"Ugh... my head hurts like hell. I'm never going drinking with those bastards again..."
Ye Fei had only just regained consciousness after his drunken night. Before even opening his eyes, he clutched his throbbing head and cursed his no-good friends for being such a pain.
Yesterday had been his twenty-fifth birthday, but the entire day had been a disaster.
That morning, his aunt had called to tell him never to come back to his hometown, saying he had embarrassed her too much.
When he was in college, his aunt had bragged to certain people about what an incredible prodigy he was. But after graduating, he had landed a job that paid only a little over two thousand yuan a month, leaving her with nothing to boast about.
Later that morning, he had arrived at work and learned that his contract would not be renewed after his probation ended. He had also been told to pack up and clear his desk quickly, since a new intern was already on the way.
At noon, an old woman had bumped into him outside, then accused him of hurting her. He had insisted he had done nothing wrong and refused to pay, only to be taken to the police station for an afternoon of lecturing. Even after the surveillance footage was retrieved, they had still pushed for mediation, making him give the old woman three hundred yuan before he could leave and go home.
That evening, several friends he used to hang out with in college had invited him out to celebrate his birthday. But they had gotten him drunk as soon as he arrived, and as for how he had gotten home afterward...
He could no longer remember.
Luckily, those guys had retained one last scrap of decency and had not left him there to pay off the bill with his body.
"Isn't this sunlight a little too bright?"
Ye Fei lifted his still-heavy eyelids and looked at the sun outside the window, still assuming all his discomfort was caused by his hangover.
He staggered over to the window to see whether the breakfast wrap stall outside his apartment complex had opened. If it had not, he would cook some noodles.
"What's going on? Where am I?"
Ye Fei approached the window and looked outside, dumbfounded.
The street packed with parked cars was gone. So were the landscaped strips with trees whose shapes offended his sense of aesthetics, and the breakfast wrap stall he especially loved.
All he could see now was an expanse of white.
Ice? Or snow?
Or both?
He could not tell exactly what the whiteness outside was, but he was now certain that the sunlight had seemed blinding because of the way the light was refracting.
After just a couple of glances, his eyes began to sting. He turned away and surveyed his current home.
He rented a studio apartment measuring only fifteen square meters.
It had a single bed and a tiny, tiny bathroom. The kitchen was by the entrance, with a range hood and an electric pot for simple stir-fries and noodles.
There was no refrigerator, just a basic kitchen storage rack.
There was no wardrobe either, only a frame made from a few iron pipes where he could hang his clothes.
Even this tiny room cost over a thousand yuan in rent each month, swallowing more than half of the little over two thousand he earned during his probation.
The people back in his hometown could not imagine him living like this, nor would the possibility ever occur to them.
They still believed that university graduates were sought-after talent when they entered the job market, and that luxury homes and fancy cars ought to come as standard.
His life after graduation was nothing like his aunt had imagined. She could no longer impress her husband's family by boasting about how successful her nephew would become, which was why she resented him so much.
Still, he did not dwell on any of that. He had little to do with those people.
His parents had died young. Back then, he had offended all his relatives by selling the house outright and using the money for his education. He had learned what his relatives were really like from that moment on.
"Did I travel to another world with my apartment?"
Ye Fei confirmed that nothing in the room had changed. After opening the door and finding an expanse of snow right outside, he was certain that he really had appeared somewhere new, apartment and all.
But it had been part of an entire apartment building. Surely his drunken trip to another world had not ripped out a single room from someone else's building?
This... was way too fantastical!
[The player has recognized the new world. Survival world activated. Starting game...] [Personal Panel unlocked. Inventory unlocked. Map unlocked...]
A translucent virtual window suddenly appeared before Ye Fei. As a voice sounded beside his ears, text descriptions appeared on the translucent panel in the familiar Chinese characters he knew.
The voice and subtitles were synchronized?
It was a little novel, but he had spent plenty of time in internet cafés before. He mentally said "Settings," and a settings screen actually popped up.
He could adjust the volume and the size of the virtual panel, and even disable some routine notifications. Since he had not encountered those yet, Ye Fei left them all enabled for now and only turned the volume down a little.
Personal Panel.
He did not need to say it aloud. The moment Ye Fei silently called for it, his personal information appeared on the virtual panel in front of him.
[Name: Ye Fei (ID: Snow Mountain/0099-5111-1111) Race: Human Talent: None Health: 61 (0-100) Stamina: 42 (0-100) Energy: 26 (0-100) Combat power: 3 (below an ordinary person) Equipment: Underwear with no attributes, trousers with no attributes, shirt with no attributes, flip-flops with no attributes Pet: None Inventory 0/10: Empty Survival points: 0]
Every stat was terribly low. After reading them, Ye Fei sighed dejectedly.
But he was not surprised. He had always been a frail desk jockey who could do little beyond typing and drawing plans.
[Survival beginner quest unlocked...]
He had just finished checking his stats when he closed the screen and a notification appeared.
A beginner quest? So this really was a game world. Was this the tutorial?
Though he kept grumbling inwardly, Ye Fei still opened the quest tab to check what this beginner quest wanted him to do.
[Beginner quest: Upon arriving in another world, you were randomly dropped onto Snow Mountain. The endless ice and snow will make your eyes sting, but greater dangers await at night. Before nightfall, you must find supplies beneath the ice and snow and build a protective fence; quest requirements: Find supplies (incomplete), open a supply crate (incomplete), use tools and materials (incomplete), build a Basic Fence (incomplete)]
There was only one quest for now, and he just had to finish it before sunset.
The time displayed in the lower-right corner of the translucent virtual display was 16:54:21.
Beside it was another display: 3 hours, 5 minutes, and 39 seconds until nightfall...
Night would begin at 20:00, or eight in the evening.
Ye Fei looked around. Though the white snow hurt his eyes, he still had to search for supplies.
He had a little over three hours. He did not know whether that would be enough, but all he could do now was try.
Everything within sight was pure white. How was he supposed to search? Was he meant to start at his doorstep and clear away the snow bit by bit?
He had no tools for clearing snow, and his physical fitness was poor. For now, he decided to go outside and try his luck.
"What's that?"
Ye Fei kicked at the snow. He did not feel cold yet and wondered whether there was some sort of beginner protection period.
As he looked around, he suddenly noticed a small box-shaped icon appearing a short distance ahead.
It was tiny and translucent, looking much like the markers in games he had played before.
With no other options anyway, he walked over and crouched down, digging through the snow in that spot. A crude crate cobbled together from a few scraps of wood appeared before him.
Once he picked up the crate, the marker disappeared.
Before you continue