brilliant inventor was walking around these villas, making bizarre advertisements.

He said that war was inevitable, and there were few countries left that would accept us Chinese. Even if they did accept us, we wouldn’t be satisfied. Therefore, we should create our own paradise and take refuge there.

The paradise the inventor spoke of was not the heavenly realm guarded by the Jade Emperor and the Great Celestial General, but a virtual world created through coding, programming, and human labor.

It was a vast world, spanning 144 square kilometers, encompassing many masterpieces, including Journey to the West, Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Investiture of the Gods, as well as works by Jin Yong and Go Long. It included Chinese elements, Japanese influences, and even American elements that they despised. This world was created by the bold imagination of one inventor.

The absence of hanbok, gat (traditional Korean hat), sam (traditional Korean paper), and paochai (traditional Chinese clothing) in this world might suggest that the inventor was less patriotic than other Chinese.

In any case, the virtual world was crafted with a level of detail bordering on obsession. Almost everything that could be interacted with behaved realistically, moving according to their own data and algorithms.

For example, if a user picked a flower on the road, the flower would disappear, and a modified object representing a germinated seed would remain. After 24 hours, a new flower would regenerate. If another flower was planted or the seed was destroyed during this period, no flower would ever bloom in that spot.

Such interactions occurred throughout the 144 square kilometers of the virtual world.

The possibilities were endless.

One could farm, fish, train weapons to hunt monsters and level up, use construction skills to build castles and become a lord, and even engage in large-scale sieges over those castles.

The beautiful scenery, combining famous Chinese and world landmarks with the fantasies of the Chinese people, was the greatest pride of this virtual world.

The inventor boldly named his creation after the famous dream of Hu Die Zhi Meng (The Butterfly Dream).

However, the inventor’s true ambition did not lie in the perfect virtual world.

The virtual world was merely a material.

The inventor had his sights set on something else.

His true vision of Hu Die Zhi Meng was not just the world he created, but a combination of a perfectly defended and self-sustaining bunker.

The idea was to live comfortably and enjoy the virtual world he created, receiving nutrients from the self-sustaining facilities, free from any external threats, like an eternal summer day’s dream.

Since reality couldn’t be changed, the inventor’s vision was to create a new reality and wait out the storm within it.

The inventor’s grand plan did not achieve immediate success.

Creating the paradise he envisioned required an enormous amount of money.

Initially, the inventor targeted ordinary working-class people as his customers.

His plan was to accumulate capital through a monthly subscription fee, similar to the popular Viva! Apocalypse! at the time, and then, when a crisis struck, evacuate people to the Hu Die Zhi Meng centers set up in various Chinese provinces, allowing them to live in an eternal dream.

The inventor, Zhang Suqing, tried to create a stir on Chinese social media, like his role model Melon Musk, but unlike Melon Musk, he lacked the substantial wealth and business achievements.

The inventor was cruelly ignored by the general public.

However, he was not one to be discouraged by a single failure.

He changed his strategy and targeted the 0.1% of China’s elite for his promotional activities.

But even this business did not go smoothly.

Pouring billions into a virtual world and living in a controlled environment with people they didn’t want to associate with seemed like walking into exile to those who had lived like Qing dynasty nobles.

A VIP threw an ashtray at the inventor’s face and mocked him.

“Does it hurt? Does it hurt? Your reaction amuses me. The anger on your twisted face and the way you suppress it is something only a living human can have. Think about it. What fun is there in venting your anger on a doll?”

The inventor, Zhang Xiaowei, rubbed his bruised eyes and, suppressing his anger and humiliation, came up with a chilling idea.

He held a new investment presentation with renewed determination.

At the event, he presented a new plan, different from his previous one.

Instead of the shabby jeans and black T-shirt he usually wore, he appeared in an overly shiny tuxedo with a bow tie, bowing excessively to the investors with a smile on his still swollen face.

The investors’ reaction was lukewarm, but the inventor was undeterred.

With a shameless expression, he talked about the “changes.”

“VIPs who invest will receive a martial artist account in the world of Hu Die Zhi Meng. Martial artists are experts in martial arts, starting with abilities and encounters far beyond ordinary people. What can you do with these martial arts? Yes, you can stomp, kill, and play with the insignificant people who connect to Hu Die Zhi Meng for free.”

The inventor, adjusting his bow tie, added,

“Yes, the NPCs will be filled with people who connect for free.”

That day, the inventor achieved the greatest success of his life.

He raised billions of investment funds on the spot and was overwhelmed with dealing with investors who came with their money.

As Beijing fell, the party collapsed, and the factions that had been split under the party’s name turned into warlords with their own bases, the inventor gathered the VIPs in one place.

Coincidentally, the location was around Dongting Lake, where he had first conducted his promotional activities.

The inventor, who had already made secret agreements with several warlords, proudly unveiled the massive, luxurious bunker he had created.

“When the war starts, we will dream an eternal dream here.”

Most of the VIPs who gathered for the first meeting were satisfied, and some asked the inventor if there were spots for the concubines and lovers they would bring.

The inventor, with a smile, said that everything was fine.

The next thing the inventor did was to prepare NPCs for the VIPs.

He opened free Hu Die Zhi Meng experience centers across the continent.

The facilities were far from good.

He placed dozens of virtual reality devices in underground facilities similar to the opium dens that plagued the late Qing dynasty, cramming people in like livestock, and provided the Hu Die Zhi Meng service.

He told the general public, offering the service almost for free,

“You will experience a world you have never felt before. Come in. This is your new paradise. You can enjoy it almost for free. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world.”

People were not particularly interested in what the inventor meant by a free lunch.

To escape the terrifying world, people dove into the world of Hu Die Zhi Meng like starving people greedily swallowing hot food.

The world of Hu Die Zhi Meng was truly a new paradise for them.

With dozens of non-exhaustive contents and infinite possibilities, including hunting, building houses, raising animals, weaving, drawing, playing music, and composing, Hu Die Zhi Meng provided a sufficient refuge for people who were losing everything in the dark era.

In no time, Hu Die Zhi Meng became the most dominant online content in China.

Its popularity was such that fights over Hu Die Zhi Meng access rights broke out frequently, and military organizations disguised as gangs occupied Hu Die Zhi Meng centers.

When the Jiangcheng faction, which controlled the Shanghai region, prepared for war with Taiwan, the inventor quietly gathered the VIPs around Dongting Lake.

“It’s time to dream.”

That day, an unprecedented existence called martial artists appeared in the virtual world of Hu Die Zhi Meng.

They possessed such transcendent combat power that they could kill a 100-level warrior, the highest level in Hu Die Zhi Meng, with a single finger.

The martial artists destroyed the houses that ordinary users had spent hundreds of hours building, killed the users, and destroyed everything they owned.

One martial artist built a massive castle in the world of Hu Die Zhi Meng and, in front of his subordinates, killed the lord who ruled the castle with a single strike, beheading him and hanging his head above the castle gate. Another martial artist appeared in a bustling market and demanded that users bow to him, killing those who refused.

In a sense, the martial artists were no different from monsters.

But in a world with no other entertainment or comfort, ordinary people, clutching their hungry stomachs in the squalid, general-user Hu Die Zhi Meng centers, tried to change their virtual lives.

Their efforts were diverse.

Some tried to please the martial artists and walked the path of voluntary slavery. Others built their own villages in remote areas to avoid the martial artists. Some tried to join the ranks of the martial artists by appealing to the charm and connections of the real world.

Groups formed to try to kill the martial artists.

They pooled their wisdom, using all known game systems, and came to one conclusion.

It was impossible to kill a martial artist unless they left their seat while maintaining their connection.

The health of a martial artist in the virtual world was around 2,500, and the damage an ordinary person could inflict was only 1.

No matter what they did, they couldn’t exceed 1.

It meant they had to hit 2,500 times without taking a single hit.

One user calculated that to kill a martial artist in a one-on-one fight, they would have to continuously hit for 3 hours and 12 minutes without taking a single hit to barely kill one martial artist.

Of course, the martial artist could revive as soon as the user returned to their seat.

In practical terms, it was impossible.

When it became known that ordinary users could not kill martial artists no matter what methods they used, they considered hacking or real-world attacks as a third option.

However, no one knew the location of the VIP bunker, and before they could attempt any hacking, nuclear attacks from the US and its allies destroyed major cities.

The surviving ordinary users were either abandoned in the monster-controlled areas or disappeared one by one in the hell ruled by raiders and warlords.

They cursed the martial artists until their last breath.

But the destruction of the martial artists, which they had longed for, did not happen until after they were gone.

Without the ordinary users as their playthings, the martial artists roamed the virtual world created by the inventor, trying to find new entertainment.

For about a year, this uneasy alliance continued.

But the limited content soon ran out.

The martial artists realized that there was no better content than people and started fighting among themselves.

It didn’t take long for these fights to spill into the real world.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The bunker turned into a battlefield.

A VIP with security guards had a favorable position, but a VIP with a military background rallied the survivors and launched a