RHWHEG -Chapter 45 Server Shutdown

Yu Qunqing thought for a moment and decided to inject the serum. He’d survived the last life — there was no reason he wouldn’t this time.

The liquid in the syringe felt a bit like glue, glowing with a faint blue light. It had been recondensed after detoxifying several G-grade disaster stones. Yu Qunqing expertly pushed it into his muscle and waited for the familiar agony.

One second, two seconds…

Nothing happened. If anything, the serum seemed to melt into his muscle the instant it entered; a warm current crawled through his veins and spread across his body. The poison from his previous life felt like a tonic now.

“Beginning scan of unknown game seed,” the system said shortly after.

“Scan complete. The game seed is ‘Mountain Road Motorcycle’. There is an available game slot — download?” it asked.

“Ding! You have completed the prerequisites to unlock Permission LV2. You may upgrade now; after selecting upgrade the system will need time to reboot. Please choose an appropriate time to perform the upgrade.”

A racing game!

Sounds like a total time-sink!

Yu Qunqing immediately chose to download and agreed to the upgrade. If he upgraded now and the system rebooted while he slept, then when he woke the system would have come back online, his game stamina would be full, and he wouldn’t let a single point of energy go to waste.

A lot seems to be happening tonight…

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Yu Qunqing woke early and went downstairs.

The neighborhood noticed him out alone again and their earlier suspicions were reconfirmed — the two big shots of the community, Yu Qunqing and She Lulang, really had a falling out!

They watched him secretly and saw him walk alone to the playground plaza, then head straight for… the claw machine?

And he happily started playing.

—Is Yu Qunqing venting his frustration by playing claw machines?

Yu Qunqing thought to himself: he needed to prepare in advance for She Lulang’s “wolf” form. He’d only seen that form once in his previous life — his deputy captain was very resistant to revealing it, but by chance he’d seen it once, and back then the deputy had liked to destroy fluffy things.

Maybe it’s the wolf’s instinct to shred nests?

The fluffiest place in the neighborhood was the claw machine, so he might as well pull all the plush toys out now — let She Lulang tear up whatever he wants.

One group of onlookers after another gathered, and finally his three good teammates arrived.

Sun Min fretted: “Did they really fight? Oh my, I’m terrible at mediating — I can’t do that at all.”

Dong Changxin was worried too: “We’re not really supposed to take sides like people say, right? The neighborhood’s going fine; don’t let it split like the university dorms did.”

“How big’s the chance I stir them into an actual fight?” Lin Luyi just wanted to see some drama.

“You guys enough already.” Yu Qunqing suddenly spoke. “If there’s nothing better to do, come help me.”

Sun Min: “I’m coming! Wait no, other than doing things to She Lulang I can do anything.”

“Why would I want to do things to him?” Yu Qunqing asked, confused. “Come help me with the claw machines — I’ll pay.”

“Can I?!” Dong Changxin jumped at the chance when a plush popped out — who hasn’t dreamed of endless plays on the shop’s claw machine?

Of course Yu Qunqing gave her an unlimited machine; the costs were all deducted from his account’s building materials.

He glanced at Lin Luyi next — the latter’s vines might be able to manipulate a number of machines at once. A perfect opportunity to exploit a teammate.

Sensing the look, Lin Luyi blurted, “Dream on!”

In the end Yu Qunqing bribed him with a café SVIP card, and secured this high-level labor.

The claw’s grip followed a cyclical pattern; Yu Qunqing quickly found the rhythm, and with precise timing used the strongest grab to snatch an avocado plush.

Once he’d gotten the hang of it he could multi-task. He opened two games at once and checked “Traveling Meow Meow.”

Today the little black cat hadn’t returned home; it was still out wandering, and it brought back a postcard and a gift.

The postcard was a passport-style photo of an eight-legged, five-eyed octopus-cat — the background plain, the cat’s eyes large and round and unbearably cute, perfectly channeling the Klein Bottle’s twisted charm.

Postscript:

“Please accept this photo as my memorial portrait. I may die. I no longer have any sense of time, but I know the destination of my fate.

I will become another form of matter and be one with all things. I will wander in another guise; don’t be sad for me, meow.”

Yu Qunqing tapped system support: “What happened to the Klein Bottle?”

System: “That game has been poorly managed and is at high risk of shutting down.”

Yu Qunqing: “Just because I didn’t play it? Can I stop it from shutting down?”

System: “Sorry. A game’s shutdown is never changed by player opinion. Our company always prioritizes profit over sentiment.”

Yu Qunqing: “So the Klein Bottle really is going to die.”

He thought for a long moment and then opened the little black cat’s gift. It was another white candy.

He found an empty corner and merged the candy into his flesh.

This was the second memory he entered…

His ears were full of noise; the sharpest sound was the cat’s wailing — because a cat’s cry is so much like a baby’s scream, it pierced the conscience and was chilling to the bone.

There was also a booming vibration, the shriek of massive destructive weapons having just been unleashed, and the shouts of crowds.

“Third batch: liquid nitrogen. Deploy anti-ability units — ready!”

“Liquid nitrogen release complete. Target organism H-level disaster ‘Klein Bottle’ still retains 54% activity. Electromagnetic/bolt-type ability users at bearing 2–3E, thicken the matrix walls and increase voltage! Tech team, stabilize the voltage!”

“Fourth batch, high-energy lasers — prepare to slice the target’s legs. Don’t touch the brain or core. Energy-type ability users, maintain laser output!”

“More liquid nitrogen! More nitrogen! Damn it — it’s moving again. Ready the mercury traps, permeation-type ability users — go!”

“All for the future of humanity — hold the line!”

Yu Qunqing opened his eyes slowly. He felt like his ears were bleeding and reflexively touched his body.

“That sonic trap was pretty powerful,” someone said, but the voice sounded like it was filtered through glass. He looked at the speaker and it was a familiar face.

It was Jiang Qiwén — his younger brother-in-misfortune who had prayed to the god of the landfill for a boyfriend.

The man was handsome, eyes bright. “I have an idea… we can scale these multi-layered traps up and increase manpower. This would be an effective way to deal with high-level disasters. If our traps could be city-sized, even the rumored K-level disasters wouldn’t be a problem. Don’t look at me like that — K-level disasters will definitely appear someday.

“Back to the point — we can form a city-scale trap.”

Yu Qunqing: oh, great — the city-scale trap that killed me in my past life? You built it.