As the weekend approached, Qin Chuan's mood wasn't very good.

When people are in a bad mood, they always need to find an outlet to blow off some steam.

In the past, Qin Chuan might have gone for a couple of drinks. Now, he plays games.

One day two weeks ago, an ad for a game called Nine Heavens popped up on his phone.

Qin Chuan, who rarely played mobile games, downloaded it on a whim, created a character inside, and named it An Endless Stream.

He quickly discovered what made the game so playable.

It had a Chinese ancient fantasy xianxia setting, with an ethereal and celestial art style that could be called top-tier in the country. The major classes each had their own advantages and also countered each other. In the current trend where all games are money-oriented, desperate for players to spend more, this new game surprisingly still valued mechanical skill.

Qin Chuan watched a few gameplay combat videos on a well-known video site and, his interest piqued for once, he picked a server with a name he liked, chose a ranged class that used a flying sword, and started leveling up in the novice village.

Nowadays, many games do their utmost to shorten the time it takes to level up in order to retain players, and Nine Heavens was no exception.

In just half a day, Qin Chuan transformed from a level 0 smurf to a nearly max-level main account, considered to have one foot through the door into this magnificent Jianghu.

The reason it was only one foot was that he had only increased his level.

Equipment, summoned beasts, skills—he had none of them.

This server was very lively, but for Qin Chuan, none of that liveliness belonged to him.

After playing for most of the day, he only had the system-gifted equipment, and his friends list only contained the system helper.

People came and went around him, yet he remained all alone, just like in life, where meetings and partings are fleeting.

Before he could comprehend any true meaning of life from the game, Qin Chuan saw a flash of red light, and he was lying on the ground as a corpse.

Qin Chuan: ???

Looking at the system notification, he had been killed by a player named "You Get On My Nerves".

Equipment durability dropped by ten percent, and one-tenth of the medicine on his person was lost.

Qin Chuan didn't even see clearly how he had died.

He found the player through their game ID.

An Endless Stream: Why did you kill me?

You Get On My Nerves: Look at my name.

An Endless Stream: I don't even know you.

You Get On My Nerves: I grant you the right to kill me back.

Qin Chuan thought this person was probably a psycho, or else a primary school student.

He closed the chat window, stopped communicating with the other person, and turned to look at a game guide for his class.

A moment later, when he switched back to the game, Qin Chuan discovered that he, who had been gathering plants in the wild for alchemy, was dead again.

The killer was still that "You Get On My Nerves".

Qin Chuan clicked his tongue. This time, he didn't choose to go argue with the killer, but instead began to seek a solution within the game.

A game with a xianxia setting naturally needed to provide players with opportunities for gratifying vengeance. For Qin Chuan to get revenge, there were three methods.

One: Pay a certain fee to have a game NPC reveal the other party's location, then track them down and counter-kill them in the wild.

Two: Find guildmates or in-game friends to get revenge together, and use their superior numbers to gang up on the person.

Three: Issue a bounty, letting other players accept it and help get revenge.

This game was like a real cultivation world, where each person's strength was measured by their "realm".

Nine Heavens also had a realm ranking, which compiled players' equipment, skills, and other stats, with realms increasing in order: Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Soul Transformation, and Void Refining. The higher the realm, the more formidable one's strength.

Each realm had a leaderboard showing the top one hundred, stimulating players to improve.

When Qin Chuan opened his own character panel, then clicked on the profile of "You Get On My Nerves" and compared the two, he immediately fell silent.

He couldn't even rank in the top hundred of the lowest Qi Refining stage, while the other person was fifty-sixth in the Foundation Establishment stage.

This ranking wasn't considered high, of course, but the other party was also very crafty. He specialized in killing low-realm players and would run the moment he saw a high-realm one. The class he played also happened to be an assassin, with a skill for several seconds of invisibility, and his movement skills were slick as hell; ordinary people couldn't catch him at all.

A counter-kill was impossible for him. Qin Chuan's friends list was practically empty, with only a few people on it who were automatically added by the system when he ran dungeons to level up. As for his guild, Qin Chuan hadn't said a single word in it since joining.

Moreover, he also discovered that in the world channel, many players who, like him, had been killed by this "You Get On My Nerves" were frantically cursing the guy's ancestors back eighteen generations.

But "You Get On My Nerves" directly laid down the law: "If you're unhappy, kill me back. You're all just a bunch of low-realm trash who don't spend money. Bro is in a good mood today, I'll pick three more to kill from the people who just cussed me out!"

So arrogant!

So shameless!

The more players who cursed him in the game, the more energized this person seemed to become.

The thrill that many people couldn't get in real life, the various secret and suppressed desires of the heart, could be vented in the virtual world, and so they became even more unrestrained.

This "You Get On My Nerves" was clearly just one of them.

On one side, the players hadn't had their fill of cursing yet; on the other, Qin Chuan's game screen once again turned blood-red. His character fell to the cold ground, as if telling a story of silent desolation.

The killer was once again "You Get On My Nerves".

The other party said he would pick a few to kill from among those who cursed him, but Qin Chuan hadn't said anything at all in the world channel just now, let alone curse anyone.

Looking to the side, another player revived while cursing up a storm.

This person had been the most enthusiastic one cursing "You Get On My Nerves" just now; Qin Chuan had seen him post several times.

So it turned out he was just collateral damage.

Qin Chuan pursed his lips.

He really disliked this feeling of being constrained by others, even in a game.

It's just P2W and spending money, right? How hard can that be?

"You Get On My Nerves" probably never dreamed that his actions would indirectly bring a whale to the game developers.

And so, a god-tier whale player, Boss Qin, rose.

A week later, having learned from the painful experience and strived to catch up, Boss Qin went from being a low-realm player who couldn't even make it onto the Foundation Establishment leaderboard to directly jumping several stages and becoming the third-ranked expert in the Nascent Soul stage.

The reason he was third was that some rare items for attribute upgrades could only be obtained through random drops in high-difficulty dungeons. Boss Qin had basically bought out everything available on this server; the rest was just a matter of time.

As for why he was only at the Nascent Soul stage, it was because the higher Soul Transformation and Void Refining stages hadn't been released in the game yet. Otherwise, Boss Qin probably would have powered his way to the top in one go.

Having achieved great success, Boss Qin discovered his gaming career had entered a brand new stage.

He didn't need to be active in the guild; guild managers would naturally come to him, offering generous terms in hopes that he would stay permanently to help with guild wars and cross-server battles and bring honor to the guild.

He also didn't need to learn how to chat with people or befriend experts, because the other experts on the leaderboards would invite him to run dungeons. After a few times, everyone naturally became familiar.

Even when doing quests in a party, delicate-voiced girls would take the initiative to strike up a conversation.

Games are a reflection of reality. Even though the virtual world allows the wings of imagination and emotion to soar, it still bears similarities in certain aspects.

If Qin Chuan were someone who had gone from rags to riches overnight, he might have drowned in the giddy feeling of being sought after.

But Boss Qin was not. He did not forget his original intention. The first thing he did after powering up his realm was to go find "You Get On My Nerves."

If he didn't hack that person to pieces eight or ten times until he was crying for his mommy and daddy, he wouldn't be surnamed Qin.

Qin Chuan found the tracking NPC in the game, checked the other party's location, and then chased after him on his flying sword.

"You Get On My Nerves" was standing in the wild, completely still, as if he was AFK.

Qin Chuan didn't care about it being a dishonorable victory. Without a word, he turned on PK mode and swung his sword at him.

The other person actually vanished into thin air!

Invisibility skill again?

Qin Chuan understood. This guy wasn't AFK at all; he was clearly baiting him!

He was a little annoyed, but after looking around, there was no sign of the enemy.

The message list in the game started blinking. Qin Chuan clicked it open.

It was from "You Get On My Nerves."

You Get On My Nerves: Heh, you think you can one-shot me just by paying? If I can't beat you, can't I run? Hopeless, clumsy-handed boss. Go find a streamer to power-level for you, then come play with me!

At the end, he even attached a wildly laughing emoji.

In the game, on a slope ten meters away from Qin Chuan, "You Get On My Nerves" reappeared smugly. As if to deliberately piss Qin Chuan off, he even ran back to circle around him. Whenever Qin Chuan used a skill to hit him, his figure would start drifting all over the place.

It had to be said, although the assassin class in the game inherently had the characteristic of "taking people by surprise," with all its skills designed around this original intention, there weren't many people who could play it as slickly as "You Get On My Nerves."

Qin Chuan could clearly take out half his health with one sword strike, but the other party, relying on his fancy footwork, managed to drag it out for five minutes.

Until an arrow cut through the air and hit the other guy square on the head!

"You Get On My Nerves" didn't even have time to turn around and see who the attacker was before he pitched forward and fell.

He reacted quickly, immediately turning invisible upon reviving on the spot to escape. Qin Chuan considered his own reaction fast enough, but his sword strike still hit empty air.

Another slender, feathered arrow flew over.

As if it had eyes and knew where the other party would flee, the arrow once again struck the head of "You Get On My Nerves," forcing him out of stealth and pinning him dead on the spot.

One signal arrow, and a mighty army will appear!

Even Qin Chuan couldn't help but praise such skill as cool!

Watching the young male character with long hair and red clothes land gracefully, standing by the corpse of "You Get On My Nerves," scaring the guy so much he didn't even dare to revive and could only pretend to be AFK, Qin Chuan had only one thought: become his disciple and learn all of this guy's techniques.

The man in red waited a few minutes. Seeing that "You Get On My Nerves" was still not moving, he could only send a regretful emoji and turn to leave.

Before leaving, he even greeted Qin Chuan.

Qin Chuan didn't pay attention or reply. The man in red probably thought Qin Chuan was also AFK, or that he was too arrogant to bother with him due to his high realm.

The red-clothed archer leaped up, sleeves fluttering, and departed into the distance.

Qin Chuan was busy creating a new character, a smurf account.

Because he felt that with his current realm and gear score, it would be a bit embarrassing to ask a player ranked thirty-fifth in the Core Formation stage to be his master.

In a moment, a smurf account named "As Broad As The Sea" was born.

This smurf had just reached level ten in the novice village when it eagerly opened its friends list and sent a message to a player named "Peppermint Tea".

As Broad As The Sea: Hello, little big bro, are you looking for a disciple?

Peppermint Tea: ???