I have an Apocalypse City

"Dear sir, first of all, please accept my sincere wishes. Would you mind taking a moment to look at this makeup product in my hand? It's the latest development from our company, a moisturizer that removes blemishes and whitens and nourishes the skin. It's a result of 81 processes finely crafted. You deserve to have it. This is a brochure for your reference...."

"Scram!"

"Ah, okay!"

...

Song Jian picked up the brochure that the man had thrown on the ground, shook it twice, and emotionlessly headed towards the next pedestrian. Having worked in sales for over a month after graduation, he hadn't made much money. The only thing he had gained was a thicker skin.

"Dear lady, first of all, please accept my sincere wishes. This is our company..." Song Jian started his pitch with a polite smile on his face,

In the endless stream of people, he moved onto the next passerby.

At this moment, a guy with a patch of green hair in his forehead, looked at Song Jian who was working hard distributing flyers, sneered, quietly walked over and tapped him on the shoulder saying, "Hey, Jian, haven't you finished yet?"

Song Jian turned his head to see it was a colleague of his named Zhao Yu. They both joined the company at the same time, both were newcomers; on the surface, their relationship was pretty decent.

Song Jian glanced at the empty-handed Zhao Yu, raised his eyebrows, and surprisingly asked, "Have you finished distributing all your flyers?"

When they first joined the company, their task as newcomers was to distribute flyers, at least three thousand per day. It had only been half an hour, and Zhao Yu had astonishingly finished distributing all his flyers, which surprised Song Jian;

Zhao Yu casually brushed his fringe and said casually, "I just ran into a rag-picker who insisted on helping me distribute the flyers. I had no choice but to give all the flyers to him. He even gave me five yuan...."

Song Jian: "...Your approach really leaves me speechless."

The flyer distribution was actually a way of gathering potential customers. As hard as it was, many times opportunities were won in such a way.

However, after spending over a month together, Song Jian noticed that Zhao Yu came from a wealthy family and only came to work when he was bored. He wasn't very proactive at work, spent money lavishly and liked going to expensive places.

"Alright Jian, you can continue distributing here. I'm going to check out the company's cosmetics booth over there. I heard the company hired many dancing girls today and those long legs lined up together are quite a sight!" Zhao Yu licked his lips, swallowing a little, and looked eager to leave.

Watching Zhao Yu walk away, Song Jian shook his head lightly. Poor kids have to grow up early, children without umbrellas should run harder in the rain. Song Jian dared not be as casual as Zhao Yu. On each of the three thousand flyers, his contact information was written by hand. Each flyer represented a glimmer of hope for him.

After standing still for a moment, Song Jian suddenly turned around and headed in the direction of the company's product booth.

Where to distribute the flyers doesn't matter, right? Besides, he can also appreciate... I mean, learn more about the company's products at the booth, right? After all, there are lots of new products on display there....

Just as he crossed a street and turned a corner, a sleazy-looking old man suddenly appeared in front of Song Jian: "Young man, interested in some disks?"

"Disks? What disks?" Song Jian immediately frowned. Maintaining a stern face, his eyes filled with contempt, he looked at the old man and thought to himself: "What era is it? Selling CDs? Can you even sell any? The internet is full of resources, just my phone alone has several tens of GB of study materials... Which eye of yours saw that I need this?"

"I am not that kind of person you imagined!" Song Jian rejected determinedly, with dignity in his face, holding a stack of brochures and continued to walk straight ahead. The sounds of energetic music and dancing started to come from the front. If he didn't hurry up, he would miss...the new company products.

"Young man, this is a mobile game developed by our Sky Domain Game Company, Doomsday City. Do you want to try it out? The activation is free now and we are also offering a newbie gift package..." The sleazy old man was persistent and followed along Song Jian.

"Mo, mobile game?" Song Jian was stunned for a moment, his face turned slightly red.

"Yes, a mobile game. Did you think it was..." A gleam flashed in the old man's eyes.

"Ha, I thought you were talking about a Frisbee for a child." Song Jian wiped off a bit of cold sweat.

"Oh, I see." the sleazy old man didn't probe further. He took out a USB cable and a flash disk, and said. "Our game client is our company's latest design. The biggest selling point of it is that you get a flash disk for playing the game. If you install our game, we will give you this 1024GB flash disk. It's a great deal!"

"1024GB…" Song Jian stopped, intrigued. A flash disk of such capacity was certainly very tempting. He nodded slightly and reservedly said, "Whether you are giving away a flash disk doesn't really matter. The key is that I like playing mobile games. Does this game app download and install quickly? I have other important things to do."

"Don't worry! It's our company's latest invention, the download and install speed is super-fast, it only takes a few seconds." The sleazy old man handed over the data cable and flash disk.

"Well, you know..." Song Jian hesitated and looked at the sleazy old man. The old man's whole demeanor just screamed untrustworthy. If it were a pretty and cute girl, Song Jian would take it without a second thought. But it was just hard to trust this old man in front of him.

"I paid 3,000 yuan for this domestically made phone. If it got a virus and was damaged, I'd be heartbroken!" Song Jian thought to himself. His face showing a hesitant look, he asked, "This is not a mobile virus, is it?"

"Of course not! We're a serious company! This is a legitimate flash drive, a legitimate mobile game!" The sleazy old man seemed to feel offended. He adjusted his tie and argued, "It's an insult to me personally when you say that. It's an insult to our company. It's an insult to the whole mobile game industry. It's an insult to...."

"Alright, alright. Is it okay if I just plug it in?" Song Jian snatched the data cable and flash disk, took out his phone and began to connect them.

"Hey, this data cable matches my phone perfectly. So, is this cable also a giveaway? It should be a set with the flash disk, right..." Song Jian connected his phone, looked up, and the sleazy old man was nowhere to be found.

Song Jian's face changed, he had a sinking feeling. He quickly picked up his phone to check and as expected, the screen was black.

"I shouldn't have trusted you, you sneaky old man..." Song Jian felt like crying but had no tears. He aggressively pulled out the data cable and flash disk, threw them on the ground, and stomped on them a few times.

...

With his phone infected by a virus, Song Jian was no longer in the mood to watch the dancing girls. He needed to have his phone fixed first. He ran to several phone repair places but none of them could revive his phone. The cost of replacing the parts was too high and Song Jian simply couldn't afford it.

His phone wasn't fixed, but he still had to finish distributing the flyers. Finally, by dusk, Song Jian had finished passing out all three thousand of them. He returned to his rented room, dejected, threw himself on the bed without even closing the door, unmoving.

"Damn, old man, don't let me cross paths with you again. Next time I see you, you're dead meat!" Song Jian gritted his teeth, hitting his pillow with intensity.

At that moment, the cell phone lying on the table suddenly started playing the boot-up music, lighting up its screen.

"Huh, it's self-starting?" Song Jian bolted upright from the bed, grabbed his phone, and began checking it carefully.

"Thank goodness, my study materials on island life of several dozen gigabytes are still there, and all the applications are fine too." Song Jian breathed a long sigh of relief after confirming that his phone was not corrupted by a virus.

"Huh, why is there an extra client? This is... Doomsday City game?" Song Jian looked at the newfound icon on his phone with surprise.

"So this is that perverted old man's mobile game? Damn, it must be a virus, trying to scam me!" Song Jian thought about the USB he had thrown away and couldn't help but feel regret. After being reformatted, the USB should have still been usable - he was too impulsive back then!

Song Jian curled his lip, the game icon depicted a city that carried an apocalyptic style, though the color was dull, and it looked rough. The first impression it left was just as bad as most domestically produced sham mobile games, without any urge to open it at all.

Song Jian tried to press and delete the icon but found that the game icon did not budge at all, there was no way to delete it.

Powering off and restarting, running the mobile security guard, complete shredding, nothing could handle this game icon.

It couldn't be deleted, heck, it couldn't even be moved - it was the most stubborn virus Song Jian had ever encountered.

"And you claimed it wasn't a virus!" Song Jian couldn't help but curse, "The company that developed this game deserves to be struck by lightning!"

Fuming, Song Jian felt like he was about to burst. He was about to throw his phone, but in the end, he couldn't bear to. Lifting his phone, he relented, looking at the game's logo, Song Jian double-tapped on it.

"Come on, let's see how trash this virus game of yours is! If you have the guts, you'd blow up my phone."

This time, the game App responded promptly. The entire icon turned into a blood-red elliptical gate, instantly filling the entire screen. Streams of air coalesced into one another, forming a clockwise vortex.

"Eh, the startup special effect actually seems well-made?" Song Jian stared at the central, rotating, blood-red gate, a trace of astonishment flickering in his eyes, "Well, how about something even more exciting...?"

Before he finished speaking, a skeletal hand suddenly stretched out from the vortex at the center of the screen, directly grabbing Song Jian by his collar.

Song Jian had no time to react before he was dragged into the blood-red portal by the skeletal hand.

His phone hung in the air for two seconds before falling onto the bed with a thud. The room was empty, as if nothing had happened.

"What the hell? Did I just travel through time?"

"What the fuck is this? Let go of me!"

...

Song Jian only felt himself being yanked forward by the skeletal hand, unable to see anything in the engulfing darkness. His head was buzzing, as if something was being forcefully injected into it. Before long, Song Jian's eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted.

In his semi-conscious state, Song Jian felt like he was having a strange dream.

In his dream, he saw lines of golden text appearing before him like a waterfall...

Game activation, random world evolution starting...

Game matching link search...

Link successful, player consciousness lock...

Start character creation...

Character creation timed out...

Scanning player's current status, creating a game character with a 100% match with the player...

Warning, under this status, the player's game character may have certain effects on their physical bodies in reality, please choose carefully...

Choice timed out, default confirmation...

Game character creation...

Character creation successful...

Congratulations on your first entry into the game, you will receive a newbie gift pack that has been sent to your game package, please check it...

Start entering the game...

Buzz...

With a light sound, Song Jian's consciousness gradually returned, his fingers began to tremble slightly, and a hoarse male laughter echoed in his ear.

"Welcome to Doomsday City..."