Ruins of the past

"Mr. Chu, the news that Emperor Tai Tai has entered your sect has spread throughout the West. I'm afraid that if he shows up in the past, the battle to conquer the West will be decided in one battle."

"The Ministry of War is already discussing how to plan the next garrison in the west. Do you have any suggestions?"

"I understand, I will let them know your opinion."

Jinnu reported to Chu Qiguang the situation of the war in the west.

After all, Emperor Tai Tai was the most powerful person in the Western world in the past century. He was considered a saint-like existence and had unparalleled reputation in the local area.

Over the years, the Western world has always resisted the offensive of the Han Dynasty. One of the reasons for the delay in arresting the Tai Tai Emperor is.

There are always some die-hards who are still waiting for the return of Emperor Tai Tai.

The impact of the failure of Emperor Tai Tai this time can be imagined. It will greatly accelerate the trend of the Han Dynasty to unify the world. It can be said to be a huge turning point in history.

Jin Nu continued: "The feedback from the Gate of Wonders is very good, with a favorable rating of over 99%, and experts from all over the world are actively participating."

"Those who failed to obtain the test qualification are currently coming to Night City from all over the country, hoping to trade for a test qualification."

The Gate of Wonders allows ordinary martial arts masters to use the transformation of the Holy Realm. This heaven-defying performance immediately attracted the attention of masters from all walks of life.

After all, it is the transformation of the Holy Realm. Mastering one at will is like turning a person into a god.

Over the years, the total number of Taoist masters today has only increased from dozens to hundreds. Most of the remaining testers are masters of the fifth realm, and a small number are also existences of the fourth realm.

And an excellent saint transformation is enough for them to surpass the combat power of the Taoist Martial God and Taoist Immortal. The temptation in this is too great.

Countless people have seen great value and the trend of the future era in it, and they all want to take a share of it and become the pioneers of the new era.

Hearing this, Chu Qiguang frowned and sighed softly: "It was a mistake."

Jin Nu asked: "What?"

Chu Qiguang shook his head and said: "The test qualification should not be free. Forget it, let's fix this bug next time we test."

Jinnu hesitated for a moment, then continued: "The second phase of the Zhuxian Project has been officially completed, and the third phase bidding has also been completed. However, there was a quality inspection fraud incident on the cement used in the second phase of the construction site. The cat factory is currently investigating. Relevant circumstances..."

"A major corruption case in the Dragon Clan Special Zone has been uncovered. The Canglong King who was mainly involved in the case seriously violated laws and disciplines. He took advantage of the convenience of his position and the convenient conditions created by his authority and status to illegally accept property from relevant personnel directly or through others, which amounted to a total of qi and blood. Worth 30 million..."

"Manager Jiang Longyu officially broke through to the realm of manifesting the gods. He set up a flowing banquet in the Star Building and invited the people of the city to celebrate. The sales volume of the Qi-regulating products he managed surged that month..."

"The eight generals of the Xinghan Dynasty trained by Master Qiao have all entered the fifth realm of martial arts. After using the Gate of All Wonders, he himself seemed to have some enlightenment and decided to officially attack the realm of Tongsheng...

However, several dog demons from the cat factory recently revealed that Master Qiao used his position to bully them and insulted the dog demons all year round. The dog factory and the cat factory almost came to a fight, causing a commotion in the Night City..."

Chu Qiguang frowned again when he heard this, and said slowly: "Let the Propaganda Department pay attention and stop thinking about dawdling all day long."

"We will make a special report on the conflict between cats and dogs. The focus will be on how Emperor Tian secretly interferes with the major forces in the world, how he secretly instigates conflicts among various ethnic groups, and how he provokes fights between masters from all sides..."

"Now that we are facing a formidable enemy, people of all ethnic groups should unite as one. In this regard, the Propaganda Department must do a good job in popularizing science so that everyone in the world understands the evil of Huangtian and the persecution they once persecuted the world..."

Jinnu nodded and took note of it, and then said: "There are still no clues in the Book of Heaven. The cat factory and dog factory are still trying their best to search..."

"The report on the results of the national tax reform has been sent over. The cabinet invites you to take a look..."

"The real estate market for blessed land in various states is extremely hot. There is still huge demand for the blessed land area and real estate market. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recommends starting to promote Tianxiatong overseas..."

After learning about the current world trend from Jin Nu, Chu Qiguang confirmed that there were no problems for the time being and laid out the development plan for the next stage.

Then he said: "I will spend a lot of energy here next. If there are no important things, or the few things I told you to focus on have not changed, there is no need to report to me every day."

Jin Nu asked: "How long will you be busy for?"

Chu Qiguang shook his head: "It's really hard to say."

"After all, it is a world with an 'evil god', so it will probably be quite interesting."

As the deep space ritual progressed, various intermittent messages continued to jump out of the void and were absorbed into the sea of ​​consciousness by Chu Qiguang.

While Chu Qiguang was collecting information, he was trying to check and combine the information.

It is all information about the target world, scattered in the void, seemingly waiting for people to read it.

So as time passed, a strange world gradually unfolded in front of him.

It was a magical world called paradise. The local humans seemed to have eliminated famine, disease, war and various natural disasters. It was a paradise-like world in various descriptions.

Chu Qiguang spent several hours gradually learning the words of that world and understanding some common sense.

But before he could deeply understand this world, a call from the void came into his sea of ​​consciousness. It turned out to be a call from paradise.

…

Paradise calendar, year 9358.

Ash Valley District, Room 03230013 on the 323rd floor of Qiming Apartment.

This is a room of about ten square meters, with messy blood stains all over the floor, forming a twisted magic circle.

In the corner of the room were empty blood bags. Apparently, the blood used to draw the magic circle flowed from these blood bags.

A middle-aged man lay on the ground in the center of the circle. He looked unharmed, but he had lost his breath.

After a long time, the middle-aged man slowly opened his eyes and groaned subconsciously.

A trace of Chu Qiguang's consciousness has been summoned by the ritual and temporarily crossed the void to take over this body.

This is a ray of consciousness that he randomly separated, allowing him to collect information about the void and at the same time... come in and take a look at this world.

After all, void information contains everything, and the relationship between time and space is confusing. It is often complicated and numerous, but it is more intuitive to not come in and take a look directly.

He touched his head and looked at the scene around him: "What's going on with this man? He is actually willing to sacrifice his life and body to summon beings from outside the world?"

"oh?"

Chu Qiguang soon discovered that there were bloody writings on the floor beneath him.

He stood up and looked at it, and found it written on it: O evil god outside the sky! At the cost of my soul and flesh and blood, please destroy this crazy world!

Chu Qiguang tilted his head: "What is this? An antisocial cultist?"

With a burst of doubt in his heart, Chu Qiguang ignored the writing on the ground for the time being, but first cleaned the floor and dealt with the traces left by the ceremony.

Then he began to search the room, looking for clues to his identity.

But there was nothing in the ten-square-meter room except for a bed, a pillow, a toilet, a T-shirt and shorts.

There is a faint halo of light above the head, and the surrounding walls are also white, looking very simple.

And when he wanted to leave the room, he found that the door was locked directly, and he couldn't get out at all.

Just when Chu Qiguang was at a loss, a holographic projection jumped out: "Mr. Matt, we have detected that your rent has been in arrears for a month and your bank deposit is insufficient. Do you need me to introduce you to a loan? As long as you apply, it will be credited to your account immediately within three seconds..."

Chu Qiguang asked: "Do you want to pay it back?"

"Forget it."

"Are you looking for a job?" Another female projection flashed out: "To find a job, please go to Tezhuan.com. Your future is yours to choose..."

In addition to renting houses, loans, and recruitment, Chu Qiguang also encountered sales promotions for marriage, dating, fitness, gambling, psychological counseling, and even psychiatric treatment.

The major companies in this world are obviously using big data more unscrupulously than in his previous life. They simply checked the data of middle-aged men and then carried out all-round advertising and promotion.

Moreover, they are all ads that follow you everywhere and cannot be closed or fast-forwarded.

At least he can't close or fast forward now, because these types of operations require money, and the middle-aged man he controls is already penniless.

Chu Qiguang originally thought that web advertisements with fake close buttons were disgusting enough, until he was bombarded by these advertisements today.

He also discovered that the technology in this world is so advanced that even if he closes his eyes or covers his ears, those advertisements will be projected directly on his retina and transmit sound to him through bone conduction.

"The capitalists in this world are so rude."

After being harassed by the bursts of advertisements for more than an hour, the door to the room suddenly opened.

Chu Qiguang immediately walked out, feeling much more comfortable without the bombardment of advertisements all over his body.

As soon as he left the room, he saw a long corridor outside, with rows of similar doors on both sides of the corridor.

At this moment, all the doors opened simultaneously, and various men, women, and children came out.

Chu Qiguang didn't know what was going to happen, so he followed them along the corridor and soon came to a special office.

There were things like steel coffins inside. Men, women, old and young took turns getting into them, lying down, and closing their eyes.

Just when Chu Qiguang didn't know where to lie, a cursor appeared in front of his retina: "Mr. Matt, you are going to be late. Please arrive at your work place within one minute..."

Chu Qiguang immediately found a steel coffin along the cursor and lay down in it.

As soon as he entered it, he felt that there were many wire-like things connected to his body.

Then with a flash of light and shadow... what appeared in front of him was an endless grassland.

Just when Chu Qiguang was stunned, a hand patted him on the body: "What are you doing standing still? Get ready quickly, today is the day to fight the BOSS."

Chu Qiguang never thought that a project that involved so much effort and so many people working together... turned out to be a game.

In the next few days, Chu Qiguang relied on his excellent social skills to quickly get along with his colleagues and leaders, and continued to collect information from them.

The more he understood the world, the more he became confused.

This is a closed world, and everyone Chu Qiguang knows lives in the so-called Qiming Apartment.

All the staff live in separate rooms like him. In addition to eating and sleeping, the most important thing every day is to work.

There are countless staff in the entire apartment. After so many people gather together, the work they have to do every day is to play games.

The content of the game seems very boring to Chu Qiguang. He just lies down in the steel coffin called the 'virtual warehouse', then enters the world of the virtual game, and goes to various maps with different styles to fight and collect. material.

Depending on how many tasks are completed, workers can receive monetary rewards.

Although the special effects of the virtual game are good, the game itself has no gameplay in Chu Qiguang's opinion.

And the remuneration seemed to him to be very cheap. He often worked 40 hours a week and could only buy basic nutritional supplements to make ends meet.

It takes working 60 hours a week to get a few fresh meals.

And if you work more than 80 hours a week, you can eat all kinds of chicken, duck, cattle and sheep, as well as all kinds of vegetables and fruits.

But there are still many people who work more than 100 hours a week because that is how they can purchase various value-added services.

For example, expanding the room to 30 square meters, changing the room environment, buying various furniture, watching movies and TV, buying other more fun virtual games, buying bionic robots...

The variety and quantity of these value-added services made Chu Qiguang secretly surprised when he saw them.

It is said that someone once saw... the top performer on this floor. Behind the door of the room he lived in was a manor of thousands of square meters, with rows of bionic maids, and even lakes, yachts and endless entertainment. Games and endless entertainment works.

This is what most people in the apartment strive for.

In addition, there is also a very expensive value-added service, which is upgrade.

It is said that the apartment has a total of 9999 floors. Each time you upgrade one floor, you can enjoy more and better value-added services.

It is said that there are more than 9,000 floors, and there are even value-added services such as modifying appearance, changing body shape, becoming immortal, and becoming a god.

But even in Qiming Apartments, not everyone can live a good life.

For example, Matt, the former owner of Chu Qiguang's body, didn't know where he spent his money, leaving Chu Qiguang only a small white room of ten square meters.

And Chu Qiguang even saw a colleague whose room was only one square meter in size, and was completely dark and extremely depressing.

It is said that he continued to owe rent after purchasing value-added gambling services, so the size of his room was continuously reduced.

Chu Qiguang could feel that all the rules and systems in the apartment were trying their best to force everyone to play the game hard.

According to his calculations, if you want to have a room of more than 20 square meters, with some furniture and life, eat some real food, and have 2 hours of entertainment per week with movies, TV, animation and games, you will have to make at least 130 calls per week. hours of gaming, an average of 18.5 hours per day.

Even Chu Qiguang felt chilled when he saw this scene: 'It's so tragic. These bosses should all be arrested and hung up street lights. ’

At first, Chu Qiguang wondered why people in this world were so obsessed with playing games, and he soon learned the reason.

That was the happy time after another late night of overtime work.

He was about to get off work, but was pulled by his group leader to do a second overtime shift.

They appeared on an ancient-style map, trying to kill the people on the map who looked like cultists, and collect the books on the bookshelf one by one.

And those so-called 'cult members' have something that Chu Qiguang is extremely familiar with, and they are the marks of Huang Tian.

The cultists they are attacking are worshipers of Huangtian, and the books they collect are the knowledge passed down by Huangtian.

For the first time, Chu Qiguang realized that the game in front of him might be more than just a game.

Later, after several confirmations from him, he finally understood that the game was not a real game.

The scene that looks like a game is just a disguise. In fact, they are remotely controlling some kind of monster to control them and attack planet after planet and civilization after civilization.

And when he tried to look through the books in the game, he found that the information on most of the books had been blocked.

Most of the people in this world are like parts on a huge machine. They work repeatedly day after day, spending a lot of time and energy to harvest the knowledge of various worlds for the upper class, but they can only get some fragments. .

Just when Chu Qiguang thought this was the truth, he realized that he still underestimated the capitalists in this world.

It was another day after get off work. Shortly after Chu Qiguang returned to his room, he saw a projection appearing in front of him.

"Mr. Matt, your maintenance supplies will be exhausted in three days."

"Sustaining supplies?" Chu Qiguang was slightly startled, with some bad premonitions welling up in his heart.

The next moment, the projection changed, and what appeared in front of him were rows of brains placed in the solution.

As the camera zoomed in and moved, it was placed in front of one of the brains, and the life-support device next to the brain emitted a faint yellow light.

"Sir, please see, your maintenance supplies have issued a warning. If you don't buy them again, there will be health risks."

Chu Qiguang sighed: "Matt is... also in the virtual world now?"

"Yes, sir, you have a cognitive bias? I happen to know a reliable psychiatrist. Do you need to introduce it to you? If you purchase ten remote treatments, you will get three free ones..."

Chu Qiguang knew that this was triggering another advertisement. While listening to the advertisement, he reorganized the structure of the world in his mind.

Originally, he thought it was bad enough that the people in this world had to work hard to play games every day in order to get some normal food, entertainment and living environment.

It turned out that the reality was worse than he imagined. Only after everyone worked hard could they obtain some virtual food, entertainment and living environment. They used their own labor to buy a bunch of codes that could be copied at will.

"Since it's already a virtual world, why don't you give us a little more space?"

Originally, he just asked casually, not expecting the advertising projection in front of him to answer him.

As a result, the other party actually answered: "Do you want to know the rules for using the virtual world and the history of the park's operation?"

Chu Qiguang's eyes moved: "Can you provide it?"

"Virtual world user usage rules, fee 100,000."

"The historical record of the park's operation charges 20,000 yuan per year."

After Chu Qiguang was silent for a moment, he said with some admiration: "You still need to charge money after reading the user rules?"

The other party said: "Mr. Matt, please note that this is the code you signed after you agreed."

Chu Qiguang did not spend the money.

Because when he controlled Matt's body to observe the world, he was also collecting information in the void.

This information about Paradise further completes his understanding of the world.

…

It is more than two hundred years after this planet entered modern society.

The technology of the entire society has been highly developed, and most of the jobs have been replaced by machines.

At this time, a technology called the virtual world was jointly created by dozens of multinational companies, and a super multinational company called Paradise was jointly established.

At the same time, the virtual world has received enthusiastic support from people from all over the world. Many people want to pursue their second life in it and pursue more relaxed enjoyment and entertainment.

The virtual world initially launched by the park was considered a human paradise by all users who entered it.

The entire virtual world is free to use, in which you can enjoy large estates of several square kilometers, enjoy delicacies from all over the world, have various men and women who have appeared in history, and create your own space as you like, making yourself like a god. the rule of.

Once this paradise-like virtual world was launched, it immediately became a hit around the world.

Almost 99% of people want to enter it and start a new life. Some countries are worried about the various side effects of the virtual world and try to legislate to prohibit people from indulging in it. They immediately encountered countless protests, opposition, and demonstrations at home and abroad.

In less than a year, the number of online users of the park has exceeded 500 million.

At that time, the park, which had always been free, transformed some of its free services into value-added services.

Many players immediately objected.

The reason given by the park is that as the number of users increases, the pressure on the server increases sharply.

In particular, the park official pointed out that a large number of users create worlds and enjoy various services unscrupulously, which consumes a lot of server computing power, storage space, and electricity every day...

The park stated that in order to maintain authenticity, the virtual world consumes a lot of computing power and electricity.

In addition, there are supporting maintenance such as cooling and consumables, as well as the resulting greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, and environmental pollution caused by abandoned equipment...all are terrible figures.

According to many paradise experts, humans after entering the paradise have entered an unprecedented era, and every thought they have is consuming a huge amount of the world's resources.

There is a folk legend that the craziest player in the park caused the server to burn out a hundred graphics cards every day.

Of course, this is just folklore. Some players pointed out that its authenticity is not high, saying that the graphics card used by the park server has a complete parallel operation mechanism and will not burn. But the legend itself also illustrates many of the ideas at the time.

According to a large number of news reports, the development of real society has deviated from its original track. A large number of supporting industries for maintaining the park have flourished, and a large amount of resources have been used to maintain the operation of the virtual world.

In short... According to the paradise, if it continues to be free, it will go bankrupt. This paradise can no longer accept human beings' unbridled squandering.

Although some players expressed opposition at that time, most people did not have much resistance to the park's value-added services. Some fanatic fans were even afraid that the park would go bankrupt and had already begun to advocate for the park to charge a full fee.

After the park launched value-added services, its revenue in the first month has already broken the record in human history.

Paradise is like a huge black hole, madly devouring the world's wealth and resources.