Chapter 347: Words Become Law

Jiang Ran evened his breathing and looked at Cheng Mengxue:

“You… Your last memory, is it still stuck at that car crash?”

Cheng Mengxue nodded:

“I clearly remember we were on our way to the college entrance exams. Today is the second day.”

“But you suddenly acted like a completely different person. You grabbed me and started running toward the suburbs, and you seemed terrified of something… You kept muttering.”

“What was I muttering?”

Jiang Ran quickly pressed:

“Do you remember what I was muttering?”

“Of course I do!”

Cheng Mengxue blinked:

“I kept asking you, but you wouldn’t tell me… You were just so panicked, your forehead was covered in sweat, and you just kept saying—”

“‘Don’t come back… Don’t come back…'”

…

Jiang Ran took a deep breath.

Cheng Mengxue’s account was exactly the same as what Li Yini had said.

This also proved that Li Yini had indeed downloaded Cheng Mengxue’s memories, and knew everything that Cheng Mengxue had once known.

Since Cheng Mengxue’s consciousness was still stuck on June 8, 2023, it meant that she had been in a “sleeping” state ever since her memories were extracted by Puppet Pompey.

Like Sleeping Beauty in the fairy tale, she had slept for over twenty years, only waking up today.

Jiang Ran gave a wry smile.

“Xiaoxue, it’s not 2023 anymore.”

“Huh?”

Cheng Mengxue’s eyes widened:

“Jiang Ran, stop messing with me! If it’s not 2023, what year could it be?”

“2045.”

“Pfft—”

Unable to stifle her laughter, Cheng Mengxue gave Jiang Ran a light punch:

“Do you think I’m a three-year-old? If it were really 2045, we’d both be 40 years old! How could you still look like this? How could I still look like this?”

Suddenly, as if noticing something, she stood on her tiptoes, placed a palm flat on her own head, and measured her height against Jiang Ran’s:

“Ugh— you’re so shameless! It’s disgusting!”

“What is it?” Jiang Ran asked, confused.

“Are you secretly wearing shoe lifts?”

Cheng Mengxue crossed her arms, looking at him with disdain:

“I knew something was off! How did you suddenly get so much taller than me?!”

Heh.

Jiang Ran chuckled and shook his head.

In Cheng Mengxue’s mind, he was still the 17-year-old he’d been in 2023. But he was 19 now. He had grown another six centimeters during his two years of college, so it was a different story entirely.

“A lot of things are… complicated to explain. I’ll tell you everything, bit by bit… if there’s enough time.”

Jiang Ran sensed that there were only about ten minutes left until the 39-minute, 11-second mark.

He, of course, knew this Virtual World was about to reboot, so even if he managed to explain everything to Cheng Mengxue, it would be pointless.

But…

This was the real Cheng Mengxue, his true childhood friend. He was willing to give this pointless explanation if it meant he could talk with her for just a little while longer.

“Let’s get out of here. We can talk as we walk.”

He glanced with lingering fear at the nearby shell, which was poised to explode, and took two steps back:

“There’s no telling when these drones and robots might reactivate.”

“Okay.”

Cheng Mengxue also nodded, looking as though she’d just survived a catastrophe:

“A moment ago, I thought I saw an amusement park underground… Then I looked up, and the ceiling above me was gone. Am I dreaming?”

“It’s pretty close to a dream, actually.”

Jiang Ran patted Cheng Mengxue on the back, gesturing for her to walk on:

“Let’s go. We’ll talk as we walk.”

…

Along the way, they strolled through a world where time stood still.

All the pedestrians and traffic had become a static backdrop, making way for the man and woman at the end of time.

The wind no longer howled, leaves hung suspended in the air, and the clouds did not drift away.

It was all like a magical journey into an oil painting. Only at the street corners where Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue walked did their unique reflections glide past.

“You’re saying this world is fake?!”

Cheng Mengxue was completely dumbfounded:

“But… but everything here feels so real! I was sure I was just dreaming!”

“‘Consciousness Upload’ surgery, ‘Virtual Digital World,’ and all that… Hey, hey, you’re not pulling my leg, are you? Is this some kind of prank show?”

She turned and started walking backward, looking left and right, searching the silent streets for hidden cameras.

Of course, she trusted Jiang Ran, but his story was so outrageous that her mind couldn’t accept it.

“Strange.”

Jiang Ran suddenly stopped in his tracks, frowning.

‘The time for the Virtual World to crash and reboot… why hasn’t it happened yet?’

‘We’ve been walking for at least twenty minutes, but those visual glitches, like screen artifacts and garbled text, haven’t appeared.’

‘Could it be that because everything in the Virtual World has stopped, no glitches will occur, and it won’t reboot?’

‘From a programming perspective, the whole world is in a paused state, so all computations have stopped. That means there’s naturally no load on the hardware… Could that be the reason?’

Filled with questions, Jiang Ran turned and walked into a shop.

It was a men’s clothing store. A saleswoman stood there like a wax figure, a smile frozen on her face as she presented a product to a male customer.

The male customer was, of course, also motionless, standing there listening… but since the entire world was frozen in time, Jiang Ran naturally had no idea what they were discussing.

He hadn’t come to eavesdrop, though. His goal was to find a watch.

Perfect. The male customer was wearing an expensive-looking mechanical watch on his wrist.

In this technologically advanced Virtual World, watches served a purely decorative purpose, a trend that was already emerging in Jiang Ran’s own time of 2025.

He moved closer, turned the customer’s wrist, and looked at the time on the watch face—

10:31:21.