“What do I do if it always rains in my world?”

“Just change up the code; give /weatherclear a try.”

The alarm clock rang on time.

I, having stayed up late fixing game bugs, originally wanted to sacrifice my breakfast to get an extra ten minutes of sleep.

However, a harsh light shone through the window.

I jolted awake and looked outside.

The sky was spotless, and the tall buildings to the east were bathed in orange morning light.

The autumn rain that had lasted for more than a month had finally stopped! My mood lifted.

At nine in the morning, I arrived at the company on time.

After clocking in downstairs, I was heading to the Luckin Coffee on the left side of the lobby when suddenly a red object fell directly in front of me.

Something warm splattered on the back of my hand.

I instinctively looked down, and my gaze fell on a face that looked like it had been run over by a steamroller.

A wave of fear forced me to look away immediately, and then I noticed that this mangled corpse was wearing a very familiar red coat.

That was a birthday present that I gave to my girlfriend two weeks ago.

It had to be the same coat, right? It had to! People around me screamed in terror.

“Ah! Someone jumped!”

“What are you joking about!”

Jumped? No way, this couldn’t be a jump! I stiffly twisted my neck and looked up.

What I saw was a bright ceiling reflecting a vivid patch of red.

This person clearly fell from the intact ceiling! The height of the lobby in this Grade A office building is 7.2 meters.

At 7.2 meters, how could an adult be reduced to a pile of mush? Blood mixed with brain matter oozed slowly, eventually staining my white sneakers.

Only then did the fear and nausea hit me, and I quickly stepped back several paces, then my legs went weak, and I fell to the ground.

The police arrived quickly, and I was taken in to give a statement.

However, having witnessed such a horrific scene and speculating about the identity of the deceased, my emotions were still in a state of collapse.

Since the deceased was wearing a work badge, her identity was quickly confirmed.

Her name was Grace.

She was my girlfriend, with whom I had been in a relationship for four years and was preparing to marry.

I was unwilling to accept this fact, and my brain automatically filled with other chaotic thoughts, making it impossible for me to communicate normally with others.

The police tried their best to comfort me, hoping to obtain some useful information from me because they suspected it was a murder case.

Someone had somehow secured Grace’s already lifeless body to the ceiling, and after a while, the body fell due to gravity.

They found a glaring inconsistency: the height of the lobby.

There are surveillance cameras in every corner of the lobby, which confirmed that Grace had indeed fallen straight down from the ceiling, but the ceiling itself is a blind spot for the cameras.

However…

I had seen the ceiling, and it was spotless, without a trace of blood.

Moreover, so much fresh blood had poured out when Grace fell…

The police asked me about Grace’s relationships.

I answered each question in turn.

Grace was an only child, and her hometown was over three hundred kilometers away in a rural county.

We both worked at the same internet technology company, but she worked in the modeling team on the 24th floor, while I was in charge of the backend code development on the 21st floor.

She had a cheerful personality and was kind; her colleagues spoke very highly of her, so I honestly couldn’t think of anyone who would want to harm her.

However, after more than two hours, the coroner delivered the autopsy report, which indicated that Grace had indeed fallen to her death, showing no other injuries.

This suggested she had likely committed suicide.

Neither the police nor I could accept this finding.

Anyone would find that hard to believe! Grace isn’t Spider-Man; how could she cling to the ceiling and then fall from a height of 7.2 meters…

and end up like that? With Grace’s parents’ consent, the coroner was to perform an autopsy on her body.

In the office, my colleagues were busy working, seemingly unfazed by the death of someone in the company.

But then again, it’s understandable.

Creation Technology has nearly a hundred thousand employees, and there are over seven thousand people just in this office building; who would care about a mere concept artist? Only about a dozen people in the development department knew Grace.

Moreover, our project team had recently been busy testing a large sandbox game that the company invested billions in developing.

If I hadn’t stayed up late last night to collect bugs for this game, I would have gone to her girls’ party with Grace, and she wouldn’t have stayed over at her friend’s house because she got drunk, so this morning, we could have gone to work together…

I walked to my workstation in a daze and sat down.

My colleague Alan excitedly leaned over and said, “Tim, to be honest, as a developer of the game’s underlying code, I really didn’t expect it to have such a high degree of freedom and playability; players can almost create anything.

Once the formal internal testing starts, I must grab a spot!”

I just nodded blankly.

I was also engrossed in the game during testing yesterday.

However, at this stage, the game still has some bugs, which is why internal personnel are testing it.

As a developer, I can identify the issues accurately.

For example, I found several bugs yesterday, such as abnormal weather in a certain area and deviations in a character’s movement trajectory.

But now, I couldn’t muster any interest in this at all; I was consumed by the mystery of Grace’s death and my guilt over it…

Alan picked up on my lack of enthusiasm, so he turned his attention back to focusing intently on controlling the game character.

After all, it was work time.

Not two minutes later, Alan suddenly sighed.

Although I was immersed in sadness, hearing him sigh made me instinctively think he had encountered some problem, so I looked at his screen.

I saw him controlling the game character to run up to the rooftop of a four-story building, then carefully exploring every inch of the place.

Before I knew it, the character had suddenly fallen from the rooftop, crashing through several floors and landing on the first floor.

In simple terms, it was a clipping issue.

This was likely due to a mismatch between the modeling and the physics engine in the code, requiring some parameter adjustments.

Such minor issues could be fixed by a recent grad, but Alan frowned and kept running up to the rooftop tirelessly.

I was puzzled and about to say something, but this time the character fell from another location.

The game scene is made up of code.

Generally speaking, as long as the code isn’t altered, new bugs shouldn’t arise.

I understood why Alan kept going back up to the rooftop.

This bug seemed to have troubled him for quite some time.

He switched to the backend, quickly browsing through lines of code, but he couldn’t spot any problems.

“Tim, I know you’re feeling down, but could you do me a favor?”

As the team lead, I couldn’t turn down a teammate’s request during work hours, so I asked him what problem he had encountered.

“This building’s physics engine has some issues, but I can’t find the specific reason.”

“Let me take a look at the source code.”

I opened my computer, found the source code, and carefully checked it several times, but I still couldn’t spot any problems.

Alan kept running up to the rooftop, falling over and over.

“Could it be a problem with the modeling?”

I was certain it wasn’t a modeling issue, but his words sparked a thought.

“I’ll go ask.”

I went straight to the 24th floor and found the person in charge, Director Steve, to discuss the issue.

He said it would take time to test.

I stepped outside the office to wait for him.

I found myself walking over to Grace’s workstation; the police had already removed her personal belongings, and the desk was now empty.

A colleague handed me a cup of hot water, and when I looked up, it was someone who was close to Grace.

“Tim, my condolences,” she sighed sadly, “This morning, Grace was still talking about how you two were getting married. Who knew she just went to the bathroom… Sigh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I know there’s nothing I can say that would help, but… don’t be too sad.”

I shook my head, thanked her, and picked up the cup.

As the warmth seeped into my skin, a sudden flash of realization struck me.

“Did you say Grace was here at the office this morning?”

She frowned a bit, annoyed by the hot water that splashed on her: “Yeah, we clocked in together at 8:51.

I just told the police, and they have verified it.”

If Grace clocked in at 8:51 on the 24th floor of the company, then the police’s assumption was completely mistaken!

I immediately called Captain Henry, the officer in charge of the case, and learned that they were searching for clues in the bathroom.

A cordon was set up at the bathroom entrance, and the officer on duty wouldn’t let me in.

As I pushed the door, my ring slipped off my finger and rolled towards the bathroom, vanishing from sight in mere seconds.

Captain Henry heard the commotion and came out to check.

He told me the surveillance showed that Grace entered the bathroom at 8:55 this morning and never came out again.

The next time she was seen was at 9:02, in a horrific way…

In just seven minutes, how could the murderer have killed her without being seen or caught on camera? Everyone was engulfed in a strange fear.

Captain Henry patted my shoulder and said he would contact me if there were new clues, then left with his team.

I slumped against the door, staring at my empty fingers, and suddenly recalled that I needed to find the ring.

However, I searched every inch of the bathroom but couldn’t find the ring engraved with Grace’s name.

I couldn’t help but feel a wave of sorrow; was I going to lose every memory of her? I lost track of time until Director Steve finally found me.

“After discussions with the development team, we’ve finally identified the problem.”

He said the building model, character model, and program code were all fine, but when their parameters converged at specific values or coordinates, it could trigger an unpredictable bug.

This probability is almost negligible, yet it does exist, and the relevant personnel are discussing solutions.

Director Steve also learned about Grace’s situation; he patted my shoulder and told me not to get involved in this matter and suggested that I take a few days off from the company.

I took Director Steve’s advice, not only because I was feeling down, but also because I needed to pick up Grace’ parents to handle Grace’s funeral arrangements.

After quickly briefing my team on the upcoming work, I went downstairs to prepare to head to the train station.

When the elevator reached the first floor, I instinctively walked to the spot where Grace had fallen and looked up at the ceiling.

The smooth stone reflected my face, which appeared distorted.

How could she have fallen from there? I couldn’t make sense of it.

From the 24th floor to the 1st floor…

in a high-rise office building packed with surveillance cameras during peak hours, it was impossible that no one noticed, right? I paced back and forth in that area, trying to find something, but it was futile.

In the end, I only managed to find the property management, filed a report for the lost ring, and handed them five hundred dollars, hoping they would return it if the cleaning staff found it.

Of course, the chances of that happening are as slim as finding a game bug.

While taking a taxi to the train station, I ran into a chatty driver who stuttered, which made me quite uncomfortable.

I tried to interrupt him several times, but he just kept talking into the intercom.

Finally, I kindly reminded the driver, but he said he didn’t have a stuttering problem at all.

I was too lazy to argue with him, but after taking a few steps, I heard him cursing very fluently in vulgar language.

“I see that unlucky guy looks like he just lost his wife; no wonder his mouth is so foul!”

My pent-up emotions finally exploded at that moment.

“What… what… what do you want to do?”

See? Isn’t that a clear stutter? I raised my fist and struck him hard in the face.

He was stunned for a moment before immediately retaliating.

We grappled with each other until bystanders pulled us apart.

A large crowd gathered around, and the murmurs felt like countless needles piercing my mind, giving me a splitting headache and nearly causing me to faint.

A kind lady brought me a cup of hot drink, and after a few seconds, she asked with concern, “Sir, do you need help calling an ambulance? You look unwell.”

Hearing that familiar voice, I looked up in disbelief.

“Grace!”

She paused for a moment before pulling her hand back, and said, “Sir, you must have mistaken me for someone else.”

How could I possibly be wrong?

She looks exactly like Grace, even the moles at the tips of her eyebrows are exactly the same!

I grabbed her, refusing to let go, wanting to confirm my suspicions.

But she looked frightened by what I was doing.

Just then, security at the train station rushed over to break up the crowd, and she cried out for help.

Eventually, they managed to separate us.

Maybe she really isn’t Grace.

Grace would never act like this towards me.

I managed to regain some composure and apologized.

The driver, seeing things escalate, waved his hand and stammered that he wouldn’t hold it against me before quickly driving off.

Half an hour later, I got a call from Grace’s parents.

The two elderly folks broke down in tears when they saw me, and it took a while for them to calm down.

Her mother gripped my arm tightly and asked hoarsely, “Did the police catch the killer?”

I shook my head.

Seeing this, her mother lost it again.

he hit me and scolded me, venting her frustration. “How could you take care of Grace like this? We entrusted her to you…”

Grace’s father wiped his tears and stopped she, saying, “This isn’t Alan’s fault… Let’s head to the police station first.”

I reached out to help them, but my hand froze mid-air as I looked at Grace’ father in disbelief, “I’m Tim, did you get it wrong?”

They both looked shocked and stared at me closely, “Grace has been dating her boyfriend for four years, how could we possibly be mistaken? Aren’t you Alan?”

Alan is my closest colleague at the company and a good friend in private.

Once, when he came to my house as a guest, he happened to run into Grace’s parents.

Could Grace’s death have hit them so hard that they confused Alan with me? So I reiterated my name.

They were still confused, but the priority now was to get to the police station.

On the way, after they mistakenly called me by the wrong name six times, the atmosphere in the car grew heavy.

I had already contacted Captain Henry, who informed me that there was no progress in the case, and we could only wait for the coroner’s report to see if any new clues would emerge.

But it’s heartbreaking for Grace’s parents; they desperately wanted to see her one last time.

When we got to the police station, her body had already been stitched up.

Heart-wrenching cries came from the morgue.

I didn’t dare go in; I was afraid to face my lover who couldn’t respond.

So I stepped outside to the flower bed and lit a cigarette.

Captain Henry soon joined me.

He grabbed a cigarette, lit it up, and took a long drag.

As the thick smoke curled around us, his strained voice broke through: “This case is truly bizarre.”

I nodded in agreement.

“All the evidence points to her having jumped off the building to commit suicide.”

“But she was in the bathroom at the time, and there are no windows in there and the spot where the body was found is just too bizarre.” I pointed out the inconsistencies.

Captain Henry nodded, running a hand through his hair in frustration: “It can’t be that it’s haunted, can it?”

As the cigarette burned down, we fell into silence.