Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Zhao Youyue opened the Tencent gaming platform. This was considered the greatest digital software sales platform within the Chinese sphere of influence. It could easily compete with Steam on equal grounds, and was more powerful than the “Wegame” that was a part of the Tencent of another world.

This was unavoidable, as the other world’s China was basically making Single-Player Games with sticks and stones. Piracy was so rampant that games had even been considered the electronic opium. This had lived up to the “King of Thunderbolt” – Professor Yang’s[1] philosophy. Domestic Single-Player Games were thoroughly unpopular. The money spamming trash online games online games rose to the stage. This was undoubtedly a most pitiful matter.

If one wanted triple-A experience[2], he could only find one from foreign games

Fortunately, the China gaming industry of this world was very well-developed, especially concerning domestic Single-Player Games. Among them, there was no lack of triple-A level masterpieces. At the same time, the nation provided a platform that was akin to Steam. This was very convenient.

Zhao Youyue spent over 200 RMB to purchase “Tale of Wuxia 3- Sword of the Future”, along with its DLC. Compared to the other Single-Player Games, this price was considered relatively expensive. But compared to those money sucking online games, this was nothing!

A few skins within the game “King of Glory” cost more than a hundred RMB, whereas a gun within the game “CrossFire” cost 888 RMB!

Zhao Youyue’s computer was cutting-edge and had to be one of the most powerful gaming rigs in the world. She could easily play this game on ultra settings. Of course, this would look great on screen, to the benefit of her stream. Her viewers would be treated to something like a special effects-laden blockbuster!

Her internet would make short work of this large-scale download. It would take her no more than half an hour to start things off. The entire game client was not necessary to initialize gameplay. You could start playing with only a quarter of the client, whereby it would continue downloading in the background.

For those ten minutes, Zhao Youyue got busy. She first played a violin song for the audiences, which could be considered as a warm-up, and also to satisfy the request of many fans among the bullet curtains.

Some fans even asked Zhao Youyue if she would be performing at the classical concert hall again. Her live performances were still the best ever

Zhao Youyue certainly could not respond to that. Her future career choice would have to depend on fate. If she truly was Chu Luoxun, she might most likely focus on music. Unfortunately, she was not. She was Zhao Youyue.

After she finished performing a song, the audiences spammed a wave of free gifts. Zhao Youyue opened the game “Tale of Wuxia 3 – Sword of the Future,” brimming with anticipation.

Just like many AAA masterpieces, the game opened with a high-quality CGI opening. One of its claims – “Ten years in the making – nine years of which had been spent on CG” was not just a joke...

After the game’s logo splashed across the screen with a boom, she saw an ink painting that looked just like the ancient calligraphy in Wuxia movies unfurling itself. The narrator started booming away ——

“Generations passed, throughout the winds and rains, great dominance and grand accomplishments, yet such tales could only be told to the mountain ghosts! We’ve taken great pride in our great battles, but let’s take one moment to talk about the hundreds of years of the lawless world! About the sword Deity in green, swinging his longsword, uttering his warcry!”

“If I, Li Chungang had not been born, swordsmanship would have been as dim and dull as the dark, long night! Behold, the Swords of the future!”

The entire screen seemed to be filled with the aura of swords. The scene seemed to be rather grand. It could completely stimulate the players’ longing to be in the thick of the Wuxia and a lawless world!

Zhao Youyue could not help but sigh, “This game claims to be an anti-Wuxia production. Weren’t they proudly announcing on how they were going to be so different from typical Wuxia swordsmen flicks? But look at this opening. It’s screaming Wuxia at me”

The bullet curtain exploded again. Her viewers seemed to be criticizing the game producer, Zha Feng, saying things like how the trailer had been intentionally misleading, how Zha Feng’s conspiracy had just begun, how that image at the beginning was all a smokescreen

From those words, Zhao Youyue already had a rough idea about the situation. Streaming was really nice. It was like playing a game, while being accompanied by thousands of walking guides and walkthroughs. If she misses anything out, her fans would immediately remind her, and she would walk away all the wiser, benefitting from everything the game could offer.

An open world RPG such as this would definitely contain lots of hidden side quests, treasure boxes, and the like. This called for heavy exploration. With the help of the bullet curtain, she would not miss out on any information.

The trailer revealed the rough background of the game. This Li Chungang was some sort of legendary figure. This character would not even appear in the game. That no-show had left many players disgruntled. They wanted so badly to experience the elegance and class of this legendary blade Deity. Even more than that, they had been looking forward most eagerly to employing unbelievable skills and abilities, themselves. They did not expect to find only underwhelming skills and abilities throughout the entire game. Players were forced to keep rolling around and avoiding attacks when raiding a boss. They could never entertain the greed of landing just that one more hit before they had to roll away and save their sorry hides

Zhao Youyue entered the character creation menu. It allowed her to pick a background and adjust options such as facial appearance. For an aesthetics aficionado such as Zhao Youyue, half an hour would be far from enough for her to tweak about the settings until she produced a goddess.

But as things were, she was in the middle of a stream, and she was here to clear the game as soon as possible. Her priorities overcame her almost overwhelming obsessive-compulsive disorder. She randomized a male character, and kept things simple by making him a jarhead. Little did she know that this would affect her gameplay rather significantly!

She could not deny it, this sandbox game was somehow unique in its own way

She could even choose the origin of her in-game character. That menu had been worded in such a way that she had mistaken it as the difficulty settings. She never expected to see the game starting off with a scene of her entire family being massacred!

It was a most shocking, bloody scene. Zhao Youyue could not help but asked, “So, no matter what identity I choose, I lose my entire family at the beginning?”

She was replied with all sorts of “yes” on the bullet curtain. Even if someone chose to be a member of the royal family, they would only be royally massacred. Within a chaotic world of many countries, wasn’t it normal for small nations to be exterminated at will?

Now that the entire family was dead, the protagonist certainly would not, and could not die. This also calls for the main quest, to avenge his parents!

Wuxia and Vengeance almost always walked hand in hand. It was so prevalent that Wuxia novels could practically be called Revenge novels. Within games, such a theme would be as stale. The protagonist could play a round of “Quint cards”[3] or something else, long before his revenge

Zhao Youyue’s protagonist hailed from a small village. The first boss was a thief in the mountain. This boss was also called the “The Game Quitting Advisor” boss. His encounter was unavoidable, his boss fight unskippable. Players had always been critical of this. Where was the promised ‘sandbox’ open world?

As Zhao Youyue started playing the game, she told the audiences that she wanted to walk the path of justice, be a good man, and not take unnecessary lives.

As a result, she started encountering “Zha Feng’s bad intention” in no time at all

Zhao Youyue was a master of games. She almost leisurely bullied the so-called “Game Quitting Advisor” boss. In the end, as the thief was beaten to the last drop of his HP, he started begging for mercy. He promised to turn into a new leaf, and never be a thief anymore while begging the protagonist to let him go.

Zhao Youyue showed him mercy, and let him go. Finally, she could head out and explore the lawless world

In the end, she completed the first main quest, successfully joined the “Two Zen Monastery,” and returned to the village of her origin, only to find that her village had been slaughtered by the very thief she had once let free. The thief had even built up a “Corpse Collection Tower.”

As she hacked and slashed through the goons, she finally came across the thief again. The thief had laughed in a most dastardly fashion, and had mocked the protagonist for his naive, optimistic ways. He seemed to have become a gang leader, with dozens of subordinates beneath him.

If another player had been in Zhao Youyue’s shoes, he or she would have been doomed. They would be swarmed by the thief boss and his goons, and they could spit on the player to death. Such a player would lose hope in the game, and rampage through the game, as evilly as the game had treated them. He would most certainly commit all forms of murder, never to believe in the words of any villain again...

But Zhao Youyue sighed and tenderly said, “Amitabha, I hereby liberate him of the bondages of his mortal coil and rescue him from the weight of his wrongdoings!”

Translation Note:

[1] “King of Thunderbolt” Professor Yang – The name’s Yang Yongxin, the Deputy Dean of The Fourth Hospital of Linyi, which was once known as Linyi Mental Hospital. He’s also the director of the Internet Addiction Treatment Center in Linyi. He’s known as “The national expert for internet addiction treatment.” He used electric shock as a “treatment,” and at the same time applying all kinds of mental brainwashing onto the “patients.”

[2] 3A-level – In order for a game to be considered as a 3A-level, it has to at least include the followings: high quality, broad market, great sales, large development team, huge development budget, well-polished audio-visual direction, perfect technical and artistic execution, playable and fully enjoyable within the first five minutes of the gameplay, thoroughly tested, bug free, great usability, continuous and balanced entertainment from the beginning till the end, and also great graphical user interface. A game with the listed features could basically be considered as a 3A-level game.

[3] Quint cards – An in-game mini game that can be played anytime, with any NPC. For example, the wife of a NPC is going to be killed. Time’s running out. That NPC begs for your help, hoping that you can save his wife. Then, at this moment, there will be the conversation options, either choosing to save or not to save. And there’s a third option, to play the “Quint cards” (This is a game setup, as the NPC has a very rare card in hand, and the players can only obtain it by winning the NPC in “Quint cards.” Players can only choose to play the mini game at this moment to obtain the card, as after the quest is completed, the NPC will disappear for good, and can never be found anymore). Then, when you choose to play the “Quint cards,” you will find the NPC crying emotionally a second ago, hurrying to rescue his wife, but the next second, he immediately cares about nothing...play the game first.