Less than a minute after Lu Ziye posted his thread, over a dozen replies flooded in.
Reply #1: "Front-row seats! Sunflower seeds and cola for sale. OP, did your psychiatric hospital finally get internet?"
Reply #2: "1 KB? Are you dreaming, OP? Even a TXT file documenting the shit I took today would be bigger than 1 KB."
Reply #3: "The drool was warm, too? Bro, were you drooling inside your headset?"
Reply #4: "One look at the frames says it all. Certified fake."
Reply #5: "I suggest downloading an anti-fraud app. You've obviously caught ransomware. When you wake up tomorrow, all the 'study materials' on your computer will be encrypted."
Faced with wall-to-wall mockery, Lu Ziye scratched his head in frustration and furiously fought back in the thread:
"I swear it's real! The game's in closed beta right now, and there are only five slots!"
Just as the mob was tearing into him, a few familiar usernames suddenly appeared in the thread.
[Kindergarten Boss]: "Guys, OP isn't lying! I'm a beta tester, too! Hitting the back of that monster's head felt incredible. I smacked it over a dozen times with a brick, and I could see every little crumb breaking off!"
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity]: "I'll vouch for it under my real identity! This game doesn't just have an insane physics engine. Its taste simulation is an absolute killer!"
"I just took a bite of monster brains in that game, and the taste... urgh... That's all from me, guys. I just finished puking beside my real-life toilet. That shit hits hard!"
Their testimony didn't convince the forum. Instead, it sent everyone into an uproar.
"Holy shit, a coordinated scam? Do paid-shill agencies not even proofread their scripts anymore?"
"Eating monster brains in a game, my ass! Are you playing a survival game or Wilderness Foodies?"
"Reported. These accounts have definitely been hacked!"
Meanwhile, in a university class group chat.
[I'm Not Jiahao] was showing off: "Everyone else our age is playing those trashy pay-to-win online games, while I just experienced a revolutionary product called Awakening of the Old Gods. It reconstructs virtual neural pathways using 1 KB of underlying code... That's what you call fighting in a whole different dimension. It's just so... you get me, right?"
Group member A: "Jiahao, have those social-media salespeople brainwashed you?"
Group member B: "Kick him. Losing money on stocks lately has driven this guy nuts."
That night, the name "Awakening of the Old Gods" sparked arguments spanning dozens of pages on the hardcore gaming forum.
Even in the middle of the night, most users were mocking Lu Ziye and the others as paid shills.
But there were always a few chaos-loving weirdos whose mental states were ten years ahead of the average person, fueled by sheer stubbornness and an insistence on seeing for themselves.
They followed the 1 KB link in the thread and actually downloaded it.
"What can 1 KB even do?"
"That's not even enough for a pixelated image. Let's see how this virus plans to steal my account."
Awakening of the Old Gods, launch!
Instead of filling their VR headsets with ransomware pop-ups, the screen went black, and several lines of cold white text appeared:
[Sorry, the game is currently in closed beta.] [Due to limited server slots, you have not been granted access to this beta test.] [Thank you for your interest. Please look forward to the next round of recruitment.]
The users who tried downloading it were so annoyed they laughed.
What a bunch of lunatics!
They'd dressed up a TXT file just to jerk people around in the middle of the night!
Why the hell post a link if nobody could get in?
Meanwhile, in the men's dorm.
Lu Ziye was furiously fighting "one against a hundred" in the thread, his fingers flying over the keyboard so fast they almost smoked, yet he still couldn't convince those stubborn backseat gamers.
He was so mad he was about to swear a vicious oath to prove he hadn't taken any dirty money when a private-message notification suddenly chimed.
He opened it and found it was from the familiar user who'd just spoken up for him.
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity]: "Bro! Stop arguing with those keyboard warriors. They don't know jack shit! I'm the guy who ate the monster's venom earlier. Send me your WeChat contact. Let's make a group and talk among ourselves."
Lu Ziye's eyes lit up, and he immediately sent his contact details.
The moment he accepted the friend request, he was added to a three-person group called "One Big Happy Bald Family."
He checked the members. Besides Ma Lou, who'd invited him, there was another guy with a default avatar and the group nickname [Kindergarten Boss].
Lu Ziye hurriedly changed his own group nickname to [Passing Pure-Love Warrior].
Then he tossed in a goofy panda-head meme that said, "Hello, handsome."
A second later, [Even Monkeys Have Dignity] set the tone with a Kobe meme captioned, "Kids, I'm back."
The group's vibe instantly clicked.
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity]: "Shame. I messaged a whole bunch of people on the forum, but I still couldn't find the badass who stabbed the monster with that wooden spike, or the poser who kept both hands in his pockets even while wearing those baggy shorts. Otherwise, we'd have our full five-man First Closed Beta crew!"
[Kindergarten Boss] sent the app's built-in sweating smiley, then sighed:
"Seriously, guys, this game is fucking incredible!"
"I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling right now, and I still feel like I'm dreaming. The feel of cracking that monster's skull... my palm's still a little numb!"
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior]: "You're telling me! I don't even blame the forum guys for not believing us."
"From collision physics to simulating all five senses, this game is in a completely different league."
"At this point, I'm wondering whether that shitty game company dug up some alien spaceship and started using alien equipment as our server. It's ridiculous!"
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity]: "It might be revolutionary even for the aliens."
"Oh, right, did you check the client after you got kicked offline? There's a countdown beside the icon! We can log back in at seven sharp tomorrow morning!"
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] immediately sent a "bolting upright from my deathbed" meme:
"Holy shit! For real?"
"When we got forcibly kicked out, I figured this busted system would need at least ten days or a couple of weeks of maintenance to fix the bugs! They've patched the holes in their underwear already?"
[Kindergarten Boss]: "It's showing on my headset, too. @Passing Pure-Love Warrior, just put your VR headset on and check for yourself."
Reading that message, Lu Ziye flipped right over, grabbed the secondhand VR headset he'd tossed by his pillow, and slipped it back onto his head.
He clicked the black icon, which was still only 1 KB.
Sure enough, a blood-red countdown was ticking away in the center of the previously black screen:
[Time until the Awakening of the Old Gods server reopens: 05 hours 56 minutes 23 seconds]
Lu Ziye counted it out in his head. That came to exactly seven tomorrow morning!
He yanked off the headset, his heart pounding as though he'd just run a thousand meters.
Without wasting a word, he pulled out his phone, cranked the volume all the way up, and swiftly set a series of alarms for six fifty the next morning.
Come on, he was the Pure-Love Warrior!
When the server opened tomorrow, he had to make the first wave of manual laborers, no matter what. He'd spent half the night thinking about that solid silver candlestick, the one that would snap off with just a couple more bends.
That was his first pot of gold on the road to riches in another world. If anyone dared steal it, he'd crawl through the internet cable and bite them!
At that thought, Lu Ziye couldn't help laughing.
Normally, when he had an eight a.m. class, even his roommates yanking off his covers couldn't wake him.
Now, just to be a bald laborer in a crappy game that didn't even have complete textures, he'd willingly set himself an alarm for seven.
The modern male college student: that simple, and that easy to fool.
With his lower-bunk roommate snoring thunderously, Lu Ziye closed his eyes and drifted into a deep sleep, a sleazy, treasure-found grin still hanging at the corners of his mouth.
Before you continue