An initial look at the Star Gate

The little theater was small, with old, shabby furnishings, but its dressing room was reasonably clean and tidy, without any unpleasant odors.

Mr. He sat beside the dressing table, carefully drawing on his makeup with an eyebrow pencil.

Judging by his costume, he was playing a qingyi, a dignified female role in Peking opera.

A short while later, a young man and woman entered the dressing room and greeted him respectfully. "Mr. He."

The young man on the left was around twenty-five or twenty-six, with a muscular build, strong facial features, and handsome looks.

Beside him stood a graceful, pretty young woman in a solid black dress. Her face was gloomy, and her eyes looked somewhat hollow.

The pair looked well matched. Their names were Xing Tao and Guo Caier, and both were Copper Bell members of the Bell Society.

Guo Caier was also Wang Hong's daughter. She and Xing Tao were both Hidden Pawn players in the Qingliang Prefecture Star Gate.

These were the two real-world teammates Wang Hong had refused to betray. As everyone knew, before the Qingliang Prefecture Star Gate opened, two other Star Gates had hosted prerequisite missions to pave the way for it. During those two missions, the Bell Society had obtained three entry tokens and selected these three people to enter.

What they had not expected was that Wang Hong, who handled intelligence gathering for the team, would be killed outright during the first act.

"My mom is dead. That Prince Huai must be a player," Guo Caier said quietly from the right, though there was little grief on her face.

"My condolences..." Mr. He replied evenly. "Prepare for your next entry. I'll handle the rest."

"Why don't we find the player acting as Prince Huai in the real world and just kill him?" Xing Tao cut in bluntly. "I'll take a few people to do it. I guarantee he'll die even more horribly than that president who shit his pants...!"

Mr. He slowly turned his head and looked at him calmly. "Your and Caier's top priority is to clear Qingliang Prefecture successfully and obtain its exceptionally rare inheritance. That matters more than your lives. Do you understand?"

Under his gaze, Xing Tao involuntarily swallowed and nodded slightly.

"What do you intend to do, Mr. He?" Guo Caier asked softly.

"From your accounts, Prince Huai's role gives him access to far too much information. His status and abilities are formidable, and he definitely isn't part of the Court Faction. Now that we've lost a Hidden Pawn player, the two of you alone have no hope of controlling the overall situation." Mr. He turned back toward the mirror, dabbed his index finger into a pot of lip rouge, and began spreading it evenly over his lips. "When players kill each other, they can obtain the other person's entry token. If we kill this man, we'll be able to send four people in the next time the gate opens, and one of them will be Prince Huai... That will make our position much more secure."

"I don't know yet whether a Star Gate player who isn't part of Qingliang Prefecture can obtain his token by killing 'Prince Huai,'" Guo Caier reminded him.

"Then we'll bring him back for you to kill." Mr. He shrugged. "That will be safer..."

"Can you find him in the real world?" Guo Caier asked, keeping her thoughts clear.

"In the two prerequisite Star Gates, we killed three New Year's Watchers and tricked another into getting himself killed." Mr. He answered with a light chuckle. "In the end, the one we tricked actually used a corpse to get the token out. That token... was a brush."

Guo Caier understood at once. "After entering, I received a mission from the court. I'm currently in the Capital, helping Emperor Jing lay his plans for the Former Dynasty Princess's Tomb. According to the information available to my role, the old emperor did give Zhu Zigui an Imperial Brush..."

"Yes, I've already read your report." Mr. He put on his headdress and slowly rose. "The Imperial Brush is Prince Huai's entry token, so Prince Huai must be played by a New Year's Watcher. I sent people to ask around. This player should be in Shanghai... You two can go. I'll take eight Copper Bells there."

Guo Caier fell silent for a long time. "Please, make sure you bring 'Prince Huai' back."

Mr. He turned around, posed with his thumb and middle finger delicately touching, and asked in an operatic voice, "The pain of a mother's murder demands vengeance?"

"Heh." Guo Caier sneered. "We already severed our mother-daughter relationship. What I mean is... if we successfully kill Prince Huai, no one in the Qingliang Prefecture Star Gate will be able to compete with us."

"Ee-ya-ya-ya...!"

Humming in his operatic voice, Mr. He flicked his sleeve and took tiny steps toward the door. "Ten months she bore me, then raised me with such care. How shall this humble maiden repay her?"

Guo Caier stood rooted to the spot without a word.

After a long silence, Xing Tao seized his chance to fawn over her. "Caier, my condolences... If you're upset, beat me up. Slap me a couple of times..."

"Let's go." Guo Caier walked away.

Five minutes later, the theater's curtain slowly rose. A scattering of middle-aged and elderly spectators ate from fruit platters and watched the stage.

Dressed in a blue robe, Mr. He struck a pose and sang with crisp, precise diction, "Dear audience, the show now begins...!"

Outside, the shifty-eyed young man who attended to Mr. He spoke into his phone. "Have you contacted the player selling information on the Great Qian Dynasty? Oh, good. Tell him he can name his price. Cash or Star Source, either is fine. Yes, we're going to Shanghai tonight for an in-person deal..."

Early the next morning.

Ren Ye slowly woke up, still physically exhausted and mentally drained. Only after drinking two bowls of yesterday's leftover Soft-Shelled Turtle Soup did he feel considerably better.

Looks like the aftereffects of that ultimate move with the Princess Consort will last a while longer. Am I really going to lose years off my fucking life?

Alone at home, Ren Ye felt a little uneasy.

Ring, ring!

His phone rang.

"Hello?" Ren Ye casually answered. "Who is this?"

"It's Xu Peng, from yesterday. Remember me?" a slow, unhurried voice replied.

"Oh, yeah, I remember. What's up, bro?" Ren Ye immediately recalled his dopey expression.

"I'm downstairs. The boss told me to pick you up," Xu Peng replied. "Today, I'm in charge of teaching you a few things about Star Gates."

"Okay, wait a moment. I'll be right down." Ren Ye put down his soup bowl and headed straight for the bedroom.

A little after nine that morning, in an ordinary office at 88 Lotus Lake Road.

Sitting in a chair with a large stack of materials, Xu Peng asked politely, "You look pretty pale. Want some medicine?"

"...No, thanks." Huang Wei had specifically warned Ren Ye the previous night not to casually consume anything Xu Peng gave him.

The two sat facing each other. Xu Peng scratched his bird's-nest hair, pulled a pouch of herbal medicine from beneath the desk, and downed it right in front of Ren Ye.

"What are you drinking?" Ren Ye asked curiously.

"A decoction I made myself. It nourishes yin and strengthens the kidneys." Xu Peng smacked his lips, still wanting more. "I didn't add enough Fire Centipede. The flavor's a little weak...!"

Ren Ye's stomach churned at that. "Does that stuff really work?"

Feeling that his expertise was being questioned, Xu Peng's expression soured. "Nobody's medicine is more precisely targeted than mine. The boss once drank a pouch of my decoction and spent two whole days at a club in the south of town."

"It's that awesome? Get me a pouch sometime, then." Ren Ye was intrigued, hoping to score a freebie and find a chance to test it on Er Leng.

"I've finished today's batch. I'll give you some once I've brewed more. But if you like it, you'll have to pay for it after that. I have costs too..." Xu Peng nodded agreeably, spread his materials across the desk, and folded his hands. "I have no experience teaching anyone, so this might get a little boring. But you can ask me anytime if there's something you don't understand."

"Okay."

Ren Ye immediately nodded, his joking expression disappearing. He was genuinely desperate to learn about Star Gates.

Bright sunlight streamed into the room and shone on the two young men's faces. It was a pleasant setting for studying.

Sitting upright by the window, Xu Peng explained softly, "The inheritances of the Startrace Gate include twelve standard class systems and three exceptionally rare ones. Their classifications are extremely comprehensive, with countless variations. For example, my class belongs to the light system. I'm currently at the first stage, and my stage title is Barefoot Doctor."

Ren Ye nodded slowly. "Old Huang told me his stage title is Blood-Eyed Monk. But I don't understand. What exactly does a stage title mean?"

Xu Peng thought for a moment. "A stage title summarizes the characteristics of your current class. Take me, for example. I'm an unordered inheritor. Previously, I went through a small-scale Star Gate set in ancient times. My specific mission was to rescue an Imperial Physician and keep his entire family alive. After clearing the mission, I received the inherited abilities he bestowed on me and became a Barefoot Doctor, part of the light system class sequence. The boss's Blood-Eyed Monk title, meanwhile, comes from a mythological Star Gate he went through, where he obtained a bloodline inheritance. That puts him in the strength system. His abilities favor offense, but his intelligence is a little lacking. A meathead, you know."

The more Ren Ye heard, the more curious he became. "Then what are your abilities?"

Xu Peng answered with a touch of pride. "Simply put, my abilities are all about saving people. Making medicine, reading someone's pulse remotely, using a thread to take a pulse, and so on. Basically, boundless compassion and healing the sick... But the class missions for my stage are extremely unfriendly."

"...How unfriendly?"

"I need to taste three thousand different herbs and a thousand different venomous bugs. I also have to develop a medicine that can cure a serious illness, successfully promote it, and earn the esteem of a certain number of people." Xu Peng sounded helpless. "It's too hard... The organization won't let me sell medicine. But without completing those two missions, I can't advance to the next stage."

"Three thousand? There can't be that many medicinal herbs in the world, can there?"

"There are in Star Gates."

"...What if tasting them kills you?" Ren Ye asked curiously.

"Then I'll have sacrificed myself for scientific research." Xu Peng looked a little sad.

"You have my respect."

"Still, I'm an unordered inheritor. By the second or third stage, I might have learned all the Imperial Physician's inherited abilities. If I want to advance further, I'll have to keep traveling through Star Gates and find compatible class inheritances to gradually improve." Xu Peng continued, "That's the drawback of being an unordered inheritor. You have to figure out a lot of things yourself, but you still have a chance to become a god."

Ren Ye craned his neck. "Are there really gods in this world?"

"No. There isn't a single one at present," Xu Peng answered with absolute certainty. "I don't know what stages the big shots among the New Year's Watchers have reached, either. That's all classified."

"Oh."

Ren Ye nodded.

"Back to our earlier topic. Whether it's an unordered inheritance or an ordered inheritance, the class systems have countless variations, and everyone follows a different path." Xu Peng spoke gently and courteously. "Let's use me as an example again. Once I've fully inherited the 'Imperial Physician's' legacy and learned all his abilities, I'll have to forge the rest of my path myself. Suppose I later travel through a modern-day Star Gate containing the inheritance of a brilliant doctor from a Western-style hospital, and it's highly compatible with me. If I successfully clear it... my future abilities might relate to modern medicine. My later stage titles could become something like lead surgeon or surgical specialist. My abilities might involve precise use of blades, physical mutations, or even creating viruses. But I would still retain my earlier abilities."

Though the explanation was brief, it contained a great deal of information. Ren Ye thought for quite a while before attempting to summarize it. "Although your class belongs to the light system, that class covers an extremely broad range. Every light system player has unique potential for developing their abilities. Is that right?"

"Exactly." Xu Peng nodded slowly. "The Startrace Gate has fifteen class systems in total. Some may be stronger or weaker early on, but every player is unique, and everyone can live out their own path."

"Got it."

"Good. You can read the New Year's Watchers' internal guidebooks for the class classifications. Otherwise, we couldn't finish discussing them in a full day and night." Xu Peng pushed an internal guidebook toward Ren Ye. "Next, I'll explain the factions in the real world and the Star Gate worlds."

"Okay."

"Let me ask you. What do you think... is the purpose of us New Year's Watchers?" Xu Peng asked with a very serious expression.

Ren Ye thought for a moment. "You wouldn't be needed just to keep ordinary people in line, would you?"

"Correct. Wherever there is light, there is darkness." Xu Peng spoke each word distinctly. "Our purpose is much like that of the police. The Star Gate worlds contain countless inheritances, and naturally, some of them are evil... Captain Huang told me you encountered Bell Society players in the Qingliang Prefecture Star Gate. They're an enormous organization of evil players... We also call them the Chaos Faction."

"Enormous?" Hearing Xu Peng describe the Bell Society that way left Ren Ye feeling uneasy.

On Shanghai's ring expressway.

Mr. He elegantly sipped his coffee, turned to look at the scenery outside the window, and said, "First, contact the player selling information about the Great Qian Dynasty in the group chat. We'll make the deal with him tonight. Also, contact our local comrades. I want to personally ask around for information about Prince Huai..."