Law of Tragedy

Zhi Hua admits that he misses Aunty Chen and her husband a little. It has been a week but he remembers them from time to time, as for the rest well they were merely acquaintances that he soon forgot. They were both living in the apartment owned by Min Ho who in turn was preparing to go to another seed, Zhi Hua knew it was just an excuse to avoid him but he didn't care in at all, after all they were tied together.

As he expected the collection, was more furnished than the slums with paved roads and adequate infrastructure but still no cars, airplane, lightbulb so lanterns were used instead, the computers were in the first generation and still no mobile phones just the ones used in the 90 with that circle thing. It was still better so Zhi Hua couldn't complain.

There were also schools here and normal modern jobs too except that the architecture/ inventors were players. When asked the reason from Min Ho, he just looked at me weirdly and said how else would they know how to build it if they didn't learn from the foreigners, which was a term to describe the people living in the main storyline. These people are just like their boss; they only know how to copy and not create.

That's the reason why any job that has to do with creative thinking like designing were done by players. Infact there seemed to be no job like writers which in turn meant no movies, plays or generally theatre instead of that the normal people watch the main storyline following the main characters on a television.They don't know the main characters before the players enter the world seeds so there's no information to leak.

After exploring a few times, Zhi Hua began to think of what he wants to do now. The mist was quiet as usual and the only thing left was to become a player. According to Min Ho, the process was easy. One just has to go to a library and go through screening to get a pass which would allow the librarian to assign you to a seed. The problem was that the screening involved testing your karma by the author himself and that's someone Zhi Hua wants to stay far away from so that's not an option. The only place left was to be an inventor.

They had no need to go through screening because they couldn't participate in the storyline and were just sent to learn so they could stay longer than the players even when the main storyline ended. It has no age requirement except that you must be at least 16 and healthy. They were disdained by the players because they were just going for learning and they were still normal people at the end of the day so it didn't have much competition for volunteers.

Zhi Hua took Feng with him to register. The next Monday came and it was time to report to work so they dressed neatly and took a carriage to the Institute of Architecture. Their supervisor gave them an ID then explained that they had a 1 year limit for each seed they go to and had to be in pairs. When the one year was up, they would automatically be transferred back by the ID, to activate it was to simply say the command 'begin'.

Zhi Hua studied the ID with interest. It was something that was magical in a sense but these people don't seem to realize that. It was revealed by the supervisor when he asked that it was made in the inner wall and was restricted for only this institute, Zhi Hua knew these people don't care about how it works plus they won't be able to figure it out no matter how they tried because the level of creativity used was on the boundary of the impossible that could only be imagined.

"Begin" Zhi Hua said. He doesn't have the ability to question anything right now so he can only put it at the back of his mind. The others in the room set for entering the seed began to pass out with only him left which made him panic a bit.

To make matters worse, the mist that was usually dormant began to become agitated then gathered into the ID card seemingly fighting with something as it was dispersing once it touched it but eventually the scale tipped and the ID card began to absorb it then a small eyeball popped out glaring at it. Zhi Hua began to curse this stupid mist for always being to flashy as he began to feel weak again. The mist eventually won and they were hurled to the other world but Zhi Hua wasn't aware of any of this because he passed out just as the mist won.

Zhi Hua woke up and all he saw was black. He panicked and blinked rapidly but he still saw only black. He tried to call out to Feng but no sound came out and he panicked more thinking that he might have entered the body of someone who was blind and dumb when the darkness receded. He closed his eyes in intuition then opened it again to see he was laying down on the floor of a building.

He breathed a sigh of relief then scrambled to his feet just to be surprised again. He was in a library with the front door behind him and shelves of books infront of him, he was vigilant at first waiting for anything to happen but after waiting there was nothing. He eventually realized that the place was silent with no single sound, even the sound of his breathing was muted.

Zhi Hua gathered courage and walked forward. It was weird to walk without hearing the sound of your footsteps or breathing but he got accustomed to it, that eerie silence where your thoughts are magnified and he can see why people can go crazy because of it. That's right his thoughts are quiet too like a murmur, Zhi Hua realized that and found that this place must be extraordinary.

He reached out and carefully took a book to be surprised that it was in Chinese and it was a light novel he read back on earth. He started to have a suspicion and took other books more boldly only to meet the same result as before.

Zhi Hua connected the dots and came to a conclusion. The mist he saw when he woke up must have been these books, he was still examining the place when he heard the door open.

Zhi Hua jumped and turned around swiftly to see a cloud of this mist approaching him swiftly and before he could dodge it slammed itself into his face and entered every hole it could find including his nostrils, eyes, ears and mouth. Zhi Hua was terrified and tried to drag it but his hands passed through and he felt like he was choking. He eventually passed out again due to lack of air.