"Yo, up and alert?" a skinny guy with glasses laughed. "That's not like you."
"Heh," the buzz-cut youth rolled his eyes. "A true Hero harbors grand ambitions and sound strategies; he encompasses the workings of the universe and embodies the aspirations of heaven and earth. Let such exceptional individuals be the players."
"What's the difference between a person without dreams and a salted fish?"
The youth in anime clothes spoke earnestly, "Heroes emerge from our generation; once we step into the martial world, time urges us on. When I wield the Sun Katana in my left hand and the Sword of Promised Victory in my right, with Pikachu on my head and the Red Rabbit Horse beneath me! A string of Devil Fruits will hang from my waist, and I'll eat whichever one I please. With every breath, all energies will surge within me! My every move will annihilate all life, my divine power like hell, my divine grace like the ocean! When one person achieves enlightenment, even their dogs and chickens ascend to heaven—at that time, I'll appoint you three as my attendants, responsible for handling my urinal and emptying my chamber pot..."
The delusional youth hadn't finished his declaration when his three companions ganged up on him and gave him a beating. If there weren't other people around, Li Ang really suspected they might have used the tent's pole for a quick session of Aruba.
After their playful scuffle ended, the group of peers played mobile games while fantasizing about what they would do after becoming 'players.'
Li Ang listened to his peers' flights of fancy with a smile, turned over, and continued playing on his phone.
"Li Ang? Is Li Ang here?"
A voice called from outside the tent. Li Ang turned and saw an employee in a containment center uniform, holding a list and standing under the tent flap.
"Here!"
Li Ang put away his phone, walked over to the tent entrance, and asked nonchalantly, "What's up?"
"Could I see your ID, please? Thank you."
The employee took Li Ang's ID (it was his actual identification card), scanned it with a portable device, returned it, and said, "You previously agreed to return to Yin City, right? You can take the three o'clock bus this afternoon back to Yin City. This is your boarding pass. Remember to follow the containment center signs to the southern A18 boarding gate at two-thirty and board early."
"My turn already?" Li Ang took the ID and boarding pass, somewhat surprised. Normally, the first to be sent back to Yin City should be public service workers in essential posts, then blue-collar and white-collar workers, followed by ordinary residents.
Under the curious gazes of others inside the tent, Li Ang lay back down on his bed with his ID and boarding pass. He had just picked up his phone when he saw a mischievous grin emoji from Wang Congshan, followed by a message: "Hey, what are you up to?"
Li Ang sent a head-scratching emoji. "Playing on my phone. When are you guys heading back to Yin City? I just got notified I'm leaving at three this afternoon."
Wang Congshan sent back a "hehehe" mischievous emoji. "We're also leaving at three. My cousin called us this morning. She mentioned that she's actually an official employee—something to do with the Special Affairs Bureau, I think? Anyway, employees' family members can take the first batch of buses back to Yin City, so I had her register you as an employee's relative. It saves you from waiting around here."
"Ah?"
Li Ang gave a wry chuckle but still thanked Wang Congshan for her kindness. "Thanks a lot. Please tell your cousin I said thanks too."
"Mhm," Wang Congshan replied. "By the way, my cousin asked if you're interested in joining any official training programs? She said that from the time she, uh, met you on that blind date, she was quite impressed by you."
"Er..." Li Ang pondered for a moment. He figured it was probably his unique makeup techniques and cesarean section skills in the Misty Territory that had left such a deep impression on her. "Let's talk about it later," he said. "For now, I'd prefer to focus on my studies and not be distracted."
Wang Congshan sent a rolling-eyes emoji. "Pfft, you make it sound like you've received a love confession. The day you genuinely prioritize your studies will be the day I see a ghost."
She wasn't wrong. Although Li Ang always achieved excellent grades, Wang Congshan knew very well that he had never really taken studying seriously; all his skill points were invested in pranks and all sorts of nonsense.
In middle school, their homeroom teacher had a terrible temper, enjoyed physically punishing students, and clearly took pleasure in it.
Li Ang, using persuasive skills comparable to those of a pyramid scheme leader, convinced the entire class to unanimously attempt to get the teacher sent to a TV transformation show.
When thwarted by the school administration, Li Ang used his social engineering skills to obtain private photos of the teacher with a member of the school leadership. He then printed them onto over a dozen large posters, which he hung on the Bell Tower under the cover of darkness. The scandal spread widely among students in Yin City.
After the teacher was fired, he endured a month of continuous harassment: steel wool stuffed in his car's exhaust pipe (making the car unable to accelerate properly and causing it to stall inexplicably); superglue applied to his windshield wipers and nozzles; medical tape altering a '1' on his license plate to a '7'; the reverse imaging camera blacked out with paint; stinky tofu broth injected into the car doors. His home's security door was constantly jammed with chewing gum. Ghostly wails echoed outside his window at night, and any surveillance cameras he installed, inside or out, captured nothing but hacked horror film footage during playback.
Eventually, he was forced to move his entire family out of Yin City.
All this was Li Ang's handiwork back in middle school. The sole reason he did it was that the teacher had once almost physically punished Wang Congshan, intending to slap her palms.
Wang Congshan deeply suspected that if Li Ang decided to wreak havoc, he would be an extremely dangerous individual, a threat to human society. And in a world where supernatural phenomena were real, he might very well thrive...
As she mused over this, Wang Congshan, who was at the other end of the containment center looking at her chat window with Li Ang, started to feel inexplicably irritated.
For a self-proclaimed genius like Li Ang, a chaotic world might not be without its advantages. But for the majority of ordinary people, the arrival of the battleground games was definitely not good news.
The peaceful life they once had was perhaps gone for good...
When it was nearly time for departure, Li Ang ended his conversation with a somewhat melancholic Wang Congshan. He took his boarding pass, headed to the boarding point, and got on the bus back to Yin City.