Chapter 157 : Chapter 157
Chapter : 157
Blue Star, 3 AM.
The velvet curtain of the sky unfolded, dotted with specks of starlight. The moon quietly hid behind the drapery, showing no intention of returning to the stage for the time being.
The neon signs in the city had long lost their luster. A missing corner flickered with the unstable light of a poor connection, but no one would notice.
Because at this moment, the entire city had fallen into a quiet, beautiful dream.
Cheng Tianyu yawned, his fingers still clattering on the keyboard. The mouse in his other hand moved with vigor on the desk, while he shouted into the microphone: "Help, help! Pick me up and I'll carry!"
His teammate on the other end seemed very impatient and said something through the headset. Cheng Tianyu kept a smile on his face, "Big bro! Big bro! Please help me, I'm boosting an account.
If you pick me up, I can really carry. This is the last bit of rating I need. After this match, I can complete the order. Please understand, big bro!"
Seemingly pleased by Cheng Tianyu's ingratiating tone, the other person's voice was not as grumpy as before. Cheng Tianyu finally received his teammate's belated assistance.
However, it was useless. An old-timer who had been ambushing for a long time in a tree on the opposite hill was holding a crossbow.
He shot the character who had just been revived and hadn't had time to use a medkit, scoring a headshot.
The character who had just stood up fell to the ground again, one hand clutching his abdomen, the other propping himself up.
Cheng Tianyu reacted very quickly and cursed, "F*ck, there's a camper!"
However, the big bro who came to rescue was obviously not as fast as the camper who had been lying in wait. Not long after the character Cheng Tianyu was controlling fell, the teammate big bro also went down.
The big bro furiously turned on his mic, and in the immature voice of a primary school student, began to frantically curse the camper on the other side.
Cheng Tianyu controlled his character to huff and puff his way to find cover, only to see a message notification.
[Yes I Am the Camper] killed [Your Big Bro] with a [Crossbow]
The primary school student big bro, who had been cursing non-stop, silently turned into a loot box, leaving only the lingering echoes of his full-throated greetings.
The specifics of the greetings won't be mentioned, but it was basically something along the lines of drawing a circle with one's parents as the radius, the entire family as the center, and eighteen generations of ancestors as the circumference.
Cheng Tianyu: ...
He couldn't help but sigh. This primary school student big bro was really unreliable.
It seemed he wouldn't be getting the points from this match. He would have to suffer through a few more matches to complete this order. Cheng Tianyu was in so much pain that he just wanted to close his eyes.
Unable to wait for the rescue from the last remaining member of the team, [King of Survival], Cheng Tianyu's character closed his eyes in regret, becoming a loot box side by side with the primary school student big bro.
After exiting the matchmaking interface, Cheng Tianyu rubbed his throbbing temples. For this order, he had not closed his eyes for more than thirty hours.
Seeing that the order was about to be completed, and he would receive a considerable boosting fee upon completion, Cheng Tianyu regained his spirits.
He stood up, picked up his water cup and the towel hanging on the head of the bed, and opened the door of the shared rental apartment.
Even at past 3 AM, the shared rental apartment would not be completely silent. The late-night streamer in the room next to his was loudly creating a live broadcast effect, thanking this big bro, then that big sister, busy beyond measure.
He walked into the public kitchen, found the kettle provided by the landlord, casually filled it with hot water and placed it on the gas stove to boil.
He didn't idle during this process. He wet his towel with the kitchen tap water, wrung it out, and covered his face with it.
A wave of coolness invaded his brain through the towel, driving away the fatigue from playing games for a long time. Only then did he feel much more refreshed.
He didn't take off the towel, just let the cold towel cover his face, cooling down his somewhat hot cheeks.
It was truly a case of getting heated from playing games and needing a physical cool-down.
Cheng Tianyu closed his eyes like that, absorbing the coolness from the towel. The drowsiness that had been dispelled crept back into his mind.
It wasn't until the ambiguous moans from the bathroom coincided with the whistling shriek of the kettle that Cheng Tianyu stumbled, almost falling headfirst into the trash can, and came back to his senses in a daze.
Cheng Tianyu shook his head and found that the spout of the kettle was already gurgling with boiling water. He quickly turned off the gas stove, carried the kettle to fill his own thermos, draped the towel over his shoulder, and walked back to his room with the thermos in one hand and the water cup in the other.
As he passed the bathroom, the ambiguous moans, accompanied by the sound of trickling water, reached his ears again. Cheng Tianyu didn't even pause his steps, heading straight for his own room.
Without a doubt, the little couple living opposite him were at it again in the bathroom.
As he walked, Cheng Tianyu thought: This little couple's relationship is quite deep. You can see their little loving easter eggs everywhere in the shared rental.
It's just that I haven't seen them respond to the national call for a first, second, or third child. Maybe in the future, my retirement will have to rely on the contribution from the little couple's child.
...Forget it, he hadn't paid social security anyway, so he couldn't rely on the next generation in the future.
Cheng Tianyu returned to his room, put down the kettle, and hung the towel back on the head of the bed.
He poured himself a glass of hot water and placed it aside to cool, then casually reopened the game matchmaking.
After all that dawdling, the short, thick hour hand on the clock was almost pointing to the number four. It was naturally impossible to get into a game right away by starting matchmaking at this time.
After all, players of the same rank were almost all asleep at this time. Only boosters like Cheng Tianyu and male university students who were pulling all-nighters in internet cafes were still online.
Taking advantage of the matchmaking time, Cheng Tianyu opened a game forum, preparing to look for some fun to keep himself from falling asleep on the keyboard while waiting for teammates.
This order was due tomorrow morning, so it had to be finished tonight. This was about his food money for the next week!
Cheng Tianyu's mouse slid, shrinking the webpage window to ensure that he could immediately switch back to the game as soon as a match was found, and would not miss any opportunity to rack up points.
He was boredly scrolling through posts when his eyes landed on a thread title. Cheng Tianyu suddenly paused, his mouse moved, and he clicked open the content of that post.
[Report——Guitu Studio has opened beta test registration, only three thousand slots for the first batch of beta testers!!! [NEW]]
It was followed by a [NEW] tag, indicating that the post had just been published. Sure enough, after Cheng Tianyu clicked on it, he saw that the post's publication time was just a minute ago.
The original poster was very excited, screaming and shouting, while the replies were sparse, with only a few scattered responses.
1L: Guitu? What Guitu Studio? Is this some big company? Why have I never heard of this name?
2L: Beta test registration? I haven't heard of any games going into beta recently. What's Guitu?
3L: Guitu?? Are you talking about the Guitu I know? It's not some three-no-name game studio using the name Guitu to troll people again, is it? (Angry) If you treat me like a dog again, I'll really get angry!
4L: ……What?
……
It wasn't until the tenth floor that someone truly took the original poster's content seriously, their shock beyond words.
11L: !!! F*ck, I went to Guitu's official website and took a look. Beta test registration is really open. Doesn't this confirm that Guitu Studio's IP is overseas? Which domestic game company opens beta test registration in the middle of the night? Are they afraid players will find out?
12L: Hearing that Guitu is opening beta test registration, I immediately did a Thomas Flair and rushed to register. Brothers, wait for my good news!
13L: ...
...
Cheng Tianyu could no longer be bothered to read these dramatic replies from his fellow netizens. He quickly opened the Guitu official website through the URL he had bookmarked in his browser.
On Guitu Games' simple official website, which only had a countdown and in-game recording videos, a new beta test registration button had appeared, along with a note about the beta test registration.
Only three thousand slots were open for the first batch of beta testers, and in the four years since the "Guitu" official website suddenly appeared, tens of millions of players had already clicked the pre-order button.
For no other reason than the huge promise of a cross-era holographic game that Guitu Studio had painted.
Cheng Tianyu swallowed. He was also one of the tens of millions of players who had pre-ordered.
As a gaming enthusiast, and now even making a living by boosting games, he simply couldn't refuse the promise of a holographic game.
He had pre-ordered this game a year ago, but in over a year, Guitu Games had only updated two in-game recording videos.
They had been silent on all other aspects, and not even a single real studio staff member had ever appeared. It really didn't look like a reliable game company.
Even Cheng Tianyu was starting to believe the analysis posts on the forums, believing that this Guitu Game Company was just a shell company, a completely reskinned scam game.
And yet, on this ordinary night, the holographic game he had been looking forward to for so long had opened its beta test registration?!
Cheng Tianyu decisively clicked on the beta test registration, having long since thrown the possibility of it being a scam to steal personal information to the back of his mind. He quickly filled in his name, age, and the address of his shared rental apartment.
In the remarks section, he also eloquently wrote a few hundred words about his gaming experience, hoping that the one-in-a-million good luck would fall on him.
This series of actions was as smooth as flowing water. That few hundred words of gaming experience only took him a few minutes to write. He had never even been this fast when copying homework back in school.
Confirm, submit.
Cheng Tianyu, who had done it all in one go, let out a long breath. He refreshed the official website and saw '1289 people have submitted their beta test registration' displayed in the top right corner, and couldn't help but be a little surprised.
At this time, except for some night owls, it was when everyone was sleeping most soundly. Yet in such a short time, nearly thirteen hundred people had already submitted their beta test registrations?
Thinking of this, Cheng Tianyu couldn't help but feel a little regretful. He should have prepared his gaming experience earlier, so he could just copy and paste it during the beta test registration, instead of spending those few minutes writing it out.
A waste of precious time!
Although the officials didn't explicitly say that the earlier you submit your beta test registration, the greater the chance of getting a slot, but what if?
Cheng Tianyu really hoped to get such a slot. Whether he played it himself or sold it to exchange for some money for next quarter's rent, it was a sure-win situation.
Cheng Tianyu sighed faintly, feeling a little empty as he looked at the official website.
The registration form had already been submitted. He couldn't modify it now, and submitting another one was meaningless. He seemed to have no idea what to do.
Buzz buzz—
The game, which was just displaying [Matchmaking in progress], vibrated and changed to a loading screen.
Soon, the pink mini-skirted main character controlled by Cheng Tianyu appeared in the center of the screen.
There were several other game characters standing around, also waiting for the game to start.
A bald character jumped in front of Cheng Tianyu's character and, with an eye-searing dance move, twerked at the character Cheng Tianyu was controlling.
The game had started.
Instantly, Cheng Tianyu's emptiness vanished. What poetry and distant lands? Before his eyes, there was only the hardship of life.
The order wasn't finished yet!
Cheng Tianyu couldn't be bothered with much else. He hurriedly forwarded the link to the forum post into his small group of gaming friends, then closed all other pages and focused on playing this match, completely ignoring the storm his forwarded link had stirred up in their small group.
Another two hours passed of playing. After finally completing this order, Cheng Tianyu was so tired that he wasn't tired anymore.
His heart was exhausted, but his spirit was extremely agitated due to his incompetent teammates.
He wished he could have a good chat with the ancestors of those teammates who died right after landing.
#If you're so bad, don't play games in the middle of the night!
#If you're going to feed, feed someone else's points! Don't feed his!
Cheng Tianyu took a screenshot of the completed game page and forwarded it to the admin of the boosting group he was in. He also copied and pasted his payment account information along with it.
After receiving an [ok] gesture in reply, Cheng Tianyu was like a deflated inflatable tube man outside a supermarket. He instantly collapsed onto the table, with no strength to get up.
After lying there for a while, he finally found the music on the game preparation screen too annoying, especially since he had been listening to it for two consecutive days and was about to puke. Cheng Tianyu then listlessly sat up, preparing to close the game, wash up, and go to bed.
The sky outside was just beginning to brighten, and Cheng Tianyu could vaguely hear the sounds of children playing and laughing on their way to school.
This city was about to awaken from its sweet dream, while the shared rental he was in was just now falling into true silence.
The city woke up, the shared rental had just fallen asleep.
Cheng Tianyu casually closed the game, but unexpectedly, a Penguin notification with 99+ messages popped up.
Cheng Tianyu opened it and only then discovered that the post he had forwarded from the forum into the group two hours ago had caused a huge uproar among the group members.
This group consisted of friends Cheng Tianyu had met while playing games. They had a good relationship, and each had their own profession; not all were game boosters like Cheng Tianyu. One of them was even a high-level executive at a listed company.
Of course, he claimed to be a high-level executive at a listed company, but no one had asked for the specifics of which listed company it was.
Those who entered this group were all gaming enthusiasts who were passionate about games, and they were all very interested in "Guitu," which claimed to be a cross-era holographic game.
One of them, a small-time game streamer, had long been waiting for the game to be released so he could start streaming this holographic game.
The post that Cheng Tianyu forwarded clearly stated that Guitu was opening its beta test registration, which naturally brought out a group of lurkers.
Cheng Tianyu chuckled as he looked at the chat history in the group. Suddenly, a new email notification popped up on his phone. He casually glanced at it, the subject was ["Guitu" Beta Test Invitation].
He thought he had misread it, so he quickly picked up his phone and opened his rarely used Penguin email. Among a pile of advertising emails and spam, he found that very inconspicuous email.
["Guitu" Beta Test Invitation]
Dear player,
Hello!
We are honored to inform you that you have been selected to participate in the beta test phase of "Guitu" — a groundbreaking holographic MMORPG.
This is an unprecedented adventure, and you will have the opportunity to be one of the first heroes to explore this grand world.
Game Introduction:
……
This game beta test invitation was very standard, with no personal touch at all, as if it had been randomly searched on a search engine and copy-pasted for him. But Cheng Tianyu's eyes couldn't move away from this email for a long time.
The mouse quickly scrolled to the end, to the line of notes.
[Please complete the beta test qualification confirmation within 72 hours of receiving this invitation through the following link: [Confirmation Link].
We will deliver a holographic game cabin for playing the game to you, and provide detailed beta test guidelines and technical support.]
He had gotten a beta test slot?