Chapter 3: "You Are Dead"

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Yan Qing had long forgotten when he had downloaded this game—probably just to pass some inspection. After all, he worked at a game company, and it wouldn’t make sense not to have his own company’s game in the console. He must have only opened it once, registered a character, and then never played again.

So what was going on? Not only had he somehow been transported into the game world, but now he was playing the MMORPG he loathed most?

Even if he could open the game, there were no other players in this world. Could this be one of those legendary single-player private servers?

Though it seemed bizarre, he had nothing better to do, so Yan Qing clicked to launch the game “The Messenger.”

“Resist harmful games, reject pirated games.
Protect yourself, beware of scams.
Moderate gaming benefits the mind, addiction harms the body.
Manage your time wisely, enjoy a healthy life.”

Yan Qing felt a bit disappointed. This game had mutated in this world—features like “Deep Blue Attribute Allocation” and “Simulated Deduction” had appeared. But upon reading these eight admonitions, he felt this game was still just a game.

Then the opening cinematic flashed by quickly. Strangely, even the login screen was skipped, arriving directly at the character selection interface.

Yan Qing stared blankly at his character list.

He remembered registering a character named “Laplace Demon,” a name he used in all games. The character’s appearance should have been a female figure somewhere between Mai Shiranui and Tifa—he had spent the most time customizing the face in this game.

But now the only character in the library was named “Yan Qing.” Moreover, the appearance showed a male character who looked strikingly similar to himself, located at “Secret Realm · Thieves’ House.”

Could it be...

Yan Qing’s eyes flickered with inexplicable excitement. Resolutely, he chose to log into the character “Yan Qing”!

But then a message popped up: login failed.

“This character is already in the game.”

Huh?

Yan Qing tried several times but still couldn’t log in.

If he guessed correctly, the character “Yan Qing” represented himself. That meant logging into this character could allow him to strengthen himself within the game.

Attribute allocation, pet recruitment, weapon embedding, skill enhancement... Even the most basic experience system would be a boon for Yan Qing!

“The Messenger” offered diverse gameplay. Besides fighting monsters, players could gain experience and hone skills in numerous ways. Yan Qing might quickly level up.

But he couldn’t even log in. Everything was futile.

Yan Qing stared stubbornly at the screen. To log in as “Yan Qing,” he had to log out himself. But besides dying, what other way was there to log out? He couldn’t summon the game panel in reality to quit—he had tried all system commands from ‘linkstart’ to ‘Deep Blue.’

He knew this game console was his last lifeline after crossing over to this world. Alas, this lifeline was like a flower in a mirror, a moon reflected in water—visible but untouchable.

For the next half hour, Yan Qing tried every trick to “log out,” such as pretending to fall asleep to fool the console, but to no avail. He lay on the bed, staring at the game screen, his expression as troubled as a billionaire who had forgotten his bank card password.

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“Sigh.”

Yan Qing placed the console on the bedside table, covered it with a blanket, and went to sleep, unwilling to deal with it further.

Yet less than two minutes later, he picked up the console again—he refused to believe it was utterly useless!

But the screen now showed “Create New Character,” not “Character Selection.” He must have accidentally pressed into the new character slot when he put it down, so the system had jumped to character creation.

Yan Qing instinctively wanted to exit, but then he realized a problem: if the character “Yan Qing” truly represented himself, what would happen if he created a new character?

He had nothing to lose.

The first step was face customization and naming. He instinctively wanted to create a female character between Tifa and Mai Shiranui in appearance. But this console had mutated. What if he made a voluptuous female character, and the console identified the female character as his own body? Yan Qing decided not to risk it. He was too lazy to painstakingly recreate his usual customization, so he chose the default male face number 01.

Next came the attribute allocation—the real challenge. Yan Qing hadn’t studied the game seriously but as a player, he roughly understood the basics.

The new character had four main attributes: “Vitality,” “Spirit,” “Dexterity,” and “Comprehension.”

“Vitality” affected the character’s health, stamina, physical attack and defense, movement speed, vision, resistance to diseases and toxins—all secondary physical attributes.

“Spirit” affected spiritual power, skill strength, mental resistance, intuition, and other soul-related secondary attributes.

“Dexterity” influenced attack speed, evasion rate, and accuracy—secondary attributes related to skill.

“Dexterity” was negatively affected by one-third of the difference between “Vitality” and “Spirit.” For example, if a character had 20 Vitality and 10 Spirit, their Dexterity would be reduced by 3 points in calculations.

Whether a character was a “brute with high Vitality but low Spirit” or a “genius in a wheelchair with low Vitality but high Spirit,” neither could fully realize their potential, reflected as lowered Dexterity.

But among all four, “Comprehension” was the most crucial!

“Comprehension” influenced the speed of experience gain for all skills; every point increased experience gain by 1%.

The new character only had 10 points to distribute freely. Putting all into Comprehension would only boost experience gain by 10%, which seemed modest. Allocating points to the other three attributes could offer a better initial gameplay experience.

But Yan Qing had learned from colleagues that in “The Messenger,” opportunities to increase Comprehension were rare. Vitality, Spirit, and Dexterity had many ways to improve, but few for Comprehension.

Many players who neglected Comprehension early on found it difficult to level up by the fourth rebirth, while maxed Comprehension characters only hit a bottleneck by the sixth rebirth.

Moreover, “The Messenger” was a monthly subscription MMORPG that maliciously did not provide attribute reset items. Players who misallocated points had no choice but to start anew with a fresh character.

1 point Vitality, 1 point Spirit, 1 point Dexterity, 10 points Comprehension!

Next came the game mode selection. Yan Qing saw “Adventure Mode,” “Asura Mode,” and “Real Mode.” The first two were grayed out, leaving only “Real Mode” selectable.

“Adventure Mode” was the most common PvE mode with normal experience gains.

“Asura Mode” was PvP-focused, granting 200% experience gain but drastically reducing dungeon and monster rewards, confining play mostly to the battlegrounds.

“Real Mode” provided an extra 5% experience but allowed only one life. Death meant character deletion.

Obviously, only masochists and hardcore players chose “Real Mode.” Yan Qing had never tried it, but now he had no choice.

Finally, he named the character... “Yan Yi.”

He could choose among three main city affiliated starter villages: “Jiangnan Affiliated Starter Village,” “Chang’an Affiliated Starter Village,” and “Sleepless Night Affiliated Starter Village.” Yan Qing casually picked “Sleepless Night Affiliated Starter Village” and started the game.

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The screen brightened, and Yan Qing saw the newly created character “Yan Yi” standing in a village, wearing rough cloth and holding a wooden stick, barefoot.

Ah, so it really was just playing a game?

He had expected to be transported inside or something.

Familiarizing himself with the controls, he planned to take on quests and level up. But upon wandering the village twice, he immediately sensed something was wrong—the starter village was deserted.

Not just empty, but dilapidated: burnt houses, collapsed thatch roofs, knee-high weeds. It looked like an abandoned village.

Entering a burnt house, he saw a water jar and clicked to check. The screen revealed a scene that made his eyelids twitch: two heavily decayed skeletons, one large and one small, seemingly a woman and a child judging by their clothes.

Standing in the village center, Yan Qing was at a loss. No quests, no monsters, no starter village. What to do next?

A road extended from the village entrance. He decided to explore along it. Fortunately, he soon reached the main road and even encountered some passersby.

When he asked for directions, most ignored him or raised weapons warily. Only a kindly old farmer told him, “Go further ahead to Ping City. You’d better return to the village.”

Ping City, though not a main city, should have quests, right? Even without monsters to fight for experience, there should be NPCs to learn skills from and level up.

Ping City was indeed close—or rather, “Yan Yi” moved quickly. It only took about ten minutes to arrive.

Though “Yan Yi” had only 1 Vitality, the average for an adult, he was a game character. He could spend stamina to sprint, then walk normally when stamina ran low, repeating this cycle to outpace many merchants and commoners on the road.

At the city gate were hunchbacked woodcutters carrying firewood, rural lords riding donkeys with attendants, and traveling merchants with backpacks. They queued on the left to enter the city. Although there was a gate on the right, no one used it.

Yan Qing, lazy as ever, bypassed the queue and tried to enter from the right but was stopped by a guard.

Guard: “Who are you?”

Yan Qing’s mind raced as the game character “Yan Yi” triggered a dialogue option.

Yan Yi: “Traveler, seeking entry.”

Guard: “Pass? You have none?”

Yan Yi: “No pass.”

Guard: “Do you know anyone here?”

Yan Yi: “No acquaintances.”

The guard stroked his chin, exchanged glances with others, and smiled strangely. Then two guards approached, flanking “Yan Yi” and pushing him into a barracks beside the gate.

Yan Qing tried to escape, but the game warned that “Yan Yi” had too low Vitality and insufficient strength to break free.

Inside the barracks, a muffled sound was heard. “Yan Yi” collapsed, the screen went pitch black, and his health bar dropped by a third.

Immediately after, the health bar drained completely, and the game displayed the message:

“You have died.”