My ‘Imaginary Friend’ Returned From the Dungeon

Grandma didn’t continue asking. She started counting the thick stack of money. The more she counted, the more shocked she became.

“You weren’t taken by ghosts through the wall that night you didn’t come home. You were dazzled by money.”

Su Lai: “It’s tens of thousands. Who wouldn’t be dazzled?”

Grandma, having confirmed that Su Lai hadn’t lost any arms, legs, or a kidney, finally accepted the money, still a bit uneasy.

“I’ll keep it for now. Once we’re sure everything is safe, we can use it.”

Su Lai: “Don’t wait. Pay off the back rent and utilities first.”

Grandma half-joked, “I’m afraid you might commit a crime and get locked up. Gotta be prepared. You think bailing you out doesn’t cost money?”

Su Lai grinned, “I’ve got hands and feet. If I really get caught, why pay bail? Can’t I just escape myself?”

“So unserious,” Grandma waved her hand and laughed.

“Other people’s elders leave money for their kids to get married. You’re thinking about leaving money to bail me out,” Su Lai said.

“Your grandmother is open-minded. I’m not pushing you to marry young,” she replied.

Su Lai gave a thumbs-up. “Progressive.”

After a moment, he asked, “Grandma, do you know that urban village on the west side of the river?”

After leaving the instance that night, the urban village behind him had turned into a neatly planned residential area. The coordinates in his memory no longer existed.

Grandma frowned. “That urban village was demolished long ago. Years ago. Why?”

Su Lai was momentarily dazed. He shook his head. “Nothing. I had a delivery order to pick up something there before. Couldn’t find the place. The order was cancelled.”

Grandma stared at him, her intuition sharp. “The order from the night you met Chen Po?”

“Yes,” Su Lai replied. He didn’t intend to hide anything; he was never good at talking. Stumbling over his words would only make Grandma overthink.

She shook her head vigorously. “I’ll burn some paper money for you later. Amitabha. Buddha and ancestors protect my Ah Lai. Keep him healthy. Don’t let unclean things bother him…”

Grandma was clearly a little panicked. The last time Ah Lai mentioned things like this was when he was very young. That year, he had a high fever. In his delirium, he kept asking where his friend Xiao Chang had gone.

But in Grandma’s memory, her Ah Lai never had a friend named Xiao Chang.

There’s an old saying that children’s souls aren’t fully formed. Their spirits are light, making them prone to encountering ghosts. Ghosts could also trick children into thinking of them as friends.

That time, Ah Lai’s fever had reached nearly forty degrees and lasted for days, terrifying the family.

Su Lai, however, was unconcerned.

“Don’t bother burning anything. Too much effort. Just give me the paper money directly. If something unclean really does bother me, I’ll use it to exchange for cash. Cut out the middleman.”

He yawned, lightly dispelling the eerie atmosphere.

“…What kind of talk is that, child? So disrespectful,” Grandma said, amused by his unseriousness.

Perhaps that fever had burned out some nerves, but Su Lai possessed a dullness different from ordinary children. He had never shown worry or fear. He had always been exceptionally easy to raise. His joke dissolved the eerie atmosphere.

After Grandma left, still muttering, Su Lai went to fry himself a bowl of noodles. He ate while thinking.

He opened his phone’s call log. Apart from the dozens of messages after the signal returned, there were no strange texts or calls in between. Searching for “Spring Breeze Community” on the map yielded no relevant coordinates.

Everything from those days seemed to have evaporated on the spot. Su Lai even wondered if he had dreamed it. But a dream couldn’t explain the black cat plushie hanging on his handlebars or the heavy bundle of cash.

What had really happened that final night? The instance had just ended abruptly. Could the berserk residents’ act of destroying the cameras really have broken the higher-dimensional surveillance?

According to Qi Mu’s analysis, this was sheer fantasy. How had they managed it? Was it related to him, giving orders while holding the banner?

Regardless, if his memory had no gaps or bugs, the berserk residents really had turned “Entertain to Death” into “Kill the Entertainment,” causing the livestream to be forcibly shut down and the entire instance to eject all participants.

Su Lai sorted out his thoughts. There were several doubts.

First, if, as the system said, he was an uncontrollable factor, neither player nor NPC, why had he been pulled into the contaminated instance?

Second, the instance had ended abruptly. Had the other surviving players—Bai Ke, Bei Yao, and the others—also been ejected? Would they still receive rewards from the polluted livestream?

Third, Xiao Chang had hinted in the dream that he was waiting at the labyrinth’s entrance. But nothing had happened after Su Lai left the urban village. Was this “non-existent” friend Xiao Chang just a liar, or a hallucination?

Fourth, how could he enter the contaminated instance world again? A few tens of thousands wasn’t nearly enough to fill the family’s debt. He wanted to earn more money.

Having thought it through, Su Lai decided to revisit the place.

“Ah Lai, you’re going out again?” Grandma came out holding a ladle, chasing after him.

Chu Liu seemed to sense something too. It trotted over and started meowing incessantly by the bike. It caught sight of the plushie hanging on the handlebars, took a cautious step back, then stared intently from half a meter away, seemingly very interested.

Su Lai simply picked up Chu Liu and brought it face-to-face with the plushie.

Chu Liu didn’t hiss. It seemed interested.

“Not selling a kidney, not selling myself, not harvesting anyone else’s kidneys either.” He put Chu Liu down and started the bike, joking. “Going to take orders.”

Grandma: “On your way back, stop by the meat stall and buy a couple of pork kidneys. You’ve been talking about selling kidneys all day. Now I’m craving stir-fried kidneys.”

“Grandma, you…” Su Lai, helmet on, gave a wry smile. Then he waved and sped off. “No problem.”

Although the navigation couldn’t locate Spring Breeze Community, Su Lai remembered the way back. He turned from the main road into an alley. Passing through the back alley was an old dormitory area. The densely packed self-built buildings and antennas were gone. Only a few chinaberry trees dropped green fruits.

Not giving up, Su Lai rode around this old dorm area several more times. A bored security guard saw his suspicious behavior and asked, “Delivery guy, what are you doing?”

“Delivering food,” Su Lai replied.

The guard hesitated.

“Do you know of a Wang Chunying Wonton Shop around here? How do I get there?”

“Wang Chunying Wonton Shop?” The guard frowned, thought, then shook his head.
“There’s no shop by that name here. But there is a wonton shop on Goldfish Lane. Not called that, though. Maybe the customer filled in the wrong address. Go left here to the end, then turn right twice.”

Su Lai followed the directions. After turning left and twice to the right, a dilapidated, closed-down wonton shop appeared.

This was definitely not Wang Chunying’s shop. It was so old it didn’t even have a sign. A “For Lease” notice was pasted on the door. The business hadn’t worked out.

Su Lai paused for a moment, then turned his bike around to leave.

Just then, his phone vibrated. He quickly pulled it out, but there was no message.

He checked every app. No new messages, no new orders. His phone didn’t vibrate for no reason. What was going on?

Suddenly, a commotion came from deeper in the alley.
Su Lai paused mid-step. He knew this kind of noise well—usually some cowardly student being cornered and beaten by a group of thugs for protection money.

Since he was already there, Su Lai rode his little e-bike deeper into the alley.

Hearing the vehicle, the commotion stopped abruptly. A group of monkey-like thugs ran out, glancing sideways at Su Lai, laughing amongst themselves.

Su Lai didn’t engage. In the mud lay half a brand-name sneaker, very expensive.
He stopped, picked it up, and continued deeper.

His left eyelid twitched violently, even more than the evening he first entered the instance.

The alley was deep and dim. An upside-down door god on the eaves curled the corners of its mouth downward, giving a reversed smile to passersby.

But Su Lai didn’t notice the eerie changes around him. Holding the sneaker, he walked further in.

A neatly dressed youth with long hair sat in the mud. The light was dim, and he kept his head down, so Su Lai couldn’t see his face.

“Don’t come any closer.”
The youth’s voice was distorted, mixed with faint static and a distant whistling wind.

Su Lai didn’t notice the subtle aberrations; his left eyelid twitched too wildly.

The youth was barefoot. His ankles, soaked in muddy water, were covered in moss. His wrists and collarbones had bright red markings that resembled vines—or puppet strings.

“They took my money,” the youth said, still distorted.

Su Lai: “How much?”

“Two thousand.”

A youth from whom they could extort two thousand in protection money was definitely not ordinary.

“Are you here to collect protection money too?” The youth didn’t lift his head, hugging his knees tighter. He looked pitiful, but the red threads on his skin pulsed like seeds buried in his body.

Su Lai nodded. “Yeah. But I’m cheap. Only charging you twenty. Deal?”

The youth picked up the sneaker. “Deal.”

Su Lai didn’t waste words. He turned and ran after the thugs.

Soon, wails and pleas for mercy came from outside the alley. Despite being outnumbered, Su Lai easily handled them.

The youth sat quietly, cleaning mud off his shoe, the red threads pulsing with life.

“Drip, drop, drip, drop.”
The broken watch on his wrist mimicked a ticking second hand.

After ninety “drips,” a minute and a half passed. He finally looked up.

Su Lai returned with the recovered money, placing 1,980 yuan in front of the youth.

“Got it back for you. I took twenty as my protection fee. Here’s your change.”

The youth’s pupils glowed with red threads. He stared at Su Lai, then curled his lips innocently. “Thanks.”

He took the money. His voice remained distant and distorted.

Su Lai stood. The youth sat. The upside-down door god stared at them, no longer smiling.

“Xiao Chang, is this fun?” Su Lai crouched, expressionless.

He didn’t know what this youth was—a ghost, a demon, a contaminant? Definitely not human. Even without seeing the face clearly, he knew this was Xiao Chang.

Xiao Chang smiled ambiguously. “Fun.”

Su Lai didn’t smile. “Am I awake or dreaming right now?”

Xiao Chang tied and untied his shoelaces, enjoying the process. “Ah Lai, you’ve asked before. Only people can dream. Remember?”

Su Lai narrowed his eyes. “Am I really not human?”

The weakness and helplessness Xiao Chang showed were all an act. His fun.

Xiao Chang: “Heh.”

Su Lai: “You said you’d tell me more. What exactly is our relationship?”

His cognition couldn’t explain Xiao Chang’s existence. Memories were always filtered, sounds unreal. Family and friends insisted Xiao Chang didn’t exist.

Xiao Chang smiled. “Ah Lai, I’m your non-existent friend. Just remember that for now.”

The smile widened, calm but carrying subtle danger.

Su Lai, usually dull, felt a premonition.

Xiao Chang glanced at the e-bike. “My cat plushie loves being on your handlebars. He also likes your cat. My plushie’s name is Chu Qi.”

Su Lai’s eyes narrowed. “Remove the word ‘coincidence’ from that sentence.”

Xiao Chang had done it on purpose. Su Lai’s cat was Chu Liu; Xiao Chang’s plushie was Chu Qi.

“In the instance, were you Wang Xiaosi?” Su Lai asked.

Xiao Chang shook his head. “I can make anyone Wang Xiaosi. Including you. Including me.”

Su Lai was unmoved. “Wang Chunying might not agree.”

Xiao Chang smiled. “Having you as her child, Wang Chunying is complete.”

Su Lai raised an eyebrow. “Are you an audience member?”

Xiao Chang shook his head. “If I were, I wouldn’t have ruined that night personally. It was too spectacular.”

He could see everything in the instance and enter Su Lai’s dreams within it.

The veteran players had said the livestream was higher-dimensional. The cameras were just props. But after the berserk residents destroyed them, the instance collapsed, interrupting the livestream.

This was likely Xiao Chang’s doing.

Su Lai asked: “How did you do it?”

Xiao Chang blinked innocently. “Ah Lai, because you helped me. You made all the residents go berserk. You destroyed the second layer of surveillance. You freed me. I need you to keep entering the contaminated instance. Find me. Free me.”

It sounded playful, but serious.

Su Lai: “Why me?”