WTYTIAAN Chapter 157

## Chapter 157

Chapter 157

Blue Star, three o’clock in the morning.

A velvet curtain unfolded in the sky, dotted with starlight, as the moon quietly hid behind, with no immediate plans to return to the stage.

The neon signs in the city had long lost their luster, with a corner flickering erratically due to a bad connection, yet no one seemed to notice.

For at this moment, the entire city had fallen into a peaceful slumber.

Cheng Tianyu yawned, his fingers still clattering on the keyboard, his other hand wielding the mouse with vigorous swipes across the desk, all while shouting into the microphone: “Help! Help! Pick me up, I’ll carry!”

His teammate on the other end seemed impatient, saying something in the headset, but Cheng Tianyu kept his tone ingratiating. “Bro! Bro! Just help me out, man, I’m doing a carry order. Pick me up and I can really carry, I’m just one win away from finishing, bear with me, please!”

Apparently, Cheng Tianyu’s flattering tone pleased the other player, as the hostility in his voice subsided. Cheng Tianyu finally received the long-awaited rescue from his teammate.

However, it was all for naught. The “Old Six,” who had been lying in wait in the trees on the opposite hill for a long time, used a crossbow to deliver a headshot to the character who had just been revived and hadn’t even had a chance to heal.

The just-revived character fell to the ground again, one hand clutching his abdomen, the other propping himself up.

Cheng Tianyu reacted quickly, cursing, “Damn it, there’s an Old Six!”

However, the rescuer was clearly not as fast as the still-lurking Old Six; before Cheng Tianyu’s character could even fall, his teammate was also downed.

The teammate exploded in anger, cursing the Old Six in a childish, elementary school voice.

Cheng Tianyu controlled his character, huffing and puffing as he found cover, and saw a notification:

[DefinitelyTheOldSix] killed [YourBigBro] using [Crossbow]

The elementary school student, who had been spewing curses just moments before, quietly turned into a loot box, leaving behind only a lingering echo of his profanities.

The specific curses need not be mentioned, but they were roughly centered around the parents, family, and eighteen generations of ancestors drawn in a circle.

Cheng Tianyu: …

He couldn’t help but sigh; this elementary school “big bro” was really unreliable.

It seemed he wouldn’t be able to gain points this round. He would have to endure a few more games to complete this order. Cheng Tianyu painfully wanted to close his eyes.

Waiting in vain for rescue from the team’s last survivor, [CrouchingKing], Cheng Tianyu’s character regretfully closed his eyes, becoming a loot box alongside the elementary school student.

Exiting the matching interface, Cheng Tianyu rubbed his throbbing temples. He hadn’t slept for over thirty hours for this order. Seeing that it was about to be completed, and he would receive a decent sum of money, Cheng Tianyu perked up again.

He stood up, grabbed his water cup and the towel hanging on his bedpost, and opened the door of the shared apartment.

Even at three in the morning, the shared apartment would never fall into complete silence. The nighttime streamer in the next room was loudly doing his stream, thanking this big brother and that big sister, as busy as could be.

He went into the communal kitchen, found the kettle provided by the landlord, and filled it with water, placing it on the gas stove to boil. During this process, he wasn’t idle; he wet his towel at the kitchen faucet, wrung it out, and placed it over his face.

A wave of coolness invaded his brain through the towel, driving away the fatigue from playing games for so long, and he felt much more refreshed.

He didn’t take the towel off, letting the cool towel cover his face, lowering the temperature of his somewhat overheated cheeks.

He was really overheating from playing games and needed physical cooling.

Cheng Tianyu closed his eyes, absorbing the coolness from the towel. The sleepiness that had been dispelled returned to his mind, until the ambiguous moans from the bathroom and the kettle’s shrill whistle overlapped. Cheng Tianyu staggered, nearly falling headfirst into the trash can, and then he dazedly came back to his senses.

Cheng Tianyu shook his head, discovering that the kettle was gurgling and spewing water. He quickly turned off the gas stove, poured the boiling water into his insulated thermos, draped the towel over his shoulder, and headed back to his room with the thermos in one hand and the cup in the other.

Passing the bathroom, the ambiguous moans accompanied by the pattering of water once again entered his ears. Cheng Tianyu didn’t even pause, heading straight to his room.

No need to think too much, the couple living across from him was definitely at it again in the bathroom.

Cheng Tianyu thought to himself as he walked: This couple is really deeply in love. There are little lovey-dovey easter eggs everywhere in the shared apartment. Why haven’t they responded to the national call and had a first, second, or third child? Maybe in the future, his retirement will depend on the children of this couple to contribute.

…Never mind, he hasn’t paid his social security. He won’t be able to rely on the next generation in the future.

Cheng Tianyu returned to his room, put down the thermos, casually hung the towel back on the bedpost, poured himself a cup of hot water and set it aside to cool, and reopened the game matching.

With all this messing around, the short hour hand on the clock was almost pointing to the number four. Of course, it was impossible to immediately get into a game now, since players in the same rank were mostly asleep at this hour. Only people like Cheng Tianyu, who made a living as a carry, and male college students who were staying up all night at internet cafes, were still online.

While waiting for the match, Cheng Tianyu opened the game forum, preparing to find some entertainment so he wouldn’t fall asleep on the keyboard while waiting for teammates.

This order had to be completed by tomorrow morning. He had to finish it tonight, as it was related to his food money for the next week!

Cheng Tianyu swiped the mouse, minimized the webpage window to ensure he could immediately switch back to the game once it matched with players, and never delay any opportunity to gain points.

Boredly scrolling through the posts, Cheng Tianyu suddenly stopped when he saw one that caught his eye. He moved the mouse and opened the post.

[Breaking News–Return Studio has opened internal beta registration, the first batch of beta testing is only three thousand slots!!! [NEW]]

The [NEW] tag indicated that this post had just been posted recently. Sure enough, after Cheng Tianyu opened it, he saw that the post had been published just one minute ago.

The poster was very excited, screaming and shouting, but the replies were sparse and scattered.

1L: Return? What Return Studio? Is it a big company? Why haven’t I heard of this name?

2L: Beta registration? I haven’t heard of any games that are going to conduct beta testing recently. What is Return?

3L: Return?? Are you talking about the Return I know? Isn’t this just another no-name game studio trying to walk dogs under the name of Return? (angry) If you treat me like a dog again, I’m really going to get angry!

4L: …Huh?

…

It wasn’t until the tenth floor that someone really paid attention to the content of the poster’s post, and their shock was difficult to express.

11L: !!! Damn, I went to the Return official website and really opened internal beta registration! Does this mean the Return Studio IP is really overseas? What domestic game company opens internal beta registration in the middle of the night? Are they afraid players will find out?

12L: When I heard that Return opened internal beta registration, I immediately Thomas-flared over to register! Brothers, wait for my good news!

13L: …

…

Cheng Tianyu couldn’t care less about reading these dramatic replies from the netizens. He quickly opened the Return official website page through the website bookmarked in his browser.

A new internal beta registration button was added to Return Game’s simple official website, which only had a countdown timer and game recording videos, and there was also an internal beta registration description.

The first batch of beta testing slots only had three thousand spots, and since the《Return》official website suddenly appeared four years ago, millions of players have clicked the reservation button.

Not for anything else, but simply for the promise of an epoch-making holographic game that the Return Studio had drawn up.

Cheng Tianyu swallowed. He was also one of the millions of players who had made the reservation. As a game enthusiast, even now making a living as a game carry, he simply couldn’t refuse this promise of a holographic game.

He had made the reservation for this game a year ago. However, in the past year, Return Game had only updated two game recording videos, and had been silent in other aspects. Not even a real studio employee had ever shown up. It really didn’t seem like a reliable game company.

Even Cheng Tianyu was about to believe the analysis posts on the forum, believing that this so-called Return Game Company was just a shell company, an utterly fake money-laundering game.

But on this ordinary night, the holographic game he had been looking forward to had opened for internal beta registration?!

Cheng Tianyu decisively clicked on the internal beta registration, already throwing the possibility that “this might be a scam to get personal information” to the back of his mind, and quickly filled in his name, age, and the address of the shared apartment.

In the remarks, he also wrote several hundred words about his game experience, hoping that the luck of being one in a million would fall on his head.

This series of actions was swift and flowing. He even finished writing that small section of hundreds of words of game experience in just a few minutes. He had never copied homework so fast when he was in school.

Confirm, submit.

Having completed it in one go, Cheng Tianyu let out a long breath. He refreshed the official website and saw that it showed “1289 people have submitted internal beta registration,” and he couldn’t help but be a little surprised.

At this time, aside from some night owls, it was the time when everyone was sleeping the sweetest, but in just a moment, nearly thirteen hundred people had submitted internal beta registration?

Thinking of this, Cheng Tianyu couldn’t help but feel a little regretful. He should have prepared his game experience earlier so he could directly copy and paste it during the internal beta registration, instead of spending those few minutes writing his game experience.

He wasted valuable time!

Although the official didn’t explicitly state that submitting the internal beta registration earlier would increase the chances of getting a slot, what if it did?

Cheng Tianyu really hoped to get such a slot, whether he played it himself or sold it to exchange for money to serve as the rent for the next quarter, it would be a sure profit.

Cheng Tianyu sighed faintly, looking at the official website page with some emptiness.

The registration form had already been submitted. He couldn’t modify it now, and submitting another one would be meaningless. He seemed to not know what to do.

Buzz–

The game, which had been showing [Matching], vibrated, and became loading. Soon, the pink mini-skirted controller that belonged to Cheng Tianyu appeared in the center of the screen.

Several game characters waiting for the game to start were also standing around. A bald man jumped in front of Cheng Tianyu’s character, wiggling his butt at the character Cheng Tianyu was controlling with an eye-searing dance move.

The game started.

Instantly, Cheng Tianyu’s emptiness disappeared without a trace. What poetry and the distant lands, all that was in front of his eyes was the present wretchedness of life.

He hadn’t finished the order yet!

Cheng Tianyu didn’t care so much, and hastily forwarded the forum post link into the small game group he was in, and then closed all the other pages, concentrating on playing this game, paying no attention to the waves he caused in their small group.

Another two hours passed, and Cheng Tianyu was so tired he wasn’t tired anymore after he finally completed the order.

He was mentally exhausted, but his spirit was very excited because of the terrible teammates. He couldn’t wait to greet those teammates who died immediately upon landing with a good cursing of their eighteen generations of ancestors.

#If you’re so bad, don’t play games in the middle of the night!

#If you’re going to be bad, go drag other people down! Don’t drag him down!

Cheng Tianyu screenshotted the completed game page, forwarded it to the carry group manager who received the orders, and copied his payment account to send with it. After receiving an [ok] gesture in reply, Cheng Tianyu collapsed on the table like a deflated inflatable man outside a supermarket, and had no strength to climb up at all.

After lying there for a while, finally feeling that the music in the game’s preparation interface was too disturbing, especially since he had listened to this music for two consecutive days, and was about to throw up, Cheng Tianyu wearily sat up, preparing to close the game, wash up a bit, and go to bed.

The sky outside was dimly lit. Cheng Tianyu could vaguely hear the sounds of children going to school and playing outside. The city was about to awaken from its beautiful dream, while the shared apartment he was in was just now falling into true quiet.

The city was awake, and the shared apartment was only now falling asleep.

Cheng Tianyu casually closed the game. Unexpectedly, a 99+ notification popped up from QQ. Cheng Tianyu opened it and realized that it was the post he had forwarded to the group two hours ago that had caused an uproar among the group members.

This group was made up of friends Cheng Tianyu had met while playing games. They had good relationships and had their own professions. Not all of them were game carries like Cheng Tianyu. One of them was even a senior executive in a listed company.

Of course, he claimed to be a senior executive in a listed company, but no one had asked what kind of listed company it was.

Those who entered this group were all game enthusiasts who had enthusiasm for games, and were very interested in the《Return》, which claimed to be an epoch-making holographic game.

One of them, a small game streamer, had been waiting for the game to go online so they could start streaming this holographic game.

The post that Cheng Tianyu had forwarded stated that Return had opened internal beta registration, which naturally drew out a group of lurkers.

Cheng Tianyu happily looked at the chat logs in the group. Suddenly, a new email notification popped up on his phone. He casually glanced at it, and the title was 【《Return》Internal Beta Invitation】.

He thought he had misread it, and quickly picked up his phone, opened his almost unused QQ email, and found that inconspicuous email in a pile of advertising emails and spam.

【《Return》Internal Beta Invitation】

Dear player,

Hello!

We are very honored to inform you that you have been selected to participate in the internal beta phase of《Return》, an epoch-making holographic MMORPG game. This is an unprecedented adventure. You will have the opportunity to be among the first to explore this grand world.

Game introduction:

…

This game internal beta invitation was conventional, without a hint of personal characteristics, as if it had been randomly copied and pasted from a search engine, but Cheng Tianyu’s eyes couldn’t move away from this email for a long time.

The mouse quickly slid to the end, seeing the row of precautions.

[Please complete the internal beta qualification confirmation through the following link within 72 hours after receiving this invitation: [Confirmation Link]. We will deliver the holographic game pod for you to play the game, and provide detailed internal beta guidelines and technical support.]

He got the internal beta qualification?!