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"Are you talking about... the outside world?"

Ali’s enchanting eyes turned serious, and she stood up, her aura making Zi Yue frown.

"Calm down a bit."

"What you’re telling me..." Ali took a breath and said, "We come from that world, everything here is fake, that’s where we truly belonged!"

Zi Yue looked at her and after a moment of silence, said, "You’ve been here so long, do you really think everything here is fake? Don’t you remember anything from before? Do you truly want to return to the past, or do you simply want to escape from here?"

Ali: "...."

Facing Zi Yue’s sharp gaze, Ali finally backed down, averting her eyes and said, "Then why does Chen Qing want to go back? Does he want to abandon this place?"

"It’s probably not like that..." Zi Yue shook her head, "I haven’t spent many days together with Chen Qing, but I can feel that he’s genuinely caring towards the people around him, and he has put his heart into the place he’s created, he wouldn’t abandon it so easily."

"When I left before, a person appeared in the Southeast who could summon us, I guess that person must have been sent from the outside world.

According to the military reports from the past few days, Chen Qing has already successfully taken control of the Southeast, he must also have gotten that outsider under control. "

"I’m guessing those people from the outside wanted to contact Chen Qing and reached some sort of deal with him, so Chen Qing had the opportunity to return once."

"If Chen Qing can go back, what about us?" Ali asked eagerly, to be honest, she did want to escape from here, if she could leave this dangerous world, she really didn’t want to stay, deep down... she also didn’t want to face Cui Yan again...

"It might not be a good thing..." Zi Yue shook her head and said, "How do you think the people outside would view us?"

"What do you mean, how would they view us?" Ali was startled, "Didn’t you say that we were sent here?"

"About that... I actually have some doubts..." Zi Yue’s voice turned somber, "He said... the development team is a special group sent by the Federation from above, the hope for humanity’s salvation. But... I don’t remember this memory, no one does, only the King of Qin remembers, everything was told by him. "

I trusted him before, but now, I suddenly have doubts... what that guy said back then, was it really true?

"Do you mean... we are not the ones sent from above?" Ali was taken aback.

"It’s not clear for now, maybe... we can only wait for Chen Qing to tell us."

"Why can’t he take us with him?" Ali became anxious, "I could also know the truth firsthand, right?"

"If Chen Qing hasn’t brought it up voluntarily, then the higher-ups likely only want to see Chen Qing.

.." Zi Yue said pensively, "An invitation to just one person must mean they are wary of something.

Think about it, if those outsiders had the ability to take us back at any time, why would they need to conquer this world? "

"This only means firstly, to bring people back from this world, they need cooperation from the people here, and secondly, bringing back just one person probably indicates that we would pose a threat to the outside world once out!"

"A threat?" Ali was puzzled, "Why? This world is fake, after we get out, we surely can’t still be demons... right..."

At that instant when the words were spoken, both of their eyes lit up.

Could that be?

---------------------------

"Are you really going?"

This time seeking out Chen Qing was Tianji, who had not been seen for a long time.

Chen Qing was slightly surprised by the other’s arrival, but quickly composed himself, "Did you meet with Jiang Xiaoling?"

"Nonsense..." Tianji rolled his eyes at him.

Chen Qing frowned. Jiang Xiaoling’s family was protected by a barrier, and they were escorted to the institute for their routine schooling. The only chance to have contact with him would be at the Tiandao Institute, which... was shielded by its own barrier.

The Tiandao Institute is responsible for the protective barrier of the academy, which is often updated and replaced, making it so not even the students on duty could enter without alerting the barrier. Yet, this guy managed to do it with effortless ease.

A person who can ignore the barrier and is hard to catch does indeed pose a headache. No wonder the ancient forces have always been annoyed by him; to them, such a capability, if not exploited for their own use, is just asking for trouble...

"You knew about this truth before, didn’t you?" Chen Qing looked at the other person.

Tianji hesitated for a moment, and finally nodded, "I knew. King of Qin was number one, but in fact, it was I who initially led the team."

"This just got interesting..." Chen Qing smiled, "King of Qin claimed that after a failed betrayal, he lost the ability to communicate with the higher-ups. But you? You were unharmed all this time, weren’t you? Why did you break contact with the Federation?"

"Simple..." Tianji smiled, "If I suddenly stopped making contact, they wouldn’t think I had betrayed them, preventing them from quickly using the disintegration program.

Then, during the time when King of Qin disappeared, I just cut off contact altogether and have been enjoying my freedom all these years. "

"All for the sake of being free and easy?"

"Partly..." Tianji sprawled comfortably on a rocking chair and said lazily, "You don’t know how exhausting it is to bear the lives of so many people. These twenty years of carefree life have been really good, but unfortunately, it couldn’t last too long.

Now, I actually envy those sealed-off guys; they can be carefree and just daydream all the time. "

"You might not say that after daydreaming for tens of thousands of years..." Chen Qing rolled his eyes, "Since you mentioned there were other reasons, what are they?"

"First of all, there are traitors in the Federation!"

"Traitors?" Chen Qing narrowed his eyes, "What do you mean by traitors, and who are they leaning towards?"

"Of course, those old players!" Tianji said with a cold laugh. "You don’t really think that the Federation nobility can resist the temptation, do you? If they had a chance at immortality for themselves, do you think they would genuinely care about the fate of ordinary people, or the Federation’s capacity to accommodate everyone? "

"There’s an insider, meaning... actually, there are people in the Federation who have colluded with this side?"

"Of course! You think the people here don’t want to control the Federation?

" Tianji chuckled, "No matter how big or real this Virtual Realm is, at the end of the day, it’s still just a virtual world.

The Federation can shut it down. Once they cut the power, everything here will dissipate into thin air.

With such a huge threat, do you think those players who have gained immortality would allow it? "

"They don’t want the Federation meddling, disturbing their absolute authority in this world, and they don’t want the Federation to give up on this place either.

Likewise, the Federation wants to have control over here but also doesn’t want to compromise with those players.

Both sides have been at a stalemate, persisting for so long. "

"I’m curious about something..." Chen Qing said, puzzled, "Is this world so indispensable to them? It’s just a game, after all. Can’t the Virtual World be recreated?

Jiang Xiaoling said that this world consumes almost half of Huazhong’s electricity.

Instead of wasting resources here, why not simply shut this down and create a new one? "

"It’s not that simple..." Tianji shook his head, "When digital life rose anew, it created a century of chaos before the Federation could take control of the situation. But during that chaotic period, some key things were lost, namely the complex password for creating virtual worlds. All these years have passed, and despite the Federation’s technology advancing generation after generation, they somehow still can’t create a new Virtual World.

Also, the original intelligences of these Virtual Realms have always been impenetrable. "

"Even more bizarre is that all the designers who created the virtual worlds vanished without a trace after the chaotic period of the digital era; not a single trace of them could be found. All the designers disappeared, and although we don’t quite believe a game designer could possess the complex codes to create virtual intelligences, the disappearance of you designers.

.. always feels like something orchestrated. "

Chen Qing: "......"

"So your appearance is strange!" Tianji frowned, "In theory, you shouldn’t have appeared."

"I..." Chen Qing felt an inexplicable pang in his heart, always feeling that he had forgotten something very important...

What could it be?

"Forget it, you look like you don’t know anyway, especially since you didn’t even know what the Virtual Realm was initially. Let’s talk about your desire to return to the Federation."

Chen Qing nodded, "What do you have to tell me?"

"You’re not thinking about going there and taking control of the Federation, are you?" Tianji asked hauntingly.

"I don’t have such grand ambitions..." Chen Qing smirked, "Just getting away would be fine."

"It’s impossible to get away..." Tianji shook his head, "Did you get information that once there, you could retain the abilities from the game?"

Chen Qing nodded, "When I first heard about this, I thought it was unbelievable, but it turns out to be true, so I’m very curious... what makes them dare to let me go over!"