### Chapter One: Awakening
Cold, trembling—this was a train compartment, but from the jolting rhythm, it was unmistakably a train car.
Wang Zongchao woke up groggily from his deep sleep, a unique metallic scent irritating his nose and mouth. However, he didn't open his eyes immediately. Instead, he silently calmed himself and subtly moved every tiny muscle in his body.
"Physical condition is normal, no signs of injury or restraint. My clothes are the same as before I lost consciousness, except for a strange metal watch on my right hand! No traces of anesthesia, and even more unbelievable, judging by the hunger in my stomach, I couldn't have been unconscious for more than twenty minutes!"
With precise control over every muscle and bone in his body, Wang Zongchao quickly assessed his current state through imperceptible movements. Yet, this only deepened his sense of dread.
"Who could have knocked me out without me noticing and moved me to an unfamiliar place in such a short time?"
Uncertain of the situation, Wang Zongchao continued to feign unconsciousness, though his body was coiled like a fully drawn bow, ready to strike at any moment.
"There are several breathing sounds around me, most of them steady, likely from people either asleep or unconscious like I was. One, two, three... five people, three men and two women. Including me, that makes six. But there's one awake, judging by the breathing rhythm, probably smoking... Hmm, someone's about to wake up."
As Wang Zongchao predicted, someone nearby suddenly jumped up. Then the person who had been smoking spoke in a cold voice, "Not bad. You're the best of this batch."
"Where is this? Who are you? Why am I here?" a young man's voice asked.
Interesting. This man wasn't panicking. Wang Zongchao could tell that although the voice trembled slightly at first, it remained composed, and by the last sentence, it had steadied.
Since someone else had taken the lead and Wang Zongchao sensed no malice from the speaker, he decided to stop pretending. He opened one eye to glance around. The two speakers were men in their late twenties. One was ordinary-looking but had a face crisscrossed with scars that made him appear fearsome.
While most people would be distracted by the scars, Wang Zongchao noticed more—the bulge in the man's clothes, likely a pistol, and especially his eyes.
They were pitch-black, the kind that seemed to swallow all light, deep and unfathomable.
The other man was handsome, dressed in polished shoes, slacks, and a T-shirt, all of good quality, accentuating his tall, lean frame. His hair was neatly styled with a bit of gel, exuding a mix of sharpness and subtle weariness—a typical urban professional.
Though this white-collar worker looked somewhat lost, his gaze was steady, fixed on the scarred man. His composure impressed Wang Zongchao, especially for someone who seemed like an ordinary office worker. Of course, for a professional soldier, this level of calm would be merely passable.
"Good luck. Another one with decent potential," the scarred man nodded.
Wang Zongchao simply smiled and sat down on a nearby train seat, leaning back with his hands resting naturally, appearing completely relaxed, even closing his eyes slightly.
Though he seemed at ease, Wang Zongchao had focused all his energy into his dantian, just below his navel. His thigh muscles were coiled like springs, his spine heavy and centered, his weight balanced on his tailbone like a dragonfly skimming water. His entire body was primed to explode into action at any moment.
In such a bizarre situation, he couldn't afford to let his guard down.
The scarred man's expression shifted slightly, seemingly unaware of Wang Zongchao's alertness, and turned back to the white-collar worker. "Think carefully. The answer is already in your mind."
Wang Zongchao's heart stirred. With that prompt, a strange piece of information suddenly appeared in his mind.
"Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to... truly live?
Yes or no?..."
"Can a simple dialog box on a computer really bring me here? This is absurd..." Wang Zongchao was increasingly realizing that the situation he was in defied ordinary logic.
Meanwhile, the other three men and two women who had been lying down began to wake up. Their reactions and physical conditions were within the normal range, though Wang Zongchao noticed that the bespectacled, delicate-looking girl who woke up first stood out. Despite her plain clothes and gentle demeanor, her eyes were filled more with observation and thought than panic.
The scarred man began to explain to them.
"So you're saying we're like in *The Matrix*, our consciousness plugged into a game, and once we finish, we return to our bodies?" asked an unremarkable, chubby young man next to the white-collar worker. He had been visibly agitated.
"I don't know about consciousness, but I do know that in this game, you can get hurt, feel pain, and die! You newbies are lucky. This scenario is *Resident Evil I*, a simple sci-fi horror movie, and with only seven people, it's low difficulty. Easy to get through, and even if you don't, you'll die quickly without much suffering. The scenarios we enter are different each time—maybe something you've seen, maybe not. The 'Main God' adds new people every time, with the total number of participants ranging from seven to twenty. So, this scenario with only seven people is the lowest difficulty," the scarred man explained while fiddling with a large Desert Eagle.
"Pfft! How do you know they're dead? Maybe they've already returned to their bodies and are living it up! I think this is just some unreleased virtual reality game," the chubby man scoffed.
The scarred man was clearly provoked. A cold glint flashed in his eyes, and in the next moment, he lunged like a black panther, pinning the chubby man to the ground and shoving the gun into his mouth. He began ranting about the horrors he had faced in his first horror movie, his eyes filled with a murderous rage that barely masked his own fear.
"You want to try it? Want to see if death will get you out of this cage? Huh? Do you? You piece of shit, what do you know? Last time, in *A Nightmare on Elm Street I*, there were fifteen newbies and two veterans. You know how it ended? They all died, every single one of them! They died in their fucking stupid dreams! Do you know what it's like to watch yourself being cut up with scissors, piece by piece, like a ragdoll, your skin, muscles, intestines, organs all laid out on the floor like a puzzle, and you're still alive, forced to watch as your body parts are sorted out because your eyelids were cut off long ago!"
The scarred man's low, delirious mutterings turned his eyes blood-red, radiating a chilling, naked killing intent.
"Were you in the military?" Suddenly, a calm voice broke through the scarred man's frenzy.
"How did you know?" The scarred man didn't remove the gun from the chubby man's mouth, but his attention shifted to Wang Zongchao, who had spoken.
"Your movements—drawing the gun, lunging, subduing—they have the marks of PLA training."
The scarred man's eyes flickered with surprise. "You're very observant."
"I don't care how you interpret the purpose of your military training, but it certainly wasn't so you could shove a gun into the mouth of an unarmed civilian at the slightest provocation," Wang Zongchao said bluntly. Though he sensed the scarred man's threats were more for intimidation than genuine intent, he still found the behavior distasteful.
Hearing this challenge, the scarred man narrowed his eyes like a predator sizing up prey. The others tensed, unsure what he would do next.
But Wang Zongchao remained slouched in his seat, seemingly unfazed by the scarred man's pressure.
This made the scarred man hesitate. He simply sneered, "You want to stand up for this waste? Save your energy. Death in the scenario is real death. I bet this trash won't last an hour."
"Lu Xun once said, 'The strong wield their blades against the stronger, while the weak turn theirs on the weaker.' If all you can do is pick on those you consider trash, it only proves you're weak yourself," Wang Zongchao retorted, causing the scarred man's expression to darken.
The scarred man's nightmarish words, blood-red eyes, and the grotesque, bulging scars on his face gave him a deranged, almost insane aura. Everyone believed he might shoot the chubby man and turn Wang Zongchao into Swiss cheese at any moment.
Yet Wang Zongchao simply met his gaze calmly, showing no fear of the gun in his hand.
The white-collar worker and the bespectacled girl mustered their courage to calm the scarred man. Eventually, he settled down, returning to his seat and resuming his meticulous cleaning of the Desert Eagle. His bloodshot eyes gradually returned to normal. "You're right. I am weak. In this absurd world, we're all weak, just toys, ants to be played with!"
Wang Zongchao studied the scarred man, who had gone from a raving lunatic to a somewhat fragile, defeated figure. He found it strange. With his acute senses, he could tell that half of the man's outburst was genuine, while the other half was an act. But why?
As the scarred man calmed down, the bespectacled girl asked softly, "Is there really no way to return to our bodies?"
The scarred man's eyebrows shot up, and he sneered, "Enough! I've said it before, and I won't repeat myself! We're not some fucking consciousness plugged into a computer game! Look around you, really look! This is a moving train car. Touch the metal walls and floor, smell the metallic stench in the air, pinch your face and see if it hurts! Do you still think current technology can achieve this level of virtual reality? Can it? This is the work of gods and demons! And we... we're just insects in costumes. Oh, right, have you seen *Gladiator*? We're the gladiators in the arena! I don't think I'll make it out of this arena alive."
Ignoring the man's rising agitation, the bespectacled girl pressed on, "Not all gladiators died in the arena. From what you're saying, there's a chance to survive and return?"
The scarred man looked at her with surprise. "Impressive. This batch of newbies is really something. You're right, there is a chance—just a chance."
He glanced at the five pairs of hopeful eyes and smirked. "After completing a mission, or surviving a scenario, you earn a thousand reward points. These points can be exchanged for many things, including... the ability to live in that scenario's world for a hundred days."
A middle-aged man next to the bespectacled girl immediately protested, "Are you kidding? Who'd want to go back to that hellhole? That's self-torture!"
"I think... he means choosing a safe area within that scenario," the bespectacled girl said, touching her broad forehead. "For example, in *A Nightmare on Elm Street I*, aside from that town... other places, other countries, would be safe. By the way, during missions, can't you just run to the Vatican or some other holy place for refuge?"
The scarred man gave her a sidelong glance and sneered. "You're imaginative, but unfortunately, in *A Nightmare on Elm Street I*, I drove for three days and nights with others, thinking we'd gotten far away. But in the blink of an eye, we realized the driver, who had started laughing maniacally, was actually the demon! And sometimes, the Main God restricts your location or assigns tasks that force you to fight for your life! In short, no mission in this game is easy."
"Conditional restrictions? Is it like raising gu or running a gladiatorial arena?" Wang Zongchao pondered but couldn't make sense of it.
The scarred man continued, "Look at your watches. Is there a name in the top left corner? Say it."
Everyone noticed the black, purely metallic watches on their wrists, simple and ancient in design.
"Matthew Addison!"
Several people read the name aloud, and to their astonishment, one of the foreign soldiers—a tall, strong, and resolute black man—emitted a faint glow for a moment before returning to normal.
"That's the captain of the mercenaries in the movie. This film is a localized horror story, with the plot confined to the lab. To limit the difficulty, the Main God prevents us from straying too far from the story area. If you go more than a hundred meters from Matthew Addison, we'll... boom, vanish into nothingness. Got it?
Also, you'll see a restriction: 'Before the first shutdown of the Red Queen, you cannot reveal the existence of the T-virus, zombies, or lickers to the mercenaries, nor can you mention the laser corridor.' Note that it's 'cannot.' If we even try to tell them, the Main God will prevent us from speaking. So, no matter what, we'll have to face the zombies," the scarred man explained.
The white-collar worker suddenly asked, "What is this 'Main God' you keep mentioning?"
"The Main God is probably the entity managing our entry into this horror movie cycle. It gives us reward points, and we exchange them through it. The Main God is a ball of light, but honestly, I have no idea what it really is," the scarred man said oddly. He then went on to explain some of the Main God's rules and the reward system.
The bespectacled girl nodded. "One last question... What does this number mean?" She pointed to the countdown on the watch.
"That's how long you have to stay in this horror movie. When the time's up, you can return to the Main God alive, claim your rewards, and face the next horror movie," the scarred man said, taking a deep drag from his cigarette.
"Can I ask, since we're in the *Resident Evil* movie, could you tell me what it's about?" Wang Zongchao had little interest in movies or games, and horror films, with their reliance on audio-visual shocks, didn't appeal to him. As for horror games, their challenges to ordinary people's nerves and reflexes were hardly worth his attention.
Everyone turned to look at him strangely.
Wang Zongchao remained unfazed. "Sorry, I'm not really into movies or games. I've only heard of this one."
The scarred man fell silent, his gaze tinged with pity.
Just then, the train gradually came to a stop. The scarred man shrugged. "Sorry, the plot starts in three minutes. Remember, if they hear us talking about this, we'll lose points. Ten points each time, and if you go negative, it'll be deducted from your next reward. If you want answers, you'd better avoid them, but someone might risk losing points to tell you. Good luck surviving, rookies."