Chapter 1

Chuci lit a cigarette, put it in his mouth, rubbed the dark circles under his eyes from several days of sleep deprivation, and yawned.

Leaning over, he was about to continue coding when his entire face changed!

"Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to truly—live?"

Chuci, who rarely read web novels or watched horror movies, had only one thought when he saw this webpage suddenly appear on the originally dull and black-and-white monitor.

"Aren't I working offline? Where did this webpage pop up from!"

A directly implanted computer virus? No, this computer had a password lock set by himself, and it was impossible to bypass the password to implant code. Network infection? Even more impossible, as the computer was physically isolated, and no one could connect a desktop without a wireless network card to the internet.

Chuci became interested, but seeing the black-and-white Emacs background on the webpage, he decided to finish his work first before studying this sudden virus.

Dragging the webpage to one side, he activated the protection program he had written, then continued coding until he completed the remaining work, wrapped it in an encryption shell, and pressed the cigarette butt into the ashtray. Chuci casually named it "Dawn Full Function Alpha Version" and added a Pikachu icon.

Well, yes, Chuci's part-time job was to create various cheats that disrupt balance, which was certainly despicable, but he had another full-time job as a database engineer at Oracle Corporation.

"After releasing this cheat for a few weeks, I should be able to earn a small sum. Yes, when I contact the service provider for maintenance, I can get another red envelope. Not bad, then I can upgrade to a DDR3 1600 8G." Chuci stroked his chin, a hint of satisfaction on his face, with no trace of shame for his actions.

After the excitement, a strong drowsiness followed. Glancing at the screen, the suspicious virus webpage was still hanging in one corner, but Chuci had no energy to deal with it. He opened a scanning and analysis program, which automatically decomposed the original composition of the text, obtained the remote code, and tried to analyze the digital source code, then went straight to bed.

"Sleep for a while, it should be fine when I wake up..."

Yawning, Chuci's eyelids involuntarily closed. On the cold screen, his most proud anti-cracking program began to intercept the program code at an extremely slow speed. Under the flashing of black and white keys, the source code quickly appeared. If Chuci were still awake, he would definitely think he was dreaming!

On the originally dull source page that could only display 0 and 1, there were now more symbols, not simple and straightforward electronic programs, but hundreds of unique text symbols. Some of these symbols could be identified as oracle bone script, hieroglyphs, and cuneiform, which are almost the oldest three scripts in the world. The rest were large-scale unexplainable strange symbols, appearing for the first time in the world, with no reference to translate.

It should be noted that when computers break the limits of 0 and 1, it is actually the time when artificial intelligence appears. Moreover, the composition of this text used so many scripts simultaneously. If Chuci were awake, he would probably rationally stop cracking and directly physically destroy this computer to eliminate all evidence.

But now, Chuci, from the lecherous smile on his lips, was probably having a wet dream. A nearly thirty-year-old bachelor, forgive him.

The computer screen kept flashing, the source code kept being intercepted, leaving traces of the translated code in the program. The mysterious text source code kept being stored until the hard drive was full, and the progress bar showed less than 3%.

The anti-cracking program, without virtual memory support due to the full hard drive, automatically stopped cracking.

And those source codes composed of strange symbols, as if receiving a signal to return, automatically retreated and disappeared from Chuci's computer, as if they had never appeared. Everything seemed to return to its original state.

The lonely webpage emitted a pale white light, the anti-cracking program restored to a pitiful 0% progress, Chuci was sleeping, and time continued to move forward, not stopping for anyone.

Suddenly, as if a certain moment had arrived, the uncontrolled mouse... did not move.

But the cursor on the monitor slowly moved to a "YES" that would start a constant string.

Click.

Clearly, the mouse had no physical movement, but a strange key sound appeared in the small room. Instantly, the room was enveloped in a blinding light bright enough to blind 24K titanium dog eyes, and Chuci's sleeping body disappeared in the light, as if destroyed by a laser, but the other items in the room remained intact.

The computer ran slowly, and the mysterious webpage disappeared without a trace, as if it had never appeared.

The desktop program was empty, and even the cheat Chuci had compiled disappeared.

When Chuci woke up, he still had a hint of confusion from before he fell asleep. In a daze, his eyes still closed, a pungent smell of alcohol hit his nose. Frowning, Chuci opened his eyes and saw a brown carved ceiling, a wine-red sofa, and a woman in a sexy bikini, clearly not his own small rental apartment.

He sat up and was surprised to find that he was not alone in the room. There were about seven or eight people, men and women, lying haphazardly on a white fur blanket, with a dozen empty wine bottles scattered on the floor, like the end of a grand party.

"Where am I?" Chuci rubbed his temples, not fully awake, but his rationality told him he wasn't dreaming.

"Hey, buddy, you're finally awake. Do you know where this is?" A light voice sounded behind Chuci, and a hand rested on his arm, helping him get up.

Chuci turned his head and saw a girl with light purple hair staring at him. She was about twenty-four or twenty-five years old, with an ordinary appearance, but heavily made up, still looking somewhat attractive.

However, from her revealing black mini skirt and the way she addressed him, she didn't seem to be a proper girl.

"I don't know either. I just finished overtime and took a nap, and when I woke up, I was here." Chuci shook his head, his eyes scanning the room, categorizing everyone's appearance. Unfortunately, he didn't have his glasses, so everything was blurry, and he could only rely on clothing and body shape to remember.

Chuci walked straight to the door, wanting to leave the room.

"It's no use. I tried, and the door won't open." The purple-haired girl explained to Chuci: "I woke up a few minutes before you. I checked everywhere, even tried to break the windows, but no luck."

Hearing this, Chuci didn't try again. He turned and approached the window. Outside was a deep black, and even with the room's warm yellow light, he could only vaguely see a garden full of flowers and plants. Looking further, there were no reference points for color differentiation.

Behind him, the sound of people stirring indicated that the others were waking up.

"Damn, where is this? I was at an internet cafe!" A high school student in a school uniform jumped up, his young face full of panic: "I just closed my eyes for a moment, how did I end up here!"

Others also began to murmur and complain, their faces filled with worry.

"Ahh!" A piercing scream rang out, the last to wake up, the girl in the sexy bikini, seeing so many people in the room, instinctively screamed.

"Shut up." Chuci, annoyed by women's overreactions, took off his jacket and threw it at the bikini girl.

Unfortunately, the action was cool, but the execution was clumsy. The jacket flew a few meters and landed on the carpet, still a few meters from the sofa.

"Uh..." Chuci's raised arm froze, the situation... too awkward.

Laughter rippled through the crowd, making Chuci and the bikini girl even more embarrassed. Fortunately, a kind middle-aged woman couldn't bear to see it and came over to pick up the jacket and hand it to the bikini girl. After putting on the jacket, the naked body was covered, and the girl felt a bit safer, looking at the middle-aged woman and Chuci with a kinder expression.

"Friend, do you know where we are?"

Chuci turned his head and almost got blinded. Short, fine hair, bright eyes, a high nose, and thin lips—what is a handsome man? This is a handsome man!

Compared to Chuci's long-term glasses-wearing, flattened nose, and slight hunchback from a career of back problems, the handsome man clearly gave off a much better impression.

"Sorry." Chuci shook his head and didn't say much. The handsome man looked disappointed and also walked to the door. The purple-haired girl reminded him again, but the handsome man didn't listen and started fiddling with the door lock.

"Heaven, it's already dark. My wife and son are waiting for me to have dinner." A middle-aged man, clearly a laborer, squatted in the corner, looking out the window with worry.

"Dinner is impossible." The woman in a tight business suit lifted her quartz watch and said to the others: "The time on the watch is 2 PM, but it's dark outside. Apart from the possibility of the watch malfunctioning, the wall clock, the sky outside, and the English newspaper on the cabinet all prove that we are in a country in the Western Hemisphere where English is the common language."

"I... I... I... went abroad!" The high school student was stunned, almost unable to believe it.

Chuci glanced at the newspaper, which, though blurry, was indeed in English.

"Bullshit, I just had a drink, how could I suddenly go abroad? Someone must be trying to kidnap me and make you act to get a ransom." A man with a nouveau riche air waved his sausage-like fingers, pointing at the others: "Do you know who I am? Brother Tao from the West River District is my sworn brother. If you let me go, I'll spare you, otherwise, I'll kill you!"

"Who do you want to kill?" A lazy voice accompanied a lazy person who slowly materialized in mid-air, only the upper body visible, like a decapitated ghost, appearing in the center of the room.

"Ah!! Ghost!!" Everyone in the room was scared and scattered, clinging to the walls, trembling. Even Chuci's scalp tingled, and he pressed himself against the window, feeling a chill, then quickly moved to the solid wall.

"Cough, have you ever seen such a handsome ghost?" The man fumbled in the air, pulled out a box of Furong Wang, lit a cigarette, and after a deep inhale, said slowly: "I'm human, but what you see is a projection."

"This is the Main God Space." The man introduced.

"What is the Main God Space?" Chuci asked without shame.

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