Chapter 1 - Transmigration
At the start of the game, players could choose a basic identity, such as students, white-collar workers, athletes, and so on. The basic attributes of different professions were various, but whoever you were, after entering the game, you would appear in an ordinary residential building to complete the novice task of killing two zombies that broke into your home. Then you would work with your NPC neighbors to get to the real “novice village” — a large shopping mall that was used as a temporary stronghold. There, you would realize that you had awakened an ability that was randomly assigned to you. It could be upgraded under the same conditions as the settings in many novels — by acquiring and absorbing the nucleus of high-level zombies.
But this was an online game, everyone knew that the purpose of this sort of free game was to earn money from the rich and spend the leisure time of idlers. As long as you have enough money, you could just open the Item Store and having two full-level mutation abilities instantly was no longer a dream — of course, considering the possibility of ability upgrade and its chances of a failure, most people still could not afford this expense.
Zhang Zhiyin was an ordinary player of <Tomorrow> who had some money and some leisure time. He had little hope in curing his middle school grade two illness — he had a hopeless boss complex. He was clearly a good young man who helped grandmothers cross the street and gave up his seat on the bus. However, in the world of fiction, manga, novel, he would always like the villain boss so much.
All of the NPCs in the game <Tomorrow> were not drawn out but carefully calculated.
They had a set of NPC generating program, as long as a set of random numbers were inputted, the corresponding NPC image would be generated. Because of the huge NPC base needed in <Tomorrow>’s world settings, it not only saved the game illustrators’ time, it also guaranteed the diversity and authenticity of the game to the greatest extent.
But when creating the boss, they typed in a set of perfect numbers rather than some random numerical.
<Tomorrow> ‘s boss was called Dr. Y. He was not only the so-called “Father of the Zombies”, the culprit that caused the end of the world, he was also the one who had awaken all abilities and evolved to the top through his own technical means after the end of the world. He was nicknamed “The man standing at the top of the end of the food chain” by the players.
At that time, the technical team had written a post on the game forum. According to data analysis, the only way to successfully kill Dr. Y was to have at least 50 players with seamless coordination of ability level and role to work together without error. Later, it was added that the equipment of these people had to be top-notch. Then someone added that XXXX qualifications were needed... Anyway, the update of <Tomorrow>’s game plot was still far from overthrowing the big Boss, so none of these could be verified.
In the current game’s timeline, there was only one place that allowed players to see Dr. Y; the main plot instance dungeon, “Abandoned Laboratory” at Tianshui City. Players and teammates would have to go there to help an old professor obtain important information. After clearing the instance, players could see the sudden appearance of Dr. Y. In the game scenario at this time, the player and his friends did not know the identity of Dr. Y and would chat with him according to the task requirements. Dr. Y would only silently glance at them before the players could take the “important information” and left the place to complete the task. So this task was nicknamed “I came to do the task, met the boss releasing his coolness”.
Tianshui City was not a very important place in the game. It only got involved in the main task and had no important resources or functional NPC. Players basically came here to do the tasks, get them done, and then leave. There was no one that came here often.
But there was one exception, Zhang Zhiyin.
“Abandoned Laboratory” was a difficult instance in the early stage of the game, but fortunately it was an instance of the main plot so it would not be refreshed after it was completed. The monsters inside would not be refreshed, likewise, the ultimate boss that appeared as a character in the plot would not refresh.
Zhang Zhiyin and his teammates worked desperately to get through that instance when they were in the Level 20 range. Since then, he had been reporting here every day.
From Level 20 to Level 50, he used to fight those monsters along the way from the transfer point to the instance’s gate, but now he only needed to throw two “freeze” and the route would be smooth for him.
All the way to the familiar third floor of the underground laboratory, the gloomy and terrible atmosphere could not frighten Zhang Zhiyin’s heart. Pushing open the door of the innermost room, he saw the familiar figure standing quietly in front of the information cabinet as usual.
Just like he was waiting for him.
The sudden thought made his heart move slightly. Zhang Zhiyin couldn’t help laughing at the computer screen, knowing that it was just an NPC made out of a bunch of data. Of course he would be standing there all the time.
He went over and spoke on the channel—
“Hey, here I am again!” A dialog box popped up from the top of his character. He was being foolish, but there wouldn’t be any other person here, so it didn’t matter to be foolish.
This was Zhang Zhiyin’s most important daily routine when he played <Tomorrow> — to brush up the boss. At first, it was just coming to see him, but then his boss brushing operation began to reach no limit.
“Do you miss me? Are you bored? Let me dance for you.” Zhang Zhiyin clicked on the “Dance” option in “Daily Actions”. He then watched the little character twist and wriggle in the computer screen. He started laughing and scolding himself for being so bored he had become a lunatic. Here he was flirting with virtual data.
“Daily Actions” page had a messy row of buttons, Zhang Zhiyin’s evil intentions surfaced, he pressed “Kiss”.
However, the angle was not adjusted, so he kissed the information cabinet behind Dr. Y.
This was unacceptable! Dr. Y didn’t allow him to kiss him. Zhang Zhiyin curled his mouth and suddenly remembered something. He typed, “Y, can I hug you?”
Then he quickly added, “Today is the 100th day anniversary of our acquaintanceship.” To be exact, it was the 100-day anniversary of Zhang Zhiyin brushing the boss.
Inexplicably, he restrained all his indecent jokes and smiles. When he typed this sentence, his expression was extremely serious. His lips were tucked slightly as he quietly looked at the doctor reclining on the screen, as if he was an innocent teenager asking his beloved girl out for the first time.
Naturally, the boss in the game could not respond to him.
Zhang Zhiyin just took it that he had accepted and adjusted the angle. With a click of the mouse, the character with the name “Zhiyin” on top of his head leaned forward with his hands opened. He buried himself in Dr. Y’s chest, making an embracing gesture.
The scene was particularly warmth. Zhang Zhiyin’s mouth involuntarily curled into a slight smile.
Although it was because of the 3D game pictures, “Zhiyin” hands did not enter the informational cabinet.
Zhang Zhiyin looked at the doctor who had a cold face and laughed. He thought that Dr. Y would probably want to kill him if he was alive at this time.
Although he knew that when he opened the dialog box, it would be the story dialog he had read hundreds of times — “... (He gave you a cold look), “Zhang Zhiyin still couldn’t help moving the mouse to the doctor and pressing the left key.
There was only one sentence on the dialog box—
“My name is Yin Nian.”
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Zhang Zhiyin’s friends all thought that he was just too bored. They could understand the joy of brushing the boss and trying to defeat him. But it was really uninteresting to go to boss and talk to yourself when brushing him every day. They were deeply unable to understand how a man like Zhang Zhiyin could have such a girl hobby.
Friend A: “There’s only Zhang Zhiyin who can play <Tomorrow> as if it was a love-nurturing game.”
Friend B: “If it’s really a dating game, then it must be a really big loss. The target has no response at all. In the end, you wouldn’t even get an overthrow achievement. Which fool can be so stubbornly infatuated like Zhang Zhiyin?”
Regardless of what they said, Zhang Zhiyin still continued to brush the boss every day. The sentence “My name is Yin Nian.” that he finally brushed out gave him great encouragement. Although his friends all said that it was the result of the programmers debugging a place that no players visit. Whether Yin Nian was the boss’s name had to be confirmed. Zhang Zhiyin thought so too intellectually, but emotionally, he could hardly restrain the joy of an iron tree blooming.
The game had activities during the Qixi Festival. Through a series of extremely complex tasks of the Qixi Festival, you could get a large bouquet of roses, which could be given to other players to increase affection and intimacy.
Glancing at the task site, it was all army of couples, Other than Zhang Zhiyin the bachelor, it was all game merchants who took this opportunity to seek private gains.
A friend in the game came up and said, “Zhiyin, you are single right? Did you come here alone to earn money? Everyone’s selling too, just sell it to your brother.”
Zhang Zhiyin turned his hand and put a large bunch of roses in his backpack. “No, I’m keeping it to give it to someone.”
The man looked at Zhang Zhiyin’s back and touched his chi. There must be something going on with him.
Zhang Zhiyin flew directly to the underground third floor of the laboratory with a flying flag. The higher level you were, the more advanced items you had in hand. It was more convenient to see Lord Boss.
In the dark information room, Yin Nian stood there.
Zhang Zhiyin directed his character to go up to him, opened the “Daily Actions” and made a flower-giving pose. Then he opened his backpack, took out the beautiful dewy roses. He clicked on the ground, and [Qixi Festive’s Special Love for the Special You: <Tomorrow>’s Exclusive Most Beloved Rose] lay quietly on the floor of dark information room.
Other than this method, Zhang Zhiyin did not know how else to give him the flowers.
“Happy holidays,” he said. Then he stood quietly and looked at Yin Nian.
Five minutes later, the roses on the ground flickered a few times, then they were recycled by the system and disappeared. “Zhiyin” stepped forward and gently embraced Boss Yin.
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In real life, many people met Zhang Zhiyin and asked him half-jokingly, “Xiao Zhang, are you in love?”
Zhang Zhiyin was shocked to realize that his feelings towards Boss Yin were out of control, which was different from the villain bosses he had liked before. Those bosses were liked by many people, and they were a character symbol belonging to the public. But Yin Nian was not. This perfect boss, who was always standing quietly in the dark information room waiting for him, was not. Although he could not move, speak or react, in Zhang Zhiyin’s mind, this person belonged to him, only to him.
These two days were the anniversary of <Tomorrow>’s first year of service. There were countless publicity activities in the game. Zhang Zhiyin pinched his fingers and counted. In two days, it would be the first anniversary of his acquaintance with boss. That’s good, he was preparing to see him for the last time before he deleted <Tomorrow> and stopped playing.
He thought that he must kiss him one last time. After a year, he only dared to embrace him. This was too much of failure even if this was a doomed relationship in the first place.
It’s only a few seconds before the green light arrived. On the electronic screen of the building opposite him, advertisements began to appear again, which happened to be the first anniversary of <Tomorrow>. In the film, Dr. Y stood tall in a researcher’s standard white coat, surrounded by ice, fire, thunder, wind, and other abilities. Behind him were countless rows of glass pillars with horrible faces of zombies. He had a dark face and a grim expression. Although the illustrator could not draw out his perfect face, his face still did not show any human-like feelings.
Zhang Zhiyin couldn’t move his sight at once. When he saw those people surrounded him moving forward, he also moved forward unconsciously. The only eyes in his mind were those that were so familiar to him.
Until a ‘Bang’ sound came and a dull pain surfaced. He lost his consciousness, and in his last awareness, it was still those dark eyes without any emotion.
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