【Welcome, player Wang Zixu. We wish you a pleasant game.】
As soon as Wang Zixu got out of evening self-study, he immediately rushed back to the dorm, put on his helmet, and logged into the game.
He did not hurry into the game. Instead, he opened the forum.
During class just now, he had glanced at the group chat messages in the 【Top-Up Persuasion Club】,
and only then learned that Brother Riyue Tongcuo had actually already gotten a game helmet.
Not only that,
he had even written a plot analysis more detailed than Wang Zixu’s own.
According to Brother Riyue Tongcuo’s testing,
each time a player created a new game character, they would randomly trigger an initial plot depending on their experiences.
The game characters were all tricked for various reasons, then kidnapped.
But the kidnapping plot could take place in different settings, such as in a car, on a boat, and so on…
No matter the setting,
the process and purpose of the kidnapping were the same.
A group of kidnappers escorted the player across the border and forcibly sent them into Myanmar.
In addition,
Brother Riyue Tongcuo had also made a further analysis of the subsequent gameplay.
He speculated that players might encounter their first meeting after entering Myanmar.
Never in a million years!
Such important intelligence had actually been snatched one step ahead by Brother Riyue.
Wang Zixu smacked his lips in vexation.
Back when he died in the game, he really should have created a new character and tried a few more times.
He had actually brushed past such important information.
Unfortunately, there was no medicine for regret.
Silently giving Brother Riyue’s post a like, he closed the forum with a flick of his hand.
He had to step it up.
No matter what, he was still the first player to obtain closed beta access and enter the game.
He had entered the game a day earlier than Riyue Tongcuo.
If Riyue Tongcuo overtook him in plot progress too, where would he put his old face?
【Reading progress… Connecting…】
【Entering game shortly!】
After starting the game,
Wang Zixu did not choose to create a new character.
Since Brother Riyue Tongcuo had already snatched the first release, there was no point in him writing another similar analysis post.
He might as well continue pushing the plot forward and focus on a plot walkthrough.
He arrived in the game world.
With the experience of his previous failures, Wang Zixu cooperated the whole way and did not cause any unexpected trouble.
The wooden boat steadily reached the shore.
By the river stood ten people in camouflage uniforms.
This was the third time Wang Zixu had been escorted ashore.
The previous two times, the moment he stepped onto the riverbank, he had tried to escape or ask the nearby villagers for help.
But both times, he had been easily caught and brutally beaten.
The security onshore was even stricter than on the boat; the difficulty of escape had more than doubled.
He had gained some experience: if he could not escape on the boat,
then after getting ashore, he should not even think about escaping.
It was almost impossible, unless this game had cheats.
“Keep up!”
The armed kidnapper in front barked in a low voice.
Wang Zixu followed, his gaze swiftly sweeping over his surroundings.
The environment here could no longer be described as retro.
It was extremely primitive.
There was not the slightest trace of modern society to be seen.
Towering ancient trees blocked out the sky, and the damp scent of soil filled the air, as though he had stepped into a primeval jungle.
As they passed the riverbank,
a small house on the opposite bank entered his sight.
It was a little wooden hut, like a prop moved straight out of some old-fashioned film.
At the entrance of the hut stood a little girl in a floral dress.
Standing beside her was someone who might have been her mother or her grandmother.
In any case, she was an older-looking woman.
The girl tilted her little head and sucked on a lollipop.
Her gaze fell straight on Wang Zixu, without any emotion in her eyes, as though she were sizing up some insignificant object.
For no reason, Wang Zixu shivered.
An inexplicable alarm rose in his heart.
He felt that this scene was extremely eerie.
The previous two times he had come ashore,
he had been too busy thinking of ways to escape and had failed to notice these details.
Only now did he suddenly realize.
A young girl, faced with a scene of kidnapping in broad daylight, could actually be so calm, so numb.
All at once, he understood.
The little girl, and everyone in the village, had long since grown used to everything that happened here.
They watched coldly from the sidelines, and might even be sneering inwardly:
Heh, another few idiots dreaming of getting rich have been kidnapped over. So, is money abroad easy to earn?!
Wang Zixu let out a deep breath.
For the locals, things like kidnapping and murder were nothing out of the ordinary.
They were the air they breathed, part of everyday life.
That was why, the previous two times, they had remained unmoved by his cries for help.
They had even taken the initiative to tell the kidnappers where he was.
Numbness was the base color of this land.
He could not act impulsively again!
Wang Zixu was now starting to suspect that, in the game’s setting, there were no good NPCs.
The people in camouflage uniforms held their guns and escorted Wang Zixu and the other two out of the village.
Strictly speaking, this place could not be called a village.
There were only a sparse few households in total. All around were vast stretches of wasteland and rice paddies, without even a road.
The environment was rather desolate.
The three of them had only just stepped out of this area when they saw two military-green pickup trucks parked not far away.
It was as if they had been waiting for them all along.
Before he could react, two people suddenly appeared behind him. A black cloth hood was pulled directly over his head, and without another word, Wang Zixu was stuffed into the back seat of a vehicle.
The ride was bumpy all the way. He had no idea how long they drove.
Only after the tires rolled over the last stretch of gravel road did the vehicle finally stop.
Wang Zixu was shoved out of the car, and the hood was finally yanked off.
The light was dazzling. He narrowed his eyes and took several seconds to adjust before his vision gradually cleared.
Before him stood a compound.
They called it a compound,
but he felt it was more like a prison with a strong retro style.
The surrounding wall was more than five meters tall, almost as high as a two-story building.
Such a high outer wall looked like it had been built specifically to prevent prisoners from escaping.
In the center was a sliding iron gate, mottled with rust. From the outside, not the slightest glimpse of the inside could be seen.
There was a sentry post at the gate, where armed security guards patrolled back and forth with cigarettes in their mouths.
Wang Zixu’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he swallowed.
Good thing it was only a game.
He forcibly suppressed the throbbing in his chest and looked at the kidnapper behind him.
This man had not beaten him along the way, and his face was not as fierce as the others’.
“Where is this?”
he asked tentatively.
“Myawaddy!”
Wang Zixu did not understand, but he knew it should be a place name, and felt a little more certain.
He asked again, “When can I leave?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll definitely be able to leave.”
The other party’s tone sounded soothing, yet carried a somewhat formulaic perfunctoriness, as though he said this to everyone.
“Will I die?”
“No.”
The man answered decisively. After speaking, he turned and walked to the compound entrance, lowering his voice to converse with the green-uniformed security guards stationed there.
Wang Zixu listened intently. Fragmentary English drifted into his ears:
“company… company…”
Company?
Wang Zixu thought back for a moment.
He just happened to remember the meaning of this word.
Didn’t it mean company, corporate park?
His brows furrowed slightly.
This damn place was a company?
Sheet-metal walls, with blades and electric fences on top, plus armed guards.
What decent person’s company looked like this?
The only thing worth celebrating was that, at least for now, it seemed there should be no danger to his life.
If he had been sold into a company, what else could he do?
Work, nothing more.
The boss wanted free labor.
Hiring people to kidnap workers—
that logic did make sense.
He had never experienced 996 or 007 before.
He would just treat it as a social preview before graduation, adapting in advance. It would come in handy sooner or later anyway.
He was also rather looking forward to what working in a game would actually feel like.
What did this company do?
Were the coworkers easy to get along with?