The lab smelled of solder and sorrow.
Lin Jie slumped over his desk, cheek pressed against a printout of his adviser's latest "groundbreaking" paper. It was his research—his sleepless months of work on quantum tunneling composites—now bearing Professor Wu Chingji's name in bold, godlike font.
His glasses had slid halfway down his nose, revealing the dark crescents etched beneath his eyes like bruises from too many nights lost to code and caffeine.
He was handsome in the way abandoned libraries were beautiful—sharp angles, deep silences, and quiet potential buried beneath years of neglect. Girls at Tsinghua had whispered about him freshman year:
"Look at Lin Jie's cheekbones—like a Qing dynasty painting!"
Until they realized he'd rather argue about Fermi surfaces than flirt. He didn't lack interest. He lacked energy.
Only one person had ever breached his emotional firewalls.
His phone buzzed. The screen lit up.
Yueru: "Dinner. 7 PM. Your pick. Dumplings or hotpot?"
A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth.
Shen Yueru, his oldest friend, almost-sister, occasional co-conspirator in illegal microwave modifications.
The only soul who still called him "Xiao Jie" without irony or pity.
The lab door burst open.
"Jie!"
Professor Wu stormed in, reeking of imported cologne, espresso, and entitlement.
His tailored suit hugged his body like a second ego. Lin Jie didn't even flinch.
"The graphene simulations. Why haven't you—" Wu's eyes narrowed, landing on the phone screen.
"Ah. Her again."
Lin Jie sat up slowly, jaw tightening.
"Shen Yueru," Wu sneered.
"The PLA's darling markswoman. Shame about her parents."
He dropped a USB drive onto Lin Jie's keyboard with the finality of a guillotine.
"Finish the simulations. Or should I remind the dean about your temper during the Zhang incident?"
Lin Jie's fingers curled into fists. Three years ago, he'd broken a postdoc's nose for mocking Yueru's scars. The university had buried it—for Wu's sake, not his.
The USB drive sat on the desk like a ticking bomb. Another theft. Another night would be wasted.
Lin Jie picked up his phone.
Lin Jie: "Hotpot. Extremely spicy."
--
The hotpot restaurant simmered with the scent of chili oil and communal exhaustion. Crowds gathered at plastic tables, leaning in over bubbling cauldrons like worshippers at a red broth altar.
Yueru waited at their usual booth, framed by rising steam. She had grown into her beauty the way a blade settles into its sheath—elegant, dangerous.
Her high cheekbones were framed by a sleek black bob, eyes sharp as obsidian.
The scar along her jaw, earned in a training accident at sixteen, didn't mar her appearance. It defined it.
"Pork and chive," she said, sliding a vinegar dish across. "And don't say you're not hungry."
Lin Jie dropped into the seat like a man surrendering to gravity. His lab coat cuffs were frayed, his hands trembled as he reached for the chopsticks.
"You look like hell," Yueru said.
"Ganbei." He clinked his teacup against her beer. (Ganbei = cheers)
Yueru watched him. Her eyes didn't miss the tremble. Or the silence between his blinks.
"Remember when I sneaked into your dorm and you rewired the microwave to make shaokao?"
"You aimed a fire extinguisher at me for an hour."
"Smartest thing I ever did. You were trying to grill meat with tungsten wire."
He laughed. The bitterness almost drowned the humor.
"You should leave that lab, Jie. My uncle's firm is hiring. Real work. Real credit. Decent pay."
Lin Jie set down his chopsticks, eyes flickering with frustration.
"Wu's stealing another paper."
Yueru froze. Just for a second. Then, voice cold:
"I'll kill him."
"Not helpful."
"Practical," she corrected, calmly dunking lamb into chili broth.
"My uncle still owes me three favors. He's got an opening in R&D. Private lab. Triple your salary. No vultures."
Lin Jie exhaled slowly. The offer tempted him. But...
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because if I quit… Wu wins."
Yueru leaned forward, her jade pendant catching the light. He wore the twin beneath his shirt—a pair passed down from her mother, one for each of them just before the crash.
"I've been gathering everything," Lin Jie murmured. "Emails, drafts, timestamped commits... In a month, I'll have enough to implicate both Wu and Justin. I just need to finish the trail."
Yueru's expression turned unreadable.
"Then we wait."
She lifted her beer again, and the moment passed.
"Listen, xiao shusheng," she began.
Then suddenly, the sky screamed.
First, it was a tremor. Then a ripple. Then a shattering—light crackled like broken glass across the firmament, electric blue tendrils stitching the heavens into a burning net.
"Solar flare?" Lin Jie asked, blinking up.
"Missile?" Yueru muttered. "Or has the Orange Idiot from the West finally pressed the wrong button?"
The entire market froze—noodles mid-slurp, toddlers mid-scream.
Then the sound hit: a low, world-ending chord, as if some ancient god had just rung a celestial bell.
The neon sign above the restaurant exploded in a shower of sparks.
Yueru moved faster than conscious thought. Her hand clamped onto Lin Jie's wrist. He barely had time to scream before the world dissolved into white.
--
Lin Jie awoke in darkness.
Not the comforting dark of a dorm room, nor the sterile dark of a lab after hours. This was primeval—heavy, wet, and reeking of sulfur and decay.
Thick pea-green mist slithered around his limbs like the fingers of a drowned corpse. Mangroves twisted skyward like skeletal hands, roots arched into grotesque bridges. The air clung to his lungs like a wet towel dipped in rot.
Somewhere, water dripped with the rhythm of a dying heart.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
"Yueru?" he croaked.
A gurgle answered.
Lin Jie shoved through waist-high sludge, dress shoes long gone. His lab coat hung like a soaked shroud.
On a mound of peat, Shen Yueru stirred. Mud streaked her face like warpaint, her turtleneck torn to reveal a lattice of old scars.
"Status," she barked, sitting upright with the precision of a soldier who had slept in foxholes and worse.
"Alive. Confused. Possibly concussed."
The swamp inhaled.
Then—
A thousand voices fractured into one, thunderous and cold:
[Welcome to Fractured Earth.You have been chosen by the Celestial Pantheon—the Eternal Sovereigns—to entertain them.Their gaze is upon you. Survive. Conquer. Ascend.]
Above them, the clouds twisted into impossible shapes—faces of flame and shadow, stars for eyes, mouths that laughed in spectral silence.
Lin Jie's knees buckled. "What is this? Military VR?"
Yueru laughed—short, sharp, terrifying.
"Unless PLA tech got way better, no."
[Territory System Initialized.
Novice Protection Activated: 1km x 1km sanctuary granted.
Duration: 7 days.
Boundary Marker: Golden aurora. No entry beyond permitted.]
To the north, a golden shimmer sliced through the swamp's gloom, like hope etched in sunlight.
[All survivors begin with:
Lord's Lodge (Level 1)
Basic Supplies Chest
Cross-Territory Exchange
Recruitment Portal]
A shack materialized on a nearby hill—warped wood, sagging porch, a glowing arch of runes beside a corroded lockbox.
[You are grouped with those sharing bonds of blood, loyalty, or fate.
Server Assignment: East Asia-12 (Beijing Metropolitan Region)]
[Communication Channels Unlocked:
Global Chat (5 messages/day)
Regional Chat (Unlimited)
Private Messaging (Unlimited)]
Translucent screens burst to life before them:
[Global Chat]
User_8892 (North America – 23): HELP! Snow biome—teeth, so many teeth—
User_4501 (East Europe - 7): Anyone? My wife's gone—
User_3211 (Middle East – 12): For the user above: maybe your wife just found someone more loyal lol
User_4501: I SWEAR TO GOD—
[Regional Chat: East Asia -12]
Zhang Wei: I was just about to take my TOEFL!! WHAT IS THIS??
Wang Fang: Please help, I'm alone. I'm scared of the dark.
Wu Chingji: This is real. I am a renowned scientist. You can transfer me all your materials. We will benefit together.
Fang Chenhuan: Everyone! Look at your skills! I got an A-rank! I can summon skeleton workers! Beat that!
--
Yueru, ever the soldier, dismissed the screens with a flick.
"All noise. Focus on us."
Lin Jie stared at the chat, stunned. "Professor Wu's here too?"
"He's already scheming," she said. "Classic."
He nodded numbly, his hands still shaking.
So began their descent.
[A//N]: Hi! This is my first ever attempt to write a novel. I admit that I am not very good and I have very low expection in this novel.
English is my 4th language, so I am using softwares to correct my grammar, so it may seem inaccurate for some. I will edit these chapters soon so that any Chinese words that are culturally significant will have a footnote for readers who may not be familliar with these.
Please be kind to me, and please critic my work as intelligently as possible.
Thanks to whoever will read this.