Less than a minute after Lu Ziye posted his thread, dozens of replies flooded the comments section.
Floor 1: “Selling melon seeds and cola in the front row.
Did the OP’s psychiatric hospital finally get its internet connected?”
Floor 2: “1KB?
Is the OP dreaming?
The TXT file I used to record what I ate today is bigger than 1KB.”
Floor 3: “And the saliva is warm?
Bro, did you drool inside the helmet?”
Floor 4: “I can spot the frozen frame at a glance.
Confirmed fake.”
Floor 5: “I suggest the OP download an anti-fraud app.
You’ve clearly been infected with ransomware.
Tomorrow morning, all the study materials on your computer will be encrypted.”
Seeing the overwhelming mockery, Lu Ziye scratched his ears and cheeks anxiously, frantically typing replies to defend himself.
“I swear it’s real!
The game is currently in closed beta, and there are only five slots!”
Just as he was being collectively ridiculed by the netizens, several familiar IDs suddenly appeared in the thread.
[Kindergarten Boss]: “Brothers, the OP isn’t lying!
I’m also a closed beta player!
The sensation of touching that monster’s head was incredible.
I smashed it with a brick more than a dozen times, and I could clearly see every particle breaking off the brick!”
[Malou Also Has Dignity]: “Real-name verification!
Not only is this game’s physics engine insanely realistic, but the taste system is also terrifying!”
“I just took a bite of the monster’s brain in the game.
That taste… ugh.
Brothers, I won’t say anything else.
I just finished throwing up beside the toilet in real life.
It was way too realistic!”
As soon as the two players came forward to testify, the forum didn’t become more convinced.
Instead, it exploded even further.
“Holy shit, gang crime?
Don’t PR companies even bother reviewing their scripts anymore?”
“What the hell?
Eating monster brains in a game?
Are you playing a survival game or Wild Gourmet?”
“Reported!
These accounts have definitely been hacked!”
Meanwhile, in a college student class group chat.
[I Am Not Jiahao] was proudly showing off:
“People our age are still playing those garbage pay-to-win online games, while I just experienced a cross-era masterpiece called Awakening of the Ancient Gods.
It reconstructed the virtual neural chains using only 1KB of underlying code… This is called a dimensionality reduction strike.
It’s just… you guys understand.”
Group Member A: “Jiahao, did some micro-business scammer brainwash you?”
Group Member B: “Kick him out.
This kid has gone crazy after losing money in stocks lately.”
That night, because of the name Awakening of the Ancient Gods, the hardcore gaming forum erupted into a massive argument that stretched across dozens of pages.
Although most netizens continued mocking Lu Ziye and the others as paid posters, there were always a few trolls whose mental state was ten years ahead of everyone else.
They specialized in one thing:
Not believing in miracles until they saw them with their own eyes.
Following the 1KB download link in the original post, they actually clicked it.
“What can 1KB possibly do?”
“It can’t even fit a pixelated picture.
I want to see how this virus is going to steal my account.”
Awakening of the Ancient Gods — Launch!
To their surprise, the VR helmet didn’t suddenly display ransomware covering the screen.
Instead, the screen went black.
Then, several lines of cold white text appeared.
[Sorry, the current game is in a closed beta testing phase.]
[Due to limited server capacity, you have not obtained a qualification for this closed beta.]
[Thank you for your attention.
Please look forward to the next recruitment.]
The netizens who had downloaded the game were so angry that they laughed.
What a lunatic!
He actually made a TXT file just to mess with people in the middle of the night!
If you don’t have enough slots, why the hell did you post the download link?!
Meanwhile, in the boys’ dormitory.
Lu Ziye was still frantically fighting a one-man war in the forum thread.
His fingers flew across the keyboard so quickly they were practically smoking, yet he still couldn’t convince that stubborn bunch of keyboard warriors.
Furious, he was just about to make a solemn oath to prove that he hadn’t been paid to promote the game when the notification for a private message suddenly sounded.
He clicked it open.
It was the old acquaintance who had supported him earlier.
[Malou Also Has Dignity]: “Bro!
Stop arguing with those keyboard warriors.
What do they know?
I’m the guy who ate the monster venom just now.
Leave me your WeChat contact.
Let’s make a group chat and talk among ourselves.”
Lu Ziye’s eyes immediately lit up.
He swiftly sent over his contact information.
As soon as the friend request was approved, he was pulled into a three-person group chat named “A Family of Loving Bald Heads.”
Looking through the members, Lu Ziye saw that besides Malou, who had pulled him into the group, there was also a guy using the default avatar.
His group nickname was [Kindergarten Boss].
Lu Ziye immediately changed his own group nickname to [Passing Pure Love God of War].
Then, without hesitation, he sent a silly panda-head sticker into the group.
“Hello, handsome guys!”
The next second, [Malou Also Has Dignity] responded by throwing out a Kobe sticker with the words:
“Children, I’m back!”
The atmosphere in the group instantly became lively.
[Malou Also Has Dignity]: “What a pity.
I privately messaged a huge number of people on the forum, but I couldn’t find the big boss who poked the monster with a wooden thorn, or that pretentious freak who wore big shorts while keeping both hands in his pockets.”
“Otherwise, our five-person first-test squad would be complete!”
[Kindergarten Boss] sent a system-generated sweating emoji before sighing.
“To be fair, brothers, this game is seriously awesome!”
“Now I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering if I’m dreaming.
I can still feel the sensation of flicking that monster’s head.
My palms are tingling!”
[Passing Pure Love God of War]: “Who says it isn’t?
You can’t even blame those guys on the forum for not believing us.”
[Passing Pure Love God of War]: “From physical collisions to five-sense simulation, this game is a complete dimensionality reduction strike.”
[Passing Pure Love God of War]: “I’m seriously starting to wonder if this damn game company dug up some alien spaceship and directly used alien technology as their server.
This is way too outrageous!”
[Malou Also Has Dignity]: “Maybe it’s even cross-era technology for the aliens.”
[Malou Also Has Dignity]: “By the way, when you guys were kicked offline, did you check the client?
There was a countdown next to the icon!
We can enter the game again at exactly seven tomorrow morning!”
[Passing Pure Love God of War] immediately sent a sticker of a dying patient suddenly sitting upright.
“Holy shit?
Really?”
“We were forcibly kicked offline, so I thought the system would need at least ten days or half a month of maintenance to fix the bugs!
They fixed it this fast?
Did they even repair their underwear?”
[Kindergarten Boss]: “It’s displayed on my helmet too.
@Passing Pure Love God of War, just put your VR helmet back on and look for yourself.”
Seeing the message, Lu Ziye immediately performed a salted-fish flip.
He grabbed the second-hand VR helmet lying at the head of his bed and put it back on.
He clicked open the black icon that was still only 1KB in size.
Sure enough, in the center of the previously black screen, a row of pulsing blood-red numbers appeared.
[Time until the Awakening of the Ancient Gods server reopens: 05 hours 56 minutes 23 seconds]
Lu Ziye quickly counted on his fingers.
It would be exactly seven o’clock tomorrow morning.
He yanked off the helmet, his heart pounding as though he had just sprinted a thousand meters.
Without wasting another second, he pulled out his phone, turned the volume all the way up, and quickly set a series of alarms beginning at 6:50 AM.
Just kidding!
He was the Pure Love War God!
The moment the server opened tomorrow, he had to be among the first players to enter and become a coolie.
He had been eyeing that sterling silver candlestick all night.
It was already only two hits away from breaking.
That would be his first pot of gold in another world.
Whoever dared to steal it from him, he would track them down through the network cable and bite them!
Thinking about it, Lu Ziye couldn’t help but laugh.
Normally, he had an eight-o’clock morning class.
Even when his roommate yanked the blanket off him, he could still sleep like a dead man.
Yet now, just to enter a crappy game whose textures weren’t even fully developed and work as a bald laborer, he had voluntarily set a 7 AM alarm.
Modern college boys really were this pure and easy to fool.
Amid the earth-shaking snores of his roommate in the lower bunk, Lu Ziye closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
A foolish, triumphant smile remained at the corners of his mouth.
He had struck gold.