112. Have Some Shame Too

"Why don't you just recite my ID number while you're at it?" Chen Sheng remarked, feeling a bit exasperated.

Beyond that, a nagging question remained: how had this little girl managed to spy on his gameplay? Did she know about everything he had done inside the game?

A chill ran down Chen Sheng’s spine. When playing a game alone, one naturally acts however they please, free from restraint. But if there is an audience, who would dare expose their own shameful privacy? It was much like those people online who demean others to seize the moral high ground, as if that somehow validated their own righteousness. He, too, had a reputation to maintain!

At this thought, Chen Sheng suddenly recalled the rope the girl had secretly had someone deliver to him a while back. His eyes widened, and he felt an urge to ask her directly. He wanted to know if she had been watching him the entire time or only occasionally. If it were the latter, his image might still be salvageable. But if it were the former…

For a split second, Chen Sheng actually considered silencing her.

However, asking outright would inevitably tip her off. If she had only been watching sporadically, his questioning would likely lead her to watch him constantly from now on. That would be counterproductive!

After a moment of deliberation, Chen Sheng asked nonchalantly, "So, how exactly does one go about watching someone else play that 'Healing Game'?"

"You just stand behind them and watch, of course!" The young girl realized she had slipped up by speaking too quickly and hurriedly tried to patch things over.

Chen Sheng let out a sigh of relief. It seemed most likely that she had simply snuck out of her hospital room, wandered into his office, and caught a glimpse. Yu Youxin had done things like that more than once; she was a repeat offender. Relieved, Chen Sheng didn't bother to analyze the details and quickly changed the subject. "By the way, what is the actual name of this game? Everyone keeps calling it the 'Healing Game,' and the box didn't have any other title on the packaging."

"Because that is its name!" Yu Youxin replied, confident in her answer, as she had been the one to pick out the game box herself.

Chen Sheng was speechless. No wonder! Every time he heard it mentioned—whether by his younger sister Chen Youyou, his bald superior, or anyone else—they all called it the "Healing Game." So, that was the actual title.

The developers of this game were truly devious; they were clearly professionals at being heartless. Chen Sheng muttered a casual complaint to that effect.

"Mm-hmm," Yu Youxin nodded, looking like she agreed entirely.

"Then, how can I stop others from seeing my screen while I play?" Chen Sheng pivoted back to his earlier line of inquiry. It was a clumsy attempt at interrogation, and as expected, it yielded nothing.

Alerted by his question, the girl decided she would have to be more careful in the future. "The glasses have a built-in mechanism," she said. "Once you've played for a certain amount of time, it automatically blocks the view for others. To anyone else, you'll just look like you're wearing a pair of glasses."

She was making it up on the spot, of course. But it sounded reasonable and fit perfectly with Chen Sheng's perception of "black technology," so he believed her. It was the effect of a first impression; preconceived notions exert a dominant influence on one's reasoning.

Reassured, Chen Sheng went back to his game. With a young woman in the room, he was worried about potential complications—not of a romantic nature, but rather the fear that his true form might be exposed.

Pah! What true form? It wasn't a true form! Chen Sheng quickly tried to brainwash himself. It was a transformation into a higher-dimensional being, definitely not revealing his true nature!

The reason for his concern was that the new perceptions and experiences he gained after transforming were truly addictive. It was like discovering a fascinating, precious toy. If he weren't worried about running outside and coming back completely naked, he would have transformed just to satisfy his curiosity at night, rather than having to wait until he was sure Yu Youxin was asleep so he could sneak around the living room. It wasn't satisfying, and it felt like being a thief. What if one night, Yu Youxin wet the bed and came out to throw away the sheets, only to catch him in the act of destroying "evidence"? The probability was low, but one could never be too careful.

"I might as well try it out in this 'Healing Game.' I wonder if it can fully simulate this kind of transformation..."

***

"Logging in" again, Chen Sheng was immediately stunned. Where was he?

Looking around, he saw only a vast stretch of barren land—no grass, no trees, not even gravel. It looked as if the buildings that once stood there had been uprooted entirely. The city of Shangsanjiang had vanished into thin air.

"Is this the 'Lost Mist' that Yu Youxin mentioned?" Chen Sheng realized, remembering what the girl had told him a few days ago. "It truly lives up to its reputation as a great calamity in the game; there's nothing left at all..."

"I wonder if my status as an Intermediate Officer has been approved yet?" He had specifically completed the third mission to ensure the Spirit Investigation Team would submit his promotion application. Perhaps to enhance the immersion, promotion in this "game world" required submitting an application, which then had to be approved by the high-ranking officials of the Police Department. Whether moving from an intern to a Junior Officer, or up to an Intermediate Officer, the process was mandatory. Senior Officers had it even tougher.

"Whatever, that's not important right now."

Chen Sheng quickly dismissed the thought of his promotion. He had bigger concerns than his "game profession." He focused his intent and tried to transform, and to his surprise, he felt himself beginning to melt. He turned into a puddle of blood-red liquid!

"It's so realistic!" He tried to move, and the sensations were exactly the same as in the real world. He couldn't help but feel excited.

"Black technology is truly incredible!"

"Though, in the eyes of the game's NPCs, I probably still look like a human. This must just be my own subjective experience," he thought with a hint of regret. But then, he realized that for a game to achieve this level of immersion was already an extraordinary feat, and he felt satisfied.

The puddle of blood-red liquid began to crawl across the empty ground, moving aimlessly until it encountered another mass of something crawling across the barren wasteland.