When the Whole World Has Only You Left

Chen Xu thought about it all night but still couldn't make up his mind.

The next day, when he woke to the alarm, he stared at the familiar ceiling, and the day ahead naturally surfaced in his mind.

First, he would walk ten minutes to the bus stop, then ride the bus for forty-five minutes to the company, where he would begin another dull, tedious day of work until getting off at six...

He had been living this same repetitive life for nearly two years now.

And for the foreseeable future, this kind of life would continue for many more years.

Suddenly, he saw things clearly. Since heaven had given him a chance to break free from this life, what was there to hesitate over?

He abruptly sat up in bed and decided that he would enter the dream realm that night.

This Dream Realm Device, which had appeared out of nowhere, had an Anti-Addiction System that stipulated he could only enter the dream realm after midnight. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't enter during the day.

On the packed bus, Chen Xu activated the Virtual Dream Device and began preparing to enter.

He looked through the items provided by the system. There were more than a dozen of them, including a power source with a rated output of one hundred thousand kilowatts and unlimited charge, a multifunctional dagger that could cut through anything, an endlessly running truck with a hundred-ton load capacity, and so on.

If he could own even one of those things in reality, it would be awesome. Unfortunately, all of it could only exist in the dream realm.

Next, he looked at the second option, which allowed him to choose an assistant.

There were many character templates in the system to choose from, each with different skills, such as doctors, wilderness survival experts, Eighth-Grade Repairmen, chefs, and more.

In a dream realm set during the apocalypse, those items and assistants should all be very useful.

So which should he choose?

After considering it carefully, he first ruled out the items.

If the setting was the apocalypse, he probably wouldn't run into many people. Being alone in that sort of environment sounded terrifying just thinking about it. It would be better to choose an assistant; at least there would be someone to talk to.

So which one?

Chen Xu looked over the dozen or so available assistant portraits and continued using the process of elimination.

Hmm, eliminate the men first. That left only seven women.

These two looked a little too old. Eliminate them.

These two were too androgynous. No.

Finally, Chen Xu looked at the remaining three female characters and stroked his chin. How should he put it? Their appearances were all somewhat lacking. In other words, they weren't pretty enough. By his standards, they only rated around sixty points.

If he had a choice, he naturally wanted someone prettier.

Chen Xu turned his attention to the "More" option. A new batch of characters immediately appeared before him, their looks a whole level above the previous ones. Every one of them scored above eighty.

"Selecting this character requires fifteen universal points. Please recharge first. Redirecting to the recharge page."

"Sorry, you are a guest user and do not have recharge privileges."

Chen Xu watched the two notifications pop up, and his eyelid twitched. Sure enough, no matter how far technology advanced, these companies were still obsessed with squeezing money out of people.

It seemed he could only choose one from those three characters.

Just then, the bus arrived at its stop. He followed the stream of passengers off the bus and looked up to see hurried office workers everywhere. With a casual glance, he spotted a tall woman in the crowd and couldn't help thinking, Pick any random person off the street, and she'd be better than those three female characters.

"Right."

Suddenly, inspiration struck him, and he remembered something. "Can't I use a real person as a template to create a character?"

His eyes lit up, and he grew excited.

"Damn, it actually has to use a real person as the template."

Chen Xu sat down at his desk, feeling a little frustrated. In the elevator earlier, he had tried to create a certain female celebrity at the peak of her beauty.

The result was a shameful failure.

The system had informed him that the template had to be a real, living person who existed in reality. Moreover, they had to appear within his field of vision before they could be scanned and modeled.

What a disappointment.

He stared at the computer screen, thinking over whether there was anyone suitable among the people he knew.

He first ruled out the female colleagues in his department. Their looks were all fairly ordinary.

He ruled out the other women he knew as well. There were no particularly beautiful women in his social circle.

Who should he look for?

Just then, a woman wearing a trench coat and Sunglasses walked out from the end of the corridor.

His eyes lit up. How had he forgotten about her?

Fair skin, beautiful face, long legs. She was the one.

This woman's name was Luo Xiyun. She was around twenty-three or twenty-four years old and had joined the company this year. The moment she arrived, she had been parachuted directly into a director's position. Many people guessed that she was the direct relative of some big shot at headquarters, a bona fide Bai Fumei.

A woman like her lived in a completely different world from him. Under normal circumstances, their paths would never cross.

She was simply the perfect candidate.

Luo Xiyun was wearing a black trench coat that accentuated her tall figure. Even from the way she walked, he could sense her confidence.

It was Chen Xu's first time closely observing her face. He had to admit that even with his now-picky eyes, after being bombarded by all kinds of beauties enhanced with makeup, Photoshop, and beauty filters, she was still the sort of woman who could stun him at first glance.

"It's her."

Without hesitation, he activated the scanning function of the Virtual Dream Device.

"Scan successful. Character template established."

When he heard the notification, he was exhilarated. He wished he could enter the dream realm immediately.

For some people, a day passed in the blink of an eye. For others, it felt especially long.

Chen Xu finally endured until the end of the workday. He hurried home, ate dinner, washed up, then lay down on his bed. Filled with indescribable excitement, he slowly drifted off to sleep.

After an unknown amount of time, sleeping Chen Xu heard a voice. "You are about to enter the Virtual Dream 'Doomsday Survival.' When the whole world has only you left, how will you survive?"

"This dream realm is difficulty level zero and will last one hundred and eighty days. We wish you a wonderful experience in this dream realm."

Wait, one hundred and eighty days?

Chen Xu abruptly opened his eyes and saw the familiar ceiling. He had lived in this Rented House for two years, and every morning when he woke up, he saw this slightly yellowed ceiling.

"Did it fail?"

He was both puzzled and frustrated, having no idea what had gone wrong. He tried to summon the Virtual Dream Device interface, but no matter how many times he called out, there was no response.

"How could this happen?"

He scratched his head, vaguely feeling that something was off.

He pulled out his phone from beneath his pillow, intending to check the time, only to discover that it had somehow shut down.

After turning it on, he saw that it was already seven-thirty. He hurriedly got up and changed clothes, preparing to go to work.

The company's attendance rules were strict. Being late would not only result in a pay deduction, but would also reduce his year-end bonus. He didn't want half a year's hard work to go to waste at this point.

When he went to the bathroom, he found that the light wouldn't turn on. He assumed the circuit breaker had tripped and didn't pay it much attention. After brushing his teeth and washing his face, he checked the leakage breaker before leaving. It was perfectly fine; it hadn't tripped.