Chapter 1 The Melody

A melodious tune began to play.

This background music was neither cheerful nor sad; it was simply smooth, like the male protagonist's narration and the many scenes flashing across the screen.

"My father was a philanthropist and the founder of a luxury brand. He used to be a spirited man, often appearing on television and in fashion magazines because of his handsome looks."

"Until the kidnapping incident before I was born."

"After that, my parents became more discreet, and I was well-protected by them, rarely mentioned by the media. Our daily life remained unknown."

"Soon after I was born, my mother quit her job to become a full-time housewife to take better care of me. No matter how busy my father was, he would always make time for me."

"My father once liked a kindergarten, but it was far from home, a 45-minute drive. My father could have had a driver take me, but he insisted on picking me up and dropping me off twice a week for three years, until I entered elementary school."

"My father would tell me bedtime stories, tutor me, participate in school parent-child activities, and regularly organize family dinners in his spare time..."

"So, I can't really understand what some friends say: their parents are too busy to spend time with them."

"Can one be busier than the president of a company?"

Accompanied by the male protagonist's narration, scene after scene flashed on the screen.

There was the scene of the male protagonist being born in a luxurious delivery room.

The space was very spacious, with sofas and furniture, looking like a hotel suite. Nurses, nutritionists, and nurses came and went, and the table was full of various nutritious meals, like a lavish dinner.

The male protagonist's parents held the baby, their faces showing happy smiles.

There were also scenes of the male protagonist's life as an infant.

In a mansion with a beach and a private pier, several servants came and went, taking care of the infant's food, clothing, and daily life. The male protagonist's mother also accompanied him with a smile.

There was also the scene of going to kindergarten.

The male protagonist's father drove a luxury car, the prosperity of the city flashing by. In a high-end private kindergarten, the protagonist engaged in various studies, including language, mathematics, science, and art.

The teacher's teaching courses were rich and interesting, putting eggs in an incubator to hatch chicks, and witnessing the entire process of caterpillars turning into beautiful butterflies.

Here, there were specialized teachers teaching all the children how to paint. Every month, the art theme would involve learning about some artists, and the children would be asked to imitate these paintings with their immature painting skills. Whether beautiful or ugly, they would be praised and hung on the wall.

Even the building block toys played during break time looked very expensive.

"When I was in kindergarten, my father instilled in me a clear sense of time. Class started at 7:30 in the morning. If you were ten minutes late, the school gate would be closed. Tardiness would be punished with a fine and recorded in the grades."

"My father never let me be late. He always told me that there were only a few things in this world that money couldn't buy, and time was one of them. So, I had to cherish every second of my life. I have always kept this sense of time in mind."

"My father didn't allow me to eat fast food, didn't allow me to wear electronic watches, and I wasn't allowed to use a mobile phone until I was 15 years old, and even then, my usage time was limited. The time spent playing computer games couldn't exceed 40 minutes, and could be increased to one hour on weekends."

"I tried to get my mother to plead with him, but to no avail. But he would take all his time to read with me."

After the opening series of shots explained the wealthy protagonist's childhood background, He An finally found that he could control the protagonist in the game.

This was the protagonist in his childhood, still the same over-the-shoulder perspective as in the prologue, and the first act of the game was to play and live in his parents' mansion.

He An quickly realized that this was a standard interactive movie game.

All the character models in it were very detailed, and all the character dialogue expressions and肢体 actions obviously used motion capture. The extremely exquisite picture made everything look very real.

At the same time, all the UIs in the game were hidden in the scene, or integrated with the scene. While guiding the player's behavior, it would not destroy the immersion of the game.

At the same time, the camera switching in the game was also very particular, using many techniques that would only be used in movies.

The only strange point was that the painting style of all the characters seemed to be somewhat stereotypical. For example, the rich man and his father and mother seemed to be too good-looking. The whole family looked like stars.

And the servants, butlers, and drivers in the family really conformed to the stereotypes.

This made people feel a little awkward, but since all the characters were in this style, they quickly got used to it.

As an interactive movie game, there were not many operations that could be performed. The main thing was to walk, and to press specific keys when specific options were triggered, which were some relatively advanced QTEs.

For example, in the mansion, players could play the young rich protagonist and experience many things:

Learning painting under the guidance of a private teacher in a dedicated studio;

Learning various musical instruments such as piano and violin;

Riding horses at a private horse farm;

Shooting arrows and playing with dogs on their own lawn;

Attending children's parties organized by other wealthy families, and playing with inflatable castles, ice cream makers, merry-go-rounds, and miniature trains in the banquet hall with other peers;

Taking a private plane to an African wildlife park with other children to celebrate birthdays, and receiving mountains of gifts from high-end shopping malls...

In each scene, players could control the protagonist to experience various interactive scenes, such as riding horses, playing the piano, playing with miniature trains, etc.

In addition to these mini-games, there were many more detailed elements in the scene, such as talking to various characters, checking the surrounding books, newspapers, and news, unpacking small gifts, and so on.

When switching scenes, many different switching methods were used, somewhat similar to the transitions in movies. For example, after the protagonist completed a group photo, the photo came to the protagonist's bedside, and the next scene began at the same time.

In some transitions with larger spans, the protagonist's narration would also be added, that is, the protagonist's memories of his childhood after he became an adult.

After the childhood era ended, it was the youth era. The protagonist began to enter high school and university, but there were no relaxed education or alcohol party scenes in the TV series. Instead, every minute of his time was fully arranged.

Not only did he have to perform well on exams like the SAT, but he also couldn't relax on any test in his four years of high school. There were also science competitions, sports, debates, social services... Anything that could help him get into the Ivy League was swarmed by people, full of competition.

The protagonist heard the news of a classmate's suicide and learned a term: "Stanford Duck Syndrome". Everyone pretended to be super relaxed and perfect on the surface, but under the surface of the water, they were frantically paddling their legs desperately. When all you see are calm ducks, you'll feel like you're the only one who isn't perfect.

There was also the so-called "4": 4 hours of sleep, 4 cups of coffee, GPA 4.0.

In different stages of the game, He An had to make a lot of choices.

In childhood, although the protagonist's daily schedule was strictly arranged, he could choose different entertainment activities during his rest time, and he could choose different hobbies, such as learning to paint or learning music, and he could also choose different entertainment modes during each vacation.

And these choices seemed to affect his experiences in his youth.

For example, if he learned equestrianism since he was a child, then the protagonist's father would give him a private horse farm worth tens of millions of dollars when he grew up a little, and participating in equestrian competitions could win a lot of bonuses, which would also have some impact on future progress.

This game had a concept of funds, and some specific options must have specific funds to choose, but for the rich protagonist, this restriction did not exist, because no matter how much funds were spent, they would be replenished immediately.

…

Scene after scene, quickly passed.

While immersed in the game, He An also lamented the waste of scenes and materials in the game.

Most of the scenes were only used once and never appeared again. For example, in the scene of the African wildlife park, the young protagonist went there to see various rare animals, learned a lot of knowledge, and received gifts, but after that, the scene of this zoo never appeared again.

Some large scenes were reused, such as the protagonist's mansion and horse farm. As the plot progressed, the things that could be done in the mansion and horse farm gradually unlocked, and new content would be experienced every once in a while.

But even so, in order to achieve this cinematic effect, it was quite extravagant.

He An was able to realize that President Pei had obviously made trade-offs in this extravagant approach: due to the low reuse rate and high precision of the scenes, the length of the entire game was compressed.

Generally speaking, domestic 3A games would take 8-10 hours to complete if you just ran through the plot. Of course, some games with particularly rich side quests or open-world games would take a particularly long time.

However, the rich version of *Struggle* only took about three hours, and the poor version should be about the same.

It was like a movie, piecing together many scattered fragments of scenes, and piecing together the whole picture of the protagonist's life through these representative scenes.

Of course, if you choose all the options once, this time may be doubled again.

In the game, you could jump back to the previous scenes to play repeatedly at any time according to the progress line. Similar games would have this function.

After graduating from college, the protagonist could choose to fall in love and marry different girls, choose to work in his father's company, become a painter, musician, or equestrian coach according to his hobbies, start his own business, and so on.

When he got married, his father booked an island in Italy for him, spent 5 million dollars to charter two Boeing planes to transport guests, booked five-star hotels for all guests, rented 50 special cars to transport guests, airlifted several tons of flowers from the Netherlands, and finally the wedding was held on the rocks at sea, inviting an entire international chef team, and even the wedding dress cost 600,000 dollars...

At the wedding scene, players could control the protagonist to chat with the guests, and everyone would send their heartfelt blessings, and they could personally experience the entire process of the wedding.

Of course, it was impossible for the game to make the entire island, but only gave an overview from a cinematic long shot. The main scenes were concentrated in the small area of the wedding scene.

But the various finely crafted details were still staggering.

After the protagonist got married and had children, his career went smoothly. No matter which company he applied to, he would be hired immediately, and he would rise step by step in his work.

His parents retired and enjoyed their old age.

During school, the protagonist met some poor friends and found that his lifestyle was completely different. These poor friends seemed to have no motivation, were idle, and did not cherish time.

So, after the protagonist had achieved great success in his career, he tried to help others as much as possible.

"As I said, my father believes that the world is full of jungle laws. We are the people on top, but countless people are also staring at us, wanting to see us fall."

"He said that poor people are lazy, selfish, and unreasonable. Never believe that you can be friends with those poor people."

"He said, stay away from them, or you will get into trouble."

"I still disagree with his view."

"I know that my father's view stems from the kidnapping incident before I was born, but I still believe that the lunatic cannot represent the poor, and I will not hate all the poor just because I almost lost my life at the hands of a poor person."

"I met some poor friends. In my opinion, they are no different from me. Maybe the reason why they are poor is just because they lack a little motivation and a little fighting spirit. But I didn't have these from the beginning either."

"So, I went to universities to give speeches and wrote a book, *Struggle and Getting Rich*, hoping that my lifestyle and view of wealth would have some positive impact on them."

"I want to tell them that money will not fall from the sky. Only hard work is the only way to change your destiny. Only by not being satisfied with the status quo and not giving up any opportunities can life become better."

"I told them that I have been working hard day after day, never daring to slack off in the slightest, and never daring to waste any time."

"I told them that I never wear luxury clothes, even my father's luxury brand. I don't buy luxury cars or have meaningless parties. Every second of my time is spent on meaningful things."

"Undoubtedly, my views have been ridiculed by many people on the Internet. Many people think that I am not qualified to talk about 'struggle' because I was born into a wealthy family and have never understood what 'struggle' means to the poor."

"But there are also many people who thank me. My decades of self-discipline have moved them. They said that it was my father's hard work that gave me a better growing environment, and they also hope that they can give their children these things through struggle."

"I'm very happy, which shows that everything I've done is meaningful."

The last scene was the protagonist coming to a bookstore in a slum to sign books.

People lined up in a long line, came to him one by one, handed up the books they bought, received autographs, and then thanked the protagonist.

There were many people signing, and He An had to slide the mouse every time he signed, repeating this mechanically, but everyone's smiles and thanks were different, making people feel that this matter was meaningful.

A ragged, homeless man came to the protagonist, his hands empty.

The protagonist lowered his head to prepare to sign, but found that the other party did not hand over the book, and was a little surprised.

When he looked up, he found that the expression on the homeless man's face was hideous and suppressed, as if carrying deep-seated hatred.

He An was stunned for a moment, because the homeless man's face was very different from the poor man who kidnapped the protagonist's mother at the very beginning, but the expression on his face made people feel very familiar.

The homeless man's figure seemed to block the light. He numbly and without any emotion took out a sharp knife from his large pocket and stabbed it fiercely into the protagonist's chest!

Screams rang out, and the scene was in chaos, but these sounds quickly moved away from the protagonist, the picture spun around, and quickly blurred.

With a "啪" sound, the blood-stained book fell down, just covering the protagonist's face, and the "Struggle and Getting Rich" on the cover seemed inexplicably ironic.

Before the picture turned black, the protagonist heard a very soft but very clear sentence from the homeless man.

"Liar."