Chapter 24
In the real world, in Big Pineapple's room, the team responsible for helping with his livestream was utterly dumbfounded by the scene before them.
What was going on?!
He had just said he was going to play a new game. How had he fallen asleep a moment later?
While the cameraman was still bewildered, a staff member specifically responsible for stirring up the livestream chat suddenly raised his head and shouted:
"Quick, quick, quick! Call the police! Brother Pineapple might already be dead!"
At those words, the other two staff members froze on the spot, then each let out a choice national curse.
"Motherfucker!"
"Holy shit!"
Their words fell, and the two turned their somewhat stiff necks toward Big Pineapple, who lay motionless in front of the computer, their eyes wide.
"Wait, man, you're joking, right? Isn't Brother Pineapple just asleep?"
"Yeah, don't scare me. Brother Pineapple's probably just a little tired."
"I don't fucking have time to joke with you! Call the police right this second! You call an ambulance. Nobody moves him before it gets here. I'm calling the police right now."
A young man hurriedly waved his hands at that. "Wait, bro, even-even if something's happened, we should call an ambulance. There's no need to call the police, right? We-and this has nothing to do with us!"
"No shit, of course I know it has nothing to do with you! If this really had anything to do with you, I'd drop to my knees and call you Daddy on the spot. Hurry up! You call an ambulance, and you notify Brother Pineapple's family. Stop bullshitting!"
As he spoke, he ignored the other two and dialed the police.
After a pleasant ringtone ended, a deep voice spoke. "Hello, this is the XXX police station. How can we help you?"
"I'm reporting an emergency! Someone's died here!"
The voice on the other end, which had sounded somewhat casual, immediately turned serious. "Where are you? What happened? Has someone been attacked? What condition is the victim in? Have you called an ambulance? Stay where you are. Don't move around or disturb the scene. We'll be right there!"
Listening to the barrage of questions, the man who had called fell silent for a moment.
He had originally thought this required calling the police, but now he suddenly had no idea how to explain it.
Say their streamer had just transmigrated?
And that he even had a livestreaming system with him?
And that just now, their streamer's broadcast had gone black?
So he suspected the streamer had kicked the bucket and wanted to report it?
If he said that, never mind whether the police believed him-he would probably be locked up in a psychiatric hospital first.
But lying to get the police to come over first-filing a false report was fucking illegal too!
Yet in the current situation, he couldn't refuse to provide details, so he could only steel himself and say:
"We're at XXX Garden Residential Complex on XXX Road. He's not moving anymore. It's complicated. Please come over first!"
"Stay where you are, make sure nobody disturbs the scene, and keep your phone available. We're dispatching officers immediately. The nearest officers can be there within five minutes."
With that, the police station hung up.
The caller's hands were still trembling slightly.
The internet was also in an uproar.
After Big Pineapple jumped into the river and the screen went black, they waited over ten minutes without anything happening. Everyone had a feeling that Big Pineapple might already be done for.
But some still refused to believe it, thinking Big Pineapple was putting on a show.
Seeing the black screen, they simply decided to visit other livestreams.
A moment later, however, they were dumbstruck.
They distinctly remembered watching over forty minutes of the broadcast in Big Pineapple's stream. Why had only a few seconds passed after they left?
It wasn't just one or two people who discovered this, but many.
After noticing the problem, they returned to the stream and began posting comments.
"Guys, guys, Big Pineapple might really have transmigrated, and he might already be dead! It was six thirty when I entered the stream, but I watched half an hour of the broadcast here. Time outside isn't the same as time in here!"
"???"
"Wait, dude! You're serious?!"
"Holy shit, it's true! I just tested it too. It's real!"
"This is getting more and more ridiculous. Have you guys lost your minds? I'm going to check!"
"Holy shit, guys, Brother Pineapple might really be dead!!!"
Although most people had played along when Big Pineapple first said he had transmigrated, they had still harbored some doubts.
But after discovering this, everyone's expression changed.
For a time, countless people tested it, countless people were dumbfounded, and the story of a gaming streamer who had transmigrated to another world while playing a game, only to kick the bucket within forty minutes, spread like wildfire online.
With over twenty thousand viewers posting simultaneously, the speed at which the information spread was easy to imagine.
The short-video platform immediately noticed something was wrong and sent people to investigate.
Once they entered the stream, they too abruptly discovered that time passed at a different rate. This information was reported immediately.
One employee suggested shutting down the stream outright, but the moment he voiced the idea, he was given a savage dressing-down.
"If you want to die, don't drag us down with you! Do you seriously not understand what a place with a different flow of time means?!
As things stand, never mind us-even the chairman wouldn't dare say a word, and you're thinking about shutting down the stream!
Is your head full of shit?!
Leaving aside the fact that someone's died here, even without that death, this would definitely reach the highest authorities. If you want to die, go do it somewhere else. Don't bring disaster down on us!"
And so the platform simply chose to leave the stream alone.
Less than a minute after the incident began spreading, the stream's audience surged from twenty thousand to a hundred thousand.
Some of those who had watched earlier explained to the newcomers exactly what had happened.
As more and more people arrived, the livestream comments flew past at a dizzying pace.
Some even began taking advantage of the time difference in the stream to discuss academic subjects.
Su Mo naturally knew what was happening here. Before the incident spread, he could still have thought of a way to deal with it.
But now that more and more people were discovering it, he believed it wouldn't take long for the higher-ups to take notice, so he no longer intended to intervene.
The main reason the stream had ended up like this was the icon Su Mo had created.
It had directly linked the stream's flow of time to the Microcosm. Anyone who entered the stream would have their consciousness pulled into the Microcosm.
That was how this situation arose. Once they left the stream, everything returned to normal.
Extending his consciousness into the Microcosm and confirming that the guy wasn't dead yet, Su Mo began pondering again.
Although this guy was still alive, he couldn't accomplish anything in his current state.
This civilization had emerged less than fifty years ago, and its population was small.
Still, it was much better than the previous civilization. At least they dared to fight and struggle. They were just a little short on brains, daring to take on mosquitoes with only a handful of people.
And after fifty years, these idiots were still eating raw meat. It was simply absurd.
Forget it, forget it. I'm not watching anymore. Fuck, the more I watch, the more annoyed I get. It has to be destroyed once every thousand years anyway. If this civilization still can't last a thousand years this time, I'll throw all those mosquitoes somewhere farther away.
As Su Mo entertained these thoughts, time passed swiftly.
Five minutes passed, and the police arrived at the reported location.
After hearing the man's account and learning the situation at the scene, they were utterly dumbfounded.
At first, they had even thought the guy was joking, but then they watched the videos online.
And after testing the flow of time in the stream, all three officers were stupefied.
This-how the fuck were they supposed to handle this?!
No, how were they supposed to report this?!
Say that a young man had transmigrated and was now very possibly dead?
If they really said that, they didn't even need to imagine it to feel their heads getting a little wet.
Why wet? Because their heads would be covered in their superior's spit!
"Um, officers, that's the situation. What should we do now?"
The three officers exchanged looks. What the fuck were they supposed to do?!
We don't know either!
Nobody said anything about this before we came!
Never mind before we came-even during training, before we started working, nobody told us we'd have to deal with something like this!
This is fucking supernatural territory, isn't it?!
"How about-how about we send him to the hospital for emergency treatment first?"
"Xiao Gao, don't talk nonsense. If he's still alive now, will you take responsibility if something happens on the way to the hospital?!"
The man who had spoken immediately fell silent.
"Then, uh, this..."
"Please wait a moment. We'll report this to our superiors. This is our first time encountering anything like this. Never mind us-I imagine this is the first time it's happened anywhere in the world..."
Ten minutes later, an officer returned with his phone and addressed the man who had called earlier:
"What's happening here is now beyond our ability to handle. We'll contact this streamer's family. You can't leave for the time being, either. Someone will come to question you again about the exact circumstances at the time."
While they were still considering how to handle the matter, the blacked-out livestream began broadcasting again.
By then, the stream had reached an astonishing two hundred thousand viewers. Nobody knew whether Chinese researchers or spies from various countries were among them.
But at that moment, all of them silently watched everything on the screen.
Only a little over ten minutes had passed in the real world, but several months had already passed in the Microcosm.
"Guys, I'm back!"
The instant Big Pineapple appeared, he greeted everyone.
[Holy shit, the streamer's still alive!]
[Streamer, you're actually not dead yet!]
[Brother Pineapple, we all thought you were dead!]
[Wait, why isn't Brother Pineapple saying anything?!]
[Brother Pineapple...]
With four arms, an incomparably hideous appearance, and clothes made of tree bark, Big Pineapple looked at the comments before him and hurriedly shouted:
"Stop, stop, stop! Stop posting comments for now. I can't see! I have a few things to say, and they're serious!
If anyone keeps posting comments, I won't say anything, and I'll shut down the stream!"
Whoosh!
At those words, the comments instantly cleared.
Only then did Big Pineapple nod in satisfaction. Then he took out a stone tablet and said, "Look, what's this?!"
All two hundred thousand people in the stream looked, and someone immediately posted:
[Isn't that just simplified Chinese? What about it?]
[Yeah, streamer, are you planning to spread simplified Chinese over there?]
[That's a pretty good idea. You're spreading our culture straight into another world. Brother Pineapple, I support you!]
[Son, son, I'm your dad! How are you doing? Can you still come back...?]
Seeing that comment, two black lines crossed Big Pineapple's forehead, and he said outright, "You're going too far! Now you're even pretending to be my dad! And stop posting comments! If you keep going, I really will end the stream!!!"
Under the supervision of two police officers, Big Pineapple's father wanted to say something else, but seeing the officers gesture for him to stop, he could only stop.
"This is a stone tablet I found in some ruins in this world. I don't know archaeology, but judging by the marks, it's at least several hundred years old. And in there, I found simplified Chinese! Do you know what that means?!!!"
Silence fell once more. Countless people watching the stream even stopped breathing for a moment.
Yet at that very moment, an enlarged, bold comment drifted past Big Pineapple's eyes.
[I left that stone tablet. I visited this universe before you. Can you tell me, and I lived in there for two hundred years.]