Only after they had vanished did he react, staring at the place where they disappeared, left with a glowing rift in time and space. He too leaped into it, disappearing from sight. The world spun chaotically, with familiar and unfamiliar places, faces seen yet unseen, histories that felt familiar, and people loved and hated, all swirling on the screen. “How did we get teleported away?” Su Yao’s heart pounded; she had used the scroll immediately upon obtaining it to prevent it from being snatched. She clicked to read the scroll, expecting a lengthy text describing a legendary tale, but instead, no text appeared; they were suddenly engulfed and transported by a rift in time and space! “Don’t panic, no matter what, we are the winners,” Qin Chuan patted Su Yao’s right hand holding the mouse, signaling her to wait calmly for the animation to pass. This all started when they saw the towering beam of light; they decisively withdrew from the team. Even without Qin Chuan saying it, Su Yao could guess what was about to happen. Before the beam fully formed, they quickly left the expedition team, forming a duo, and as expected, they saw the expedition members frozen in place, unable to move or speak, stuck online or offline, forever frozen as part of the landscape.
She grabbed a few, including a whimsical candy called Frost Sugar, which would give the character a frozen appearance for five minutes. Su Yao thought Ji Canghai and Han Yinyin, focused on the scroll, wouldn’t notice them, so she and Qin Chuan each ate one to blend in, turning into ice sculptures. They waited patiently for the events to unfold. After hearing Qin Chuan’s experience, Su Yao knew this scroll was just the beginning of a quest. Ji Canghai and Han Yinyin fought over it, leading to conflict. Han Yinyin, a mage, grabbed it first and chose to log off to avoid trouble. However, she received a system warning. In panic, unable to log off, she used a city return scroll to escape to the city, where PvP is prohibited. Just as Ji Canghai’s Silver Moon Greatsword was about to strike, Han Yinyin used the return scroll. The system prompted: [You possess a special quest item. If you leave the quest area before completion, the item will disappear and reset. Are you sure you want to return to the city?
In her extreme tension, Han Yinyin accidentally confirmed. While Ji Canghai cursed her ancestors, she cursed his, then rushed to the wedding hall for divorce and frantically called the human realm planning department manager, Old Chen. As Ji Canghai also jumped into the time-space rift, the radiant light began to fade rapidly. Just as the rift was about to close, someone else burst out from the crowd of ice sculptures – it was Xiaozhizhi, the 60th level expedition leader, who with the agility of a seasoned gamer, rolled into the rift at the last second. Unfortunately, Little Mary, Sanchuan, and Canghaiyixiao, who had been teleported away, missed this scene. With the light gone, the world returned to its serene state, except now nature had seventeen new ice sculptures. Snow fell, snow covered, the map changed, time passed, and this place where the snow maiden perished vanished once more into the vast desolation. Like many secret places in the human realm, it would change locations automatically after being discovered, forcing people to search anew. Han Yinyin, with her old map, would never find it again.
As the screen’s animation ended, the world calmed down, and a faint, clear female voice seemed to sing from afar. The screen slowly brightened, revealing a city both familiar and strange.
Little Mary and Sanchuan, now a duo, stood at the gates of Yanjing City, surrounded by bustling players chatting, trading, or gossiping. The chat box on the screen’s bottom left was filled with messages. However, Su Yao noticed the entire scene was not in its original vibrant colors but had a nostalgic tint, as if a filter had been forcibly applied. Su Yao understood this was a displacement technique – they were in the same space but at different times, enhancing gameplay and saving production costs. Thus, this was a world long past, the beginning of the Snow Maiden’s memories? “Hey, I was saying…” Qin Chuan coughed, and Su Yao glanced at him curiously, wondering if he was showing signs of social awkwardness typical of a shut-in. “What’s wrong with me?” Su Yao asked, then looked at Qin Chuan’s screen. They were both in ancient times, but, wait, why was Sanchuan standing there completely naked? Where were his clothes? “Put some clothes on, will you?” Qin Chuan finally couldn’t help but say. Only then did Su Yao see that on her screen, Little Mary was obscured by the dense crowd, but on Qin Chuan’s screen, Sanchuan was standing stark naked, with a face strikingly similar to Su Yao’s, a perfect figure and… Holy shit! Su Yao’s dog eyes went blind. What kind of crap design is this? Are they really trying to give players the feel of ancient humans?
Su Yao opened her inventory, only to find that all slots were locked with the system prompt: [Special mission in progress, temporarily unable to open.] Only the task slot was available, and it was currently empty. Qin Chuan was in the same situation. The two of them stood in the crowd, feeling awkward. “I’ll go to the bathroom.” Qin Chuan awkwardly pushed back his chair, leaving abruptly. After he left, Su Yao noticed a photo frame on the bookshelf on his side.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Brave One
Qin Chuan took a cold shower to alleviate some discomfort. As a shut-in who stayed at home all year, the winter in the north with its ample heating felt no different from summer for him. Wearing only a single layer and a pair of slippers, he watched the sun rise and set day after day, through the changing seasons. He once thought that his life would continue like this. Until he met her again. The little girl from back then, now a brave warrior, stirred feelings he had buried. No words could describe the feeling of seeing her again.
Six years had passed, and her name had vanished from the competitive gaming scene since the battle in San Francisco where she left without looking back. He, on the other hand, continued to participate in WCG for three more years, until he was certain he would never see her again. He stood on the stage with the first-place trophy, surrounded by reporters and camera flashes from around the world, but he knew he was alone now. The familiar name he longed to defeat was no longer in his world, nor was there anyone to stand beside him. Later, he left too, and the most legendary figure in the gaming world disappeared. The name THANATOS ceased to exist; he was just a quiet otaku living a peaceful life, with numerous online aliases, seemingly unaffected by the loss of his competitive identity…
Qin Chuan opened the bathroom door, and the person standing in front of him made him pause. Su Yao’s first words hit him like a thunderbolt— “Why do you have my photo?” Yes, there was only one photo frame on his bookshelf, and the person in the photo was none other than Su Yao. It was a picture of her at the WCG award ceremony in San Francisco, holding the trophy and smiling generously. Although the photo was widely circulated by media outlets at the time, that was six years ago. No one outside the gaming circle would bother to keep such a photo for six years, let alone display it prominently on a bookshelf where it could be seen at a glance.
He admitted his failure; he forgot to hide the photo.