Kite Flip

Xiao Jie gave a noncommittal hum. The moment Liu Qiang was brought up, that sense of unease flared up in him again.

Could that brat Liu Qiang really be so kind?

Could he have laid some kind of trap?

Yet no matter how wildly Xiao Jie let his imagination run, he could not think of what kind of risk an online game could possibly hold.

Fifteen minutes later, the two arrived at a mid-range restaurant near the residential compound: Haitian Food Workshop.

Because the studio's business had shrunk and slumped over the last two years, their meals had been downgraded time and again, and they rarely went out to eat anymore. On ordinary days, they would just casually make a stew or boil some noodles to get by, and occasionally going out for beef noodles counted as improving their standard of living.

In Han Luo's words—their mouths were about to lose all taste entirely.

Happy tonight, Xiao Jie intended to take Han Luo out for a proper meal to boost morale.

He walked straight inside and ordered four substantial dishes: braised pork ribs, tossed pork slices, squirrel fish, and shrimp and green vegetables, along with four bottles of beer. Before long, all the dishes were served.

Han Luo's palate had been deprived lately, and looking at the table of food and drink, his eyes lit up. "Not bad, Boss. The grub's great today."

"It's alright. Once we make money in the future, we'll go all out with four dishes every day. Alright, brother, stop just staring at it, let's dig in."

Neither of them was one for standing on ceremony, and the moment they picked up their bowls, they started chowing down.

Xiao Jie ate relatively fast, finishing his meal in under ten minutes. One look at Han Luo's ravenous way of wolfing down food told him it wouldn't be over anytime soon.

"You keep eating, I'll go buy some fruit to keep for tonight."

Han Luo waved a hand without lifting his head, still chewing away in his mouth.

Stepping out of Haitian Food Workshop, the sky outside had already grown dark. Looking at the neon lights amidst the night, Xiao Jie felt quite relaxed.

As the boss of Wuji Studio, he desperately needed a phenomenal game to revive his career.

He vaguely still remembered the studio's glory days back then. In that era when online games swept across the world, the studio truly flourished and picked up money just lying down, making a killing domestically and even expanding its business overseas.

It was just that in recent years, with the rise of mobile games and the decline of online games, the studio could hardly recover its past glory.

Of course, the biggest problem was that online games were no longer fun. Over the past few years, every time a new online game came out, he would download and try it with full anticipation, but every time all he got was disappointment. Game companies only thought about cashing in, and the games they made were filled with cookie-cutter perfunctoriness.

As for those gaming studios, they had also transformed from studying and competing over game content to high-tech tactics of AFK scripting.

A single computer running a dozen characters, grinding gold coins 24 hours a day, entirely relying on overdrawing the game's life to make a profit. This left traditional workshops like Wuji Studio, which relied on researching game mechanics to make a profit, with completely no room for survival.

In the end, only he and Han Luo were left struggling to hold on.

Now everything was finally going to change.

The difficulty of the game Old Earth was indeed high, and it might well drive away some casual players, but the game's graphical impact and combat feel were so astonishing that it could definitely spark a craze. As long as the popularity took off, there was no fear of nobody playing.

Moreover, high difficulty also had its advantages. The higher the difficulty, the greater the role of gaming skill.

With Xiao Jie's gaming skill level, he was very confident that he could ride this wave of dividends by relying on the experience and techniques he had accumulated over the years.

Xiao Jie was lost in thought, to the extent that he completely failed to notice a red sports car speeding over while ignoring a red light, until a harsh car horn blared right by his ear. Only then did he snap out of it. The moment he turned his head and saw the blinding headlights, his mind went completely blank.

We're done for! Was he going to die right here today?

In that instant, Xiao Jie felt despair, along with reluctance.

It wasn't reluctance about dying young—though he wasn't yet thirty, he himself was someone who took life and death lightly.

His reluctance stemmed mainly from the fact that the game he had just discovered hadn't even been enjoyed properly yet. If he missed out on such a top-tier game in this lifetime, he really wouldn't be able to close his eyes in death.

He leaped up almost out of pure instinct, yet there was no anticipation in his heart whatsoever—it was entirely a instinctive reaction born of despair.

Yet an unexpected thing happened. The moment his body leaped up, it actually soared into the air, spinning to execute a sideways mid-air somersault, just like a stunt in a kung fu movie.

The car roared past right behind him.

Xiao Jie's body flipped a full 360 degrees in the air, spinning like an acrobat to land on the ground ahead, dodging the Grim Reaper-like sports car by a hair's breadth.

It was quite a while after landing before Xiao Jie recovered his wits.

When he turned back around, not even a shadow of that sports car was to be seen.

He was covered in cold sweat, and the heart that had been in his mouth finally dropped back down.

Holy shit, he had almost kicked the bucket just now—wait a minute, how did he just pull that off?

Xiao Jie thought with a bewildered expression. He was still maintaining a landing posture of one knee on the ground, and stood up to replay the somersault he had just performed in his mind.

It was practically like the reflexes of a kung fu master in a martial arts flick, but that was impossible!

He knew his own physical condition all too well. Because he spent year-round playing games in the studio, though he occasionally went to the park to move around and exercise, his physique wasn't too terrible, but he definitely couldn't pull off such a high-difficulty move.

Could it be an adrenaline rush from being in extreme danger?

Or... wait a minute, why was this move just now so familiar?

A flash of light suddenly went off in Xiao Jie's mind—Kite Flip!

That's right, this spinning aerial somersault was almost identical to the move [Kite Flip] he had learned in the game.

As a man who had grown up playing games, the notion of using in-game skills in reality wasn't something he had never fantasized about. When he was little, he had practiced shooting energy blasts into the empty air more than once, striking a Shoryuken pose.

Yet ever since he entered society, he had never harbored such fantasies again.

Who could have expected that amidst life and death today, he had actually pulled off a skill from a game?

This gave Xiao Jie a deeply surreal feeling.

Could he be dreaming, or had he hallucinated from drinking too much just now?

He rubbed his face—it was only two bottles of beer, he wasn't drunk, and this was definitely not a dream.

He took a deep breath. Whether it was real or not, he would know by trying. He shoved off the ground hard with both feet.

Kite Flip!

His body spun to execute another major aerial somersault, landing cleanly and decisively on the ground.

It was real! It was actually real!

A surge of wild joy welled up in Xiao Jie's heart, and he felt his entire body trembling as countless thoughts flooded his mind.

Could it be that he had received divine revelation and awakened some hidden talent?

Or had he been chosen by some system? To become a host?

Or was it because of the game Old Earth, that the skills from this game could be brought back into reality?

"Jade Emperor? Supreme Lord Lao? Buddha? God?" he shouted at the empty air.

Yet there was no response.

"System?"

Still no response.

So it really was because of the game? He still found it somewhat hard to believe, completely unable to grasp the logic behind it.

Yet this seemed to be the only explanation.

What did this mean? If one could genuinely bring skills from a game into reality, holy shit, that would be insanely heaven-defying! He had only learned a lowest-tier skill just now, and he was already able to pull off such a dazzling move. Judging from the CG of this game, there were many supernatural elements inside—light body techniques, internal energy... immortal arts and Daoist magic... if spells could be brought out into reality as well, then why on earth would he still be slogging away.

He would directly ascend to immortality and attain the Dao...

No!

After a brief moment of erotic daydreaming, Xiao Jie suddenly felt that something was very wrong with this matter. How could such a wonderful stroke of good fortune exist in this world?

Xiao Jie was a very realistic person. Having been beaten down by society for so long, he definitely didn't believe in good things like pies falling from the sky.

What's more, if this game were truly so magical, how could that brat Liu Qiang simply give it away to them for nothing? He was far too familiar with what kind of character Liu Qiang was.

There had to be some hidden danger here that he hadn't discovered yet.