Chapter 18 : No-Face God Studio

After accepting Ming Po’s wish, the chip lit up with a faint red glow. In this state, the chip was even more fragile than Ming Po had imagined—it was like a wafer cookie, shattering with just a gentle bite.

The next instant, scarlet flames bloomed from his mouth.

Along with an invisible ripple rapidly spreading outward, the black-and-white world around him instantly regained bright and dazzling colors.

The silent sounds also became clear in an instant, as if he had taken off noise-canceling headphones. At the same time, even scents could be smelled again… there was a slightly pungent smell of orange-scented cleaning agent in the restroom, making Ming Po, whose sense of smell was keen, feel somewhat uncomfortable.

He took out his phone from his chest pocket and unlocked it with his fingerprint.

In an instant, all kinds of message notifications rang nonstop with ding-dong after ding-dong, even making the phone lag. Ming Po did not look at them, but directly turned off all message notifications.

But what made Ming Po even more irritated and uneasy was that the familiar world was gradually slipping out of his understanding.

He walked out of the restroom and looked at those people sitting at their workstations.

For a moment, Ming Po felt as though a lifetime had passed.

Whether it was the workstation arrangement or the room’s decoration, this place was different from the “No-Face God Studio” in his memories.

The computers and office chairs both looked far poorer than he remembered. There were also many two-dimensional beautiful-girl character designs on the walls that Ming Po had no impression of at all. The employees’ work attitude was also the kind of perfunctory manner mixed with helplessness and a “whatever happens, happens” attitude. It looked like some third-rate mobile game company that had not yet obtained its publishing license.

Seeing Ming Po walk in, some people glanced at him and then gave no response. Only a young girl wearing glasses, sitting by the door and gnawing on bread, had her eyes light up as she stared at him for several seconds.

Thus, Ming Po naturally walked over and politely asked, “Excuse me, did ‘No-Face God Studio’ move away?”

“…Handsome, did you go to the wrong place?”

The other party’s attitude was rather hesitant. “We’re in Building C1.”

We were also in Building C1.

Ming Po was somewhat at a loss.

“Your company…”

Ming Po glanced at the unfamiliar company name and cat-head logo on the wall, then asked, “When did you move in here?”

“We’ve always been here?”

The other party looked even more confused than Ming Po, as if Ming Po’s questions had made her a little uncertain of herself. “We’ve been here for at least six years, right… Ah, right. We used to be ‘Stinky Cat Studio.’ Did you not recognize us because we changed our name? Hahahaha…”

A name I’ve never heard of at all, Ming Po thought.

But being able to rent an office building in this area for six years clearly meant that even if they were losing money, they could not have been losing too badly.

Thinking of this, a terrifying thought emerged in Ming Po’s mind.

“Have you heard of the game Ouroboros Ring?”

“I don’t really have an impression…”

“It’s an MMO. It was pretty popular. It should have been around for quite a few years.”

“I’m not too sure… I play JX3 and FF, and I haven’t heard of that game either. Is it from overseas?”

“Maybe I remembered the name wrong…”

Ming Po shook his head and planned to get up and say goodbye.

But the other party stood up and chased after him two steps. “Hey, handsome—can I add you on WeChat? If I find out anything, I can tell you.”

“Sure. Scan mine.”

Ming Po smiled falsely, opened WeChat on his phone, and casually approved the friend request from the girl whose name he had not even asked.

He quickly left. While waiting for the elevator, he began searching online.

Sure enough.

He could not find the name “No-Face God Studio” at all, let alone Ouroboros Ring. Yet he had clearly seen posters and merch of Ouroboros Ring in his own home

…Could it be that because of Time Chips, someone had changed history and caused it to disappear?

Ming Po frowned tightly while rapidly searching for information.

He first searched for the past works of “No-Face God Studio” and discovered that all of them were gone. Then Ming Po immediately searched for the names of some colleagues he had been fairly close with and discovered that they had disappeared as well—with their abilities, even if they did not work in this industry, they should still have become famous.

“2026…”

He murmured softly.

Ming Po’s memories were like a hotel with an “infinite” number of rooms. Because the number was “infinite,” he did not know what number the final room was; by the same logic, he also did not know what his final memory was.

Whenever he saw something familiar, he could recall the corresponding memory. But he could not actively recall out of thin air where the final memory was, so he did not even know which year he had died in.

But he could confirm that it was definitely before 2026.

He searched Lawyer Chen’s name again and discovered that he was unexpectedly famous.

“Two million followers??”

The moment he opened Yinfu, he was shocked.

Two million followers on a single platform… that scale was truly not small.

Yet in Ming Po’s memories, this person did not exist at all. He had not even heard of him.

By the same logic, Ming Po also found “Fish’s” identity.

Just the parody videos mocking him on B-site had a highest view count of eight million. Yet Ming Po had no memories of him either

…If he had not just seen the familiar neighbor’s child earlier, Ming Po would have suspected that he had transmigrated to a modern alternate world that was extremely similar yet completely different.

Thinking this, he opened his chat app and planned to look for his colleagues.

Looking at the huge pile of concerned, uneasy, and confused messages, Ming Po confirmed that in this world, or rather, this worldline, he should have only been “missing” for seven days.

Fortunately, after he had only gone missing for seven days, many people had already come looking for him.

Unfortunately, among the people who messaged Ming Po, he did not recognize half of them.

Ming Po picked out some people he felt should not be very close to him offline and replied with perfunctory words like “I’m fine, just a bit busy lately.” Then he quickly opened his chat app and began flipping through chat records to supplement his intelligence.

“…What exactly is going on?”

Ming Po murmured softly.

The good mood brought by returning “home” gradually dissipated along with the anxiety that surfaced.

His aura once again became unsettling, to the point that even passersby instinctively avoided him.

And at this moment, Ming Po suddenly saw a familiar person.

It was Ai Shiping!

Rarely, he was wearing a suit and tie.

In that instant, Ming Po suddenly recalled an extremely precise time coordinate—

In his memories, he had introduced this job to Ai Shiping quite a long time ago. The other party had been tempted and had intended to come work as a copywriter. In the end, the boss had accepted him, but planned to send him to work in HR instead.

And in Ming Po’s memories, there was no memory of whether Ai Shiping’s interview succeeded or failed.

So the time of his death should have been between the boss deciding to accept Ai Shiping and Ai Shiping going to the interview.

But immediately afterward, Ming Po frowned.

He saw Ai Shiping holding his phone and replying to messages, walking more and more slowly. He wandered across the crosswalk, and in the end, simply stopped there, using both hands to concentrate on replying to messages.

Watching this made Ming Po’s temper flare up.

“Don’t play on your phone while walking, dumbass!”

He cursed loudly.

Hearing Ming Po’s words, the other party froze for a moment and raised his head in astonishment.

And the instant he saw Ming Po clearly, his whole body froze in place, revealing an expression of disbelief as if he had seen a ghost.

At that moment—

A dump truck suddenly rushed out from nowhere and directly sent Ai Shiping, who was standing on the crosswalk, flying!

The violent sound of a human body being struck made the other passersby scream.

Cars braked. People rushed over. Very quickly, people gathered around from a distance… yet that big truck had vanished without a trace.

It was not as simple as a hit-and-run.

It had truly vanished without a trace.

Ming Po saw it clearly—it appeared out of thin air the moment before hitting someone, and after hitting someone, it disappeared into thin air again. Although he did not know how it had been done, it was clearly a supernatural power.

“…Was it a Time Chip?”

Ming Po murmured softly. “Was it… you people?”

Unlike those people, Ming Po did not go over to watch, nor did he call an ambulance.

Instead, he leisurely took out his final “Red Copper of Hours” from his sleeve.

His face had completely darkened, and an unsettling smile gradually appeared at the corners of his mouth.

He held that chip between the middle finger and thumb of his right hand.

Ming Po’s lips parted, and he gave an almost soundless command:

“Let me return to [one hour] ago.”

As the snap of his fingers rang out, a scorching burst of firelight bloomed from between his fingers with a bang.

The next instant, flames spread wildly outward, extending across the entire world within his field of vision.

As if roasted and melted by fire, the surrounding world curled, yellowed, and rapidly dissolved.

Dim yellow covered the entire world. The people coming and going became blurred, their speed growing faster and faster, darker and darker

And when the light lit up once more, Ming Po appeared in his room again.

He glanced at the countdown on the wall.

167:14:40.

167:14:39.

Roughly less than an hour had passed. The timing matched.

…This countdown isn’t affected even if I go back to the past?

That was fine too. It could serve as a coordinate.

Without thinking, Ming Po got up and planned to go find Ai Shiping.

At the very least, he had to stop him from leaving the house today.

Ming Po did not have many friends. He could not let that guy get caught up in the trouble he had caused.

“Looks like…”

His gloomy voice was filled with killing intent. “Someone has already found their path to death.”