First Player

The 13th reason was that I did not stop once. "

Behind them, there were some experimenters whose figures could not be seen clearly.

The most common contact you have with them is that you sneak the stories you have written through the cracks in the door. The next time the story comes back, there will be some words of encouragement and little red flowers on it.

Therefore, you never knew——

"Bang! Bang!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang—!"

After several gunshots were fired, the last few figures who fell like wheat felt in their hearts.

Why did they save you?

Why should I escort you to the vast golden fields?

Why should I risk my life to send you out?

You know, you're not a genius. You can do nothing but write stories, you can't solve troublesome math problems, you are a waste.

But now you can only run forward - run forward - with gunfire behind you, you keep running forward -

…

At this moment,

The world destined to undergo apoptosis and decline has taken a big turn at this moment.

The world destined to be destroyed by the Lord of the End of All Things reversed its course at this moment and galloped in the opposite direction.

A few researchers who left no trace in history changed the trajectory of the world's destruction through an unexpected act of kindness.

A young magpie, who will change the world in the future, begins to fly high into the sky.

…

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Continuous gunfire sounded.

The lab's security is still chasing you.

Your physical strength is weak and you dare not stop, so you can only run forward with all your strength. Your heart is pounding with nervousness, your adrenaline is pumping, and the fear of death dominates your whole body.

Run, run, run.

Stop a little and you'll be caught up.

You run until your back is dripping with sweat, until you are exhausted, until your legs feel like they have been filled with heavy lead, and you are almost lying down, and your whole body is in pain, like a dying bird...

The gunfire from behind finally stopped.

You quietly glanced back. The guards chasing you were finally thrown away by you, and even the pale and thick Experimental City was no longer visible. You are free.

The joy of surviving the disaster filled your whole body, and the pain in your muscles burst out in an instant. You fell to the ground, covered in blood. You were almost choked by the severe pain.

Where am I going?

Where else could I go?

You have no ability to survive in the wild, your body is covered with wounds that can be infected at any time, you have lost too much blood, you are hungry and thirsty, and your body is on the verge of collapse. Even the rationality of a mere seven-year-old can let you know——

You can't survive.

Death is very close to you. Judging from the speed of your body's weakening, it will only take a few minutes for you to die.

At this moment, you fell silently, lying on the grass covered with blood, like a young animal waiting to die.

Just wait to die.

You have no other choice.

But before you die, you have to see clearly how the place of death looks like and whether it is beautiful enough.

You wiped away the blood on your face, your breathing became weaker and weaker, and you raised your head unintentionally——

"——!"

You saw the most magnificent scene in your life.

Bright red falls into your golden pupils.

The smoke from the cooking pots reddened the sunset. The sky is painted with bright red, water red, rose red and dark red thin clouds for the setting sun, and the purple and shining dusk haze monopolizes the world of heaven and earth. The watery red liquid covered the wheat field, burning in the magnificent bright red like thick accumulation.

In an instant, the twilight and eruption of the whole world are coming to you.

——It was a grand sunset.

The vast and endless waves of golden wheat dance in the gelatinous Tyndall effect. When the wind blows over the gold, it will tumble. The strong wind tears the wheat apart, but the wheat bursts into waves that are more brilliant than death and fate.

The red light lingers in your pupils, giving you the illusion that you are burning together.

The sky is vast, but you are never timid about your own smallness.

——How outstanding does a person have to be to stop pushing the stone of the Sicilian River?

——Assuming that living is a kind of punishment, and people endure nothingness all the time, and the worst pain is like Sicilius, what should we do?

"...No." You looked at the vast and magnificent golden wheat waves and uttered one word slightly.

A sense of dignity can make people's actions, even extremely absurd actions, bring about a kind of excitement and resistance that is completely different from the gods.

The gods wanted Sicilifer to fall into eternal depression, but he didn't. He realized self-transcendence and spiritual eternity in the endless absurdity.

You don't want to die, you want to live.

You have to survive.

Even as a mediocre person, you have to survive. As a Sisyphus who never fell into the "God-ordained nothingness".

——This vast ocean-like golden wheat wave is just the starting point. You want to fly higher and farther to the sky.

…

[At this moment, "you" remembered that you had experienced such a scene when you were seven years old. 】

[In the twelfth lunar month of winter, Lin Wangan, who was ill, was dissatisfied with your music. The moment the stick fell, you pushed open the door and rushed into the cold winter. 】

[It’s very dark, everyone your age is having New Year’s Eve dinner at home, and you are the only one running on the street, like a ghost without a father or mother. 】

[You don’t know where you can go, and you don’t know what you should do. Just wandering aimlessly until there is nothing underfoot. 】

[The moment you slipped and stepped into the puddle, you really thought you were going to die. 】

[A cold stinging sensation spreads all over your body, and the cold water reaches your mouth and nose, making you almost suffocate. 】

[There may be a scene where a hero appears next, or a beautiful girl who can transform into you lends a helping hand, or maybe Lin Wangan rushes out of the house to look for you...]

【But, no. 】

【No one ever saves you. 】

[From the age of four to nineteen, no one can save you. 】

[That night, it was you who burst out with an unparalleled desire to survive. You pulled on the protruding steel bars beside the puddle to maintain breathing through your mouth and nose. The water rushed in again and again, twice, three times, four times... In an environment of more than ten degrees below zero, you relied on your will to stay awake until you found the second steel bar and rolled and climbed out of the puddle. 】

[At that moment, lying on the ground, you looked at your hand that was bleeding due to friction with the steel bar, your chest was burning, and you told yourself over and over again. 】

【——I want to live. 】

[I am fully aware of my own insignificance and limitations, as well as my mediocrity and incompetence. 】

[Even if I am a mediocre person, even if I am a mediocre person who disappoints my mother... I still want to live. 】

[——I have always longed to live. 】

…

"Mom, why did Sisyphus push the stone up? It's obvious that the stone will fall again and again. What's the point of repeating this task every time?"

Four-year-old Su Mingan likes to listen to Lin Wangan tell stories every day before going to bed. He raised his head and pulled his mother's green cheongsam, like a little bean sprout.

Mom is wearing a new Chinese-style cheongsam, with fine stitching, decent tailoring, and a slender figure. She wore ruby ​​earrings, and her skin was smooth and fair. The most beautiful thing was her fingers, which were like green onions and white jade. At first glance, they looked like hands that never worked.

"It's the dignity of being a human being." Mom replied: "The sense of dignity can make people's actions, even extremely absurd actions, bring a kind of excitement and resistance that is completely different from the gods. The gods hope that Sicily He would never fall into eternal depression, but he would not."

"But isn't this self-deception? He can't threaten the gods, and the stone has no meaning." Su Mingan held his head high.

"In reality, we are worse than Sisyphus." Mom said: "At least Sisyphus still has 'gods' as the object of revenge and 'stone' as the meaning of hard work. But in reality, we can't find any materialization It is a metaphor that has no specific meaning for any specific era. It is just ordinary life, and it is no longer a hill for us to push up. "

"'On the road' and 'process' are everything, because people are born to go towards death. The universe is vast compared to the short life of human beings, and it is impossible to see the moment when the stone is pushed up the mountain in a lifetime. So human beings are good at using absurdity to counter absurdity, using boringness to ridicule boringness, and using repetition to implement repetition.”

After listening, Su Mingan said: "So, Sisyphus just did what each of us has always done - looking for meaning in a meaningless life, fabricating happiness that does not exist, and naming it happiness."

"But that's not happiness."

"So are you going to push the stone?" Mom smiled.

"No." Su Mingan smiled: "Mom, I was born on the top of the mountain."

——I was born on the top of a mountain.

…

The redness on the wasteland flows towards you, and you raise your head.

"Boom!"

There was a stone at your feet, and you kicked it down the hillside.

You slowly lifted up your body covered in blood, your purple hair hanging down.

You stand on the hillside and watch the rocks roll down.

Under the vast sunset, your figure is so small, and the twilight freezes your blood.

"...I won't push the boulder." You said softly:

"I don't have to make up a non-existent 'boulder' in order to escape nothingness. Because it already exists in me."

"The gods wanted Sisyphus to sink into nothingness, so that he could not find happiness. But what if for me, the definition of happiness is just 'having existed'?"

"I was born on the top of a mountain. If I want to push a rock, I have to push it down from high to low."

You sit on the ground, your breathing getting weaker and weaker, and your blood flowing more and more.

The remaining gunshot wounds when you escaped from the laboratory made you burst with pain... You clearly felt that your life force was passing away, and you were about to die...

At this time, you heard footsteps.

A figure stands in front of you, casting a shadow.

"Huh?" the man said, "Child, at such a young age, the desire to live and the will to die are so strong."

The man squatted down and wiped away the scars on your body with a gentle touch of his palm.

You opened your eyes in surprise, and this person healed all your injuries instantly.

"Who are you?" you ask.

Among the golden sea of ​​wheat, the man turned his head, revealing a soft face, with white hair hanging down, and a pair of rabbit ears on his head: "My name is Boss Rabbit. I'm here to inspect Rovasha."

"Inspection?" You asked in surprise: "Inspection of the entire world? Are you the legendary god?"

This person can cure you instantly, he should be a god. You have heard that there are more than twenty gods in Rawasha. Is this boss rabbit one of them?

"No." Boss Tu's eyebrows were crooked: "I am higher than God and do not belong to your world. You can understand that I am...a foreigner. I belong to a game system called World Game. In the future, Your world will be the last venue for the world game."

"...?" These terms are so unfamiliar that you can't understand them.

…

[But "you" understood. 】

[Boss Rabbit had known for a long time that Luowasha was the last venue of the World Game, and even visited it in person. ]

…

"So." Boss Rabbit squatted down and patted your shoulder: "Little Si Que, you must not die. You must conscientiously maintain the main storyline of Luowasha."

You said: "I am just a mediocre person. The main storyline of Luowasha is not maintained by me, but by generations of great scientists."

But Boss Rabbit smiled: "No, you will be the protagonist when you grow up."

You shook your head: "You think too much. I can't do anything except writing stories."

Boss Rabbit said: "…The future Luowasha needs talents like you!"

You were at a loss.

"How do you know what the future Luowasha will be like? Can you predict it?" You said.

"Because." Boss Rabbit's voice suddenly became mechanical and standardized:

"Because·more·than·once·once."

Boss Rabbit left quickly. Apart from saving you casually, he did nothing extra.

Later, you came to a village full of golden wheat after many twists and turns, enjoying the ordinary happiness of being a mediocre person and writing small stories for your own amusement.

Until... you wrote a floating strawberry shortcake.

In the 150th year of the Second Era, the Creation System appeared. Science can no longer calculate accurate numbers.

Countless scientists jumped off tall buildings drunk and laughing, with formulas and papers in their mouths.

…

["Magpie Cultivation Plan"]

[Time: 150th year of the Second Era]

[Age: 14 years old]

…

You began to dream frequently.

In your dream, you will dream of a giant tree, with dark water flowing everywhere, and a white-haired young man sitting under the giant tree putting sugar cubes in a teacup.

You don't know who he is, but he always answers many of your questions like a guide, and calls you "Mr. Magpie".

You have been locked up in a laboratory since you were a child and lack common sense. He told you many distant things, about the prosperity and fate of civilization, and about the scenery of different worlds. Although you still don't know why he appeared in your dream, you have already regarded him as your guide and the light in front of your eyes.

He has always accompanied you in your growth and told you stories.

"What should I call you?" you said.

He thought for a long time before giving you an answer:

"Just call me... Mr. Lighthouse."