Hei Ba was Hei Cha's nephew, but he had almost no talent or gifts. He was just an ordinary writer of virtual lives.
It was one of the few jobs with a relatively low barrier to entry: designing exciting or distinctive lives in the Virtual Universe and selling them for others to experience.
Precisely because the barrier was low, competition was fierce. He could spend a year meticulously designing a life and end up earning only a few thousand lang.
And that was after years of effort. Earlier on, no one had shown any interest at all.
Still, he now had a professional writer's certificate. He could no longer be called a Rice Worm.
One day, just as he finished designing a brutal battlefield, his robot assistant brought him terrible news: his uncle Hei Cha had been sentenced to death.
Hei Ba went blank for a moment. He could hardly believe it.
His uncle was his only family, the one who had always cared for and encouraged him, who had freed him from worry so he could devote himself to the work he loved. Had he really committed so many crimes? Hei Ba knew little about his uncle's work and had no interest in politics. He had even casually cast his Crown Prince election vote for a royal screenwriter he admired, though that candidate ranked outside the top million.
He had always thought his uncle was a good man. Who would have imagined he was a thoroughly corrupt official?
Hei Ba's head buzzed. After reading the official report laying out incontrovertible evidence of Hei Cha's crimes, he vented his grief and anger in the Virtual Universe, then broke down crying.
In the end, he set aside his work and went to Death Omen Star to witness his uncle's execution and