"Isn't he the guy who was standing next to me with the submachine gun in the game last night?!"
Li Xi was dumbfounded.
This male soldier had left quite an impression on her. When she first entered the game, she'd stood there in a daze without firing a shot, and he had grabbed her by the collar and screamed in her face — so close that his spit had actually sprayed onto her face.
A character from the game, standing in front of her in the real world. The absurdity of it made Li Xi question reality itself.
"Miss, there are still quite a few monsters inside the fortress that haven't been cleared out. The streets are dangerous — you shouldn't be running around out here. Let me take you to the air-raid shelter where everyone else is taking refuge."
His voice was soft and gentle, like a kind big brother from next door, and for a moment Li Xi honestly wondered whether this was the same man who had grabbed her collar and screamed in her face last night.
What Li Xi didn't know was that any normal man, faced with a girl as pure and beautiful as her, would lower his voice without even meaning to. As for last night... the character she'd been playing was an utterly unremarkable female soldier — average face, average figure, nothing worth a second glance. Our dear soldier boy simply judged people by their looks.
Li Xi hesitated for a moment. She was just about to respond to the soldier when—
"Xiao Xi!"
A cry of surprise and joy came from behind her.
An armored vehicle rumbled toward them. A middle-aged couple sat in the passenger area, waving frantically at Li Xi.
"Dad! Mom!"
Li Xi was overjoyed to see her parents safe and sound.
The armored vehicle quickly pulled up, and the family of three fell into one another's arms, their faces shining with the joy of having come through the disaster alive.
"Xiao Xi, thank goodness you're alright!"
The woman's eyes were brimming with tears. Ever since she'd been separated from her daughter last night, she had been worried sick about her.
The soldiers on the two armored vehicles watched the heartwarming scene, and one by one they broke into smiles.
"Now that your family's back together, you should head to the air-raid shelter for now. The fortress still isn't completely safe," said the soldier who had driven Li Xi's parents there.
"Alright. Honey, Xiao Xi, let's head to the shelter first. We'll come out once the monsters have been cleared," Li Xi's father said. His wife and daughter were by his side without a scratch on them, and to this middle-aged man that was the greatest blessing of all.
The woman nodded repeatedly. In the face of disaster, the best thing civilians like them could do for the fortress was to keep themselves safe.
But Li Xi hesitated, then suddenly turned back to the male soldier. "Soldier, could you take me up to the fortress walls? My marksmanship is excellent — just give me a sniper rifle and I can pick off a lot of monsters!"
At the words "sniper rifle," surprise flickered across the soldier's face, but he quickly recovered and smiled gently. "Why would I take you up to the walls? You might not have heard yet — the Beast Tide has already been repelled. There aren't any monsters left to kill up there."
"The Beast Tide was repelled?" Li Xi's almond eyes went wide.
"How... how was it repelled?"
Her heart was pounding like a war drum, each beat thundering in her chest.
A suspicion she didn't dare confirm was taking shape in her mind. Her nerves were stretched so tight that sweat broke out all over her body.
The male soldier exchanged a glance with another soldier, and the corners of both men's mouths curled up at the same moment.
"Well, there's no harm in telling you now — the whole fortress will know soon enough anyway." The soldier paused, then leaned in with an air of mystery and said:
"Jianglin Fortress was saved by a goddess who descended from the heavens!"
"I was lucky enough to be standing right beside the goddess — I witnessed the miracle with my own eyes. Even while bearing the weight of all Jianglin Fortress on her shoulders, even while wielding a Type 97 sniper rifle single-handed, the goddess was invincible against the horrors of the Age of Catastrophe — she slaughtered hundreds of thousands of monsters as casually as if she were just chatting and laughing!"
Li Xi felt as if a giant iron hammer had slammed into her forehead. Her head swam; she swayed on her feet and nearly collapsed.
"Xiao Xi, what's wrong?" Her mother rushed to steady her.
"I'm fine. Soldier, please continue."
She really was fine — just a little shaken.
With such a pure and beautiful girl gazing at him, her eyes full of eager curiosity, the soldier's urge to show off grew even stronger. He cleared his throat. "You might think what I'm saying sounds too outlandish, but it's the absolute truth. In our darkest hour, the goddess fired a beam of annihilation from her sniper rifle — a single shot that killed hundreds of thousands of beasts. It even split an entire mountain clean in half. The monster corpses are still piled up outside the fortress, waiting to be cleared away."
The other soldier nodded, deeply moved. "After what happened, we have no choice but to believe that gods truly exist in this world. The supreme power of the divine is beyond anything us mortals can imagine!"
Li Xi's parents had skepticism written all over their faces, their gazes sweeping back and forth between the two soldiers.
If not for the fact that these men were clearly military, the couple wouldn't have believed a single punctuation mark of what they'd said.
"Then... where is the goddess now?" Li Xi asked.
"After saving Jianglin Fortress, the goddess naturally returned to the divine realm," the soldier answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
By now, the suspicion Li Xi hadn't dared to confirm had been hammered into certainty.
So... the goddess was me all along!
The game she played last night had actually become reality!!
The game had bled into the real world!!!
Just how terrifying was that mysterious Origin Internet Cafe?
Tidal waves surged through the young girl's heart.
***
"So bored. Anyone want to come to the cafe and game with me? I'll cover the fees!"
Liu Haoming slept groggily through the entire morning, ordered takeout for the afternoon, and then typed this message into his high school class group chat.
Back in high school, the moment he offered to cover internet fees, a whole horde of buddies would come stampeding into the cafe, leaving his old man equal parts furious and helpless.
Unfortunately, those weren't his high school days anymore.
"Boss Liu, we have to work."
"Boss Liu, we have to work."
"Boss Liu, we have to work."
"..."
The group chat was flooded.
"Damn, I'm so jealous of you cafe owners — playing games every day till you wake up naturally!" Liu Haoming's deskmate Lin Ming broke formation.
"Jealous of what? I keep getting screwed over by my teammates."
"A guy who's been gaming for nine years and is still stuck in Bronze has the nerve to blame his teammates? Even nine years of compulsory education would've graduated you by now, right?"
Red in the face, Liu Haoming argued back, "A gamer's business — how can you call that getting screwed over?!"
What followed was a string of incomprehensible talk — "fun above all else," "as long as I haven't hit Silver, I am the strongest Bronze" and the like — which sent his classmates into a frenzy of meme-spamming.
A good long while spent blowing hot air in the group chat won him no teammates at all, so the young internet cafe owner resigned himself to the lonely path of solo queue. He charged alone into Summoner's Rift, and there, match after blood-soaked match, he unleashed storms of carnage so legendary they shook heaven and earth and put the very sun and moon to shame.