Weird Game: I brought an old version bug

By the time we returned to New Dawn City, it was already getting dark.

When Jiang Chen and Shi Yu climbed out of the sewer exit, the crystal streetlights along the street had already lit up one by one, as if someone was lighting fires along the street one by one.

Shiyu brushed the dust off her sleeves and remained silent for a while before speaking: "I thought it would be like last time, when I came out it was already dark."

"How long have you been underground?"

Jiang Chen asked.

"It's hard to say, but it feels like time passes much faster than on Earth."

Jiang Chen didn't reply.

He glanced at the time display on the system panel—about fifteen minutes had passed since he left the dungeon, but the perceived time inside the energy hub tower was significantly shorter.

This wasn't an illusion; the underlying time parameters of the game differed in different regions, and he kept this discovery in mind.

The cracks in rules don't necessarily only exist in textual contradictions or spatial misalignments; time parameters are also a type of data that can be exploited, but we don't yet have enough information to utilize them.

The two walked back along the street.

The surface part of New Dawn City is much more lively than the underground part—after being trapped in the game for almost a week, the survivors have gradually figured out the order of survival.

There were stalls on both sides of the street, selling equipment, materials, food, and even a small shop with a wooden sign that read "Information Exchange," with a line of words written crookedly in charcoal on the sign:

A message in exchange for a full meal.

Jiang Chen paused at the door and peeked inside through the crack—it was dimly lit inside, and he could vaguely see a figure sitting behind a table in the corner.

He didn't go in; it wasn't the right time.

After returning to his rented room, he closed the door, took out Lao Shen's notebook from his backpack, and turned to the last page.

The hand-drawn map has simple but clear lines: starting from the energy hub tower, head northeast through the border area between the fourth and fifth administrative districts, choose the leftmost path at the three forks, pass through a section marked "unstable zone", and finally arrive at a circular marker - the entrance to the 02nd floor of the seventh administrative district.

Each of the three forks has a note:

The first option selected was "abandoned ventilation ducts," and Lao Shen wrote "people can walk through them."

The second option is "structural cracks," with the note "water level has dropped."

The third one has no text, only an arrow pointing to a circle, with the words "07-02, get off here" written next to it.

When are you planning to leave?

Shiyu sat on a chair on the other side of the room, wiping the bowstring, her tone calm, as if she had been waiting for this question.

"The sooner the better."

Jiang Chen folded the map and put it back in his notebook, saying, "The fragment energy is only 56%, and it's slowly decreasing—I just checked, and it's dropped another 1% since I left the energy hub tower."

If we can find new rule fragments in the Seventh District, we can continue.

If we can't find it, all subsequent plans will have to be readjusted; once this trump card is used up, it's completely useless.

"What about supplies?"

"Go to the market first thing tomorrow morning. Food, water, lighting equipment, spare weapons—mainly your arrows, as well as rope and grappling hooks. The map marks structural cracks; the road is difficult to traverse."

Shiyu nodded, re-stringed the bow, and tested the tension by pulling it fully.

She has a unique way of doing things—she never asks unnecessary questions, nor does she require others to repeat themselves.

The level of understanding between them made Jiang Chen feel that they didn't seem like partners who had only been together for a week, but rather like they had been working together for a long time.

The next morning, the two went their separate ways. Shi Yu went to the market to buy supplies, while Jiang Chen went to the information shop he had seen the night before.

He wasn't hoping to find out any important information, but rather he wanted to confirm one thing—whether the person who called himself "07" had left any trace in New Dawn City.

The owner of the intelligence shop was a middle-aged man in his forties with an old scar across his right eyebrow, resembling a mark left by a sharp weapon.

There was only one dim crystal lamp in the shop, which cast long shadows.

A few old tables and chairs were haphazardly placed, and a pile of miscellaneous items half a person's height was stacked in the corner. The walls were covered with various handwritten notices and map fragments—paper is a non-renewable resource in this game, and being able to display so much paper information was itself a demonstration of strength.

"What do you want to ask?" The shop owner glanced at him, his voice hoarse.

"Seventh Administrative District"

The shop owner paused for a moment—subtly, but his hand wiping the table stiffened briefly upon hearing those four words.

"Never heard of it."

"What about 07?"

"No, not at all."

The answer was too fast, so fast it seemed unnatural.

Jiang Chen stood up, thanked him, and turned to leave—as he reached the door, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a piece of paper hidden under a pile of clutter in the corner. A small section of its edge was visible, revealing a line of handwritten numbers:

07-02.

The shop owner saw it too, but he didn't say anything, nor did he stop it.

Jiang Chen walked out of the store without looking back.

The piece of paper was placed so cleverly, just enough to be covered by clutter, leaving only the line of text visible—as if it was deliberately placed there for someone to see.

The shop owner didn't know him and couldn't have known in advance that he would come to ask. That only means that the shop owner knew someone would come to inquire about the Seventh Administrative District, so he placed the mark in a sensitive location in advance.

If you noticed it, it's worth discussing; if you didn't notice it, you shouldn't know it.

When he returned to the rented room, Shiyu had already come back.

Thirty iron arrows, five large bottles of water, enough dry rations for three days, two bundles of climbing ropes, a grappling hook, four light sticks, and a bag of herbs were neatly stacked on the table.

"What is this?"

"Hemostatic herb".

Shi Yu said, "In the old version, the pharmacy in New Dawn City sold it, but they don't anymore. I found it at a private stall. Crush it and apply it to the wound to stop the bleeding. It works a little slower than the system potion, but it's free, and the system potion has a cooldown time."

How do you know the older version is still available at pharmacies?

Shi Yu paused for a moment, her brows furrowing slightly. "I... don't know. When I saw this herb at the stall, a thought popped into my head—it can stop bleeding. I didn't even think about how I knew that."

These old memories weren't completely deleted, just overwritten. When external stimuli are strong enough, the old data leaks out from the gaps.

Jiang Chen put the herbs into his backpack—notebook, map, rule fragments, crystal fragments, and hemostatic herbs; these five items constituted his current information advantage.

"Let's go."

The two walked through the streets of New Dawn City toward the edge of the city.

The entrance to the seventh administrative district marked on Lao Shen's map is neither in the city center nor deep in the underground ruins.

It is located at the southwesternmost corner of New Dawn City, at the entrance of an abandoned sewer. There are no dungeons, shops, or spawn points nearby; it is a standard gray area on the map.

We walked for about forty minutes to reach the marked location.

The entrance was hidden behind a section of wall that had collapsed halfway. A rusty padlock hung on the iron fence, its core completely rusted shut.

But there were a few shallow scratches at the bottom of the iron fence—some of the dust had fallen back after being brushed away, and it hadn't accumulated completely yet, indicating that it had appeared no more than two days ago. Someone had been here.

"07," Shi Yu whispered a number behind him.

"I think so too." Jiang Chen reached out, grabbed the rusty lock, and twisted it hard, causing the entire lock to split in the middle.

The iron fence creaked open, and several pieces of rust fell off the hinges.

The entrance was revealed—a circular well opening about one meter in diameter, with its edges lined with bluish-gray bricks and stones. Most of the bricks were covered with dark green moss, making them slippery and wet to walk on.

The wellhead extends downwards, and the light is completely swallowed up by darkness five or six meters deep, as if something has opened its mouth and is waiting for its prey to walk in.

Jiang Chen broke off a light stick and threw it into the well.

The flare tumbled a few times in the air before landing in the muddy water at the bottom with a soft hiss, but it didn't go out—the water was shallow, probably only ankle-deep.

The light illuminated a horizontal passageway at the bottom of the well, about two meters high and wide enough for a person to walk normally without having to turn sideways.

"I'll get off first."

Jiang Chen secured the hook lock to the iron fence at the wellhead, fastened the other end to his belt, stepped onto the first iron ladder bar to test its load-bearing capacity—it creaked but did not break.

He climbed down step by step, with Shi Yu following closely behind.

When we reached about halfway down, the temperature in the air suddenly changed—not gradually, but with a sudden temperature difference, as if we had passed through some kind of invisible barrier.

He glanced down at the panel; there were no abnormal system prompts.

But he knew that this section of the well was the boundary between New Dawn City and the Seventh Administrative District.

He didn't step on the last three steps; he simply let go and jumped down.

His feet landed in the muddy water, splashing up a cloud of murky water. He raised his light stick to illuminate the path ahead—straight ahead, the stone walls covered in water stains and moss, with symbols carved at intervals.

Shiyu jumped down, her boots sinking into the muddy water with a dull thud. Then she suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?"

She didn't speak, but stared at a symbol on the wall—a mark consisting of three arcs.

The expression on his face changed from confusion to more complex emotions, as if he had suddenly remembered something but couldn't believe he could still remember it.

"This symbol doesn't come from New Dawn City; it's from an earlier version of the floor identification system in Old Dawn City. The three arcs represent the third underground level. The new version uses numerical numbers, while the old version used geometric symbols."

Jiang Chen glanced at the symbols on the wall, then at her: "You said the old version used geometric symbols to mark the floors. But this place is only seven or eight meters from the ground, how could it possibly be the third underground level?"

Shi Yu was silent for a moment, then said something that sent a chill down Jiang Chen's spine: "Unless the Seventh Administrative District isn't actually underground in New Dawn City—it's much deeper underground. What we're going through now is just a passage; the real entrance is a long way down."

There was no light at the end of the passage.

The flare could only illuminate a dozen meters ahead; beyond that, there was only thick darkness. The three-arc symbols on the wall appeared a dull, bluish-gray in the dim light.

Jiang Chen touched the rule fragments in his backpack—the energy was still at 56%, without fluctuation, indicating that this area was not being actively monitored by the system for the time being.

But this also means that if they go deeper and something goes wrong, the system will not provide them with any assistance.

"Let's go."

Jiang Chen took a step, the muddy water splashing and bouncing back and forth in the narrow passage.

"Go as far as you can, until you can't go any further."

Shi Yu followed behind him, just a step away.

She didn't speak, but her footsteps were steady—not the kind of uncertain, tentative steps, but rather each step was taken with certainty, as if she knew she was on the right path.

The two footsteps echoed one after the other in the corridor, their steady rhythm like some kind of secret code.

The light from the flares grew dimmer and dimmer, but none of them stopped to replace them.

The passageway stretched forward, and the three-arc symbols on the wall appeared every few meters, like a string of silent road signs, quietly guiding the way in the darkness.

Behind them, the rusted iron gate swayed gently in the breeze, emitting a low metallic scraping sound.

Then it slowly closed.