1 Prologue - The Way To The Other Side

It had been an incomparably normal day for Shun Yi. Seriously, it couldn't have been any more normal. The koel still shrieked outside his badly soundproofed room at 6 in the morning; his annoying neighbour, auntie Shen, scared the whole neighbourhood awake with her blaring speaker system at 6.45 sharp, the bright and energetic sounds of broadcast gymnastics destroying the peace of the neighbourhood.

His life at school hadn't been any different either; the hustle and bustle of students streaming out from their classes wasn't anything new to Shun Yi. New day, same shit. Shun Yi mused to himself as he strolled out of the lecture theatre whilst slinging his bagpack.

"If only the world could be a little more interesting." Shun Yi mentally sighed as he headed nonchalantly past a duo of pretty girls. As with any other healthy young male, Shun Yi had of course tested his luck with the ladies. However, in his 20 years of existence he still hadn't managed to approach a single girl. That's right - not even one. He'd long learnt to treat the girls as air. It wasn't that Shun was ugly. On the contrary, his lean physique, as well as slightly above average facial features could have scored him as a decent lad.

For some reason, however, girls avoided him like the plague. Shun Yi hypothesised that it must've been the constant smell of food hanging around him that scared them away. After all, his family owned the (self proclaimed) number one Chinese Restaurant in the west side of the district, and Shun Yi usually helped out after classes. "Girls are definitely scared off because I smell too delicious." Shun nodded to himself sagely as he sidestepped a twintailed girl who was wildly swinging her hands about. After all, all girls wanted to control their weight.

"You gotta believe me! It was thiiiiis big!" The girl excitedly jumped about as she spread her arms. "Psh, Li Li, stop exaggerating! The biggest fish anybody has ever seen in Dissidia's only the length of my arm!" Her friend snorted in disbelief as she flicked her forehead. "Hmph, you're only level 17 right now, what would you know?" Li Li arrogantly put her hands on her hips as she proudly proclaimed. "The level 39 expert, Li Li, is telling you right now that there's a giant fish monster. We even managed to down half it's health before it decided to run back into the sea."

Shun smiled bitterly as he walked away. Dissidia. This fantasy VRMMORPG had taken the world by storm when it had been released 3 months ago. <<Live your dream>>. Dissidia's tagline had drawn many dispirited workers into the game, making billions of dollars of profit in the process. Shun Yi had never found a chance to play, unfortunately. The occuupational hazard of running a family-owned business meant he never had free time on his hands.

The incomparably normal day, however, suddenly had its peace broken.

"Watch out!" A female student shrieked as a huge flower pot fell from the 4th story of the building.

Bang!

Shun Yi felt the world spinning as he blacked out.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"