Pain! Jing Yang felt that his head was both dizzy and painful. He opened his eyes, but his view was still very blurry, so he could only close them again. After the dizziness stopped, he finally opened his eyes again and saw a group of people surrounding and fighting against some sort of monster he couldn't identify.
A man wearing white with black hair stood at the front, suddenly turning his head to glance back at him. That face was extremely delicate and handsome, so good-looking that he didn't seem like he could be real. But from his gaze, Jing Yang could tell that there was obvious ridicule and disdain. Subconsciously, Jing Yang extremely disliked this person, and felt that he didn't deserve such a beautiful face.
Jing Yang got up from the ground and watched the process of those people dealing with the monsters, as well as the weapons in their hands that were beyond the capabilities of science and technology. Could it be that this was a mysterious fantasy world? But their clothes and dress all seemed pretty modern, it would definitely not be some sort of ancient fantasy world then.
The monster shattered like shards of glass that landed on the ground, and simultaneously many things fell out of its body. Those people went up one by one to pick up everything that had fallen. Jing Yang watched them put the objects in their hands somewhere in midair, and those things just disappeared. He became even more certain that this was a fantasy world, and those things had definitely been placed in some sort of storage space.
Those people left in a certain direction. Jing Yang still didn't know for now whether or not he was together with the rest, so he was afraid that rushing forward to follow them would make them feel like he was strange, so he just stayed standing.
A tall and strong man with blond hair and a very handsome appearance looked back at him and asked, "Noah? Why aren't you coming?"
"Oh, coming." It seemed like he was in a group with them, so he would go along with them first and then find a chance to be alone and inherit the memory of this world.
"You were hit earlier, have you recovered yet?" The blonde man asked.
"…A little." Jing Yang carefully responded. He used the system to retrieve a fragment of his memory and found that this person talking to him had a game name called Dark Flame, and his real name was Zhao Chao. Game name? How could this game name be important information, it was even arranged before the real name.
The man wearing white walking in front turned around again to look at them, and Jing Yang caught the sharpness and gloom hidden in his eyes. It seemed like the original owner of this body really did not get along with this person, he just didn't know what the reason was. In a bit he would definitely need to properly understand the situation.
Jing Yang found that while these people's appearances were all different, they could all be considered handsome, and their physiques were all quite good. They all seemed like meticulously crafted mannequins, giving him a sort of inexplicable strange feeling. Could it be..., Jing Yang pinched his own arm. With that, he knew that this was definitely a human body.
Jing Yang followed them back to a two story house with a large yard. But the weird thing was that there were no other houses around.
"Noah, if you're not feeling well, just rest a bit first ba." Dark Flame said to him with concern.
"En." Jing Yang sat down on the sofa in the living room.
The man wearing white also sat down across from Jing Yang. He folded his legs, sweeping a glance at Jing Yang disdainfully.
"We were really lucky today, we actually bumped into the green foot monster outside our door, and it even dropped such a treasure."
"That's right, it was really like it had come especially to send us treasure."
That group of people really discussed the matter about the monster they had just killed, and then took out the treasure that they had received to look over it.
A man with dyed red hair walked over and took out a weapon that looked like a small cannon, saying to the white-clothed man, "Easy, I'm going to have to trouble you today as well."
The man in white pointed his chin. "Just put it there ba, in a bit I'll help you fix it."
The man with dyed red hair put the weapon down and thanked him before going back to talk with the others.
The man in white coldly said, "You are really too weak, every time you drag us down like this, do you not feel the least bit of shame?"
Being mocked and not retaliating was not Jing Yang's style, but right now he still didn't know the cause and effect of the situation, so he couldn't just casually open his mouth. After all, in case he said something wrong, he might arouse suspicion. Even though this face in front of him was very good-looking, he grew increasingly annoyed by it. He stood up and got ready to return to his room to understand this world's memory.
"If I were you, I would really not have any face to live, truly just wasting other people's opportunity to continue living."
Jing Yang's footsteps paused, he felt that this person wanted to deliberately irritate him, so he would definitely not let him achieve what he wanted. Intuition told him that this person was the original body owner's enemy, and when he finished learning the complete situation, he would definitely not let him live well.
Jing Yang retrieved a fragment of his memory and followed the route played back from the memory to return to the original owner's room.
Jing Yang opened the door. It was a quite small room, and besides a bed, there was nothing else.
Jing Yang took off his coat, lay down on the bed, and opened the memory retrieval function.
Right now he is in a game world, not a real world, no wonder he always felt some sort of strangeness.
In this world's reality, the rapid development of technology made it so that the earliest online games were no longer only played on a screen with a mouse. The invention of the gaming compartment allowed humans to completely and truly experience the game.
This time the person Jing Yang was replacing was called Ding Nuoyang, his family ran a design company and was very rich. After graduating from college, he took over the family business. He himself had talent in economics and also in design, so he made the family business larger and larger, and earned even more money.
In this world where same-sex marriage had already been legal for many years, it was no secret that Ding Nuoyang liked men, his family and friends all were aware. His parents did not object to him liking men, but still told him that whether he was looking for a man or a woman, that person definitely had to be a serious and dedicated person, and couldn't be someone with a messy private life and sketchy friends.
Ding Nuoyang was a clean and fastidious person, so even if his parents had not warned him, he would also not deal with those people who had chaotic private lives.
He had a classmate who had constantly pursued him since college. This was that person whose game name was Dark Flame and real name was Zhao Chao.
Ding Nuoyang had no feelings at all for Zhao Chao, but Zhao Chao had tirelessly pursued him for seven or eight years, treating him very gently and cautiously and pampering him.
Over the years, Ding Nuoyang had still not been able to meet the right person, and would inevitably feel lonely. He would occasionally see other people get together and date, and also hoped that he himself would also have someone to accompany himself. Many people pursued him, but not a single one could move him. But if he really had to choose one of them to try from this group, he decided to choose Zhao Chao. Zhao Chao had pursued him for so many years, and even if he was really hard-hearted, he would still be somewhat moved by his dedication.
They decided to have a relationship more than friends but less than lovers, and first understand each other better and try it out for a bit. Zhao Chao was very happy, and treated him even more attentively.
Ding Nuoyang felt that since he had already decided to try to be with Zhao Chao, he should try to understand more about him. He had recalled a bit and found that even though he had known Zhao Chao for seven or eight years, he still barely knew anything about him. Usually it was Zhao Chao who would set up a meeting with him or just directly go find him, and when he didn't have time or didn't want to go out he would directly reject him. Occasionally when he did want to go out he would agree, but it would just be to eat a meal together or something.
Zhao Chao was a professional gamer who had started playing games when he was just seven or eight. After graduating college, he became a professional gamer. He had played for a long time, and his skills were pretty good, so even though the amount of money he made couldn't be compared with Ding Nuoyang, he could still be considered to be making a lot of money when compared to ordinary people.
Ding Nuoyang wanted to better understand Zhao Chao, so he decided to start from his career. That way, the two people would at least have more to talk about. But normally besides working, during his leisure time he would just read or exercise, basically never playing games. After he told Zhao Chao that he wanted to play games, Zhao Chao very happily said that he would bring him to play together, so he bought a luxury gaming compartment and bought the most popular game at that moment to start his first experience in the gaming world.
Zhao Chao introduced Ding Nuoyang to his teammates. This team of people were all professional gamers and relied on gaming to earn money and support their family, so Zhao Chao naturally couldn't bring Ding Nuoyang into their team. He could only use his spare time to take him to do novice tasks and teach him some basic gaming techniques.
Zhao Chao and his team were quite famous in this game, and the team's overall ranking in the game was quite high. Each of the teammates' personal ranking was also considered high. As the team captain, Zhao Chao's fame was naturally even bigger, and many people saw him bringing Ding Nuoyang to do novice tasks. Many people knew that they were dating, and the gamers who were more familiar with Zhao Chao would also often tease them.
When Ding Nuoyang had thought that gaming was just a pastime that would only take up very little of his time, something big suddenly happened. This game company's main system became faulty, and all of the players in the game were unable to exit the game.
The gaming company immediately rushed to find repair methods, but after trying all sorts of methods, they still had not found a successful solution. They thought about simply destroying the game and forcing the players out, but when they tried to destroy a game area, all of the gamers in that region immediately became brain dead.
Suddenly having so many people die simultaneously made the situation immediately escalate into a big problem, shocking the entire country. The National Security Department arrested all of the top executives in the gaming company, and made the country's best technical personnel come to deal with the system's problems and find a way to rescue all of the players trapped in the game.
They worked tirelessly for over ten days, and could only establish 100 escape exits in each of the game regions, this was already the limit. But in this game, every region had a maximum of tens of thousands of players, and even the smallest region had thousands of players. How they could choose a hundred people to first rescue from the game from all of these players, became an extremely big problem.
The gamers' real bodies were all being supplemented by nutrient IVs to survive, but this was not a sustainable solution, so all of the families became even more distraught.
The final decision was to rescue as many people as they could. As for how to choose which people to first rescue, in order to be fair, it would be decided using the game. They first cleared all of the players' previous points and equipment, and then removed all of the previous rankings. The top 100 players in the final rankings would have the opportunity to escape from the game.
This method received the consent of most gamers and their families, because at the moment there were no other methods, so they could only rely on the player's own ability and luck. At least in this way, everyone could have a thread of hope for survival, which would always be better than everyone dying in the game.
When the main game system failed, Ding Nuoyang happened to be in the game, so he was naturally also trapped. He could only go together with the others to compete for those 100 survival opportunities.
In this kind of situation, basically everybody would be anxious to death, and in order for themselves to be able to survive, they would completely not care about other people's survival. After all, if they could kill another person, there would be one fewer competitor for the top 100 places. After the points and rankings were zeroed, those people who died in the game could no longer be revived like before, and even though their real body did not die immediately, to these gamers losing the opportunity to compete for the rankings was basically equivalent to losing the chance to live.
Zhao Yang allowed Ding Nuoyang to enter their team, which Ding Nuoyang was very grateful to him for. But in order to not make the other team members dissatisfied, Zhao Chao let Ding Nuoyang pay a large sum of money to serve as the pool of money that the team could draw from for collective team expenses. The in-game money and real-life money were equivalent, and the system was directly linked to their bank accounts, so every sum of money spent in the game would be deducted from their bank account's deposit.
If he could successfully exit the game, spending some money didn't matter to Ding Nuoyang. But after those team members knew that he was very rich, they became greedier and greedier, making him pay for all of their expenses himself. Even the things that they should have bought themselves also became considered as collective team expenses for him to pay for, and they even thought of it as a matter of course.
Making him pay was actually nothing, since he as a rookie following in their group of professional gamers would naturally need to pay some more. Not to mention that his life couldn't be bought with money, so if he could survive, he could still earn more. But he felt that he had helped, he had paid for it, he didn't just receive their protection without good cause, and that he deserved to be treated equally.
They took his money for granted, and not only did not really protect him, but also often crowded him out and verbally insulted him. And the person who drove the other people to treat him with this attitude was precisely the person wearing white who Jing Yang had seen once he opened his eyes. His game name was Being Nobility Is Easy.
At first Ding Nuoyang didn't know why Easy Nobility disliked him that much. It was only later that he found that originally Easy Nobility liked Zhao Chao, so he would dislike him, and cause trouble for him everywhere.
In this game there was a very special existence called the Alchemist. This profession had very low attack ability and strength, and even if you desperately trained it would still be very difficult to raise the strength. But the special characteristic of the profession was that they could make all kinds of weapons and tools, and could even increase the team members' energy when fighting.
The alchemist was the most difficult profession. Very few people would choose to play it, and of those who did, the majority would also give up halfway through and switch to another occupation.
If a team had a good alchemist, they would simply be treated as a national treasure, and other teams would also want to dig them away.
When buying a weapon from the game's refinery store, the price would be quite expensive, and the weapon might not even be easy to use. Only the famous alchemist NPCs in the game would have a certain quality assurance, but the price would not be something most people would be able to afford. Even if it was just regular repair for a weapon, it would still require a large amount of money, so generally no one was willing to offend alchemists.
Easy Nobility had also played games for over a decade, and had also become a professional gamer after graduating from college. He had constantly been practicing with the alchemist profession and had not given up in the middle, so now he had become a relatively known senior alchemist. Naturally, the other team members would flatter him in all sorts of ways.
Easy Nobility was also the vice-captain of the team, and his influence on the other team members was sometimes even higher than Zhao Chao this captain. He targeted and crowded out Ding Nuoyang, so naturally the rest of the team would follow him to isolate Ding Nuoyang. And some of these people even had some hatred of the rich, so being able to bully a rich person like Ding Nuoyang like this would give them a sense of joy that they could not achieve in real life.
When fighting, Zhao Chao needed to control the overall situation as the captain, and simply did not have time to take Ding Nuoyang into account. The other people who did have free time simply did not care about him, and even if it was just a raise of their hands, no one would go help him block any attacks. He always had to rely on his own ability to dodge, and sometimes he wasn't able to avoid it, and the others would always mock him wantonly.
Zhao Chao's vague attitude made Ding Nuoyang increasingly bitterly disappointed, and he began to regret choosing to try out a relationship with this man. He had entered this game in order to understand him, it didn't matter that he had spent quite a lot of money, but it was very likely that he might even lose his life. And the more he knew about Zhao Chao, the more he regretted it. This man did not have the least bit of courage or commitment.
Before he had started gaming, Zhao Chao had bragged about how good he was, and that having him as his guardian, no one in the game would be able to bully him. The result was that the ones bullying him the most were those teammates of his, and no matter how he had promised to protect him and block all the damage for him, he had completely failed all the same.
Later for a number of reasons, Zhao Chao and Easy Nobility had married in the game, and Ding Nuoyang had completely given up on Zhao Chao this person.
Ding Nuoyang wanted to return to live in the real world, so he clenched his teeth and bore all of the suffering, but in the end he was still unable to leave the game alive. Easy Nobility had tricked him out of the home alone, and then attracted a crowd of monsters, smiling while watching him be torn apart by them.
Even in the game, the pain of being torn apart was very real. Ding Nuoyang's hatred for Easy Nobility was enough to explode the glass covering of the gaming cabin.
Translator Notes:
[1] Noah – 诺洋, pinyin is nuo yang, MTL goes with Noah and I think it works
[2] Dark Flame – 焰冥, this is the direct pinyin, literally means dark flame, I'm still not sure about whether I should translate the meaning or the pinyin—actually I'll probably change to translations
[3] green foot monster – 绿脚怪, ok so there are probably going to beDark Flame a lot of monster names that I will just literally translate, please bear with it
[4] Ding Nuoyang – 丁诺洋, his real name, actually his game name is also Nuoyang, so I might just call him Noah when in game to separate btw the two
[5] treating him gently and cautiously – 小心翼翼, idiom, also means cautious and solemn, very careful
[6] pampering – 嘘寒问暖, idiom, basically means to keep inquiring solicitously and helping him out however possible
[7] more than friends but less than lovers – 恋人未满,友人之上, had to google this one but makes sense
[8] Easy/Being Nobility Is Easy – 做公子简的人, quite a literal translation, later on his name is just Easy Nobility
[9] Alchemist – 炼器师, I actually think this is closer to a Mechanic like in Qidian's the Legendary Mechanic, but Alchemist sounds cooler and that's what it goes with in MTL
Random Notes:
About 1.5 hours: 6:30 pm – 8 pm, for 5k characters to 3.6k words. Usually the first chapter takes a while, but this time it was actually not bad. It's only a week before this chapter should go up, so I definitely am very behind this time. Best of luck to me, I guess.