Chapter 133
Chapter 133
This was their first meeting, and the first time they truly fought each other.
The kind where they were trying to beat each other to death.
That man was venting his fury over his plan’s failure because of the copy, while Ning Wang was fighting to protect himself even as he tried to process the shock, anger, and indignation of learning he was a counterfeit product.
They knew each other’s Martial Arts Style, and they knew exactly where each other’s weaknesses lay.
By the end, both of them were injured. Each occupied one side of the room, and silence spread between them.
At last, Ning Wang was the first to step forward. “You’re Ning Wang too, right?”
The other man sneered. “Not ‘too.’ That was my name to begin with.”
Ning Wang let out a long breath and yielded first. “In that case… call me Ning Shuo from now on.”
They were locked up in the Data Prison for a while. During that time, Ning Shuo managed to learn some things about what had happened in this System. For example, he had been copied out of a mirror. For another, the world outside the mirror had also gone through a confrontation between the Players and the System. But for some unknown reason, the System had completely seen through the original plan, which had been meant to avoid it, causing the plan to fail prematurely, and turning what had once been a highly promising operation into a complete joke.
In that Team, aside from Willow, all the other Players were wiped out. Willow, Zone F’s number one on the Heat rankings, had been gravely injured, his memories wiped, and was then protected back into Zone F by the subsystem there, which feared its strength would plummet and leave it vulnerable to being annexed by other Star Zones.
The Number One Swordsman in the World, despite his body never being found, had been considered dead by the public ever since.
Some Players died, some were injured, some lost their memories. The NPCs who had joined forces with them were also destroyed. The Players’ side suffered devastating losses, while the System appeared to have won a complete victory.
But from inside the Data Prison, Ning Shuo could tell that the System itself had also been badly weakened.
That was evident from the batch after batch of Judges who came asking Ning Shuo for the mirror.
Ning Shuo knew about that mirror. It had inexplicably appeared on him the very day he showed up in the Data Prison.
At the same time, his Player account had vanished.
After several days, Ning Shuo realized that all of his original experiences were inside that mirror, so the disappearance of his Player account was only natural.
The account was fake. His teammates were fake. Everything he had gone through was fake.
He glanced at Ning Wang.
It had all just been a copy, one safeguard the System had left for itself.
It couldn’t be denied that the System had succeeded.
He really had lived into an identical Ning Wang. After changing his name, he no longer even had a past of his own.
Ning Shuo could sense that he had some kind of connection to the Water Moon Mirror, and even the System itself was less capable of sensing the Water Moon Mirror than Ning Shuo was.
The mirror seemed as though it could merge into his body. Even if the Judges searched him, they still couldn’t find it.
When the Judges brought them food, they never paid attention to what they disliked eating. One time, when Ning Shuo woke up and took his meal, he found that all the scallions had already been picked out.
He looked toward Ning Wang’s back. His lips pressed into a thin line, and he finally broke the deadlock that had held between them for nearly two days.
“Thanks.”
With his back still turned, Ning Wang only gave a cold snort. “Don’t starve to death. Watching you die would be like watching myself die.”
Ning Shuo and Ning Wang were locked up for more than ten days. Those ten-odd days were probably the System’s recovery period, and also the time when the ice between them began to thaw.
More than ten days later, Ning Shuo had gained a rough understanding of the mirror’s properties. At the same time, the doors of the Data Prison opened.
The System had finished recovering, and now it was time to settle accounts with them.
Or rather, to use them.
After all, when it came to “settling accounts,” the System knew perfectly well exactly what they had done. There was really nothing to calculate-if it wanted to, it could just kill them.
So when the Judges injected them with a strength-sapping drug and dragged them out, Ning Shuo instinctively sensed that something was wrong.
If the System really wanted to settle accounts, there was no need to drag the two of them away one after the other.
Unless it was worried that if they went out together, they’d join forces and stir up more trouble.
The first to be taken away was Ning Shuo. Compared to Ning Wang, who hadn’t completely destroyed the System, Ning Shuo – who had already destroyed the “System” inside the Water Moon Mirror – seemed to displease it even more.
After he was taken out, the Judges openly joked and mocked him over what was about to be done.
They thought Ning Shuo, now without the “mirror” and unable to fight back, had no power to intimidate anyone. Since he was about to lose his memories too, there was even less reason to hide anything from him.
That was how Ning Shuo learned they were taking him to have his memory erased, then use Xie Ning, who knew martial arts, to test the strength of Script NPCs that hadn’t gone live yet.
He also learned why the System didn’t just kill them outright: the World-Descent Rule had not yet fully matured or broken away from the small world of the Li Kingdom. Xie Ning’s connection to the World-Descent Rule still existed, and if Xie Ning were seriously injured, the System itself might collapse as well.
In that case, Ning Shuo, who was a one-to-one replica of Ning Wang, might also still retain that connection.
—
As long as he had his memories, things were manageable. But if he lost them, there was no telling whether an amnesiac Ning Shuo, after discovering that mirror again, would take it out to inspect it – and naturally be noticed by the System.
He had never been the sort of person who, after glimpsing fate, would just sit back and wait to die.
When they erased his memory, Ning Shuo used the mirror to block it for a moment, making it so only a small part of his memory was actually wiped.
Cracks appeared on the mirror, but it quickly began repairing itself.
But Ning Shuo had no intention of letting it heal.
Since his own body might also be connected to the World-Descent Rule – in other words, to this System – then if something happened to his body, the System itself might suffer the consequences too.
Ning Shuo had always hated the Water Moon Mirror. Its existence constantly reminded him that he was nothing but a copy.
And yet he had no choice but to understand it. It was one of the few bargaining chips he and Ning Wang had against the System.
But at this moment, he felt sincerely grateful to the mirror.
Ning Shuo had come from the Water Moon Mirror. If the Water Moon Mirror was destroyed, then he would either die or be gravely wounded.
And once he was severely injured, the World-Descent Rule, which operated through Xie Ning as a medium, would also malfunction.
Even though he was currently in a weakened state, as the person most deeply connected to the Water Moon Mirror, destroying it would not take much effort.
The first round of memory cleansing ended. The Water Moon Mirror was destroyed. Chaos erupted inside the System. All the surveillance cameras failed, and several Judges with especially deep ties to the System said they were going to help – only to freeze in place an instant later.
Ning Shuo had little strength left and could only force himself toward the Data Prison.
His steps were uneven, but he casually wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. The next second, his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees.
If he wanted to fake the appearance that both he and Ning Wang had already had their memories wiped, then the Data Prison had to be opened a second time.
That way, when they investigated afterward, it would look like there had been two memory wipes.
He tried his best to get back up, but the drugs the System had given him were no joke. Making it this far was already his limit.
Ning Shuo could only endure the splitting headache and think of some other way. But at that moment, a hand grabbed him, and a voice by his ear said with a smile, “The Main God sent me to keep watch. Turns out that was the right call. My paranoia actually got it right for once.”
Ning Shuo’s voice came out in broken fragments. “You… who are you…”
The man helped him up. “My name is Shu Xiao. You can also call me 002. Mm… I guess I’m a third party who belongs neither to the System nor is optimistic about the two of you?”