the earth is online
Tang Mo listened attentively and heard a faint rustling sound in his mind.
The sound was so light that it was hardly noticeable. But it was strange. It wasn’t the wind or the sound of leaves. It was a bit like the static sound from the old black and white televisions that Tang Mo heard as a child.
Since the start of the black tower game, all electrical appliances lost their signal. TVs, computers, mobile phones, they all became brick machines. No one would use an electrical appliance at this time, let alone an old-fashioned black and white television.
Tang Mo determined that there was an 80% chance this was a black and white TV.
“The sound is heard in your head?”
Rather than answering directly, the other person asked this question. Tang Mo’s reply wasn’t anxious. “Yes, it is heard in my head.”
“Maybe it is because I contacted you through a different method than what I did last time.” The static sound became more obvious and if Tang Mo listened carefully, he could hear the sound of metal collided. However, the man’s voice was very calm. “I didn’t tap against the turkey egg three times.”
Tang Mo caught a hint of something strange. “You mean…”
“I want to use this egg. Mr. Mo, for the moment, I have entered a very strange black tower game. I can’t explain the specifics but I feel like this game isn’t very simple. Therefore, I want to use this prop to help me open a way.”
Tang Mo understood what the other person was trying to say. His eyes narrowed as the man opened his mouth and gave Tang Mo the desired information. “This egg is called Momo and is it a game archiver. If you played games, you should know what a save point is.”
Tang Mo never thought this rare prop would unexpectedly have such a function!
Many single player role playing games had save capabilities that allowed a player to save the game at any time. After saving, a player could casually quit the game and load the saved file when they wanted to continue. They didn’t have to waste game time. If they died, they could directly load the game and start from the save point.
Game archiver, these words sounded simple but it was like an artifact in the black tower game!
Tang Mo’s blood flow sped up as adrenaline surged. Anyone who knew this was a game archiver wouldn’t be able to calm down. Tang Mo didn’t speak and the man also seemed to know how important the words he spoke were. The man gave Tang Mo time to adjust and didn’t disturb him. The man must’ve experienced the same thing when he got the rare prop.
After a minute, Tang Mo calmed down and asked, “What are the restrictions?”
The black tower wouldn’t give players unlimited save points. If there were no restrictions, this would be a cheat artifact that would destroy the game.
The other side was already ready and soon replied, “There are three limitations. First, it can only be used once every seven days without any accumulations. Second, the save time is one hour and it is only limited to the black tower game. The save point can be read at any time within one hour of it being saved. After that, it is no longer valid. The third reason is why I am looking for you this time.”
Tang Mo frowned. “What is the reason?”
“To use Mo…to use the game archiver, the owners of both props must open it. This means that neither you nor I can open it alone.” The voice paused before continuing. “Mr. Mo, the way to turn on the game save point is to draw the English letter ‘S’ on the turkey egg.”
Tang Mo finally understood why this man looked for him and exposed the secret of the turkey egg.
If he didn’t come to Tang Mo, the turkey egg in his hand would just be trash. A turkey couldn’t be hatched and it wasn’t necessarily delicious when cooked. It was just a waste of backpack space.
Tang Mo asked directly, “When do you need to open the archiver?”
There was no free lunch.
Tang Mo knew the reason why he was told this was in order to gain his help to open the archiver. Otherwise, the man wouldn’t have told Tang Mo the way to open it. Now that Tang Mo knew the role of the turkey egg, he needed to give something in return.
It was naturally to open the archiver.
The male voice paused, as if he hadn’t expected Tang Mo to be so decisive. After a moment, he whispered, “Now, thank you.”
Tang Mo held the turkey egg in his left hand and drew a ‘S’ on the white egg with his index finger.
The moment he finished, an English letter started to flash on the white egg. In the place where Tang Mo had drawn the letter, a ‘S’ was flashing with a blue light, as if implying that the archiver was now working.
“During the archiving period, both owners will share information. I’m sorry but I’m afraid you will be hearing my voice for the next hour.”
Tang Mo wasn’t against it. The kids were sleeping in the gym and Li Wen had just entered it. Tang Mo was walking alone around the campus, his feet stepped in withered ginkgo leaves. It wasn’t a big deal to listen to the game progress for an hour.
However, he said, “Mr. Fu, you didn’t say this in advance.”
In a vast and endless white world, the sky was pure white and the ground was also white. In this infinitely vast world, all types of old household appliances were piled up on the ground. There were old washing machines, sewing machines, radios and hundreds of old televisions with static on their screen. These appliances were thrown into the white world like rubbish.
A tall and handsome man was moving among these vintage appliances. He held a white egg in his left hand that had a ‘S’ character on it. Once the words ‘you didn’t say this in advance’ was heard from the fire egg, Fu Wenduo’s footsteps slowed and he raised an eyebrow.
“…I didn’t know about this restriction until the archive was turned on.”
Tang Mo replied lightly, “But you are disturbing my time.”
Fu Wenduo laughed and didn’t speak again. He continued to advance through the world of electrical appliances.
Tang Mo put the turkey egg back in his pocket and walked around the campus. His ears were full of strange sounds. Sometimes it was the clatter of sewing machines and sometimes the sound of washing machines drying clothes. But the strange Mr. Fu never said a word since then.
Tang Mo words about being disturbed were a lie but it wasn’t to tease the stranger. It was to tell him: You owe me something else.
The owner of the turkey egg exchanged the function and method of use of the turkey egg in exchange for Tang Mo’s help in opening the archiver.
After that, the two people no longer owed each other.
But now Mr. Fu owed Tang Mo something else and this could benefit Tang Mo in the future.
Mr. Fu didn’t speak and Tang Mo didn’t open his mouth either. He walked around the school for 20 minutes. Then he returned to the library and sat in front of the pond, staring at the crescent moon reflected in the water.
There were 40 minutes left.
Tang Mo started thinking about what he could do in the next 40 minutes to pass the time, but Fu Wenduo didn’t make him wait long. Five minutes later, there was the sound of a fierce fight that Tang Mo listened to carefully.
He heard the sound of metal collisions. The sound was too fast. The interval between each attack wasn’t more than 0.5 seconds. Tang Mo heard what seemed to be many things attacking Mr. Fu. In those five minutes, Mr. Fu didn’t make a sound. After 10 minutes of continuous fighting, he started to gasp a little.
The sound of countless heavy objects seemed to imply that Mr. Fu had already beaten many opponents.
But the enemies’ attacks never stopped.
There were more and more collisions and even the sound of a knife hitting a heavy object.
55 minutes passed since the save point. Tang Mo straightened his back and listened carefully to the noises, not missing a single detail.
He couldn’t see what the other person was going through. But he realized from the sounds that Mr. Fu’s combat ability was too strong. It was non-stop fighting for 30 minutes. There were probably hundreds of enemies but he still hung on.
He was really too strong.
Boom!
There was a loud explosion.
Tang Mo was shocked, let alone Mr. Fu who was actually facing the explosion.
“I can’t hold on…” A hoarse voice was heard.
Tang Mo immediately said, “There is still one minute left on the save point deadline. Load it quickly.”
“It is too late.”
Tang Mo was feeling confused about the meaning of these words when the voice in his head disappeared. Tang Mo hurriedly took out the turkey egg and saw that the ‘S’ pattern had disappeared and was no longer flashing blue. Before he could think, the turkey egg lit up with a soft light. This was the active contact done by tapping the egg.
“The game just now failed and I loaded the file.”
Everything happened in 10 seconds. Tang Mo remembered that this man’s voice was hoarse 10 minutes ago, as if he had been seriously injured. Now his voice was no difference from what it was an hour ago, the familiar sound entering Tang Mo’s ears.
Tang Mo frowned. “Mr. Fu, you said that it was too late to load the file…”
“You need to draw a S on the egg to save and a L on the egg to load a file. One is save and the other is load. I just fought with a monster of the black tower and it was much stronger than me. There was less than a minute left. Afterwards, the saved file would be useless. But I had no chance to draw a L.”
Tang Mo responded after a moment. “You didn’t have a chance to load the file. Then you…”
“There is another way to read the file.” The male voice replied calmly. “After the game archiver is turned on, if you die within the hour then the file will automatically load. So I just killed myself and let it load automatically.”
Tang Mo was silent.
Not hesitating to kill himself in an emergency…Tang Mo would do the same thing, but he hadn’t thought this person was so decisive.
“You wasted an hour because of me. Are you still busy? I’m sorry.”
Tang Mo had been watching the stars and moons for one hour. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.” The favour would be repaid in the future.
“I was just playing the second floor tower attack game.” The man’s voice was low and calm, despite speaking words that would make everyone amazed. “Once the player’s strength reaches a certain level, they will be forced to open the tower attack game. This is one of the ways to open the tower attack game. I’m guessing there are other ways as well.”
Tang Mo had been stunned since hearing ‘second floor tower attack game.’
He suddenly guessed who this Mr. Fu was…
The man’s low and magnetic voice contained a hint of an imperceptible smile. “Hello Tang Mo, my name is Fu Wenduo.”
Once the Momo connection ended, Tang Mo didn’t immediately return to the gym. He sat on a stone beside the pone and calmly looked at the white turkey egg in his hand.
Fu Wenduo.
The stowaway Fu Wenduo.
When he opened the first floor of the tower attack game in China, all players in the China area cursed him and wanted to chop this Fu Wenduo to pieces.
Previously, Li Wen had jokingly said to Tang Mo that if he met the stowaway who made the Chinese players attack the tower game in advance, he would fight this stowaway. He would torture the stowaway in a cruel manner for three days and three nights.
After loading the saved game, Fu Wenduo said he would find a way to leave the game. With his current strength, he couldn’t pass through the second floor and could only temporarily give up.
Fu Wenduo told Tang Mo that he had participated in a tower attack game.
Tang Mo knew that the other person hadn’t suddenly become a friend who would talk about everything and openly communicate secrets. He probably told Tang Mo these things due to the words ‘You wasted an hour.’ However, this sentiment was only a little bit big and other reasons were probably mixed in.
In short, Tang Mo now knew that once a person’s strength reached a certain level, they would be forced to open the tower attack game. Fu Wenduo didn’t voluntarily open the first floor of the tower attack game. He was forces into the tower by the black tower and accidentally dragged all the Chinese players along with him.
But no other players were harmed when he was pulled into the second floor attack game. Tang Mo guessed there were two possibilities for this.
The first was that the black tower had a special scenario for the first player to open the attack game. It would broadcast the game globally and pull people from the entire area to attack the tower. Secondly, Fu Wenduo was the only player in China to pass the first floor. There was no one else apart from him who could attack the second floor. Therefore, there was no way to pull out players in.
Tang Mo gazed at the clear pond. He could see a small fish swimming in the bottom of the pond, making shallow ripples.
“…Did he hear Chen Shanshan calling me Brother Tang? He called me Mr. Mo at the beginning.”
Tang Mo grunted and returned to the gym to sleep.
After a night of fighting, Tang Mo slept until eight in the morning. The others were more tired, especially the middle school students. They slept until noon. They hadn’t had a good rest in the past few days. The tower attack game suddenly opened and then there was the retaliation from the stowaways. The children were tired.
At two in the afternoon, Tang Mo and Li Wen went to the school’s supermarket to get some water and food. Several students woke up and started to eat the food.
Tang Mo added two bottles of water and several boxes of biscuits to his backpack.
In the afternoon, Tang Mo and Li Wen were ready to leave.
The chubby boy was very surprised. “Brother Tang, Brother Li, aren’t you staying with us?”
Chen Shanshan already knew the situation and stood aside without talking. Several other students also wanted the two to stay.
Li Wen was a little hesitate while Tang Mo remained very calm. “You have five people. There are two official players and three reserve players. You are all students. This combination is very compelling. If we are added, it is easy to become fat sheep in the eyes of others. Of course, only you are the fat sheep.”
The students were stunned.
Tang Mo made a proposal. “I suggest you go two ways. Five people don’t need to stay together. The official players can separate. The small fatty with the two boys and Qiao Feifei with Shanshan. You and the others are strong enough to act together.”
Qiao Feifei protested. “I don’t want to be separated from everyone…”
Chen Shanshan thought for a moment and nodded. “What you said makes sense. The five of us are really conspicuous. The largest type of players in the world is reserve players, not stowaways. But as time passes, killing isn’t something exclusive for stowaways anymore. We’ve all killed. It is dangerous for five middle school students to go together. We will take a break for the rest of the door and separate tomorrow.”
The students listened to Chen Shanshan’s because her words were always right. But they still didn’t want to be separated. In the end, they made their own decision.
Before leaving, Tang Mo looked at Chen Shanshan. “I’m going to find my friend. He also lives in Shanghai but it is in Pudong. I can’t take you along the way. 10 days later, I will come back to the school and take a look if I have a chance.” Tang Mo didn’t have the strength to protect this group of children forever. In order to survive, these children could only rely on themselves.
Tang Mo and Li Wen stood at the school gates and said goodbye to this group of children.
Li Wen was still reluctant to leave but he also had something to do. He wanted to go home and see if his parents were dead.
After the two people left the school, Li Wen said, “Tang Mo, you came back late last night. It was around 3 or 4 a.m.? What were you doing outside for so long?”
Tang Mo spoke casually. “I was thinking about before the earth went online and walked outside for a while.” Tang Mo couldn’t say anything about the turkey egg and the connection with Fu Wenduo.
Li Wen didn’t ask any further. On the way back to his home, he started talking excitedly about his family. His voice was happy but the end sounds were trembling and he wasn’t walking very fast.
Tang Mo glanced at him.
The man was trying to be calm but he was worried about his home being empty.
Li Wen’s home was in the Jing’an District. They walked for two hours and arrived at a villa area around 6 in the evening.
The closer they got to their home, the slower Li Wen’s footsteps became.
In the end, they still walked to a three-story villa.
Li Wen stood in front of the big iron gate and couldn’t open the door. He didn’t know if he would see his parents or an empty house after he opened the door.
Tang Mo was going to Pudong and it was along the way, so he accompanied Li Wen here. In this world, he couldn’t relax his vigilance. He had to always be on guard against stowaways and other bad players. Two people walking together was certainly better than being alone.
Li Wen stood in front of the door, reaching for the doorknob from time to time but not opening it.
Five minutes later, Tang Mo reached out and smashed firmly against the iron lock. He opened the door and turned back. “There are no traps on the door so there should be no stowaways.”
Li Wen stared blankly at Tang Mo. After a long moment, he nodded. “Yes, there is no danger…”
Tang Mo used the stowaways as an excuse to help Li Wen open the door.
Some things needed to be faced. Li Wen plucked up his courage and strode into the garden. Tang Mo warned him as he walked to the villa door. “Be careful in case there really is an enemy.”
The two people looked at each other and Tang Mo kicked open the door.
Bang!
The mahogany door fell to the ground, causing very light dust to rise up.
After confirming there were no enemies in the house, Li Wen hurried upstairs, shouting for his parents. But there was no answer.
Tang Mo’s parents had died a long time ago. He didn’t enter the house. He just stood by the entrance and listened to Li Wen calling out his parents’ names.
Li Wen walked through the house and didn’t find a single person. His voice grew desperate.
Suddenly, he shouted excitedly, “My mother is still alive, my mother is still alive!”
Tang Mo looked at the living room with surprise and saw Li Wen running over with a piece of paper. His face was full of joy and his body kept trembling. “Tang Mo, my mother is still alive. Look! My mother is alive! My mother said that my father suddenly disappeared and there was no signal from the mobile phone to contact other people. Shanghai was a little messy and she planned to return to her home village to temporarily avoid the limelight. If I am still alive, I should go find her. Tang Mo, my mother is still alive!”
Tang Mo laughed. “Congratulations.”
Li Wen was excited for a while before his laughter suddenly stopped. “My father disappeared…”
Tang Mo said, “Go and find your mother first.”
Li Wen bowed his head in silence. After a moment, he tightened his grip on the paper in his hand and nodded.
Li Wen’s hometown was near Kunshan. His grandparents died early and he didn’t have many relatives. His only relatives were his parents. Now that he knew his mother was alive, he needed to go find her.
The two people separated at the junction of Jing’an and Huangpu.
Li Wen looked at the detailed map of Shanghai from the newspaper kiosk and then drew on the map with a pen.
“Pudong is closest to this side. Now that Huanpu River’s ferry can’t be used, you must walk from Nanpu Bridge and pass over here…”
Tang Mo remembered the route and put the map away. He looked at this foolish and sweet rich second generation son.
The two men looked at each other without speaking. After a while, Li Wen smiled: “I am too weak right now. I will certainly drag you down if I go with you. I will go to see my mother first. Tang Mo, I hope we have a chance to see each other again.”
Tang Mo waved the map. “Thank you. I also hope we will see each other again.”
Li Wen smiled. “Shouldn’t I be the one thanking you? Alas, I am too stupid. If I encounter a game in the future that requires intelligence, I don’t know if I can survive. I really want to thank you for the past few days.”
Tang Mo didn’t say anything more. The two people said goodbye and left.
Li Wen had only walked 10 metres when Tang Mo suddenly spoke loudly, “I just thought of one thing. Li Wen, come back for a moment.”
Li Wen quickly ran back. “What’s wrong?”
Tang Mo just smiled at him without talking.
Li Wen was confused. “Tang Mo?”
“I told you to come back and you actually came? The little fatty isn’t the only one who should be cautious.” Tang Mo smiled. “Silly and sweet rich second generation son, live well.”
Li Wen, “…Were you always thinking that I am a silly and sweet rich second generation? How can you think that about me?”
Tang Mo, “…” He wasn’t focusing on the right part!
Two people laughed together. This time it was really farewell.
After leaving Li Wen, Tang Mo held the map and started to walk to Pudong New District.
He hadn’t felt it when there were many people. Now that he was alone, Tang Mo felt a bit deserted. He put the map into his backpack and walked along the edges of the street, hiding his figure in the shadow.
It was evening and there were significantly less people on the street. After the game began, the world’s top metropolis were no longer night cities. Night was more dangerous than daytime. Invisible places were likely to hide enemies. No one wanted to stay on the streets in the evening.
Tang Mo walked for an hour and was near Nanpu Bridge when he stopped.
He decided not to hurry.
No one knew whether or not a stowaway was hiding around the corner. It wasn’t just stowaways. All strangers were dangerous.
Tang Mo found an unknown fast-food store. He checked that no one had locked the door and entered. Rather than turning on the lights, he pulled a chair against the window and placed chopsticks on the window edge. One side of the chopstick was held by the window. No one could see inside the window from the outside due to the frosted glass. But if someone entered from the window, the chopstick would fall to the ground and make a noise.
He took out a tablecloth from the table and spread it on the floor.
An official player’s physical fitness was extremely strong. On this late autumn night, Tang Mo didn’t feel cold at all despite lying on the ground. He wasn’t even sleepy. He didn’t enter the store to rest or sleep. He just wanted to find a place to spend the night and prevent unnecessary danger.
It had been four days since the game started. Now that four days passed, apart from those who were murdered, the stowaways, official players and regular players couldn’t be taken lightly.
Maybe they all had blood on their hands.
Tang Mo lay on the ground and raised his hands. Moonlight passed through the frosted window and faintly lit up the fast-food store. Tang Mo looked calmly at his hands.
He had killed two people.
One was manslaughter. The thief Qian Sankun wanted to kill him and he accidentally killed the thief.
The other person Tang Mo had killed with his own hands. He used the big match to crack the head of the man who spat out fire.
In addition, there were several people indirectly killed by him. For example, the one-armed man and the gunman.
The faces of those people flashed through Tang Mo’s mind. He found that he couldn’t remember what Qian Sankun looked like. There were no waves when he thought of these people. His heart beat steadily as usual.
“Stowaways…”
Tang Mo pulls out the turkey egg out of his pocket. It was too dark to see the white turkey egg. There was only a found shadow.
“Stowaway Fu Wenduo, who did he kill?”
One in Shanghai, one in Beijing. They were more than 1,000 kilometres apart. Tang Mo wasn’t afraid of Fu Wenduo, who was hated by all Chinese players. Even if Fu Wenduo was a villain, could he fly to Shanghai to kill Tang Mo? It was impossible. If Fu Wenduo really had the ability, Tang Mo was convinced he would be dead already.
Tang Mo gently tapped on the turkey egg. He tapped twice and was about to do it a third time when his finger stopped in midair. He placed the turkey egg back in his pocket and closed his eyes to sleep.
Early the next day, Tang Mo left the restaurant and continued to Pudong New District.
On the way, Tang Mo met a young man who took the initiative to talk. It was a boy who thought that Tang Mo was a fellow university student and excitedly ran over to ask the situation.
Was there really such a silly and sweet person in the world? Wasn’t he afraid of being tricked by strangers after the game began?
Tang Mo suddenly felt that his heart was too dirty and that he thought too much. Should he live a simpler life and believe that the world was full of goodness?
Then as soon as he left Nanpu Bridge, Tang Mo saw two bodies.
Their necks were cut with a sharp object and they were thrown under the bridge. They were stripped of their clothes and their bags were empty. The contents had presumably been ransacked. Looking at the bodies, they had died last night.
…Well, his heart was just fine.
Tang Mo relied on the route drawn by Li Wen and found the community where his friend lived by the next afternoon. This community was silent. Once Tang Mo entered, he saw an old man carrying a big bag coming out from there. The old man saw Tang Mo enter the community and looked surprised. He seemed to think of something and hurriedly ran out of the community.
Tang Mo frowned.
The old man’s reaction was a bit strange.
Once he entered the community, he understood why the old man looked like that.
This community was very big and was divided into the east and west areas with a road between them. Tang Mo went to the west side. There were six high-rise buildings and his friend lived in the innermost one. Tang Mo had visited his friend for two days last year and still knew the way.
In the middle of the six buildings, there was a garden meant for activities.
At this moment, six corpses lay in the centre of the garden. Tang Mo went up and examined them. None of them were his friend. There were two middle-aged men, a young woman and three young men. He didn’t know why they died here but he could see that the bodies had been dead for more than a day.
The middle-aged man had a kitchen knife in his hand and the young woman had a pool of water under her right hand. One of the young men had a dark and bloody hole in his chest but there was no weapon.
Tang Mo looked at the wounds on the body and made a judgment.
The young woman was hacked to death by the kitchen knife while the young man died from some type of ability.
There was a 70% chance that these six people killed each other. Of course, there might be other people involved in the fight apart from them. However, only the six people died here.
Tang Mo observed the six bodies but her attention never strayed from the surrounding environment. It was possible that the companions of the six people were hiding nearby. He couldn’t let down his guard when checking the bodies.
Tang Mo picked up the middle-aged man’s kitchen knife and placed it into the wound on the young woman’s chest. The blade was a perfect fit. The woman was indeed killed by this knife.
Tang Mo didn’t draw any other conclusions and no longer paid attention to this matter. He touched the big match tattoo on his wrist.
The match was given to him by the students. The chubby boy said his ability was too weak and he couldn’t use the big and heavy match. The other students decided to give the match to Tang Mo out of gratitude. Tang Mo didn’t refuse.
Tang Mo walked calmly into the building where his friend lived. He didn’t take the elevator as he headed up the stairs. His friend lived on the 7th floor but there didn’t seem to by anyone in the building. Only the sound of Tang Mo’s footsteps was heard.
Tang Mo arrived at his friend’s door and broke the lock. He opened the door and entered the house to check.
There was no one.
There wasn’t a note like Li Wen’s mother.
Tang Mo walked to the table and saw a small plate of moldy pickles on the table, as well as a bowl of half eaten porridge. There was a light layer of dust on the porridge, making it turbid. One chopstick was on the table while the other one had fallen to the ground. It was as if the owner had suddenly lost his hand, causing the chopsticks to fall to the ground. Maybe they suddenly disappeared and the chopsticks fell…
The chance of survival was less than 10%.
Tang Mo took a bottle of water and two bags of instant noodles from the kitchen cabinet and placed them in his backpack. Before he left, he stopped at the coffee table in the living room, looking down at the photo in a wooden frame. There were three boys in the photo, all wearing graduation clothes. One is Tang Mo, another one was thin and tall and the last was chubby.
The three boys happily hugged each other and threw their graduation caps into the air to celebrate.
After looking at it for a long time, Tang Mo stretched out a finger and touched the face of the chubby boy.
“Haozi, I’m alive and well.”
Tang Mo turned and left.
In the photo, the fat boy was laughing brightly.
The community was still dead. Tang Mo went downstairs and planned to leave the community. He walked along the road and just turned a corner when he suddenly found a familiar person.
Tang Mo stopped.
The old man who had left the community with a big bag was sitting on the flower bed by the side of the road. He heard a sound and looked up. After seeing Tang Mo, his eyes lit up and he waved. “Child, I twisted my foot. Can you come help me?”
Tang Mo stood at distance, looking at the old man’s feet. He didn’t say a single word.
At the other end of the flower bed 10 metres away, a young man and woman were seated. Once Tang Mo appeared, they also quietly looked at him. When they heard the old man talking to Tang Mo, they immediately came over. The young man lifted the old man’s feet and said casually, “Ah, you really did twist it. What can we do with this ankle? Buddy, can you come and help?”
The young woman also said, “I don’t know what to do. Handsome man, do you know what to do if an ankle is twisted?”
“I don’t know.” Tang Mo looked at them calmly and walked away.
The old man urgently cried out, “Don’t let him run away!”
Four people suddenly emerged from the dense bushes. They were a middle-aged woman and three middle-aged man.
Tang Mo had turned and fled almost as soon as the old man spoke. The four people didn’t expect him to react so quickly and were temporarily stunned. Once they reacted, it wasn’t just the four people. The young couple and the old man who supposed had a twisted ankle quickly chased after Tang Mo.
Tang Mo was extremely fast and gained 10 metres in a flash.
“Come back to me!”
Tang Mo was about to turn the corner when a strange wind blew from behind him. The strong winds swept over Tang Mo and pulled him back. He gritted his teeth and placed his left hand on the roadside flowerbed. He intended to use his strength to push through. However, the moment he touched the flowerbed—
“He touched it!”
“He touched it!”
Tang Mo’s heart thumped.
“Ding dong! The large multiplayer instance game ‘Mario’s Monopoly Game’ has been triggered. At 17:02 on the 22nd November, 2017, the players Li Zhen, Yuan Qi, Liu Feihao, Zhao Guo, Lin Bangcheng, Liu Simei, Qi Feng and Tang Mo have safely entered the game.”
“Sandbox loading complete…”
“Data loading complete…”
The road, trees and tall buildings disappeared.
There was a strong white light, making Tang Mo unable to open his eyes. The white light turned the world white. At this time, a familiar video game music entered everyone’s ears.
“Dada~da~dada~da~da~”
At least two billion people in the world had heard this music.
The simple and cheerful electronic music echoed in this pure white world.
The music went on and the white light grew lighter. Tang Mo could gradually see what was in front of him. He looked up and saw a giant figure with a height of 2 metres descended from the sky. He wore a red hat with a white “M” letter, had a big nose and wore blue overalls.
At a height of 2 metres, he looked like a giant doll made of wood that moved slowly. The big eyes swept over each person’s body. The last person he looked at was Tang Mo. Then he suddenly raised his right hand and made the classic thumbs up action.
Boom!
The giant Mario landed on the stage of flashing lights.
“Everybody, it’s me! Mario!”
The author has something to say:
Tang Tang: My heart isn’t dirty enough! Not enough!!!