At six thirty in the morning, dawn was only just breaking.
In her room, Ji Li lay sprawled on the bed in a thoroughly unladylike starfish pose, with cold air blasting from the air conditioner.
She rolled over, one long, fair leg kicking the blanket aside and leaving her exposed to the air.
Ji Li sneezed without a trace of her usual goddess-like poise, rubbed her messy bedhead, and groggily climbed out of bed.
"Ow-why does my head hurt so much this early in the morning?"
Muttering, Ji Li shuffled into the bathroom in her flip-flops.
After a quick wash, she returned to her computer chair, expertly booted up her computer, and prepared to log into the forum to look up some laid-back strategies for the pixel-art farming game she had been obsessed with lately.
As a mature beauty who normally looked aloof but was actually a hardcore gaming addict, checking guides first thing every morning was her daily ritual.
Yet the moment she logged into the forum today, she noticed several unread private messages flashing in her account inbox.
Biting her milk carton's straw, Ji Li clicked them open in puzzlement.
The top message had been sent sometime after one that morning.
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity]: "Hey, pro! Remember my ID? Drop your WeChat contact, yeah? The guys from the First Closed Beta are making a group so we can play together!"
Ji Li: "?"
She stared at the private message from [Even Monkeys Have Dignity], her mind full of question marks.
What pro?
What First Closed Beta?
I've been playing a single-player farming game. When did I ever join the First Closed Beta for some multiplayer game?
And WeChat? Sending an overly familiar message in the middle of the night-could this guy be any sketchier?
No matter how I look at it, this feels like someone peddling some shady, unlicensed junk...
And who still picks such a bizarre username these days?
Ji Li abruptly stopped sipping her milk, her delicate brows drawing together.
As if something had suddenly occurred to her, her face darkened. She turned toward the closed bedroom door and shouted:
"Ji Luo!!!"
"Did you steal my account to play some weird game again?!"
There were two seconds of silence outside before the slightly excited voice of a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy came from the next room.
"Sis! I found a new game last night, and it's freaking awesome! Can't talk now. The damn server's about to open, and I need to be ready to jump in!"
Ji Li couldn't help rolling her eyes.
Ji Luo was her younger brother. Having just survived the grueling college entrance exams last month, he was now like a horse let loose, venting his pent-up energy in every game he could find.
The awkward part was that he was still exactly one month shy of turning eighteen.
To dodge the anti-addiction restrictions for minors, he had been commandeering Ji Li's alternate account every day lately to wreak havoc everywhere.
"A freaking awesome game?"
Hearing her brother's assessment only made Ji Li more puzzled.
As a veteran gamer, she knew her hardcore, skill-focused younger brother all too well.
What kind of god-tier game could get someone as hard to impress as Ji Luo this excited, even making him skip breakfast to camp out for the server opening?
Ji Li's curiosity was thoroughly piqued.
She casually opened that "Ma Lou" guy's profile and followed the trail to the post Lu Ziye had made last night, titled "Awakening of the Old Gods."
Reading about the "1 KB installer" in the post and the torrent of mockery from other users, Ji Li sank into thought.
Meanwhile, Ji Luo had already settled into his gaming pod in the next room.
He stared at the pitch-black icon labeled "Awakening of the Old Gods" in the center of his vision.
Time: 6:59 a.m.
"Let's go, let's go! First kill's in the bag. Today, I'm leveling up no matter what!"
Ji Luo was so excited that his palms were sweating.
Just thinking about the lifelike sensation of driving a wooden plank into the back of a monster's head yesterday gave him goosebumps.
That adrenaline-fueled thrill was something no reskinned online game could ever offer.
Tick.
The time changed to exactly seven in the morning.
The previously dim icon instantly lit up with an eerie blue glow.
Ji Luo eagerly selected launch with his mind.
"Vmmm!"
This time, he wasn't unceremoniously dumped straight into the pitch-black church like yesterday.
Instead, as low, solemn background music played, boundless gray mist instantly enveloped his entire field of vision.
Then an epic scene that made Ji Luo's scalp tingle slowly unfolded.
It was the opening cinematic Lin En had spent thirty faith points having the system painstakingly put together last night.
His view passed through layer after layer of mist, revealing a vast expanse of desolate, crumbling ruins.
There was no sun in the sky, only an eerie crescent moon veiled in crimson mist, casting dark red light over the earth.
"When the twilight of the gods descended, the barrier of light shattered..."
A hoarse narrator's voice, seemingly echoing from the farthest reaches of antiquity, reverberated in Ji Luo's ears.
On-screen, magnificent temples towering into the clouds began to collapse, while countless armored knights were torn to pieces beneath a tide of dark monsters.
Those monsters were enormous and misshapen, covered in writhing tentacles and compound eyes. Merely watching the video evoked a sense of oppression and despair deep within the soul.
"The world fell into eternal night. Corruption ravaged the wasteland, and the old order had long since turned to ash."
The scene abruptly shifted.
At the very edge of the mist, deep within the dark, damp Black Forest.
An Ancient God Statue stood silently amid the ruins, covered in cracks and weathered almost to the point of crumbling entirely.
Suddenly, a flicker of ghostly blue flame lit up the statue's eyes.
Though faint, that flame shone so starkly against the endless darkness.
"Yet within the embers, a spark remains."
"Answer the summons of the Lord of Ashes, lost travelers from another world. Awaken from death, cleanse this cursed wilderness, and forge anew the supreme divine realm!"
"Boom!"
With a soul-shaking burst of bass, the mist before Ji Luo exploded outward and vanished, replaced by a translucent sacred hall radiating a faint blue glow.
Ji Luo stood rooted to the spot, goosebumps rising over his entire body again and again.
"Holy shit... holy shit!!"
That opening cinematic, those shots, that music, that overwhelming presence!
Yesterday, the game didn't even give us a slideshow. Today, it went straight to a Hollywood-level epic?
This game company worked insanely fast!
Before he could recover from his shock, a brand-new character creation interface suddenly appeared before him.
And right at the top of the interface was a new input field: [Please enter your player ID].
Things had been too urgent last night. The system hadn't even allowed time for the usual setup, instead automatically pulling the account ID linked to his VR device.
As a result, he-a grown guy-had spent half the night hanging around a bunch of bald musclemen under his sister's name, "Ji Li."
Now that he had a chance to start over, he decisively entered his real name in the field: [Ji Luo].
[ID confirmed. Weaving body.]
Immediately afterward, a human model rendered flawlessly in real-time 3D appeared before him.
This time, the players had finally put an end to their era of looking like escaped Shaolin monks-bald heads and nothing but shorts.
Though the only clothing option was still a pair of beginner linen shorts...
"We can customize our faces! Holy shit, we can even choose our hair!!"
Before you continue