Chapter 2: The Internet Café

The Legend of the Mage

Braving the scorching sun, Lin Jia dashed into an internet café, his face flushed red from the heat. Like a starving mutt, he headed straight for the fridge, yanked out a bottle of cola, and gulped it down with his head tilted back. The frantic swallowing made his throat emit disgusting gurgling sounds, and the cola that overflowed from the corners of his mouth splattered merrily onto his sweat-soaked T-shirt.

"Burp~~~!" Feeling revived, Lin Jia let out a resounding soda burp that turned heads among those surfing online. Then, he fished a coin from his dripping shorts—so soaked even his underwear was wet—and tossed it onto the counter where the young lady managing the café sat, ending her prolonged wary gaze.

He reached up and tore off the vent flap from the cabinet air conditioner, letting the cold air blast his face, utterly unconcerned as the café manager gingerly picked up the damp coin with her delicate fingers and tossed it in the till with an expression of distaste.

After basking in the chill for a while, Lin Jia felt himself start to shiver. He lifted his clammy, drenched T-shirt to wipe his sweaty face, finally feeling invigorated enough to scan the café, searching for someone among the crowd.

This Longtai Internet Café was no small place—thirty or forty computers filled the spacious hall, all well-equipped and connected via fiber broadband. The only downside was its distance from his residential neighborhood; otherwise, it would have made an excellent hideout.

Lin Jia had arranged to meet a few close friends here, but arriving early, he had foolishly ventured across the street to No. 6 Middle School for a game of basketball with a group of kids. Not only had he nearly dehydrated in the blazing sun, but his sandals had snapped, leaving him to shuffle along, dragging his feet so the sole wouldn’t flop down like a dog’s tongue.

Despite his notoriously poor basketball skills—ten shots, nine misses—today, luck favored him: he managed to score four goals, a rare feat that made him forget all about his scheduled meeting. Though one of those shots had gone into his own basket, a goal was a goal!

"There you are! Finally! Why are you so late?" A girl in the corner, standing opposite another air conditioner, waved at him, catching his attention. Lin Jia grinned sheepishly and hobbled over, dragging his broken sandal.

"Get away from me! What happened to you? Fall into a toilet or something?" As Lin Jia drew near, the round-faced girl wrinkled her nose and stepped back, repelled by his sweaty odor.

"Heh, I came early and played basketball over at No. 6 Middle School," Lin Jia explained, grinning as he glanced at the young man in a sleeveless black vest sitting where the girl had been. She had been standing behind him, watching him play on the computer.

"You lunatic, Lin!" The girl cursed, unable to endure his antics, and turned her attention back to the screen she’d been watching. The young man was playing a game, with speakers occasionally emitting meowing sounds and pitiful shrieks.

"What are you playing, Fourth?" Lin Jia rested his sweaty arm on the young man's left shoulder and bent over to peer at the screen, where a little character in grayish-white clothes darted back and forth.

"Get off me! Don't mess with me! You got me killed!" The young man, called "Fourth" by Lin Jia, found his left hand sluggish on the keyboard under Lin Jia's weight. The character he controlled was instantly swarmed by a group of meowing gray-black monsters and died with a loud scream. Fourth shook Lin Jia's arm off angrily, shot him a glare, and turned back to mournfully eye the dozen white objects lying beside his fallen character.

"What's your problem? What is this game, anyway?" Lin Jia squinted, puzzled, trying to make out the objects that Fourth cared so much about—white, looking somewhat like plucked chickens.

"Touching the gray ruins their quality! They could’ve sold for thousands!" Fourth quickly clicked a button, and the screen changed to two characters standing in separate boxes. Before Lin Jia could see clearly, Fourth clicked again, re-entering the game. He frantically directed his character back to the spot where he died, only to find two or three other white-clad players beating the meowing monsters. The chickens were gone—probably picked up by someone else.

Disappointed, Fourth directed his character back to the respawn point—a small village fenced with wooden rails. Here, only clucking hens and sika deer roamed, seemingly non-hostile and much safer than the previous area.

Once back in the safe zone, Fourth turned around, excited. "Second, this game is awesome! Way better than Millennium! It's not like Millennium, where everyone’s a wooden dummy! Hurry and find a machine to try it!"

"Looks fun! I want to try too!" the round-faced girl chimed in, dragging a chair to the computer next to Fourth. "How do I start? Tell me how to do it!"

"Boss, computers 33 and 35!" Lin Jia shouted, then quickly said to Fourth, "Wait, wait up! Let me join you!"

Both the round-faced girl and Fourth were Lin Jia’s classmates from vocational high school—one named Xu Fangfang, the other Xu Hongbin. Fourth had been Lin Jia’s classmate since kindergarten, elementary, middle school, and all the way through vocational high school. The three had just graduated, now unemployed and idle. As alumni of a steel company-affiliated school that didn’t even qualify as a technical college, their lack of employment needed no justification.

All three were only children, still unable to adjust to life outside school. Their parents, dual employees at a major steel enterprise—holders of the so-called "iron rice bowl"—were reluctant to let their kids do any hard labor. Thus, a batch of carefree, jobless youth indulging in their parents’ hard-earned money emerged in this small city, forming the backbone of the flourishing internet café industry. Many young people in similar situations became the foundation of the boom.

The tight-knit trio had stuck together after graduation, playing and hanging out. Along with two other boys and two girls, they’d sworn siblinghood, calling themselves the "Diamond Calabash Brothers."