Huang Yin had never imagined a less than 3 minutes conversation with Han Fei would lead to a lifetime of treatment. His screams shattered the peace in the cryptic world and attracted much attention. The naïve man thought that he’d be safe after leaving the school but when he exited the school gate, he only realized the darkness was borderless. The things that he thought were the scariest were only the beginning.
“I don’t want to be first anymore! Really! I just want to go home…”
It was too late for that now. While Han Fei and his neighbours trailed behind Huang Yin, Han Fei used this opportunity to cleanse the area around Ziggurat, to see if he had missed any cursed objects or potential friends. With the buff from Huang Yin’s luck, Han Fei completed several Grade G Missions and found some fresh food for his neighbours.
After living under the tyranny of the Butterfly for so long, the people here finally had the chance to sigh in relief, tonight was meant to be for celebration. Huang Yin was the signal that the party had begun. The ‘people’ that he encountered either became party guests or party food.
The resentment was released. The madness of the afterlife intermingled with lingering humanity. The locals didn’t hide themselves and enjoyed themselves to the fullest. 5 hours later, after endless fainting and rescuing, the player finally reached his limit. After Han Fei confirmed that Huang Yin couldn’t be reawakened for another time, Han Fei used Resurrection on Huang Yin.
“Brother Huang, this is the best I can help you, you’ll have to do the rest on your own.” Huang Yin in the state of resurrection looked so peaceful like he was returning to heaven.
After Huang Yin left, Lee Zai and Lee Huo were the most disappointed. Even the Mirror God appeared to be unwilling to let Huang Yin go because it wanted to trap Huang Yin inside the mirror. With Huang Yin as bait, some of the ghosts who were deeply hidden near Ziggurat couldn’t help but show themselves. Han Fei successfully cleaned the area around Ziggurat. Now he could be free to explore the other locations without being worried about this place.
The delineation of locales in the cryptic world was rather chaotic. Normally, the locales were delineated street by street. But if a street had a Pure Hatred, then all the nearby streets would be categorized under the Pure Hatred’s territory, for example, Butterfly and the Ziggurat. In other words, in the cryptic world, each Pure Hatred represented an individual locale. If Han Fei wished to explore deeper into the cryptic world, he was bound to trespass into their territories.
Normally, when a living human like Han Fei entered a Pure Hatred’s territory, the latter wouldn’t react that much. After all, you wouldn’t have turned the whole yard over because a single ant had walked into the house, would you?
However, Han Fei was walking through their territory with several Large Lingering Spirits. That made things totally different.
‘The previous manager’s map didn’t specify it but I suppose all the locations that have been crossed out with red marks contain a Pure Hatred?’ The Ziggurat was individually marked out by the previous manager. From that, Han Fei drew the meaning of the red cross. Han Fei knew he was lucky to have defeated the Butterfly. If he ran into a Pure Hatred now, he and his neighbours could do nothing but run. ‘I better take this slow. First, I should try to approach the Singer to get Fu Sheng’s second memory fragment before I plan anything else.’
Standing inside an old building, Han Fei turned to look behind him. When he first started the game, he was just a tenant at Happiness Neighbourhood Building 1, but now he had expanded his influence to a school, a convenience store, a pet store, a meat packing plant, a security company and so on. With that in mind, Han Fei saw the management side of the game.
‘A pet store that sells the pet owners, the convenience store that specializes in afterlife items, a security company that kills the clients, a meat packing factory operated by livestock, these are not enough. There is nothing core and essential that would attract spirits from other areas to this place… Looks like I still have a long way to go.’ After exchanging his thoughts with others, Han Fei decided that he would study city building after he logged off the game. Others played games to escape from studying but Han Fei had to study to be alive in this game. He had gained much knowledge through this game.
After dealing with everything, Han Fei and his neighbours returned to the Happiness Neighbourhood, he logged out inside his first room. Blood dyed the city red. When Han Fei’s consciousness rose, he realized the Singer at the Ancestral Hall Street was still staring at him. ‘Why is he staring at me? What does he want from me?’
After removing the gaming helmet, Han Fei crawled out from the gaming hub. He gulped down mouthfuls of water before pulling back the curtains. The virtual screen in the sky had one last countdown. The day that was anticipated by many was coming.
Han Fei went online and most of the searches were related to the OB of Perfect Life. Han Fei felt truly that a new era was coming. AI and biological revolution came at the same time. It caused technology to advance tremendously. The technological gap between the city centre and the countryside could be decades apart. While many people slaved for their lives, a second life completely based in virtual reality had become the truth. Inside the large virtual city that kept on expanding, the human technological heaven was being built and a company was putting a price tag on the ticket to heaven.
“This is a heaven for many but a hell for me.” Han Fei lamented as he stared at the virtual screen in the sky. “My in-game ID is 0000, perhaps no one even realizes that ID exists.”
After finishing a double breakfast, Han Fei realized he was still hungry. His appetite was so much larger than before. After clearing away the dining table, Han Fei called Huang Yin but there was no answer. To ensure that Huang Yin was safe, Han Fei purposely paid him a visit. After knowing that Huang Yin was ‘fine’, Han Fei hurried towards the factory compound to start his work.
Han Fei’s return to the set was an inspiration for the crew. They had faith in Han Fei as well as the projected box office sales.
The shoot ended at 8.30 pm. Director Zhang even managed to fit in some of the shoots for the next day. This was because the director knew Perfect Life was entering OB at midnight. He purposely left the night empty for the crew members to enter the game. The first shoot tomorrow was arranged at 2 pm. Even an old-fashioned director like Director Zhang had to adjust his schedule, this went to show the influence of Perfect Life in the society.
After the shoot ended, everyone hurried home, there were not many people on the street either. Han Fei who walked along the shadows of the wall appeared rather lonely. He stopped to enjoy a scrumptious dinner at a shop run by an old lady. As the old lady rambled at him, Han Fei smiled kindly back at her.
The old lady who manned the shop alone reminded Han Fei of Meng Si. The memories he gained at the cryptic world were not entirely dark, there were some bright spots too. The smile on his face slowly froze. Han Fei really tried to smile but he realized he still hadn’t reached that point yet. He tried to smile and the end result was only an awkward smile. Considering the lack of customers that night, Han Fei ordered many things and tried to clean out the old lady’s stock.
When he arrived home, Han Fei went online to look for literature related to city building and management. He studied until 11.44 pm. He turned away from the monitor and looked out at the virtual screen in the sky. The countdown was reaching 0. Many people all over the world would be staring at their own city’s virtual screen like Han Fei. When the last second ended, the virtual screen dissolved into fireworks. It lit up the night sky! The Perfect Life which was run by the 7th generation photon computer had officially entered Open Beta!
“I won’t be playing alone anymore.” Han Fei crawled into the gaming hub, put on the helmet and logged into his account. When the red of the city faded away, Han Fei realized the bloodiness in the Singer’s eyes appeared to be thickening. The Singer was recuperating.
“I can’t delay this anymore. We’re heading to Ancestral Hall Street tonight.”
Opening his eyes, Han Fei noticed the cryptic world hadn’t changed at all. In spite of the OB, this world would forever be shrouded in darkness. Taking out Firefly’s phone, Han Fei called his neighbours to gather at Yi Ming Private Academy. Before they headed to Ancestral Hall Street, there was something important he needed to do.
When it was 00.12 am, Han Fei used the Spirit Farer talent to summon Huang Yin. Han Fei was quite worried, this was the first time he used this talent after the game entered OB. Several seconds later, a middle-aged man in white threadbare shirt appeared inside the classroom. Huang Yin hugged his knees and the first thing he did when he saw Han Fei was to run.
“Brother Huang! Calm down, it’s me, Han Fei!” That only made Huang Yin run even faster. However, Huang Yin’s attributes had been reset. He couldn’t beat Han Fei who had 24 points in Stamina.
While he chased after Huang Yin, Han Fei noticed something interesting. After he touched Huang Yin, he could see into Huang Yin’s character profile!
Everything was exposed to Han Fei, including Huang Yin’s hidden talents and attributes. Theoretically in Perfect Life, the players couldn’t view each other’s hidden attributes. Only the mods with high access could do that.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Without Huang Yin having to explain it himself, Han Fei could read into Huang Yin’s attributes. From a player’s perspective, Huang Yin’s stat was not bad.
His stamina was 6, which was above the average line of 4.
But to Han Fei’s surprise, Huang Yin’s intelligence was as high as 9, the maximum point for starting players was only a mere 10. It was unclear whether this was the result of Butterfly’s torment or whether Huang Yin was naturally that smart.
Then Huang Yin’s hidden attributes were rather… interesting. His luck was 1, a normal player would have restarted the game, because luck was quite important.
His Charm was 5, which was average, not as interesting as Han Fei’s.
At the start, every player’s Life Points would be 100 and San Value would differ depending on the player’s personal experience. These two values were very important. Huang Yin’s San Value was insanely high. A normal player’s San Value was below 10 but Huang Yin’s San Value was 37!
Compared to CB, there were new hidden attributes like Happiness Points, Reputation, Persona and the rest. There were also rankings for each of the attributes.
As predicted by Huang Yin, Perfect Life’s first official event was to search for the true meaning of happiness. After the player started the game, within the set amount of time, the player had to find ways to increase Happiness Points. The greater the increase, the greater the final reward.
Han Fei checked Huang Yin’s Happiness Point, it was -100, there was a great space for improvement. Han Fei’s Grade E Cursed Words didn’t go to waste.
After that, Han Fei examined Huang Yin’s hidden talent. To see if a new player would have a great future in the game or not, the starting attribute was not that important because the photon computer generated the character attributes based on the person in real life. The fluctuation was not big, the real deal-breaker or maker was the character’s hidden talent. An account’s initial hidden talent would decide the account’s upper limit and future.
When Han Fei saw Huang Yin’s hidden talent, his eyes widened.
“Character Name: Huang Yin
“Hidden Talent 1: Experienced Patient Makes a Doctor, you are not good with physical labor and have a weak constitution. You often get sick and thus have an affinity with the healing and medical sciences.
“Hidden Talent 2: Spiritism, it’s hard to say if you’re lucky or unlucky. With this unique talent, you’ll be able to see things that normal people wouldn’t and experience things normal people wouldn’t.
“Hidden Talent 3: Nightmare, you’ve suffered a long nightmare. After endless deaths, you’ve gained the power to control nightmares. With this unique talent, improving and obtaining talents and skills related to Intelligence will come much easier. Compatibility with dream-related professions increases.”
Han Fei was surprised that a normal player like Huang Yin would have 3 hidden talents. Based on the Perfect Life’s official website, the chance of a player starting with a hidden talent was 20 percent, the chance of starting with 2 hidden talents was 0.2 percent, and the chance of starting with 3 hidden talents was 0.02 percent.
‘Brother Huang has hit the jackpot this time.’
