It had been quite a while, but Jiang Ping still had not recovered from the ending of the Genocide Route.
He still only half-understood the game's story.
But that was not important. What mattered was that he felt incredibly stifled right now.
The Genocide Ending had made him feel awful.
Yes, he regretted it.
It was like when he played "Magic Mirror." At first, he had been full of enthusiasm, but once the novelty wore off, he started regretting why he had opened the game again.
Now that he had cleared the Genocide Ending of "Undertale," he felt the same way.
No matter what, having played through the Genocide Ending, he truly regretted it.
He missed laughing with his friends in Peaceful Mode, watching Undyne burn down the kitchen, listening to Papyrus tell terrible jokes, and eating Toriel's pie.
"Let's make another perfect save and give this game a proper ending."
As memories of everything filled his mind, Jiang Ping took a deep breath and reopened the game.
He wanted to play through the perfect Pacifist Ending one more time.
With his previous experience, Jiang Ping was extremely familiar with everything this time.
He remembered many of the monsters and simply chose the most appropriate dialogue options.
After finally defeating Asriel and watching the sunset, a faint smile appeared on Jiang Ping's face.
No matter what, everything was already over.
Yet the very next moment, the scene in the game left him completely stunned.
It was a pitch-black night, and the protagonist was sleeping in the room.
Then, the door gently opened. Toriel came in carrying a butterscotch-cinnamon pie, carefully set it on the floor, and then closed the door.
It looked incredibly warm and cozy, but the next second, the protagonist, who appeared to be asleep, suddenly sat up in bed.
It was Chara's face, wearing a strange and evil expression.
The next moment, a vicious, sinister laugh sounded through his headphones.
After leaving the room, a black-and-white photograph appeared. It was a group photo of the protagonist and their friends from the Underground.
But now, everyone except the protagonist had a blood-red cross over their heads.
Then the game screen vanished.
Sitting before his computer, Jiang Ping stared wide-eyed.
He had only read a few guides on how to trigger the Genocide Ending before, but now he finally understood why the author of those posts had advised people not to play it, or they would regret it.
He also finally understood what some of the cryptic lines in the positive reviews he had read earlier meant.
When did this world become yours to control?
Chara's earlier words seemed to ring in his ears once more.
Jiang Ping blankly stared at the "Undertale" screen.
He had already felt the profound meaning behind the game—no, it should be called its malice!
Like in most games, you hurt the monsters in the game, delete the save file, start a new one, and continue loving one another as though nothing had happened?
Ha, what kind of joke was that?
Stop dreaming!
It was like a mirror. Once it had been broken, no matter how well it was glued back together, cracks would still remain.
Since you had chosen to slaughter those monsters, how could the game possibly let you go back to loving them?
In the dead of night, the bad save file you had deleted returned to haunt you, tearing apart the peace and beauty you thought you had created.
That final eerie laugh, that black-and-white photograph.
Not a single word had been spoken, yet Jiang Ping felt an immense sense of mockery.
It was mocking him as he sat in front of the computer.
It was as if someone were shouting directly into his ear through a loudspeaker.
"Stop pretending, you hypocrite!"
Could there really be no way to change all this?
Jiang Ping looked at the closed game and pressed his lips together.
He logged into a game community related to "Undertale."
Just as he had expected, besides posts discussing the game's content, characters, and story,
there were also many people asking about the very problem he was facing.
"Masters, does anyone know how to get back to the happy ending?"
"Same here, same here, a million times same! I stupidly played the Genocide Ending, and now I regret it. I want to go back!"
"Even though it feels like I'm fooling myself, I want to go back too!"
"Deleting the game, registering a new account, and buying the game on an alt account didn't work at all!"
Looking at the flood of posts, Jiang Ping felt a little better.
After all, he was not the only one.
After searching through posts everywhere, Jiang Ping finally found a definite answer.
"The game's bad save directly overwrites the Cloud Save and system files, so you need to handle both. Reinstall your operating system, register an alt account, and buy Undertale again. That will give you a brand-new game. Of course, don't log in with your old account, or it will detect it and turn into a bad save again!"
So that was how it worked!
Jiang Ping suddenly understood and quickly made a decision.
Of course, he was not planning to reinstall his operating system. After all, he had saved plenty of study materials from his teachers on it, and some of them could no longer be found online.
Besides, he had always used just a single C drive and never partitioned his hard drive at all.
So reinstalling the system was out of the question.
Now that he understood the principle, he could just buy the game again on another computer.
Inside Nebula Games' office, Yang Xin was brimming with excitement.
"We broke 500,000! And it hasn't even been half a month!"
On the computer in front of Yang Xin were the cumulative sales figures for "Undertale" across various game shops.
After its reputation exploded, nearly every major platform had placed "Undertale" on the recommended list of its homepage.
As for the official platform, its recommendation system relied on big data and operated relatively slowly, so even if it got recommended, it would probably be next week.
Of the current 500,000 sales, seventy percent came from third-party platforms.
"Still, it looks like quite a few players contributed a second sale!" Chen Xu said, looking at the backend data with equal surprise.
He had discovered that many purchase records showed that "Undertale" was the first game those accounts had ever bought.
"That's right. A lot of players got curious and played the Genocide Ending. Then, to make themselves feel better, they chose to buy a second copy," Yang Xin said. Clearly, she cared even more about this game than Chen Xu did.
"Isn't that just self-deception?" Ruan Ningxue said from nearby.
"How is that self-deception? It's obviously because the players are full of love for our game," Chen Xu thought for a moment before concluding.
"Release the sales figures first. Let's add more fuel to the game's popularity."
As he spoke, Chen Xu logged into his Official Blog.
Thanks to the previous publicity stunt and the overwhelming praise for "Undertale," his Official Blog had finally surpassed 300,000 followers.
He could not compare to those famous game developers with millions of followers, but he had at least gained some recognition.
More importantly, the little lightning bolt beneath his profile finally had a more detailed introduction.
"Game developer. Representative work: 'Undertale.'"
Before this, there had only been a little lightning bolt and five words: Game developer.
After all, although "Magic Mirror" had explosive sales, its genre was rather special!
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