Facing the front desk clerk’s inquiry,
I nodded slightly and handed her my ID.
"Card activated. Account balance: five yuan."
The clerk swiped my ID on the machine beside her computer. As it scanned, a crisp, pleasant female voice chimed: *Card activation successful.*
"Would you like to top up?" she asked while returning my ID, noting the five-yuan balance.
"No need," I said, shaking my head and taking back my ID.
"Alright. Enjoy your time online."
She opened the automatic door to the computer room without further comment.
I walked in and soon found a machine by the window.
I didn’t like it, but the thick secondhand smoke oddly comforted me. It gave me a tangible sense of still breathing this world’s air…
Amid the stifling smoke, I suddenly remembered—
My father had been a heavy smoker. One of those who felt uneasy without a cigarette all day. Every time I came home from school, the house reeked of this same stale, mixed smoke. So my first act upon entering was always to fling open the windows…
But now…
Without that familiar scent at home, my heart felt hollow, as if something vital had been ripped away. The house just felt… incomplete.
*"Back then, I begged him to quit smoking. Now I’m here chasing this smoke. What a masochist I am…"*
I chuckled bitterly, booted up the computer with practiced ease, and turned to gaze out the window.
The slowly sinking sunset seemed to announce the afternoon’s end.
A long night would soon replace day over Guanghai City.
I had a computer and internet at home. But crowded, noisy places felt better than that silent tomb. Ever since my father died in the Fallen World, only Kyuubi broke the silence in my house—and even Kyuubi was often absent. For a whole week, I’d shut myself in that vast emptiness. No visitors. No calls. Not even a final warning after skipping school all week.
That’s when I truly understood…
How terrifying the side effects of card consumption really were.
Minutes later, the computer finished booting, displaying a login screen demanding ID and password. I typed them in swiftly. The desktop that appeared was cluttered with ads and third-party web game pop-ups.
*"Still crawling with malware here~~"*
These pop-ups weren’t part of the cafe’s system. Hackers exploited vulnerabilities to plant them—likely for profit, though their exact motives were anyone’s guess.
Not my problem. I closed all ads, opened the browser, and typed "Fallen World" into Baidu on a whim.
The results held nothing relevant—just pages containing the phrase. Utterly useless. As I scrolled down listlessly…
A link flagged "HIGH RISK" by Baidu caught my eye. My hand moved almost involuntarily, clicking it.
The website greeted me with blood-red characters blazing across the top:
**WELCOME TO "SCARLET FANTASY" OMNIPOTENT AGENCY**
Beneath it, a description claimed nothing was beyond their reach—if you could pay, they’d fulfill any request.
*"Seriously? ‘Anything’? Are you Aladdin’s genie?"*
My first impression after skimming: a scam. I closed the tab without hesitation.
I kept digging through search results. After dozens of pages, nothing credible emerged. Promising links led only to lottery sites, obscure web game ads, or NSFW traps. One preview alone spawned a self-replicating file that crashed the computer within minutes, forcing a hard reboot.
*Thank goodness it’s a cafe PC. At home, I’d be heartbroken—each reboot shortens a machine’s life. My rig couldn’t handle that!* 😏
Finally, I gave up. Whether someone had erased all traces of the Fallen World or it had truly never leaked into this reality…
Only heaven knew.
Was I the only Contractor? Or were there others?
I hadn’t asked Kyuubi. I’d need to question that all-knowing furball soon. Surely it knew this basic truth… or would tell me?
I shelved the thought. My balance showed three yuan left—enough for an hour. I closed the browser and launched *Heroes in the Pit*.
Lin Jingchen, my dead best friend, had dragged me into this game with grand promises: *"Watch me carry you to Master rank!"*
Reality? He’d get solo-killed repeatedly, then rage-quit after flaming the whole team—except me, his support. Whenever he died, he’d spam question marks at me. Eventually, we only played ARAM mode together. Ranked matches? We queued separately. Unless it was a rare five-stack… which we always lost.
*"Five-stack queue, never won a game."*
That meme wasn’t baseless.
Memories of Lin Jingchen and others stung my eyes. Just thinking they’d forgotten me soured any good mood. But my father’s words echoed:
*"A man’s tears aren’t shed lightly."*
I’d carved that into my soul. No matter how deep the ache, I wouldn’t cry. Rubbing my eyes, I applied eye drops, then logged into *Heroes in the Pit*.
After selecting the server, I reached the main menu. Instead of queuing, I opened my friends list.
*"Just as I thought…"*
Only a handful of names remained. Countless old friends had vanished.
The erasure wasn’t just real life—even this digital world was deleting me.
My last hope… was gone.
Though honestly, I’d never truly pinned hopes on it.
Sighing at my fading digital footprint, I queued for ranked.
For the record: I wasn’t Master-tier, but I was solid Diamond. Or rather, a Diamond gatekeeper—perpetually hovering on the edge of promotion, never crossing it. I’d grown used to it. Winnable games always collapsed: my own mistakes, or teammates throwing.
*"The waters run deep in Zone 1…"*
Unfathomably deep. Four out of ten matches had boosters. Three had intentional feeders. The rest? My own errors. Sometimes I wondered if *Heroes in the Pit* was designed to be unwinnable.
Still, it killed time.
Before I knew it, I’d matched.
…
Stepping out of the cafe, I glanced up instinctively. The sky was pitch black.
No stars. A hidden moon.
Winter meant darkness by six—nothing unusual.
Accustomed to this, I walked under flickering streetlights. Rush hour swarmed the illuminated streets: pedestrians weaving, cars gridlocked. Horns blared impatiently behind stalled vehicles—a rude but routine symphony of commuters desperate to get home.
I waited at a crosswalk, watching the red light blink toward green.
