Lin Yue had always believed that the world was a poorly written script, and she was the idiot who had spent her life trying to fix the typos.
She sat on a park bench, the cold wind biting at her neck, clutching a lukewarm coffee that tasted like cardboard.
Across the street, the lights of a high-end French restaurant blurred into a smear of expensive gold.
She wasn't looking at the restaurant. She was looking at the man inside.
His name was Han Feng. He was her "everything." For five years, she had lived like a ghost so he could live like a king.
She had worked three jobs, drained her inheritance, and even sold her car to pay for his MBA and his designer suits. She had thought, in her pathetic, delusional heart, that she was investing in a future.
Then, she saw it.
Through the glass, Han Feng knelt. He pulled out a box, the same velvet box Lin Yue had seen in his drawer a week ago.
He took the hand of a girl who looked like a porcelain doll and slipped the ring onto her finger.
It was the same ring Lin Yue had picked out herself, "helping" him choose a gift for his mother's birthday.
"Men are truly scum." Lin Yue whispered. Her voice didn't tremble; it was flat, dead.
She watched him laugh.
She watched him kiss the girl's hand with the same lips that had promised Lin Yue forever just this morning.
A dark, oily feeling rose in her throat. It wasn't just heartbreak. It was the realization that her entire life had been a "Low-IQ" play.
She had been the "Stupid Woman" in a third-rate web novel, the one who sacrifices everything for a villain.
"Women are stupid." she continued, her eyes reflecting the cold streetlights. "I am the stupidest of them all."
She stood up, her legs feeling like lead. She didn't go inside to cause a scene.
Why bother? To hear him lie again?
To see the pity in the other girl's eyes?
No.
She was a pessimist.
She knew how this ended.
The scum gets the girl, and the fool gets the bill.
She walked toward the bridge, the city noise humming like a headache.
"Love? God? Buddha?" She let out a jagged, mocking laugh. "If any of you existed, you wouldn't have let me be this pathetic. You're all just spectators watching a tragedy for entertainment."
She stopped at the railing, looking down at the black, swirling water.
"I hate this life. I hate myself. If there's a deity up there, I hope you're happy with this garbage ending. I'm out."
She didn't jump.
She didn't have to.
As if the heavens were insulted by her lack of faith, a sudden, blinding crack of thunder split the sky on a perfectly clear night.
The ground beneath her didn't just shake; it dissolved into a void of pure, silent shadow.
"Finally." she thought as she plummeted. "The 'Game Over' screen."
[02:00:00]
The first thing she felt wasn't peace.
It was an annoying, high-pitched ringing that felt like a drill against her eardrums.
Lin Yue opened her eyes.
She wasn't dead.
She was lying on a bed in a room that looked like a "Standard Pack" from a real estate brochure.
Gray walls, cheap laminate flooring, and a faint smell of disinfectant.
"Even the afterlife is a budget rental." she muttered, her voice thick with spite.
Wail!
Wail!
Wail!
The siren outside was loud enough to wake the dead.
She sat up, and as her hand grazed the duvet, a sharp prick of coldness erupted on her wrist.
She looked down.
Under her skin, a digital display was glowing with a sickly blue light.
[01:59:10]
"What is this? A smart-watch for the damned?"
Before her cynicism could spiral further, a mechanical, genderless voice boomed from a speaker hidden in the corner of the ceiling.
[ATTENTION CITIZEN LIN YUE.]
[WELCOME TO SECTOR 4. YOUR PRE-COLLAPSE NET WORTH OF 4.2 MILLION HAS BEEN CONVERTED TO SECTOR CREDITS. YOU HAVE BEEN ALLOCATED A TYPE-B TWO-BEDROOM APARTMENT.]
Lin Yue stared at the wall. "Net worth? I died and they're still checking my bank balance?"
[THE SCAVENGE WINDOW IS OPEN. YOU HAVE 120 MINUTES TO REACH THE SUPERMARKET. THE INFECTED WILL BE RELEASED IN T-MINUS 120 MINUTES. ANYONE FOUND IN THE DEAD ZONE AFTER THE BUZZER WILL BE PURGED BY THE AUTOMATED DEFENSE TURRETS.]
[SURVIVAL IS A CHOICE. EFFICIENCY IS A REQUIREMENT. PROCEED.]
The broadcast ended with a click.
Lin Yue sat on the edge of the bed for a full minute. Most people would be screaming.
Most would be crying for their families or
praying to the god she had just cursed.
But Lin Yue just looked at the ticking timer on her wrist and then at the empty, gray room.
"A survival game?" she whispered. Her heart, which had been broken into a thousand pieces by Han Feng, felt strangely... still.
It was cold.
It was black.
And it was very, very tired.
"So, I'm in a world where you have to fight for your life every day just to keep living a life that's already worthless?"
She stood up and walked to the window.
Below, she saw people already sprinting, their faces masked with a greed that was uglier than the zombies she could see lurking in the shadows of the alleyways.
"Scum and idiots." she remarked, her eyes narrowing. "Everywhere you go, it's the same."
She found a backpack in the closet.
It was empty.
Just like her soul.
"Fine. You want a game? I'll play. But I'm not playing for 'hope' or 'humanity.'"
She grabbed a heavy metal flashlight from the bedside table.
"I'm playing because I'll be damned if I die in the dark without a decent blanket."