Perfect Life Simulator

A light rain pattered outside the window.

Su Wu gazed at the threads of rain outside and sighed silently. His mood was as gloomy as the sky.

It had been raining like this three years ago today, when the news of his parents' deaths reached his school.

Sitting at his desk, he picked up a watch.

It was an old watch. His grandfather had always worn it when Su Wu was a child, and later it had passed to his father.

After his parents died, the watch had come into Su Wu's hands.

He had kept it with him ever since, as a memento.

The glass over the dial was somewhat yellowed and cloudy, though the metal band still gleamed. Beneath the glass, the hands remained motionless, stubbornly pointing to a quarter past two.

"Why has it stopped?"

Su Wu frowned at the frozen hands. Ever since he had found the watch among his parents' belongings, it had kept ticking. This was the first time it had stopped in three years.

Was it broken?

Cutting off that thought, he gripped the crown on the right side of the dial and tried to turn it.

But the crown seemed welded to the watch. No matter how hard he twisted, it refused to budge.

Growing anxious, he applied more force.

His finger unexpectedly scraped across an edge of the watch. Normally harmless, the edge cut a small wound into his fingertip under the excessive pressure.

Blood immediately seeped out, staining the watch glass red.

Su Wu hurriedly grabbed a tissue to wipe it away-but before he could, the blood gathered into a single bead on the glass. In an instant, it seeped into the watch and landed on the hands.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...

The motionless hands began turning again.

As though that drop of blood had given them strength.

The entire dial turned a vivid red. Then the crimson spread through the band, which wrapped tightly around Su Wu's wrist.

He watched the blood-drenched second hand spin clockwise faster than his eyes could follow, completing one revolution after another.

The minute and hour hands raced around with it.

While the hands continued turning, the room around Su Wu sank into boundless darkness.

A huge watch dial floated in the darkness. All its hands pointed to the number "0," and a mechanical female voice rang out in Su Wu's mind: "Welcome to the Perfect Life Simulator!"

"You may spend origin jade to simulate your own life or someone else's, seeking solutions to the many challenges of life!"

"Currently, you may only simulate your own future life. Begin simulation?"

The succession of announcements battered Su Wu's thoughts. He saw the second hand on the enormous dial point to "1," and a screen appeared beside the number.

On the screen, Su Wu sat at his desk, frowning thoughtfully at his empty palm.

Was this the life he could currently choose to simulate?

Where would the origin jade he needed come from?

How had the watch handed down from his grandfather turned into this so-called Perfect Life Simulator?

Confused thoughts crowded Su Wu's mind.

The electronic voice cut through them all: "After each simulation, you will receive origin jade and other rewards based on your rating."

Listening to the voice, Su Wu suddenly wondered whether his parents' mysterious deaths had something to do with this simulator.

His heart jolted, and he finally made up his mind.

Perhaps this life simulator, which had appeared so inexplicably, could provide answers to some of those mysteries!

"I want to begin the simulation!" he answered in his mind.

"Your origin jade wallet balance is detected as '5.' Simulating your own life costs one origin jade."

"As a first-time user of the Perfect Life Simulator, you may spend one origin jade to receive a random permanent talent. Proceed?"

Su Wu still had no idea why there was origin jade in his wallet. But at the simulator's sudden question, he spent one without hesitation to draw a permanent talent.

Whatever the game, the rewards for a player's first purchase were always an exceptional bargain, meant to entice them into spending.

"Drawing talent..."

"Draw successful! You have received the permanent talent 'Composure (green).'"

"Composure (green): You possess an above-average degree of caution, allowing you to carefully observe your surroundings amid chaos. You have some capacity for logical reasoning."

The instant the draw finished, Su Wu's mind cleared. The many thoughts churning through his head settled, allowing him to assess his situation carefully.

Composure was only green quality for now. Did that mean there were higher qualities, such as blue, purple, and orange?

The talents drawn through the simulator did not just work within the simulation-they could directly affect him in reality!

"You may choose to spend origin jade to bring real-world items into the simulation. The options are as follows..."

Only one hand remained on the enormous dial, spinning rapidly without pause.

The numbers around the dial had all turned into individual items.

Option 0: Your body (currently costs 10 origin jade. You may experience the simulated life in person. Any beneficial or detrimental effects your body receives in the simulated life are irreversible. If your body dies in the game, you will also die in reality.)

Option 1: Half a packet of tissues.

Option 2: A watermelon knife.

Option 3: A decorative Han-style sword made by a sword manufacturer.

Option 4: Three folding stools.

Option 5: A set of cups.

...

A dense array of options surrounded the dial. Every item came from the room Su Wu occupied in the real world.

His gaze lingered on option 0 for a long time.

The game was gradually exceeding his expectations, giving him an instinctive sense that the life he was about to simulate might also be far from ordinary.

Apart from option 0, every item cost just one origin jade to bring into the game.

Even so, Su Wu ultimately chose none of them.

He had little origin jade and needed to spend it where it mattered. Surely the game would have things like watermelon knives and tissues?

As for bringing his own body into the game, that was completely out of the question.

How could he cut off his escape route on his very first attempt? Besides, he did not have ten origin jade.

Su Wu watched the hands on the enormous dial complete a revolution in succession, all pointing to "1."

The dial dissolved into specks of light, and a notification sounded: "Your future life has loaded successfully!"

It was still too dark to see his own hand. His surroundings seemed unchanged from moments before.

But when he listened carefully, he could no longer hear rain outside the window.

He tried standing up and felt his way through the dark space. His hands found the desk in front of him, and he moved along its edge until he located a switch on a wall.

He pressed it, instantly lighting up the dark space.

Su Wu saw two rosewood-colored desks pushed together against a wall. Several books were piled in the corner of the desk on the right.

A closed laptop sat on the desk.

A notebook rested on top of it.

Turning his head slightly, he saw a rosewood-colored bookcase as tall as a person behind him. It held many familiar books, but layers of mold now covered them.

Yellow streaks, as though left by soaking rainwater, marked all four walls. Clusters of blue-green mold spread outward along them.

"This is my room."

"Well, I never planned to tidy it up, so it's only natural that it would stay the same in the future."

"But why is there so much mold? Is there going to be a lot of rain?"

Su Wu's gaze swept toward the window, but thick, opaque wooden boards covered it completely.

Why had the window been boarded up so tightly? He found it strange.

He walked over to the desk and checked the calendar.

Past dates had been crossed out in red pen. The first unmarked date read "April 17, 2030, solar calendar."

That was exactly one week after the actual date in reality.

But Su Wu could not be certain the calendar was accurate-sometimes several days passed before he remembered to cross out the dates.

He picked up the notebook and leafed through pages of familiar handwriting.

After his parents' deaths, Su Wu had developed a habit of keeping a journal.

He did not write every day, but he made entries two or three times a week.

This seemingly useless habit had now become the perfect tool for learning what had happened over the intervening days.

April 10, 2030.

At Monday's morning meeting, the supervisor demanded that we keep our phones on over the weekend and check the work group chat regularly.

Ha. He wishes. Like hell I will.

April 13, 2030.

Tomorrow is Friday. Decided to head out to the countryside after work and fish all night.

Wang Zhiyou invited the supervisor to have some fun at a club this weekend. I happened to overhear them whispering. Should I report them?

April 14, 2030.

Reported them.

The weather seems ridiculously damp lately. There are lots of mold patches on the walls, and plenty of books on the shelves have gotten damp. This isn't the south, so should the air really be this humid?

Remember to take the books out and dry them in the sun tomorrow.

April 16, 2030.

Heard there have been several murders nearby. They still haven't found the killer.

I didn't ask exactly where, so I don't know.

Forgot to dry the books. Next week, then.

There's more and more mold on the walls.

April 18, 2030.

The couple upstairs died.

I didn't dare go and look. Apparently, their deaths were horrific. Seeing them would probably give me nightmares, right?

Tenants on several floors are planning to move out. Moving trucks are starting to line up downstairs. Should I find somewhere else to live too?

Is there something wrong with this room's construction? It's been sunny these past few days, so why is mold still growing everywhere?

April 19, 2030.

Caught a faint smell of a dead rat, but couldn't find it.

Su Wu turned all the way to the last page.

There was no date on it, only a hastily scrawled line in red pen: So many people have died lately. Is the killer really human?

What did that mean?

If it wasn't human, what else could it be?

A chill rose inside Su Wu.

He closed the notebook. Before the chill in his heart could fade, an overpowering stench of dead rat suddenly filled his nostrils.

An even colder presence abruptly appeared behind him and pressed itself against his entire back!

What was happening?!

He hastily turned his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he just managed to glimpse a black shadow at his feet suddenly rise upright. Then excruciating pain surged into his skull, accompanied by the sound of flesh tearing and bones breaking!

Su Wu looked down-

A bloody hole had burst open in his chest.

A pitch-black hand with ten fingers writhed in front of his chest, unstained by even a single drop of blood.

Su Wu's vision went black.