Point of difference doom

2022, summer. Linxiang City Bianwei Building.

The girl stood on the rooftop railing on the 29th floor, teetering precariously.

From a physical point of view, if she tilted another fifteen degrees, she would fall to the second dimension.

This situation is not unusual.

In this month when the suicide rate has soared inexplicably, people fall from high places from time to time.

Citizens are used to it because there are so many similar cases.

But unlike someone who wants to die, the girl's phone is fixed to her ear. At the moment she is about to die, the phone dials automatically.

"Hello, this is the suicide crisis intervention hotline. My name is Zhou Baiyu."

As soon as the man on the phone spoke, his gentle voice seemed to be infused with some kind of magic. The girl suddenly felt a strong desire to survive, and her dull eyes suddenly became brighter.

After a while, she actually started to cry loudly, as if she felt the beauty of the world again.

Two minutes and twenty-five seconds later, the call ended.

Zhou Baiyu, who was far away in the same city, frowned slightly.

At his workstation, there is a black notebook that records the reasons why many people cannot survive.

There are cases where the off-plan property was unfinished and the victim was clearly the victim but owed a huge sum of money to the bank. There are cases where the child has been raised for many years and the three children are not theirs. There are also cases where a close relative was suddenly beaten to death while walking on the street and has yet to get an explanation. .

In essence, Zhou Baiyu's job is to receive negative information and provide positive emotional guidance.

He is very good at this job, even too good at it. He has an incomprehensible talent in channeling emotions.

Facing those who seek death, some people say a lot of things sincerely but to no avail.

But after Zhou Baiyu answered the phone, it usually only took a few words for the other party to give up the idea of ​​seeking death. His efficiency was extraordinary.

Seeing Zhou Baiyu hang up the phone, the female colleague at the desk next to her said:

"Brother Zhou, I was saved again. You are better than a psychiatrist. Are you really not considering becoming an emotional anchor? You can definitely become popular."

Zhou Baiyu smiled and shook his head.

He was a little strange. In the phone call just now, the girl seemed to wake up suddenly, and finally hung up the phone on her own initiative. It was very different from the previous calls.

But right now, his time is tight and he still has very important things to deal with.

"Xiao Ping, I'm in a hurry. This should be the last call. I have to leave immediately. If anyone asks about it later, please tell me that I'm asking for leave."

After a pause, he said something strange again:

"By the way, thank you very much for your company all the time. Please take good care of yourself in the future and don't wrong yourself."

"Eh? Okay, no problem. Thank you for your hard work, Brother Zhou. Let's go."

The female colleague was stunned for a moment, then decisively agreed. Watching Zhou Baiyu leave in a hurry, she felt even more weird.

"It's strange...what's going on with Brother Zhou today? He's talking weird too."

Zhou Baiyu is not only responsible for this job, but also loves it. He has never asked for leave.

Usually, I would work overtime until the very end and would not leave until the building was almost closed.

So the female colleague was a little curious as to why Brother Zhou asked for leave at this time.

Especially in the past month, the global suicide rate has soared strangely, which is the busiest time.

…

In the bathroom on the floor, Zhou Baiyu picked up cold water and washed his face.

He looked at the wet face in the mirror, his eyes full of fatigue.

After a while, he took out his phone, opened the memo, and looked at the document he had left not long ago.

"Dad, Mom, when you see this memo, I should be dead. I'm sorry that I ended my life in this way..."

This is clearly a will.

The ace operator of the suicide crisis intervention hotline, who prevented countless people from committing suicide, actually prepared a "suicide" will in advance.

This sounds funny.

Zhou Baiyu couldn't laugh, and of course he didn't want to give up his life.

But the countdown in his eyes constantly reminded him that death was imminent.

【Countdown, 9:39:04.】

The countdown that appeared not long ago was like a sign engraved in Zhou Baiyu's sight, which could not be removed or stopped.

It flows silently, reminding Zhou Baiyu that in more than nine hours, his life will undergo drastic changes.

…

…

It all starts with an "advertisement"——

"The version is about to be updated. If you can see the update prompt, please contact us."

About a month ago, when Zhou Baiyu passed by a construction site, he saw a strange billboard.

The version update is obviously for a certain software or game. But the advertisement is very irregular and has no beginning or end.

Contact us, who is "us"? What are the contact information?

Stranger things are still happening.

In the next few days, Zhou Baiyu saw advertisements in the elevator on the first floor of the office building. He also saw billboards at the bus stops in the community.

Public toilets, basketball courts, swimming pools, taxi advertising areas...

Zhou Baiyu was curious about the increasing number of "version update" prompts covering the entire city -

What kind of software or game can cause such a big battle for an update?

the eleventh day.

It's not just Linxiang City, Hejin, Capital, Songjiang where Zhou Baiyu is located... these places are all the same.

In crowded areas, you will always see this message——

"The version will be updated soon."

But until that time, Zhou Baiyu was only in a state of curiosity and did not understand it in depth.

He is very busy at work every day and is always studying how to arouse people's positive emotions towards life.

This is a world where suicide rates are soaring, divorce rates are soaring, and birth rates are plummeting.

In the past, there were very few news about suicide, but recently, for some unknown reason, there has been a lot of information related to suicide.

If there really is anything that should be updated, Zhou Baiyu only hopes that this world can be updated.

But what he didn't expect was... what happened next was like the world was about to undergo a change.

On the nineteenth day, similar brands appeared not only domestically but also abroad.

"Version" has become a hot topic.

Even if Zhou Baiyu is extremely busy, he will be forced to see relevant information because of big data.

From time to time, he can see similar discussions in various forums:

Netizen Yun Dongliu: "There are also billboards of this version appearing everywhere abroad. It is said that in the grasslands of Heizhou, there are update prompts in the indigenous tribal languages, which is outrageous."

Netizen Zhuge Wanjun: "I saw someone saying a while ago that the world is ushering in a major update, version 1.0, and that humankind is about to become extinct. It's so mysterious that it's like the end of the world."

There are many discussions on this topic.

A lot of content appears on the clothes, certain flaps, and scarves.

Everyone is speculating on what version will be updated.

Naturally, there are many people, like Zhou Baiyu, who hope that the world will usher in changes.

Zhou Baiyu was invited by a pretentious post.

That post is very interesting - "If the world was divided into many versions".

The author Diao Lao's answer made Zhou Baiyu even think... maybe this world really has versions:

Version 1.000: Added the attack range of Pangu Ax, and increased the efficiency of opening the sky by 25%. Fixed the bug of Pangu being unable to move.

Version 1.001: Weakened the divine attributes of the Nordic gods, added the ability to pinch people for Nuwa, and increased the chance of Zeus being unfaithful.

Version 1.002: We have added the function of "making fire" to humans and improved their IQ. The climate temperature has been slightly increased.

…

Version 1.018: Considering that Ying Zheng is too strong, we decided to ban him. Delete the DLC item "Elixir of Immortality".

In version 1.036, we used the meteorite to fix the bug of Wang Mang’s traveler.

…

The post tells the history of various countries in the form of game updates, focusing on the history of the country, which makes people feel bright.

But it also makes Zhou Baiyu and many people feel very frightened to think about it... If there really is a version, then who is this "we" responsible for fixing bugs?

As the post started to go viral, people began to come up with ideas:

If the world is really updated in the next version, what will it look like?

If this is really the case, Zhou Baiyu hopes—

"Open the entrance to the second dimension" "Add new Gundam vehicles and giant southern cockroach vehicles" "Comprehensively implement and promote socialism". "Fix the bug that the gap between the rich and the poor in the world is too large."

Of course, he still believed that this was just a super company building momentum.

Or countries are building momentum for something similar to the "metaverse".

Until the twenty-third day, the hourglass symbolizing life suddenly appeared.

In the lower right corner of Zhou Baiyu's sight, a countdown appeared.

This shocked Zhou Baiyu.

Because as the countdown shortened, he really felt the chill of approaching death.

For this reason, he visited a doctor and a psychiatrist and underwent a comprehensive physical examination.

But the conclusion is that he is very healthy, as healthy as an immortal.

After making sure that there was nothing wrong with his body, Zhou Baiyu suddenly had an intuition——

"Is this countdown related to the recently popular "version update"?"

His intuition has always been very accurate and he quickly started collecting relevant information.

But "version update" is so popular that it requires filtering a huge amount of information to check it.

It was not until yesterday that he finally used "countdown" as the keyword and after sifting through countless information, he finally got a glimpse of the truth.

A terrifying and desperate data analysis result was placed in front of him:

"The version is about to be updated, will I... commit suicide?"