Strange Little Game

After finishing a day's work, Lu Yao dragged his exhausted body back to his rented room.

In a small company of about a dozen people, more than half were deadweight with connections. Excluding the boss and partners, only three actually did any work. Just three months in, Lu Yao already felt like each day dragged on forever.

But without finding a new job first, he didn't dare quit. The economy was rough—survival came first, then he could think about the next step in life.

Only at times like this did Lu Yao have a little room to relax. He shifted his mood, temporarily tossing aside all the day's frustrations.

Now, it was game time!

He booted up his old computer, the mouse crawling slowly across the screen.

Let's see, what to play today.

A ranked match?

A round of Dota?

Or Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX?

An inconspicuous icon caught Lu Yao's attention.

It sat in the bottom-right corner of the screen, a logo of a green pixel-art island blending into the green grass of his desktop wallpaper—barely noticeable.

God Simulator?

What game was this?

Lu Yao had no memory of downloading or buying it.

He clicked on the file properties to check. The source file was 20MB—just a small game. At that size, it looked like something from way back.

Lu Yao's computer was low-spec. He'd been using this machine since college and couldn't bear to replace it. Playing League of Legends or Dota required minimum graphics settings, and big-budget titles were only possible through cloud gaming or watching others' videos. Most of the time, Lu Yao stuck to all kinds of classic old games.

He tried clicking on God Simulator.

The screen slowly went black.

Accompanied by a mellow, old-school 8-bit electronic tune, white Chinese characters appeared one by one on the black screen—a very classic pixel-game style.

[On this day, the world finally welcomed back the Great God.]

[Your arrival has restored meaning to the world. Your divine power will create a brand-new civilization.]

Then the black screen gradually faded, replaced by a crowd of little figures building various structures, some farming fields, and others raising their arms in cheers. The pixel-art visuals felt fresh and nostalgic, putting Lu Yao at ease.

Three white options appeared against the background.

[New Game]

[Continue Game]

[Exit]

Lu Yao clicked [New Game].

The screen went black again, and patches of uniform green pixels spread across it, like blobs of paint smeared on a chalkboard.

[Capturing world...]

About five seconds later, the green pixels filled the entire screen.

[World located. Welcome, Great God.]

The pixel background shifted once more.

A stretch of flat green land appeared on the screen, surrounded by forests, rivers, mountains, and a desert. At the center stood a white domed building that looked like a temple.

A line of text emerged in the center: This is your temple. You name it the ___ Temple.

Lu Yao thought for a moment, then casually typed a word.

Yao Temple.

The words [Yao Temple] appeared above the temple.

Then the screen fell into a strange stillness.

Lu Yao clicked on the temple, but no options came up.

What was this?

What company made such an old game without even a basic tutorial or guide?

Just as he was wondering, two barefoot little figures with bare torsos appeared at the edge of the screen. They moved over, circling the temple.

One of them popped an exclamation mark above its head, then a Dialogue Box appeared.

"What a refined and magnificent house—this must have been built by a god."

The other raised its hands high.

"God! God!"

"This must be a sign from the god. This place is blessed—we need to bring more people here to settle!"

"God-Blessed Land! God-Blessed Land!"

Both little villagers had smiley face symbols floating above their heads. They ran all the way out of the screen, and within a few seconds, they returned with five more villagers in tow.

A total of seven villagers began to worship around the Temple. They built a small thatched hut next to the Temple and transplanted some bushes that looked like berry shrubs from outside the screen, starting to live beside the Temple.

At that moment, a prompt appeared on the screen.

[You have obtained your world's first batch of believers. The Power of Faith is the means by which you perform Miracles. Please gather more faith.]

Lu Yao noticed that in the upper right corner, there was now a small human head icon labeled "Population," and next to it a palace icon labeled "Faith." Both the Population and Faith values were 7.

It seemed that one believer provided 1 point of Faith.

He clicked on Population with the mouse, but nothing happened. He clicked on Faith next, and this time an icon that looked like a puff of mist popped up.

[Miracles]

Below it was a row of options, each with a corresponding simple sketch. All Miracles were grayed out, indicating that none could be used at the moment.

Each Miracle required Faith to cast. Even [Rainfall], which needed the least Faith, cost 10 points.

That meant he needed 10 believers just to perform a single Miracle.

Increasing the population became the top priority.

Unlike other simulation management games, the God Simulator couldn't directly build houses or produce residents. It could only wait for the Pixelated Villagers to reproduce or gather on their own. For now, the only option available was [Miracles].

Lu Yao watched the Pixelated Villagers farming, clicking and exploring with the mouse on the screen, while his stomach began to growl loudly.

He went to the kitchen, boiled a bowl of noodles, and grabbed a few cloves of garlic.

When he returned to the computer, Lu Yao noticed that the villagers around the Temple were acting strangely. Sad expressions appeared above their heads, and they were all gathered around the Temple, worshipping.

Dialogue Boxes kept popping up above the villagers' heads.

"Great God, we beg for your manifestation!"

"Please grant us your blessing, O Great God!"

"The Forest Tribe thinks we worship a demon and wants to tear down the Temple. Please show us a divine sign!"

Lu Yao took a bite of noodles and thought to himself, Looks like this is the first crisis.

But right now, Faith was only at 7 points—not even enough to make it rain, and the Miracle tab was still unusable.

Lu Yao kept exploring, and finally, clicking on the Temple brought up a brand-new interface.

In the center of the screen was a stone campfire. In front of the fire sat a gray human-shaped statue in a seated pose. The statue's face was blurry, impossible to tell if it was male or female, as if it were the Pixelated Villagers' imagined image of a god.

In front of the Divine Statue was a long table with two slots of different shapes.

The large slot on the left was labeled [Offering].

The smaller slot on the right was labeled [Blessing].

For now, both slots were empty.

The Offering was easy to understand—it was what the believer villagers offered to the god.

Following that logic, the Blessing should be the power or items bestowed upon these believers by the Temple.

Could this be the divine sign they were asking for?

Lu Yao searched everywhere but couldn't find anything he could drag and move. He was momentarily stumped—stuck on the very first problem.

Then, suddenly, he noticed something strange.

That long table in front of the Divine Statue... why did it look so familiar?

No...

Wasn't that table exactly the same as his own computer desk?

The two slots—the Offering slot was shaped exactly like a rectangular keyboard, and the Bounty slot was oval-shaped, like a mouse?

Looking more closely, the statue of the god, depicted sitting in front of the long table—wasn't that just him playing on the computer?

This thought startled Lu Yao.

Impossible...

It must be a coincidence.

Then, a bold idea popped into his head.

Carefully, he placed a garlic clove from beside his noodles onto the mouse.

Lu Yao watched the mouse with eager anticipation.

Two seconds later, the garlic clove rolled off the mouse.

"It really was a coincidence."

Lu Yao chuckled to himself, a faint sense of disappointment settling in.

Just then, the fallen garlic clove suddenly vanished into thin air.

Lu Yao instinctively looked at the computer screen.

In the Temple's [Blessing] slot, a pixelated icon of a garlic appeared.

[Garlic]: A divine blessing, a special spice, and also a medicinal herb.

A line of text appeared on the screen.

--Would you like to bestow [Garlic] upon your followers?

[Yes] [No]

Lu Yao's hand, holding the mouse, trembled slightly.

Starting a new book—dear readers, please add it to your collections and keep reading~