Genius Playground

“Xiaoxue! Come with me!”

With no time to spare, Jiang Ran pulled Cheng Mengxue and retreated toward the amusement park and the Rhine Cat.

Huh?

Suddenly, he spotted an old friend amidst a pile of rubble—

The shared flying motorcycle he had parked by the roadside earlier.

‘So that’s what happened.’

After the 42 floors above vanished, everything on the surface fell in, and that of course included the flying motorcycle parked by the road.

Fortunately, materials science in this Virtual World was extremely advanced. Plus, the motorcycle had been lucky enough to crash into a couple of ornamental trees… As a result, other than a few broken plastic parts, the bike was largely undamaged.

“Xiaoxue! Get on!”

The rapport between childhood sweethearts was something a disorganized mob like Sang Biao’s could never compare to. Cheng Mengxue didn’t hesitate for a second, leaping toward the flying motorcycle.

Jiang Ran righted the flying motorcycle. Once Cheng Mengxue was on the back seat, he twisted the throttle all the way and shot straight for the blue sky!

“Holy shit! I’m not on yet!”

Sang Biao yelled from below:

“What about me?!”

“Brother Biao! It’s every man for himself when disaster strikes!”

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The furious Sang Biao emptied his magazine in an instant, but unfortunately, the flying motorcycle was too fast. Not a single shot hit its mark.

“Cao Nima!”

He roared curses:

“You fucking piece of shit! You screw over your big brother today, you’ll be stealing his wife tomorrow! I really misjudged you!”

“Find me a wife first, then we’ll talk!”

The last words drifted down from the sky as Jiang Ran sped away on the flying motorcycle…

However, the crisis was far from over.

For some unknown reason, the sky above the amusement park was bizarrely connected to the sky outside the Memorial Hall. Consequently, hundreds of patrol drones pursued them like a swarm of bees.

The moment the flying motorcycle broke through the surface with the two of them aboard, hundreds of red laser beams shot over, all aiming for Jiang Ran!

Coincidentally, the lasers were like master artists tracing an outline; every single beam precisely avoided Cheng Mengxue. The targeting dots painted Jiang Ran red, yet not a single one landed on her.

“Watch out!”

Cheng Mengxue realized it immediately.

She stood up on the back seat and threw her arms around Jiang Ran, using her own body to shield him from the lasers!

Just as she’d thought, the moment she hugged Jiang Ran, the lasers aimed at him vanished.

But—

BOOM!

A physical shell struck the flying motorcycle’s engine, blowing it to pieces and flinging Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue into the air!

“Jiang Ran—” “Xiaoxue!!”

The drones’ precise calculations ensured the explosion didn’t harm either of them. The angle was also incredible; the blast wave pushed up against the seat, holding Cheng Mengxue steady in mid-air, while Jiang Ran lost all support and plummeted downward.

WHIRRR—

A drone swooped down, and rescue straps wrapped around Cheng Mengxue’s arms, suspending her in the air.

Meanwhile, not only was Jiang Ran ignored, but as he accelerated in his freefall, countless lasers locked onto him. An untold number of physical shells were also unleashed. His vision turned scarlet as the laser sights “pricked” him into the shape of a hedgehog falling to the ground!

“Jiang Ran—”

Suspended in mid-air, Cheng Mengxue screamed in despair.

She could only watch helplessly as Jiang Ran was two meters from smashing into the ground, one second from being torn to shreds. Countless shells and bullets closed in, about to obliterate him in an instant!

Tears streamed down her face, her heart filled with rage. Cheng Mengxue gritted her teeth and took a deep breath:

“[STOP!!!!!!!!!]”

…

…

…

…

Silence.

A mysterious silence.

The entire world was devoid of sound. If even a pin were to drop, it would surely be deafening.

Jiang Ran had already closed his eyes, ready to meet his death.

But several seconds had clearly passed.

The impact he had imagined never came. He felt no pain, nor did he hear any explosions.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Could it be? Did the 39 minute and 11 second time limit run out? Did the Virtual World restart again?’

‘No, that’s impossible.’

‘He wasn’t wearing a watch, but he still had a sense of time. This operation, starting with sneaking through the ventilation ducts, had saved a lot of time. It definitely wasn’t 10:39:11 yet; at most, it couldn’t be past ten-thirty.’

‘Then… what in the world is happening right now?’

His breathing quickened. He slowly opened his eyes.

Instantly, his pupils dilated, and his scalp tingled!

Less than a centimeter from his eye, a massive artillery shell hung menacingly! Just frozen there, right in front of him!

Beside him, countless bullets were stopped in their tracks, forming a circle around him.

It was just that… everything was motionless.

The bullets had stopped in defiance of all laws of physics, suspended in mid-air;

Flames were clearly erupting from the back of the shell, but they too were frozen solid, petrified, not even flickering;

Even more terrifyingly, it seemed as if light itself had been severed. Dozens of lasers aimed at him were cut off mid-flight as if intercepted, unable to advance another inch;

Looking up, the streams of traffic that flowed like schools of fish through the sky were now perfectly still… The entire city’s transportation had become a static painting;

The video playing on the wall of a distant skyscraper had also paused, and Pompey’s black-and-white portrait silently watched over the world;

Not one of the hundreds of drone propellers in the sky was spinning, yet none of them showed any sign of falling, resting silently like ornaments against the sky;

On the ground, sprinting mechanical police dogs and security robots were frozen in impossibly balanced poses;

Even the flags of all nations fluttering above the Human Civilization Memorial Hall were now frozen solid; a bird that had just taken flight from a flagpole was suspended mid-air, its wings motionless.

What shocked Jiang Ran even more was…

He was currently suspended in mid-air in a way that defied all reason.

With the acceleration of his freefall just moments ago, he should have been turned into a bloody pancake in a few more tenths of a second.

But for some reason, the laws of physics had ceased to apply. His freefall had come to an abrupt halt, stopping him half a meter above the ground.

There was no doubt. [Time had stopped for the entire world.]

“Jiang Ran!”

In the sky, the drone suspending Cheng Mengxue slowly descended. The moment her canvas shoes touched the ground, the buckles on the rescue straps automatically released, freeing her.

Cheng Mengxue’s face was deathly pale, her beauty drained by the terrifying scene. She didn’t have time to fix her school uniform, which had been pulled up by the straps, and sprinted toward Jiang Ran.

And at that exact moment, the laws of physics instantly returned to Jiang Ran. He fell to the ground with a THUD.

Luckily, it was only from a height of half a meter, so it didn’t hurt.

Seeing the weapons watching him menacingly from the air, he didn’t dare get up recklessly. He pushed off the ground with his palms, rolled a few times to a safe spot, and only then did he stand up.

Then, he looked back at the spot where he had been suspended… It was a comical scene that he wanted to laugh at, but couldn’t.

The red dots from the laser sights aimed at him were no longer advancing; the light just stopped there. So, after he moved, the red dots perfectly outlined the awkward posture he had been in, as if creating a life-sized cast of him.

“Jiang Ran!”

Cheng Mengxue ran over, panting. It was clear she still hadn’t recovered from the shock.

She immediately grabbed Jiang Ran’s arm, looking him up and down. She finally breathed a sigh of relief when she found only a few scrapes:

“Thank goodness, you’re not hurt.”

Cheng Mengxue turned around and stared at the completely unfamiliar scenery, at the perfectly still city, her eyes filled with confusion.

She swallowed, her voice trembling:

“J-Jiang Ran, weren’t we supposed to be going to the college entrance exams today? You suddenly pulled me and started running toward the suburbs, and then a car hit us…”

“But… but…”

Her brows furrowed, completely unable to make sense of the situation. She turned her head to look at Jiang Ran:

“Where… where is this place?”