“Hahahaha……”
“See that? I only spent one hundred yuan this time, and now I’m number one on the leaderboard. Are you convinced or not!”
Gu Lian was a junior student majoring in civil engineering.
As someone born in the 2000s, Gu Lian often enjoyed playing games, and his favorite game was a bridge simulation construction game.
However, many people jokingly referred to this game as the Heshen Simulator or the Corruption Simulator.
This was because the game featured a leaderboard based on building a bridge that met the objective using the least amount of funds.
Once this leaderboard appeared, the nature of this bridge simulation game completely changed.
More and more people started using absurd methods to construct bridges, with the core concept being to complete the objective using the least amount of money.
As for how vehicles passed over the bridge after it was built? That was no longer within their consideration.
In the words of one player: the driver gets hurt, the construction company builds the bridge, what does that have to do with me, the designer?
And Gu Lian, being one of the top players of this bridge simulator, had just stayed up all night to complete the latest objective, successfully finishing the game mission by spending only 100 yuan, instantly soaring to first place on the savings leaderboard.
As soon as he completed the mission, Gu Lian immediately rushed into a game group to boast loudly.
However, after posting the message, Gu Lian found that no one in the group was paying attention to him.
Gu Lian looked up outside the window. Hmm, it was already daylight, so there was no reason for that?
This group had nearly a thousand people, all loyal players of this game, most of whom were on the leaderboard. He was now number one. Previously, whenever someone broke the leaderboard record and posted the information in the group, it would immediately flood the chat. Why was there no reaction to his post?
《 Are you all in your 8 AM class? 》
Gu Lian couldn't help but send another message into the group.
As soon as this message was sent, Gu Lian saw someone in the group post a link.
Tomato Stew with Tomatoes: Too busy to reply to you, click the link and see for yourself.
Looking at the link sent in the group, Gu Lian was full of questions, then he clicked on it.
Then, Gu Lian realized that the link led to a live broadcast room belonging to an official account.
However, Gu Lian was now staring at a screen full of question marks, completely bewildered.
In fact, there were so many Barrages that they completely obscured the video content.
Gu Lian only quickly scanned the Barrages and immediately felt like he must be dreaming.
Because Gu Lian now understood what this live broadcast room was introducing.
This official live broadcast room was actually introducing Superpower Users.
There were three Superpower Users in the live broadcast room: two men and one woman.
These three Superpower Users possessed the ability to extend their arms, the ability to control water, and the ability to transform into a leopard, respectively.
Watching the three people in the live broadcast room demonstrating their Superpowers, Gu Lian couldn't help but pinch his own arm.
It hurt; it wasn't a dream.
No way, I just stayed up all night, how did the world turn into this?
China publicly displaying the existence of Superpower Users via live broadcast not only left its billions of citizens bewildered but also left all other countries in the world equally confused.
After all, other countries had only just learned about the existence of Superpowers, but now China had not only revealed the existence of Superpowers but also presented three Superpower Users directly.
And following the announcement of the Superpower Users, the entire internet instantly exploded, becoming even more chaotic than when the Space station crashed previously.
Numerous Chinese netizens began discussing frantically online.
The foreign internet was even more bizarre. Netizens from White Elephant Country insisted that China's Superpower Users were just AI special effects synthesis and not real.
South Korea claimed that these three Superpower Users were actually their South Korean people, not Chinese.
American netizens demanded that China should announce the method for becoming a Superpower User so everyone could cooperate for mutual benefit.
...
In short, all sorts of claims were circulating everywhere.
However, compared to the situation not long ago where Chinese netizens were being ridiculed by netizens from other countries, there was now a complete reversal.
When engaging with foreigners online, Chinese netizens had only one sentence to say:
“We have three Superpower Users, do you?”
Shortly after China announced the Superpower Users, the United Nations convened an emergency meeting.
During the meeting, the representative from America questioned China for concealing the method of obtaining Superpowers and demanded that China unconditionally disclose how to acquire Superpowers to contribute to human progress.
After hearing America’s words, the Chinese representative retorted domineeringly:
“The era where foreign powers could force China to sign unequal treaties by placing a cannon on China’s coast is over. Today, China no longer fears military provocation from any country in the world.”
Seeing that they could not force China using aggressive tactics, various countries began employing other methods.
For example, America immediately ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to activate all its assets within China, urgently seeking to make contact with the three Superpower Users and offering them extremely generous terms.
Simultaneously, America also instructed the Central Intelligence Agency to do everything possible to find a way to obtain the method for how China enabled people to gain Superpowers.
Besides the Central Intelligence Agency, numerous intelligence agencies from other countries simultaneously mobilized all their personnel and resources within China, all for the purpose of obtaining useful information related to the Superpower Users as quickly as possible.
Soon after, China's State Security Bureau launched a counterattack.
Numerous foreign spies and inside agents hidden within China were apprehended.
Because the objective this time was too direct, the State Security Bureau launched investigations into everyone who had contact with the Superpower Users.
Due to the extremely limited scope of the investigation, and because various countries, in their haste to obtain intelligence on the Superpower Users, even resorted to exposing deep-cover agents who had been hidden for many years.
This made the personnel of the State Security Bureau feel an overwhelming sense of merit falling from the sky.
Although various countries knew that China was using the three Superpower Users as bait, what China was doing was an open stratagem.
Using spies and inside agents in China might yield information related to Superpower Users, but doing nothing meant they would gain no secret intelligence about the Superpower Users.
This was actually a trap deliberately set by China, but this bait was utterly irresistible to the intelligence agencies of various countries.
Even though intelligence departments of all nations knew this was a trap laid by China's intelligence department, they could only watch as the numerous spies and inside agents they had cultivated for years walked right into the net.
Superpower Users were simply too important to the Countries of Blue Star.
In the current era on Blue Star, the emergence of Superpower Users might be a crucial factor in changing the established international structure.
Indeed, some countries could not tolerate China taking the leading position regarding Superpowers.
America worried that China’s already formidable strength would advance further, directly threatening its position as the global hegemon.
Sakura Country worried that a stronger China would avenge the deep hatred from decades past.