Chapter 152 : Chapter 152

Chapter 152 “——Second Playthrough——”

The 「Side Character Correction」 office door was open, the floor was scattered with documents, and on the documents were messy little chicken footprints.

The panel popped up countless warning windows, red, black, and gray alternating, and a deafening siren was continuously blaring.

【[Urgent Warning] : The Fifth Door module has undergone severe degradation, massive data loss.】

【Event Level: Critical (Catastrophic Level)】

【Timestamp: 2025-01-04 15:42:11】

【System ID: Production-Modification-Side Roles-NodeA】

【Detected irreversible information damage to application core module (Module ID: CoreEngine-001), severe data loss in database.】

【System has automatically triggered emergency rollback mechanism, The Fifth Door version has currently been downgraded to node historical version.】

【Error Code:: FATAL-ROLLBACK-0x4002

Exception Trace: ...

Recovery Attempt:: PARTIAL】

【Data Consistency Check: Failed】

【Latest Incremental Backup Restore: Failed】

【Automatic Repair Process: Executed, results incomplete, availability extremely low】

Alarms blared in the Superior's mind.

One second ago, the main text had progressed to Chu Zu being stabbed by Chu Shiju, the next second, The Fifth Door encountered an unprecedented attack.

The screen displayed that The Fifth Door's high-priority data was missing, the version was forced to roll back, all plot generated after Chu Zu's insertion was lost, and the world completion used a historical archive version.

This was simply a catastrophic failure, absolutely impossible to be a spontaneous accident, undoubtedly belonging to a malicious attack!

On the Superior's split-screen, other superior little chickens had just replied to the email, euphemistically stating that their departments did not have such a phenomenally talented contestant.

The Long Aotian Superior added an extra line at the end of the email:

If you had been willing to let the best new specialist come to my side back then, I might have one now.

And after The Fifth Door encountered the unknown attack, it was also the Long Aotian Superior who was the first to contact it.

“Are you crazy?! To protect your specialist, you blew up The Fifth Door again?!”

The Superior was originally overwhelmed, but after hearing the Long Aotian Superior's words, its expression changed: “What do you mean 'blew up again'? Why 'again'?”

The Long Aotian Superior immediately hemmed and hawed, only speaking after a long pause: “The Fifth Door was blown up before, you know that too. Chu Shiju made a mess of this novel, and this time again... You mean it wasn't you, so it was that Little yellow chicken of yours?”

“Don't give me this crap.”

The Superior was furious, “Trying to pin the blame on me, or what? I traced the network source to a system under you, you rush up and first accuse me, then accuse my little chicken, what do you mean?”

The Long Aotian Superior immediately jumped: “Okay okay, passing the buck immediately, right? This has absolutely nothing to do with my Long Aotian department! Our department's systems are either working, or healing their inner wounds, who would meddle in this mess of yours——”

Halfway through its words, the Long Aotian Superior choked, and let out a strange cry.

“Holy crap, the network connection really came from my department???!!!”

The Superior held its breath, wanting to tell the Long Aotian Superior to first shut off its subordinate little chicken's permissions, who knew if the attack would happen a second time.

Before it could speak, the next second, the Superior's network was cut off.

Not just the external network, their system's internal LAN was also severed.

Little yellow chicken appeared in the office——to be precise, Sidney appeared in the office.

He was no longer in the form of Little yellow chicken, but clearly a beautiful twelve-year-old boy, blond-haired and blue-eyed, not tall, but for a little chicken, he was already considered huge in size.

The Superior and Sidney looked at each other, it couldn't help but frown, and shook its head.

“What have you done... Sidney.”

Sidney said: “I didn't have time to finish writing the virus, the host had an accident, I have to help him.”

So he directly used that piece of code recorded in the diary, and destroyed the existing version of The Fifth Door.

The plot was lost, forced to read historical records, and the most recent historical record stopped at the time when Chu Zu was just inserted——which was also when he woke up in the mental hospital.

In more common terms, Sidney deleted all the plot that had developed so far, rewound to the origin point, and everything started over from the beginning.

This was no longer a matter of breaking rules or not, according to the 《System Guidelines》, Sidney's attack behavior directly led to him being stripped of all permissions, he should have been directly recalled into the database, existing only as the name 「Sidney Esposito」.

But he had a “weapon” in his hands sufficient to destroy all punishment, and snatched back partial permissions.

Because of this, Sidney lost the fixed mimicry state of Little yellow chicken, temporarily existing as the boy image recognized by Neon Crown.

Superior: “You also turned off my permissions, right?”

Sidney nodded: “Yes.”

“Since when did you start making a ‘weapon’ targeting the system?”

“During King of All Kings.”

“Chu Zu told you to do it?”

“No.”

Sidney said, “I made it on my own initiative, I just didn't report it, nor did I destroy it.”

“The weapon you made won't work forever, the system will automatically upgrade and iterate to counter it, you will be completely destroyed.”

“I know.”

“You turned off my permissions, I can't save you either.”

“I know.”

...

This child had already gone mad.

The Superior was speechless.

The boy had a pair of big azure-blue eyes, his gaze clear and bright, within it was guilt towards the Superior, but even more was stubbornness.

He wasn't the Sidney who was abandoned to the Lower District, and then picked back up to the Upper District by Chu Zu, but it was actually about the same.

All children want a home, with an elder in the home who can serve as a role model.

The elder could be parents, or it could be a host.

Sidney used code to violently dismantle the system's restrictions on him, took back the network, and no longer needed the Long Aotian Little Chicken as a network relay.

Then he came here——why did he come here?

Seeing the Superior's confusion, Sidney's eyes grew even more guilty, but his tone was not up for discussion.

He came before the Superior, met its pitch-black beady eyes, and said: “I need to use your previous channel to send something to the host.”

I opened my eyes.

The room was pure white, empty and quiet, the clock showed it was now past eleven, outside the window sealed with iron bars were a few stars, so it should be night.

I spent some time recalling who I was, and why I was here.

Finally, I let out a low sigh in my heart, devoid of any emotion.

“It was Sidney...”

I remembered everything.

Everything that happened after I lost my memory, my “death”, now I was back in the mental hospital, Sidney must have done something.

I checked my sea of consciousness, it was empty inside, without the various furnishings Sidney had bought.

There were two props I could use.

One was 「Master Wang」 with full permissions given.

One was 「Setting Collection」 with full permissions given.

The recovery of my memories should have come from the 「Setting Collection」, it was originally kept under the full authority of the system, which also conducted a certain degree of review on the settings added to it.

The 「Setting Collection」 was highly bound to the system, and also directly connected to the entire The Fifth Door, this part of the influence let me recall everything.

The second playthrough had begun.

I grabbed the cold bed rail of the white iron bed, and slowly sat up.

“You knew Sidney would save me, right?”

I said.

Gentleman stood in the corner: “Yes, Sidney is a good child.”

Me: “Only when I encountered a life-and-death crisis would Sidney recklessly put everything on the line, and only then could I regain my memories——this was your purpose in making me go to that building.”

That's why Gentleman was vague, and couldn't speak clearly.

If it was said clearly, even just a small hint, not only would the Superior notice, that exploitation and calculation would also appear exceptionally glaring.

“Yes.”

Gentleman admitted, “Now that you have regained your memories, you have two choices.”

I could choose not to go to that building.

If I didn't go to that building, the plot concerning me also wouldn't begin.

The Fifth Door was my world, it was the novel I was supposed to be in, me becoming a main text character had already become an established fact, with the author missing, no one could forcibly delete me.

The greater possibility was that Chu Shiju would still kill the outsiders who unfortunately stepped into the building over and over again, and be tired of by the readers.

And I would become a completely invisible person, the reason for my existence could also be self-justified:

Also having contact with their future selves, other people's futures affected their entire lives, ultimately leading to death, while my future saved me.

Readers would suddenly realize after the other characters died that it wasn't that people who saw a “friend” would definitely die, this was a fair gift from fate, whether it was good or bad depended entirely on luck.

I would become an absolutely safe side character.

Furthermore, I still had the Setting Collection in my hands that could add settings.

I could completely decide who I wanted to become in the future.

I got up, this time not needing Gentleman's guidance, just that night, I avoided everyone in the darkness, and directly left the mental hospital.

Without any hesitation, I hailed a cab, and told the driver the location of the building from memory.

“Aiyo, in the middle of the night, what are you going there for.”

The driver stepped on the accelerator, he was clearly a chatterbox, having picked up such a remote fare, his words were full of complaints.

“That building has had incidents more than once, in the 90s some damn deadbeat parents threw their child off the building, what kind of thing is that...”

“A few years ago, some young people like you also ran over there, saying something about... exploring? In the end, it seems they also died... whether they died or went missing, it's not certain.”

“Hey, little bro, I still have to remind you, that place isn't safe, and it's not clean either.”

I listened for a long time, wanting him to be quiet, so I chose the most polite way: “I'm looking for my younger brother... my brother went missing in that building a few years ago.”

“They said my brother died, I thought, if I go look every now and then, I'll eventually find him, right.”

I spoke with genuine emotion, five parts determination, three parts sighing, and two parts faint melancholy.

The streetlights continuously flashed across my face, intermittently illuminating my cold and restrained features.

The driver immediately shut up, his expression mournful, probably when he went home to catch up on sleep and remembered this conversation, he'd have to do a sit-up in bed and give himself two slaps.

I had the driver stop the car before the destination, the previous parking lot was also demarcated within the building's area, to be precise, the area dragged into the four intersecting time-spaces was not just the building itself, I didn't want the driver to get trapped in it too.

The car stopped steadily, I paid the money——the money was swiped from the mental hospital, my certain unknown parents had paid the hospitalization fees, now that I wasn't staying, that money would be compensation for the swiped money.

Under the dim streetlights, I stepped onto the wasteland full of gravel, and walked towards that high-rise building in the middle of nowhere.

The wind howled all around, and dry grass rustled on the ground.

The periphery of this building was lined with a simple fence, with warnings posted on it saying “Danger” and “No Entry”.

From afar, I saw the police car parked by the iron fence outside the building.

A young plainclothes officer got out of the car, and ran wildly towards the building.

The person in the driver's seat also got out, seemingly wanting to stop him, but didn't succeed, and was somewhat annoyed, but didn't chase after him, instead turning on the walkie-talkie.

It was probably due to interference, the walkie-talkie couldn't be used normally.

I thought about it, during the first playthrough, I didn't care about anything, Gentleman told me to go in, so I went in.

If following the rhythm of a normal novel, this was now the opening chapter.

The opening chapter was the best for laying the groundwork for the world's strangeness.

Earlier in the taxi, the chatterbox driver had already explained the problem with this building, proving that my world was the world of the domestically abused child, I should be from the same worldview as Chu Shiju.

There were a total of four fused time-spaces, five groups of people, which meant, the police and I did not belong to the same world.

——The detailed rules of the rooms were basically tied to the original accidents, I could go and fish for some information now, to save the trouble of investigating again.

If I ran into an accident like the “report stained by black blood” again, I would really be speechless.

Just as I got close to the police car, a blinding flashlight beam suddenly shone on my face.

The police officer was very sharp, with a walkie-talkie in one hand and a flashlight in the other, staring at me warily: “Who are you? What are you doing running here so late?”

In the blink of an eye, I cooked up a story, quickly adjusted my expression, and as if subconsciously, raised my hands, signaling I had no ill intentions.

“Hello officer, my name is Chu Zu, I'm a... uh, supernatural horror novel author.”

“Recently I've been brainstorming a new book, and wanted to find some atmospheric places to gather inspiration, a friend mentioned there was an unfinished building over here, so I thought I'd come and see.”

“Supernatural horror novel?”

The police officer raised an eyebrow, with a “what joke are you pulling” expression, the flashlight still wasn't lowered, “This place is a condemned building, what material are you gathering running here in the middle of the night?”

“I just specialize in writing about ghosts, weird stories, and such,” I gave a dry laugh, with a hint of obsessive madness, “Inspiration, this kind of thing, you need to find it in desolate places, you understand too, right?”

“Besides, this isn't the city center, I originally just wanted to take a few photos, feel the atmosphere, and then leave.”

“What do I understand...”

The police officer muttered, sized me up for a moment, then finally moved the flashlight slightly away.

“Stop trying to fool me. I'm telling you, this building has been listed as a condemned building, the residents have all been urgently evacuated, it's not open to the public, and it's especially dangerous at night. You'd better leave quickly.”

I saw the police officer's attitude was stiff, he had an upright personality, so I immediately switched tactics, and put away that “likes excitement” narrative.

I pretended to be aggrieved and said: “Sigh, I'm just a writer, I don't want to take risks either, I just heard this place suddenly became a condemned building, the atmosphere is more ‘desolate’, I didn't expect to actually run into a police patrol...”

“Officer, what exactly happened here? Was the building sealed off because an accident happened?”

The police officer gave me a cold look, and didn't answer directly: “There was a problem with the developer's procedures, and the foundation is also unstable, no one dared to take it over, it's been stalled for a long time. Everyone knows this is an unfinished project now. If you really want to write something, just write about the construction quality problems.”

“So it was an unstable foundation... then how come I heard there was something abnormal? My friend only left me with one word, ‘unnatural’, and didn't elaborate. Was it ever... haunted or something...”

I pretended to just mention it casually.

The police officer's expression changed upon hearing this.

He glanced into the building, it was full of shadows, his colleague's figure had completely disappeared, and the walkie-talkie in his hand was still emitting static, unable to be fixed.

His mood worsened, encountering such a bold young man, he sighed silently, and deliberately put on a stern face.

“Listen less to those baseless rumors. You writers love to create weird suspense, don't come here to make things up. This is just a condemned building, there are big public order and safety hazards, there's nothing ‘abnormal’.”

I smiled: “Understood, understood, I just want to figure out what exactly there is to write about——if it's purely an unfinished building, then readers won't be interested.”

The police officer said coldly, “If they're not interested, then don't write. This isn't a place for people's morbid curiosity.”

Seeing the atmosphere freeze, I quickly took half a step back, showing a cooperative posture: “Sorry, sorry, officer, I really didn't mean to cause trouble.”

“I just want to know why so many people say it's ‘unnatural’, there must be some reason, right?”

“Maybe someone spread rumors about some ghosts, otherwise how could it scare off security guards, residents, and the like...”

“Nonsense.”

The police officer reprimanded at a faster pace.

——He said this with a slight lack of confidence.

I waited, the police officer was silent for a moment, seeing that I was being extremely persistent, he seemed to be hesitating whether he should say more.

Finally, after various considerations, he lowered his voice and said: “Listen to me, go back quickly. If you want material, just search online, it's not a secret either.”

“Besides, it's not haunted, where would New China have ghosts? Even spirits aren't allowed to gain sentience——it's just that the building itself has problems, it easily makes noises in the middle of the night, whoever was inside wouldn't sleep soundly either——plus the surroundings are desolate, when the wind gets strong, it makes strange noises. A lot of security guards didn't want to work anymore, so they said this place was weird.”

I caught the keywords: “Right, right, right, I checked, it just said something about the security guards, the rest...”

The police officer was silent, his lips pressed tightly: “Are you leaving or not?”

I said 'leaving, leaving' with my mouth, pretentiously felt my pockets, acting puzzled, then looked at the police officer sheepishly: “Sorry, officer, I don't seem to have my phone.”

“...How about, officer, you lend me your phone to call a cab?”

As expected, the police officer's phone had no signal at all.

While he was looking for a signal angle, I said: “Just being haunted doesn't seem like enough to become a condemned building.”

“The haunting is probably due to an unstable underground structure, water pipes leaking at night, echoes in the air ducts, it sounds gloomy. If a person's nerves are tense, it's inevitable to have hallucinations.”

“Can you tell me, what exactly did the security guards hear?”

“What else could there be, isn't it written clearly online? They heard a woman's crying.”

The police officer became impatient.

I said “Oh”, my tone instantly cooled, and the lively expression on my face also disappeared.

“The security guards heard a woman's crying from underground, resigned and left, but every time a new security guard was changed, the story was the same, so the developer began to investigate.”

“Because the sound came from underground, after digging up the ground, they found a lot of bones.”

I thought for a moment, and said, “Women's bones, right?”

The police officer's face darkened, he stopped fiddling with his phone, and stared at this increasingly strange young man: “Since you know everything, what are you still doing here!”

“Logically speaking, when this plot of land was being developed, the developer would have laid a good foundation. A super high-rise apartment requires driving piles at least ten-plus meters into the ground, they should have discovered those bodies during the development phase.”

“If they weren't discovered, it can only mean this building was not constructed according to the engineering survey report, which is why it was listed as a condemned building.”

I lowered my eyes, and said in a low voice: “The police insist on claiming this building is just a condemned building... those female bones should be very old, it's impossible to trace their origins, and the social repercussions are very bad.”

“If we push the time back even further. Under what circumstances, and in what place, would there be a large number of female bodies, unnoticed, and whose identities are difficult to investigate?”

“A village.”

I said.

That was a dark room, with small windows impossible to escape from, the wooden door was locked tight, the door panel covered in all kinds of scratch marks.

There was a dry well in the room——the room was built for the well——creatures that were neither human nor dog threw the desperately struggling women into the well, and then poured in cement.

This way, even if the police came to the village to investigate, or to look for someone, they would find no trace at all.

That well was also easy to explain, those things in the village that were neither human nor dog would cover for each other.

When the village was rezoned as an urban-rural fringe, and then step by step with infrastructure development, it was classified as a town, the town further became a city suburb, and after many years, a developer got this piece of land, and started building high-rises.

They could have originally seen the light of day again, but because of the developer's corner-cutting, they were pressed underground by even heavier, more ponderous things.

What the security guards heard was perhaps really a hallucination, if it wasn't a hallucination, there were probably only two explanations.

They wanted to leave.

They didn't want the residents here to suffer misfortune due to a construction accident.

——That's why the room with the well only kills females, it is completely harmless to males, even if thrown in, buried alive, they can still return to the corridor.

The police officer had become fully alert, put down his phone, his hand moving to his waist: “Who exactly are you?”

Me: “Chu Zu, but not a supernatural horror author.”

I said flatly, “I just escaped from a mental hospital, officer, your act of drawing your gun makes me feel threatened, I'm very uncomfortable right now, so I might do some extreme actions, I hope you can understand.”

As soon as the words fell, I suddenly erupted from my spot, at a bizarre angle and with incredible speed, snatched the gun from the police officer's hand, and in a reverse move, subdued the police officer on the gravel road.

I casually tucked the gun into my waistband, fumbled on the police officer's body a few times, and found the handcuffs.

I pulled open the car door, pushed the police officer who was trying to counter into the car, with two click sounds, the police officer's hands were cuffed tight, the other side of the handcuffs fastened securely to the grab handle above the car door.

The police officer roared: “This is assaulting an officer!!!”

“I'm a mental patient, with a certificate... a mental patient with a medical record book.”

I held down the police officer with one hand, and also fished out his police ID from his body, stuffing it in my pocket.

This thing was good for fooling university students.

In the last playthrough, I was able to quickly get close to the two university students because those two silly kids were scared out of their wits, it could be considered a 'suspension bridge effect'.

This playthrough I came many days earlier... Tong Qinzhen was easy to handle, he was already a pretty naive and innocent male university student——the other two weren't necessarily.

Yang Mangshu herself was considered the rational type, and from her words, it could be heard that Jiang Ran was an equally rational liberal arts student.

Suddenly encountering a bizarre event, and also running into a stranger, he might just pull Yang Mangshu and run for it.

The police ID was also good for fooling murderers.

When a murderer inadvertently encounters a police officer, the first thing is definitely to run.

When discovering the situation is even more terrifying than being caught, that phrase comes in handy——if you have a problem, find uncle police officer for help.

It wasn't that I wanted to help, I just didn't want these people to become Chu Shiju's toys.

Done, I picked up the flashlight from the ground, and stuffed it in my pocket.

I thought for a moment, and said: “Thank you for chatting with me, I have a pretty good impression of police officers, if possible, after leaving here, please investigate those bones.”

“They probably all miss home very much.”

Before entering the building, I opened that Setting Collection in my sea of consciousness.

Sidney wasn't here, without the usual reminder, I wrote the first setting belonging to 「Chu Zu」 that I wanted to add in my sea of consciousness.

【Chu Zu wants to find Chu Shiju.】

【Chu Zu wants to ask this younger brother, why he lied to him back then.】

【Chu Zu also wants to ask him, do you still want to kill me?】

【If he gets an affirmative answer, then Chu Zu will say: Me too.】

I did not specify in the setting what “back then” referred to, so the Setting Collection also did not make me recall a specific event.

But the Setting Collection acknowledged the "Chu Zu and Chu Shiju" sibling relationship.

Gentleman didn't speak, in the dim environment, his face was pitch black under the brim of his hat.

But I could just understand the meaning in his silence.

——Are you still thinking about completing this novel?

It's very hard to save it.

I also didn't need to answer, my act of walking towards the building was enough to state my attitude.

——In any case, I can't let the readers swallow a huge load of crap, and then just wash my hands of it, I'll do my best.

「Side Character Correction」 office.

Sidney was still perfecting the virus, his ultimate goal was still to go to Chu Zu's side.

The Superior cooperated with Sidney one time, also the last time, giving him the channel used to stuff props before, and sent the Setting Collection in.

It saw the main text from Sidney's panel, as well as the updated content on the Setting Collection.

“When did he find out...”

“Find out that two characters who are deeply bound will mutually influence each other's settings?”

Sidney didn't look up, “He found out during Death by Entertainment, it wasn't the host deliberately probing, he also had settings added to him several times, and was quite annoyed at the time.”

Thinking about it now, Teacher Big Mango constantly “reminiscing about the past”, perhaps was also trying to tell Chu Zu this unwritten, invisible rule.

People like Li Yamin and Wanshu Zu, who weren't relatives or friends, could influence each other to that extent, let alone the original draft and the finalized character like Chu Zu and Chu Shiju.

Sidney had thought about it carefully before, Chu Shiju probably didn't have a Setting Collection.

The things he did were all things that would not be recognized by the Setting Collection, the more than three thousand repetitions had long since made his character design completely warped.

The Setting Collection would inflict punishment for settings that didn't comply with regulations, he hadn't been constrained to this day, he probably destroyed that thing long ago.

“The host is a very good specialist, really.”

Sidney said softly, “Even now, he is still trying to correct side characters——I can't find a better host than him.”

He said to the Superior: “This is his story, so let him be the one to finish it, isn't that a matter of course?”

The Superior seemed to have been robbed of its ability to speak.

It still believed that Chu Zu was a specialist with deep thoughts.

If Sidney wanted to hide the weapon, he could only record the code in one place——Chu Zu's diary.

As long as he wrote some inductive words in the diary, Sidney would easily go through fire and water for him.

“Induction” was often not a direct instruction, for Sidney, the more sincere the gratitude, coupled with writing some admonitions like “I don't want you to interfere”, the more worked up he would get.

The diary's annotation already explained the problem:

Do you write a diary?

I don't.

Who can write their true feelings in a diary?

How can what's written be called true feelings?

That was a diary meant for others to read.

But the Superior couldn't completely deny Chu Zu's actions either.

This person was impossible to see through, he could always accomplish his goals, and assign multiple values to his goals.

At least now, Chu Zu was still trying to give The Fifth Door an ending, he was even completing Chu Shiju's past.

The Superior faintly felt that Chu Zu had other plans.

But as long as he didn't actively show it, or the matter wasn't set in stone, it couldn't deduce Chu Zu's true thoughts.

After a long pause, the Superior suppressed the countless thoughts in its mind, and walked to Sidney's side.

“You move aside, I'll write the virus.”

The Superior thought, even if everything was a mess right now, at least on the surface, they were all working hard for this novel, for these characters.