Waking Up (Part 1)

Zheng Zha had always felt that he was going to die in reality. Going to work, coming home from work, eating, excreting, sleeping, waking up. He didn't know what his purpose was, and it certainly wasn't in the Director's greasy, smiling face, nor in the so-called white-collar women he met at bars, nor in this boundless steel jungle—the modern city.

Zheng Zha felt like he was rotting, from twenty-four until he was old, then turning to dust and becoming a name. No, not even a name would exist, because no one would remember him. No one would remember a small white-collar worker, whether he was truly elegant or pretending to be sophisticated. He was just a speck of dust in this mortal world.

He wanted to change something. He wanted to have his own meaning...

"Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to truly... live?"

When Zheng Zha opened his computer at the company today, this sentence suddenly popped up on the screen. This was clearly a trick by some immature hacker trying to attract attention. Whether you chose yes or no, the result would be downloading a virus. Zheng Zha sneered and intended to close it, but as his finger touched the mouse, a strange palpitation made him stop.

"Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to truly... live?"

Zheng Zha felt a wave of confusion, an inexplicable attraction that made him place his finger on the left mouse button. Then, he gently clicked on "yes" and instantly lost consciousness...

Cold, shaking...

The moment he woke up, Zheng Zha jumped up from the ground. He looked around in panic, his mind instantly confusing the office environment with his current surroundings, but within seconds, he had cleared his head.

"Not bad, you're the best of the ones who came this time." A cold voice came.

Zheng Zha turned his head and saw a black-haired youth staring at him with a cold smile. This youth was about twenty-four or twenty-five years old, extremely ordinary in appearance, but with several scars across his face, making him look ferocious and terrifying.

The black-haired youth held a cigarette in his hand. He took a deep drag, then his gaze swept past Zheng Zha to look behind him. Only then did Zheng Zha notice that there were five other people lying beside him, three men and two women. Besides them, there were over a dozen foreigners in this enclosed space.

This was a moving train carriage, and it was moving very fast. The cold and shaking were the sensations coming from this carriage.

"What is this place? Who are you? Why am I here?" Zheng Zha asked them repeatedly, and because there were foreigners, he deliberately used English.

The foreigners glanced at him and then turned away. Only the black-haired youth took a deep breath and said, "Think carefully. It should have already implanted everything into your mind."

Think carefully? Zheng Zha began to recall everything in his mind. He only remembered that when he saw the pop-up prompt "Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to truly... live?", he clicked "yes" on the computer screen, and then he fainted...

Wait, Zheng Zha suddenly felt like something had been added to his mind. Survival and life...

This was a game. Who created this game was irrelevant. Perhaps it was the gods, perhaps demons, or maybe aliens or future humans. In short, he was a member of this game, or rather, he had now become a member of this game.

By presenting a choice to someone who felt lost and decaying in the city, they would be sent to various horror movie scenarios after choosing this game.

"This time it's Resident Evil 1. Rookies, you're really lucky. You've encountered such an easy horror movie on your first run. Even death would be easy." The black-haired youth took a final drag of his cigarette and crushed the butt fiercely in his palm.

"You mean, our consciousness has entered the computer, like in a fantasy novel? As long as we complete this game, our consciousness will return to our bodies, and we'll be resurrected?" A chubby guy beside Zheng Zha asked, sitting on the ground.

The black-haired youth took out a handgun from his pocket, a Desert Eagle. He fiddled with it as he spoke, "Whether it's consciousness or not, I don't know. But you'll feel pain, get injured, and die. And you're wrong. After you complete this game, you'll enter the next unknown horror movie. You might have seen this movie before, or you might not have. Every time, the 'Main God' brings in new members to fill the spots of rookies who died in the previous horror movie. The number of people ranges from seven to twenty each time. In other words, Resident Evil 1 this time is a horror movie with very little danger, which is why there are only seven of us."

The small fatty sneered, "How do you know those who died didn't return to their bodies? Maybe they chose to die themselves."

The black-haired youth suddenly looked up, a cold light flashing in his eyes. In that instant, the youth seemed to transform into a black panther. Everyone only saw him bend his legs and spring up. The next second, he was on top of the small fatty, the Desert Eagle shoved into the small fatty's mouth.

"Do you want to try dying? Can you imagine the infinite terror? I've been through three horror movies. The first was A Nightmare on Elm Street 1. There were fifteen rookies in that one, plus two veterans who had survived two horror movies. But do you know the outcome? They were all killed in their dreams. Only I and one other person survived. Do you want to know what it feels like to be killed by a ridiculously absurd dream? Do you want to see everything around you turn into writhing rotten flesh, and in a gloomy factory, you witness your own body being slowly crushed bit by bit by a pair of scissors? You piece of shit! Do you want to die?"

The black-haired youth yelled frantically, his killing intent so obvious that the small fatty was already weak with fear. With the muzzle stuffed in his mouth, he couldn't even beg for mercy.

Zheng Zha and the other two men and two women pulled them apart. The black-haired youth sneered and walked back to his seat. He continued to fiddle with the handgun and said, "Death in a horror movie is real death, and being tortured to death by the demons in these horror movies means you will die miserably. So if you don't have the resolve to live, I would kill myself immediately if I were you."

A young girl with glasses next to him asked, "Then can we not return to our bodies?"

The black-haired youth sneered, "I've been saying it all along, you're not just entering the computer with your consciousness. Do you think this game is within human technological capabilities? No, this is the work of gods. We are like insects in their eyes. To entertain them, they capture us and throw us into horror movies to struggle. Our bodies and minds are brought into this world together. We can't go back, at least I don't think we can go back."

The girl with glasses had a calm demeanor. She thought for a moment and said, "Judging by your tone, there seems to be a glimmer of hope of returning?"

The black-haired youth looked up at the young girl with glasses and said, "The quality of the rookies this time is really good... Yes, there is indeed hope of returning."

As soon as he said this, including Zheng Zha, the six people held their breath. They stared directly at the black-haired youth.

"Every time you complete a mission, that is, survive a horror movie, you will receive one thousand Reward Points. These one thousand Reward Points can be exchanged for many things, such as the right to live in this horror movie world for one hundred days..." the black-haired youth said indifferently.

A middle-aged man next to the girl with glasses said, "It's not like we're crazy. Who would want to live in such a terrifying world for more days? Isn't that asking for death?"

The black-haired youth sneered and said nothing, but the girl with glasses touched her forehead and said, "No, I think I understand what he means. Horror movies are divided into many types. One is a sci-fi horror movie like this Resident Evil, which can be explained by science. There are no supernatural or demonic elements at all. In other words, apart from where the story is taking place, the rest of the world should be normal..."

The black-haired youth snapped his fingers and said, "Bingo! Correct. The extra hundred days you can live are indeed to live normally in other parts of this world for one hundred days. Think about it, after experiencing several trials of survival and death, to be able to live peacefully and without worry in the normal areas of this world, what kind of happiness would that be..."

Zheng Zha trembled. He seemed to understand the purpose of this world's existence. Yes, it was precisely the boring survival that made him feel like he was decaying. But after experiencing this countless terror and death, a peaceful life truly was the most blissful hope.

The black-haired youth continued, "Besides exchanging for days of life, you can also exchange for many other things. For example, this Desert Eagle with infinite bullets only costs one hundred points, which is equivalent to ten days of living rights. In addition, a person's average stats, including Intelligence, Mental Power, Cell Vitality, Nerve Reaction Speed, Muscle Strength, and Immunity Strength, can each be exchanged for one day of living rights. The six stats for an ordinary person are all one hundred. In other words, as long as you survive this horror movie, you can completely make your strength twice as strong as it is now. If you survive one hundred horror movies, you will become a superman!"

The girl with glasses calmly asked, "Then to return to the starting point, to let us go back to our own world, how many Reward Points does that require?"

"Fifty thousand points!" The black-haired youth took out another cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and took a deep drag. "You don't need any points if you survive fifty horror movies. Then you can go back."

Instantly, several people fell silent. According to what this black-haired youth said, surviving fifty horror movies without using Reward Points to strengthen oneself would be simply impossible.

"Of course, one thousand points per horror movie is the basic reward. You can also earn extra money in horror movies. For example, I'm explaining all this to you now. According to the 'Main God's' rules, explaining the rules to rookies will reward me with one hundred Reward Points. At the same time, you should have noticed that you are all wearing strange watches, right?" The black-haired youth raised his left hand, showing a black pure metal watch, ancient and pure in style.

Everyone looked at their left hands. This watch displayed several data points: first, a countdown of three hours and seven minutes; second, some categorized data, such as the number of zombies, the number of Lickers, the number of rookies...

"Every ten zombies killed rewards one Reward Point, every Licker killed rewards one hundred Reward Points, every rookie killed... rewards one thousand Reward Points..." After speaking, the black-haired youth looked at Zheng Zha and the others with ill intent. Among them, only Zheng Zha and the girl with glasses calmly looked back at him.

"Of course, it's negative Reward Points..."

The black-haired youth looked at Zheng Zha and the girl with glasses and sneered, "Alright, if you have any more questions, ask them quickly. This horror movie is about to officially begin."

The girl with glasses looked at Zheng Zha. Zheng Zha nodded slightly, and she continued to ask, "I have two or three more questions. I've also seen the movie Resident Evil 1. The ending is the T-Virus from the laboratory invading Raccoon City. So, before that, we're escaping the laboratory in this train carriage, wouldn't it be easy to survive?"

The black-haired youth nodded. "Look at your watch. Is there a name in the upper left corner? Say it."

"Matthew Addison!"

Several people said it simultaneously, and then they were surprised to see a black man among the foreigners emit a faint glow all over his body. This glow only lasted for a moment, and then the black man returned to normal.

"This is the captain of the mercenaries from the movie. This movie belongs to a specific regional horror movie genre. The plot of the horror movie only takes place within this laboratory. To limit the difficulty, in this type of horror movie, we can't stray too far from the plot area. If we go more than a hundred meters away from this Matthew Addison, we'll... boom, disappear into nothingness. Got it? When the character in the plot dies, this restriction will be transferred to the remaining plot characters. It's all interconnected. We can only fight desperately to survive in this horror movie," the black-haired youth explained.

Zheng Zha suddenly asked, "What is that 'Main God' you keep mentioning?"

"'The Main God' is likely what manages this horror movie loop we're in. It gives us Reward Points, and exchanges are also done through it. The 'Main God' is a ball of light. Honestly, I have no idea what it actually is," the black-haired youth said, gesturing with his hand.

The girl with glasses nodded. "One last question... what do these numbers represent?" She pointed to the countdown on her watch.

"It's the time you must spend in this horror movie. When the time is up, you can return alive to the 'Main God' to receive your rewards, and then face the next horror movie," the black-haired youth said, taking a deep drag from his cigarette.

Just then, the train car began to slow down. The black-haired youth finished his cigarette in a few quick puffs. He pulled the Desert Eagle from his coat and said, "Alright, the plot starts now. They can hear our conversation from this point on. Remember, if they overhear our topic, you'll be deducted ten points for every sentence. The penalty will be deducted from your next reward. Rookies... try to survive!"