The Paper Man I Raised Came to Life - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Lin Wan.

Twenty-six years old, a planner, living alone, with a social circle as thin as a sheet of paper.

In my third year of playing Abyss Echo, I finally cleared the most difficult hidden route in the entire server.

The core character of that route is named Xie Zhi.

In the game’s setting, he was a weapon raised by the Temple, living like a dog on a leash. For the first half of the story, he carves a path for the Protagonist Team; in the second half, he falls into darkness and eventually destroys the entire main city.

Whenever he’s mentioned on the forums, the comments are always the same two words: “Madman.”

Only I know that he’s actually very easy to coax.

Give him an old lute, and he’ll change his entire night patrol route for me.

Give him a simple “thank you for your hard work,” and he’ll block a fatal blow for me in the next team battle.

At my most proficient, I could even guess his next line of dialogue right through the screen.

“Master, who do you want me to kill?”

“Master, please don’t be angry.”

“Master, I only listen to you.”

I raised him to be very obedient.

So obedient that the other characters felt like mere props.

The main male lead, Jiang Yu, was as noble as the moon and the wind, and the official female lead, Shen Zhi, was kind and upright, but I couldn’t be bothered to watch their back-and-forth.

I only wanted to clear the game.

I only wanted to achieve that perfect ending that supposedly less than one-thousandth of the players on the server could reach.

For the sake of this ending, I used Xie Zhi as a blade.

I ordered him to kill the priests blocking the way, to take the fall for me, and to block every variable that might affect the numerical fluctuations.

He did it every single time.

He never even asked why.

The final scene takes place in the ruins of the Temple.

As Jiang Yu holds the heavily injured Shen Zhi, the system pops up with the final branching choice.

A. Take Xie Zhi and leave.

B. Hand Xie Zhi over to the Temple for judgment.

C. Clear the game alone and enter the hidden solo ending.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Xie Zhi stood in the rain, his black hair soaked, his body covered in blood from protecting me.

That face, modeled with excessive beauty, was terrifyingly quiet.

He said, “Master, choose what you want most.”

I clicked C.

Because the guides stated very clearly that only the solo ending would grant full achievements.

When the pop-up appeared, I was still sipping an iced Americano from a delivery order.

“System: Affection level for character Xie Zhi has reached maximum. Would you like to enter the special confession scene?”

I originally intended to click confirm.

But just then, my phone rang. A client was pestering me for a proposal in a group chat, and my finger slipped. I clicked decline.

The screen went black for a moment.

When it lit up again, Xie Zhi was still standing there.

Only, he was no longer looking at the rain in the scene, nor was he looking at any of the other characters.

He was looking directly at my side of the screen.

As if he could truly see me through it.

The voice in my headphones was very soft.

“So… you don’t want me either.”

A chill ran down my spine.

A second later, the screen returned to normal. The system chimed, notifying me that I had achieved the hidden achievement: “Sole Survivor.”

I took a screenshot, posted it to the group, and closed the game in one fluid motion.

My colleagues flooded the chat with congratulations.

Su Ning sent me a private message: “You finally beat that mad dog’s route. When are you going to lend me your account to play?”

I replied with a “get lost.”

Half an hour later, I uninstalled the game.

The project deadline was killing me; I didn’t have time to waste any more on a 2D character.

A prompt appeared on the uninstallation interface:

“Confirm clearing local emotional data?”

I didn’t look closely and habitually clicked yes.

The moment the screen went dark, I thought I saw a human face in the black reflection.

It was very close.

I thought I was just seeing things from staying up too late, so I turned off the lights and went to sleep.

At 2:17 AM that night, the power in the entire apartment suddenly cut out.

The air conditioning stopped, the router lights went out, yet it was bright outside the window, meaning the whole building hadn’t tripped a breaker.

I was woken up by the heat and fumbled for my phone in a daze.

There was no signal.

I couldn’t even turn on the flashlight.

The bedroom was so quiet that only the sound of my own breathing remained.

Just as I sat up, someone spoke right against my ear.

Their breath was freezing cold.

“You don’t want me anymore, do you?”