Game Forbidden Zone: Quiet House!

[Winter had us tightly in its grip. In recent days, many people had frozen to death. The only benefit was the drop in crime; even the bandits could not go out and cause trouble.]

[The temperature was still very low. In besieged Pogoren, finding firewood had become increasingly difficult, and people had begun gathering anything that could burn.]

This was also when wood cost the most. The price of lumber had skyrocketed—one piece of wood for two cigarettes.

At this moment, bullets were actually worth the same as wood.

Yes, the kind of wood you could find everywhere.

Silver had already ended the stream. He stared at the grayish-white game screen, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes.

The bright incandescent light pierced through his thin eyelids, making his head spin slightly.

He had played for three hours, yet it felt as if he had spent three years inside.

The time he slaughtered the military outpost and looted it was also the first time he had broken down.

He had found a letter there.

[First page of the letter:

Mother told me you wanted to enlist, and I need to tell you something. Last week, we caught a girl who had joined the rebels, a sniper. Someone told me she had killed quite a few of our brothers, so they wanted to "have some fun" with her. They tied her to a tree, then hung it full of bombs.

The fuse was long—long enough for her to recall her entire life.

Second page of the letter:

It took ten minutes before she was finally blown to death. Do you know what the worst part was? It wasn't the blood and organs scattered everywhere. It was her expression. After seeing that expression, it felt like my head had been struck by a sledgehammer.

I don't think I'll ever forget that sight for the rest of my life. You want to find some excitement in the army, right? Well, I don't think this is fun at all, brother.

There is only death and dust here.]

When he saw that letter, he had truly broken down.

Even though he had not killed that girl himself, his chest still felt tight. Perhaps it was because he had learned just how horrific war could be.

Silver took a deep breath. He planned to see how other people had played the game.

He wanted to know the game's other endings, but he did not want to open it again.

He searched for This War of Mine, and countless game videos immediately popped up. They showed different creators playing the game, edited by their fans or livestream staff.

He was watching Dumpling's video.

Unlike when he played, Dumpling had been incredibly cautious.

She had saved up a saw blade, cut through the fence, and opened a cabinet inside, only to discover the eye-catching words "private property" on the items.

Silver simply watched the video and smoked. The video had a high view count, but very few comments floated across the screen.

The things in the cabinet were hard to ignore. They were private property, but there was food inside.

In the video, Dumpling stared blankly for several seconds at the conspicuous words that took up nearly half the screen, then sighed and left.

Silver said nothing, and neither did the viewers.

Yet at that moment, everyone seemed to hear people from different places in the same time and space sigh together.

In the video, Dumpling saw a lock on the front door and smashed it open. The moment she entered, a group of people rushed out to beat her up, and she turned and ran.

She returned empty-handed that night.

However, her refusal to rob others did not earn her any kindness in return.

She was robbed on the very first day. Those people took her tools and food.

On the second day, afraid of being robbed again when she went out, she carried some things from home with her and left behind only a few resources.

When she returned, she found her home completely ransacked. Not even a single lousy screw had been left behind.

Still, it was good that she only had herself to feed. Her burden was light.

Her home was bare to the walls. It could hardly even be called a home, because there was a huge hole in one wall.

She was robbed often afterward too, but nothing was ever taken because there was nothing to take.

Sometimes Dumpling would go out at night and get nothing—for example, she might be driven away, flee, or not dare take someone else's private property... The game system would even say: XXX returned home safely, but empty-handed.

Watching her game, Silver could not help laughing. He wondered whether the people who went to rob her home, after returning empty-handed, would also tell their companions waiting eagerly for supplies: "I'm sorry, I didn't find anything. I let everyone down, but I'll work harder next time."

Nothing unexpected happened in Dumpling's game. Her companion characters fled when they could and left when they could.

The game ended on the day the bitter winter arrived.

Her video was not long. Only after it ended did comments begin appearing across the screen.

'This is pretty good.'

'It's good not to kill anyone. If you die, then you die. Who can survive in war anyway?'

'If I could, I'd want to avoid robbing anyone too. The later stages are really hard to endure. It makes me feel awful.'

The comments continued discussing it. Yet everyone thought it was good that Dumpling died in the darkness before winter arrived.

It really was good. Perhaps this was the most perfect ending in the game.

Could surviving to the end truly make someone happy?

Silver posted a comment as well. [This is the best gameplay video I've ever seen.]

He did not even want to watch his own playthrough anymore. Beating the game?

What a load of crap.

After leaving the video, he refreshed the page. A video with over ten million likes appeared before his eyes.

[Game Forbidden Zone! Quiet House!]

Silver's breathing stopped, and his heart seemed to stop with it.

He remembered that place, but why was it called a forbidden zone?

His fingers trembled slightly, but he still clicked into the video.

In the video, a gaming creator was controlling his character as he ransacked the defenseless elderly couple in Quiet House.

He had brought a gun and an axe.

The moment he entered, he ran straight in. The elderly couple had no ability to stop the player from doing anything.

He searched upstairs while the old man did not follow him. He only shouted from below, "Put that down! Don't steal! You thief!"

Silver remembered this scene because it had been exactly the same when he played.

That time, Silver had taken everything without hesitation.

But unlike him, after coming once, this creator returned a second time a few days later.

Before coming, he had even laughed teasingly in the video. 'This place is loaded with supplies. Enough to last us several days.'

But this time, there was no longer an old man hobbling around and rebuking the player.

Even through the screen, he seemed able to smell the stench of rotting corpses.

There were only two corpses on the bed, starved to death.

Yes, starved alive.

Fuck!

Silver clutched his chest. The contents of that letter appeared before his eyes again, every word and sentence emerging with crystal clarity.

[War is not fun at all. There is only death and dust here.]

Silver shut down his computer completely. He slammed his fist onto the desk, unable to put his feelings into words.

In this war, civilians had almost nowhere to escape. Hide at home, and soldiers would go door to door with household registers, wiping out entire families.

Run out of the city, and guns would be mounted on rooftops while snipers picked people off one by one.

Wait for rescue, and they would be massacred all the same.

Stockpile supplies and struggle on to the end? The siege lasted five years, but instant noodles only had a two-year shelf life.

What would they eat for the remaining three years? Their friends and relatives.

Brothers and sisters, please vote for me.