Chapter 66: Exploding Last Train (1/2)

Soon after ‘Bai Liu’ got off the train, Bai Liu’s body changed from a state of translucent data to becoming real. He squeezed his hands thoughtfully and found he could touch the passengers around him.

Perhaps it was because there were two ‘Bai Liu’ in the same space and time that his existence was virtualized or the fact that he would die if ‘Bai Liu’ didn’t get off the train caused his body to be virtualized. Nevertheless, these things weren’t important any longer.

The next station was Antique City. He was still on the train and it was going to explode in three minutes at most.

“Bai Liu—!!” Mu Sicheng’s voice came from another crowded carriage. He squeezed to Bai Liu’s side with difficulty, his expression ugly to the extreme. “There are so many people here. How can we find the broken lenses? We are arriving at the station soon! The last train will explode before arriving at the station!”

“I just tried something. I originally wanted to get off the train just now.” Mu Sicheng spoke solemnly. “However, I couldn’t get off. It was like I was stopped by something in the carriage.”

Bai Liu just turned a deaf ear to Mu Sicheng’s anxiety. Rather than closing Mu Sicheng’s topic, Bai Liu told him, “This is reality. Since the real ‘you’ is not on this train, you can’t achieve the action of getting off the train. The real ‘me’ has just got off the train so I can’t get off the train again. If causality is disordered then it will lead to the disorder of the game logic.”

“What reality?!” Mu Sicheng was alert. “Bai Liu, this isn’t reality. This is the game! Has your mental value fallen? Are you hallucinating? What nonsense about getting off the train but not getting off the train?”

“I didn’t mean that.” Bai Liu pointed beyond Mu Sicheng’s shoulder to the subway map in the carriage. “Look at this map. The stop before Antique City is Lujiazui, not Reservoir. You can see that this subway line isn’t a circular one but a linear one. This is the subway map in reality.”

Mu Sicheng followed Bai Liu’s hand to look over and saw it as well. This caused him to frown. “However, we can’t return to reality. This is indeed the game.”

Bai Liu continued, “I don’t mean we are back in reality when I say this is reality. The ‘reality’ here is relative to the train full of burnt corpses where we were before. That place wasn’t the real game world. It was a mirror world in a constant loop.”

“The train we are standing in now—” Bai Liu pointed to the ground with his feet, his eyes flat. “This is the relative reality of the real game. It can also be called a possibility derived from the reality that has already happened. The prototype of this game is the Mirror City Bombing case. Generally, the reference prototype is to restore the event in the game. This has been done very well and this game has a greater ability than to just restore the event.”

“It reproduced the scene of the event.” Bai Liu looked at Mu Sicheng. “It brought us back to the time of the explosion. Then at this node controlled by players, it calculates the possible scenarios based on our actions and this will lead to different consequences.”

For example, Bai Liu’s first reaction when he boarded the train just now was to find himself and Lu Yizhan. Originally, ‘Bai Liu’ didn’t sleep on the train because it was cold. However, Bai Liu entered the train and brought something on his body that made the carriage become warm—the 380 broken lenses. Once Bai Liu entered the world in the mirror, these 380 broken lenses automatically entered the system backpack.

Bai Liu was virtual but the mirror was warm. His approach warmed the tired ‘Bai Liu’ with the residual heat of the mirror and led him to be sleepy. This made him differ from Bai Liu’s memories and ‘Bai Liu’ didn’t get off with Lu Yizhan.

Mu Sicheng didn’t pay attention to this at all. He only needed to know that Bai Liu knew this was still in the game. The train was going to explode in three minutes so Mu Sicheng was very anxious. He was determined to get the key information from Bai Liu’s words to pass the game.

“The world in the mirror that is in an endless loop?” Mu Sicheng asked eagerly. “What do you mean by endless loop?”

“Don’t you think there is a big loophole in our previous task of collecting the broken lenses?” Bai Liu spoke languidly. “We were supposed to collect broken lenses on the last train that is about to explode, right?”

Mu Sicheng nodded. “Yes.”

“But—” Bai Liu raised his eyes and smiled at Mu Sicheng. “If the last train hasn’t exploded, where did the broken lenses come from?”

“Unless it has exploded and we have been collecting the broken lenses after the explosion.”

Mu Sicheng completely froze for a second or two before coming back to his senses. Then he muttered in a trance. “This is a continuous loop. The last train exploded time and time again… it is useless for us to collect the broken lenses. After the collection is completed, it is likely that we will completely trap ourselves on the last train that continues to explode. This is why the passengers tried to stop us. Fuck, they are saving us stupid players.”

“Yes, I noticed before entering the subway platform. The escalators in the subway station run in the opposite direction. Later, the order of getting on and off the train is also reversed. Even our mission is ‘reversed’ to a certain extent.” Bai Liu explained clearly. “Our task is to collect the broken lenses but in fact, they have already been collected by the passengers. Instead, what we did is to scatter these collected broken lenses and grab them again. It seems we are doing the work of the villain while these passengers are correct. My guess is that this is one of the characteristics of the mirror—reversing the nature of the object itself.”

“So I think the main task in the mirror and the main task in reality should be reversed.” Bai Liu’s eyes were calm and lazy while the hand played with the coin against his chest. “In the reality where we currently are, the train hasn’t exploded. In other words, the mirror hasn’t been broken at all. The task in the mirror is to collect and piece together the broken lenses. Reversing it is—”