001. Xiao Xian (The Little Fairy)

He Jin ordered a sweet and sour pork ribs and cabbage meat paste from the second cafetaria, and then walked leisurely to the dormitory building while holding his lunch box at his side.

On the path to the dormitory building, there were a land of ginkgos and fallen leaves everywhere, yellow-brown in color and shaped like golden fan, which created a slight crunching sound when stepped on.

Around him, a group of beautiful and nicely dressed girls passed, bustling around with gentle laughter. In their hands, they were carrying multi colored ball-shaped props which were usually used for cheers. Their conversation revealed the words “tennis” and “school idol”. Such keywords were said with deep enthusiasm, which dip slightly in the cold chill of late autumn. Just watching them exposing their long legs in this season, He Jin couldn’t help but let out a shudder.

The road ahead lead to the school’s tennis court, which seemed to hold some big competition this afternoon. Moreover, the “school idol” the girls had been talking about was also rumored to be participating in said competition.

However, none of these were a concern for He Jin – having spent two and a half years in this campus, the things that had to be experienced, he had already experienced them all.

Junior was the busiest year of major courses, especially after the second half of the semester began. The relaxed and brilliant university life seemed to have gone away, and the feeling of anxiety as well as a sense of hesitation for the future began to spread gradually.

He Jin sighed, recalling last night’s phone call from home. The woman in the phone said that his father had arranged a good job for him in his hometown. It was in a well-known institution, a recommended place for civil servants, with high pay and many good benefits. Once he graduated, he could just go right to work…

Thinking about this somehow made He Jin feel a little tired.

As he arrived at the dormitory building, at the same time a few figures suddenly rushed out of the building, recklessly running in his direction. They colided with He Jin who was standing there in a trance, still holding onto his lunchbox like a fool. He Jin tried to dodge, but was finally hit full force by one of the men.

A “bang “sound was soon heard. He Jin staggered, and his lunch box fell on the ground.

“I’m sorry…”, the man pulled him, then stopped to pick up the box for him, “Did it break?”

“It’s okay. ” He Jin took the box. This was a lunchbox with a lock made out of an plexiglass, so it had good sealing, and would not be broken even when smashed. Count this boy lucky, there was no need to compensate on his part.

He Jin raised his eyes, and saw a man wearing a blue and white polo shirt, combined with Nike’s casual jacket. The man was tall, with long arms, a neat short hair, slightly narrowed eyes, and pursed lips, which made him give off a bit of a stern look.

It’s a member of the tennis team, were they rushing to the competition?

He Jin waved a hand to indicate that it was really alright. Then, without saying anything, he grabbed his lunch box and walked away.

A few years ago, the National Association of Colleges and Universities called on universities to improve their living environment, to make it similar to those of foreign prestigious schools. The government then grant funds to some key institutions for rebuilding old school buildings.

His university was included in the area of funds allocation. The old school dormitory, which countless alumnis used to call “pigsty dormitory”, was abandoned and changed into a new two-person sharing room, with every two or four people had to share a discussion and dining room. There was a refrigerator, a microwave, and even air-conditioning and heating. The conditions after the transformation were so good that even many private school’s students felt envious.

He Jin opened the door of his room and saw three people sitting around a table, getting ready to eat. When they saw him, one of them shouted: “Jin Ge, why are you so slow?”

[T/N: Ge, short for Gege, means older brother in chinese, it is used to call an older man, similar with Oppa or Hyung in Korean.]

The person who called him was Hou Dongyan, He Jin’s roommate. He had a small stature, with a big nose and ear, which made him look like a monkey, therefore his nickname was also “the Monkey”.

“I took a trip to the school before going to the cafetaria, so I was late.” He Jin sat down on an empty seat, opened his lunch box, and was dumbfounded. He saw inside, his ribs and cabbage had turned into a sticky mess as a result of his fall before. Originally, the dishes sold in the cafetaria already looked bad, but now, his red and white paste was in a shape even more unbearable to look at.

“Ugh, what kind of disgusting dish are you eating?” Hou Dongyan bluntly said.

He Jin: “…”

“The school? Are you busy with something?” Another person asked.

From childhood, He Jin had always been in the class committee, so after entering university, it’s only natural for him to take part in the student union as well. In the previous two years, he had put a lot of effort in his student union activities. He had always done his job well, so he was promoted to be the Study Department’s Minister. However, starting from the beginning of this year, it was obvious to see that He Jin was unmotivated. Originally, many people recommended him to the presidium this semester, and he even had the opportunity to run for the president of the student union. However, somehow he already felt like withdrawing.

“Nothing, just want me to campaign for votes..” He Jin moved his chopsticks around, no longer had any appetite.

———

After class in the afternoon, He Jin went back to the dormitory to rest for a while. When he woke up, he saw Hou Dongyan bent in front of his computer, playing games. From time to time, the man would let out a grumble or two, all the while looking very excited.

This guy is a game maniac. From freshman until now, He Jin had never seen him a day without playing games on his computer. And although not to the point of skipping classes, he was also clearly not necessarily motivated in his study, which caused his result to fall on the low to middle range. Even now, this close to senior year, this guy had not changed. Eat, sleep, playing games every seconds. He Jin sometimes felt really envious of him.

Seeing an unfamiliar picture on Hou Dongyan’s computer screen, He Jin slipped to his side and asked: “Still playing?”

Hou Dongyan took off his headphones, stroked his chest and shouted, “Why are you so quiet? You scared me!”

“You are the one who didn’t hear me,” He Jin glanced at him, looked at the computer and asked, “What’s the game?” He could see a very magnificent fairy background on the screen, with mountains in the distant and view of broad sea,– He Jin had never seen this picture before.

Was asked about something he liked, Hou Dongyan immediately felt excited: “This is [Demon God], a domestic 3D game, the official website just announced they will release a ‘ holographic ‘ version soon. It’s the current hot topic now! ”

“…… Demon God?” He Jin felt a little familiarity with the name, but in this era, these two words were commonly found in game names, so the name Demon God wasn’t really unique.

“This game was very popular before, you never heard of it?” Hou Dongyan pointed his mouse to the game screen while explaining, “But the name has changed, it’s called [Spirit Fairy] before. I used to play this a couple of years ago, but felt it’s not as fun compared with games from Europe and the United States, so I abandoned it. But I started playing seriously recently and did not expect it to be so great! It has completely broke through my expectation of domestic-made games! The key of it’s popularity is its upcoming ‘holographic’ version, which is the third holographic game in the world after the United States’s [Beast Soul] and [Magic Tower].”

Hearing this, He Jin was startled. Not because of the “holographic” phenomena, but because of the game previous name, “Spirit Fairy” — this was the name of a really popular game during his middle school time, which was also the only online game He Jin had ever played.

At that time, China’s internet novels had began to gain popularity, especially in the world. Fantasy, and cultivating themes became really well known among the young people who claimed that they felt like they were being sucked into the author’s fantasy. During this time, Green Fox network launched a large-scale 3D cultivating online game “Spirit Fairy” with the theme of cultivating immortality, which attracted countless young players to play.

Almost all of He Jin’s classmates were playing the game back then; every day after school all they talked about were topics related to this game. Some people even established a class group association for this game, making it more difficult for He Jin not to follow along.

“…… Six months ago, [Magic Tower] also opened a server in foreign countries and received so many praises and attention from the public!” Hou Dongyan was still gushing, “Oh right, recently the game official also released an event, it is said that accounts which were registered during the game’s previous version, [Spirit Fairy], has the opportunity to win a Demon God’s holographic helmet, which is worth thousands of dollars. But when [Spirit Fairy] was released, we were still in junior high school, I have long forgotten my account’s password ah!”

Hou Dongyan sighed before suddenly realizing that the person he was talking to was He Jin, someone who had never played games before. Telling him these things was like to a chicken talking with a duck.

[T/N:鸡同鸭讲: A Chinese idiom, means two people who cannot communicate due to a language barrier.]

“Okay, I know you certainly have no interest in these things..” Hou Dongyan looked at the time. He was just about to put down his headset and ask his roommates to eat dinner in the cafetaria, when he heard a voice on his side asking, “Do you have the installation package for this game?”

Hou Dongyan: “…” did the Sun suddenly rise fromthe west?

—————

After dinner, He Jin double clicked on the “Demon God” icon that had been installed in his computer, and entered a string of familiar username and password in the long-shaped login box.

Hou Dongyan let out a sound of surprise as he looked from beside him, “You unexpectedly have an account?”

He Jin: “I played in junior high. ”

Hou Dongyan eyes grew even bigger: “And do you still remember the account’s password?” ”

He Jin: “All of my social network account passwords are the same, and if they are wrong, it might just be the pin number …”

“No, I think it’s right” he said. Hou Dongyan also looked expectantly at the screen. Today’s He Jin was really an eye-opener for him. He had known this guy for two and a half years, and never once did he saw him doing anything except studying and doing the typical student’s works. He had always thought that He Jin was a stereotype definition of a nerd, a workaholic. Never would he think that he also played online games!

The network speed this year had been really fast, and because the server was so popular, queue rarely happened in the game. After He Jin pressed the login key, he only needed to wait a moment, and the game already started, indicating the account password was correct.

Then, a system notification box popped out on his screen-

〖Dear “Xiao-Xian-jin”, Welcome back to [Spirit Fairy]! The game has been upgraded over the past eight years, and is now called “Demon God”. Because the system detected that your account is registered with the initial version ID, you have the opportunity to enter “Demon God” holographic helmet’s lottery event! The lottery winning rate is up to 5%, please clic.k on the following Web site to … 〗

“Ah Ah Ah! Hurry up!” Hou Dongyan patted the back of He Jin’s chair to urge him.

He Jin’s eyes twitched, but he still opened the lottery interface. It brought him to a form page, with a message saying that he needed to fill out a series of information about himself first, including real name, mobile phone, contact address and identification card number.

“Is this really alright?” he asked, turning a bit cautious.

Hou Dongyan explained: “Brother, nowadays playing any kind of games all uses this real-information system. If you want to register an account, you must fill these first. Not to mention this is Fox NET’s game, which already has national game certification policy. If you are still unsure, you can fill it with my identity card information. If you win, I will send it back to you!”

After thinking about it, He Jin then filled out the form with Hou Dongyan’s information, but unexpectedly, soon after submitting, an error notification popped out.

〖I am sorry, this identity card information has already been used. Demon God adopt a one-person one-identity policy. Each Identity card information can only be used in one game account. 〗

Hou Dongyan: “…”

Helpless, He Jin had to change the information to his own before he successfully entered the lottery. The lottery results would be announced after one month, at the same time with the release of “Demon God” holographic version.

Going back to the game interface, He Jin’s character image had appeared, a little girl wearing blue lolita-styled clothing.

“Poof …” Hou Dongyan laughed out loud, “Jin Ge, you played a female character!”

He Jin face turned slightly red, he lightly coughed and readily gave an excuse: “Blind election.”

He himself also forgot that his character was a woman. (=_=)

However, it was actually common for boys to play female characters in games. Nowadays many female characters in games are designed to be sexy, enchanting, and male players often played with female characters purely for the feast of their eyes. Hou Dongyan’s “Magic Tower” character itself was a red-haired female elf.

Hou Dongyan took a glance at the server where Jin was, and let out a disappointed sigh, “We are in different server ah!”

He Jin: “I’m just loging-in to have a look, and not really to play anyway.”

After hearing He Jin said this, Hou Dongyan just nodded and said jokingly, “Then if you won the helmet, send it to me,” before he turned to play on his own account.

He Jin went smoothly into the game. His character was standing in a deserted flower valley. All around him, the mountains were filled with white-yellowish grass, which appeared golden under the sunlight.

The scenery was very beautiful, making He Jin felt slightly amazed.

Adjusting the perspective of his blue clothed character, He Jin looked at the new scenery and dazzling view, and couldn’t help the particularly unfamiliar feeling brewing inside him.

He turned over to check on his friend list, which was full with grey names, and read the top several names: Flying meat clip bun, egg-ache omelet, lying gun dumplings … Most of them were his junior high school classmates at the time.

–Wait, Fire Ruthless?

Among the barrage of food-based names in his friend list, this name looked a little out of place. However, somehow He Jin got a very familiar feeling from it, though he couldn’t think of any specific person of who this name belonged to. After all, it had been eight years since the last time he played this game, so it was impossible for him to remember who was who anymore.

As he was thinking of this, in the next second, the name he had been looking at suddenly lit up, followed by a line of golden characters floating over the screen-

〖System〗: Your husband “Fire Ruthless” is online.

T/N: If you happen to find any broken link when you are reading this story, please do inform me! Thank you!