I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper - Chapter 382
Chapter 382: Cyber Café and the Metaverse
“Sometimes I really feel like the past thirty-something years of my life were just a dream.”
After adding each other as friends and forming a party, we left the Aquarius Hall. Marisa, standing beside me, spoke with a bit of emotion.
“When I was very young, my family was relatively well-off in that small town. I must have told you about it before, right? At that time, my parents got along well, and as an only child, I had milk and eggs to eat every day. My classmates at school were particularly envious.”
As he spoke, Marisa glanced at Reimu Hakurei beside him.
“Maybe it was because of a rebellious mentality, but hearing my classmates call me a nutrition prince or a rich kid made me very uncomfortable. Eventually, I didn’t even want to eat the eggs and milk my parents gave me every day until I met Ye Zi.”
“At that time, Xiao Zi was just a little girl, very small, and we lived close to each other. She didn’t have any kids her age to play with, so she liked to follow me around.”
Walking along the bustling streets of the Orca City, we sat down on a bench by the roadside, and Jiang Wei started telling his story.
If I’m not mistaken, Jiang Wei and Ye Zi should be using VR equipment to play the game. Although Xiao Mo and I logged in from an esports hotel, seeing the two of them sitting on the bench still gave me a warm feeling inside.
“I saw how much Ye Zi craved those things, so I gave her the eggs and milk I got every day. I remember my dad gave me fifty yuan as pocket money every week. That was a huge amount back then.”
“If you didn’t experience that era, you might not understand. For us kids, having twenty yuan could make you the king of the kids because twenty yuan could buy two sticks of spicy strips. You could eat one yourself and share the other with at least three other kids.”
“The snacks in our school’s tuck shop were all priced by the dime, mostly costing just one dime. Spicy strips, shrimp chips, ice packs… and those carrot shreds. Most kids didn’t have pocket money or might find one or two dimes on the ground in a month. You can imagine what it was like for me to have fifty yuan every week and almost have spicy strips to eat every day.”
“I became the king of the kids. Since Ye Zi and I lived close to each other, we would talk about all sorts of strange things on our way to school, like how we would get married when we grew up and have lots of kids…”
“Those weren’t strange things.”
At this point, Jiang Wei’s words were interrupted by “Reimu Hakurei.” It was evident that Ye Zi was also using a voice changer to slightly alter her voice, making it more in line with the “shameless shrine maiden” persona.
“I was serious back then.”
“Yes, yes, but we were so young and didn’t understand anything.”
Jiang Wei felt a bit embarrassed but continued.
“Later… my world collapsed. My parents divorced, and the whole family fell apart. I didn’t go to college and went straight to work. During that time, I was really desperate. I didn’t know anyone, had no work experience, and was scammed countless times. Those days were the darkest of my life. I thought that was how the world was, that I would live an unremarkable life, die, and say goodbye to this wretched world.”
“The first time I felt the world suddenly filled with hope was the year I accidentally came across the concept of the 2D world. Back then, we didn’t even have a concept of the 2D world. The most popular 2D concepts in our group were Touhou, Hatsune Miku, and some anime like Shakugan no Shana, Toradora, and Zero no Tsukaima.”
“I don’t remember how I got into this field. I just remember that year, I went crazy, collecting anything related to the 2D world whenever I had free time. I listened to Touhou music and memorized the settings of Gensokyo. It felt like my only salvation.”
“During those years, I kept thinking that the world could be different. In a fantasy world, there could be such a beautiful utopia. The drawing that I was always looked down upon for as a child could actually generate such exquisite images and games with the help of computers.”
“Later on, there was the rapid development of computers and the rise of online games. For some reason, whenever I look back, I find that this world always manages to surprise me just when I’m feeling most exhausted. For instance, when I thought that AI and the metaverse were just hype and that human technology and artificial intelligence had stagnated, leaving no hope, AI-generated art, AI assistants, and AI voices all emerged.”
“It was like, overnight, the world was suddenly given a surprise.”
“My encounter with Ye Zi was similar. I thought I would cling to the 2D world and Touhou, watching Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, and others without any change, when suddenly, Ye Zi appeared in my life.”
“In recent years, there have been one strange policy after another, and games have been dying off one by one. I thought, given this trend, it was impossible to see works like ‘CS,’ ‘Meteor Butterfly Sword,’ ‘Legend,’ and ‘World of Warcraft’ again.”
“We old gamers were ready to return to real life when ‘Age of Aquarius’ appeared. It came out of nowhere, with no prior announcements, and the technical prowess of the game is terrifyingly strong. The most frightening aspect is that it breaks the existing game landscape. So far, no one has been able to figure out the core engine of this game. Its computational logic is so powerful that no other game can compete.”
‘Marisa Kirisame’ pointed to her head and said, “Nuo’er, can you guess what equipment we’re using?”
I thought for a moment and spoke into the microphone, “Similar to the VR equipment in a café?”
“And motion capture equipment.”
Jiang Wei stood up and indicated his skirt.
“Look, when I talk, my mouth moves, I have facial expressions, and I even blink, right? Our avatars are just like Vtubers. This game can integrate motion capture equipment. Isn’t that impressive? Actually, this technology has existed for a long time, but it was used in purely chatroom-like games.”
“The AI for NPCs also existed for a while, but only this game has managed to integrate these advanced concepts and technologies seamlessly. No wonder the game’s servers need government oversight. Jialan Company, managed by Xiongxiong, has a truly unique vision to collaborate with such a game company…”
I was quite intrigued by what he said. “From the way you’re talking, it seems like the game’s production company and its executives have significant backing.”
“They really do.”
Jiang Wei seemed like he wanted to say more. He glanced around, as if realizing that discussing this on a busy street wasn’t ideal, and then invited us to his place.
“Oh, I almost forgot to mention, your café also has a synchronized building project related to this game.”
“What is a synchronized building project?”
“It’s about synchronizing nationwide cafés. They plan to set up a Shangjing Café in every major city within the game, where you can order coffee and cake in-game, and have it delivered to your door in real life. This is something I heard from Brother Ji. He said you and Xiao Mo were on your honeymoon recently, so he didn’t want to bother you.”
Jiang Wei then handed Xiao Mo and me a coupon.
“Interested? How about I take you to see the café that Brother Ji and his team spent three days and nights building in the game?”
“……”
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