To find a way off the island, Jiang Ye examined every interface and function in the game.
She had to admit, the game’s UI was excellent: clean and straightforward, and the personal information page was just as simple.
[Id: A Leaf Boat
Level: 2
HP: 192 (full health)
Stamina: 17 (energetic)
Identity: Island Collector (1/100) (Your journey of exploration has only just begun)]
Other than the most basic stats, there was nothing else.
Jiang Ye guessed that this setup was because immersive games were more like the real world, and characters wouldn't be limited by starting attribute points.
Here, it was the player’s own potential that drove character development and pointed the way forward.
Jiang Ye mocked herself: So, her potential was to be stuck on a deserted island?
After combing through all the game’s interfaces and finding nothing, Jiang Ye didn’t dare act rashly.
While she sat in silence thinking, a system reminder popped up.
[System: Dear player, someone is calling you from the real world. Would you like to accept?]
As soon as Jiang Ye pressed accept, A-Xing’s clear, youthful voice sounded in her ear.
A-Xing sounded worried: "Xiao Jiang, are you okay?"
On the day she crossed over, Jiang Ye had been found by A-Xing amidst a heap of junk piled on a trash mountain.
From then on, she followed this self-declared boss, a yellow-haired boy, scavenging the wasteland.
A-Xing was essentially Jiang Ye’s boss.
Besides scavenging, they sometimes took on odd cargo jobs. They never saved much money, but it was enough to barely survive.
Now, A-Xing sent a link from his neural network. "Xiao Jiang, this is you, right?"
Jiang Ye clicked and found a hot thread on the game’s anonymous forum.
“Heavy bounty! All players, hunt down this double-black woman!”
[Thread starter: I've Got Lots of Hair]
[Content: Got messed with while queueing into the game today. Annoyed as hell. After requeuing, still haven’t gotten in. Posting here—anyone who’s gotten in, do me a favor, kill someone for me. Black hair, black eyes, name’s Descendant of the Dragon, id: 'The one with black hair is your dad'. No video, drew a sketch from memory. Attention! 10,000 star coins for each kill. DM me the video for a deal. My in-game id is the same as my forum name.
Attachment: [image] ]
Jiang Ye opened the picture, and fell silent at the bald man’s artistic ability.
Jiang Ye said, "You could tell that’s me from that ghostly thing?"
A-Xing replied, "How many people with black eyes and black hair can even get in now? Plus, that name and id totally match your style. Xiao Jiang, did you get into trouble?"
Jiang Ye told A-Xing what happened during the queue.
A-Xing got excited. "You did nothing wrong! Xiao Jiang, hide for now! Don’t let anyone else kill you. Wait till I get in—I’ll kill you a dozen times myself, that’ll give us enough to run!"
Jiang Ye was instantly tempted. "That’s a great idea!"
They’d come into the game to make money to fund their escape.
A few days ago, Jiang Ye had helped A-Xing accompany the boss of their trash planet, Scar Tiger, on a trip to another planet for a delivery.
When they arrived, though, they found the cargo box was full of young beastfolk, none of whom had reached adulthood. The two of them discussed it and let the beastfolk go instead of bringing them back to the wasteland.
Scar Tiger was so furious that he wrecked their current shipping container home and ordered his men to hunt them down.
Jiang Ye and A-Xing had been prepared, so they flew their battered ship to the other side of the planet to hide, intending to save up enough money to stow away to another world.
Their garbage-collecting and delivery gigs were gone. They’d been worrying about how to make money, until they saw an ad for Carefree Wanderings.
They didn’t care if the game was fun, only that the company promised that in the second server, the first three players to clear the beginner trial would win a reward of 100,000 to 300,000 star coins.
If any player could clear the entire game storyline, they’d earn a five hundred million star coin prize and five percent of the company’s shares.
Jiang Ye, having once been a game planner on Bluestar, could instantly see it was a marketing ploy.
But she had no choice but to gamble.
Five hundred million!
If she really could win five hundred million in the end, Jiang Ye could buy a high-performance starship, make a massive leap, and finally start her journey home.
Her home was on Blue Star, and there, her only family—her paralyzed younger sister Jiang Li—was waiting.
She trusted the kind nurse-auntie who helped, but Jiang Li was completely dependent on her.
Jiang Li, awkward around strangers and never meeting anyone’s gaze, would only look at her with innocent eyes and call for her, full of trust.
Jiang Ye didn’t dare think what would happen to Jiang Li after she crossed into another world.
Now, she couldn’t be sure the Blue Star in this universe was her original one. She had no way of knowing whether Jiang Li would even be in the right timeline when she eventually got back.
But as long as there was hope, Jiang Ye had to return.
She figured, even if she couldn’t get the company’s prize, she could earn money by taking advantage of the game’s one-to-one exchange rate between coins and star coins. That had to be faster than scavenging, right?
Who knew—
She’d be trapped on a deserted island.
Jiang Ye was dying of anxiety. She told A-Xing everything, and warned, "Don’t log in with your headset. Or you might get stuck in this bug too."
A-Xing waved it off. "No way, mine’s an official one."
Jiang Ye was stunned and realized the truth.
Through gritted teeth, she said, "A-Xing—"
A-Xing shot right back, "You didn’t have any money, and what I had left wasn’t enough. I had no other choice but to buy you a cheap one from the underground market."
It made sense. Jiang Ye didn’t argue, but could only swallow her bitterness.
Whose fault was it? Only her own for being poor.
A-Xing tried to cheer her up. "Don’t worry, there’s got to be a way out. Besides, think of it this way, it’s actually a good thing!"
Jiang Ye sounded hopeless. "How is this a good thing?"
A-Xing rubbed his hands together. "This way no one can find you, and you won’t get hunted in the game. I’ll log in now. If you make it out, let’s scam that bald guy for a fortune. Heh, let’s rake it in!"
Jiang Ye wailed, "I want to get out too!!"
"Wait a second!"
A thought flashed through Jiang Ye’s mind.
"A-Xing, try removing my login device or just power it off from your end."
Jiang Ye and A-Xing’s login devices were the cheapest, simplest kind: wearable bone-conducting earbuds, easy to take off.
A-Xing was about to do it, when the little chubby bird—who’d been out cold for ages—suddenly opened its beady eyes. It crawled out of Jiang Ye's pocket, flapped its wings, and urgently blocked him. "No, no!! You can’t!! Forcibly disconnecting a body-linked login device will cause intense pain, and may even cause mental trauma!"
A-Xing hesitated.
But Jiang Ye was firm. "Do it! Now!"
A-Xing steeled his nerves, took a deep breath, and yanked Jiang Ye’s earbud out.
Snap!
The moment the earbud disconnected, Jiang Ye felt every nerve in her brain being torn apart. It was like countless hands grabbed the nerves in her head and yanked them in every direction, with overwhelming force.
Pure agony crashed down on her, her brain about to explode.
She bit down hard, her face pale, enduring so fiercely that blood welled up at the corner of her mouth.
Jiang Ye wanted to scream, to groan, but not a sound escaped her lips.
The game world before her disintegrated like doomsday. Jiang Ye shook her head violently, clutching it in both hands as if she wanted nothing more than to smash it against the wall.
A-Xing quickly grabbed her, afraid she’d hurt herself. He couldn’t stand it, his voice full of pain for her. "Xiao Jiang, do you really have to be this hard on yourself?"
Out of the game and back in the real world, Jiang Ye said nothing. She pushed A-Xing’s hand away and curled up on the bunk.
She trembled all over, sweat soaking her face, her vision a swirling blur.
It felt like a million ants were gnawing at her brain, and pain—like a demon—dragged her toward hell.
Jiang Ye panted heavily. It took her ages to recover and reach out her hand to A-Xing.
"Give it to me."
The white earbud dropped into her palm.
She squeezed it, let go, took a deep breath, and put it back on.
A dazzling light flashed by. In the background music’s lively melody, Jiang Ye looked for the queue screen and beginner village—but neither appeared.
She blinked, and she was still on the island.
The sea lay still as glass. A seagull flashed by with a squawk, shat in the water, stuck its butt up, and flew away, as if mocking Jiang Ye's efforts.
A-Xing spoke to her from the outside: "Did it work?"
Jiang Ye was crushed.
Her voice was flat and hoarse: "No."
A-Xing sighed. "Xiao Jiang, don’t torment yourself. Let me log in, do my best to latch onto a pro. Once I clear the beginner trial, we’ll have money and everything will be fine."
Jiang Ye listened to A-Xing and felt it was unreliable.
She trusted herself most.
She closed the call and stared at the ocean.
Given her experience making games, there would never be any map that was just ocean on all sides, island barely big enough for one person, and nothing else to do.
This dump was obviously a bugged map with unfinished assets.
After thinking it over, Jiang Ye figured she was down to her last resort: suicide.
She decided to try running into the tree again.
Despite the dizziness, Jiang Ye butted the tree eighty more times.
When her HP dropped to just 112, suddenly, the system notification popped up again.
Jiang Ye knew it was bad.
[System: By ramming the tree trunk 200 times, your skull density has increased, and you’ve learned a unique skill: Iron Head Technique. Skill level 1.]
Jiang Ye wanted to scream.
What the hell is this!
Does a fully immersive game need to be this random and intelligent!?
She stubbornly wrapped her arms around the coconut tree and rammed into it again.
Crack.
The trunk split.
Chubby Bird was stunned and poked the trunk with the tip of its wing.
Thud.
The coconut tree broke in half, top splashing into the sea, water spraying Jiang Ye in the face.
She wiped away the painfully salty seawater and gazed at the floating trunk in silence.
After a long while, Jiang Ye asked Chubby Bird, "Have you reported my situation to the game company?"
"When are your programmers coming to fix this bug?"
Chubby Bird looked evasive. "I’ve notified them, maybe… maybe in a week?"
But she was thinking, Even if I die, I won’t report it! If I file a report, the game supervisor will erase me forever.
Sensing something off, Jiang Ye narrowed her eyes, her tone serious. "Dear beginner guide, I don’t know who you really are, but before I logged in, I promised you this: if anything happened, I’d talk to your supervisor myself and take full responsibility so it wouldn’t affect your job performance. Really. I just want this bug fixed as soon as possible."
Chubby Bird pretended to understand. "Yeah, yeah, I reported it. I’m busy, I gotta go, bye!"
With that, she vanished.
Since Chubby Bird had decided to slack off, Jiang Ye was powerless.
She sat on the island, watching the sea while the wind whipped her hair across her face.
Jiang Ye spat out the hair she’d just bitten, thinking about the suicide method Chubby Bird had suggested.
Jump into the ocean.
Jiang Ye weighed the risks and decided to get it over with quickly.
She got up, clenched her jaw, and stood with heroic resolve at the edge of the island, gazing down at the tranquil sea.
A light breeze swept up gentle ripples.
Jiang Ye’s heart hammered in fear. Her legs felt weighted with lead, refusing to move. Determined, she closed her eyes and forced down the urge to run away.
Images of people plunging into the ocean, vanishing into darkness, suffocating, clawing desperately toward the surface but falling short, continued to flood her mind.
Suddenly, a bright spot appeared.
Jiang Li’s smile.
Jiang Li, lying in her hospital bed, dressed in white patient’s clothes, her gentle smile fresher than the lilies beside her.
A spark of fire lit inside Jiang Ye.
She had to escape this place!
She had to get back to Blue Star!
Jiang Ye took a step and fell forward without hesitation.
Splash!
She plunged into the deep sea.
Yet, there was no suffocating sensation. It was exactly like standing on solid ground.
Jiang Ye trembled and opened her eyes, checking her status.
[System: Congratulations, player, on unlocking the “Like a Fish in Water” passive skill of an Island Collector. Current skill level 1. You may breathe freely underwater for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, this skill’s buff disappears. Please keep yourself safe.]