The river of life flowed ahead.

Without his noticing, it seemed that many years had passed.

Planet Haierfa, which had once descended into devastating war and been razed into a barren hell, now had blue skies, blue oceans, and was flourishing in lush greenery. Every corner of the planet was full of vitality.

Viewed from space, this planet was as gorgeous as a luminous sapphire.

By the coast, on a rock on a white sandy beach, there was a man wearing beach pants, a straw hat, and a sleeveless shirt. With a fishing rod in his hands, he was enjoying the sea breeze while fishing for marine creatures. Next to the man were two women in bikinis. One of them had blonde hair, blueish-green eyes, and refined facial figures; the other one had dark hair resembling the color of twilight and an exquisite petite figure, and exuded the gentle aura of Eastern beauty.

“How peaceful.”

The man sighed. “Starting when I announced my retirement, I think it’s been more than three decades that I’ve lived my life like this. I’m an eighty-year-old geezer now, am I?”

“It will be your 80th birthday in three days, master.” The blonde on his left said. “I wish you a happy birthday in advance, master.”

“That won’t be necessary.” The man shook his head. “This is not something worth celebrating, and I’m not gonna be happy, either. I think I’m growing a little sick of this quiet life. Look at this youthful body of mine—if I return to Earth, I bet my children and grandchildren won’t be happy either. They will be wondering: why am I not dead? How long do I intend to hold onto Xing Hai Technologies’s equity? Why am I always blocking their ways?… I bet only a few of them would truly wish me a happy birthday.”

“Master, you are too negative,” the blonde woman said. “Aside from those several core products that remain unstripped, Xing Hai Technologies has distributed almost everything else, including the hundreds of desert free cities and space cities. This enormous wealth is enough to fulfill anyone’s needs and be exchanged for reliable and solid kinship.”

“Only the Knowledge Bank and the virtual game Galaxy Era remain in your hands, as both are not to be given away. You’ve already handed out everything you could.”

The man, however, sighed. “The problem is that knowledge is priceless. The economy driven by Galaxy Era now accounts for almost 30% of the global GDP. Those two are the treasures with the highest value, for heaven’s sake. Alice, do you think that humanity can be trusted?”

This…

The blonde woman on his left became silent, unable to answer his question.

Suddenly, his hands sank as the fishing rod bent down intensely.

“Eh, a fish, it seems.”

The man was happy as he reeled in his line with all his might. After more than five minutes of wrestling with the creature on the hook, he caught a colorful ocean fish. Weighing it in his hands, he guessed it to be at least 20 pounds.

He looked at the fish bucket at his foot, which was already full of fish.

The man could only release the fish that he just caught back into the sea. “There are too many fish in the sea. I’ll fill up a whole bucket with them in no time. I can’t even finish a conversation before that happens.”

Oh well, forget fishing.

The man put down his rod, headed under a parasol on the white, sandy beach, and lay down on the comfortable recliner.

The blonde woman, on the other hand, took the fish bucket and used some tools to deal with the fish inside. Then, she brought the grill over, ignited the charcoal fire, and began roasting those ocean fish.

“I might have rested a little too much recently. Nuwa, give me a brief report about what has happened over the past few years,” the man on the recliner said to the dark-haired woman that stood beside him, his eyes half-closed.

“Nothing significant has really happened, master.” The dark-haired woman began. “First of all, environmental transformation on planet Haierfa has been fully completed. The planet’s natural ecology has been restored to a perfect state.

“In science and technology, two major developments have been realized. Firstly, we have entirely assimilated the Crystal Brainers’ tech, and are now basically on par with them.

“Secondly, courtesy of Galaxy Era, we successfully produced our first C-class battleship last year. We are now in possession of a powerful enough main battleship.”

“Many aspects of development went much faster than we expected. Master, the moves we’ve made are excellent.”

“That’s for certain!” The man nodded. “Just look at how many resources we expended on Galaxy Era. Data on the entirety of human civilization, the super-server host computer that covers more than 100 square kilometers of land—just the power consumed by these remote servers every year alone would suffice for the needs of ten billion human beings… in order to build the most authentic game and filter out the most intelligent players, we’ve used almost all of the most precious resources we have here on planet Haierfa.”

Back on Earth, even superpowers could not build such a massive and complex game.

“But what followed was that the game has caused troubles on Earth that are way bigger than what we expected.” The dark-haired woman said. “First is the wife withdrawing crisis. More than 50 million male players around the world want the female characters in the game extracted into reality with the help of the genetic coding technology. More than 10 million female players as well want their ideal husbands in-game to become their partners in reality.

“WBy the appeal of countless players, in the face of the morality’s resistance, a democratic country in the West finally opened up the first pathway which allows humans produced by genetic algorithms to become humans in the real world once their character information is keyed in.

“Subsequently, a few desert free cities also passed this law in order to increase their population and boost their economy.

“NPCs manufactured via the genetic coding technology began to emerge in reality. Swiftly, their numbers exceeded one hundred thousand, a million, ten million… gradually becoming a special group that can no longer be ignored. It has triggered a variety of issues involving taboos.

“The community even sparked a small-scale armed rebellion. Galaxy Era was almost banned by the Federal Parliament several times.

“After more than a decade of turmoil, the withdrawal of game NPCs was completely banned, and the storm gradually subsided.

“Of course, Galaxy Era did not only bring about the so-called “love crisis.” In financial terms, it has profoundly altered the global economic structure, allowing the proportion of the economy that is virtual to gradually rise. In science and technology, ever since 100% Science Lab was integrated into Galaxy Era, almost all scientific experiments can be transferred into and conducted in the game. A considerable number of players have become tech streaming players, while their performance in the game remains on par with that of serious contenders.

“All in all, Galaxy Age has become an indispensable part of civilization on Earth—and moreover, the core support of planet Haierfa. It is like a powerful heart that outputs endless nutrition and energy.

“Hence, master, I’m starting to believe that games are not a distraction to real life, but an artifact that can bring ceaseless benefits.”

“You’re right.”

The man nodded. “Life is a game. Everything is in games. Who dares to assert that he or she is not a character in a certain game?”

As long as one’s mentality was correct, and they took the game they were playing seriously, anyone could excel in it.

Suddenly, a fragrant scent drifted by.

The man whiffed and smiled. “Alice’s fish should be ready. Let’s go feast on the catch, Nuwa.”