In the early morning, the dimly lit sky was gleaming with the whiteness of a fish's belly. The autumn and winter morning breeze, carrying the moist dew from the mountain forest, blew across the sleepy farm.
The farm, struck by the cold, turned over as if unable to help itself, and murmured a few words. Gradually, it began to liven up a little.
The early-rising country woman opened the wooden door, loudly greeted her neighbors, and prepared breakfast for her family. A new day was about to begin. It was a perfectly normal morning, and a perfectly normal farm.
However, this peaceful morning was filled with a small incident.
"Ah--"
At the bluestone well in the center of the farm, a country woman, about to draw water, let out a scream, shattering the quiet morning. Immediately, the civilians who had heard the noise gathered around.
It turned out that next to the bluestone well, there was a young man curled up in strange clothes, his face blue and lips white from the cold.
"Who is this? Why is he sleeping here? Could he have frozen to death?"
"Black hair? He must be a stranger who came last night."
"Alas, poor man, I hope he can return to the embrace of the God of Light. There is no hunger or cold there, only warmth."
The gathered civilians made hand gestures on their chests to mourn the young man who seemed to have frozen to death.
"Scared!" A little boy leaning against the peasant woman's thigh suddenly took a few steps back in fear: "Mom, this big brother just moved."
The child was short, so he was the first to see the big brother who had "frozen to death" and his nose twitched.
Huh? The surrounding villagers were startled and took a step back, looking at each other in confusion, a chill running through their hearts.
Finally, an old farmer wearing a small black bowler hat stood up, leaned over to feel the young man's breath, and breathed a sigh of relief: "The boy is still alive, he is not frozen to death."
"Oh, God of Light."
"Praise God!"
The old farmer patted the young man's cheek and said, "Young man, wake up, wake up..."
"Hmm..." The young man shuddered, groaned, and slowly opened his narrow eyes.
Perhaps because he was freezing, the young man said nothing after opening his eyes. He just stared blankly at the onlookers and shivered from time to time.
"Are you frozen silly?" asked a straightforward country woman.
Before the surrounding farmers could respond, a gentle voice came from outside the crowd: "What happened here?"
"Hey, good morning, Father York."
The priest, known as York, seemed to be well respected by everyone, and the onlookers quickly made way. A middle-aged man carrying a lunch box walked in and greeted the farmers with a gentle expression.
After listening to the old farmer's story, Father York looked at the huddled young man and said, "Well, you're really frozen, but fortunately we have God's protection."
After saying this, Father York put down the wooden lunch box in his hand and made a piously gesture in front of his chest. Suddenly, a white light appeared and shone on the young man.
The farmers around looked at the warm white light with excitement, made gestures in front of them, and muttered prayers praising God.
The young man, bathed in the warm light, stared blankly at the scene before him, his mouth wide open and eyes wide. What was this, a portable heater? And why were the hair of the people around him yellow? What on earth was going on?
After more than ten seconds, the white light disappeared. Father York smiled and said, "Young man, how do you feel now?"
"Warm..." the young man answered subconsciously.
"That's good. Get up and move around. You'll be back to health soon." After saying that, Father York took out a piece of rye bread from his lunch box and stuffed into the young man's hand.
After doing all this, Father York said hello to the farmers around him and walked out of the crowd.
"Praise God, Father York is such a kind man with a heart full of light."
"Well, at this time... is he going to the west of the village to deliver food to the elderly who have no one to take care of them?"
The surrounding farmers praised the priest and spread the word about his good deeds. Then everyone dispersed. After all, there were still many things to do in the morning.
The young man in strange clothes quickly pulled the old farmer aside and asked, "Excuse me, where is this? Hmm, is this Europe?"
The old farmer looked at the young man in surprise. "Europe? What's that? This is Little Stone Village in Bran Country."
"Bu, Bulan Country?" The young man was stunned, then asked carefully, "Is this Earth?"
"Earth? What kind of a ball is that?"
…
"No way, I traveled through time?" The young man muttered to himself, holding his head.
The young man's name was Tang En, and he had just graduated from university a month earlier. As a modern college student, he naturally read online novels and indulged in some fantasy. He was also no stranger to time travel plots. But...
"Aren't novels supposed to be fictional? How did I actually travel through time? Oh, and how did I travel through time?"
Tang En tapped his head, quickly recalling how difficult it had been to find a job since graduation. After all, there was an overabundance of university graduates these days, and their value had been severely devalued. Even graduates from prestigious universities struggled to find good jobs, let alone his own, less prestigious university in the mountains.
So after a month of searching the job market, Tang En was met with frustration and disdain. He'd sent out countless resumes, but only a handful of interviews. Eventually, he simply submitted his resume online. While there was still little response, at least he saved himself the expense of printing his resume.
That day, he woke up and, as usual, turned on his old, beat-up computer. He logged into a large recruitment site, selected keywords, and without much scrutiny, selected all of them, ready to submit two hundred electronic resumes. But just as he clicked OK, a game advertisement popped up.
"Nimma, they really know how to find a place to put an ad."
Tang En was about to close the page when his eyes accidentally caught sight of the game's advertising slogan, "Do you have the courage to reject this ordinary life?"
Frankly, this ad is just average, and the tagline is completely uninspired. Compared to the usual pages featuring pictures of perky breasts and buttocks, it's downright awful. Even if those pages have nothing to do with the game itself, at least they're tricking young people into clicking on them.
But this advertising slogan successfully impressed Tang En.
It's just ordinary... Tang En smiled bitterly. Sometimes when he thought about the past twenty years he had lived, he doubted the meaning of his existence.
Tang En was neither a second-generation rich nor a second-generation official. He was born into an ordinary family. His parents were both workers. They gave Tang En everything they could, paid for his education, and raised him.
During his school years, Tang En, despite his ordinary appearance, had average grades. He was the type of person who neither earned praise nor scolding from his teachers. He had no special talents, no outstanding performances, but he also didn't make any major mistakes. He simply sat quietly on the edge of the teacher's sight. At the end of the semester, when the homeroom teacher gave his comments, they always wrote that the student had a quiet personality and strictly adhered to school rules and regulations, but that his grades still needed to be improved.
Then he got a mediocre score in the college entrance examination and went to a second-rate university as planned.
During college, I made some bad friends, found a girlfriend, learned to smoke, and got used to making up for exams. When I wasn't with my girlfriend, I'd play games and read novels.
Before graduation, the girlfriend broke up with him. She admitted she couldn't stand the dull, passionless life she'd been living with him. She said the thought of continuing like this filled her with despair and suffocation.
"Isn't an ordinary life good?" Tang En was puzzled.
"An ordinary life is nice, but your ordinariness allows me to see clearly what the next few decades will look like. This is too terrifying, I can't accept it."
"Besides, this is love, not marriage," she said before leaving.
Tang En's heart ached at that time, and he didn't know what he had done wrong.
Thinking of his girlfriend's parting words, Tang En subconsciously picked up the mouse and clicked "Yes".
Well, in that case, I choose to reject this ordinary life!
Game data loading 1%, 2%...
Tang En, regaining his composure, saw the loading progress bar and gave a wry smile. "Whatever, it's just a game, let's give it a try."
Seeing that the data would take some time to load, Tang En returned to the previous page and submitted his resume. He stood up and poured himself a glass of boiled water.
When Tang En returned to the computer, the game had already loaded to 95%.
Wow, the server is pretty good and fast.
96%, 97%, 98%, 99%...
And then, nothing happened.
Three minutes later, the game loading bar was still stuck at 99%...
"Damn it!" Tang En slammed the table angrily, causing the water cup to ripple.
Then, he subconsciously patted the computer screen and kicked the roaring computer case. This was a habit he had developed as a child watching the old TV at home. After all, electrical appliances can be broken by kicking them hard.
However, practice has proven that this electrical repair theory doesn't always work. At least not right now. The data bar is still stuck at 99%.
Moreover, Tang En did not notice that his angry slamming of the table just now caused a lot of boiled water in the cup to spill out, and now these water droplets were dripping into the socket beside the table.
An enraged Tang En refused to believe that the electrical appliance theory he had always believed in was invalid, and kicked the mainframe again. However, this time, he kicked the socket next to the mainframe.
Sparks flashed, sparks suddenly appeared...
Tang En felt a numbness all over his body and his head hit the computer screen.
Before his eyes went dark, Tang En saw that the data bar skipped 100%, and the four big words "Killer System" appeared on the screen, with a black figure holding a blood-red dagger in the background.
The last scene before his death was not like what is described in famous novels, where countless fragments of his life flashed before his eyes. Instead, it was a single thought:
"Electrical appliances, it turns out they can be fixed with a little kicking..."
...
"No way, I was killed by a glass of boiled water?" Tang En said depressedly after sorting out the fragments in his mind.
Living a life like boiled water, and finally being killed by boiled water, what an ironic life...
"Mom and Dad, I'm so unfilial!" Thinking about how sad his parents would be after he died, Tang En grabbed his hair in pain.
"Ding...Killer system activated."
"Loading data..."
"Ding, the data is abnormal, please supplement it yourself..."
"Collecting system host information...
Loading..."
"Ding! Loading completed."