"Tap, tap, tap."
"Ah! Hah!"
"Ah!"
"You Win!"
Those two words appeared boldly on the computer screen. The man sitting in front of it pulled off his headset, tossed it onto the desk, and leaned back in his chair. With his eyes closed, he felt around on the desk for a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a deep drag.
"Whew!" He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke with something like a moan. "A smoke afterward really does beat being a living god! Ahahaha!"
With the cigarette dangling from his lips, he clicked the mouse idly. A level 85 Blood Demon with a full set of sky avatars and epic gear appeared on the screen-a character decked out like a true big spender. His ID was Defy Me and Die. The man was Qiu Haisheng, known as the number-one Berserker on the Chinese servers. Before long, he had finished his cigarette. He flicked the butt neatly into the ashtray, lit another, and turned his attention back to the screen. "I'm getting a little tired of Berserker. I heard they're buffing Asura next patch? Taking a second-tier class straight into the top tier? Maybe I'll play Asura for a bit." Qiu Haisheng spoke while leisurely blowing smoke rings, then opened the system menu, clicked to confirm character selection, and returned to the character selection screen. Beside a glittering golden "big red dog" stood a character who could not possibly have looked more destitute.
Class: Asura Level: 25 ID: Barn
Qiu Haisheng's eyebrow twitched at the ID. He had chosen it after reading about Shortsword Barn, one of the four great weapon masters in the Arad Continent's backstory.
He confirmed his selection and entered the game. "Welcome back," came Seria's sweet voice as always. Qiu Haisheng thought that "welcome back" really was appropriate. He had created this character around the same time as Defy Me and Die. Now his Berserker had reached godlike heights, while this Asura was still only level 25 and did not even have a single ordinary avatar item. He was about as poor as it got.
I'll claim the welcome-back gift pack first, Qiu Haisheng thought, opening his mailbox. Beneath the welcome-back gift pack was another message. It did not look like something a player had sent; even a veteran like Qiu Haisheng had never seen one like it. Another event? Why haven't I heard about it? Puzzled, he opened the message. But the moment he did, his mouse cursor vanished. A progress bar appeared in the message, with the words "Binding character..." above it. A bad feeling crept over him. Is someone trying to steal my account? He had sunk at least twenty or thirty thousand yuan into this account. If it really got stolen, wouldn't he be taking a massive loss? Frightened, he kept moving the mouse, but the cursor would not appear. He angrily slammed the mouse down and cursed, "Of all times for the mouse to stop working! Just my luck!" It was clear that Qiu Haisheng hated the feeling of losing control, and now he was furious too.
Watching the progress bar crawl forward, Qiu Haisheng panicked. He had no idea why the cursor had suddenly vanished or where this mysterious message had come from. He waited until the bar reached the end. "Ding!" The progress bar finished, and the words above it changed to "Person and character successfully bound." Just as Qiu Haisheng resolved to find out what was going on, the progress bar turned red, and the text changed to "Transmigration in progress..."
Qiu Haisheng sprang to his feet. "Holy shit! Transmigration?" That ominous feeling grew stronger and stronger. He backed away, but just then, a bolt of electricity leaped from the computer tower and plunged into the space between his eyebrows. Qiu Haisheng immediately dropped like a corpse. More precisely, he had already transmigrated... The next morning's headline in the H City Daily read:
Local shut-in dies suddenly while gaming at home; public urged to avoid excessive gaming and safeguard their health
Waves washed against the shore beneath a clear, cloudless sky. Every so often, a few seabirds flew past, calling overhead.
What a beautiful scene it would have been, if not for the shriveled "corpse" on the beach. Sunlight fell across him, and the corpse came to life. "Mmm, so warm!" He lazily scratched his chest and opened his eyes...
"Huh? I definitely felt sunlight. Why is it dark? Where's the sun?" As Qiu Haisheng puzzled over this, he suddenly remembered what had happened earlier...
"Shit, where am I? Wasn't I at home? What's with the waves and seabirds? Have seabirds evolved to the point where they can fly around freely at night now?" Suddenly, something else occurred to him. He remembered the words he had seen before passing out: "Transmigration in progress..." He froze for a full minute. "Holy! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Howls like those of a pig being slaughtered echoed across the island...
Qiu Haisheng shouted for a long time. It had to be said that this was an excellent way to vent. Gradually, he accepted the fact that he had transmigrated, along with the miserable reality that he was now blind. But whenever he thought about never again seeing all those beautiful women's lovely bodies, tears streamed down his face. He bitterly regretted logging into this Asura alt instead of binding himself to his Berserker main, and launched into another round of muttering. Really, his frantic reaction was not entirely unreasonable. If he had logged into his Berserker, at least his eyes would still work. Even with red eyes, he would have been far better off than with cataracts...
He used his right hand to feel his slightly aching left hand, only to find bulging veins winding over the muscles and long, sharp fingernails. They reminded him of a Ghostblade's left arm, cursed by Kazaan. Feeling the surges of power coming from his left hand, he clenched his fist hard and stood up. Since I'm here, I might as well make the best of it. Even if I went back, I'd just keep being a miserable shut-in. Why not use a Ghostblade's power to conquer the world here? Hahahaha!
Just as Qiu Haisheng was about to get carried away-or rather, had already gotten carried away-cruel reality struck him another blow. "Where the fuck am I?" He was blind now, without even the ability to figure out where he was. Yet only now had this problem occurred to him. He really was one of a kind...