"Die! Just hurry up and die! Stop hitting me, let me get the counter-kill!" In a rented room in Electronic City, one of the many cities in Dragon Country, a young man with a patch of white hair was pounding his keyboard as if it were his mortal enemy.
Following his perspective to the screen, he was controlling a character engaged in a fierce battle with an opponent. Both held weapons that flashed with blue and gold light as they unleashed their skills. This game was a recent adaptation based on the works of Butterfly Blue.
With a sudden, head-on sword thrust from the opponent, the last sliver of the young man's health was wiped out. The screen faded to black.
"You're really something else. I don't respect anyone but you. Getting worked up over a bot match is one thing, but getting counter-killed by an AI? You're a real genius."
Indeed, the mode he was playing was vs. AI. While it wasn't the easiest difficulty, anyone with a modicum of experience wouldn't get killed unless they were a total novice.
"Hurry up and vacate the seat. I'm going to play Ranked."
The young man stood up helplessly. He shook a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out, and lit it, then sat down quietly to the side.
The thin, dark guy who had been waiting behind him logged into his own account. "Lao Li, when are you going to look for a job? You've been lying around for two years. You don't write your novels properly, and you won't work at the electronic factory. If you don't find a way soon, you're going to have trouble with your mortgage."
Lao Li was our protagonist, Li Qiuxia. He was twenty-eight years old and used to be a "professional eunuch writer" a bottom-tier author who constantly dropped his stories. After two years in a vocational school,
he had "enrolled" in Jiālìdùn University, where he stayed until he was twenty-six. With his salted fish personality, he felt it didn't matter if he stayed home alone; he had the internet and food, and he didn't have to pay rent.
But his parents weren't happy. People his age were already sending their kids to kindergarten, yet he had been single since birth, never having even held a girl's hand.
He was the kind of son whose mother wanted to hit him and whose father sighed in despair. In truth, his situation wasn't so bad that he couldn't afford a girlfriend. When he was writing, he made a net income of four to five thousand a month, which was about the same as factory work. Since he rarely went out, he saved enough to pay a down payment on a house with some help from his parents.
He had a car and a house the standards for finding a partner were met but the prerequisite was actually wanting one. When his parents tried to have a heart-to-heart, Li Qiuxia told them plainly that he didn't want a partner.
He claimed there were too few girls his age and he wanted to "save resources" for his peers. He decided to be a single DINK, planning to just take care of his parents. As for carrying on the family line? He'd leave that to his younger brother; after all, he wasn't an only child.
His parents were livid. "Take care of us without marrying? You're trying to send us to an early grave! Wait for your brother? Who knows how long that will take!" Driven to the brink by his words, his father pulled out the ancestral Septwolves belt while his mother grabbed a broom. They chased our protagonist out and told him not to come back until he found a wife.
With no home to return to, Li Qiuxia turned to his childhood friend, Li Meng. Li Meng worked in the electronic factories, places supposedly full of girls. Li Qiuxia hoped to find someone there, but reality proved him wrong.
First, he was assigned to a standing position. Having spent the ten years since vocational school sitting down, standing all night made his legs so shaky he couldn't walk straight after his shift. To make matters worse, there were no girls in his assigned group, ruining his plans entirely.
If those two things weren't enough, the line manager wouldn't stop nagging. Perhaps due to his frequent writer's block, Li Qiuxia hated noisy environments and especially loathed people buzzing in his ear. He quit and "ran with his bucket" after only a few days.
Every job after that was the same. Either he had to wear a dust-free suit and stand, the manager nagged incessantly, or he just didn't like it. After a few months of struggling,
a thought struck him: he was away from home now. The mountains were high and the Emperor was far away. His parents weren't around. Did they even know what he was doing?
With that mindset, he began to rot. He co-rented a two-bedroom apartment with his friend. Every month, he'd spend a few days writing a few chapters to earn enough for rent and food. The rest of his time was spent on his phone or gaming. As for the mortgage, he used his savings. It was a life of slow depletion, but it was easy.
He rotted like this for two years, never once going home. When his parents called, he claimed he was busy or that the holiday pay was too good to pass up.
While Li Qiuxia was reminiscing, Li Meng finished his game. Unlike the rookie protagonist, Li Meng played solo vs. triples. Relying on his skills as an "Old Six" and a "Voldemort," he managed to survive until the end. "Look at my skills. I could be a streamer!"
Li Qiuxia rolled his eyes. "Streaming isn't just about playing well. You've got to be engaging and keep the atmosphere lively. Otherwise, who's going to watch? If no one watches, no one tips you."
"Like you know anything. Damn, I'm out of smokes. Go grab a pack, and get a chicken leg rice while you're at it."
The two were close; after all, they had grown up together. During the two years Li Qiuxia had stayed there, Li Meng often brought him food after work. On Li Meng's days off, Li Qiuxia would return the favor by ordering takeout.
Li Qiuxia rarely left the house, usually only going out when he ran out of cigarettes. Even then, he could use a delivery service, but the delivery fee was the price of another pack.
"Fine, I'll go. Keep playing. Want anything else?"
"Yeah, I'm off tomorrow. Let's get some spirits. Just a bottle of Niulanshan, nothing fancy."
Grabbing his phone, Li Qiuxia left the apartment and took the elevator down. There were stores in the complex for cigarettes, but for the food, he had to walk to the street outside—less than two hundred meters away.
In less than seven minutes, he had bought the cigarettes, the food, and the Niulanshan. Most of that time had been spent waiting for the chicken leg rice. Carrying his haul, he headed back toward the complex gate.
He looked left and right, confirmed there were no cars, and prepared to cross. However, just as he stepped onto the road, less than ten meters from the entrance, a truck appeared out of thin air. Li Qiuxia saw it clearly; the driver was a scruffy old man who looked to be in his seventies or eighties.
"Young man, who told you to run around in the middle of the night? Perfect timing for you to help your uncle meet his performance quota. Off you go!"
Seeing the truck hurtling toward him, Li Qiuxia froze in terror. Before he could react, a massive force slammed into him. It felt as if someone had yanked him from behind, and he was instantly sent flying.
When he hit the ground, the world began to spin, and pain flared through his entire body. "Son of a... you old geezer, you're wicked! I clearly checked the road before crossing, and you still hit me! This is murder! My life might be boring, but I wasn't tired of living yet!"
"Why is it getting so cold? Am I going to kick the bucket? Just like that? I haven't even found a girlfriend... Li Meng said that virgins get their privates flicked in the Underworld. Is that true? Wait, wait, I still have one more thing to do."
As consciousness began to fade, Li Qiuxia remembered something vital. With his last ounce of strength, he tapped his phone screen, deleted his browser history and the various "movies" saved on his device, and then he breathed his last.
Only after the records were cleared and the movies deleted did the surrounding people and security guards rush over to check on his condition.
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