2: Chapter 2: Licking to the End Leaves You with Nothing

He didn't reply to this message.

Dead people don't reply to messages.

But Su Wantang didn't care—dead or alive, what she wanted was never a reply.

It was content.

Li Li rested his thumb on the edge of the screen and scrolled up one notch.

The last message the original owner had sent was still lying in the chat box.

"Tangtang, I'll buy you that jacket when I get paid next month."

Read.

No reply.

The next one, a breakup.

The one after that, "The average, self-confident men who have loved me over the years."

Three messages.

A person's entire value dropping from "ATM" to "livestream topic" was more efficient than a layoff notice.

His finger paused.

Memories exploded.

It wasn't a fragmented seep; it was a massive crash, bringing with it the original owner's body heat and the burning sensation of alcohol scorching his esophagus.

The orphanage. The green-skinned train. Eight hundred yuan in his pocket. Beijing.

Blood blisters from moving bricks, hands cracked from washing dishes in the cold, eyes going black from translating until three in the morning—the original owner had swallowed every bit of suffering an orphan was destined to endure.

The day the director saw him off at the train station, the wind was strong on the platform. The old man's lips trembled for a long time before he spat out one word.

"Make something of yourself."

The original owner carved this word into his bones, gnawed through five years of 985 architecture courses, graduated, and entered a design institute with a monthly salary of 8,800 yuan.

Then he met Su Wantang.

A girl from a small county who came to Beijing to livestream. They met for the first time at the convenience store downstairs from his company. Her card wouldn't go through, so he paid for her twelve-yuan Americano.

She called him "Brother Li."

Her voice was soft, with a drawn-out tail. After calling him that, she lowered her head to stir her coffee, her eyelashes pressed down, never looking up.

He thought that was what falling in love felt like.

In the third month of dating, she said she wanted to eat Haidilao. He worked overtime for two days to treat her to a 380-yuan hot pot meal.

In the fifth month, she said her phone was lagging and crashing during livestreams. He took the money he had saved all summer to buy her a new one.

In the eighth month, she sent him a screenshot of a designer bag. "Brother Li, look, this is so pretty and not expensive, only two thousand something."

He had just paid his rent that month, and had 1,200 yuan left in his account.

He picked up night shifts on Meituan. Drawing blueprints by day, delivering food by night.

On the seventh day, while waiting at a red light, he fell asleep on his e-bike, fell off, and scraped a layer of skin off his knee.

He bought the bag.

She posted on her Moments: "It feels so good to be loved."

The picture was a close-up of the bag with a soft-focus filter, and there were over twenty likes underneath.

He didn't see a single one. At that moment, he was in the rental bathroom rinsing off with cold water, his hands shaking from exhaustion, lacking even the strength to wring out a towel.

Four years.

In this relationship, the original owner thought he was a boyfriend.

Su Wantang thought she had raised a dog that came whenever she called.

As for what happened later, there was no need to look at it a second time.

With 12,000 viewers in the livestream, she laughed and talked about her "ex-boyfriend," every word stepping on his face.

The comments section defined him: simp, average, self-confident man, not good enough.

The viewer count rose from 12,000 to 23,000. She gained 3,000 followers that night.

The original owner watched from start to finish. He didn't say a word.

He turned off the stream, went downstairs, went to the convenience store, and bought Niulanshan.

His hands were still shaking with the first bottle. By the fifth bottle, they stopped.

By the tenth bottle, his whole body slid under the sofa, his face smeared with vomit.

Cardiac arrest. Two-seventeen in the morning.

No one noticed. No one called emergency services.

A day later, his phone lit up again—a new message from Su Wantang.

"The average, self-confident men who have loved me over the years."

She didn't even add a question mark.

She wasn't even sure if he was still alive. Or rather, she didn't care.

—Recollections end here.

Li Li locked the screen and placed the phone face down on the coffee table.

No anger. No grievance.

In his past life, he hadn't even frowned when his construction site supervisor pointed at his nose and cursed, "Your mother giving birth to you was just a waste of food," so other people's messy affairs couldn't stir up any excess emotion in him.

He just used thirty seconds to scan through the original owner's twenty-four years of life and reached a conclusion.

Simping to the end, you end up with nothing.

He knew this in his past life. The original owner had verified it with his life.

"Fine then." He said to the empty air.

"I'll keep this account for you."

As soon as the words fell, the back of his head exploded.

It wasn't psychological—it was a physical impact, pushing outward from inside his skull, shaking him until his shoulder hit the frame of the floor-length mirror, causing him to stagger half a step.

A translucent blue light screen tore open in front of him out of thin air.

A line of text, cold and mechanical.

[Host soul binding detected. Complete.]

[All-Round Entertainment System is loading...]

At the bottom was a thin progress bar.

1%. 3%. 7%. It stuck.

The progress bar jittered back and forth at 7%, just like that ATM downstairs in the rental building that could never read a card.

Li Li steadied himself by holding the mirror frame, staring at the twitching progress bar.

He rotated his left wrist.

"System, huh?"

"And it lags while loading?"

"What are the specs? Snapdragon 4 Gen 1?"

As soon as the last sentence landed, the progress bar jumped to 99%.

It hovered. It didn't move.

He waited three seconds.

He reached out and poked that "99%" with his index finger.

The light screen exploded.

Blue light flooded the entire room. Rows of data stream code were refracted on the glass surface of the empty wine bottles, pouring out densely from the screen, spreading quickly along the walls before dissipating.

A notification sound rang out. This time the tone had changed, with an upward inflection, revealing a punchable liveliness.

[Ding—All-Round Entertainment System loaded!]

[First task generated.]

[Host, please view within twenty-four hours.]

It paused for a second.

The last line of text slowly floated up.

[Otherwise, die.]

Li Li hadn't had a chance to look closely at the word "task."

On the coffee table, his phone vibrated.

It buzzed against the glass surface, and the screen lit up.

Caller ID: Director Pei Zhao.

It had been less than five minutes since he hung up, and they were calling again.

The light screen flashed on the left, the phone vibrated on the right.

The system said die if he didn't check the task, the director called twice in five minutes.

Li Li assessed this pincer attack.

He rotated his left wrist.

His thumb pressed answer.

"Hello, Director Pei."

The other end of the line paused, likely not expecting him to pick up so quickly.

Director Pei Zhao's voice lowered by half a degree, no longer the measured, business-like tone from before.

"Mr. Li Li, there has been a change in the itinerary. The amateur female guest in your group—"

He paused.

"There's been a situation."

Li Li didn't speak.

On the light screen, the words "Otherwise, die" were still flashing.

The other end of the line was quiet for two seconds before Director Pei Zhao spoke again.

"Do you know someone named Jiang Rumu?"