Chapter 41: Chapter 41: Must Snatch a Slot
[Starting with a broken sect V: Hello everyone. We’ve felt your enthusiasm, so we’ve registered a Weibo account to announce some good news.]
[Broken Sect will release another 20 closed beta slots after 12 AM tonight. They’re first-come, first-served at the stroke of midnight. The quick get them, the slow don’t.]
[Yunzhou Continent: Begin your second life.]
[There are no revivals in this game. Players, please cherish your life.]
Riding the wave of hype, the newly registered Weibo account was quickly discovered by curious netizens.
When they saw that new slots were being offered, everyone immediately chimed in.
[Seriously, you’re only releasing 20? And you’re saying ’The quick get them, the slow don’t’? Is that really something an official account should be saying?]
[LMAO, you really think your game is some kind of huge hit? I can see this blatant marketing ploy from behind my screen.]
[Can’t I just get in through the back door? I can pay for a spot.]
[Why no revival mechanic? Who’s gonna play a game where you can’t respawn?]
[Gotta admit, this marketing campaign is brilliant. Getting this much buzz for 1 million—the game’s PR team will be legends wherever they go.]
[Don’t even think about buying an account. The recruitment form asks for your entire family history, plus it requires facial and ID verification, and it’s IP-locked. Even scalpers can’t get one, so it’s impossible to sell accounts.]
[What? I don’t get a slot? LMAO, it’s not like I even wanted one. Really? You’re not giving me one? That’s rich. Broken Sect, you’re so pretentious.]
...
"Tianya, you’re here?"
Inside a villa, a beautiful woman looked at the handsome young man before her, her expression troubled. "Your cousin is in his room, painting."
"I need to see him, it’s urgent." An anxious look crossed Jiang Tianya’s face. "Auntie, it’s really important. I have to go talk to him."
A look of sorrow crossed his aunt’s face. "Tianya, he doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s painting. Please, just don’t go in, alright? Consider it your aunt begging you. You know your cousin can’t handle any kind of agitation since the accident. We just got him back from the hospital last time; they had to resuscitate him. Please, just don’t go in..."
"Auntie, I know, but this time I might have a way to help him. Don’t you want him to truly live, too?"
His aunt froze at his words. "You... Tianya, don’t make jokes like that."
Jiang Tianya’s expression was solemn and earnest. "Auntie, just trust me this one time. I would never joke about my cousin. I’ll go talk to him myself."
His aunt fell silent.
Tears welled in her eyes. After a long moment, she stepped aside.
Jiang Tianya immediately entered the house.
Inside the sun-drenched art studio, heaps of chaotically scribbled and painted canvases were strewn about.
Some of the paintings were exquisitely detailed, others a chaotic mess. Their dominant colors were black and blood-red, a clear sign of the artist’s highly unstable mental state.
The moment Jiang Tianya entered, the young man sitting in the studio froze.
An irritable voice immediately followed. "Get out!"
"It’s me." As Jiang Tianya spoke, his eyes swept over the paintings that filled the room. "Xue Yao, I have something to tell you."
Hearing Jiang Tianya’s voice did little to soothe Liang Xueyao’s irritation. "What do you want, Bro?"
"What if I told you there was a way for you to be as active as a normal person again? Would you be willing to try it?"
Liang Xueyao whipped his head around. "What are you talking about?"
As he turned, the odd posture of his legs was revealed.
He was sitting on the floor, but from the knee down, one of his pant legs was completely empty.
He was disabled.
Jiang Tianya let out a breath, squatting down and patting Liang Xueyao’s head to calm him. "I know you’re under a lot of mental stress, that your life now is a world apart from what it used to be. But I promise, you’ll get to experience the joys of a new life again. It will exceed your wildest imagination, and it might even shatter the worldview you’ve built over the last twenty-odd years of your life—provided you’re lucky enough."
Liang Xueyao’s eyes filled with disbelief. "Cousin, what are you talking about?"
Jiang Tianya said, "Listen to me. Go look at the trending topics on Weibo right now. A game has appeared on the market, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before."
He told him everything about Starting with a broken sect and concluded, "You know I’ve never lied to you, and I’m not crazy. That world is truly real—so real it doesn’t feel like a game world at all. You can be a completely normal person in there and enjoy a second life."
Liang Xueyao let out a derisive snort. "Bro, I think you’re the one who’s really lost his mind. Stop joking."
"I’m not joking!" Jiang Tianya’s expression was serious. "Do you know why I came to tell you this? It’s not just because of your leg. It’s also because the person you saved is from the military. You saved his life. If you tell him about this, you can establish a connection with the government."
"I suspect this game is abnormally real, that it’s more than just a simple game. Right now, the only way to get a slot is to fight for it. I want the nation to get involved, to figure out the game’s secrets. Our Sect Master’s name is Song Jiulai. This game didn’t appear in any other country; it appeared first here in Huaxia. There has to be a reason for that. We have to seize the initiative, do you understand?"
"You know my family. I can’t go behind my father’s back to contact anyone in the government. He’d think I’ve lost my mind and stop me from playing this game. That’s why I can’t tell anyone else. No one who hasn’t experienced it firsthand would ever believe me. I’m already in the game, and now I need you to get in. Once you’re in, you can be there with me."
Liang Xueyao was stunned.
The whole affair was so far beyond his imagination that he momentarily forgot to even unleash his volatile temper.
"The race for the slots starts at 12 AM tonight. I’ll tell you everything that was on my recruitment form. You get your personal information ready, then just copy and paste everything to fill it out as fast as possible. I’ve already tried—you can’t crack this game’s website, no matter what you do. You can’t use external plug-ins. That alone is something no ordinary game company could pull off. I’m afraid the other players will tell their families, too. There are only 20 slots, and I don’t know how many people will be trying for them, so you have to be fast."
"Once this game really blows up, future slots will have hundreds of thousands, millions, maybe even tens of millions of players fighting over them. You can’t even imagine how terrifying that will be. Right now is the best chance. Twenty slots is a small number, but the number of people trying to get them surely won’t be that high yet."
Even after saying all that, Jiang Tianya was still worried. "I’ll stay here with you tonight."
Liang Xueyao: "..."
He was starting to suspect his cousin had gone crazy—even crazier than he was—but he didn’t dare say it.
It was enough to forcibly suppress the volatile temper that had flared up because of his injury.
"Oh..."
Jiang Tianya was right. As soon as the twenty new slots were announced, the other forty-nine players all thought of the exact same thing: telling their own families.
A game that offered a second life... if you had the chance to play it and didn’t, you’d be so angry you’d rise from your grave.
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