20: Dawn Vow in an 80-square-meter Studio

Cheng Mo lifted his fingers from the keyboard, the tips still flecked with plastic shards from a broken pen. He didn't look at the screen, nor did he touch the empty water cup with its cracked tea stains. Outside, the sound of the bus announcing its stop faded away, and the footsteps of the hallway cleaner disappeared. The basement was left with only the low-frequency hum of server fans, like the breathing of some slumbering giant.

He stood up, the hem of his hoodie brushing against the corner of the desk, the stickers in his backpack making a faint rustling sound. As he swung the backpack onto his shoulder, he heard a soft 'crack' from his own cervical spine—thirty-six consecutive hours without sleep had turned his dark circles from a badge of honor into proof of occupational injury.

His phone vibrated once in his pocket. It wasn't a data alert; it was a location link sent by the landlord: Basement Level 1, Building B3, Old Industrial Zone, South City. The note read, 'Key is hanging by the vent. Don't collapse the ceiling.'

He forwarded the address to Chen Hao and replied with a single word: 'Moving.'

Half an hour later, Chen Hao stood at the doorway, holding two cases of Red Bull and a tool bag. His gold-rimmed glasses reflected the full view of this 80-square-meter space: large patches of wall peeling away, revealing a rust-stained steel mesh beneath; the floor was uneven, with depressions deep enough to hold half a bottle of cola; a corner was piled with abandoned server cabinets left by the previous tenant, their dusty labels reading 'China Telecom 1998.' The only light came from a narrow skylight overhead, its slanted beam illuminating the trajectories of dust particles suspended in the air.

'The electrical circuits are dead,' Chen Hao said, pulling out his phone flashlight and shining it at the wall. 'But the fiber optic port is still here. At least we can connect to the municipal network.'

Cheng Mo walked to the center of the room, set down his backpack, and pulled a crumpled rental contract from an inner pocket. The paper was so thin it was translucent, the signature line blank. He unscrewed the cheap ballpoint pen he carried with him, hesitated for a moment with the tip, then wrote the two characters 'Cheng Mo' in the lessee column. The final stroke pressed down hard, piercing a small hole through the back of the paper, as if nailing the name into the concrete floor.

At that moment, a beam of sunlight pierced through the dust of the skylight, landing precisely on the signature area of the contract. Dust particles tumbled in the column of light, like countless microscopic particles celebrating this moment.

He looked up at the skylight and said, 'This will be the sanctuary of Limit Game.'

His voice wasn't loud, devoid of exclamation marks or any deliberate rise in volume. It was as casual as announcing what to eat for lunch today. But after these words fell, the entire space grew so quiet you could hear the dust settling.

Chen Hao didn't respond. He had already circled to the wall and was using a tape measure to check the spacing between outlets. After recording a set of measurements, he retrieved an A3 printout from his backpack, its edges neatly trimmed, clearly prepared in advance. He walked to the center of the main wall, tore off the tape, and smoothly affixed the paper.

The paper displayed a black-and-white chart, its lines neat and orderly, devoid of any decorative elements. The title was boldly written in Song typeface: 'Rage Index Model V1.0.' Below it was a logical structure diagram of several boxes connected by arrows, with an empty output variable area marked at the very end.

He took a step back, stared at the poster for three seconds, and then said, 'Starting today, we're going to quantify player suffering.'

His tone was steady, as if stating a weather forecast. But he took off his glasses, wiped the lenses, and put them back on—a gesture he repeated twice. This was his habit when confirming whether something was real.

Cheng Mo walked over and stood beside him. Side by side, they gazed at the poster, neither speaking. The wall now held two things: a freshly signed rental contract and a newly posted technical blueprint. One represented belonging; the other, direction.

'When will the equipment arrive?' Cheng Mo asked.

'4:17 PM,' Chen Hao replied, looking at his phone. 'The logistics company sent an exact time, with an error margin of no more than three minutes.'

'How do you know they'll be on time?'

'They delivered a batch to the neighboring warehouse at the same time yesterday, arriving two minutes early. Today's road conditions are normal, the weather is clear, and there are no traffic control announcements, so I infer they'll maintain their original scheduling rhythm.' After saying this, he casually opened a temperature and humidity detection app and began recording environmental values.

Cheng Mo touched the silver stud in his right ear and glanced back at the skylight. The sunlight had shifted a few centimeters, no longer illuminating the contract but sliding to the upper left corner of the poster. That spot happened to be where the chart number was: 'Fig.1.'

'Do you think we can really pull this off?' he suddenly asked.

Chen Hao was taken aback, seemingly not expecting such a question. He closed the detection app, returned his phone to his shirt pocket, and buttoned the top button.

'Was it Wang Zhen's troll army that kept you up last night?' he countered.

'No.'

'Then what was it?'

'I was thinking about whether those people cursing us are actually playing quite seriously,' Cheng Mo said, looking down at his hands. 'Someone spent two hours stuck on a jumping platform, failing thirty times without deleting the game. That's not normal behavior.'

'So you're waiting for them to keep cursing,' Chen Hao nodded. 'And the system will turn those curses into scores.'

'Right.'

'Then don't ask if we can pull it off,' Chen Hao said, walking to the other side of the room and crouching to inspect an exposed wire connection. 'We already have a rental contract, a fixed address, server arrays about to arrive, and a clear technical roadmap. This isn't a question of 'can we,' but 'how do we do it.''

Cheng Mo smiled faintly but didn't reply. He walked to the table, swept the broken pen remnants into the trash, and pulled a new refill from his backpack to replace it. This pen was one he bought during university, used for eight years, its casing polished to a shine, the click button sticking for half a second.

He clicked it a few times, and finally, with a 'click,' the tip popped out.

From outside came the warning beep of a distant crane—one short, two long. The city was waking up.

Chen Hao stood up, patted the dust off his pants, and walked back to the main wall to scrutinize the poster once more. He pulled a red marker from his backpack and wrote a date in the blank space below the chart: April 7, 2025. After writing it, he added a line of smaller text: 'Launch Day.'

'Do you think this model can really predict breakdown times?' Cheng Mo asked as he walked over.

'No,' Chen Hao shook his head. 'But it can tell us at which point players are most likely to give up. We can adjust the intensity curve of the punishment mechanism accordingly.'

'Sounds a bit twisted.'

'Making a game that makes people curse shouldn't involve talking about humanity,' Chen Hao said, putting away the marker and tossing the empty box into a trash bag. 'We're not making an entertainment product; we're making a stress tester.'

Cheng Mo nodded, reached out, and touched the surface of the poster. The printing paper was somewhat rough, the ink not fully dry, leaving a faint trace on his fingertip.

'We'll have to put more things on this wall in the future,' he said.

'Like what?'

'Screenshots of negative reviews, refund rate statistics, waveform graphs of players' breakdown recordings...' He paused. 'It'd be best to install a display screen, streaming real-time Steam review scrolls.'

'Budget's insufficient,' Chen Hao flipped open a notebook. 'Current cash flow only supports three months of basic operations. Equipment depreciation cycle is estimated at eighteen months. Labor costs are calculated at the minimum standard.'

'Then we'll start with handwritten ones,' Cheng Mo said, pulling a sticky note from the side pocket of his backpack. He wrote a few words and stuck it next to the poster.

The note read: 'Ten Ways to Make Players Hate Us (First Draft).'

Chen Hao glanced at it but said nothing. He simply opened his phone's memo app, created a new entry titled 'Space Setup Priority List,' with the first item reading: 'Install main power voltage stabilizer.'

The sunlight continued to move, now no longer illuminating any text. The entire room returned to dimness, only the edges of the skylight still glowing with a faint white light. The server fans hadn't arrived yet, but this place was already beginning to take on a sense of order.

Cheng Mo stood in the center of the room, looking around. The floor was scattered with packing straps, measuring tools, and empty drink bottles. The wall held the contract and poster. The air carried a mix of dust, plastic, and metal.

He took a deep breath and asked, 'Start recruiting tomorrow?'

'No,' Chen Hao closed his notebook. 'First, run a full environmental safety check. We can't power up until we've ruled out all risks of electric leakage, water leakage, and fire hazards.'

'I meant mental preparation.'

'Mental preparation was completed long ago,' Chen Hao looked at him. 'When you signed the contract, I knew you were planning something big.'

Cheng Mo grinned, revealing a set of not-so-straight teeth. He raised a hand to adjust his cap, the shadow covering his eyes.

'So, are we officially starting then?'

Chen Hao didn't answer. He just walked to the door, took down the 'For Rent' sign, folded it in half, and stuffed it into the trash bin.