Chapter 3
Settling into the cab, I gave the driver the exact address of my apartment.
The city streets outside the window blurred past in the early autumn sunlight. This virtual metropolis—built entirely on massive data sets and computing power—felt incredibly real in this moment.
On my subconscious interface, the progress bar indicating the "System Unbinding Process" had already crossed the eighty-percent mark.
Half an hour later, I arrived at the apartment Irene and I had shared for the past three years.
It was a sprawling penthouse in a high-end downtown residential district, boasting vast floor space and a sweeping view of the city.
Three years ago, as we huddled in a cramped, low-rent apartment eating instant noodles and charting our future, Irene had pointed at these exact downtown high-rises, swearing that one day she would move me into one of them.
The apartment was tomb-quiet. I walked over to the living room fireplace and flipped the electric ignition switch.
I didn't head to the bedroom to pack my clothes, nor did I bother gathering any valuables. Instead, I walked straight to the solid wood bookshelf.
This was where Irene kept the possessions she had cherished most over the last three years.
I reached out and pulled down a thick, leather-bound scrapbook. It was a commemorative album she had made by hand for our one-year wedding anniversary. It was packed with photos chronicling our journey—from the destitute early days of her startup, to the wild ecstasy of her first round of funding, all the way to a selfie of us moving into this very apartment. In those photos, Irene’s smile was radiant, her eyes locked onto me with undisguised love.
I flipped through a few pages with absolute calm, then tossed the entire album into the blazing fireplace.
Next, I picked up a picture frame sitting nearby. Encased inside was a slightly frayed one-dollar bill.
This represented the very first dollar in profit Irene’s company had ever made. She had pressed it into my hands herself, claiming it would be our "token of love."
I pried off the back of the frame, extracted the bill, and casually tossed it into the flames. The paper burned even faster than the album, reducing to ash in a mere two seconds.
Over the next half hour, I took every single item in this apartment that symbolized our relationship and fed it all to the fire.
Afterward, I retreated to the study and pulled out a chair.
A stack of memo pads and a fountain pen she usually used perfectly sat where they always did on the desk. I slid out a crisp sheet of stationery, uncapped the pen, and began to write—leaving behind the very last footprint that the man known as "Arthur" would ever leave in this world.
It was a letter detailing the unvarnished truth. It punctured the fabricated reality of this entire world, and it mercilessly exposed her hypocrisy.
When I finished, I folded the paper neatly and secured it beneath an ashtray.
By the time all this was done, night had completely fallen outside the windows.
The system panel in my subconscious chimed with its final, steady mechanical voice:
"Unbinding progress at 99%. Physical detachment sequence will execute in five minutes. Administrator, please take your position for consciousness logout."
I walked over to the oversized sofa in the living room, slipped the wedding band off my finger, and dropped it into the trash can. Then, I adjusted myself into a comfortable position and leaned back peacefully.
Twelve o'clock sharp.
"Command executed. Consciousness extraction initiated."
At the sound of that final beep, the mortal vessel named "Arthur" completely ceased its heartbeat.
To this sandbox world, this body was simply an overworked man who suffered a sudden, fatal heart attack on his own couch, dying quietly in the dead of night.
My consciousness detached from the physical shell, sliding into the waiting data stream that bridged the virtual world and external reality.
Meanwhile, at two o’clock in the morning, inside a top-tier downtown private club, a lavish VIP booth was bathed in dizzying neon lights and deafening music. The massive marble table was cluttered with astronomically priced champagne bottles.
Irene sat dead center on the semi-circular leather booth, clearly plastered.
Surrounded by a gaggle of fair-weather friends, everyone was clamoring to toast her, showering her with flattery for the "decisive" structural reorganization she had pulled off at the company today.
Irene leaned heavily against Ryan’s shoulder, soaking up the endless compliments.
She picked up her phone from the table and glanced at the screen. Aside from a few promotional spam texts, there were zero messages or missed calls from me.
This utter radio silence clearly defied her expectations, leaving a sour taste in her mouth.
In her logic, as a discarded "husband," I should be acting like an abandoned stray dog right now, desperately spamming her phone to beg for forgiveness. But I had done absolutely nothing. This total deviation from the script she had written in her head made her feel deeply offended.
"Playing hard to get, huh? Not even an ounce of remorse," Irene sneered coldly. Gripping her phone, she scrolled to my number in her contacts.
"Let's see how much longer he can hold this in," she said, deliberately raising her voice so the whole booth could hear before slamming the speakerphone button. "I'm going to make him crawl over here to pick me up right now. I'll have him watch us drink, and then he can wait outside the door like the chauffeur he is."
The music in the booth was abruptly killed. Everyone quieted down, fixing their eyes on the phone on the table with expressions hungry for a good show.
According to my old habits, whenever Irene called late at night—whether I was deep into auditing accounts or already asleep—I would never let it ring more than three times.
But now, as the dial tone continuously dragged on, the smugness on Irene’s face rapidly soured into acute impatience.
She frowned, fully prepared to hurl a barrage of insults the absolute second the call connected.
Finally, just seconds before the call was about to automatically time out, a click echoed from the other end.
"Well, well, Arthur, you’ve grown some nerve, haven’t you?" Irene snapped, not even caring if the other side had spoken. "Do you know what time it is? Why aren't you answering your phone? I command you to drive down to the Royal Club immediately. You are going to show up and pick me up right this second, do you hear me?"
Leaning back into the couch, she raised an eyebrow and swept a triumphant gaze over the crowd, fully expecting my meek, submissive voice to grovel through the speaker.
Yet, the next second, the voice that crackled through the phone wasn't mine at all.
"Excuse me, are you a family member of the owner of this phone?"
Irene's smile stiffened slightly. Annoyed, she barked into the mic, "Who the hell is this? Cut the crap, hand the phone to Arthur and tell him to get his ass over here!"
"Ma'am, please watch your language. We are the police," the voice on the other end replied, devoid of any emotional fluctuation. "Ten minutes ago, we received a 911 call from a courier who noticed a man slumped on the sofa while making a late delivery. After examining the scene, we have confirmed that the victim suffered from sudden cardiac death. We have also verified his identity as Arthur, the owner of this phone."
"As his wife, if you are available, please bring your ID and come to the apartment immediately. The deceased currently shows no vital signs."
The crowd of people, who just moments ago had been jeering and waiting for a punchline, instantly froze in place.
Irene stared blankly at the phone. Her cheeks, previously flushed pink from the alcohol, drained to a deathly, horrifying pale.
