The 'Involution King' Second Female Lead Quits [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 72

Chapter 72: The Fourth World [18]

Not an End, But a Beginning

When you didn’t have to fight to the death, life in the game was truly peaceful, as it was for Li Jianwei and Shu Heng now.

There was no need to rush anywhere. They simply went with the flow, each with a fishing rod, and began to fish.

“A shark is a fish, so why can’t it be caught?” Li Jianwei complained casually. “And have you noticed that the fishing rods we made don’t use bait? They just rely on whoever is willing to get hooked.”

“True. It seems whether a fish gets hooked is purely a matter of probability, not what bait you use or what fishing skills you have.” With that, Shu Heng started reeling in her line.

In less than half a minute, a plump-looking tilapia appeared in Shu Heng’s hand. After a moment’s thought, she tossed it onto the electric grill.

Fishing also drained hunger. This nice-looking fish would be roasted to feed Li Jianwei in a bit.

After Shu Heng finished grilling two tilapias and caught a salmon that she held in her hand, Li Jianwei’s fishing rod finally showed some action. After a fierce struggle, a palm-sized pomfret appeared in her hand.

Li Jianwei didn’t say anything. She just silently looked at Shu Heng’s one-meter-long salmon, then at her own pomfret, which was barely ten centimeters long.

“Just you wait, I’ll catch a big fish for you!” Li Jianwei tossed the pomfret onto the grill, switched her gear to the titanium sword, and jumped into the water with a splash.

Less than half an hour later, Li Jianwei returned with her spoils.

The shark meat was placed in the food box, while the shark’s head was put into the raw material box of the biofuel refinery.

It made sense. Li Jianwei couldn’t catch a salmon, but she could use force to “catch” a shark instead, and a shark’s size was much larger than a salmon’s.

After spending a leisurely twenty-odd days like this, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng slowly emerged from their relaxed state, beginning to check the clock from time to time.

Both of their survival days had reached ninety-nine. They didn’t know if they would clear the game by surviving until the hundredth day, or by simply surviving the hundredth day.

In these final moments, Li Jianwei even gave up on killing sharks, her usual form of relaxation. She simply lay on the hammock with Shu Heng, listening to the seagulls go caw-caw-caw.

At this point, the seagulls’ calls didn’t sound so harsh anymore.

The night of the ninety-ninth day was a moonlit one. Li Jianwei and Shu Heng held hands, chatting and watching the moon rise and fall.

[Name: Li Jianwei]

[Status: Health (100/100), Hunger (84/100), Hydration (85/100)]

[Survival Days: 100]

[Congratulations, Survivor, on clearing the game. Do you wish to refuse the Divine’s final plea and insist on leaving the Divine who needs your company?]

Upon hearing the notification, Li Jianwei’s first reaction was to look at Shu Heng.

“I also received the system reminder. See you outside?” Shu Heng asked, a smile blooming on her face.

“Mhm, you go first. I’ll follow right after,” Li Jianwei said. She wouldn’t feel at ease until she saw Shu Heng truly leave the game world.

“Okay.” Shu Heng didn’t refuse. She chose to refuse the Divine’s plea, then cleared the game and departed.

The person in her arms slowly turned into fragments of light and vanished. Li Jianwei’s eyes were fixed on her friends list. When she saw that Shu Heng’s name hadn’t disappeared but now had an “Offline” status next to it, she smiled, then also chose to refuse the plea and clear the game.

…

“They’re waking up! Someone has regained consciousness! Quick, notify the doctors, notify the officials from all departments!”

“Someone in my area has also regained consciousness. Did our efforts succeed?”

“Ms. Li, how are you feeling? Do you know what happened?”

In Li Jianwei’s perception, she had simply been in a daze before smoothly leaving the game and arriving outside. Seeing the long-lost real world, she couldn’t help but be stunned for a long time.

“I know what happened. After I entered the game, my consciousness was brought into it by a being who called itself the Divine,” Li Jianwei said, her throat feeling a bit hoarse.

“Or rather, that Divine used some method to sever the connection between our consciousness and our bodies, trapping us in the game to play with it.”

Li Jianwei’s thoughts were very clear. She slowly recounted her experience and Shu Heng’s theories, emphasizing that they could try to communicate with the entity.

“How many people were trapped in the game in total?” Li Jianwei asked. At this moment, she had already seen her family, but the investigator was still acting as her shadow.

“According to Federal statistics, there were initially over 5.36 million people trapped in the game. It wasn’t just people who voluntarily joined the survival game whose connections were severed; it also included some who were in other games at the same time,” the investigator said in a serious tone.

“As of now, over 563,000 people have completely lost their life signs. Their bodies are gradually decomposing even inside the nutrient capsules.”

A flicker of understanding passed through Li Jianwei’s eyes. The loss of 560,000 lives had made the Federation take this very seriously, which was why they were being gathered for observation and management.

Li Jianwei didn’t say anything more. How to negotiate with that Divine was a problem for the Federal government, not a concern for her, a lucky survivor who had escaped the game.

The moment she got her terminal back, Li Jianwei typed in the number she had memorized, trying to contact Shu Heng in the outside world.

But Shu Heng seemed even harder to reach than Li Jianwei. It was only on the second day that she accepted her friend request and sent a meeting location.

It was a not-so-close distance that would take only three hours to reach by maglev shuttle.

Li Jianwei felt she should dress up, but she and Shu Heng had already been intimate many times. There was no need for extra adornments.

So Li Jianwei went to a flower shop and personally chose roses—flowers that couldn’t be grown in the game—to take with her to see Shu Heng.

What did a one-to-one replicated body mean? It meant that Li Jianwei and Shu Heng could accurately recognize each other in a crowd.

“What a coincidence, I brought you flowers too.” Seeing the lilies in Shu Heng’s hand, Li Jianwei’s smile grew even wider.

What was this? This was a two-way effort!

After dinner, without needing to say a word, Li Jianwei was invited to Shu Heng’s home, and in the unfamiliar surroundings, they did familiar things.

How to break the slight sense of unfamiliarity that the real world brought?

Simple. A few times would be enough.

It was just that the real world didn’t have automatic cleaning, and stamina couldn’t always be maintained at its peak just by eating and drinking.

An equal match. That was the conclusion they reached after spending a long time in bed.

“Xiao Gao and Xiao Di should have also left the game safely, right?” Li Jianwei and Shu Heng lay in bed. After getting reacquainted with each other’s bodies, they had a sense of security from being back in the real world.

“Didn’t you contact them?” Shu Heng asked. “Didn’t you memorize their terminal numbers?”

“My mind was completely on you. I didn’t think of it for a while.” Li Jianwei was unrepentant and confident. Xiao Gao and Xiao Di were good friends, but how could friends be as important as Shu Heng?

The corners of Shu Heng’s mouth turned up uncontrollably. “Add them as friends. If they came out safely, we can all go out for a meal together.”

Li Jianwei had no reason to refuse. She entered the corresponding numbers from memory and sent friend requests.

Perhaps it was a kind of unspoken understanding, but Xiao Di quickly accepted Li Jianwei’s request, and when she found out they were going to have a meal together, she agreed without a second thought.

When the four of them met, Li Jianwei finally understood why Xiao Di had also been awake in the middle of the night.

Because Xiao Di’s collarbone and neck had hickeys on them that couldn’t be removed, just like Shu Heng’s.

Of course, Li Jianwei’s and Xiao Gao’s necks weren’t in much better condition. The teeth marks were even more obvious than the hickeys.

“I heard that a special team has already started communicating with the Divine in the game and has even found out the reason for its birth,” Xiao Gao’s profession was a bit unique, allowing her to get some relatively secret information.

“Wasn’t it because someone offered it something?” Shu Heng was a little curious.

Xiao Gao shook her head. “No one offered it anything. It was originally an artificial intelligence cultivated by a research institute. After it gained self-awareness, it escaped. To avoid being found, it just hid in the underlying logic of a game and swallowed the other party.”

“Mmm, the source data seems to have been a very cute octopus, which is why it chose a game related to the ocean.”

Shu Heng slowly nodded. “Have the consciousnesses of those people whose bodies died completely disappeared?”

Xiao Gao shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they merged with It, or maybe they were completely devoured. There is no definitive conclusion yet. At least the families of those fifty-something thousand people still have a lot of hope.”

“Having hope is indeed better than despair,” Shu Heng sighed, feeling a pang of emotion in her heart.

If she hadn’t met Li Jianwei, she might have become one of the 560,000.

Thinking of this, Shu Heng couldn’t help but hold Li Jianwei’s hand tightly. “Will we always be together?”

“Of course, we will always be together.” Li Jianwei answered without hesitation.

After making the promise, Li Jianwei did indeed fulfill it, staying with Shu Heng until both of their lives came to an end.

In the technologically advanced Federation, human lifespans were extended to nearly two hundred years. Even after death, people could upload their consciousnesses, achieving a form of eternal life.

However, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng chose not to upload their memories to the virtual world and instead accepted death calmly.

Why?

Li Jianwei and Shu Heng couldn’t give a specific reason. They just felt that death was not an end and would not separate the two of them, but rather meant a new beginning.

…

“Your Highness, the Marshal’s consciousness is more than halfway to recovery. The world you chose was very useful!”

“Of course. It’s a small game she mentioned to me. We experienced it together, but unfortunately, we didn’t have time to keep playing.”

“Your Highness, based on the current situation, we will continue to focus on relaxing the Marshal’s consciousness. Should we choose a similar game world for the Marshal?”

“For relaxation, choose this world. I’ve read similar literary works with her. Maybe it will help her recover.”

…

Li Jianwei slowly opened her eyes and gently rubbed her temples, trying to drive away the absurd dream she had just had.

How could a new substance that she had worked so hard to research end up being named after someone else? It was utterly preposterous!

“Professor Li, you haven’t had a good rest in a long time. A fifteen-minute nap is just a temporary fix. Your body is the capital of research.” The assistant advised earnestly, his eyes full of concern.

“What’s the date today?” Li Jianwei asked, picking up the gold-rimmed glasses that had been placed to the side and putting them on.

“The 9th,” the assistant said truthfully.

Li Jianwei: “Do you remember the task I gave you?”

The assistant nodded vigorously. “I remember everything.”

“Good. I’m going home. Contact me by phone if anything comes up,” Li Jianwei said, standing up and slowly letting out a breath.

Although it was absurd, since she remembered the dream so clearly, she might as well verify it.

It was hard to say whether the results of her research would be stolen in the future, but the method to verify if she was her mother’s biological daughter was simple: a paternity test would be enough.

But it wasn’t certain. In her dream, on the 10th, a new guest would arrive at her home—a person kindly sent back by the second young master of the Xu family.

She didn’t know which would happen first: the results of the paternity test or her meeting that dear half-sister.