Chapter Twenty-Three: The System Is Also a Wage Slave

Zhao Bai looked at Xiao Zhang wordlessly. So the thief he’d caught was this kid. He had meant to scold him, but seeing the boy’s head wrapped in bandages, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything harsh. The more he looked, the more he wanted to laugh.

Xiao Zhang rubbed his swollen cheek. “You little bastard, if you want to laugh, just laugh. Why hold it in?”

Before Zhao Bai could even crack a smile, the policemen nearby burst out laughing.

Xiao Zhang turned his head, and the two officers immediately stifled their laughter. “Sir, please tell us exactly what happened.”

After Xiao Zhang recounted everything in detail, the two policemen’s faces were red from holding back their amusement. “Sir, we are professionally trained, and generally we don’t laugh on duty.”

...Unless we absolutely can’t help it.

Xiao Zhang shouted loudly in the police station’s main hall: “Hey! Are you still there? Didn’t you say you wanted to be my boss? Come out, I’ll even be your loyal lackey!”

Everyone in the hall turned to look at the young man, all wondering if the kid was a fool.

Zhao Bai hurried over, not wanting Xiao Zhang to make a scene—if he acted up in a police station, he’d end up behind bars. But just as Zhao Bai stood up, it was as if time froze; everyone stopped moving, locked in place.

At that moment, a uniformed officer walked in from outside and stopped in front of Xiao Zhang.

“So, you little sidekick, have you come to your senses?” he said.

Though Xiao Zhang was conscious, he couldn’t move and could only look awkwardly at the man in front of him.

“Let’s go outside and talk?” the captain said casually, striding out of the hall.

Damn, you can move? Idiot... Xiao Zhang cursed at the system in his mind.

“Did you really think I left, lackey?” Suddenly, Zhao Bai moved beside him. “Actually, I never left, ha ha.”

Then Zhao Bai tapped Xiao Zhang. “Come on, let’s talk.”

...

Even the birds in the sky were frozen midair. Xiao Zhang realized this seemingly unreliable system might possess real power after all.

Zhao Bai, now possessed by the system, smiled faintly. “Impressed, lackey? How’s this trick?”

Xiao Zhang glanced at him. “Not bad.” But he wasn’t that interested in the display; instead, he pressed on impatiently, “But what I really want to know is—what am I, or rather, what is our world?”

“Why don’t you try to answer that yourself?”

“This is an account?” Xiao Zhang pointed at Zhao Bai’s body. “So, he’s just like a character we create in a game?”

“Both yes and no. I’m just borrowing this account for a while,” Zhao Bai replied with a half-smile.

“Like that shop clerk earlier today?”

“More or less.”

Xiao Zhang silently lit a cigarette and handed one to Zhao Bai. “Want a smoke?”

“You humans have such strange habits.” Though he said so, Zhao Bai still lit up.

“So, what exactly are you?” Xiao Zhang’s curiosity about this being’s identity was boundless.

“That’s not quite the right question. You should drop the word ‘person’ at the end.”

Xiao Zhang laughed. “True enough. If you can do things like this, you’re definitely not human. Fine, let me rephrase: what are you, really?”

“From your human perspective, I am everywhere, I can do anything. Perhaps... what you humans might call a god?”

Xiao Zhang downed another glass of wine. “I don’t like metaphors like that... You should know I’m a pretty normal guy. And I can’t stand it when people act all superior in front of me.”

“Alright... no metaphors.” Zhao Bai looked into Xiao Zhang’s eyes. “You can think of it this way... I am the system of your world.”

Xiao Zhang took a long drag on his cigarette, staring at Zhao Bai. “And what does that mean, exactly?”

Zhao Bai smiled. “Strictly speaking, I am nothing, and also everything.”

Xiao Zhang said nothing, just watching, waiting for an answer.

Zhao Bai smiled gently. “You humans always attribute the things you can’t understand to the supernatural, but do you realize that beings like us have existed far longer than you have? In short, I am this world.”

Xiao Zhang still didn’t understand what the system meant. “What are you trying to say?”

“I am the will of this world.”

Xiao Zhang pondered that for a while, then had a thought—this damn system hadn’t actually said anything meaningful. “I still don’t really get it.”

“You like to play online games, don’t you?” Zhao Bai smiled faintly.

Xiao Zhang shook his head, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“Lackey, you don’t need to worry that I’m hiding anything. I know every hair on your body.”

“Don’t you think online games and transmigration stories are similar? In games, each player is like those protagonists who travel to other worlds. They enter a new world, experience various quests, and level up?”

“So, you mean those people all come from another world?”

“Exactly.” Zhao Bai smiled slowly. “To you, they truly are from another world.”

Xiao Zhang’s mind began to reel. “So our world is just a game world for another world? Are we just game accounts for someone else?”

“If you think of your world as an online game, then some of you are indeed logged-in accounts.”

Xiao Zhang lit another cigarette and took a deep drag. Going by what the system was saying, “Our world is just a game for another world? That’s impossible!”

Zhao Bai patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s talk about something else for now.”

“What?”

“How do you think the games you play come into being?”

“Well... I mean...” Xiao Zhang was stumped.

“Why don’t you continue?”

“Just like this world—do you really know how they are made?”

Xiao Zhang was stunned. “Isn’t it the Big Bang?”

Zhao Bai shook his head. “That’s just the form of life you understand.”

Xiao Zhang’s hand, holding the cigarette, began to tremble. He took another hard drag. “Are you saying our world is a virtual game created by another world?”

“Why do you assume that because something is created, it must be virtual?” Zhao Bai smiled. “Just as you humans are born, do you think you’re virtual?”

Xiao Zhang thought for a moment. “So, does that mean each of us is created by another world?”

“No, they’re not qualified to decide the fate of your world.”

“The only real will that decides everything is that of the system.”

“You?”

“No, not me. I’m just a wage slave.”