TAG Chapter 3

Qiao Jingting opened his eyes.

He couldn’t be sure if he had really performed the action of “opening” his eyes because everything in front of him was pitch black.

The surroundings were eerily quiet, and it seemed like there was nothing. He couldn’t feel pain, temperature, wind, or even his own breath. It was as if he had lost… all sensation.

Was he dead? Where was he? The world after death?

He touched his own body and then froze. It was a unique experience. He could sense his body, such as knowing when he clenched his fists or stood up and took steps, but he couldn’t touch them. He couldn’t touch anything, including his own body.

Was this how it felt after death? Had he become a ghost?

He looked around and wandered aimlessly. There was nothing here, not even his own body. He was like a lonely soul, exiled to the edge of the world, surrounded by an impenetrable darkness and solitude.

After wandering for an unknown amount of time, he was on the verge of bursting into a frenzy and screaming when suddenly, a faint light appeared in the distance. He was overjoyed and remembered the light that had appeared when he fell into the sea. With a glimmer of hope, he walked towards that direction. If he could have another chance at rebirth, he would cherish it and endure any humiliation, even for the sake of his grandmother. He wouldn’t let the momentary ferocity cloud his judgment.

He felt like he was walking, but this place seemed to have no spatial or geographical constraints. Although the light seemed quite far away, he reached it within a few steps.

Entering the light, he saw a large gray rats about the same height as a person. More precisely, it was a mechanical rats. Its fur was worn off in many places, revealing metal and circuits underneath. Its tail drooped behind it, looking extremely damaged.

Qiao Jingting found it perplexing. Was this heaven or hell? Why was there a damaged mechanical rats?

Unable to contain his curiosity, he wanted to reach out and touch the rats’s fur. However, at that moment, the rats’s eyes suddenly emitted a green light, and its tail began to wag. It raised its large paw and swung it towards Qiao Jingting.

Startled, Qiao Jingting instinctively moved backward. He wasn’t sure if he had dodged it or not. He didn’t even know if his body had moved.

In any case, he felt no pain. He watched as the rats swung its paw, first once and then a second time, as he continued to retreat. The more he retreated, the more the rats chased him, relentlessly pursuing him with its paw, clawing, and biting, as if determined to kill him.

Initially, Qiao Jingting tried his best to retreat, but soon he realized that the rats couldn’t touch him, and he couldn’t touch the rats either. Watching the rats comically attacking the air provided him with a bit of entertainment. So, he continued to move backward while observing the rats’s movements. After all, he had nothing else to do.

He continued this back-and-forth, observing the rats’s ugly face, as the distance between them kept changing. Qiao Jingting knew that the spatial constraints here couldn’t be judged by common sense. Whether he ran fast or far seemed to have little relevance—it was all about luck or some rule he didn’t yet understand.

Just as he was about to give up, a white light flashed before his eyes, and his consciousness instantly blurred.

He suddenly opened his eyes and saw a familiar face, half delicate and half ferocious.

“Ah…” The girl let out a low scream and quickly covered her mouth. Her eyes widened in shock as she looked at him.

Qiao Jingting also looked at her in astonishment, unable to regain his senses for a while.

What’s going on? Wasn’t he dead? He had his hand severed by those people, then entered a mysterious space, chased by a mechanical rats, and then… what happened next?

“You, you’re not dead?” the girl stuttered.

“I…” Qiao Jingting was about to speak when the pain he had temporarily forgotten rushed over him like a tide. It engulfed his entire body, and he let out a cry of pain, contorting his facial features.

“Don’t move, your whole body is injured,” the girl said, still looking puzzled. “How come you didn’t die? You, you clearly weren’t breathing.”

“I… don’t know…” Qiao Jingting gritted his teeth, enduring the pain. “What about those people?”

“They left,” she pursed her lips and furrowed her brows, seemingly unsure of what to do with Qiao Jingting.

“My… my hand…” Qiao Jingting remembered his severed hand rolling on the ground. Those who hadn’t experienced it couldn’t understand the pain of limb separation. It wasn’t just physical agony but also severe psychological torment.

“It’s with you. I picked it up for you,” her eyes wandered back and forth on Qiao Jingting, as if trying to determine whether he was human or ghost.

Qiao Jingting grabbed his severed hand, feeling a mixture of emotions.

She sighed and muttered, “Consider me unlucky. Originally, I could earn 30 points for collecting a corpse, but you came back to life, and now I have to pay to enter…” She suddenly produced a yellowed sheepskin scroll in her hand.

Qiao Jingting recognized it. It was the same scroll the system spirit used to heal the wound on his arm.

The scroll floated over, unfurled, revealing a green leaf pattern, and then transformed into a ball of green light, enveloping Qiao Jingting’s severed wrist and hand. Qiao Jingting watched in amazement as his hand reattached itself to the severed wrist. Bones, blood vessels, nerves, muscles, and skin all reassembled and connected. Finally, his hand returned to its rightful place!

Qiao Jingting endured the pain, excitedly propping himself up. He rotated his wrist, moved his fingers. Apart from the scar around the wrist and the eye-catching silver ice bracelet, everything was as good as new.

Qiao Jingting let out a deep breath, feeling reborn. Regardless of how many doubts he had in his mind, at least he was still alive! He looked at the girl and said solemnly, “Thank you, I owe you a favor.”

“Not just one favor, you owe me an expensive scroll,” the girl added, “Take care of your other injuries yourself or find a way to earn points and buy healing scrolls.”

“I will repay you.”

“You better think about how to stay alive first.”

Qiao Jingting desperately moved his wrist, feeling the sensation of his hand returning to its original position.

At this moment, he finally had the leisure to observe his surroundings. They were in a dim forest, and it was already late in the evening. Only sparse moonlight provided faint illumination. In this light, the girl’s half-faced appearance looked particularly horrifying. He curiously asked, “Can that scroll repair any kind of injury?”

“As long as there’s a breath left,” she replied calmly.

“Then…” Qiao Jingting looked at her face, hesitating to speak.

She said calmly, “This is a memento.”

Qiao Jingting didn’t inquire further and said again, “Thank you. My name is Qiao Jingting.”

“Shu Ai, Ai from Ai Cao,” Shu Ai examined Qiao Jingting up and down. “How did you manage to survive?”

“I don’t know… I entered a strange place, completely dark…” Qiao Jingting described his recent experience.

The more Shu Ai listened, the deeper her frown became. “I’ve never heard of a place like that.”

“Does getting your hand cut off lead you to that place?”

“People in the village suffer various injuries every day. What’s a severed hand compared to that? But the mechanical rats you mentioned, could it be the gray rats outside the village?”

“Gray rats?”

“Yes, they’re the lowest-level monster spawn point. Killing one earns you 3 points.”

Qiao Jingting opened his mouth, “So, this world is really like playing an online game?” He didn’t have the strength to sit up straight, so he tried to move towards a nearby big tree. With each movement, his whole body’s wounds were agitated, causing him intense pain and cold sweat on his forehead.

“Don’t move around,” Shu Ai produced several boxes of medicine and threw them from a distance onto him. “Medicine is still cheap here. There’s hemostatic, anti-inflammatory, and pain-relieving medicine. Take them first.”

Qiao Jingting let out a breath and swallowed the bitter pills with saliva. Then he touched his injured areas. Two ribs were broken, his spine was probably fractured, and he had no idea about his head’s condition. Right now, he was in pain, feeling dizzy, and nauseous. Apart from his reattached hand, he was practically a wreck. He whispered, “Can you buy everything in the system?”

“It seems so.”

“In online games, they don’t sell food and medicine.”

Shu Ai said, “This is a ‘real’ online game. What’s at stake isn’t a virtual character but yourself.”

Qiao Jingting fell silent for a moment. “How did I end up here? What about those people?”

“They cut off your hand, and then you stopped breathing and became motionless. They thought you were dead, so they asked me to collect your body,” Shu Ai pointed to the pit beside them. “After dark, I dragged you here, planning to bury you.”

Only now did Qiao Jingting notice the newly dug pit. He was astonished. “Did you dig this?” How could such a slender girl drag him, a 140-pound man, here and dig such a big pit?

“Oh, does this surprise you?” Shu Ai’s tone was somewhat sarcastic.

Qiao Jingting chuckled self-deprecatingly. Everything that happened that day was beyond his imagination. He said, “You’ve also been enhanced.” Speaking of the word “enhanced,” he no longer felt awkward. He had fully accepted his situation.

“Yeah, I’m Level 4,” Shu Ai replied. “The guy who attacked you earlier is Level 4, the others are Level 3, and Brother Wei is Level 5. Every time we level up, we receive bonus points that can be used to enhance ourselves.”

“Is Brother Wei their leader?”

“Zheng Wei? No, the leader of Xin Yue Hu is a Level 6 man,” Shu Ai’s calm eyes suddenly flashed with intense hatred.

Qiao Jingting noticed her expression. He rotated his wrist and said, “You saved me. I will definitely repay you, give you what you want.”

Shu Ai raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I will enhance myself. I will kill the fat guy, Brother Wei, and the leader of Xin Yue Hu,” Qiao Jingting glanced at her. “You want to kill him too, right?”

Shu Ai’s chest heaved, her voice slightly trembling. “He… killed my brother. I want to see him dead in my lifetime!”

“You will see it. Consider it my gratitude to you.” The beating he endured wouldn’t be in vain, and his hand wouldn’t have been reattached for nothing. Everything he suffered would be returned to those few individuals tenfold!

“What’s your plan?”

“The system spirit said that killing someone of a higher level than oneself grants extra bonus points. As soon as I recover, I can sneak in while they’re sleeping…”

“No, enhanced people have heightened senses. With your current strength, sneaking in at night will surely be detected,” Shu Ai said solemnly. “Don’t measure the people here by the standards of the real world. You can’t even beat me.”

Qiao Jingting squinted at her, clearly not believing it. After a series of setbacks, a girl half his height now claimed to be stronger than him?

Shu Ai glanced at him and ran towards a nearby tree. With a running start, she kicked the tree trunk with both feet, using the momentum to propel herself upward. Ignoring gravity, she swiftly climbed up the tree trunk for three to four meters. Then, she leaped, grabbing onto a thick branch, spun around, and jumped down, landing steadily on the ground. She looked at Qiao Jingting and raised her chin. “Can you do that?”

Qiao Jingting’s mouth twitched, unable to say anything for a while.

He couldn’t do it.

“This is the power of enhancement. With even a few points, you can possess physical abilities far beyond that of an ordinary person.”

Qiao Jingting coughed lightly. “Both you and the fat guy are Level 4, but I feel like you’re faster than him.”

“That’s right, his enhancement is inferior to mine,” Shu Ai said. “My enhancement isn’t perfect either, but compared to an ordinary person, it’s already formidable. Before coming here, I couldn’t even run a hundred meters properly.”

Qiao Jingting pondered for a moment. “Enhancement can directly change a person’s physical qualities…”

“Yes, and this is just the most common thing in this bizarre game.”

“Why?” Qiao Jingting asked hoarsely. “Why are we here? What is this place, and who built it?”

Shu Ai shook her head, her eyes dim. “No one knows. We’re like a group of monkeys locked in a cage, fighting amongst ourselves. Perhaps somewhere, someone is observing us, maybe for an experiment or for their amusement. Whatever the case, it’s beyond the reach of human technology. Since we can’t figure it out, it’s better not to think about it.”

“…Have you seen The Matrix?”

“I have seen it. Many people have similar thoughts, like we are experiencing something similar to ‘The Matrix,’ where our bodies are placed in nutrient-filled tanks with tubes inserted into us. The only thing that exists in this world is our consciousness, and everything is simulated by a program. That would explain a lot,” Shu Ai looked at Qiao Jingting. “But no one can confirm it, and no one wants to use death as proof. Moreover, even the technology in ‘The Matrix’ is far from the world we live in.”

Qiao Jingting fell silent for a moment. Shu Ai was right; it was better not to dwell on things that couldn’t be understood. There were more pressing matters at hand. He took a breath, then coughed a few times, spitting out blood before continuing, “You mentioned that the fat guy’s enhancement is inferior to yours. Why is that?”

“I’ll explain the situation in the village, and you’ll understand,” Shu Ai sat down on the grass, hugging her knees in a posture that lacked a sense of security. “The leader of Xin Yue Hu, Han Bin, is a very treacherous man. After gaining power, he became a tyrant in Xin Yue Hu. Everyone in the village has to report the points they earn periodically, and he decides how to distribute them. About eighty to ninety percent of the points go to him for various items, leaving only a small portion for us to use for sustenance and enhancing ourselves. He even controls everyone’s ability to level up.”

Shu Ai tightened her arms, her voice trembling, “The men of Xin Yue Hu are his slaves, and the women, especially those who are attractive, are…”

Qiao Jingting grew increasingly cold as he listened. In any place where savagery replaces rules, people’s hidden animalistic nature would be unleashed.

Shu Ai smiled self-mockingly, “With this face of mine and a relatively high level, I have some safety and freedom. Others can’t see all your information, but those close to Han Bin can estimate how many points you’ve earned. I try to underreport my actions every time, accumulating some points in secret to enhance myself.”

“What are the ways to earn points?”

“The fastest way is by killing people,” Shu Ai stared directly at him. “Of course, you can only kill someone of the same level or higher, as the system spirit must have told you.”

“I see.”

“Killing someone of the same level grants 1,000 points for leveling up. Killing someone higher than your level grants additional points. For every three levels higher, you gain 500 extra points, and for levels four to six higher, you get an additional 1,000 points. For example, if you’re currently at level 2 and kill someone at level 4, you would earn 1,000 points plus 500 plus another 500. But if you kill someone at level 6, you would earn 1,000 plus 500 plus 500 plus 1,000 plus 1,000 in rewards.”

“The higher the level, the more rewards… I see.”

“That’s right. Everything in the game requires points: exchanging daily necessities, various scrolls with special functions, purchasing weapons and armor, unlocking maps, and especially enhancing and ‘washing the marrow.'”

“‘Washing the marrow’?”

“I don’t know the specifics, only those who reach level 6 can choose it. I’ve only heard about it,” Shu Ai’s dark, shiny eyes stared deeply at Qiao Jingting. “If you want to kill him, you have to do it quickly. Once he washes his marrow, he’ll have to leave the newbie village. Even if he doesn’t leave, you won’t be able to kill him.”

“What does washing the marrow entail?”

“I don’t know. It can only be selected at level 6, and I’ve only heard about it,” Shu Ai replied. “If you want to kill him, you must do it before he washes his marrow. Once he does, you won’t stand a chance, even if he stays in the newbie village.”

“Level 6 and 3,000 points…” Qiao Jingting murmured those words softly.

“Han Bin won’t let two people reach level 5 at the same time. The only person he trusts in Xin Yue Hu who is at level 5 is Zheng Wei. He won’t allow anyone to accumulate a large number of points. In fact, even if he doesn’t withhold points, it’s difficult for us to accumulate enough to reach 3,000 points. Enhancements and item exchanges require a significant amount of points. But if you don’t enhance yourself, you won’t be able to protect yourself. The idea of washing the marrow is too distant for us.”

Qiao Jingting suddenly felt his heart rate increase, and his blood began to boil. If others could achieve it, there was no reason he couldn’t. He would definitely become a “Respected” and leave this world!

Just as he was about to ask what exactly a “Respected” was, he suddenly remembered something more important. “Wait a minute, if the person who cut off my hand kills me, will they receive punishment from the system?”

Shu Ai was taken aback. “I hadn’t thought about that.” She blinked her eyes, and after a moment, she furrowed her brows deeply. “No, I checked those individuals, and none of them received any punishment from the system.”

“Can you check their levels?”

“Yes, as long as you know their names. If someone receives punishment from the system for killing someone of a lower level, there will be a special mark after their level.”

“So, does that mean… I didn’t die?”

“Correct. If you had died, it wouldn’t be possible for nothing to have happened, and I also checked your name. However, at that time, you indeed had no breath or heartbeat. Zheng Wei’s group probably encountered such a situation for the first time and didn’t know how to handle it, so they left you there.”

Qiao Jingting contemplated everything that had happened. A sudden realization struck him, and he looked down at the Silver Frost device on his wrist.

Following his gaze, Shu Ai exclaimed in surprise, “The Silver Frost device is the interface to access the system. No one can take it off. Is it because they cut off your hand that you…?” She pondered her words for several seconds before continuing, “Disconnected?”

“And when you placed my hand back onto my body, the Silver Frost device made contact with me again, so I returned,” Qiao Jingting concluded.