Chapter 5 (1/2)

“Eh? It starts just like that?”

The water in the kettle had yet to boil and Qiao Liang had no time to bother about it as he entered the game.

There was no opening scene or animation nor any options as the player entered the game right away.

In the vast desert, a long, curving road extended indefinitely.

It was a first person point of view from within the car and there was a simple instruction interface while controls could be done with either keyboard or controller – it was completely identical to the mainstream racing genre games in the market.

Qiao Liang looked at the image on the screen and acknowledged that the controls were fitting.

After all, this was a set template where the upper and lower limits were not too extreme.

Picking up his controller from the side, Qiao Liang hooked it up to the computer and began the game.

The car started moving.

Qiao Liang meandered along the road and drove on.

It was morning in the game and the sun had just risen, so the brightness wasn’t too glaring.

Sand danced about wildly in the desert and there were a series of sandstorms in the distance which would affect the visibility limits of the by reducing it.

The road snaked ahead – it wasn’t a straight path and there were turns every now and then.

Click!

The water in the kettle had boiled over.

Qiao Liang was driving as he sank into his thoughts.

What am I doing?

What should I be doing?

What does this game hope for me to do?

He had been driving for three minutes now. Indeed, there were several turns, but…

There was nothing else that interested him besides that!

Driving, turning, looking at sandstorms in the distance. Other than that, the game had nothing else.

In fact, there wasn’t even any other cars on this desert road!

Qiao Liang wanted to go cook his noodles and he pressed for the menu button.

However, there was no reaction.

Qiao Liang: “???”

For any other games, this would have been a pause button. But there was no reaction for this game!

Thinking that it was a bug, Qiao Liang held onto his controller while tapping on the ESC, Space and Return keys on his keyboard…

Still no reaction!

This game can’t be paused!

Qiao Liang was completely stunned.

In his moment of astoundedness, he lost his focus and missed a turn, driving off the road and sinking into the sand.

GAME OVER.

Eight simple alphabets appeared on his screen.

Jaws agape, Qiao Liang fell into disbelief.

This game had truly redefined his knowledge of trashy games!

No. Strictly speaking, this can’t be considered as a trashy game.

Trashy games were often due to a lack of quality, funding or objectivity from the side of the creators that leads to a compromise in certain aspects such that gamers would get a sense that it was poorly made.

But, this game was different.

It seemed as though it was aiming to disgust others!

Why else would it not have a pause function or a save point, displaying a game over at every single failure?

“Hold on, this is interesting…”

“Perhaps, this might be popular as a diss video?”

Qiao Liang cooked his noodles hurriedly and started analyzing the game’s title and summary.

“The Lonely Desert Road. There’s an emphasis on Lonely!”

“A simulated driving journey that makes you contemplate life… Indeed, I’m truly contemplating about life right now. This summary has not lied to me at all…”

“Seems like this game’s truly filled with evil intents!”

“The company that produced this game is called Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd.. I haven’t heard of them and this seems to be their only game.”

“Pfft…”

After finishing his noodles, Qiao Liang took up his controller once more.

However, he turned on his recording software this time round, ready to record his entire progress.”

…

Three hours later.