Now that his younger sister was gone, he was all alone.In the time between then and now, there was a period of self-abandonment.
Yi Mo blamed all the mistakes on himself.
He did not know if pain truly made a person stronger, but after his sister left, Yi Mo gradually started making money.
He actually made a lot.
Reasonably speaking, that was how his memories were.
But…
Yi Mo felt very strange right now.
Because the memories of the past 2 years…
It felt as though he had forgotten many things, as if pieces were missing.
They were important, yet he could not recall them.
Even his most recent memories had become somewhat blurred, as if he had been asleep for a very, very long time.
Yi Mo could not figure it out.
Subconsciously, he glanced at his phone again to confirm the year and the month.
The date… there was no problem.
Only after confirming this did he know for certain that he had not slept for an eternity.
Dazed, he lifted his head and saw the wardrobe directly opposite his bed was open.
It was filled with various beautiful dresses.
An instinctive physical revulsion drove him to get out of bed, walk over, and pull the wardrobe doors shut.
Those… were all part of his dark history.
He did not want to see them.
Seeing them made him feel miserable from the bottom of his heart.
Returning to bed, he looked at the dense cluster of livestreaming equipment surrounding his computer.
He had no desire to work; instead, he just lay back down, intending to play on his phone for a while.
He habitually opened QQ.
After confirming that a certain someone was not online as usual, he lost interest.
“I’ll sleep a bit more…”
“Maybe I’m not fully awake yet…”
The somewhat distorted and blurry memories in his brain made him want to sleep longer.
But just as he was about to set his phone down, he was drawn to a very conspicuous app on the home screen.
Become an Idol!
The name was trash; it was impossible to tell what kind of app it even was.
However, based on the app icon—a beautiful girl with long silver hair and a slightly cold expression—and the tagline below it that read “Starting with a girlfriend,” Yi Mo assumed it was likely some trashy gacha mobile game.
As a professional game vtb, Yi Mo was certain he had never downloaded this game.
In that case, there was only one possibility: it must have been bundled with another app’s advertisement and installed onto his home screen automatically.
Usually, Yi Mo would have dragged it into the trash and uninstalled it without hesitation.
But as a game vtb, he could not help but click on it.
Maybe it could serve as material for a livestream.
Roasting trash games was something his viewers enjoyed watching.
Of course, that was just an excuse.
The real reason Yi Mo clicked it was because the silver-haired girl on the icon looked remarkably like his former younger sister.
If he had to be specific, aside from the hair color and a slightly more refined look, they were virtually identical!
This… was eerily strange.
“There aren’t any ads?”
“That’s rare,” Yi Mo could not help but mutter.
Upon entering the app, Yi Mo was stunned.
This was not a girl-collecting gacha game at all; it was actually a gaming platform!
It contained all sorts of game genres.
Puzzle games, shooting games, horror games, large-scale dungeon story games, girl dating games, and competitive battle games…
“Ah, this…”
“Can a phone even handle this many games?”
Yi Mo frowned slightly, realizing things were not that simple.
If it were on a computer, it would be normal, but on a phone, a gaming platform like this was just ridiculous, right?
Yi Mo habitually intended to open the shop first to see what kind of pay-to-win items were there.
[Your level is insufficient.]
However, that was the prompt that appeared on the screen.
“I get it, I get it. You need a beginner tutorial, novice tips, and to register an account, right?”
“Sigh… it’s all the same tropes! Suddenly a starter gift pack will pop up, offering 399 gifts for a limited-time top-up of 1 dollar, 6 dollars, or 38 dollars, right?”
Yi Mo did not stop there.
Since it was all material anyway, he figured he would register an account first.
But when he clicked on “My Profile,” he froze.
He was actually already logged into an account, which displayed Level 0.
If an automatic account login was not strange enough, the name displayed in the player name slot—Yi Mo—was a bit terrifying.
“Darn it… bundled software really is trash. It actually stole my personal information!!!”
As a vtb, his personal information was an absolute secret.
It could not be stolen or exploited; otherwise, the consequences would be disastrous!
Yi Mo became angry and planned to exit the app and uninstall it immediately.
However, he found that no matter what he did, he could not exit.
‘This is simply a virus software…’
‘Curiosity killed the cat; I’m caught!’
With dead-fish eyes, Yi Mo stared at his phone.
He wanted to slam it against the ground and stomp on it a few times to vent his frustration.
But since he had paid for it with his own money, it remained just a thought.
Just as Yi Mo was about to force a shutdown, a window suddenly popped up on the app page.
[Current Points: 0]
[Matching Game]
[Game Type: Random]
[Matching… Countdown: 10, 9, 8…]
Watching the countdown numbers on the screen, Yi Mo felt an ominous sensation in his heart for some reason.
He saw two options at the bottom: “Confirm” and “Cancel.”
Yi Mo subconsciously tried to click “Cancel,” but the two greyed-out words did not react at all.
He could only watch the countdown numbers in confusion.
[4, 3, 2…]
[Match successful. We wish you a pleasant game. Survive successfully.]
Click…
At that moment, before Yi Mo could think further, his mind went blank, and he lost consciousness.
This damned app did not give him the right to refuse at all.
***
Yi Mo felt as if his body were floating, as if he had completely lost all weight.
In a daze, his consciousness returned, and he found himself in a pure white space.
Standing in the void, it was clearly a bit terrifying, yet he subconsciously felt at ease.
Just then, a pleasant loli voice echoed in Yi Mo’s mind.
[Game start countdown: 10 minutes.]
[Game Name: Murderer in the Mine.]
[Game Type: Survival.]
[Other Information: Locked.]
[Please select and purchase your desired items, then set your nickname and avatar for this game.]
“Wait, wait, wait!!!!”
Yi Mo instinctively reached out and covered his head, trying to interrupt the loli voice that kept echoing in his skull.
He was completely stunned now…
If he remembered correctly, he had been annoyed by a phone virus and was trying to close it.
The next moment, he appeared in this nonsensical place.
Yi Mo looked around.
There was only a vast, empty milky white, as if he were inside a giant box.
To be honest, he felt like he had seen a scene like this in a movie, but he could not remember which one.
Regardless, this kind of scene definitely did not exist in reality.
This was not a sci-fi movie; no matter how you looked at it, this space was just too eerie!
Furthermore, there was that loli voice echoing in his head.
Though it was pleasant to the ear, it was actually quite frightening when he thought about it.
It was as if the other party knew all your preferences and was intentionally speaking in a voice that matched them.
The possibility of being kidnapped and locked in such a weird place was too small.
Being injected with hallucinogenic drugs was also unlikely.
While dreaming was the most likely possibility, everything before his eyes was just too realistic, wasn’t it?
This… did not feel like a dream!
As for VR, current technology could not achieve this level of full immersion, and he did not believe he owned that kind of equipment anyway.
After thinking it over, Yi Mo concluded he had probably encountered a “ghost”…
Otherwise… there was simply no way to explain what was happening.
As a professional individual vtb, he had plenty of contact with novels, anime, and manga, but when things like transmigration or entering a game actually happened, it gave off a sense of unreality, like a dream.
However, looking at the countdown in the upper right corner that followed his field of vision and the game type…
It really made Yi Mo feel uneasy.
Although he did not know what was happening, since he could not leave, he might as well study it.
If it really was a dream, he would probably regret not doing more crazy things once he woke up.
After all, everything before him was surreal!
Yi Mo looked at the blank nickname column.
Since he was about to participate in a game, he decided to pick a cool-sounding name.
Without much hesitation, as he thought about it, four words appeared in the nickname column.
[Nickname for this session: Kirigaya Kazuto. Confirm?]
Yi Mo clicked confirm immediately.
Seeing that there were still 5 minutes left, he began to study the shop and the character avatar.
There were many items in the shop, but they all required points.
Yi Mo’s points in the bottom right corner showed 0.
Because of the time constraint, he did not continue looking and went straight into the avatar design phase.
It was what people called character customization.
Furthermore, according to the prompt, this feature seemed to be free for a new player’s first game.
Yi Mo tried it out.
If he chose to operate it, a full-length mirror would appear in front of him, and he could slightly adjust his image based on his imagination.
In that case, there was one thing!
Although it was embarrassing, since it was most likely a dream, Yi Mo boldly imagined a beautiful girl image that most suited his own preferences.
[Gender cannot be changed.]