Chapter 1: Rebirth at Max Level?

Chapter 1 Reborn at Max Level?

What the hell… happened?

Lying on his back on the deserted, rain-soaked street, the drenched young man felt no cold from the icy downpour. He simply stared incredulously at the moonless night sky, not moving a muscle even as raindrops fell into his eyes.

Since entering the Nightmare World game and becoming a player, Su Bai hadn’t seen a night sky without the Red Moon in ten full years. Even one of the most terrifying anomalies in the Nightmare World couldn’t obscure the Red Moon in its sky—that blood-red full moon, like a devil's eye, perpetually gazing down upon every player in the Nightmare World. But now, that Red Moon, which coexisted with the Nightmare World, was gone.

He greedily breathed in the rain, inhaling the clean air devoid of any trace of blood.

This wasn’t the Nightmare World—this was the real world.

Su Bai struggled to lift his right hand. Beneath the soaked old school uniform was an extremely frail arm. Though the uniform was familiar, he was no longer the inexperienced student from over a decade ago. And this body… even though he hadn’t developed those enviable, exaggerated muscles during his ten years in the Nightmare World, he could still knock out a few people with ease. But now, forget people—he felt like he couldn’t even swat a fly with the strength in his hands. Plus, whether it was because he’d been drenched in the rain for too long or not, his body felt weak, and even his consciousness was somewhat blurred.

“I should be…” Su Bai struggled to recall his memories before losing consciousness, but found even those memories were hazy.

Su Bai forced himself to sit up, gradually moving under the awning of a nearby shop, and then let out a heavy sigh of relief.

As he looked up, he saw a shopping mall not far from the street corner. On the electronic screen hanging outside the five-story mall, even at this after-hours, even as it was pelted by the heavy rain, various light-polluted advertisements continued to scroll through the deep night.

But the year and date displayed on the electronic screen were…

Eleven years ago?

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Su Bai was too weak to even muster a bitter smile. Compared to the ten years of struggling on the brink of death in the Nightmare World, Su Bai from eleven years ago was more like someone living in a nightmare.

Back then, Su Bai was just an ordinary, even somewhat timid, high school student. His mother was lying in the hospital, hanging by a thread after a car accident, while all the family’s money had been squandered by his good-for-nothing older brother, Su Xuan—a gambling addict and drunkard.

Su Bai’s family consisted of only him, his brother, and their mother. His father had passed away from illness when Su Bai was too young to remember, and it was their mother who had endured countless hardships to raise the two brothers on her own. Neither Su Bai nor his mother could understand how the eldest son of the Su family, once optimistic, hardworking, and clever, had overnight degenerated into a gambling addict who would threaten to kill himself without a drink.

Especially after their mother was hospitalized, that bastard had borrowed money from relatives, friends, and even Su Bai’s teachers and classmates’ parents under the pretext of needing emergency medical funds for their mother’s accident—only to waste it all at the gambling table.

In the end, even that bastard himself vanished without a trace, never to be seen again.

As memories of the past surfaced, Su Bai closed his eyes in pain. Even though these were memories from ten years ago for him, every time he recalled the moment he learned the truth, that feeling of despair, as if plunging into an abyss, would wash over him again and again.

After that, all the beauty that should have been in Su Bai’s life faded away. To keep his mother’s treatment going, he gave up his dream university. While his classmates were cramming for the college entrance exams, he was already scrambling to find ways to make money. But in the end, he could only watch helplessly as relatives holding high-interest IOUs took their home away.

Back then, Su Bai had tried every possible means, but in the end, his mother in the hospital passed away without ever opening her eyes to look at him one last time. Maybe it was due to insufficient medical technology, or maybe the money Su Bai desperately scraped together was still too little… After his mother’s death, none of that mattered to Su Bai anymore. The only thing that could be considered a wish or a goal was to find that demon Su Xuan and send his biological older brother to kneel before their mother and apologize.

A person must want something, seek something—otherwise, what’s the difference between them and a walking corpse? It was precisely when Su Bai was aimlessly searching for that bastard’s whereabouts that a rickety, dilapidated Route 444 last bus picked up the homeless, drowsy Su Bai and carried him into a world illuminated by blood-red moonlight—a terrifying game world known as the Nightmare World!

He became one of the chosen players of the Nightmare World.

In this Nightmare World, where survival meant completing horror games, Su Bai didn’t need to dwell on the troubles of the real world. He only needed to simply, desperately, and exhaustively think about how to stay alive. And so, step by step, he transformed from an ordinary person who couldn’t even harm a fly into…

Into someone who wouldn’t hesitate to make an unspeakable contract with the most terrifying anomalies of the Nightmare World if it meant surviving… a strange person.

Truth be told, Su Bai himself didn’t know what he had become after being tormented by the Nightmare World for ten years.

Was he even human anymore?

×

Forcing himself back from the nightmare-like memories, Su Bai opened his eyes and repeatedly confirmed the time on the electronic screen before him, then glanced around at the equally familiar yet unfamiliar street.

This was unmistakably the neighborhood he had lived in before losing his family and home in the real world. Before the accident, Su Bai’s mother had run a small clothing store on this very street, so even after being away for so long, he couldn’t mistake it.

Su Bai looked again at his utterly weak and extremely frail arms, and an absurd possibility surfaced in his mind—

He had returned to eleven years ago. Absurd, fanciful, but at this moment, there was no more reasonable explanation.

“But if this really is eleven years ago… then…”

Then…

Su Bai, who had been leaning against the wall, suddenly thought of something. Using the wall for support and mustering all his strength, he barely managed to stand up and looked to the right of the electronic screen ahead. Not far from this street, a red cross glowed in the rainy night.

That was the hospital where his mother was receiving treatment!

Su Bai clearly remembered that he had entered the Nightmare Game World and became a player on November 11th, ten years ago—the first anniversary of his mother’s death. If the time on the electronic screen wasn’t wrong, if today was really October 8th eleven years ago, then…

His mother was still alive!

All along, Su Bai had no other beliefs or desires besides “staying alive,” which was why other players in the Nightmare Game World saw him as a weirdo. But now, he had something he absolutely had to do—

He had to go to the hospital to see his mother one more time!

Leaning his right hand against the wall, Su Bai gritted his teeth and walked toward the hospital. Though his steps were unsteady, it was the fastest he could manage now. Though his body was cold and weak, perhaps because he had something he must do, or because something within him was awakening, Su Bai gradually felt less miserable.

Despite being exhausted, the further Su Bai walked, the easier his breathing became, the lighter his body felt, and even the chill from the rain faded as the downpour stopped, replaced by a growing warmth.

“There’s really not a single person.” Looking at the empty street with only himself and the reflections in puddles, Su Bai still felt somewhat dazed. Though this street had never been particularly bustling, and though it was now the early hours after rain, was it normal for there to be absolutely no one around?

In his daze, Su Bai passed by a shop near a crossroad. Though his desire to see his mother was urgent, for some reason, he couldn’t help but stop and glance at the strange store.

Strange, but it looked quite ordinary, even somewhat small—a glass display window and a somewhat worn wooden door, no signboard, pitch black inside with no visible merchandise. It looked less like a shop with peculiar allure and more like an empty storefront waiting to be rented.

The sole noteworthy feature was the Chinese character "囍" (double happiness) affixed to the glass showcase. Its duration there remained uncertain—the corners had begun to peel, and the once-vibrant crimson had bleached entirely into a ghostly pallor, casting an uncanny aura in the midnight stillness.

But it was this very shop that seemed to possess some peculiar power, making Su Bai halt in his tracks.

Because... from the very beginning until now, Su Bai had encountered three intersections, and at each one, he spotted the exact same vacant shopfront—the glass display pane, the weathered wooden door, the barren shelves devoid of goods, and that peeling, upturned "Double Happiness" character.

Identical shops appeared at every crossroad Su Bai passed!

Su Bai’s breathing grew heavier, but the next second, he turned and resumed walking toward the hospital. He had experienced countless bizarre events in the Nightmare Game World. Though this deserted street and the stalker-like shops were very odd, his most urgent wish right now was to get to the hospital!

Wishes were a luxury for Su Bai, so he would seize this one without fail.

But the moment Su Bai turned and stepped toward the crossroad, the blare of a car horn exploded in his ears. A car sped through the intersection under a yellow light, splashing water onto Su Bai’s feet. If he hadn’t stopped at the sound of the horn, Su Bai might have been sent flying by the car that couldn’t brake in time.

“Are you blind?!” a cursing voice came from the direction of the speeding car.

Su Bai looked around in surprise. The once eerily empty street now had scattered pedestrians and occasional passing vehicles. He could even see a few stores open overnight along the street.

The faint sound of music from shops, the noise of cars, the whispers of a couple late at night, and an office worker talking on the phone as they passed by Su Bai—the previously silent, eerie world suddenly came “alive” in the blink of an eye.

Su Bai once more recalled the peculiar shop that seemed to be tailing him, yet soon realized even the store with the faded "double happiness" character had vanished as well.