Chapter 1: The World on the Screen and the Cracks in Reality
Alex stares at his computer screen with the focus of a man about to save the galaxy, when in reality, he’s just hiding in a bush in a B-list shooter game, waiting for someone to walk by.
His fingers fly across the keyboard, the sound a frantic machine gun rhythm in the quiet dorm. But if you listened closely, the pattern was completely illogical, like a hamster with a mild seizure stomping on a piano.
The virtual world on the screen is in full swing, with bullets flying and explosions roaring. His teammates’ shouts echo in his headphones: “Someone on the left!” “Don’t feed!” “Dude, you died again!” But the sounds pass through Alex’s ears as if muffled by thick glass. His main focus, after all, is finding a “cool way to die” in the replay camera.
The dorm’s smell is far more lethal than the virtual world. The air is a mix of three main components: cheap takeout grease, body odor, and someone’s three-day-old socks. The fusion of the three is like a new-generation biological weapon.
The clatter of keyboards continues as his roommates on their beds fight their own battles in their respective games. You can occasionally hear muffled roars: “F**king hacker!” “Lagging! Lagging!” “Help!”
This is a male dorm at Holden State University. As for where this university is, you’d be hard-pressed to find it even if you zoomed in all the way on a map. In Alex’s words, “This school’s existence is about as significant as the last square of toilet paper—you only realize its importance when it’s gone.”
And he is a proud member of this “map-level bug” of a university.
Alex knows exactly why he’s here. It’s not for academic passion, and certainly not for some grand ideal. The only reason he’s here is his parents’ “at least get a college degree”. That phrase has echoed in his ears countless times, more reliably than his phone alarm. In their generation’s view, a “college degree” is like life’s bug spray: without it, your life will be full of fleas.
So Alex came. With a not-so-small student loan, he moved into this dorm that smells like “foot-fungus youth” , and chose a “General Studies” major that he can’t even explain. To be honest, he doesn’t even know what “General Studies” is.
Alex is perfectly clear: with his terrible high school grades and a natural aversion to studying, this degree will be about as useful to his future as “taking a swimming floatie to the desert”. So college, for him, is a kind of high-level escape. Compared to his classmates who went to work after high school, he can at least use “I’m a college student” to shut up his relatives.
When relatives ask what he’s doing during the holidays , he pretends to be busy and replies, “Oh, my courses are pretty demanding, and I have some group projects to prepare for”. In reality, his “group project” is a five-man ranked game. Every time he says this, he even feels a little bit superior , as if he’s getting an elite education while those who went to work early just joined the “Social Bottom-Tier Experience Tour”. He even secretly mocks them: “These people, they haven’t even tasted ‘higher education’ and they’re already in a rush to make money. How shortsighted”.
Of course, after mocking them, he’ll turn back, stare at his empty class schedule, and then go back to his computer to sink back into the virtual world. Occasionally, to maintain his “college student” identity, he’ll attend a class or two. But it’s usually just a symbolic sign-in, and within the first minute of the professor talking, he enters an “out-of-body” state before quietly sneaking back to his dorm.
Most of his roommates live pretty much the same way. The only exception is Matt, whose bed is by the window. At first, Alex thought Matt was always out early and back late to study in the library. He even felt a pang of guilt, thinking, “Holy crap, do people actually study in college?” But he soon found out he was overthinking it. Matt’s real daily routine is: daytime dates, nighttime partying, and bringing girls back to the dorm building late at night before leaving alone.
Whenever this happens, the others in the dorm, including Alex, would share a knowing look. The meaning of the look is probably, “Yep, he’s playing the real-life single-player game”. And then they go back to staring at their screens, as if the pixelated lights are more reliable than the warmth and touch of reality.
Today, Alex has “successfully skipped class” again. That class, which sounds like an alien language, is pure torture to him. “Every word the professor says is like someone hitting my forehead with a hammer”. So he resolutely chose not to go.
Right now, he’s fully focused on leading his team to storm the enemy base. The keyboard and mouse in his hands are “like they have a life of their own,” but that life is probably a sick cat. His moves are often like this: just as he’s about to shoot, his hand shakes and he accidentally uses his ultimate ability, firing fireworks at thin air.
In his headphones, his teammates yell, “Alex! What are you doing?!” Alex righteously replies, “Tactical sacrifice! Covering your advance!” In his mind, he’s a hero in the virtual world. In the real world, he’s just a deadbeat college student, a loser who spends all day thinking about saving money, playing games, and avoiding homework.
Under the screen’s glow, he can temporarily forget about his loans, his future, and his own useless reality. The virtual world gives him a “golden filter” , so even if his teammates see him as a “noob,” in his own heart, he’s still a “lone wolf hero”.
