Many things in this world became terrifying when one thought too deeply about them.
Many times, we thought we already understood this world very well, but was that really the case?
Take me, for example. Ever since Xie Yi approached me and asked me to join Unit Nine, my life had undergone earth-shaking changes.
Everything that happened afterward completely overturned my previous understanding.
The old me would never even have dared to imagine any of it.
I had once believed this world was a laboratory. Later, I discovered parallel spacetime, which further confirmed my laboratory hypothesis.
Our world was not the only one.
And we, whom we had once believed to be unique in this world, were no longer unique either.
Just as I thought that was the truth, an even more terrifying discovery emerged: this world did not exist at all, and even we were virtual.
Perhaps the origin of this world was nothing more than strings of code, ourselves included.
Although this was merely my speculation, based only on what Bingbing had said before she disappeared, our experiences afterward seemed to confirm that this idea was real.
That was right. Without these bizarre experiences in Spring City, I would never have understood what Bingbing meant when she said the program had gone wrong. The mysterious numbers and symbols in those text messages, along with my eerie firsthand experience in Qiku Village, seemed even more like confirmation of my speculation.
I suddenly felt that our experience in Spring City was far from simple.
I began using conspiracy theories to explain what had happened in Spring City again, because looking back, every step fit together so perfectly. It was as if an unseen hand had pushed us into our current position.
After leaving the underground city, our objective had been