"What are you guys doing?"
"Uh!" Wen Xiaojing suddenly appeared at the door, her voice startled both Stella and me.
"At least knock on the door before entering," I complained to Wen Xiaojing after calming down.
"I'm the president here. I shouldn't have to knock, senpai," she said with a playful smile on her face. "And why do you guys look so nervous, huh?"
Facing Wen Xiaojing's relentless questioning, my heart suddenly started pounding. What happened just now was just an accident, and there was no need for me to be this nervous. I glanced at Stella and found that she was even more nervous than me, trembling. So, to avoid any more trouble, I quickly said, "Of course we're nervous. The first stage of the monthly exams is coming up soon in the new semester. If we don't do well, it will affect our future grades. That's what they call the butterfly effect."
"Yes, Xiaojing, Youjie-senpai is right. If we don't study well, we might not be able to graduate," Stella assisted me. Nice, she's cooperating very well.
"You're making a big deal out of nothing. Even if you can't get into a top university, it's not bad to go to a vocational college," Wen Xiaojing said, as indifferent as always.
"I'm not just talking about that. If we don't study well, we might not even pass the graduation exams, and then we won't even qualify to take the college entrance exams," I scored a beautiful goal.
"Well, as long as we pass the passing line," I thought Wen Xiaojing would change her attitude towards studying and feel a sense of crisis. Turns out, I was thinking too much. This guy really has a big heart.
"So, your nervousness is unnecessary," she didn't forget to point fingers at our thoughts. But luckily, after she said that, Wen Xiaojing didn't pay much attention to what happened earlier. Stella and I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Anyway, let's put studying aside for the club activities and just enjoy the present," Wen Xiaojing said as she brought out her precious games.
"Let me see what game we should play today," she picked one lucky person from her many treasures.
"Let's play games together today. There have been a lot of new games released recently, but I've been playing Monster Hunter at home, so those new games have been put on hold for a while."
So, games that have been put on hold for a while are not the newest ones, right? I silently complained in my heart. Wen Xiaojing then picked up a few game boxes, flipping through them and selecting. The game packaging was very fancy, with a CD inside along with game settings, character backgrounds, and operating instructions.
Wen Xiaojing picked up a cover of a warrior with a dark art-style background, and the name in Chinese was pronounced "Hei Hun" (Dark Soul).
"Is this the latest work of Miyuki-sama?" Wen Xiaojing murmured. But when it comes to games, I don't really understand. Who is Miyuki-sama? I feel like Miyuki-sama should be the creator of this game. Anyway, I don't want to inquire too much.
"Then let's conquer this game," Wen Xiaojing opened the box, pressed the power button, then the eject button to make the game console's tray spit out, and placed the CD on the tray. The tray automatically went back to its original position. At first, I thought it was a DVD, but when I saw that it had two controllers, I dismissed my thought that this console was a DVD player.
But playing games in school requires a lot of courage. After the display was turned on, I waited for the game to install and finally reached the game interface. The interface displayed two English words, probably meaning "Dark Souls". Just when I was worried about my limited English proficiency, the game seemed to start and briefly explained the background before officially starting the game. The game character entered the playable state as I moved forward, and the game provided instructions while playing.
"Why is there such a fat monster here?"
Halfway through, a fat monster fell from the sky, looking disgusting with all that fat. Wen Xiaojing clearly lost her composure, saying, "You can't even kill it!"
"Is this the kind of game Miyazaki made for people to play?" Wen Xiaojing seemed very irritable and dissatisfied with Miyazaki.
I touched my nose and had a feeling of not knowing whether or not to speak up.
"What's wrong with starting the game with such a difficult monster? What were they thinking?" Wen Xiaojing was so angry that she felt like smashing the controller.
"Why do I suddenly feel like mailing razor blades to them?" Wen Xiaojing's expression turned ferocious. Indeed, she died more than ten times in front of this monster. Anyone would feel close to giving up.
I couldn't bear to watch anymore and kindly reminded her when she was about to challenge the monster again. "It seems like there's something about escaping in the subtitles." Though the font was small, it still provided such a hint.
"Is that so?" Wen Xiaojing said half-believingly. Then, when she saw another entrance, she rushed in and successfully avoided the monster's attack.
"Did it work?" Wen Xiaojing's face showed delight. "So that's how it is."
"Just read the instructions properly," I said in exasperation. She looked like she played games often, but how did she miss such a small detail? I really doubted whether she was just careless or a complete beginner. I was only referring to her being new to gaming.
The character obtained a weapon and shield. I forgot to mention that Wen Xiaojing chose the knight class, based on what she said when she first selected the character.
"The knight seems to have good endurance. It's a good choice for taking hits," she chose the knight without hesitation.
Watching the character's movements, they seemed clumsy. Could it be that they accurately replicated human motion? The game was quite cleverly made. As I marveled at how far the game industry had come, remembering that I only played games on an 8-bit console when I was young, where the characters were just pixels, it was truly incomparable to this. But just as I was having these thoughts, the screen suddenly went back to where the fat monster was encountered earlier.
Jumping from a height caused the character's health to decrease by one-third, and then the monster slammed down violently, bringing the health bar to a dangerous level. However, it seemed that there were recovery potions. Wen Xiaojing controlled the character to engage in a battle of wits and skills with the monster, blocking its attacks and evading them by rolling.
Rolling and swinging the weapon, as well as blocking with the shield, would consume the energy bar below.
However, due to inaccurate estimation, rolling or swinging the weapon too many times would deplete the energy bar, resulting in getting hit by the monster head-on.
"I can't believe it! I died just from being hit hard!" Wen Xiaojing widened her eyes in disbelief. The game interface returned to the last saved position.
In the meantime, after being heavily smashed by such a huge monster, there was no reason not to die. It seemed like it had entered into a death loop once again.
"Why do we have to fight this monster? Why can't we skip it?" Wen Xiaojing became agitated again, starting to complain crazily.
After being defeated more than ten times, Wen Xiaojing's lips twitched and made a broken laughter.
"What a crappy game! I should have sent a knife to that old thief Gong Yu," she said.
After being killed again by the monster, I had a sense of impending doom. In order to prevent her from doing anything irrational, I immediately gave her a hint.
"You can press the attack button when you jump down, right?"
"Really?" Wen Xiaojing immediately calmed down.
"It was mentioned in the game's tips before. Take a good look at the game's manual," I said.
"I hadn't noticed, so let's try it again. If it doesn't work, I'll discard this disc," she said impatiently. I glanced at Stella, who also gave a wry smile.
"As expected, attacking while jumping down works, and I didn't expect it would cause so much damage to the monster," Wen Xiaojing said excitedly as if she had discovered a new continent.
Afterwards, because Wen Xiaojing chose the knight class which had high defensive power, although there were still some mistakes, the difficulty naturally decreased from full health to half health. Through Wen Xiaojing's persistent efforts, the first part was finally passed. According to the game, it should be considered as the prologue.
After the prologue, the real adventure should begin.
"What's going on? The skeleton warrior's defense is useless."
"Two consecutive stabbings, that's too unfair."
"Blocking doesn't work, I was burned to death in an instant."
"Damn, shooting arrows from above, how despicable."
"This cow is too big, definitely not on the same level."
"Can't beat it at all, it's a lousy movie."
In short, Wen Xiaojing's emotions were always under high pressure and she occasionally cursed. Finally, unable to bear it anymore, she stomped on the game disc called "Dark Souls" until it shattered into pieces.
She really looked like a demon just now, it was really scary. I didn't expect that a game would drive her insane.
"Wuwuwu, that old thief Gong Yu is so mean." Unexpectedly, after venting, Wen Xiaojing felt upset and started crying.
"Xiaojing, don't cry," Stella hugged Wen Xiaojing, and Wen Xiaojing cried in Stella's arms. Stella comforted her with words while patting her back. I looked at the shattered "Dark Souls" game disc, as if a work of art had been ruined.
"Wen Xiaojing, I want to ask, how much did this disc cost?"
"580 yuan," Wen Xiaojing sobbed in response.
Damn, money was wasted too. 580 yuan, that's my monthly food expenses.
"Stella... Wuwuwu."
"Don't cry, don't cry, okay?"
Wen Xiaojing cried like a child, while Stella gently comforted her. As the president of this club, crying like this would certainly undermine her authority. However, it could be said that after this game, Wen Xiaojing might have developed some resistance towards games. And in a way, this could be a good thing.
