Chapter Four: The Winged "Alien"

What on earth was happening to me? All I did was sit down for a meal—how did I end up this unlucky?

As these thoughts raced through his mind, Chen Hao vaguely heard voices coming from somewhere in the nearby forest.

“Strange,” he muttered to himself. “Is this not just a hallucination? I can actually hear people talking, and so clearly, too?” He rose cautiously from the ground, intent on following the sound.

But since Chen Hao had no idea what had truly happened to him, he opted for caution, moving as silently as possible toward the voices, careful not to give himself away. Fortunately, the thick woods and the cover of night made it easy for him to hide himself amid the shadows.

Soon, Chen Hao traced the voices to their source. He saw five people gathered in a clearing among the trees, a small wooden cabin standing behind them with its windows aglow from within. The five were seated at a table outside, drinking.

Chen Hao dared not approach any closer; if he moved forward, the light from the cabin would surely reveal him. Until he understood what had happened to him, he didn’t dare act rashly. Who could say if this was all a hallucination, a dream, or if something unexpected had happened to him after he lost consciousness at the restaurant, and he had been brought here by someone? What if these five people were dangerous criminals?

His suspicion was not without reason; in the city where he lived, there was no such dense forest nearby—at least, none that he had ever heard of.

Until he could determine their identities, Chen Hao decided to remain hidden, hoping to glean information from their conversation: where he was, and who these people were.

One should not think Chen Hao was overreacting. Anyone would be nervous and frightened to wake up in a strange place after suddenly losing consciousness.

He found a thick, sturdy tree, crouched behind it, and peered out cautiously at the five men. Their appearance fascinated him—they were certainly not ordinary people.

He had never seen anyone drinking in the forest in the dead of night, all dressed in tight black suits that looked like wetsuits. Wetsuits were for swimming or diving—what were they doing wearing them in the woods? Was this some kind of gathering for lunatics?

Chen Hao couldn’t help but think maliciously. He strained his ears, eager to catch their words, but he was still too far away to make out more than the faint murmur of voices.

After surveying the area, Chen Hao spotted a hollow in the ground to his left—an even better hiding spot, and closer to the group. Perhaps from there, he could finally hear what they were saying.

He didn’t know where he found the courage, but he actually began to creep toward the hollow, moving with painstaking care to avoid making any noise. The five, not expecting anyone to be lurking in such a desolate place, didn’t notice him.

At last, Chen Hao reached his chosen spot and settled in to eavesdrop more comfortably.

“I wonder how long this system maintenance will take. It’s already been days, and there’s still no news. It’s driving me crazy!” one of the five complained, just as Chen Hao drew close.

“Who knows? Probably not until we finish cleaning out all the old data,” another replied.

Hearing this, Chen Hao felt a strange expression flicker across his face.

“And besides purging the leftover data, there’s new content to update. Sure, different people are responsible for different things, but the five of us have way too much on our plates. When are we ever going to finish?”

The more Chen Hao listened, the more perplexed he became. These five sounded like his colleagues. Data cleanup? Updating content? Were they also technical staff from an online gaming company?

But in this environment, what online game company could possibly rival Unreal? And who still played anything other than the virtual world these days?

According to recent statistics, almost everyone had shifted to the virtual world; hardly anyone played other online games anymore. But if these five worked at his company, why hadn’t he ever seen them?

Could they be from another department—perhaps high-level in-game technicians? That was plausible, given their discussion of both data cleanup and game updates—tasks beyond the scope of ordinary technicians like himself.

Yet that didn’t make sense either. If they really were top-level staff, they wouldn’t be assigned data cleanup; that was for secondary technicians like himself, Andre, and Gu Mengyan.

Why were these people responsible for so much? And if they were techs, why come out to the middle of nowhere at night, dressed in wetsuits?

Chen Hao wracked his brains but couldn’t make sense of it. At least, he was no longer as anxious as before—these five were clearly not dangerous. Still, he felt a twinge of guilt for eavesdropping; it wasn’t exactly the most honorable behavior.

And besides, if he were startled by someone stepping out of the shadows, surely these five would be, too. So he decided to wait for the right moment—perhaps when they went inside, he’d approach the cabin as a lost traveler and knock, pretending to seek directions. For now, he still didn’t know where he was.

Just as he was thinking this, a shadow appeared behind him—a presence Chen Hao was completely unaware of. In fact, the figure had been observing Chen Hao for some time, just as Chen Hao had been watching the five by the cabin.

But this newcomer had no interest in the five at all; instead, their bright eyes watched Chen Hao with lively curiosity. After a while, the figure mustered the courage to sneak up behind him.

As the figure approached, Chen Hao began to hear a peculiar noise behind him—a soft buzzing, like the beating of insect wings. He thought it was just a bug and waved his hand, paying it no mind; after all, in a forest like this, insects were nothing unusual.

But the sound persisted, hovering in place rather than fading away. Chen Hao decided to ignore it for the sake of silence, reasoning that at worst, he’d end up with a bite or a bump.

Before long, however, he realized the sound was far louder than any ordinary insect. It wasn’t exactly noisy, but certainly not something a normal bug could produce. Unaware that a figure had been trailing him for some time, Chen Hao turned around—and nearly leapt out of his skin.

It wasn’t just the sudden appearance of someone behind him; what truly shocked him was that this person had wings.

A thought flashed through his mind: “I must be dreaming. There’s no way anyone in real life could have wings.”

Initially startled by the apparition, Chen Hao relaxed almost instantly—if this was a dream, there was nothing to fear.

Just as he was about to mock his own subconscious for conjuring such a scene, the winged figure darted in front of him, clapped a hand over his mouth, and gestured urgently for silence, glancing at the five drinkers and signaling Chen Hao to keep quiet.

At that moment, Chen Hao caught a whiff of a strange, pleasant fragrance—like standing in a field of wildflowers after rain, the scent of earth and blossoms mingling in the air.

Suddenly, Chen Hao realized something was wrong. If this were a dream, he shouldn’t be able to smell anything. Dreams, no matter how vivid, could never truly stimulate the senses. Sometimes people believed they smelled something in a dream, but that was only because the scent existed in reality and filtered into the dream through their senses—not because the dream itself produced it.

But Chen Hao knew for certain that neither his home, the hospital, nor even Gu Mengyan carried such a fragrance. So, did that mean he wasn’t dreaming after all? Was all of this actually real?