Death Reincarnation Game

“Sigh, life is really tough these days. I finally found a job with a monthly salary of over 10,000 yuan, now it’s gone… Damn it!”

In an old standalone residential house, a young man in his twenties with a delicate appearance sat in front of an empty and dilapidated wine cabinet, drinking beer while complaining.

Su Peng sat next to him, eating the dried beef jerky on the table while listening to him speak.

The young men, Xiao Lin and Su Peng, were talking about the short-term job.

“Wasn’t the job you found good? It’s a game studio, and the salary is particularly high. How did you get fired?” Su Peng asked Xiao Lin while eating and drinking beer.

“Don’t mention it; although the salary for this game is high, the content is quite eerie… I had to play a game that hadn’t been released yet and sign a very eerie contract. The game characters cannot die, not even once. If they die, the workers will be kicked out of the studio, but today, my game character died!”

Xiao Lin drank two bottles of beer, which had a slightly alcoholic taste.

“What kind of game is so strict?” Su Peng asked Xiao Lin as he slowly ate the beef jerky. No one noticed that he seemed to use deliberate rhetoric.

“A martial arts game… with extremely high simulation accuracy, it’s an absolute next-generation game. To be honest, apart from the requirement of not dying, the game has no opponents in terms of graphics or gameplay, and it also has sci-fi-like game equipment. I want to continue playing it now without getting paid. But I checked; there’s no other game like it.”

Xiao Lin said and quietly leaned over to Su Peng, saying, “Brother Su, let me tell you, that game may be the latest generation of internet games, and the settings inside are all unprecedented, super great… There are no details to complain about. If it’s released at any time, Brother Su, you and I can join another game studio to specialize in this game. Brother Su, is that okay?”

“Continue working in a game studio?” Su Peng listened and seemed to ponder for a moment before saying, “Let me think about it.”

“I can’t do it without Brother Su,” Xiao Lin said. He knew Su Peng’s skills.

The game studio where Su Peng entered for “short-term work” was very famous, called “Nirvana Reincarnation.”. Xiao Lin was a high-end player, while Su Peng became the number one expert after less than three months in “Nirvana Reincarnation”!

Moreover, if it weren’t for Su Peng’s own strong resistance, he would have almost become the vice president of Nirvana Reincarnation.

“Nirvana Reincarnation” was a studio that frequently appeared in valuable games and had a high reputation in the gaming industry. There were a total of more than ten people, all of whom were experts in the gaming industry, and Su Peng, who could become the top expert in just three months, also had outstanding qualities!

There was a place where other players could hardly compete with Su Peng to win… Su Peng hardly slept!

When Su Peng was in his teens, he had a car accident that injured his brain. His brain tissue underwent some damage and mutations due to the accident!

Su Peng could only sleep for one hour a day, and with just one hour of sleep, he could fully recover!

The doctor said that this was because Su Peng’s pituitary gland underwent abnormal changes due to a car accident, which promoted abnormal hormone secretion.

This was a rare illness, but it had brought Su Peng an unparalleled advantage on the road to gaming!

Surpassing others by nearly double the time spent on the computer, it gave Su Peng a more proficient gaming experience.

So, he was the No. 1 expert in Nirvana Reincarnation!

The game studio “Nirvana Reincarnation” had gradually declined among the countless free games that emerged recently; after all, no matter how good the game was and how strong the technology was, facing players that used money was impossible to resist. The president of the game studio also made consecutive mistakes in decision-making. Two months ago, the Nirvana Reincarnation game studio disbanded, and Su Peng and Xiao Lin each joined different companies. Speaking of which, this was the first time the two had met since the game studio disbanded.

In fact, there was one thing that Su Peng didn’t say. The reason why the Nirvana Reincarnation studio collapsed was because of the studio’s consecutive decision-making mistakes and a hostile RMB player acted like a prophet and took the lead in the game, causing the studio to make mistakes and lose over 300,000 yuan that was invested in the early stages.

[TN: RMB Player — player that uses money to get ahead]

And that RMB player was the employer of private detective Su Peng!

In addition to gaming factors, it could be said that the collapse of the Nirvana Reincarnation Studio was undoubtedly driven by Su Peng.

In this case, Su Peng received the RMB player’s employment fee of 500,000 yuan.

Xiao Lin was completely unaware of this.

Su Peng also had no intention of telling him that he was engaged in “Nirvana Reincarnation” with the purpose of causing the studio to go bankrupt. In Su Peng’s mind, without any psychological pressure, this was just a case.

Of course, the connections and friends made during the work were another matter.

Xiao Lin gradually got drunk and talked to Su Peng incessantly about the things in the game, saying that it wasn’t easy for him to level up. In the end, he was defeated by a character similar to Mei Chaofeng, who broke his limbs and used a palm to instantly crush his heart.

“Su, Brother Su, I shouldn’t say so much… Our company has an agreement that if anyone leaks the game content, we need to compensate with 10 million RMB. I just wanted to tell you, so don’t spread the word.” Xiao Lin was a bit drunk and poured himself a drink while saying this to Su Peng.

“Hmm.” Su Peng nodded, only to find that there didn’t seem to be much beer and beef jerky left. Su Peng said to Xiao Lin, “Xiao Lin, please wait a moment; I’ll buy some wine and come back.”

As he spoke, Su Peng walked outside.

Su Peng walked outside the old house and shuddered. It was getting dark outside. Suddenly, he remembered that he had left his wallet in his coat inside the old house. He turned around and entered the old house again.

As soon as he entered the room, Su Peng suddenly heard Xiao Lin shouting with fear, “Don’t! Don’t come over! Don’t get close to me!”

“Who is he speaking to?” Su Peng frowned slightly, and then he ran through the hall!

As soon as he ran to the hall, Su Peng saw that Xiao Lin had a fearful expression. He huddled in the corner of the hall, seemingly looking at someone in front of him, but there was nothing there!

“Su… Brother Su! Brother Su, please help me!” Xiao Lin shouted loudly as he saw Su Peng running in. He seemed to have seen his savior. His body was crawling and rolling over to him!

But at this moment, there seemed to be an invisible, transparent person in the room. Xiao Lin’s body was supported by an invisible force on the wall, and then he rose up along the wall!

“What?” Su Peng felt a chill in his back when he saw it. He didn’t see anyone except Xiao Lin, yet he was seemingly lifted up by some supernatural force. His body flew into the wall out of thin air!

“Don’t… don’t kill me!” Xiao Lin cried out in pain. His limbs were twisted into strange angles by an invisible force, almost like a broken matchstick!

“Ah…” Xiao Lin screamed in pain. At this time, his heart suddenly sank down, and the shape of a palm appeared over it. Xiao Lin spat out a mouthful of blood, and his body went lax!

“Xiao Lin!” Su Peng shouted when he saw it. He quickly kicked and broke a wooden stool next to him, then ran towards Xiao Lin!

Su Peng held the broken wood and kept waving wildly in front of Xiao Lin, hitting the invisible monster!

That supernatural force seemed to disappear at this moment, and Xiao Lin’s body slid down the wall.

“Xiao Lin! Xiao Lin!” Su Peng approached Xiao Lin and tried to test his breathing. Xiao Lin struggled to open and close his lips, as if saying something.

Su Peng leaned over him, only to hear a mosquito-like whisper. It was a few words: “…”

After speaking, Xiao Lin suddenly spat out black blood with some chunks of his heart in it. His body tilted, and he completely lost his breath!

Su Peng looked at Xiao Lin’s body with a sudden chill rising from the top of his head. He heard it clearly; Xiao Lin said, “Don’t touch that game!”

……

After getting out of the inspection bureau, it was almost past eleven o’clock at night. Su Peng squinted his eyes, and the tiredness and headache he had just felt disappeared completely!

He didn’t care about being treated as a madman.

However, Xiao Lin’s death stimulated Su Peng.

No one knew that Xiao Lin had a close relationship with Su Peng.

Although Su Peng met Xiao Lin because he wanted to bring down the Nirvana Reincarnation Studio, Xiao Lin, who was relatively young, had a kind of idol-like admiration for Su Peng.

At that time, for some reasons, Su Peng privately hired some youths and gathered other studio members in Nirvana reincarnation, pretending to be completely let down by the studio. Under his instructions, Su Peng and the others invaded the Internet cafes, besieging the crowd.

Su Peng stood out first and was hit. Later, he pretended to be injured and unconscious, but to his surprise, it was Xiao Lin who frantically waved a chair and smashed a path to rescue him from the internet cafe. At the hospital, Su Peng’s forehead wound seemed to be very serious; it was bleeding a lot, and his body was also injured. Xiao Lin pulled the doctor aside and asked the doctor to draw his blood to give Su Peng a blood transfusion.

Although Su Peng was pretending to be unconscious at the time and felt a bit amused, he was truly moved.

Faced with the death of Xiao Lin, Su Peng couldn’t remain indifferent.

Moreover, Su Peng had another reason to investigate further.

“What’s going on?” Su Peng looked at the pale moon in the sky, the scene of Xiao Lin’s death still on his mind.

Su Peng didn’t go home; instead, he went to an office building.

Opening the glass door of the office building with a key, Su Peng entered. As it was past midnight, the office building was almost empty. The sound of Su Peng’s leather shoes stomping on the marble floor made the voice-controlled lights light up, and the hall was silent, like a scene from a ghost movie.

Su Peng took the elevator to the thirteenth floor. The elevator was relatively empty, and there was a mirror at Su Peng’s back. When Su Peng saw it, his lips couldn’t help but tilt up. “If the back turns around at this moment, it will be a cliche ghost film.”

“Ding!” Unfortunately, Su Peng’s back didn’t turn around, and the elevator reached the 13th floor. Su Peng walked out of the elevator and walked to a door that should have had a sign on it.

Strangely enough, this office didn’t have an entrance card. Where the card should have been drawn, there was a relatively large display screen, on which was the screen of a complicated game called ‘Sudoku’.

Su Peng glanced at the Sudoku game and quickly entered a dozen or so numbers on the keypad. Soon, the office door opened.

Su Peng walked in.

Entering the office without turning on the lights, Su Peng deftly brewed a cup of coffee for himself and walked to a desk in the office.

“You’re back, Mr. Apple, half an hour behind the scheduled time.” A slightly hoarse voice sounded.

Su Peng paused for a moment, then smiled and turned around, holding his coffee. “Every time you appear, it’s so sudden. I almost spilled my coffee.”

“This is your own problem. You set the door pin of the office as a Sudoku game. The Sudoku game will be replaced within ten seconds, but the difficulty isn’t low and you underestimate people. There is never a shortage of smart people in this world.”

In the room, a man wearing a trench coat walked out. His head was hidden in a windbreaker hat, and he couldn’t see his face.

“That door was never intended to block anyone. If someone could complete my favorite game within my time limit, why not let them in? There’s nothing valuable here,” Su Peng said with a smile.

“I’m not wasting my breath on your personal hobbies anymore. I entrusted you with checking the progress of the game. How’s it going?” The man in the windbreaker said to Su Peng.

A week ago, this man in black suddenly appeared in Su Peng’s office and paid him a deposit of 100,000 yuan directly, asking him to check the data of a mysterious game.

“The clue is temporarily broken… I have searched all the games on the market, but the game you mentioned wasn’t found, so it isn’t on the market. I found an informant who seemed to know about this game. I arranged to meet him today, but he died in front of me.”

Su Peng didn’t say that Xiao Lin wasn’t his informant and that it was only by chance that he learned about Xiao Lin’s job responsibilities.

This could be considered a pretentious ability as well as a form of self-protection.

At this moment, the smile on his face became more easy-going, then he suddenly asked, “Did it have anything to do with this game?”

“It’s better to know less,” the man in the windbreaker said as he stretched his collar with both hands. “I’ll send you the final payment in a week; that’s it.”

After he spoke, he left Su Peng’s office.

Su Peng squinted, sipping his coffee, as he watched the man in a windbreaker leave his office.

……

Seven days later, he returned to his home from Xiao Lin’s funeral.

Xiao Lin was an orphan and didn’t have many friends, so he handed over his relics to Su Peng through his landlord.

Remembering his death, Su Peng seemed unable to calm down. He simply sat up and opened the black bag.

Inside the black bag, there was a PS2 game console, several discs, a few pieces of clothing, two magazines, a newspaper, a ring, and nothing else.

Su Peng wasn’t in the mood to touch the game console. He took out the two magazines and the newspaper and flipped through them.

The magazines were gaming magazines, and Su Peng knew that Xiao Lin had a habit of buying such magazines, so he didn’t pay much attention. He threw them aside and picked up the newspaper.

Opening the newspaper, he found that it was a job search and recruitment newspaper, with many places on it marked with oil pens.

Su Peng boredly flipped through it, and just as he was looking, a message caught Su Peng’s attention!

“Huh? Is there recruitment for a game studio here? Is the salary so high?”

Su Peng looked at the bottom right corner of the newspaper and saw a job posting with an oil pen, which read: “Tianyi Studio is recruiting gamers with favorable conditions, starting from a monthly salary of 8000 yuan, and limited to conditions: under the age of twenty, interested in gaming. Those with studio experience are preferred.”

“Is this the studio where Xiao Lin worked before?” Su Peng couldn’t help but focus on it.

Su Peng had a strong feeling that this company may have a great connection with Xiao Lin’s death.

“Go and see; there must be an answer to this matter!” Su Peng thought silently.

—-

TN:

Hi, I’ll update every Wednesday and Thursday.