The Lightless Sea 01

The following is the popular science of [Cyberpunk], from Baidu Encyclopedia.

Cyberpunk (English: Cyberpunk) is a combination of “cybernetics, neuromechanics” and “punk”, and it is also called “cyberpunk” in Chinese.

The background of cyberpunk works is mostly based on the “combination of low-end life and high technology”, usually with advanced science and technology, and then compared with a certain degree of collapsed social structure; with a variety of visual impact effects, such as street The neon lights, street landmark advertisements and high-rise buildings, etc., are usually matched with black, purple, green, blue and red as the main colors. The framework of the story is that the social order is highly controlled by the government or a consortium or a secret organization, and the protagonist uses the loopholes in it to make some kind of breakthrough.

The plot of cyberpunk usually revolves around the conflict between hackers, artificial intelligence and large enterprises, and the background is set on a dystopian earth in the not-too-distant future, rather than the outer space of early cyberpunk. It actually marks an improvement and progress against the shortcomings of previous science fiction that did not pay attention to the specific setting of information technology.



Kai Xin was awakened by the news from Ban Qun.

Just after waking up, her vision was still blurred. She reached for the phone from under the pillow and squinted her eyes to recognize the information on the screen.

“”deepThe list of the first batch of closed beta players of “Red Soil” has been announced! ”

“real or fake?”

“The message [picture] posted on the official website three minutes ago.”

“Fuck! Who is so lucky?”

“The first batch of closed betas is only 10,000 people? This is a global selection, and the official quota is too small!”

Kai Xin reacted dully for a while, and when the sleepy bug ran away, she remembered that she seemed to have applied for the qualification of the internal test of the game under the instigation of her classmates. She randomly filled out a questionnaire on the official website and clicked submit. That was already ten It happened a month ago.

At that time, “Crimson Earth” had just released its trailer, and the publicity stunt was “an epoch-making holographic game, a real second world”.

The trailer immediately attracted the attention of players all over the world. The selling point of the game is the free-to-explore open world and multi-path career choices.

And this is a game that combines cyberpunk and extraordinary elements. Players can not only take the technological route to become a full-body mechanical prosthetic, but also take the extraordinary route to awaken various strange abilities.

It is based on reality and higher than reality, with an unparalleled sense of reality in the illusion, as if it is in line with the real world.

What really attracted Kai Xin was the last two sentences of the game introduction.

“Light always breeds darkness, and there is always a corrupt and decadent side hidden under the bustling appearance of a city.”

“Compared to money and power, survival and death are the eternal propositions in that world.”

Since the introduction says so… Then maybe “Crimson Earth” has added a dark core in addition to the selling points of cyberpunk style and extraordinary abilities?

Kaixin clicked on the screenshots in the open class group to see that the game official will send the closed beta invitation email to the players’ mailboxes. The first batch of closed beta players is indeed only 10,000 people, and the official closed beta date is tomorrow.

You must know that “Crimson Earth” opened for pre-registration only one day ago, and the number of pre-registrations worldwide directly exceeded 10 million. Now, after several months of fermentation, the number of pre-registrations has already exceeded 100 million. It is necessary to select 10,000 lucky ones from these hundreds of millions of players. Participating in the internal test, the probability of being selected is extremely small.

Although he didn’t report any hope, Kai Xin opened the mailbox to check.

“You have an unread email.”

Kai Xin was taken aback by the prompt that popped up from the mailbox. Her heart beat faster and she jumped up from the bed.

“Congratulations on getting the qualification for the closed beta of the game “Crimson Earth”.”

The title of the email was eye-catching red, and Kai Xin’s expression was in a daze. He checked the sender repeatedly, and compared it with the official email account, and confirmed it over and over again in disbelief.

When she finally confirmed that the email was really sent by the government, the first thought that popped up in her mind was – get rich! Get rich! !

If you sell this internal test qualification, you will definitely get a lot of money!

The poor ghost is ecstatic!

Kai Xin is an old and unlucky person. Her father failed to invest and ran away with the money. After her mother remarried, she regularly called 800 yuan a month for living expenses. It was enough for food, but she was struggling to buy study materials and clothes. This second-hand The smartphone was bought by her working part-time at a milk tea shop.

Kai Xin lived alone in the old house left by his grandparents. He studied hard from dawn to dusk, like a vigorous weed, tenaciously alive until now.

At the end of this summer vacation, Kai Xin will go to college. She has good grades and got into a good university, but the tuition and living expenses are worrying.

If you can sell your “Crimson Soil” internal test qualification, you won’t have to worry about living expenses for a long time.

However, the next sentence in the email dispelled Kai Xin’s thoughts.

“The “Crimson Earth” internal test qualification cannot be traded or given away. The internal test invitation code has been bound to the player’s registration information and cannot be changed. This internal test will not be billed and files will not be deleted.”

Kai Xin’s face collapsed in misery, and his way of making money was ruthlessly cut off.

She doesn’t really care about the game, because she doesn’t even have a holographic helmet equipped with spicy chicken, so she can’t play at all. At that time, filling out the game questionnaire was just a whim to join in the fun. up” mentality.

Kai Xin thought about it, and felt sadly that although she has become the lucky one who is limited to 10,000 people in the world, she is still an old poor ghost and an old unlucky person. Winning the internal beta qualification but not being able to experience the game is as worrying as sitting on a mountain of gold and silver but not being able to spend it.

She sighed, swiped the screen and looked down.

The content of the email is very short, and there is no effective content. Kai Xin turned to the back and was pleasantly surprised to find a sentence “If the player agrees to join the game, the game company will issue special game equipment to the player”.

Kai Xin: Good!

The worries of the future have been resolved, and she can play the game now! Kai Xin’s mood was ups and downs like a roller coaster.

At the end of the email, a link to the player survey was attached.

Kai Xin entered the link curiously.

Question 1: If you were given a chance to welcome a new student, would you accept it?

you still need to ask? Kai Xin chose the answer of “yes” without hesitation.

A new life means starting over, and her current life is bad enough, how bad could it be?

Question 2: Do you believe that there are gods in the world?

Kai Xin chose “No”. She is a staunch atheist.

Question 3: Do you want superpowers?

“yes”! Her wanting superpowers doesn’t conflict with her being an atheist!

“You have completed the questionnaire.”

“Game-related documents and precautions have been sent to the mailbox, please go and check.”

“The anonymous forum for closed beta players has been opened for you, please save the URL and register in time.”Kai Xin read the new message carefully, and followed the text prompts to save the URL of the player’s anonymous forum first.

The internal beta content of some games is a commercial secret and is not allowed to be released. The existence of internal beta players is to help developers catch bugs and fix game loopholes. The developers of “Crimson Earth” provided a forum for closed beta players, probably to allow closed beta players to have a place to communicate.

At present, 10,000 people have obtained the internal test qualification, so the content in the forum should be very limited, and she will be the first batch of forum pioneers.

Kai Xin did not immediately register on the internal test forum, but opened the mailbox to check the newly sent game files. Generally speaking, such files require players to sign and confirm. They are regarded as contracts, and they will be held legally responsible for breach of contract.

She clicked on the new email, and was stunned just after reading the first few lines.

“Six points of advice to the players of “Crimson Earth”. You can choose to abide by it, or you can choose to violate it, but the consequences of the violation can only be borne by you.”

“First, please treat the game world as the real world.”

“Second, don’t reveal your player’s identity to anyone.”

“Third, don’t disclose the game content to anyone.”

“Fourth, there is only one life, death cannot be resurrected.”

“Fifth, if you choose to start the game, then you only have two paths to follow, ‘game clearance’ and ‘character death’.”

“Sixth, everything has a price.”

This… just these few words? Is it too hasty for the game statement to only post these few sentences?

Kai Xin was at a loss.

It’s just for playing a game. It would be boring for game manufacturers to play tricks like this on the matters needing attention. The so-called “real world” is just a marketing tool for the game. Everyone knows that world is fake.

Kai Xin clicked on the game file. This file needs to be signed.

She carefully read it from beginning to end, and after reading it twice, she didn’t find any confidentiality clause in the document, but the previous “Six Advice to Players” clearly stated not to disclose the content of the game.

It’s too weird. Isn’t this contradictory? Since you don’t want players to leak it, why not write the non-disclosure agreement into a legally binding document? Those few words of advice are not binding at all.

At the end of the document is an electronic signature column, and Kai Xin writes his name in the signature column.

As soon as the name was written, a small page popped up, on which was written in bold red font – “Are you sure to join the game? You have and only this one chance to quit.”

There is one and only one chance to quit?

Kai Xin didn’t care much, and clicked to confirm without stopping.

The page changed, and a new prompt appeared.

“The contract is completed.”

“Welcome to your new student, Kai Xin.”

…Why is this game so chatty? Kaixin stared at the computer screen in wonder.

After pondering for a while, she opened the closed beta anonymous forum and clicked to register.

The registration process is unbelievably simple. Once you fill in the internal test invitation code, you’re done.

Kai Xin randomly typed the number “233” in the nickname column. All of her game nicknames are “233”, because she doesn’t have much talent for naming, and it’s easy to get the same name after she finally got it, so Kai Xin used “233” to death.

“Once the nickname is confirmed, it cannot be modified.”

Kai Xin didn’t take it seriously, and clicked “Confirm” anyway.

New news popped out.

“You have become the 233rd registered player on the forum.”

Kai Xin: “…Huh?”

What a coincidence, is 233 her lucky number?

After a brief loading, Kai Xin saw the forum page.

The background color of the forum has a cold metallic luster, the page is extremely simple, and the functions are also very monotonous. There are only functions for posting and replying and private messages.

But there is a striking blood-red Arabic numeral “10000” in the upper right corner of the forum.

Next to “10000” was written a line of small characters – “Number of Survivors”.

For some reason, when Kai Xin saw the words “Number of Survivors”, his heart twitched and he felt palpitations.

There are dozens of posts with “new” floating in the forum. The forum has just been opened, players have just registered, and the posts are all new. Kai Xin refreshed, and a dozen more posts popped up. The post titles were in English, Japanese, Russian, and Chinese. Ten thousand players from all over the world gathered in this small forum.

Kai Xin was able to translate the general meaning of the English title stutteringly, but she couldn’t translate it in other languages ​​at all.

She glanced roughly at the existing Chinese posts, and found that the titles were “Come to open up wasteland”, “Are there any players in the magic city? Let’s make an appointment”, “The top 100 posts must have my name”… this Kind of non-nutritive irrigation.

She hesitated for a while, clicked on the development post, and typed in the title: “Does anyone think the ‘Six Advice to Players’ is a bit strange?”

After writing the title, Kai Xin’s mouse stopped on the post button for a long time.

She recalled the phrase “Please treat the game world as the real world” and the advice “You only live once, and death cannot be resurrected” at the back. Then she looked at the bloody number “10000” at the top of the forum, and she felt that the deepest part of her mind was Got hit by something.

She suddenly felt a tingle of horror, but she didn’t know where the horror came from.

This feeling came suddenly, almost absurd.

Kai Xin rubbed his forehead.

How could the “entering the holographic game is actually traveling to the real world” in the fantasy novel happen in reality?

But even though aAfter a while of self-consolation, Kai Xin still accidentally deleted the content of the post, and decided to keep diving to observe the situation.

She kept refreshing the forum and read the Chinese posts on the forum one by one.

A few minutes later, a new post caught her attention.

“The game manufacturer didn’t mention how to mail the game equipment at all. Has any player received the holographic helmet or the installation package?”

The moment after seeing this post, there was a knock on the door of Kai Xin’s house.

She subconsciously stood up, walked to the door and looked at the cat’s eyes, but she didn’t see anyone.

She waited for a few minutes, then slowly opened the door, and noticed a small black box lying quietly on the ground. There was a word on the box – “Crimson Soil”.

Kai Xin opened the box and found a silver metal card inside. The pattern on the card was complex but dexterous, and the intertwined lines formed a mechanical hand.

“This is… a commemorative card for the game?” Kai Xin flipped through the card, then shuddered.

She remembered that she had never filled in the address information on the game’s official website, so how did this card get delivered?

Kai Xin’s heart tightened, and he went downstairs wearing slippers.

She lives in an old community with outdated facilities, but surveillance cameras are installed nearby.

There were a few grandpas and aunts playing mahjong sitting at the entrance of the corridor. The neighbors in the neighborhood knew each other. Kai Xin asked, “Mother Zhang! Did the courier come here just now?”

“No, isn’t Comrade Xiao Li usually coming at three o’clock in the afternoon?” Mama Zhang pushed a row of mahjong forward, smiling happily, “Hey, you’re crazy!”

“Did anyone go upstairs just now?” Kai Xin asked.

“No.” Zhang Ma was busy playing mahjong without looking back.

Hearing this, it was obviously a hot July day, but Kai Xin felt a chill behind him.

No one went upstairs, so who knocked on her door? She didn’t fill in any address information, why was the game card of “Crimson Earth” accurately delivered at her door?

She had just signed the game agreement when the cards were sent over. It took no more than five minutes before and after…

Kai Xin looked down at the silver metal card in his hand, and turned it over.

A few words are engraved on the back of the card.

——”The Depriver Kai Xin. Number: 233.”

233 is the game nickname she just filled in, and it is also her forum registration order.

Kai Xin’s scalp went numb for a moment.

The development of the matter seemed to be heading in a strange direction.



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