Deceitful Game

Chapter 18 The Faceless God Studio

After Mingpo granted the wish, the chip began to glow with a faint red aura. In this state, the chip was even more fragile than Mingpo had imagined—it crumbled like a wafer with the slightest bite.

The next moment, bright red flames burst from his mouth.

As an invisible ripple spread rapidly outwards, the surrounding black and white world instantly regained its bright and dazzling colors.

The silence instantly became clear, as if noise-canceling headphones had been removed. At the same time, even the smell could be detected—the toilet had a slightly pungent orange-scented cleaning agent smell, which made Mingpo, with her sensitive sense of smell, feel somewhat uncomfortable.

He took out his phone from his pocket and unlocked it with his fingerprint.

In an instant, various message notifications rang incessantly, even causing the system to freeze. Mingpo didn't look at them, but instead simply turned off all the notifications.

But what bothered Mingpo even more was that the familiar world was gradually slipping out of his comprehension.

He went out of the restroom and looked at the people sitting at their workstations.

For a moment, Mingpo felt as if she had been transported to another world.

The workstations and room decor here are completely different from the "Faceless God Studio" he remembered.

The computers and office chairs looked far more shabby than Mingpo had imagined. The walls were covered with anime character designs that Mingpo didn't recognize at all, and the employees' work attitude was a mix of helplessness and "whatever" attitude. It looked like one of those third-rate mobile game companies that hadn't even gotten a game license yet.

When Mingpo walked in, some people glanced at him but didn't respond. Only one young girl wearing glasses, sitting by the door eating bread, had her eyes light up and stared at him for several seconds.

So Mingpo walked over and politely asked, "Excuse me, has 'The God of No Face' Studio moved?"

"...Handsome, you've come to the wrong place, haven't you?"

The other party hesitated, saying, "We're in Building C1."

We're also in Building C1.

Mingbo was a little confused.

"Your company..."

Mingpo glanced at the unfamiliar company name and cat logo on the wall and asked, "When did you move in?"

"We've been here all along?"

The other person seemed even more confused than Mingpo, as if Mingpo was starting to lose confidence because of her questions: "We've been here for at least six years, right... Oh, right, we used to be 'Stinky Cat Studio,' haven't you changed your name and don't recognize us? Hahahaha..."

"A name I've never heard of before," Mingpo thought.

But to be able to build an office building in such a location for six years, even if there are losses, they obviously won't be too great.

At this thought, a terrible idea popped into Mingpo's mind.

Have you heard of the game "Ouroboros"?

"I don't really remember..."

"It's an MMO, and it's quite popular. It's been around for quite a few years now."

"I'm not sure... I play JX3 and JX4, and I've never heard of this game. Is it from an external website?"

"Maybe I remembered the name wrong..."

Mingpo shook his head and prepared to get up and take his leave.

The other person stood up and took two steps after him: "Hey, handsome—can I add you on WeChat? I can tell you if I find out anything."

"Okay, scan me."

Mingpo smiled insincerely, opened WeChat on his phone, and casually accepted the friend request from the girl whose name he had never even asked.

He left quickly and started searching online while waiting for the elevator.

as predicted.

He hadn't seen the name "The Faceless God Studio" at all, let alone "Ouroboros." Yet he clearly saw "Ouroboros" posters and merchandise in his own home…

...Could it be because of the passage of time, that someone changed history and made it disappear?

Mingpo frowned as he rapidly searched for information.

He first checked the past works of "The God of No Face" and found that they were all gone. Mingpo then checked the names of some of his close colleagues and found that they had also disappeared—but their talents... even if they weren't in this industry, they should have been famous.

"2026..."

He murmured softly.

Mingpo's memories are like a hotel with an "infinite" number of rooms. Because the numbers are "infinite," he doesn't know which room number is the last one; similarly, he doesn't know what his last memory is.

Whenever he sees something familiar, he can recall the corresponding memory. However, he cannot actively recall where his last memory is, and therefore does not even know the year he died.

But he was certain that it was 26 years ago.

He looked up Attorney Chen's name again and found that he was surprisingly famous.

Two million followers??

He was shocked as soon as he opened the music.

Two million followers on a single platform... that's quite a large number.

But Mingpo had absolutely no memory of him, and had never even heard of him.

Similarly, Mingpo also found out the identity of that "fish".

The most popular parody videos about him on Bilibili alone have eight million views. Yet, he also has no memory of it…

...If she hadn't just seen the familiar neighbor's child, Mingpo would have wondered if she had transmigrated into a very similar yet completely different modern alternate world.

Thinking this, he opened the chat software, intending to find his colleague.

Looking at the pile of messages expressing concern, unease, and doubt, Mingpo was certain that in this world, or in this timeline of herself, she had only been "out of contact" for seven days.

Fortunately, he was only out of contact for seven days before many people came looking for him.

Unfortunately, he didn't know half of the people who messaged him.

Mingpo selected a group of people he felt he wasn't familiar with offline and replied with perfunctory messages like "It's okay, I've been a bit busy lately." Then, he quickly opened his chat software and began browsing through the chat history to gather more information.

"...What exactly happened?"

Mingpo murmured softly.

The good mood he felt upon returning "home" gradually dissipated along with the rising anxiety.

His aura became unsettling again, and even passersby instinctively avoided him.

At that moment, Mingpo suddenly saw a familiar person.

That was Ai Shiping!

He rarely wore a suit and tie.

In that instant, Mingpo suddenly recalled an extremely precise time coordinate—

In his memory, he had introduced this job to Ai Shiping a long time ago. Ai Shiping was interested and planned to work as a copywriter, but the boss hired him but planned to assign him to HR.

In Mingpo's memory, there was no recollection of Ai Shiping's interview being successful or unsuccessful.

Therefore, the time of his death should be between when the boss was planning to hire Ai Shiping and before he went for the interview.

But then, Mingpo frowned.

Ai Shiping was seen replying to messages on his phone, walking slower and slower. He strolled leisurely across the zebra crossing, eventually stopping altogether and focusing intently on replying to messages with both hands.

This sight ignited Mingpo's anger instantly.

"Don't use your phone while walking, you idiot!"

He shouted curses.

Upon hearing Mingpo's words, the other person paused for a moment, then looked up in astonishment.

The moment he saw Mingpo clearly, he froze on the spot, his face showing an expression of disbelief as if he had seen a ghost.

Just then.

A dump truck suddenly appeared out of nowhere and knocked Ai Shiping, who was standing on the crosswalk, flying away!

The loud crashing sound of a human body hitting another body caused other passersby to scream.

Cars braked suddenly, and people rushed off. Soon, a crowd gathered at a distance... but the large truck vanished without a trace.

It's not as simple as a hit-and-run.

Instead, they truly vanished without a trace.

Mingbo saw it clearly—it appeared out of thin air a moment before hitting the person, and then disappeared just as suddenly afterward. Although he didn't know how it did it, it was clearly a supernatural force.

"...Is it the weight of time?"

Mingpo murmured softly, "Is it...you?"

Unlike those people, Mingpo neither went to watch nor called an ambulance.

Instead, he slowly took out his last "Red Copper of Time" from his sleeve.

His face darkened completely, and an unsettling smile gradually appeared on his lips.

He held the chip between his right middle finger and thumb.

Mingpo opened her lips and gave an almost silent command:

Let me go back [one hour]

With a snap of his fingers, a burst of scorching fire erupted from between his fingers with a loud bang.

The next moment, the flames spread wildly, engulfing the entire world within his field of vision.

As if being baked by fire, the surrounding world curled up, turned yellow, and melted rapidly.

A dim, yellowish light enveloped the world, blurring the figures of passersby, their movements becoming increasingly rapid and dark...

When the light returned, Mingpo reappeared in his room.

He glanced at the countdown on the wall.

——167:14:40.

——167:14:39.

Less than an hour had passed, and the timing was accurate.

...Would the countdown for this thing not be affected even if we went back in time?

That's good, it serves as a reference point.

Without hesitation, Mingpo got up and planned to go find Ai Shiping.

We must at least prevent him from going out today.

Mingpo doesn't have many friends, so he can't let that guy get involved in the trouble he caused.

"It seems..."

His somber voice was filled with murderous intent: "Someone has already made his way to death."