Chapter 1: A Game World Appears on My Body!

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Chapter 1: A Game World Appears on My Body!

Everyone has their own share of troubles, but Lu Feng had never imagined that misfortune would keep its eyes on him. At sixteen, just after being admitted to the best high school in the county, his father suddenly passed away after running up huge debts from his reckless lifestyle.

At the prime of his youth, he was forced to drop out of his dream high school and inherited more than three hundred thousand yuan in debt owed to relatives.

In the following five years, he lost count of the odd jobs he took. Together with his mother, they scraped by, saving every penny to repay the debt. Only recently had they finally managed to settle their dues.

Lu Feng thought that with the burden finally gone, at twenty-two, he could now consider his own ambitions and dreams—perhaps to achieve something, to save up for the down payment on an apartment, and to marry his girlfriend. But fate had other plans: his mother, worn down by years of hardship, suddenly fell ill. The doctor said it was a vascular disease.

Though they were still running tests, the words that slipped from the doctor's mouth left no room for optimism.

The relentless hardships of life pressed down on his chest, suffocating him.

It shouldn't be like this.

Outside the gates of Youcheng County Hospital, Lu Feng parked a shared bicycle and walked over with a bag of toiletries in hand.

He looked at the hospital and sighed, helpless.

[The game world “After the End” is constructing a link…]

A sudden voice in his mind made Lu Feng frown sharply.

Is this a side effect of getting shocked?

Not long ago, a colleague had dragged him into playing a game called “After the End.” Maybe the game had high requirements, but shortly after starting, his phone began to leak electricity. Since then, he kept hearing hallucinated voices in his mind.

Maybe it was time to see a psychiatrist.

He entered the hospital and, coming to a ward, saw a young man keeping watch outside.

The youth was covered in tattoos and didn’t look like the reputable type, but when he saw Lu Feng, he greeted him warmly, “You’re here?”

“Brother Lin,” Lu Feng forced a smile in response.

Lu Lin patted Lu Feng on the shoulder. “Ming is inside. He and the others have chipped in some money for you.”

Lu Feng entered the ward and saw his mother lying unconscious in bed, as well as a burly young man.

This young man, too, had a snake tattoo curling up his arm. This was Ming—his older cousin, once brought into the world by Lu Feng’s father.

Although his cousin never made much money, he had never fallen into gambling or other vices. Even among the riffraff, he maintained his bottom line and was known for his loyalty, which was why he had brothers like Lin by his side.

“You’re here, Xiao Feng?” Yang Ming greeted him with a smile.

“Cousin,” Lu Feng replied, his voice tinged with gratitude. His cousin truly had done a lot for their family.

Yang Ming took out a card and handed it to Lu Feng. “There’s two hundred thousand here. Lin and the others all used to follow your dad; everyone chipped in. Use this first for Auntie’s treatment.”

“Thank you, cousin!” Lu Feng’s eyes grew moist as he looked at the bank card pressed into his hand.

His mother’s sudden illness had left him utterly helpless, as if the sky had collapsed. He was just a regular worker; his mother only ran a small fruit shop. Aside from paying off their debts, they had no savings to speak of.

His mother’s hospital admission had already drained all they had. He had nothing left for the upcoming surgery and treatment.

The money raised by his cousin and Lin was a godsend.

Maybe his father hadn’t done much good in his life, or ever made the right decisions, but the men he once led were truly loyal.

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But just after finally paying off his debts, he now faced another debt of two hundred thousand.

Given his mother’s health, he knew he would have to repay this himself. For someone with only a middle school education, no capital, no skills beyond manual labor, the pressure was crushing.

What’s more, vascular diseases are major illnesses—often extremely difficult and expensive to treat, with some surgeries costing over a million. Who knew if two hundred thousand would even be enough?

The more Lu Feng thought, the more agitated he became.

“Don’t stress too much. Go have a smoke and relax your nerves,” Yang Ming said, offering him a cigarette and a lighter. He knew that sometimes, a cigarette could be the best way to relieve pressure.

Lu Feng nodded and accepted.

“No smoking in the ward,” a nurse entered and immediately warned him.

Lu Feng gave an awkward smile.

Yang Ming ruffled his hair. “Go to the public restroom. I’ll keep watch here.”

Lu Feng nodded, sighed, and left the ward. He walked to the hospital’s public restroom, found a stall, and finally lit up, taking a deep drag.

The smoke seemed to clear his mind, and the weight on his heart eased. But right then, the hallucinated voice echoed in his head once more.

[Game world “After the End” link established. You can now enter. Enter now?]

This time, it wasn’t just a voice—an illusory image appeared in his mind.

It was a run-down gold shop, the floor strewn with overturned chairs, everything coated in thick dust.

“Now I’m hallucinating too?” Lu Feng patted his head, bewildered. “There’s even a prompt to enter. Am I supposed to go in?”

In that instant, he felt himself sucked by an invisible force, his vision turned black, and when the light returned, his eyes widened in disbelief.

This seemed to be one of the starting scenes from “After the End.”

In this game, the plot was open-ended. There were dozens of characters to choose as your starting avatar, each with a different beginning. His current scene was one of those options.

When he played the game before, this was exactly the character and starting situation he picked.

Then, a set of stats appeared before his eyes:

Character: Lu Feng
Gender: Male
Level: 1
Strength: 6 (average human: 5)
Agility: 6 (average human: 5)
Endurance: 6 (average human: 5)
Spirit: 0 (non-spiritual)
Experience: 0/100

These were the in-game character stats.

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He had entered the game—and inherited the character’s attribute panel?

His stats were slightly better than the average person’s, no doubt a result of years of factory labor; he was stronger than most ordinary men.

But his attention was entirely drawn to the shop’s interior. A thick layer of dust blanketed everything, spider webs stretched across the corners—clearly, few had visited in a long time.

He walked to a display case and peered inside, finding it packed with all kinds of exquisitely crafted gold jewelry.

In the world of “After the End,” anything that couldn’t fill your belly was worthless. Even gold, more precious than anything in the real world, was as useless as trash.

Lu Feng had never seen so much gold in his life.

Looking around, excitement overtook him. He grabbed a chair and, with a crash, smashed the glass of a display case.

He picked up a gold necklace and examined it, and a message appeared before his eyes: [This is a piece of jewelry made of pure gold!]

This was the game’s exploration feature.

In “After the End,” whenever a character explored an item, information about it would appear.

He had inherited this function too.

Lu Feng hurriedly took off his shirt to use as a makeshift bag and began stuffing the jewelry inside.

Just then, he heard footsteps outside the shop, accompanied by a wave of putrid stench. Figures, their bodies rotting and mangled, began to pour into the gold shop.

“Shit…” Lu Feng’s face drained of color. He understood immediately.

Zombies.

In “After the End,” zombies were the standard enemies.

He realized that smashing the display case must have attracted them.

As soon as the zombies entered, they spotted Lu Feng and, drawn by fresh prey, lunged toward him in a frenzy.

Lu Feng stumbled back in terror, tripping over a chair and falling. In that instant, two zombies were already upon him.

There was no way to escape.

It was over!

“Let me go back!” Lu Feng panicked. In that moment, the same tearing sensation seized him, and a prompt sounded:

[All negative substances have been cleared!]

In a flash, his vision went black. When he could see again, he was back in the hospital restroom.

He took a deep breath.

The whole experience felt like a dream.

But the heavy gold in his hands left him with an overwhelming sense of unreality.

(End of Chapter)