Different from What I Imagined

"Power outage?"

Chen Xu was a little surprised. In the two years since he had moved here, he had never experienced a power outage.

It seemed to have started in the year they cracked down on environmental violations, shutting down quite a few heavily polluting, energy-intensive factories. Since then, there had never been any power rationing again.

As he thought about it, he went downstairs, intending to buy some bread and milk from the cake shop he often visited on the corner.

If he had a choice, he preferred something hot for breakfast. Unfortunately, the Steamed Bun Shop that had once been on this street had moved away a few months ago because the rent had risen too sharply.

The moment he stepped onto the street, he felt that something was very wrong.

Where was everyone?

There was not a single person on the entire street.

It was rush hour. There were more than a few hundred people, if not a thousand, living in the dozen or so buildings along this street. Normally, there would be plenty of people hurrying to work at this time—

No!

Chen Xu's mind exploded as a possibility occurred to him.

Could this be the dream world?

At that thought, the briefcase in his hand fell to the ground with a smack.

He stared at the empty, deserted street before him, too shocked to speak.

After a long while, he finally muttered, "I should've realized it sooner."

It really was one hundred percent virtual reality.

There were no dazzling visual effects, no breathtaking grand spectacle. Yet everything was exactly the same as reality. After waking up, he had not realized at all that he was already inside the dream world.

He lightly pinched the back of his hand and clearly felt the faint pain.

"Even pain is perfectly simulated. Is this really the dream world?"

Doubt stirred in his heart.

With his thoughts in turmoil, he grabbed the briefcase from the ground and ran forward.

Mobile phones, wallets, and keys could be seen scattered across the empty street from time to time. He ignored them and kept running until he reached the end of the street. Around the corner was the main road.

He stopped at the intersection and looked at the road ahead.

All kinds of vehicles were parked on the road. Most of the shops on both sides had their doors open. Everything seemed no different from usual.

The only difference was that there was no one. Not a single person.

He walked step by step to the bus stop. At this time of day, it would normally have already been packed with people waiting for the bus. Now, only a pile of phones, wallets, keys, and various bags remained on the ground.

"The people disappeared, but their things were left behind?"

Looking at the items on the ground, his scalp prickled. He guessed at the dream world's setting. At some moment—perhaps the exact instant he woke up—the people here had all vanished at once, while the things they carried had remained where they were.

It was like someone had pressed the pause button, then removed all the people.

No.

Looking at the vehicles stopped on the road, it should be called a freeze button instead.

Otherwise, after the drivers vanished, those moving vehicles would have crashed into one another under the force of inertia.

"Whatever the case, I should go to the company first."

He stood there for a while, feeling that getting to the company would make him feel a little safer.

But how was he supposed to get there? He looked at the bus parked more than ten meters away and frowned. Was he supposed to walk? It was seven or eight stops away. Even an hour would not be enough to get there on foot.

Suddenly, an idea came to him. If people had disappeared while their belongings remained behind, then the car keys should still be there too.

He walked over to the nearest car and looked through the window. Sure enough, the key was still in the ignition.

Chen Xu drove a black Volkswagen slowly toward his company.

There were too many vehicles on the road, especially before traffic-light intersections, where piles of cars often blocked the road completely. Whenever that happened, he could only drive onto the sidewalk.

He had gotten his driver's license in his senior year of college and rarely drove in everyday life, so his skills were rusty. While driving on the sidewalk, he scraped the car several times, even denting the rear door.

But at that moment, he could not spare any attention for that. He focused entirely on observing his surroundings.

By the time the car stopped in front of the company building, he was certain that this truly was the dream world.

Although this was not the CBD, there were several office buildings nearby, as well as a commercial street next door with several large malls. The daily foot traffic was enormous, especially during the morning rush hour.

Now, the entire street was silent and deserted. Aside from the engine of the car he was driving, there was not the slightest sound.

The silence made his heart pound with unease.

Chen Xu let go of the steering wheel, rubbed his face hard, and sighed. "This isn't what I imagined."

There should at least have been some sense of ceremony when entering the dream world.

At the very least, it should have given him some psychological preparation.

Who would have thought that this system would not follow any convention at all? The moment he opened his eyes, he had been thrown straight into the dream world.

It was too real, so real that he could no longer quite tell whether this place was the dream world or reality.

To be honest, on the drive here, seeing cars stopped on the road with no one inside, empty roads, and empty shops on both sides had sent chills through him again and again. It was completely different from what he had imagined.

"Forget it. I'm already here, so I should think about how to survive these one hundred and eighty days." Chen Xu patted his face and cast aside those chaotic thoughts. He opened his briefcase, took out some paper and a pen, leaned over the steering wheel, and began to write.

If he did not find something to do right now, he would not be able to take it.

He concentrated and organized his thoughts.

First came water and food. The most urgent matter was eating and drinking.

He wrote those two words on the first line.

There was no need to worry about water. Every supermarket had plenty of bottled mineral water. The water in this city alone would be more than enough to last him a lifetime.

Besides, bottled mineral water generally had a shelf life of a year, so he did not need to worry about it going bad.

Food was the troublesome part. Rice and flour, which could be stored for relatively long periods, were manageable. Meat and vegetables would not last long, especially meat. In this weather, it would spoil in a day or two.

"Right. I need to gather enough meat and preserve it first. Otherwise, I'll have to live on canned food every day in the future."

As a meat lover, Chen Xu could not tolerate life without meat. He wrote the words meat and vegetables on the second line and began to act.

When looking for large quantities of fresh meat, most people would think of a meat and vegetable market or a large supermarket. But Chen Xu went to the best restaurant near his company.

In his view, if he wanted to find a Main Camp, the best place was neither some luxurious mansion nor a large supermarket. It was a restaurant. Preferably a higher-end restaurant, where there were ready-made ingredients in a complete variety, saving him the trouble of gathering supplies from markets.

More importantly, larger restaurants had freezers, making them perfect for storing meat.

There was another advantage: the surrounding area had complete amenities, and several large supermarkets could provide every daily necessity.

A place like this was simply perfect as a Main Camp.