Lights flickered on here and there. The rich district was lined with high-rises and blazing neon, while the slums were filthy and in disarray, their lights swaying in the darkness.

The setting sun sank slowly below New Delhi’s skyline, and the Yamuna, a tributary of the Ganges, reflected the sky’s last light. A huge mound of garbage sat in an empty lot by the road, with swarms of little black bees flying among the trash.

Delhi, the capital of Bharat. One of the cities with the greatest wealth gap in the world.

As night fell over the city, a shadow dropped from the sky and plunged into the river, raising a small splash.

Xu Fang didn’t surface right away. He let himself sink to the riverbed and stayed perfectly still. Only after more than ten minutes did he confirm that his arrival hadn’t attracted anyone’s attention.

The river was badly polluted. When Xu Fang swam ashore, he was covered in garbage.

Xu Fang shook himself, flinging off the trash, then used heat to dry himself and his clothes.

Xu Fang’s body was spotless, but after soaking in the pitch-black river, his white lab coat had turned gray.

In the distance, a group of men and women were gathered. Some were bathing and washing their hair; others were burning something and dumping the ashes into the river. A few had their backsides in the water as they relieved themselves right there.

“I picked the wrong place. I can’t believe it’s this awful!” Luo Xiaoming said, embarrassed after looking up information about the city.

“I landed safely. That means this is the right place.”

“Xu Fang, what time is it where you are? How did you suddenly end up back on Earth?” Luo Xiaoming eagerly asked what she’d been wondering.

“It’s been about two days since your signal last went offline. It’s 9:50 p.m. on November 20, China time.”

Back in the World of Immortality, Xu Fang had learned to calculate time precisely. He didn’t need to check a clock to know the date.

“Huh? Only a few hours have passed for me. The time… It’s 7:30 p.m. on the 18th! So our clocks aren’t synchronized?”

“We’re in two different worlds, so it’s only natural for time to flow at different rates. I’d be surprised if it flowed at the same rate.” Xu Fang used heat to dry the last of the water from his clothes.

Xu Fang’s words gave Luo Xiaoming a bad feeling. A sudden worry took hold of her: if the two worlds weren’t in sync, what if tens of thousands of years passed for Xu Fang before she saw him again? Could he disappear?

Xu Fang: “Have any new chapters of The Real World come out?”

Luo Xiaoming: “Not yet. I think we’ll have to wait until at least tomorrow.”

“If there’s an update, let me know right away. I really need to know what happens next.”

Luo Xiaoming nodded. “I’ll go bug the author for an update. I wonder what they’d want in exchange for posting extra chapters…”

“Bug the author?” Xu Fang remembered the little black figure’s message—

The narrator doesn’t know that they’re the narrator.

Did the narrator know that the story they were writing was really happening in another world? And what would happen if they realized their writing was coming true?

Xu Fang’s instincts told him this wouldn’t end well. He hadn’t used to believe in gut feelings, but ever since gaining the Eye of Destruction, he’d become wary of such inexplicable unease.

“Don’t contact the author yet. Let them write naturally. Otherwise, I can’t be sure what else might happen in this world.”

“Okay.”

His energy was down to 57 percent. Xu Fang decided to replenish some of it. He didn’t feel safe with less than 60 percent.

Every city had energy sources that were easy to access. Parking lots, power plants, and gas stations were all places where energy gathered.

Xu Fang replenished his energy while chatting with Luo Xiaoming, telling her what had happened over the past two days and leaving her amazed.

Since he still had no legal identity that would let him appear in public, Xu Fang simply burned several mounds of garbage piled beside the road and converted them into energy. He couldn’t find any ready-made clothes; someone else had probably taken them already. He rummaged through the trash and found a few scraps of cloth, then fashioned them into pants and a headscarf. At least, from the outside, he looked human.

Xu Fang opened the consultation center. “Tell me Gussy’s status, location, and contact information. No more than 10 points.”

【Status: Alive; Location: Longitude: 98.42, Latitude: 16.65; Contact information: None;】

No contact information? Xu Fang sensed something was wrong. According to the narrator’s earlier description, Gussy had already contacted the Chinese authorities by phone. Xu Fang should’ve been able to reach Gussy easily. After thinking it over, he asked customer service for more details and finally learned Gussy’s current situation.

Organization K…

As Xu Fang got to the bottom of what had happened, he also made his way into the New Delhi area.

New Delhi was full of visible prosperity. The streets were wide, their clean surfaces dotted with lush green trees. Red taillights and white headlights mingled, and brightly colored auto-rickshaws and all kinds of luxury cars were everywhere. Between the high-rises stood silhouettes of domes and spires, bearing the marks of history stretching back thousands of years.

What was the official attitude in Bharat toward the author? Had Organization K’s influence spread here, too?

“Bharat’s capital doesn’t look any worse than S City,” Luo Xiaoming said. “I let all those stereotypes online get to me. I thought this place would be poor and backward.”

“Delhi’s Gate separates the rich from the poor. The slums are just beside it, in Old Delhi.” Xu Fang looked at Luo Xiaoming. “By the way, do you see what I see, or do you see the things around me?”

“The scenery. It’s your first-person view.”

“Oh. So if I can’t see something, neither can you?”

“That’s right.”

“What about sound?”

“I can hear sound normally, too. Haha, it’s weird—a single eyeball can make sounds.”

“Are there things you can’t make sense of? Can you understand everything you see?”

“I can… It’s kind of like watching a livestream from a first-person perspective.”

‘It’s not quite the same for me. Luo Xiaoming doesn’t have any cognitive barriers when she sees this world. Is that because she’s been here before?’ Xu Fang wondered.

As Xu Fang was thinking, soft footsteps sounded behind him.

Had this getup attracted the wrong kind of attention?

Earlier, as he passed a nightclub, two men in short-sleeved shirts had spotted Xu Fang and started following him.

“Hang on, Xiao Ming. I’ll take care of a couple of minor nuisances.”

The two men were loan sharks who worked for the nightclub.

Earlier, a young man who couldn’t afford the nightclub’s exorbitant bill had gone to the front desk to plead for leniency. Instead, they’d forced him to take out a loan for 50,000 rupees. By the time he paid, he’d completely broken down.

Xu Fang’s hearing was exceptionally sharp. He’d caught bits and pieces of what happened, but Luo Xiaoming didn’t seem to know anything about it. Apparently, she could only hear so much.

Xu Fang put away his phone and quickly turned into a narrow alley. The two men followed close behind. It was secluded enough that they no longer cared if anyone saw them.

“Looks like we’re making commission again tonight,” one of them said.

“If it’s a kid, we’ll lure their parents over,” said the other.

And so the two loan sharks followed him into the alley.

Five minutes later, Xu Fang strolled out alone, with two phones in hand.

Faced with the two men’s ill intentions, Xu Fang didn’t take their lives. He simply arranged for each of them to take out a 200,000-rupee loan at an exorbitant interest rate, then used a hands-on method to knock them out. At least until daybreak, he could use their phones as he pleased.

Of the phone that had come from the moon, Xu Fang kept only the memory card. To be safe, he destroyed the SIM card and the phone itself.

Xu Fang called Xiao Zhe, the head of the Protectors.

After two rings, a man’s unfamiliar voice answered.

“Hello.”

“Where’s Xiao Zhe? Could you put him on the phone?”

There was a two-second silence on the other end. “Who is this?”

“I’m a friend of his. I need his help with something urgent.”

“Xiao Zhe can’t come to the phone right now.”

Can’t come to the phone? The last time Gussy called Xiao Zhe, they’d given the same excuse.

Thinking of the plane Luo Xiaoming had been on, Xu Fang searched recent news using “plane” as a keyword.

At 9:26 p.m. on November 13, a Chinese passenger plane suddenly lost contact mid-flight. More than a hundred passengers were killed. The Chinese authorities had released no details, saying they were still investigating the cause of the crash.

As head of the Protectors, Xiao Zhe had let Gussy act freely. Then the passenger plane Gussy boarded had met with disaster. Xiao Zhe couldn’t escape responsibility.

Perhaps Xiao Zhe was already being held somewhere, unable to communicate with the outside world. He might even have been stripped of his position.

“Have you dealt with Xiao Zhe? Is he still alive?”

The breathing on the other end paused briefly. His reaction was just as Xu Fang had expected. “Who are you, exactly?”

“I’m Xu Fang,” Xu Fang said. “I can help you find the people behind the terrorist attack. The crash was planned.”

“…”

“…Hold on. I’ll transfer you to my superior.”

About half a minute later, another voice came through the phone, hoarse and weathered. “Xu Fang, what do you want?”

A man over fifty, perhaps? He might be a leader among the Protectors or one of their allied organizations. Xu Fang made a quick assessment.

“Xiao Zhe should’ve told you I’m a friendly author. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Cooperation? Ever since the Protectors got involved with you, hundreds of people have died because of you. How are you going to answer for them, criminal?”

Xu Fang said, “I’m a victim, too. The right thing to do is find the real culprit, not take your anger out on me. That would only prove how incompetent you are.”

The man on the other end laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You’d better prove your innocence. Otherwise, you can live like a rat in the sewers and never show your face in the sunlight again!”

With that, he hung up without giving Xu Fang a chance to say another word.

Xu Fang lowered the phone and realized that his relationship with China had shifted from friendly to neutral, leaning hostile. They weren’t even willing to talk to him for more than a few sentences.

At that thought, Xu Fang immediately opened one of his financial accounts…

The money was gone.

He checked his other accounts. They were just as empty.

The assets in his several accounts had totaled 250 million dollars, all money Xu Fang had earned in America. Now it had all been transferred away—either invested in cryptocurrency or sent to shell companies. There was no chance of getting it back.

Xiao Zhe had set up all these financial accounts for Xu Fang, and China knew about them. It seemed that after Xu Fang lost China’s trust, they’d simply seized his assets.

“Looks like they don’t trust me at all.”

“Yeah, what was with that attitude? The plane crash wasn’t your fault…” Luo Xiaoming hadn’t noticed what Xu Fang was looking at. She thought he was still upset about the phone call.

“The real mastermind is still hiding behind the scenes, and they’re connected to the author.” Xu Fang looked toward Luo Xiaoming and asked, “Have there been any plane crashes in your world recently? Anything similar counts, too.”

“I looked it up earlier. The most recent plane crash was two years ago, and it happened overseas.”