Global Collapse

Chapter 474 Give me thirty million, or else...

The old world...

Gu Mian stroked his chin. The name was nice. If time were turned back a hundred years or so and this name were placed in the warlord era of the Republic of China, it would be a very poetic name for a brothel.

Liu Ruyan was unaware that her world had been transformed into a brothel with an artistic atmosphere.

She put her hands in her pockets: "In my own world, I was an outcast. After coming to this world, I realized that this world is more suitable for me. If I hadn't been born in my own world, I would be an ordinary person with a normal life now."

They won't be labeled as fugitives or murderers.

"But when did you kill him?" Gu Mian asked, taking a few steps back and picking up the strawberry jam on the table.

Liu Ruyan gave a strange look: "You even know this? I haven't told anyone else about this."

Liu Ruyan was unaware that Gu Mian had used the [Book of Prophecy] on her.

Seemingly unwilling to hear how Gu Mian knew about this, she paused for a moment before continuing, "I remember... it must have been when I was fourteen."

"Fourteen years old?" The fat man was somewhat surprised. "You were just a little girl back then, weren't you?"

Actually, he subconsciously wanted to call the girl from the fourteenth year "young girl", but judging from Liu Ruyan's appearance, she didn't seem to be in that stage of youth.

"People who are asleep are especially easy to kill. As long as you hit them hard on the head with something, even if they don't die, they can't move. People whose heads are hit hard will only wriggle subconsciously. No matter what you do to them, they can't resist."

Upon hearing this, the fat man felt that Liu Ruyan was the kind of pervert who would follow others and take advantage of them.

"It's really not easy to find someone who sleeps so soundly..." the fat man said quietly.

Liu Ruyan laughed: "There were two. Later, I burned the house down along with the people."

two?

The fat man was initially puzzled, then his eyes widened in horror as if he had just realized something: "It can't be..."

“Yes,” Liu Ruyan’s smile remained unchanged. “I broke the rules. If I hadn’t acted first, they would have knocked me out onto the street, and… I would have had to put up a sign. I don’t want to be spat on.”

The fat man was terrified for a moment, then he seemed to understand: "That makes sense. In your world, relationships between people are pretty much the same. Parents and friends are not much different from strangers... But I really didn't expect you to be so decisive in killing someone."

“Because they’re wrong, don’t you think? A flawed world, flawed ideas, and mistakes should be eradicated completely.” Liu Ruyan was still smiling.

The fat man vaguely felt that Liu Ruyan's smile was somewhat terrifying.

“I don’t think you’re an oddity in your own world,” Gu Mian’s voice suddenly came from the side.

The fat man turned his head and saw him holding a bottle of strawberry jam and looking at Liu Ruyan: "You are not a heretic. They abide by the code, and you abide by the rules you set. It's just that different ideas cause conflict. If people don't abide by the code but frantically abide by the rules you set, I think you would feel that you are perfectly in line with that world."

Liu Ruyan is essentially the same as the old human world; she was practically born for this world.

They are obsessed with the rules, willing to do anything to eliminate violators, and have no compassion whatsoever.

However, there's no need for sympathy in that world.

“You’re the first person to say that about me,” Liu Ruyan said, her smile fading. “After I was caught, I managed to escape, and I did. But as you can imagine, a little girl can’t get very far. I was caught and brought back within a week. Everyone called me a heretic, and then I was immediately chosen to participate in a game.”

"A game?" the fat man asked curiously. "Is it a game similar to the global games we play now?"

Liu Ruyan shook her head: "Of course not, that world didn't suffer such a devastating blow... although I'd rather see it happen."

Seemingly realizing she had gone off-topic, she continued, "It's a game similar to battle royale, and all the participants are kids around my age. As I mentioned earlier, the technological development level of the old human world is not high; things like cloning and artificial humans don't exist at all."

"If someone wants a high-quality child but can't create one themselves, they can only choose from a large group of children, like raising a worm. I am one of those worms."

"In the end, you succeeded." Gu Mian recalled the title "champion" in Liu Ruyan's identity.

"I succeeded, I received a reward," Liu Ruyan's smile returned, "It's that I successfully came into this world, all alone..."

"...and successfully sneaked into my room and turned the valve dozens of times," Gu Mian added.

Liu Ruyan shut her mouth.

After a few seconds, she spoke: "By the way, I came here the year I committed murder. A lot happened that year... Oh, and in that year I made a good friend. He, like me, liked murder and arson..."

The fat man silently took a step back, feeling that the hotel was at risk of catching fire at any moment.

What a strange friend...

"But then he died, I suppose he died..." Liu Ruyan seemed lost in her own thoughts, and then stood motionless at the door.

“But seriously,” Liu Ruyan paused for a long time before speaking again, “if you could be matched with a copy of the old human world, could you say hello to that world? You know what I mean by saying hello.”

It seems Liu Ruyan really hates her world. Gu Mian slammed the door shut, leaving Liu Ruyan outside.

"Doctor, I suddenly find Miss Liu Ruyan rather scary." The fat man touched his arm, feeling goosebumps rising on his skin.

The fat man groped his arm as he cautiously asked, "Doctor, can I sleep with you tonight?"

Gu Mian said thoughtfully, "If you want to be hung from the ceiling."

The fat man shut his mouth.

"According to Liu Ruyan, her story is similar to Chu Changge's. They both come from lower-dimensional worlds, and only one person from each world came here," Gu Mian said, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

If that's the case, then Xiao Qiao must come from another unknown world.

Xie Bi'an was the same.

Adding the fat man's highly suspicious father, there are at least five low-dimensional worlds in total.

They each chose one person from their own world to come to the real world, so that the person who looked exactly like Gu Mian wouldn't die.

Of course, Gu Mian thought that this person could also be himself.

Then, considering the two organizers of the game, the assassination attempts he had faced over the years, and the unpaid game compensation from the dungeon...

"It can be concluded that all the assassinations over the past twenty years were carried out by Earth, while those lower-dimensional worlds tried their best to keep me from dying; the same goes for luck. Earth gave me bad luck so I couldn't draw good items, while the lower-dimensional worlds compensated me when the dungeon collapsed? In this light, my being alive should be beneficial to those worlds."

It seems that the lottery and the compensation are controlled by two different organizers.

Since the lower-dimensional world doesn't want him to die...

As Gu Mian thought to herself, she grabbed a fruit knife from the coffee table, raised it above her head, and shouted, "If you don't give me 30 million, I'll kill myself!"

Sitting on the sofa, Chu Changge glanced up at Gu Mian, who was holding a knife, then continued reading.

The fat man trotted over to Gu Mian, his face full of anxiety: "You're asking for too little, you need fifty million!"

Gu Mian: "..."

Just then, the knocking sounded again. The fat man ran to the door, climbed through the peephole, and saw that it was Liu Ruyan again.

Curious, he opened the door and asked, "Miss Liu, is there anything else?"

Liu Ruyan stood outside the door and said, "It's nothing, I just wanted to tell you to stop letting that female ghost in the red dress play tricks on you."

Gu Mian glanced at Xiao Hong, whose body was already half-hidden under the bed. What nonsense! She was a ghost all along.

“She can’t find the downstairs apartment’s window,” Liu Ruyan glanced at the bright lights in the living room, then turned to look at the two bedrooms with their lights on. “They’re different from you. They don’t have money. Electricity cards are a luxury for them, so those people don’t turn on the lights at all. They just save their money to buy necessities. Of course, even if they only buy food, they might not have enough money.”

When Liu Ruyan said this, she looked at Gu Mian and said, "Perhaps they will freeze to death this winter."

Gu Mian still remembers the game's original purpose—for the evolution of humanity.

But six months later, instead of evolving, humanity has suffered mass deaths. When Earth started this game, it did not tell humanity that it was a game of strategy.

Earth is one side, and the lower-dimensional world is the other.

Earth initially had most of the control over the game, but gradually lost ground over the next six months.

The instance began to mutate, and more and more people died, but there was no sign of human evolution whatsoever.

If things continue like this, the winner will probably be decided in about six months.

"May I ask?" Gu Mian looked at Liu Ruyan, "Is there some kind of conflict between Earth and your world?"

I have a feeling that the two are going to fight to the death.

Liu Ruyan smiled and explained, "It's actually very simple. The lower-dimensional world fears the higher-dimensional world because the higher dimensions have the absolute power to destroy the lower dimensions."

"Just like the second world is a book, if the book is destroyed in this world, the world and people in the book will instantly turn to dust. Therefore, lower dimensions fear higher dimensions."

At this point, Liu Ruyan's voice suddenly turned somber: "But let me give you another example. You live in a peaceful and stable world, but in the second world, monsters roam freely. The second world is born from imagination, and there are fears and eeriness in this world that do not exist in reality."

"Does the Creator feel fear towards what he has created? Like when you write a ghost story, you know that ghosts don't exist in this world, but you still can't sleep all night after writing it."

"Until one day, you discover a hand reaching out from under the bed, and you are horrified to find that the fear and eeriness you have created are eroding reality."

"Therefore, higher dimensions also fear us."

Help me up, I can still write!
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(End of this chapter)