Chapter 1: A Game Appeared in My Mind!

"Yiyi darling, it's Valentine's Day today. How about we try out the couple's suite at Grand Hao Hotel?"

"Sweetheart, didn’t you just get a loan of a hundred thousand? Why not buy me that watch from last time? It’s on Valentine’s sale for only twenty thousand!"

"Baby, I told you, that’s for expanding the shop."

"Chulin, do you just not want to give anything? Are you just playing with me?"

"Yes!" Chulin replied truthfully, decisively deleted her contact, and blocked her without hesitation—the speed and familiarity of it almost hurt to watch.

Was she kidding? They’d only known each other a week, had made love twice, and she wanted him to buy a twenty-thousand-yuan watch? "Baby" he could accept, but this was too much.

And she had the nerve to say he didn’t want to give? He’d given billions twice, hadn’t he?

He put down his phone and looked outside the shop. The market was full of couples holding hands; most people still believed in love.

They say that men, at a certain age, stop believing in love. But he was only twenty-three, and he already didn’t believe in it.

For someone whose parents had died, who had no support, and hadn’t gone to university, he’d seen too much, lived through too much. He’d loved wholeheartedly, given everything, suffered heartbreak, and naturally made his way ashore.

He already understood: love was nothing more than a comparison of values, a calculation of pros and cons.

Now, all he wanted was to make money.

At twenty-three, some people had a Panamera, could handle a Ferrari with one hand, and their girlfriends in the passenger seat were stunning. Why couldn’t he?

Chulin closed the seafood shop and returned to his rented apartment. With the loan finally approved, he needed to think carefully about expanding the business.

His seafood shop was just a small place. He worked from dawn to dusk, earning a little over ten thousand a month. Living in the city, his expenses were high. Aside from paying suppliers, he could barely save anything.

He’d graduated high school at seventeen and entered society without any capital. It wasn’t until he was twenty-one that he managed to open this small shop.

If things continued as they were, his life would be set—and he wasn’t content with that.

So, a loan was the only way. He wouldn’t waste a single cent anywhere else.

Just as he was pondering, a sudden notification chimed in his mind:

[‘Leisure Civilization’ game installation successful. Atlantis Civilization map has been unlocked. Player may now enter…]

With that voice, Chulin was shocked to find a glowing screen had appeared in his mind, showing four silent maps, one of which was shining.

Wasn't this the interface of the ‘Leisure Civilization’ game?

‘Leisure Civilization’ was a casual game he’d just downloaded today, rumored to let players choose from four legendary civilizations said to have appeared on Earth.

For example, by selecting the Atlantis map, he could collect various marine creatures and treasures that refreshed daily, and by completing each animal’s illustrated achievement, he could level up the map and unlock new features.

It was a simple game—after all, it was meant to be relaxing.

But why was it appearing in his mind?

Was he hallucinating?

He hurried his pace back to his apartment.

Just as he arrived, his phone rang unexpectedly. It was his uncle.

He answered, and his uncle’s voice came through: “Xiaolin, it’s been raining lately. Our ancestral house has collapsed at one corner. We need to rebuild.”

Chulin was dumbfounded, then sighed deeply.

Life was a mess—it always threw curveballs whenever you were about to do something important!

His family shared the ancestral house with his uncle’s. It was a rural duplex built by his grandfather, who had two sons: Chulin’s father and his uncle. After the house was divided, the brothers lived on the left and right sides.

Since they shared the supporting columns, any demolition or rebuilding had to be done together—no possibility of independent construction.

Even those who lived in the city held a special sentiment for their ancestral homes, wanting to rebuild them as a sign they’d made it.

Over the past few years, everyone in the village had rebuilt theirs, each more impressive than the last. Not having rebuilt meant feeling inferior during New Year visits.

Because of his situation, neither he nor his uncle had ever rebuilt theirs. It was basically in ruins, and he hadn’t expected it to get this bad.

He’d just gotten a loan for a hundred thousand, and now this?

Chulin could only stay silent, unable to reply. His uncle’s family wasn’t well off either.

He lacked the courage to ask for help.

After all, his uncle had helped him a lot over the years.

His uncle seemed to understand and quickly comforted him: “Xiaolin, I can cover a bit for you. We don’t have to build anything fancy, just something livable.”

“Uncle, you decide. I’ll see what I can do.”

“All right, I’ll pick a day and get things started.”

After hanging up, Chulin sank onto the sofa, his face full of helplessness.

Truly, without money, you didn’t even have the confidence to speak loudly when things happened—often, you had no choices at all.

The urgent matter was solving the ancestral home issue. If he kept dragging it out and the whole house collapsed, he’d be the village laughingstock.

The problem was, even with his supplier payments and the loan, it probably wouldn’t be enough.

But if he spent the money, his shop expansion plans would be ruined—unless he let his uncle rebuild his own half and didn’t bother with his own.

That way, he wouldn’t have to return home, but it would sever his roots.

Unless survival was impossible, no one would make such a choice.

If worse came to worst, he’d have to borrow.

He instinctively took out his phone, searching for his best friend Huang Bin’s number. The only one with the ability and willingness to lend him money was Huang Bin.

He’d only managed to open his seafood shop thanks to Huang Bin’s help.

Just then, the notification chimed again in his mind:

[‘Leisure Civilization’ game, Atlantis Civilization map has been unlocked. Player may now enter…]

“???” Chulin was bewildered.

Again?

The glowing screen appeared in his mind, along with the familiar four civilization maps.

The lit up map was Atlantis.

When he focused his attention on Atlantis, a pulling sensation enveloped him.

In the next moment, his surroundings changed.

He was no longer in his apartment. All around was endless seawater, but the space he occupied was covered by a glowing shield, keeping the water at bay. All sorts of fantastical, luminescent plants lit the area in a dreamlike glow.

This was the Atlantis Civilization map. There was no water inside, yet some special force allowed marine creatures to live unaffected.

Players could move around within the shield, waiting for animals or treasures to refresh.

At first, the map could only refresh one ordinary animal, with a chance for common treasures.

By placing collected animals into the central illustrated compendium, he could level up the map, unlocking more animals and even rare items.

Now, he was inside the map.

Just then, the notification sounded again:

[Current Atlantis map: Level 1. One regular animal—white shrimp—has refreshed!]

Almost instantly, he saw the shielded area filled with swarming white shrimp, leaping about madly.

White shrimp was exactly the animal refreshed by Level 1 Atlantis.

Why Atlantis Level 1 would spawn white shrimp was probably the fault of the game developers’ lack of imagination.

But he quickly noticed something odd about these shrimp.

They were huge—almost twice the normal size.

“This isn’t a hallucination?” Chulin incredulously grabbed one shrimp. The sensation was surprisingly real, and he saw information floating above it:

[Atlantis White Shrimp: Quality 1]
[Note: This white shrimp is produced by the Atlantis map. Its taste and texture far surpass ordinary white shrimp!
Texture +1, Freshness +1, Size +1!]

He grabbed another shrimp to check—each one showed the same information.

Was he actually playing the game in real life?

Because of Size +1, the shrimp were so much larger?

He tried walking to the floating illustrated compendium in the center, placed a shrimp inside, and heard the game’s notification:

[Congratulations, you’ve collected one animal. Current map: Level 1, Collection progress: 1/5!]

It actually worked.

But surely, it could do more?

He looked at the swarming shrimp, suddenly wondering: now that he could enter here, could he bring shrimp out?

In the game, once you’d collected one for the compendium, the rest were useless, but now, this was more than just a game.

Almost as soon as he had the thought, that pulling sensation returned, and he was back in his apartment, still holding the shrimp.

“It really works?” Chulin was amazed. He quickly grabbed a large bowl, focused, entered the Atlantis map, filled the bowl with shrimp, and brought them out.

The whole bowl of shrimp came with him.

Back in his apartment, he began handling the shrimp.

The shrimp were lively, some already leaping out of the bowl.

He quickly prepared them, boiled water, and made simple boiled shrimp.

He peeled one, tasted it, and his eyes lit up.

Running a seafood shop, he could immediately tell the quality and taste. The texture and flavor were far better than any shrimp on the market—even the finest white shrimp had nothing on these.

So this was Texture +1 and Freshness +1?

He looked at the mass of shrimp crawling around. If he brought them all out, he wouldn’t even need new stock tomorrow—he could just sell these.

Chulin hurried out of his apartment, returned to his seafood shop, closed the shutters, grabbed a special seafood crate, and focused to enter the game.

Appearing in the Atlantis map, he quickly packed the leaping shrimp into the seafood crate.

Each crate could hold thirty pounds; after filling one, he exited and grabbed another, repeating the process until he had twelve crates packed.

Altogether, he had around 360 pounds of shrimp.

Currently, white shrimp prices varied greatly. Some short videos showed twenty yuan per pound, others sixty.

Someone who bought at sixty per pound would immediately boast online, while others would flaunt theirs at twenty.

In truth, prices depended on quality. Some small, yellowish, limp shrimp were less than twenty.

The best white shrimp—large, good-looking, delicious, and tender—could sell for sixty a pound in early shrimp season, since most shrimp hadn't fully grown.

But the Atlantis shrimp were not only huge, their taste and texture far surpassed even premium shrimp. There was nothing like them on the market. Selling them at sixty a pound was perfectly reasonable—360 pounds would bring 21,600 yuan.

For a seafood retailer, two thousand in sales didn’t mean much profit, but what if this was pure profit?

If the game map kept refreshing shrimp—

Not only could he easily cover the ancestral house costs,

He’d be rich.

Chulin didn’t take the shrimp out yet. Thanks to the game’s mechanics, the shrimp would survive inside the Atlantis map. If he brought them out, many could die overnight, given the weather.

He didn’t have enough tanks to store them.

He exited the game and returned to his apartment, took a good shower, and lay in bed with hope for the future, planning to process the shrimp first thing in the morning.

The night passed quickly.

The next morning, Chulin got up, washed, made himself a bowl of noodles, when the game’s notification sounded again:

[Current Atlantis map: Level 1. One regular animal—white shrimp—has refreshed!]

Chulin immediately focused and entered the game, seeing another mass of shrimp had appeared.

A rough count showed this batch was no smaller than last night’s—about 360 pounds.

And, he realized, it had been twelve hours since the last batch.

So, every twelve hours, a new batch appeared.

That meant, in twenty-four hours, he could get 720 pounds of premium shrimp. At sixty yuan a pound, that was 43,200 yuan.

Even after tax, that was forty thousand a day.

Of course, he’d need to solve the issue of purchase invoices—otherwise, he’d be in trouble.

But step by step—first, he had to process these shrimp.

Seven hundred and twenty pounds of shrimp—his small shop couldn’t sell that much, and retail was a hassle. He needed a bulk buyer.

There was one channel he could try.