Fifteen minutes later, after getting dressed, Lu Run witnessed two shootings and a gang shootout at a street corner. Only then was he, trembling with fear, taken away by the two professional testers, Xue Nian and Luo Le.
"This game doesn't even have teleportation. You need communication tools to contact people, and you can only travel on your own. What a pain."
Luo Le looked like a burly young man with half his short hair shaved and dyed purple, three glowing crystal circuits embedded in his left cheek. His hands were tucked into his pockets. Though he carried no weapons, the sheer menace radiating from him was enough to keep the youths of these streets from approaching.
"How about it, kid? Filming here?"
Xue Nian was even bulkier than Luo Le, his shoulders as broad as a door. With a cropped haircut, washed jeans, and a worker's tank top, he looked like an elephant—gentle enough at a glance, yet capable of flattening someone with one kick.
Lu Run looked at the wary, suspicious gazes the NPCs cast toward them and felt deeply moved. He knew this was a game... but the overwhelming visual impact and those complex expressions were impossible to ignore.
The filth and stains looked utterly real.
The stench of discarded kitchen waste carried an intense sense of everyday life.
The poor even had rusty prosthetics that looked like scrap metal and smelled of motor oil. When they malfunctioned, their owners simply knocked them a few times. They were clearly capable of moving as swiftly as the wind, yet here they fought and brawled, indulged in injections of "medicine," cigarettes, and alcohol, even humped in public as they immersed themselves in cheap films reflected across their retinas.
Everyone lived absurd lives, muddling through each day. It felt terrifyingly