"So the gods really do exist! This goddess is living proof of it!"
The man was shouting in excitement, gazing up at the female soldier with a fanatical, scorching fervor.
Thump.
Thump.
The fanatical faith spread through the crowd like a plague. People offered up their knees to the female soldier one after another, and in less than a moment, over half the crowd was on the ground, every one of them trembling from head to toe with emotion.
They had witnessed a miracle!
They had been saved by a god!
The gods were omnipotent, supreme above all!
In the Age of Catastrophe, people lived cautious lives of great hardship, aching for a savior to deliver them. Now that savior had appeared, and they were ready to make the female soldier the faith they would hold for the rest of their lives!
"With the goddess taking action, the Age of Catastrophe is sure to be brought to an end soon!"
"The goddess has come to end the Age of Catastrophe!"
The crowd believed it without a shred of doubt. At that moment, the female soldier's utterly ordinary face looked holier and more beautiful to them than anything else in the world.
"Xiao Xi, this is wonderful!"
Li Xi's mother beamed with joy. "The gods have begun to save us. Life will only get better and better from here on!"
"Kneel, quickly. We mustn't blaspheme the goddess." Li Xi's father copied everyone around him, pulling his wife and daughter down to bow alongside him.
Li Xi looked at the heartfelt joy on her parents' faces, torn, the words caught in her throat. Honestly, she was a little worried — her mom and dad kneeling to her: did that count as a monstrous act of unfilial impiety?
After a long silence, Li Xi decided to bury the secret of being the goddess deep in her heart. Heaven would know, earth would know, she would know, and the cafe owner would know — and she would tell no one else.
After all, the Origin Internet Cafe was far too mysterious and terrifying. Its very existence was a taboo, and clearly it was not something anyone besides herself should be allowed to know about.
"And besides, if everyone found out I was that female soldier, how disappointed would they be? I'd probably even get hauled off by the fortress researchers to be dissected, wouldn't I?"
Li Xi kept these thoughts to herself. She might be simple, but she wasn't stupid. She knew full well that what had happened last night was of enormous consequence — if outsiders learned of it, it would bring nothing but trouble.
As for whether she could end the Age of Catastrophe the way everyone hoped...
"As long as I can still go to the cafe, anything is possible!"
Once more the girl clenched the strange object in her pocket. That cafe badge was as scorching as a red-hot branding iron, yet its heat felt wonderful against her skin.
Suddenly she recalled the last line she had seen when the game ended the night before:
【Moderate gaming harms peace; game addiction saves the world.】
So it turned out that gaming really can save the world.
***
Dragon City.
Liu Haoming stepped outside carrying a takeout paper bag to throw out the trash.
The streets were utterly deserted and blanketed in thick fog, lit only by the faint glow of a few scattered streetlights — a far cry from the daytime bustle, with its endless streams of cars and people.
"It's not even midnight yet and everyone's already gone. No wonder the cafe has no business — with the streets like this, there won't be a ghost of a customer."
Liu Haoming muttered under his breath, tossed the takeout bag into the trash can, and turned to walk back to the cafe.
Not long after he left, a dark shadow suddenly flitted in from the far end of the street and leapt into the trash can.
After a bout of rustling and scrabbling, the shadow bounded back to the ground with the takeout bag in its mouth. Hazy moonlight spilled down and picked out its shape crisp and clear.
It turned out to be a small fox with filthy fur, no bigger than a cat, its whole body caked in blood and grime.
The little fox made quick work of prying the takeout box open and gazed at the leftover scraps inside, drooling happily. But just as it was about to dig in, its tiny body went rigid — an unprecedented sense of danger was looming over its head.
The little fox forced its head around. In the thick fog behind it, a silhouette larger than a skyscraper was watching it. Tentacles thousands of meters long drifted faintly in and out of view; beside them, a horrifying blood-red eye as big as the full moon was lifting its lid, and an abyssal maw yawned open and clamped shut...
Countless Evil Gods hidden within the fog were sizing up this accidental intruder with intentions beyond all comprehension.
The little fox's fur stood on end in an instant, every hair bristling with dread. It understood at once that leftovers steeped in such rich spirit energy were not something it was meant to eat. Frantically, with clumsy paws, it reassembled the takeout box and threw it back into the trash can.
After a moment's thought, the little fox simply threw itself into the trash can as well, then shut its eyes and let its tongue loll out.
Those things out there are so scary!
Playing dead, the little fox trembled all over.
***
"Tonight, I'm going to climb back to Silver one more time!"
Liu Haoming sat at his computer and set himself this goal with solemn conviction.
Shurima, your Bronze Emperor has returned!
Waiting in the ranked queue, he looked around at all the empty machines and felt an inexplicable pang of loneliness.
I run an internet cafe, not a coffin shop — what's with making the place this dead and gloomy?!
He found himself missing the girl from last night. Sure, she couldn't play a round of League with him, but at least she'd livened the place up a little, and that was pretty nice — better than being here all alone.
"She probably won't come tonight."
Liu Haoming thought to himself. Li Xi was a gaming-addict girl; sneaking out behind her family's back once last night had already been no small feat. Odds were her family wouldn't be giving her another chance to slip out any time soon.
"Good thing the old man never keeps tabs on me. I can do whatever I want. Having such an irresponsible dad — no idea whether that's my luck or my misfortune."
At that thought, Liu Haoming counted his blessings all over again. If his old man were like Li Xi's family and refused to let him go online, he'd have no choice but to run off to Sanhe and become a gaming drifter.
But then again, that was impossible. His family ran an internet cafe, after all — whoever heard of running a cafe and not getting to go online yourself?
For as long as he could remember, Liu Haoming had been completely free. His dad asked nothing of him. Even after he graduated from college and became a shut-in without a job, his dad didn't care; he faithfully wired him living expenses every month, and unlike other parents, he never nagged Liu Haoming to find a girlfriend. Sometimes Liu Haoming even suspected the old man had picked him up off the street — otherwise, even in a single-parent household, who raises a son like this?
If he ever had a son of his own someday, how would he raise him?
He mulled the question over for a while, couldn't come up with anything sensible, and finally decided to stop troubling himself over nothing.
No way? Did I seriously think some big-chested, long-legged, slim-waisted, pretty, sweet-voiced proper girl would actually fall for a shut-in like me?
Liu Haoming laughed at himself. Women would only slow down the speed of his sword-draw, so to keep his sword-draw speed unaffected, he decided to go with Master Yi this game!
As the game screen came up, the young cafe owner glanced back at the fog-shrouded doorway and murmured to himself:
"Hope a new customer comes tonight, a big-chested... proper girl."
In the thick fog, countless Evil Gods whispered among themselves and set about making their arrangements.