Qiu Yunru was certain he was going to die.
There were no two ways about it; he was too weak to move a muscle, he could feel his own breath fading, and he was plummeting towards the river at the base of the ravine at a speed that would surely leave nothing but ground human meat behind.
He wanted to be okay with it. Wasn't it cool, when characters faced their deaths with courage, unafraid and uncaring? Only, he just couldn't bring himself to pretend he felt that way.
No; he was angry
There was so much he had wanted to do. After slipping on someone's fucking smoothie back then and dying in his first life, he had had the chance to live a life he really wanted. He had had all the cards on his side: as a player, he knew every alchemical combination and every in and out of this world.
He had even come so, so close. He surely would have won the Nine Sects' Tournament, if only he lived to see the results. He would have reached Nascent Soul in two years, gone off into the mountains alone, and would never again worry about anything.
This kid, Li Chenyuan, just had to mess it all up.
Yes; even as he plunged headfirst towards the black waters of the Leng River, he knew that it wasn't necessarily that kid's fault. After all, he was just an abused NPC who had some sort of obsessive crush on him. Since he had a crush, he had followed Qiu Yunru around everywhere, messing his chance at peace up left and right. Qiu Yunru had barely a moment of solitary peace ever since that kid joined the sect. What's more, he'd gotten critically injured to save Li Chenyuan over and over, and in the end, it was for Li Chenyuan that he was going to die.
He had always been to empathetic. He probably should have turned tail and run.
But for some reason that he couldn't put words to, he hadn't been able to. The idea of leaving Li Chenyuan to be forced into being a monster and kidnapped by those mysterious people...
It was unbearable.
Qiu Yunru closed his eyes. He thought about instant ramen. This would be a good last thought, he thought, as he heard the river rushing towards him.
However, he never hit the water.
The air suddenly shifted.
What the--?
Opening his eyes, Qiu Yunru found that something very strange had happened
He could vaguely see the Leng River right below him, inches from the tip of his head. Looking past his chin, he saw the stars far above, and the edge of that cliff so far away that he could barely make it out. It was like there was a hazy, dark film pulled over everything, making it hard to see.
Evidently, he hadn't died. No; instead of hitting the water and splattering like a bag of meat, he was suspended in mid air, as though time itself had stopped. He was unable to move or speak.
He had a sudden morbid thought.
If I was a TV character about to die and the viewer paused the show, is this what it would feel like? Bullshit...it has to be a game glitch!
He had barely finished having that thought when the air crackled around him. Pink, green, yellow, and white pixelated flashes burst all across his vision, and the world around him flickered into darkness. One of the pixelated flashes burst near his arm, shooting a spark onto his hand that burned.
Ah, fuck! How is this necessary? Every time there's a glitch, do the NPC's suffer?!
"AH!"
Without warning, as though yanked down by an invisible hand, he was falling once more. Only, he didn't hit the Leng River. No; he kept falling and falling into the darkness as the world glitched around him endlessly.
Another terrifying thought occurred to him:
Am I stuck in a glitch realm?! I might fall forever! Until I starve, or whatever! Or just, really forever! Fuck!
In certain patches of Spring Blossoms, Autumn Fruits, events that the community had begun to call "glitch realms" occurred. These showed up when patches weren't properly coded. A player might step into an area with a coding error and be transported into total darkness, unable to keep playing the game. Occasionally, they might be able to shake the glitch by performing random actions (ex. throwing things, running, shouting), but it was often the case that the only way to get out of a glitch realm was to restart one's save, losing all progress.
He couldn't exactly "restart his save", could he?! First off, he didn't know how--second, wasn't there a high likelihood he'd be wiped out of existence? Better not to try!
His limbs shook with weakness, and it was difficult to move as he plummeted, but he managed to fumble with one of his vambraces and get it off. With the last of his strength, he tossed it into the darkness, praying to the developers that it might work.
THUNK!
At that moment, his body landed on the ground.
Even though he had seemed to be falling at a tremendous speed, it seemed that he had only had the sensation of falling which in the glitch realm. In reality, he had been floating aimlessly. Thus, even though his back a bit upon impacting the ground, he wasn't turned into a pile of splattered organs.
Still, it wasn't pleasant at all. He was still on the verge of death. All around him, that glitching and sparking seemed to have suddenly disappeared.
It had truly worked; throwing an object had pushed him out of the glitch realm!