Many high-difficulty platforms require specific jumping techniques, and since others don’t have William Carter’s “answer key,” they can only keep trying over and over.

But William Carter already knows the correct way to jump. Although he still has to fail dozens of times, each attempt brings him closer to success, and he doesn’t waste any effort.

What’s more, the harder the platform is to jump on, the more advantageous it is for William Carter.

So, as things shifted, William Carter found himself gradually surpassing some players who started off faster than him. Most importantly, even in the later stages of the trial, he could still maintain a relatively high success rate.

“Phew, I don’t know why, but after getting used to my body in the trial, I suddenly feel a bit out of place back in reality. I feel so weak.”

William Carter slowly realized this problem: the sensations from the trial were gradually carrying over into real life.

In the trial, William Carter had performed many fancy jumps. Through repeated failures and practice, he had developed very deep muscle memory.

And this memory and skill could also be brought back into real life.

“Suddenly I feel like a gymnast. I really want to try it. Hmm, let’s just do the simplest backflip.”

William Carter stood in the living room, eager to give it a go.

A backflip is something only people with some athletic training can usually do, but in the trial, William Carter had done it many times.

He could even clearly remember how every muscle should exert force during a backflip.

“Here goes!”

William Carter pushed off the ground hard with his legs, exploded with core strength, swung his arms, and used his waist as the axis—

Then crashed to the floor.

“Ow, ow, ow, my neck!”

William Carter was stunned by the fall, lying on the ground dazed for a long time before finally getting up with the help of the sofa. As soon as he tilted his head, a sharp pain shot through his neck.

“Turns out I was way too cocky. My body in reality is even worse than a useless person’s. Damn it.”

William Carter struggled to lie down on the sofa, declaring that he would never mess around again. If he ended up paralyzing himself, how embarrassing would that be?

Imagine being hospitalized—ask the person in the bed on the left, they were in a car accident; ask the one on the right, they broke their leg gambling on soccer. Then look at himself: got crippled doing a backflip at home out of boredom. How would that look?

Just as William Carter was struggling to move toward the sofa, he heard the living room door open at the perfect moment.

Grace Bennett looked at William Carter, who was struggling to get to the sofa, and was shocked: “William Carter, you’re getting more and more outrageous. Yesterday you just forgot to eat, and today what’s this? You managed to fall flat on your face at home. Are you already celebrating your 80th birthday this year?”

William Carter: “”

There was no way to explain this.

William Carter simply gave up trying to explain. He sat on the sofa, rubbing his neck, and glanced at the clock: “Why are you home so early today? And, you said you’d make pork ribs tonight—where are the ribs?”

Grace Bennett tossed her bag onto the sofa and changed her shoes as she said, “I got off work early today.”

William Carter: “That’s good news. Why do you look so unhappy?”

Grace Bennett said helplessly, “But the department head told us interns that we don’t need to come in tomorrow.”

William Carter: “”

Chapter 14: Survey Form

Grace Bennett sat down on the sofa: “Wait, aren’t you going to tutor tonight?”

William Carter: “Same as you, I’m out of a job.”

Grace Bennett was a bit confused: “Huh?”

William Carter explained, “The kid I was tutoring got a personal AI assistant, so there’s no need for me to help with Chinese anymore. But what about you? Aren’t you in tech media? How did you end up unemployed too?”

Grace Bennett looked exasperated: “Don’t even mention it. We interns were just there to help the senior staff, like handling news briefs and short articles. But now that everyone has a personal system, the full-time employees’ efficiency has multiplied, so there’s no work left for us interns. Of course, we got laid off.”

“Actually, we’re still the lucky ones. Some senior employees, because they have high salaries and the company is overstaffed, were also forcibly let go. That’s really desperate.”

William Carter looked speechless: “Where are we supposed to complain about this?”

William Carter never expected that after just feeling sorry for translators and the glasses factory in his heart, he and Grace Bennett would both end up unemployed.

This must be karma.

“So what about our rent for September? We have to pay three months at once.” William Carter suddenly thought of a very serious problem.

Grace Bennett thought for a moment: “I’ll send out some more resumes tomorrow, but I don’t think the situation in other media industries will be much better. If it really doesn’t work out, we’ll just have to use our savings to get by for now.”

William Carter was silent for a moment: “Do we have any savings?”

Grace Bennett: “I don’t think so.”

William Carter facepalmed.

Grace Bennett smiled: “Hey, it’s fine. Are the two of us really going to starve? Worst case, we just stop renting and go back to living in the dorms. By the way, you lazybones, did you skip streaming again today?”

William Carter was dumbfounded. That topic change was fast.

“Ahem, well, I was busy with the trial today and didn’t have the heart to stream,” William Carter dodged the question.

Grace Bennett sneered: “Hmph, you have an excuse for skipping every day. If you don’t stream and earn money for the family tomorrow, I’ll sell all your ‘add-to-library’ game accounts dirt cheap.”