Yita World

The angel's stick pointed at the free button on the vending machine. "Press." Ding Shi reached out and pressed it. A sound came from inside, and with a clatter, a steamed bun slid out of the vending machine and dropped onto the iron basin, followed by a bottle of water. Subtitles appeared: Free food and water will not dispense new free food and water until fully consumed. Deliberately wasting food and water will be punished. Ding Shi picked up the steamed bun, gave it a squeeze, and patted it against the table, but the bun remained unmoved. Ding Shi forced off a small piece of the bun and put it in his mouth to chew. Honestly, the taste was passable—it was just hard. At this point, quite a few people would ask the angel: What do you do if your teeth are bad? Ding Shi, however, was used to solving problems himself. There was a basin and water here; if he couldn't bite through it, he'd just soak it a while. As for whether he'd be eating steamed buns every day, anyone who thought about it would know the answer: since there was free, there had to be paid. Compared to asking about details, Ding Shi believed the core question was how to leave the Yita World. The angel waved its stick. "Follow me." Following the angel to the front of the house, Ding Shi found a ring of light about two square meters in size. The angel: "Teleportation array." Subtitles appeared. Roughly, they said that through the teleportation array one could enter instances, and, provided the conditions were met, travel to other places in the Yita World. Ding Shi asked, "Instances?" The angel waved its stick, and the subtitles appeared again. Tomorrow, from 7:30 to 8:00 in the morning, the first instance will open. This instance is a casual instance with no death penalty. After completing two casual instances, one can obtain a one-way teleportation ticket that will send them to Sixiang City in the Yita World to begin a new life. Ding Shi asked, "Why can't we return to Earth?" For the first time, the angel looked Ding Shi straight in the eye, and for the first time spoke a complete sentence. Its voice was milky-sweet and cute—the kind of voice that, after hearing it a few times, would make you want to have babies. "You must find the answer within the Yita World." The angel waved its stick, and a television appeared. It showed the scene of a United Nations Security Council meeting. The meeting's subject: they had received a letter believed to be from a higher-dimensional alien civilization, and the letter contained only a single simple sentence: In two hours, all of humanity will enter the Yita World. Ding Shi distilled intelligence from this information. First, going to Sixiang City right away was not a good thing. Second, no hostility from the Yita World had been detected. Third, non-casual instances carried a death penalty. Fourth, after using the one-way ticket to reach Sixiang City, one could no longer enter instances. Fifth, a very strange point—the angel and the subtitles never once mentioned the word "player," even though everything looked just like a game. Ding Shi then asked many more questions—Why did humanity have to come to the Yita World? What was the Yita World? What was Sixiang City? And so on. The angel gave the same answer every time: "You must find the answer within the Yita World." … Ding Shi sat on the big rock in front of the house, staring blankly at the horizon in the distance. The little angel conjured a butterfly and chased it, neither fast nor slow, flitting all over the island. When the little angel flew past in front of Ding Shi for the third time, it paused and said, "You can open the system interface." Ding Shi called up the system interface. Ding Shi, 24 years old, male, healthy, along with a handsome 3D portrait that could rotate a full 360 degrees. Ding Shi himself was 1.8 meters tall, and his good looks were neither the sleazy swagger of a thug nor the sunny brightness of a student, but a kind of confidence that radiated from the inside out. The first column of the interface held four item card slots. The system provided detailed instructions: these four slots could hold any card. Following the instructions, Ding Shi set a gesture, then snapped his fingers at a small stone in his left hand. The stone vanished, and a stone card appeared in Ding Shi's hand. He put the stone card into a slot, then took it back out and snapped his fingers, and the stone card turned back into a stone. The second column held four skill and equipment card slots. There was no health bar, no mana bar, no yellow stamina bar, but there were physical stats: Strength, Agility, Wisdom, and Luck. Ding Shi's Strength was 7, Agility was 7, Wisdom was 8, and Luck was 3. Note: Luck resets at 24:00 every day and may be affected by external factors. The first three attributes could only be raised through one's own training and study, and could drop temporarily or permanently due to illness and the like. There was no attribute-point system in the Yita World. The last slot was a bank card, which had the basic functions of a banking app. One could transfer money, receive payments, and even buy stocks. Unfortunately, all the stocks were currently grayed out and couldn't be clicked. A rough glance showed names like Sixiang Energy and Sixiang Agriculture—presumably tied to Sixiang City. The system interface had no talents and no bloodlines; setting aside age, essentially all humans started from the same place. What drew Ding Shi's attention was a row of question marks in the interface. Asking when in doubt, Ding Shi spoke up: "Little angel, what is the hidden part of the system interface?" The little angel, still playing, answered, "Explore it for yourself." Ding Shi asked, "What happens if I don't enter the instance tomorrow?" The little angel: "Nothing." Its tone was offhand, but the answer came quickly. Ding Shi stopped asking and sat quietly on the rock. Right now, he didn't much care about the Yita World—not only because the past week had left him physically and mentally drained, but also because of the nerves that had been wound tight throughout six years of undercover work. For the first time in six years, Ding Shi could think of nothing and do nothing. Simply sitting there in silence was a kind of happiness to him. The night passed without incident. He had never slept on such a hard bed; the palm leaves on the stone bed were purely for show. Ding Shi's back muscles and bones were terribly sore. He got out of bed hunched over, went to the vending machine, and studied it for a while, finding the products he needed: toothpaste 1 dollar, toothbrush 1 dollar, one roll of toilet paper 1 dollar. Ding Shi slipped out of the house, rummaged a few leaves from the nearby bushes, and went back inside to the bathroom. The leaves couldn't do a clean job, so Ding Shi had to use other substitutes. Luckily water was free; after using the toilet, Ding Shi scrubbed his hands hard three times. There was no mirror and no comb, so Ding Shi just ruffled his hair with his hands, collected a hard steamed bun and water for breakfast, and glanced at the time on the system panel—it was already 7:30 in the morning. Outside the house, the teleportation array gave off a faint blue glow, and within that blue light was a countdown. Chewing on the bun, Ding Shi looked around for a while, then trotted over to a big rock and flipped it over. His left hand seized an earthworm trying to escape, and his right hand snapped its fingers—an earthworm card came into his hand. His idea was simple: go fishing in the instance, then turn the fish into cards and bring them back to the island. He caught another earthworm, but it couldn't become a card; the system prompted: Cannot carry duplicate cards. Ding Shi dug deep into the ground and unearthed a dozen or so red earthworms, grabbed them all in one hand, and snapped his fingers. A card came into his hand. Card name: Lots of Earthworms Card. Resources were scarce. Ding Shi lifted a stone and got a stone card. He lifted a chair and got a chair card. For the last card, there was truly nothing left to use, so Ding Shi casually grabbed a handful of sand and dirt and got a Sand and Dirt card. He washed his hands and ruffled his hair to tidy it. At 7:55, Ding Shi entered the instance teleportation array and vanished in a flash.