Seven years after the game descended, the world’s 37 top players sat high upon their altars, basking in the tributes. Nobody remembered that in the commoners’ district, there was an ID called “Zero.” For seven years, she had done just one thing: cleared the first floor 3,741 times. It wasn’t for points or to kill time. It was 3,741 experiments. On March 12 of the seventh year, she submitted an application to enter the second floor. System review time: 0.4 seconds. The global livestream accidentally switched to her for 0.3 seconds that day. 170,000 people took screenshots. Reporters swarmed outside her apartment building, and her biological father, missing for 18 years, knelt at the door and choked out, “Daddy missed you so much.” She stopped in front of the cameras. “On the thirty-seventh day after my mother died, when I was seven, you remarried in the neighboring county. Under the special statute on the limitation period for abandonment, you have 14 months left.” The security gate closed. She didn’t look back.
Later, someone asked her: You fought alone for seven years. What for? She replied: “There’s no god behind the door to the fifth floor. The throne is empty. But someone has to go and see for themselves. Whether I climb onto it or tear it down after I’ve seen it, that’s a decision for later.”
