Chapter 814: Future Prologue: Grand Finale

White ceiling.

The fluorescent light tube emitted a faint hum.

Chen Wenzhong—or rather, Chen Wen—opened his eyes.

What met his gaze was not the wooden beams of Wangbei City, nor the metal dome of the command tower.

It was the transparent cover of a real-world medical pod.

He tried to move his fingers.

The sensor immediately emitted a soft prompt tone.

The medical pod cover slid open slowly.

Fresh air carrying the smell of disinfectant rushed into his nostrils.

"Engineer Chen, you're awake?"

A young researcher in a white coat hurried over, his face filled with incredulous excitement.

"You have been unconscious for... three months and seven days."

Chen Wenzhong slowly sat up.

His body was weak, but it was the genuine weakness of a twenty-five-year-old body.

Not the kind of health sustained by potential energy, unchanged for a hundred years.

He lowered his head to look at his own hands.

Long, clean, without old calluses, without scars.

Not those hands that had gripped a hoe, edited memorials, or slain phantasmal monsters.

"What about the others?" His voice was a little hoarse.

"They're waking up one after another!" The researcher quickly operated the tablet, "The Reincarnation Project had a total of thirteen thousand four hundred twenty-two trapped players; all abnormal connections to the server have been severed."

"Vital signs?"

"Basically stable. A few show symptoms of malnutrition and muscle atrophy, but all within controllable range. The most severe are several older players, but..."

The researcher paused, lowering his voice.

"Miraculously, all players' brainwave activity shows an abnormal active state, especially in areas related to memory and cognition. Experts are studying it, but the preliminary conclusion is..."

"Their experiences in the game, to some extent, 'strengthened' the real brain." Chen Wenzhong calmly interjected.

The researcher blinked: "How do you..."

"Because I'm the architect." Chen Wenzhong lifted the warming blanket, his feet touching the floor.

The floor was icy cold.

It felt so real it made him want to cry.

Accompanied by medical staff, he walked down the long white corridor.

On both sides were separate observation rooms.

Through the glass walls, he saw one familiar yet unfamiliar face after another.

A slightly plump middle-aged man biting into an apple—that was Zhao Lao Nian, in reality the eighth-grade fitter Zhao Baoshan.

In the neighboring room, a bespectacled, refined-looking old man was quickly writing something on paper—Liu Ji, or rather, the middle-school history teacher Liu Mingyuan.

Further ahead.

A tall young man with a sharp air in his brows was making sword motions in the air—Yue Fei, the retired veteran and martial arts instructor Yue Feng.

Then...

A figure in a hospital gown, back to the door, standing by the window.

Zhu Yuanzhang.

Or rather, the history graduate student Zhu Yue.

Chen Wenzhong pushed the door open and entered.

Zhu Yue did not turn around.

"The view outside is nice." He said.

Chen Wenzhong walked to his side.

Outside the window was the project's artificial lake and green belt; in the distance lay the city's skyline.

The sun was slowly sinking.

"How does it compare to the sunset of Wangbei City?" Chen Wenzhong asked.

Zhu Yue remained silent for a long time.

"More real." He finally said.

"But also more... mundane."

The two stood side by side.

"That world..." Zhu Yue asked softly.

"Is it really just a string of code?"

Chen Wenzhong gazed into the distance.

"For us, it is."

"But for us who lived there for seven hundred years..."

He paused.

"There was blood, flesh, love and hatred, life and death."

"These feelings were real."

"What about the Iron Crow Army?" Zhu Yue looked at him.

"That virus…… has it been completely eradicated?"

Chen Wenzhong did not answer immediately.

He raised his hand and looked at his palm.

In the field of vision of the real world, there was nothing there.

But when he focused his mind……

An extremely faint, almost invisible dark blue pattern flashed beneath his skin.

That was the last remnant of the repair program.

It produced a weak coupling with his real-world nervous system.

"The main program has crashed." Chen Wenzhong said slowly.

"But the virus's characteristic is…… it always leaves a backup."

"In the deep-layer code."

"In the seams of the world."

"Waiting for the next activation."

Zhu Yue's pupils contracted slightly.

"You mean……"

"I said we should be discharged." Chen Wenzhong lowered his hand and smiled.

"Go face the real world."

"And then……"

He gazed out the window at the darkening sky.

"Stay vigilant."

One month later.

The accident investigation report of the "Reincarnation" project was released to the public.

Official conclusion: The server suffered an unknown network attack, causing the immersion system to abnormally lock, trapping players' consciousness. After the technical team's all-out rescue, all players escaped safely. The project was permanently terminated.

Meanwhile, various rumors circulated among the public.

Some said those players would develop special abilities after coming out.

Some said they had experienced true reincarnation in there.

Still others swore they had seen strange light patterns flickering in the sky at midnight—just like the scene when the game's light curtain collapsed.

But these rumors were soon drowned out by new hot topics.

The wheels of the real world rolled forward relentlessly.

Zhu Yue returned to school and continued to complete his graduate thesis.

The title was: "On the Influence of Immersive Historical Experience on Cognitive Construction—An Analysis Based on a Special Case."

Yue Feng opened a martial arts training class, and business was good.

Occasionally, a trainee would say that when Coach Yue demonstrated spear techniques, his gaze was sharp as if he had really killed someone.

Xu Da——whose real name was Xu Qiang——went back to working as a construction contractor.

But on the construction site, no one dared to slack off anymore, because Boss Xu could tell at a glance which steel bar wasn't welded properly.

Teacher Liu Mingyuan retired and began writing a book.

The tentative title was: "What If History Had Ifs."

Master Zhao Baoshan was rehired by a precision machinery factory as a technical consultant.

Several improvement proposals he made left the chief engineer astonished.

Zhang Cheng——the real-world astronomical observer Zhang Mo——was transferred to the Deep Space Monitoring Department under the National Space Administration.

His first submitted report was an observation record of certain "abnormal energy fluctuations" in near-Earth orbit.

And Chen Wenzhong.

He quit his job at the game company.

Using his savings, he rented a small courtyard in the suburbs.

In the courtyard stood a server he had assembled himself.

It was not for playing games.

It was for monitoring.

To monitor the fragmented underlying code fragments that leaked into the public network when the "Reincarnation" server crashed.

And…… to monitor the occasional "rule anomaly fluctuations" in the real world that cannot be explained by current science.

He knew the Iron Crow Army's virus had not completely disappeared.

It was merely lurking in a deeper place.

In the ocean of the internet.

In the dark side of humanity's collective consciousness.

It might even be…… in the underlying logic of this real world itself.

Waiting.

And what he had to do was to keep watch.

Just as he had kept watch over the light curtain in Wangbei City.

Only this time, his weapon was no longer an energy turret.

It was code, it was knowledge, it was those "players" who returned with him, whose will—honed over seven hundred years of struggle—was unyielding.

Dusk.

The door of the small courtyard was knocked.

Chen Wenzhong opened the door.

Outside the door stood Zhu Yue, Yue Feng, Xu Qiang, Liu Mingyuan, Zhang Mo, Zhao Baoshan...

There were even more familiar faces.

They carried beer and barbecue.

"Engineer Chen, won't you let us come in and sit?" Zhu Yue asked with a smile.

Chen Wenzhong stepped aside.

"The courtyard is small, just sit anywhere."

Everyone surged in.

The smoke from the barbecue rose.

The sound of beer cans being opened.

Laughter, noisy chatter.

It felt like returning to the celebration night after a victory at Iron Wall Fortress.

But this time, there was no threat from the dark energy.

No light barrier blocked them.

No… no destiny called a "script" weighing down on their heads.

"For freedom." Yue Feng raised his beer can.

"For truth." Xu Qiang clinked his can.

"For… us." Zhu Yue looked at Chen Wenzhong.

Chen Wenzhong raised his can.

"For the battle that hasn't ended yet."

Everyone froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.

"That's right!"

"Cheers!"

Night fell.

Lights blazed in the small courtyard.

But in a place they could not see,

in the pulses of the city's power grid,

in the remnants of satellite signals,

in the deep binary ocean underlying every electronic device,

those fragmented purplish-black code fragments were slowly…

reassembling themselves.

【System……backup……recovering……】

【Target……clearing anomalous variables……】

【Waiting……new opportunity……】

A distant, cold will flickered faintly in the depths of the data.

Like an eye opening in the darkness.

But the people in the small courtyard were now raising their cups in celebration.

They did not know what awaited them in the future.

They only knew——

Tonight, they were alive.

Truly alive.

That was enough.

As for tomorrow…

Tomorrow, the sun will rise as usual.

And they would continue onward.

Carrying seven hundred years of memory.

Carrying an unextinguishable flame.

Walking toward their true future.

(End)

ps: Next I'll write a pure gratification novel!