CH 117
The cake was a bit overly sweet, which wasn’t to Wen Chuo’s taste. But perhaps it had been too long since he had been entrenched in the past and cannot leave, as this kind of sweetness made it so much more precious.
He turned his computer on to start editing a video, which was to teach about some mechanics in << Jue Jing >>’s beginner level. When he recorded this, he had fought in that level more than ten, fifteen times, which now allowed him to have a large selection pool to pick out the one that showed off the smoothest action.
He was very detailed, cutting and selecting each frame carefully. The clips picked had his movements shown to be very clean, and with how rarely he got hit, most people would only see how simple it could look in the beginner level. The special effects after editing the gameplay were a bit tedious, but Wen Chuo had the rare kind of patience to pick and put each one in a perfectly curated spot.
When Bai Yang finished his meal, he went back to the restaurant to continue working. When he came back home at 9pm, Wen Chuo was still sitting in front of his computer, editing, with the lunch from this afternoon still left unfinished by his side.
Wen Chuo had been staring at the monitor, but when he heard the door open, he tilted his head over to look,
“You’re back?”
Bai Yang gave a ‘hmm’ through the other side of the wall before going out in the hallway to pick up plastic bottles. He came back afterwards to grab the big plastic checkered bag sitting in the corner of the room that was packed full to the brim with the other plastic bottles he’d picked up to sell. In an instant, the apartment felt emptied.
The sky was glooming, and with the computer desk by the window, Wen Chuo suddenly felt a bit cold. He reached over to close the window when a sprinkle of water splashed onto his face. Reaching out with his hand, he only realized then that it was raining.
When Wen Chuo recalled that Bai Yang had already been gone for at least twenty minutes, it felt as if he was suddenly drenched in ice cold, freezing water. His heart immediately started to panic, and he stood up in a racket, preparing to head out to go find Bai Yang. But in the midst of putting on his shoes, the front door opened, and his eyes met up with Bai Yang’s.
Wen Chuo held that awkward position of him putting on his shoes as he sighed in relief after seeing Bai Yang. He took off his shoes, scolding angrily,
“Can you tell me when you head out? What are you blindly running around in the night for? Are you happy if someone kidnaps you? Do you not know more than I do how many thugs are around here, in this tiny rundown town?”
Their relationship dynamic was always one strong and one weak. When Wen Chuo was angry, Bai Yang would not utter a peep. When Bai Yang was angry, Wen Chuo could only bow down his head.
The door closed, separating them from the rain that was slowly getting heavier. Little droplets of rain were still on Bai Yang’s hair as he opened his hand, showing off a roll of scrunched up bills in his palm to Wen Chuo, and said only two words,
“Selling bottles.”
Seeing that he hadn’t run outside in fear like before, Wen Chuo’s heart that had been racing finally calmed down. He pulled Bai Yang further in to the apartment as he wiped off the rain on Bai Yang’s hair,
“Next time, sell them during the day. It’s too dangerous at night. Alright, go shower. It’s late.”
The lightbulb in the living room was a bit old, and during days of rain and thunder, it would all too easily start flickering. Bai Yang had just entered the bathroom with a clean set of clothes when it suddenly dimmed outside. Following that, the faint yellow lightbulb buzzed a few times, just like the special effect in a horror film about ghosts.
In preparation for a blackout, Wen Chuo saved the video he was editing and created a backup. Originally, he was going to look up at the flickering lightbulb on the ceiling when he found a tiny wire was dangling just above him and he froze.
Chen Mei Ying, seemed to have hung herself to death right above him……
It was just at this time, the loud sound of thunder rang out outside. The room was suddenly illuminated in white before momentarily growing dim again. Shivering all the way down to his bones, Wen Chuo calmed down a bit only when he realized that the lightbulb had just gone out. He closed his computer and unplugged it from the source before sitting like an idiot in his chair, not moving an inch.
There was still some visibility inside the room, and Wen Chuo was solely staring at his computer monitor when he found two shadows on the upper right corner. Swaying back and forth, as if they were a pair of legs. His face slightly changed, with cold sweat immediately dripping down his back, and he almost jumped up from the chair.
Whenever he carried newbies on levels, he’d usually use his smaller accounts, and their IDs were very business-like, just a “Helper” + QQ number1 which allowed most people to automatically know he’s a carry. If there was a need, they’d come find him. But the one in the tutorial was a main account and in the game, their account name would appear above the character’s head.
KKK.
A very simple name consisting of only three english letters. When Wen Chuo had created his account, it kept saying the name he was trying had already been taken. And in the end, he had lost his patience and randomly typed in three ‘K’s which unbelievably worked.
Those who keep flipping through the overall top chart of the players in all twelve areas were not a stranger to this ID. No one doesn’t know who this KKK is. As like bamboo after rain2, he suddenly rose up onto the charts and his level beating progress was a landslide over Wan Ye. In his information panel, it was only wins, an all green panel. But perhaps it was because he hadn’t fought a lot of monsters, his experience wasn’t as high as the other players above him which put him closer to the bottom of the overall chart.
Wen Chuo had been too busy editing his video and he had no time to grind for experience. So in the ranks, where he was supposed to be 98, he fell all the way down to 132. Still, there were a lot of people trying to find information on him.
Big Newbie: I’m kneeling for these techniques. But I really wanted to ask….. Boss, do you have another account? Is the K-Da3 that always charted you?!!!
Sixth Newbie: I’m suffocating — when my roommate was playing with me, he had been worshipping K-Da, as there was no one who was so new that was so good. I can’t believe….. I can’t believe……!!!
There were a few videos that Wen Chuo didn’t have time to edit yet, but he basically had tutorials for all the stages. Normally the newbies were a bit overwhelming in the group chat, so he had muted the group. He also wouldn’t purposefully go and read the messages, so he only kept editing his videos, planning to wait until the night to grind experience for his main account and get back up higher on the chart.
Occasionally pop ups of random news would appear on the computer screen, and as Wen Chuo was just trimming down the unneeded parts of his video, there was an entertainment news popup just by the bottom right of the screen. A headline that seemed to be related to the Wen Corporation’s CEO Wen Tian Hao and fashion icon Fang Xin Tong’s marriage.
Wen Chuo’s hand that was in the process of editing paused and he wanted to hit close on the popup. But his hands trembled, and a website was instead immediately opened up. The first thing he was greeted with was a picture of a couple, a man and a woman, at their wedding with a background of a line of luxury cars, showing off how big and expensive the wedding had been. Those asked to comment for the article were all blowing up how they were a match made in heaven, so lovey-dovey, so in love with each other.
Wen Chuo didn’t even want to read it, but it was as if he was hypnotized and he kept reading and reading, stopping at the comment section.
>> Is the Wen family about to go bankrupt. They want Fang Xin Tong, this kind of headline queen? Probably about twenty or more green hats to wear for him, wow. Wealthy second generations are absolutely not what normal humans could be.
>> Hey above me, business marriage do you understand? When the Wen family had invested in the Tian Hua Building project, they lost over 3 billion yuan, which almost forced the CEO to resign. Isn’t it perfect how Fang Xin Tong’s father was just balding over not being able to marry off his daughter. How great, perfect for using each other.
>> Hehehe Wen Tian Hao, this kind of small body, didn’t he get admitted to the hospital a few days ago because of a heart condition he was born with? Doesn’t look like he will live very long. Be careful of being smothered to death by Fang Xin Tong and her adulterer. Honey~ Time for your medicine ~
>> Wen Jin Cheng is a seed planter huh. Turned too old so not moving on anymore. I remember he had a wife before, but she was kicked out. What a vicious woman Fan Qiu Yun is. Homewrecker moving right into marriage with a wealthy family, what a role model you want to be!
Wen Chuo’s heart felt stuffed, and he closed the news article. He buried his face into his palm and took a deep breath. But the compressed negative air inside his heart was not decreasing and instead, increasing, almost to the point of suffocating.
His hope and expectation towards the future that had been established after so much difficulty had for some reason suddenly crumbled so easily, as if no matter how hard he worked, he would never be able to catch up to those people.
Wen Chuo felt excruciating pain ragging on his heart. It was an unspeakable discomfort, and he forcefully held onto a state of calmness to finish editing his video. Yet he found that the entire internet was filled from top to bottom with the same related news, even occupying a few top search tags. They all crowded his mind, as like a tsunami that was about to wash him up from all directions.
Notes:
*1 QQ: kind of like imessage, whatsapp, fb messenger and the number is unique per account
*2 an idiom that basically means a lot things quickly speeding up and appearing (where a lot of bamboo shoots appear after rain/speedy growth)
*3 -Da: like in Volume 2 means someone more respectable/have more authority than you in the ancient eras, but specifically on the internet, to games, it means someone who is too good/amazing for what they are doing, so here they are referencing as if he’s a god-tier gamer. Usually they’d take a portion of their in-game name/account name that uploads the video or is streaming and add the -Da to reference. I didn’t find an exact equivalent for this in English, as mostly I heard it was just their account name or nickname that is so good, etc, so here just to reference that they do this, I’m using the pinyin
TL Tidbit:
In one of the chats by the noob/newbie group, I’m using the / … / to indicate them using english. I’m not quite well versed in MMO terms, so most of the terms I kind of wrangled into use after asking, uh with some discretion, some of my friends that are more into games like these haha. As far as I can tell and what I’m going to use is that each level is kind of like an area and consists of stages (so when they say they haven’t passed the stage, they can’t proceed onwards in the level, or I guess “further into” the area). A bit more detail will be described later, so hopefully that will help! Please let me know if there’s anything confusing (as I got confused myself later as I translate later chapters haha, but hopefully this still sets up the backdrop quite well – the gaming isn’t particularly prominent as in other novels that are set in VR or FPS games/competitive settings, but it’s still an important bit in Wen Chuo’s life, so … : |)
Also a little note about the green hats from the netizens: as like in Volume 1, green hats symbolize to mean Fang Xin Tong had cheated more than twenty times as to wear a green hat comes with a negative connotation as you got/will be cheated on by your partner. You can see [chapter 13 footnote] for more information!
He turned his computer on to start editing a video, which was to teach about some mechanics in << Jue Jing >>’s beginner level. When he recorded this, he had fought in that level more than ten, fifteen times, which now allowed him to have a large selection pool to pick out the one that showed off the smoothest action.
He was very detailed, cutting and selecting each frame carefully. The clips picked had his movements shown to be very clean, and with how rarely he got hit, most people would only see how simple it could look in the beginner level. The special effects after editing the gameplay were a bit tedious, but Wen Chuo had the rare kind of patience to pick and put each one in a perfectly curated spot.
When Bai Yang finished his meal, he went back to the restaurant to continue working. When he came back home at 9pm, Wen Chuo was still sitting in front of his computer, editing, with the lunch from this afternoon still left unfinished by his side.
Wen Chuo had been staring at the monitor, but when he heard the door open, he tilted his head over to look,
“You’re back?”
Bai Yang gave a ‘hmm’ through the other side of the wall before going out in the hallway to pick up plastic bottles. He came back afterwards to grab the big plastic checkered bag sitting in the corner of the room that was packed full to the brim with the other plastic bottles he’d picked up to sell. In an instant, the apartment felt emptied.
The sky was glooming, and with the computer desk by the window, Wen Chuo suddenly felt a bit cold. He reached over to close the window when a sprinkle of water splashed onto his face. Reaching out with his hand, he only realized then that it was raining.
When Wen Chuo recalled that Bai Yang had already been gone for at least twenty minutes, it felt as if he was suddenly drenched in ice cold, freezing water. His heart immediately started to panic, and he stood up in a racket, preparing to head out to go find Bai Yang. But in the midst of putting on his shoes, the front door opened, and his eyes met up with Bai Yang’s.
Wen Chuo held that awkward position of him putting on his shoes as he sighed in relief after seeing Bai Yang. He took off his shoes, scolding angrily,
“Can you tell me when you head out? What are you blindly running around in the night for? Are you happy if someone kidnaps you? Do you not know more than I do how many thugs are around here, in this tiny rundown town?”
Their relationship dynamic was always one strong and one weak. When Wen Chuo was angry, Bai Yang would not utter a peep. When Bai Yang was angry, Wen Chuo could only bow down his head.
The door closed, separating them from the rain that was slowly getting heavier. Little droplets of rain were still on Bai Yang’s hair as he opened his hand, showing off a roll of scrunched up bills in his palm to Wen Chuo, and said only two words,
“Selling bottles.”
Seeing that he hadn’t run outside in fear like before, Wen Chuo’s heart that had been racing finally calmed down. He pulled Bai Yang further in to the apartment as he wiped off the rain on Bai Yang’s hair,
“Next time, sell them during the day. It’s too dangerous at night. Alright, go shower. It’s late.”
The lightbulb in the living room was a bit old, and during days of rain and thunder, it would all too easily start flickering. Bai Yang had just entered the bathroom with a clean set of clothes when it suddenly dimmed outside. Following that, the faint yellow lightbulb buzzed a few times, just like the special effect in a horror film about ghosts.
In preparation for a blackout, Wen Chuo saved the video he was editing and created a backup. Originally, he was going to look up at the flickering lightbulb on the ceiling when he found a tiny wire was dangling just above him and he froze.
Chen Mei Ying, seemed to have hung herself to death right above him……
It was just at this time, the loud sound of thunder rang out outside. The room was suddenly illuminated in white before momentarily growing dim again. Shivering all the way down to his bones, Wen Chuo calmed down a bit only when he realized that the lightbulb had just gone out. He closed his computer and unplugged it from the source before sitting like an idiot in his chair, not moving an inch.
There was still some visibility inside the room, and Wen Chuo was solely staring at his computer monitor when he found two shadows on the upper right corner. Swaying back and forth, as if they were a pair of legs. His face slightly changed, with cold sweat immediately dripping down his back, and he almost jumped up from the chair.
Whenever he carried newbies on levels, he’d usually use his smaller accounts, and their IDs were very business-like, just a “Helper” + QQ number1 which allowed most people to automatically know he’s a carry. If there was a need, they’d come find him. But the one in the tutorial was a main account and in the game, their account name would appear above the character’s head.
KKK.
A very simple name consisting of only three english letters. When Wen Chuo had created his account, it kept saying the name he was trying had already been taken. And in the end, he had lost his patience and randomly typed in three ‘K’s which unbelievably worked.
Those who keep flipping through the overall top chart of the players in all twelve areas were not a stranger to this ID. No one doesn’t know who this KKK is. As like bamboo after rain2, he suddenly rose up onto the charts and his level beating progress was a landslide over Wan Ye. In his information panel, it was only wins, an all green panel. But perhaps it was because he hadn’t fought a lot of monsters, his experience wasn’t as high as the other players above him which put him closer to the bottom of the overall chart.
Wen Chuo had been too busy editing his video and he had no time to grind for experience. So in the ranks, where he was supposed to be 98, he fell all the way down to 132. Still, there were a lot of people trying to find information on him.
Big Newbie: I’m kneeling for these techniques. But I really wanted to ask….. Boss, do you have another account? Is the K-Da3 that always charted you?!!!
Sixth Newbie: I’m suffocating — when my roommate was playing with me, he had been worshipping K-Da, as there was no one who was so new that was so good. I can’t believe….. I can’t believe……!!!
There were a few videos that Wen Chuo didn’t have time to edit yet, but he basically had tutorials for all the stages. Normally the newbies were a bit overwhelming in the group chat, so he had muted the group. He also wouldn’t purposefully go and read the messages, so he only kept editing his videos, planning to wait until the night to grind experience for his main account and get back up higher on the chart.
Occasionally pop ups of random news would appear on the computer screen, and as Wen Chuo was just trimming down the unneeded parts of his video, there was an entertainment news popup just by the bottom right of the screen. A headline that seemed to be related to the Wen Corporation’s CEO Wen Tian Hao and fashion icon Fang Xin Tong’s marriage.
Wen Chuo’s hand that was in the process of editing paused and he wanted to hit close on the popup. But his hands trembled, and a website was instead immediately opened up. The first thing he was greeted with was a picture of a couple, a man and a woman, at their wedding with a background of a line of luxury cars, showing off how big and expensive the wedding had been. Those asked to comment for the article were all blowing up how they were a match made in heaven, so lovey-dovey, so in love with each other.
Wen Chuo didn’t even want to read it, but it was as if he was hypnotized and he kept reading and reading, stopping at the comment section.
>> Is the Wen family about to go bankrupt. They want Fang Xin Tong, this kind of headline queen? Probably about twenty or more green hats to wear for him, wow. Wealthy second generations are absolutely not what normal humans could be.
>> Hey above me, business marriage do you understand? When the Wen family had invested in the Tian Hua Building project, they lost over 3 billion yuan, which almost forced the CEO to resign. Isn’t it perfect how Fang Xin Tong’s father was just balding over not being able to marry off his daughter. How great, perfect for using each other.
>> Hehehe Wen Tian Hao, this kind of small body, didn’t he get admitted to the hospital a few days ago because of a heart condition he was born with? Doesn’t look like he will live very long. Be careful of being smothered to death by Fang Xin Tong and her adulterer. Honey~ Time for your medicine ~
>> Wen Jin Cheng is a seed planter huh. Turned too old so not moving on anymore. I remember he had a wife before, but she was kicked out. What a vicious woman Fan Qiu Yun is. Homewrecker moving right into marriage with a wealthy family, what a role model you want to be!
Wen Chuo’s heart felt stuffed, and he closed the news article. He buried his face into his palm and took a deep breath. But the compressed negative air inside his heart was not decreasing and instead, increasing, almost to the point of suffocating.
His hope and expectation towards the future that had been established after so much difficulty had for some reason suddenly crumbled so easily, as if no matter how hard he worked, he would never be able to catch up to those people.
Wen Chuo felt excruciating pain ragging on his heart. It was an unspeakable discomfort, and he forcefully held onto a state of calmness to finish editing his video. Yet he found that the entire internet was filled from top to bottom with the same related news, even occupying a few top search tags. They all crowded his mind, as like a tsunami that was about to wash him up from all directions.
Notes:
*1 QQ: kind of like imessage, whatsapp, fb messenger and the number is unique per account
*2 an idiom that basically means a lot things quickly speeding up and appearing (where a lot of bamboo shoots appear after rain/speedy growth)
*3 -Da: like in Volume 2 means someone more respectable/have more authority than you in the ancient eras, but specifically on the internet, to games, it means someone who is too good/amazing for what they are doing, so here they are referencing as if he’s a god-tier gamer. Usually they’d take a portion of their in-game name/account name that uploads the video or is streaming and add the -Da to reference. I didn’t find an exact equivalent for this in English, as mostly I heard it was just their account name or nickname that is so good, etc, so here just to reference that they do this, I’m using the pinyin
TL Tidbit:
In one of the chats by the noob/newbie group, I’m using the / … / to indicate them using english. I’m not quite well versed in MMO terms, so most of the terms I kind of wrangled into use after asking, uh with some discretion, some of my friends that are more into games like these haha. As far as I can tell and what I’m going to use is that each level is kind of like an area and consists of stages (so when they say they haven’t passed the stage, they can’t proceed onwards in the level, or I guess “further into” the area). A bit more detail will be described later, so hopefully that will help! Please let me know if there’s anything confusing (as I got confused myself later as I translate later chapters haha, but hopefully this still sets up the backdrop quite well – the gaming isn’t particularly prominent as in other novels that are set in VR or FPS games/competitive settings, but it’s still an important bit in Wen Chuo’s life, so … : |)
Also a little note about the green hats from the netizens: as like in Volume 1, green hats symbolize to mean Fang Xin Tong had cheated more than twenty times as to wear a green hat comes with a negative connotation as you got/will be cheated on by your partner. You can see [chapter 13 footnote] for more information!
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