Cripple

Calm down!

Calm down, Li Wei. This wasn't an unexpected situation.

Before entering the game, those professional technicians had already explained what kinds of accidents might happen.

Li Wei took a deep breath and quickly recovered from that momentary panic.

This was, after all, the first game in human history capable of achieving full virtual reality. Any kind of problem would be normal.

Before signing that agreement, Li Wei had even prepared himself to die.

As for being unable to find the logout option in the game and getting trapped inside, the technicians had naturally prepared contingency plans for that as well.

He could not remember any of those profound, obscure technical terms. They had only told him that if this happened, he absolutely must not panic.

The technicians monitoring Li Wei's condition and the game's status in real time would definitely find a solution immediately. His life would not be in danger. Until the company successfully rescued him, they would ensure his survival.

And inside the game, Li Wei could also find a way to actively escape virtual reality himself.

Since there was no option to quit manually, then he would just clear the entire game!

It was only an early test version of the game anyway, with pitifully bare-bones plot content. As long as Li Wei rushed through it as quickly as possible, he would naturally be able to leave.

At worst, he would treat this experience like a vacation. Here, he was no miserable corporate drone.

And after successfully returning to reality, he could still receive a large compensation payment, on top of the remuneration that had already been agreed upon.

He could play and get paid, and returning was not entirely hopeless. What was there to worry about?

After thinking it through, Li Wei completely relaxed.

He picked up another apple, took a bite, and walked over to the windowsill.

Before the wooden house that had been completely burned to ashes, the lame girl named Feng Zi was trying for the third time to get up from the ground.

Her legs had always been weak, and after kneeling on the ground for so long, both legs had long since gone numb. Without someone else's help, it would be difficult for her to stand on her own.

After failing several times in a row, Feng Zi braced her hands against the damp grass, preparing to lie down first and let her legs relax. Once the blood began circulating again, she would try to stand.

However, before she could slowly bend her arms and fully lie down on the ground—

A strong arm grabbed her wrist.

Feng Zi was very light, and she was easily pulled up. But her numb legs had not recovered yet. Even though she had managed to stand this time, she still stumbled and nearly fell again.

The person beside her steadied her, preventing her from falling to the ground.

Feng Zi did not look up at the tall person helping her. Stubbornly shaking off the supporting hand, she insisted on standing steady by herself and coldly offered her thanks.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She struggled to take a step, intending to leave directly. She had come to hate and loathe this testing ground, as well as the people in it, to the utmost degree.

But just after Feng Zi took her first step, her body suddenly tensed, and the expression on her face froze!

That familiar voice, which she only recognized belatedly, made her abruptly turn around and look at Li Wei, who had changed into a clean shirt and was still leisurely eating his apple.

"6626."

Feng Zi's eyes widened as she incredulously spoke Li Wei's patent number.

For some reason, Li Wei felt that form of address sounded much more pleasant than "Liang Xincheng."

Tears burst brilliantly from Feng Zi's eyes.

"Y-you weren't burned to death by them?"

"My parents weren't willing to let all those years of investment in me go down the drain. They secretly tampered with things and hid me away."

He obviously would not reveal that he could revive.

The NPCs in this game were highly intelligent and seemed no different from ordinary people. He would not be stupid enough to expose his greatest trump card.

Feng Zi nervously looked past Li Wei's shoulder.

Li Wei saw what she was worried about.

"They wanted to keep me behind and harvest my organs to sell for money. Then I killed them instead."

He said it lightly.

"That injection you gave me somehow gave me some different awareness and thoughts. What happened today also made me understand that my entire life, from childhood until now, was a lie. You wanted to help me and save me from that lie."

Upon hearing Li Wei's words, Feng Zi wiped the tears from her face with the loose sleeve of her white lab coat, revealing a delighted expression.

"Did the Key have some kind of special reaction with you? I really had no other choice. While I was imprisoned, I heard that they wanted to give you to rich people as a toy later on, to make up for the research funding deficit."

"I didn't want you to be defiled, so I did everything I could to sneak out and use the Key on you. I originally thought they would fear the consequences and give up on that idea, but I never expected them to just burn you alive!"

As she said this, she suddenly grabbed Li Wei's arm, pressed her lips together, and grew inexplicably nervous.

"626, I don't know whether you still remember me. When you were very little, Father brought you home and said that from then on, you would be my little brother. But just a few days later, for some reason, you were taken away."

As she spoke, her gaze instinctively darted away for a moment, but she soon firmly met Li Wei's eyes again.

"I only found out a year ago that you and Father's other inheritance were all here. That was why I came here from [Central], wanting to take you and those relics away! But just as they would rather burn you to death than take the risk of keeping you, they had already completely claimed those things for themselves!"

"Now that you understand your origins, you're free! But 626, can you help me? Can you help me retrieve the other things Father left behind?"

Her expression was restrained, as if she knew she had made a somewhat excessive request.

Yet the moment her request left her lips, a message also appeared in Li Wei's mind.

[Quest triggered: "Retrieve Lost Relics": Feng Zi, a girl whose body has suffered unknown damage, wishes to recover her father's relics.]

[Quest Reward: Physics-related skills, proof of identity for leaving Sun City]

Looking at the suddenly appearing quest prompt, Li Wei could not help inwardly mocking how crude this quest-distribution system was.

Forget the specific quest process—what was this random quest reward supposed to be?

Physics skills?

Could it possibly teach him how to blow Newton's coffin lid off?

And he could also tell that Feng Zi had definitely lied about something or deliberately concealed something in what she had just said.

But even so, Li Wei had no intention of refusing her.

Even someone who had never played a game could guess that Feng Zi was clearly a key plot character. Even if the quest she issued was not part of the main storyline, it was most likely connected to it.

If Li Wei wanted to leave the game, he naturally needed to find the game's main quest first.

Under Feng Zi's tense, helpless gaze, Li Wei casually tossed away the apple core he had finished eating.

"First, let me say this: don't expect me to call you something like Big Sister. Madwoman doesn't sound good either. At most, I can call you Cripple."

Feng Zi was stunned at first, then finally understood.

She broke into her first genuine smile of the day, making her delicate, pale face shine with dazzling brilliance.

"Okay!"