In a standard hospital ward, the pungent smell of disinfectant lingered as a pale, frail young man lay on the bed.
The oversized, striped hospital gown hung loosely on him, feeling as empty as if it were catching the wind. His collarbones stood out with a sickly, bony sharpness, and his slender, delicate wrists were pierced by indwelling needles, bruised and purplish from poor blood clotting.
A gentle breeze drifted past, scattering the locks of hair hanging by the bedside and adding a touch of fragile beauty—provided the sickly beauty on the bed stayed silent.
"So I'm the savior?"
007: "That's right, Host! You are the only savior I selected out of millions of people. As long as you agree to work with me, we can walk the Dragon Overlord counter-attack path. We will be a God Blocker, God Killer, and Demon Blocker, Demon Killer, striding all the way to the peak of our lives."
The Little Light Orb fluttered in the air, desperately painting pie-in-the-sky promises for Bo Shuo.
"Heh." Bo Shuo sneered, completely unimpressed by this pie. His greatest virtue was self-awareness.
He was just an ordinary person, at best an ordinary person with an outstanding appearance, and now a baffling system had popped up to tell him he was actually a savior and wanted him to save the world. How absurd was that?
What difference was this from saying, "I am Qin Shi Huang, scan this QR code to give me 50 yuan"?
Still, while he could refuse the pie, he could not refuse the system.
Bo Shuo lifted the corners of his lips in self-derision, his complexion stark white. A familiar pain spread through his body, making even a single inch of breathing feel like an indescribable, burning agony.
Ever since he was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer half a year ago, the end of his life had been foretold. Living on the bed looking neither human nor ghost, he was merely waiting to tumble into the furnace, be burned into a pile of ashes, and perhaps not even have a graveyard.
The price of land here was too expensive; he could not afford it.
Bo Shuo expressionlessly scrutinized his own situation, then cast his gaze toward 007. "Stop spouting this illusory save-the-world nonsense for a moment. Tell me first, what do I get out of agreeing to this?"
007 froze, then spoke up in pleasant surprise. "Benefits? Well... there are some, there are some."
The small sphere of light floating in the air buried its head into its furry pocket, searching again and again before finally pulling out a white paper covered in black characters. The moment it pulled it out, it failed to keep a firm grip, and with a flap, the paper dropped straight onto Bo Shuo's face.
Bo Shuo, who had inexplicably been plunged into darkness: "..." This felt somewhat unreliable.
He raised a hand to pull the white paper off his face. Through the ward's light, two large, straightforward characters were written simply and boldly right at the top: Benefits.
Authoritative enough, straightforward enough.
007 ingratiatingly sidled up beside Bo Shuo, then manually increased its own brightness to serve as a light bulb. While waiting for Bo Shuo to read, it also came with a complimentary commentary.
"As long as you, Host, agree to go and complete the missions, we can forge a healthy body for you, and after clearing all missions, you will also..." Receive a sum of money too vast to spend across several lifetimes.
Before it could finish speaking, Bo Shuo cut it off with a decisive response.
"I agree."
007 raised its head in confusion, only to see a sickly flush rise across the pale-faced young man's features. His eyes were startlingly bright, resembling the sudden flare of fire over long-dead, withered bones.
Bo Shuo did not want to die. He wanted to live—wanted it to the point of madness.
Even half a year ago when the Doctor issued the critical illness notice and used a tone full of regret to inform him that he had only three months left to live, Bo Shuo had not compromised.
Through multiple hospital transfers, chemotherapy, and countless times clawing back a final breath from the Grim Reaper on the operating table—even when the pain left him dripping with cold sweat and piercingly agonizing to the marrow, even knowing he would be tortured into excruciating, withered exhaustion—Bo Shuo refused to give up.
Even if there was only the tiniest sliver of hope, what if! What if he could live!
He was unwilling to be buried all alone in the ground, nor did he want his ashes casually scattered into the sea to be eroded by wind and rain, devoured by insects, or pointed at by later generations as they sighed over his gravestone—this young man died really young.
He refused!
Now that there was a chance to survive, no matter how difficult, no matter how slim the odds, and no matter how fraught with danger the road ahead might be, he had to push through it.
Having already bound itself to Bo Shuo, 007 could naturally sense his Emotional Fluctuation.
(007 Emotion Points +50)
As this sound dropped, the Little Light Orb previously floating in the air began to flicker like a poor signal receiver, and the room's voltage became unstable along with it.
In just an instant, Bo Shuo's thoughts were yanked back, his eyes practically blinded by the flashes. He instinctively looked up at 007.
007 was holding a small handkerchief to wipe away its tears, tiny glimmers of light shaking off its body as it cried on par with a boiling kettle. "Wuuu wuuu, Host, you're so miserable."
"Stop howling, you'll be paying for it if the light bulb explodes later," Bo Shuo raised a hand to shield his eyes, complaining, "Tell me what you actually want me to do, and what on earth Emotion Points are."
007's tone turned serious. "The Deities of the super-popular Infinite Flow anime Dream Awakening have broken free of control; they want to break through the dimensions and come to reality. For the sake of the world's stability, we must find someone to stop all this, so the World Consciousness created me, and you, Host, are the seventh savior I found."
"Our mission is to conquer all the SSS-Rank Dungeons inside the novel."
Before you continue