The room was decently spacious, yet crammed to the brim with all kinds of stuff.
Along the wall sat an entire row of game cases and figurines, stacked in messy, interlocking piles. In the middle of the room was a slightly worn computer desk. A dual-monitor setup glowed brightly above it, while a mechanical keyboard in front flashed with gaudy RGB lighting. A few posters were taped along the edges—corners curled up from age.
The desktop itself was tidy. The air smelled clean. A PC tower in the corner had collected a thin layer of dust. On the other side was a gaming chair. The curtains were half drawn, blocking most of the daylight, leaving the room dim and lukewarm—lit mainly by the monitors' shifting glow as it washed over Jiang Cheng's face.
In that environment, Jiang Cheng wore his headset and stared unblinking at the screen. His fingers danced between keyboard and mouse in a practiced rhythm. He was completely submerged in the game world.
"Victory!"
Seeing the icon pop up, Jiang Cheng clicked Continue almost mechanically, and the results screen immediately followed.
"King tier, 1500 points… finally done. Should've told that guy to change his name sooner—running around with a pinyin nickname means I keep running into wintraders…"
He snapped a screenshot of the page, exited the game, opened WeChat, found a contact, and sent the screenshot over.
[Jiangchengzi: Image]
[Jiangchengzi: Bro, it's done. Log in and check.]
After sending it, Jiang Cheng remembered something and added a well-meaning warning:
[Jiangchengzi: Oh right—looked like your peak rank was only Gold. If you can help it, don't queue ranked this season. It'll be miserable, and if the Koreans don't like what you're doing they'll report you. You could actually get banned.]
With that done, Jiang Cheng waited for a reply while thinking about what to play next.
He'd just crawled out of one long, punishing grind—and was already preparing to walk straight into the next.
A normal player might not understand that. Jiang Cheng did.
Put simply, he was a full-blown gaming addict.
From high-end console snobs to mobile-game grinders, he'd play anything that caught his interest. His hobbies were broad; he never specialized in just one title. But talent was talent—no matter how briefly he invested, he could still produce impressive results.
League of Legends, a pure PVP game, was one of the titles he'd spent the most time on. Years ago, a club had even invited him to join their youth training program. But that would've steered his life away from what he truly loved, so Jiang Cheng refused.
Taking the occasional boosting job was more than enough to earn him the kind of money that could last a lifetime. He didn't chase luxury. His days were steady, comfortable.
The match he'd just finished was an urgent order referred by a longtime client. Jiang Cheng had just wrapped up another game when he accepted it.
And besides…
They paid way too much.
That meme was real.
He didn't have to wait long—his client replied almost immediately.
[Gu Cheng: Holy hell, brother. I just logged in and checked. You actually finished it. I thought it'd take way longer.]
[Gu Cheng: Don't worry, I'm not playing. Haven't touched this game in ages.]
[Gu Cheng: Anyway, I sent the remaining payment to your card. Take a look.]
A text alert arrived as well. After confirming everything was correct, Jiang Cheng exchanged a few polite messages and cut the conversation.
The other guy sounded like he was in a hurry. Jiang Cheng was perfectly happy with that.
Not long after, he understood exactly what Gu Cheng was rushing off to do.
A Moments notification popped up.
[Gu Cheng]
[Image]
[Countless days and nights of training. Countless days and nights of effort. I have finally reached the summit—but this is only my limit, nowhere near TheShy's. I dedicate this rank to my idol, and to my youth. I'm merely someone who climbed the mountain—how dare I mock a god descending it?]
…That was aggressively intense.
"...?"
Jiang Cheng blinked, and then it clicked.
After thinking for a second, he decided not to hit Like.
Whether the guy forgot to hide it from him or simply didn't care, a professional booster shouldn't be out there stealing the spotlight.
If a rich dude wanted to spend over a hundred thousand just to buy a hit of emotional satisfaction with one Moments post, that was his business. For someone like him, it might even be a bargain.
Jiang Cheng tossed his phone aside and stared at his desktop, returning to the question he still hadn't answered:
What to play next?
"Yeah… nothing seems fun anymore. I already cleared the new DLC for that Soulslike. No major releases lately… and no indie game that feels genuinely fresh."
He even began considering whether to open League again.
And right in the middle of that aimless thought, he noticed something.
There was a new icon on his desktop.
"Abyss Frontier…?"
Jiang Cheng read the name beneath it out loud.
It sounded like a game—probably some domestic fantasy cultivation title. The icon itself was simple: a holy white door. The resolution wasn't even great, which only made it feel more like something from a tiny indie studio.
He wasn't picky. If it was fun, he'd play it—blockbusters, hidden gems, whatever. That meant it was rare for a game to exist that he'd never even heard of.
Which usually implied one thing:
A low-effort reskin with nothing new.
"I don't remember downloading this. Don't tell me it's one of those reskinned web games… 'Passionate Siege Warfare' and all that. Did it get bundled in when I installed something else?"
Even so, he decided to open it and take a look.
If you play enough games, you're bound to step into a pit eventually. Niche games are niche for a reason, and Jiang Cheng had tasted his fair share of digital excrement on the road to finding something worthwhile.
But that was exactly why the unknown was so alluring.
Because every time you launch a new game, you never know if the next thing you bite into will be chocolate that tastes like chocolate…
Or something else that just happens to look like chocolate.
He muted his audio in advance, then double-clicked Abyss Frontier.
In the next instant, his 26-inch monitor went completely black.
Then, from within the darkness, that holy white door slowly surfaced—and opened with a thunderous roar.
The speakers, which should have been silent, burst out with an immersive, almost physical sound. Dazzling white light poured out from beyond the doorway. When it faded, a string of flickering text appeared on screen, finally settling into simplified Chinese he could understand.
[No character created]
[Please create a character]
Nothing else.
No opening cinematic. No "Start Game." No settings. No menu.
"Huh. Loads fast. No encryption, maybe?"
Jiang Cheng raised an eyebrow, interest sparking for the first time in a while.
The unknown was one of the main reasons he loved games. And now a title he'd never heard of—one that looked strangely intriguing—had appeared out of thin air. Of course his hunter's instinct kicked in.
"So I have to make a character before I can start?"
He understood immediately and clicked Create Character.
But what appeared next wasn't an elaborate face-sculpting system, nor a list of preset avatars.
Instead, a young man with black hair and black eyes appeared on the screen, staring straight ahead—like he was looking directly into Jiang Cheng's eyes.
If that were all, it wouldn't have surprised him.
What shocked him was…
The character displayed on the screen was Jiang Cheng himself.
…
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 80)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 80)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 80)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter50)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter50)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter50)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter50)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 10
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