Neverland

Week 0 – 02

After the last bell fell silent, suddenly the sky light brightened, all the long-extinguished glittering lights burst into light in a flash. The exciting opening music rang loudly, the huge screen in Miracle Square which could be seen by the whole block suddenly lit up brightly. A ranking table of several hundred meters long emerged. The names of each resident appeared in the table from bottom to top, the far right was the number of votes they received online, starting from the last name with the lowest number of votes, the names appeared one by one in reverse order.

The characters on the screen kept jumping, the flashing lights dazzled the eyes. After ten minutes, the speed gradually slowed down, and when the names of the top three most popular contestants began to be announced, an exquisite human projection appeared in the center of the square. This projection was called the “spokesperson” by the islanders, and they usually appeared at the center of the stage every weekend in different guises, sometimes as a clown, sometimes as a queen, sometimes as God, sometimes as Satan, but in fact “they” were just a virtual image created by the people of that world, playing the role of a “host” in this grand game.

“Dear Neverland residents, we meet again after another week!” Today, the giant figure of tens of meters tall took the form of a pirate’s face. The high-fidelity skin composed of light and shadow shrank and trembled along with the exaggerated facial expressions. The spokesperson held the non-existent microphone and read the same opening speech every week to the cheerful music, “At this exciting moment, we once again award the strong winners and expel the boring ants from this happy land. Now let’s announce the top three candidates for the 10,043rd week of online voting popularity ranking. Will the ranking change this time? Will there be a new champion on the list? Please look forward to it…”

As their voice rose, the cheers from that world on the screen became louder and louder. A man wiping his dagger stood quietly on high, looking down at Miracle Square in the distance. There was still no one on the square, but he could clearly hear the murmurs of the residents from the thousands of homes with their lights turned off and their doors locked.

No one was asleep. No one could possibly fell asleep at this time.

As the spokesperson’s words dissipated, a picture of the third place winner appeared on the screen, and the familiar figure made those who pretended sleeping let out a disdainful sigh.

“It’s him again, the pretty peacock boy Omega. It’s a blessing to be an Omega, gaining such popularity even by relying on sex as a gimmick, ‘that group of people’ has terrible taste.”

Janice Viselli, the famous Omega boy on Neverland. After he won the vote for his beauty for the first time, he started his out-of-control “journey of conquest”. People of that world loved to see this peacock-like delicate and beautiful boy having sex with different identities and genders in various forms, and willingly surrendering himself to the endless erotic tricks his brain could conjure. They left his fragile and vulnerable life with a huge number of votes, and even granted him a territory to be a happy king who conquered every inch of it with his arms and legs, always in front of the camera for the primitive gulping and release of desire.

“Oh, I knew the lovely Jannie won’t let us down!” The spokesperson exaggeratedly exclaimed, “Look, look what he brought us this week, how delicately obedient the white snakes he keeps, these hole-loving lustful snakes are simply the embodiment of Jannie’s babies, look, our Angel’s conquests are never just Alpha or Beta, man or woman, there are always endless possibilities in him. And by the way, our Dear Jannie is pregnant for the sixth time, but his body is still so young and firm, as green and beautiful as unripe fruit, who knows what kind of way he will show us for the next pregnancy, I can’t wait!”

The louder the cheers at the other end of the screen, the more the sighs in the darkness at this end:

“This bitch is so shameless. If one day he lost his territory, he’ll definitely be sold to Queen.”

“Eighty percent positive, Mr. Giuseppe doesn’t like him, as long as the people of the ‘Federation’ don’t shelter him, he’ll only be sold to Queen’s territory. When the time comes, hmmm…”

“Falling into the hands of Queen, I’m afraid it’ll be worse than death. Speaking of which, this week’s champion is probably between Mr. Giuseppe and that one, too.”

“If we talk about prestige and power, naturally it’s Mr. Giuseppe…”

Just then, the image that surfaced on the fluorescent screen interrupted the conversation between the two.

“No way! Mr. Giuseppe only took second place?”

“Oh…! That’s quite a surprise!” The spokesperson made an equally pompous gesture, “Giuseppe is the champion I’ve always favored, since more than a decade ago, this mature and handsome Mr. Alpha is very popular with the girls, he is strong, confident, proficient in marksmanship. He’s also good at cooking, loves pets, and skilled in gardening. For many years he has been the reference figure for girls when choosing a partner. With his popularity at the top of the list, he occupies three blocks all year round as the activity field of the Federation. In recent years, he has devoted himself to promoting ‘six gender equality’, risking a lot to speak out everywhere, giving us many wonderful images of battles and classic material of intellectual and power struggles, and I just love every speech he makes! Knowing that words like ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ always have a strong contrasting comedic effect when spoken from inferior animals. Even I have to admit that he is more suitable to be a humorous host than me.”

“Bah!” The man in the room spat out in a whisper, “What does he take Mr. Giuseppe and the Federation’s activities for!”

“Unfortunately today, Mr. Giuseppe will be surrendering a block under his rule to our champion, and he will lose jurisdiction and dominion over the land and its residents until he wins again, and guess what our Mr. Champion will do with this newly-acquired block?” The spokesperson pointed excitedly to the light screen, and with the switching of the figures, a brilliant firework symbolizing celebration burst into full bloom on top of the clock tower.

The man on the roof reluctantly turned around into a shadow, turned his back against the wind, and lit a cigarette.

There was no doubt that Giuseppe’s defeat would result in this week’s championship in the hands of that madman, which meant that Queen, who had been hunting him ceaselessly, would have an extra block of territory. The block that was to be handed over was the one he was stepping on, the central block of Neverland, the “Victory District”, the oldest and most populous. Under Giuseppe’s governance in recent years, although everything was slumped, many things were waiting to be done to revive the place.

What a pity, it would be knocked back to square one in the coming week, or even worse.

The man glanced back at the screen. The video of Giuseppe’s speech was replaced by another image, the image of a male wearing an expensive tuxedo, long hair combed behind his head, eyes downcast, but the corners of his mouth raised arrogantly. Not as burly as Giuseppe, nor as slender as Janice—he was a Beta, the first and only Beta male to be No. 1, or even to be among Top 10. He ruthlessly used his bloody and brutal organization, Queen, as the blade to dominate two—soon to be three—blocks. In his jurisdiction, all Alpha would be sold with all their hair shaved, the Omega didn’t even have the value of being bought and sold, only as a gift to be presented and desecrated.

He was a well-known madman, since the “accidental” death of the previous leader of Queen, he came out of nowhere, as a Beta, carrying out brutal and violent reform of the entire organization and even the entire Neverland. The seed of humanity carefully cultivated by Giuseppe and the Federation over the years was bitten by his hounds in a single swallow. He still wanted to kill every Alpha or Omega active on the stage. Now as he wished, Giuseppe, who had been pressing him for a long time, lost the online voting in his hands. Even if the situation might be reversed next week on Sunday, one week of control was enough time at his disposal to make the whole “Victory District” as chaotic as other territories.

“Got to move.” The man murmured and put out his cigarette. He wasn’t going to listen to the spokesperson’s ramblings anymore, he wanted to find his few companions and get out of this block before the full force of Queen’s Army could be fully seated. He wasn’t a fan of beauty, but that didn’t mean he was willing to have his hair shaved.

“…Despite a rare change in the order of the rankings, the top three winners clearly didn’t surprise us.” The spokesperson’s voice became regretful, but soon leapt up again, “However, in the final after-party, I would like to bring you a little surprise—this time we were surprised to find an unusual contestant in the voting statistics. His number of votes soared from zero votes that should’ve been eliminated, to 1.53 million in the last 15 minutes, and reached the highest speed in history at the last minute. Out of curiosity, we called up his data and found that his potential seems to be far more than that…”

The man who was about to leave stopped dead in his tracks and turned his head to see the screen showing the image of himself fighting back against Queen’s killer not long ago—a man in long black coat holding a dagger in one hand, in a rain of gunfire like no one else, cutting off the sniper’s head at a speed too difficult to see with the naked eye. The moment he flicked off the petals, cheers and screams from that world came from the end of the broadcast device.

“Awesome! What a handsome and arrogant man.”

“He looks like an Alpha, oh, seems like we don’t have to worry about all of the limelight in Neverland being taken over by a bunch of boring Beta anymore.”

“Such a pretty guy must’ve caught Queen’s attention, I really can’t wait…”

The entire video was brightened, slowed down, and played back multiple times, aided by the spokesperson’s pompous commentary, “Look! The young and low-key Alpha rising star, who moves with the agility of a hunter made by nature’s own hands, the cold weapon that’s now backward in this day and age simply exists for him. You can see that he’s hesitating when he hit the final slash—originally, his movements could’ve been crisp enough to kill with a single slash, but considering the entertainment aspect of the game, he chose a more visually-appealing way to win votes for himself! No doubt this is a cocky and arrogant guy. He usually doesn’t bother to let out even a glimpse of himself, he completely pinned his chance of survival on that severed head before the bell rings, and he did it! What confidence and power to bring such a wonderful increase in votes! I think, with Giuseppe’s loss, the seeds of the brand new Alpha Chief have been quietly planted, and in the next game, the interplay of newcomers and oldcomers will certainly bring us more stunning surprises and carnival feasts, so let’s spare no effort to look forward to—see you all next week!”

The closing symphony sounded, the spokesperson’s projection disappeared with a snap, but the afterglow of the carnival continued with the drumbeat and couldn’t dissipate after a long time.

On the roof, the “young and low-key Alpha rising star” flew forward under the cover of the music, the damn spokesperson had the eyes of the island locked on him. After the second of the thirty seconds music ended, he would fall into an unprecedented predicament—Queen would hit him endlessly, and more and more people in the audience would try to manipulate his body and interfere with his decisions, just as he had been ordered to choose the rose from the tray.

He was sure that the troubles to come would be far more than what came from that flower.

To prevent the hounds from pursuing him, he left his blood-stained coat far behind and ran in the shadows wearing only a black sweatshirt. The moonlight lined his skin with a whiteness that made him extremely uneasy. At the same time, this paleness also revealed the signature mark on his body—

On his upper right arm, a deep black tattoo snaked from his shoulder to his elbow, a line of meaningless numbers: “13.414.122.7”

This was how the fatherless, motherless, surnameless, nameless young Alpha was named, and how those who knew him well in Neverland called him.

“13”.*



*”13″ read as “one three” and not “thirteen”, or you can choose to call him “Yisan” as in the pinyin of his name “一三”