Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Ning Wang declared with perfect righteousness, “What’s wrong with being fourteen? I could already ride a horse when I was fourteen.”

Luo Li: “…”

She didn’t want to talk to this man who twisted logic to suit himself. Drained, Luo Li asked, “Did you hide Zhu Xiangfeng properly?”

Ning Wang looked perfectly at ease. “Don’t worry. I hid her somewhere Ning Shuo would never think to look.”

“If you could think of it, Ning Shuo couldn’t?”

Ning Wang: “…”

Ning Wang said, “At the very least, he definitely won’t find her within two hours. And tonight he has to hurry back to dodge the nurses’ inspection, so for now, we’ve got the upper hand. I want to ask you a few questions first.”

“Why did my brother say your body belongs to a Player?”

Ning Shuo had deliberately lowered his voice just now so Yu Qian wouldn’t hear, but he couldn’t hide it from Ning Wang, who also practiced martial arts.

Luo Li gave him a meaningful look. “See? I told you Ning Shuo was smarter than you.”

Ning Wang: “…”

He reached out and pinched Luo Li’s cheek. “Then can you tell me now?”

Luo Li’s voice came out muffled. “I have special abilities too! Idiot!”

Ning Wang’s hand paused.

Luo Li thought he was going to let go, but instead, the man kept kneading her face. “I know. Just like Camberny can control the outside world through mirrors, and Song Zhu can mend wounds, you can foresee things. I know you’re an NPC.”

“Lolita, don’t dodge the important parts. You dug up everything about me and my brother, after all.”

There was no avoiding the subject. After thinking about it, Luo Li realized there was nothing to run from anyway. Rao Lin and the others already knew.

“Did you turn off the stream?”

“Mm. It’s off.”

…

In Luo Li’s brief explanation, her story was very simple.

She was an NPC in a Script, but not a particularly noticeable one.

She was only a Cloth Doll held in the arms of a Player who had been left behind in the Script.

A Script could contain elements like ghosts, monsters, and horror, but it could also contain simple background props like chairs and tables. Luo Li belonged to the latter category.

And that Player left behind in the Script was Luo Li’s current body.

As luck would have it, she was also named Zhu Xiangfeng.

Although she looked different from this Zhu Xiangfeng, her name really was Zhu Xiangfeng.

Zhu Xiangfeng entered the Script System at eight years old. In her first Script, she was covered in wounds bitten open by Ghost/Monster, but at least she survived by sheer luck.

Even luckier, she had an older brother who had entered the System a year before her.

Her brother doted on his little sister. They entered Scripts together, earned Heat Points together, and lived in the System together for two years.

Zhu Xiangfeng believed she had been lucky all her life: a happy family, a carefree life. So lucky that even after using up a lifetime’s worth of bad luck by being dragged into the System, she, at only eight years old, still survived. Her brother even protected her for two whole years.

So even after surviving in the Script System for two years, she still carried Goodwill in her heart.

Unfortunately, in the year Zhu Xiangfeng turned ten, they matched into a hospital ecological-crisis escape Script.

The mission was to survive one day in the Script, find the Notary Office, and make an Accusation against the Murderer.

Their roles were all normal patients on the run. There wasn’t even much characterization they had to follow. It was an extremely straightforward escape Script.

This Script was even arrogant enough to tell them right at the beginning that the Murderer was the PhD scientist who had created the virus, but there was nothing they could do.

They were hunted by patient-zombies and couldn’t find the Notary Office.

Zhu Xiangfeng thought she was going to die this time. But when she woke after passing out, she found herself lying in a hospital bed, and all the patient-zombies around her turned a blind eye to her.

As if she were not a Player.

Zhu Xiangfeng ran all over the hospital, up and down, but none of the patients hurt her.

Just as she was bewildered, she saw her brother’s face among those patients.

Her brother’s eyes had only the whites left, his skin was rotting, and he was no longer the bright, graceful young man he had once been.

Zhu Xiangfeng broke down.

She held Zhu Xiangyu and called him brother, but Zhu Xiangyu could no longer respond.

Zhu Xiangfeng remained in the Script for two years. This Script was a one-day escape Script, so there wasn’t even any food.

Because the Script was classified as an escape Script, even though the System shop only sold simple foods like bread, exchanges were disabled once the Script began.

But during the two years Zhu Xiangfeng spent in the Script, she was able to make exchanges.

In other words, there had been a disruption with her Player account. She could exchange for bread the way she could in the Rest Area, but she herself was trapped forever inside the Script.

During those two years in the Script, Zhu Xiangfeng not only searched for a way to turn Zhu Xiangyu back to normal, but also figured out why all of this had happened.
This was a prop Zhu Xiangyu had obtained in a previous Script. Its description consisted of only one phrase: neither alive nor dead.

Given Zhu Xiangfeng’s current state, that was exactly what she was.

At the very least, to other Player participants, Zhu Xiangfeng’s name on the Heat ranking had not grayed out. Zhu Xiangfeng truly was not dead.

But Zhu Xiangfeng had not gotten out either, so she had, in a sense, achieved the so-called “non-living” state.

Because of that prop, however, this Script had never started up again.

For the past two years, aside from searching for a way to bring Zhu Xiangyu back to life, the thing Zhu Xiangfeng did most often was hold a doll in her arms.

It was the last thing Zhu Xiangyu had left her. “Xiangfeng, I hope this doll can protect you.”

It was clearly something said to coax a child. Zhu Xiangfeng was no longer a child, but when she looked at her brother’s smile, she still lowered her head and hugged the doll. “Okay, Ge…”

Before she could finish, she was knocked unconscious.

When she woke again, Zhu Xiangfeng could no longer meet her brother.

The Heat Points she exchanged for food and drink would run out one day, but twelve-year-old Zhu Xiangfeng had no way to crack the Doctor’s virus.

She had even eaten human flesh, yet it still did nothing.

The hospital cafeteria could not be activated. Xiangfeng was trapped here forever.

In truth, Zhu Xiangyu’s prop could have succeeded.

It was only that their luck was bad. They just happened to be in this escape Script, one with no food.

But put another way, even if it had been a Script where survival was possible, with no living people around her and only Ghost/Monster entities, even if Zhu Xiangfeng could grow up, who could guarantee what a little girl’s mental state would become?

Just like Zhu Xiangfeng now, eyes glowing green as she devoured human flesh raw, only to immediately panic and vomit.

Which was more painful-living forever in loneliness and fear, or dying forever-would always remain unknown.

Luo Li fully awakened at the very moment Zhu Xiangfeng died.

She was the Cloth Doll Zhu Xiangfeng had held in her arms for two years, filthy from head to toe. On ordinary days, all she heard was the little girl talking about the real world, even in her dreams.

When Zhu Xiangfeng was clear-headed, the Cloth Doll was always pressed against her heart, sensing all the little girl’s extreme emotions.

That was also the origin of her ability to sense emotions through objects.

At the moment of Zhu Xiangfeng’s death, she was covered in wounds, and blood flowed into the Cloth Doll’s eyes.

The Cloth Doll’s two purple beads seemed to suddenly gain a gleam of life.

She heard a voice ring beside her ear.

[Congratulations, Player… %￥#*@ Error! Error!]

[Player, please choose a code name for yourself.]

Luo Li was still hazy and confused. She only remembered that when the little girl held her, the thing she spoke of most often was her life in the real world.

What she mentioned most was that she really liked Lolita. Her mom and dad always bought it for her, and her brother also praised her, saying she looked beautiful in Lolita.

The Cloth Doll had been born loving to dress up.

Lo… lita.

Luo Li wrote down those letters.

What was Lolita? She wanted to see.

The moment Lolita went out, she saw the glass everywhere in Overworked and Overrun.

Her eyes flew wide open. She pressed herself against the glass and touched her own face.

This was Zhu Xiangfeng… This was Zhu Xiangfeng!

Luo Li finally understood what the System had meant at the beginning by “Congratulations, Player.”

She was a thief. She had stolen Zhu Xiangfeng’s body.

Later, the Player community said that although the newly arrived Player Lolita was a little girl, she was extremely capable. Her personality was strange, however, and she never interacted with anyone.

Until one day, they saw Lolita mingling with Rao Lin.

Many in the Player community were curious. Some even made up plenty of scandalous forum posts about them.

They did not know that when Rao Lin came to find her that day, Luo Li had originally intended to leave immediately.

Rao Lin’s very first sentence made her stop. “I want to save everyone and get them out, whether they’re alive or dead.”

Although he did not know Luo Li’s past, he was very smart. From every word and action of hers, he had investigated her goal thoroughly.

Luo Li reassessed him.

Number one on the ranking. Seven years. Effortless in every Script.

For the time being, he could be trusted.

And everyone… That should include Zhu Xiangfeng and Zhu Xiangyu.

Luo Li asked nothing more. “Okay.”

As for herself… Originally, she had only been a Cloth Doll.

She had seen what Lolita was like. She had seen what the “good older brother” Zhu Xiangfeng spoke of should be like.

This was very nice. She had come out ahead.