Global Collapse

Chapter 868 "Not for Sale"

Speaking of "taking the world away", Gu Mian had actually seen people pack up an entire world and take it away before.

I saw it in the [Angel Redemption] instance.

More accurately, it's not about taking the whole world with you, but just taking a copy of it.

At the moment the Angel's Redemption instance ended, the instance's creator, the Holy Maiden, appeared and compressed the entire instance onto a CD, giving it to him. Of course, she also included a "non-saleable item."

Speaking of which, both the saintess in that world and the evil god in the paradise world liked to make people play house, making them repeat the things they experienced over and over again.

Speaking of CDs...

Gu Mian turned to look at Chu Changge. He didn't usually need any ghosts to protect him, so the discs were mostly with Chu Changge.

The older brother in the CD seemed to dislike Chu Changge very much, and rarely showed his face when Chu Changge carried him around.

At that moment, Gu Mian saw an arm sticking out of Chu Changge's pocket; it belonged to her brother.

At the same time, he heard a byte coming from Chu Changge's pocket.

"sister……"

But before the person in the pocket could finish speaking, Chu Changge reached out and pressed the arm back down, his expression as natural as if nothing had happened, and said, "Over the years, the lower-dimensional worlds have been fighting against Earth. They cannot escape the lower dimensions and come to Earth on their own."

At this point, Chu Changge paused for a moment before looking at Gu Mian and saying, "But now that the entire Paradise World has been brought to Earth, you have the ability to directly replace the lower-dimensional world with reality."

"That disc, it must be the Saintess's test subject," Gu Mian realized. "And Mr. Green too."

Xiao Qiao didn't understand what Gu Mian was talking about, so she just stared at him with her neck stiff with confusion.

"Thinking about it carefully, it does seem to be true." Liu Ruyan was much smarter than Xiao Qiao and immediately understood the meaning behind Gu Mian's words.

The Holy Maiden compressed a copy onto a CD and gave it to Gu Mian. Later, Gu Mian learned that each copy was a part of a lower-dimensional world. So, the Holy Maiden had actually compressed a part of her own world onto a CD, and Gu Mian successfully brought this small part of the lower-dimensional world to Earth.

At that time, the saintess was probably experimenting, trying to see if he had the ability to bring the lower-dimensional world into reality.

As it turned out, she saw it too.

It was probably around that time that people in the lower-dimensional world began planning how to bring their lower-dimensional world to Earth.

Even earlier, the lower-dimensional world began testing whether he possessed this ability.

Gu Mian thought of the "Crazy Guess the Word" game.

That was the instance Gu Mian entered shortly after the global game started, where he met his current companion—Mr. Green.

The way to leave that instance was peculiar. After the word guessing game ended, a door appeared in the instance, and you had to go through the door to return to the real world.

This was different from the other instances he had experienced, where he could return to the real world as soon as the mission was completed.

Looking back now, that was probably a test of the lower-dimensional world.

They had long suspected that Gu Mian wouldn't leave the door unused; she would definitely try to bring something out of the dungeon.

Poor Mr. Green became their victim, used to experiment on whether Gu Mian could bring people from the dungeon into the real world.

“But lower-dimensional worlds have the ability to send people to the real world, right?” Gu Mian glanced at the three people in front of her. “Aren’t you the ones who were sent to the real world by lower-dimensional worlds? And those supermarkets that were built out of thin air, the staff in those supermarkets, and the ghosts in the large-scale events that are held from time to time—these all come from lower-dimensional worlds.”

The lower-dimensional world doesn't need him to send people, buildings, or even ghosts to Earth.

"No, no, no, of course it's different." Liu Ruyan shook her head. "Those supermarkets, the supermarket staff, and the ghosts didn't completely come here;

"They are like shadows that have been elongated due to the light. Their roots are still in the lower-dimensional world. It's just that the light makes their shadows longer, allowing them to slip through narrow gaps and be projected into the real world."
"They did not come here completely. Their roots have always been in the lower-dimensional world. As long as the light and shadow are changed, they will return to their roots. They do not belong to the real world. If the real world is destroyed, they will not die, but if the lower-dimensional world is destroyed, they will definitely die."

A very peculiar metaphor.

"And what about you?" Gu Mian asked.

Liu Ruyan only mentioned the staff and the ghosts in the large-scale event, without mentioning herself.

Are you shadows too?

Liu Ruyan fell silent, a rare occurrence. From her expression, Gu Mian understood that the Guardian was not the Shadow she spoke of.

“Our situation is more special, a bit more advanced than theirs. Like a poorly painted shadow clumsily imitating people in the real world, our origins are no longer in the lower-dimensional world, but also not on Earth. We… if I had to describe ourselves in one word, we would probably be neither human nor ghost,” said Liu Ruyan, who was neither human nor ghost.

Liu Ruyan's ability to give examples has always been so abstract. Gu Mian asked, "Since the root cause is no longer in the lower-dimensional world, then what if the lower-dimensional world is destroyed..."

Before he could finish speaking, Liu Ruyan knew what Gu Mian wanted to ask, and she blurted out, "He will still die."

Gu Mian frowned, as if thinking of something, and continued to ask, "If lower dimensions invade reality, the real world will be destroyed..."

This time it was Xiao Qiao's turn to answer: "Then we won't die! The dead will become Fat Man, Number Woman, and your other dear friends!"

Xiao Qiao seemed to finally understand what the two were talking about, and eagerly blurted out the answer. What a daredevil team!

So, no matter what, you're going to die anyway.

Gu Mian originally thought that as long as the lower-dimensional world didn't destroy the corresponding world, there wouldn't be any problems. But now it seems that even if the lower-dimensional world doesn't destroy, people will still die. Because if the lower-dimensional world is fine, then Earth is the one that will suffer. If something happens to Earth, the people on Earth will also perish.

"Haha." Gu Mian chuckled dryly, "Then everyone will be too lazy to work. We might as well just dig a few holes in the yard, lie in them, and wait to die."

Since half the population is going to die anyway, it's always good to prepare a trap beforehand.

However, it doesn't necessarily mean that half of them have to die. As long as Earth and the lower-dimensional world maintain their current state, with neither side killing the other, everyone can still survive.

But that's highly unlikely now. Gu Mian knows that the current situation on Earth and in lower-dimensional worlds is very similar to the battle between the upper and lower classes that he experienced in the Paradise World.

It's like there's a bomb about to explode between them. They throw the bomb at each other, only to have it thrown back at them. When the bomb explodes, one of them will always die.

Gu Mian felt a headache coming on.

If possible, he would prefer that Earth, along with the lower-dimensional worlds, explode.

But there will be too many pits to dig then.

"I don't care about life or death, but if possible, I hope you won't hold back when you re-enter the old human world." Liu Ruyan didn't care about her own life or death at all; she only wanted her hometown to be destroyed as soon as possible.

Gu Mian had heard Liu Ruyan tell her her own story. The old world was full of surveillance, eavesdropping, and maddening rules that had to be followed. Once you made a mistake, you would be sentenced to death by the supreme law of the old world.

In that environment, people in the old society were all law-abiding, following the rules step by step, with the same mechanical, happy smiles on their faces.

Everyone there was like a programmed robot, living the same monotonous and numb life every day. But the people there didn't see anything wrong with it; they were addicted to it, even to the point of madness.

Moreover, everyone there is a surveillance camera. While enjoying their happy lives, they also keep a close eye on the activities of their relatives, friends, and neighbors. If they discover any behavior that violates the law, the surveillance cameras will immediately report it to their superiors to prevent any possibility of "illegal or criminal behavior."

In that kind of environment, it's truly remarkable that Liu Ruyan developed such a bizarre and rebellious personality; it's almost as if a traitor has emerged from among robots.

007 once gave Gu Mian a special item: the Book of Prophecy.

By filling in a person's name, you can find out all the identities she has had so far.

Gu Mian had once filled in Liu Ruyan's name on this special item, and Liu Ruyan's identity from the first half of her life appeared before him in a line of text. He still remembered the three "criminals" in Liu Ruyan's identity at that time.

When these three "criminals" appeared, Gu Mian was completely stunned.

“Murderer, prisoner, fugitive.” Gu Mian repeated the three criminals Liu Ruyan had seen in the prophecy book. “You’re having a lot of fun killing in your own world. People who don’t agree with your views will be killed by you. I think that world suits you quite well.”

People in the old days had a foolish reverence for legal codes.

They believe that whatever the legal code says is right, it is right; they have almost no capacity for independent thought.

In this rigidly rule-bound world, Liu Ruyan appeared. Don't misunderstand, she wasn't some hero leading everyone in rebellion against ignorant rules; she simply felt the legal code was wrong.

What kind of bullshit legal code is this? The rules of this world are wrong; it should be governed by my rules—that was Liu Ruyan's thought.

So even though Liu Ruyan was considered an oddity by the people of the old world, Gu Mian still felt that she was born to belong to the old world and that she was the one who was suited to make the rules.

“Student, murderer, prisoner, fugitive, player, champion, guardian, landlord.” Gu Mian read aloud the entire first half of Liu Ruyan’s life as recorded in the prophecy book. “You killed someone, were imprisoned, escaped, were caught again, participated in some game, became the champion, and finally gained the right to come to the real world.”

Liu Ruyan had briefly mentioned that game to them before.

Because the people in the old world were not very normal and were not suitable to come to the real world as guardians, the decision-makers in the old world also knew that if a monitor was sent out to watch Gu Mian all the time, it would definitely arouse Gu Mian's resentment.

However, their technology was underdeveloped, and they couldn't cultivate androids like in Chu Changge's world to bring people with normal minds to the real world as guardians. So, they had a group of relatively normal rule-breakers participate in a game, like raising a venomous insect, to select the person with the highest quality and send them to the real world. Liu Ruyan was the venomous insect that was raised to the end.

"I remember you said last time that you were fourteen years old when you came into this world, so do you remember how you came from the lower-dimensional world into the real world?" Gu Mian asked the question she wanted to ask.

He thought about the giant tree he had seen in the boundless darkness, and the "fruit" hanging from it.

He returned to the real world without seeing what the fruit was, and it's unknown whether Liu Ruyan saw the giant tree when she was sent from the lower-dimensional world to the real world.

"They took me to a dark place, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Then I felt myself sinking, sinking and sinking. I don't know how long I sank, but when the light came back on, I was back in the real world," Liu Ruyan recalled.

Is it also in a dark place...?

Gu Mian recalled that before she saw that tree, the surrounding environment was just as dark as Liu Ruyan had described—pitch black.

Could it be that it's a dark passage, a passage connecting reality and a lower-dimensional world?

However, his feelings at the time were different from Liu Ruyan's. Liu Ruyan claimed that she was sinking in the darkness, but Gu Mian felt that he was rising in the darkness.

Thinking of this, Gu Mian looked at Chu Changge next to her and asked, "What about you? Do you remember how you came to the real world?"

Haha, Auntie's got it all figured out again! This chapter is almost four thousand words! Four thousand! Four thousand!