1: Trash online games are extremely harmful!

Nanshan Town, night, cloudy.

"Quick, find him! Don't let that kid escape!"

"Damn it, who knew he could still run after all that? This time, when I catch him, I'm definitely going to chop off all his limbs!"

"I can't run anymore, you guys go ahead and chase. I'll rest here for a bit."

"You'd better hurry. If you slack off and mess up the big plan, you know the consequences."

A group of burly men dressed in ancient Household Servant attire, armed with iron rods, quickly passed through the alley. One of the Household Servants, overly exhausted, leaned against a wall to rest.

"Phew, those bastards are finally gone, I'm safe now." As a complaint escaped, the Household Servant who had been leaning against the wall took off his hat, and his plain face instantly transformed into a handsome one.

The young man's name was Zhou Yan. He was originally a recent college graduate who had been brutally beaten by a pay-to-win player in the online game "Seeking the Dao" during an all-night session. He died suddenly from staying up late and overheating, and arrived in this differentworld.

Coincidentally, the owner of this body was also named Zhou Yan, and his build and appearance were identical to his previous life. It was highly probable that this was his alternate world counterpart.

The original owner's story was quite tragic. He was a collateral descendant of a Cultivation Family protected by a great Qi Refining Cultivator.

Moreover, he was the sole remaining heir of his branch Family. With this status as the sole male descendant, while it wouldn't make him rich, it would guarantee him a life free from worries about food and clothing.

But who would have thought that a few days ago, the original owner, after drinking too much, fell asleep on a large banyan tree outside of town? He accidentally stumbled upon the Dong Family's Second Young Miss having an illicit affair with someone, who was also from a Cultivation Family.

This Dong Family's Second Young Miss already had an engagement. Now, fearing exposure, the Dong Family would naturally kill the original owner to silence him.

The pitiable original owner thought that since they were both Cultivation Families, the Zhou Family could save his life. Who knew that the Zhou Family would hand him over without a second thought?

Just like that, the Dong Family Young Miss and her paramour were used as examples for other Family members.

The original body was also thrown into the Dong Family dungeon, where all his Meridians were shattered, and he was brutally tortured for two days.

The original body finally couldn't endure the pain and died from it a few hours ago, ending three lives completely.

This time, the Dong Family re-established its authority by sacrificing the lives of three unfortunate souls.

And Zhou Yan became the fourth unfortunate soul in this incident.

"Ding, quest 'Prologue One - Escape from Despair' completed. All permissions for the character panel unlocked. Newbie combat tutorial unlocked."

"Quest updated 'Prologue Two - Survival': Current HP fully restored (0/1), current status is healthy (0/1), out of combat duration reaches 12 hours (0/12:00:00)"

"Ding, Top-Up Special Event activated! New players who top-up will receive cashback. First top-up of 6 yuan unlocks the mall. The first refresh of the mall has an extremely high chance of obtaining Divine-Grade fashion at a low price!"

You dog developers, these top-up specials have even made it to another world! Do you have any conscience left?!

That's right, this item was the Golden Finger Zhou Yan received after coming to this world. Initially, Zhou Yan was overjoyed to get a Golden Finger, but as soon as he saw the familiar interface, he knew it was that trashy online game from his previous life.

This trashy online game not only lacked a newbie gift package but was also filled with top-up special interfaces. In such a situation, it immediately gave him a prologue quest to escape the Dong Family.

This was no less absurd than asking Stephen Hawking to play in the NBA and requiring him to score a goal.

"Open character panel." Zhou Yan called out in his mind, and then a translucent light screen, visible only to him, appeared before his eyes.

[Zhou Yan]

[Rank: Body Tempering 2nd Layer (-999/100)]

[HP: 12/100]

[MP: 0/0]

[Stamina: 2/100]

Current Equipment: Four-piece set of stinky Dong Family Household Servant clothing (3/4) [Set effect: When wearing 4 pieces, Dong Family Household Servant recognition +25%, Charm -40%]

Special Status: Severed Meridians (During this status, no experience can be gained, and HP, MP, and Stamina caps are reduced to 30%. All attributes will decrease during combat and slowly recover after exiting combat.)

Seeing his current panel, Zhou Yan finally breathed a sigh of relief. If anyone were to punch him a few times with this panel, he might ascend to heaven on the spot.

Recalling the situation in the Dong Family dungeon earlier, Zhou Yan was filled with lingering fear.

He had originally given up hope on the System, but Zhou Yan unintentionally saw the corner mark on the panel. The System was currently 'Seeking the Dao v0.1'. As a hardcore veteran player, how could he not know what v0.1 meant?

It was a version where, apart from the pay-to-win System being complete, everything else was extremely shabby.

So, with the idea of treating a dead horse as if it were alive, Zhou Yan opened the story mode option. Sure enough, Zhou Yan, who was originally lying in the dungeon in so much pain that he couldn't even move a finger, immediately became lively and could run and jump.

In its early stages, this online game simply didn't implement injury models for real-time cutscene animations. The character model's performance in cutscenes was completely unaffected by the plot.

Aside from seeing blood dripping from their lips, torn clothes, and hearing emotional voice acting, you couldn't tell that the NPC was injured.

You could even see an NPC who was supposed to die immediately in the storyline calmly conversing with you, holding their arm.

Thus, because Zhou Yan was on his last breath, the loosely guarded prison provided him an opportunity to escape.

Although his HP was unhealthy and his status had negative buffs, this didn't affect his ability to maintain Peak condition as a "game character."

Body Tempering Second Layer was considered middle to low tier in a Cultivation Family, but it was enough to deal with Household Servants who only knew a few martial arts moves.

The Household Servant guarding the door heard some movement from behind but didn't take it seriously. Who knew that in the next second, a large hand, whistling through the air, passed through the gaps in the iron bars and directly grabbed his collar.

Before he could cry out, Zhou Yan shattered his jaw with a single punch.

Because this attack was within the head's hit detection range, it triggered a critical hit to a vital point. The Household Servant's HP bar instantly dropped to a sliver. Zhou Yan then followed up with another punch, successfully achieving his first kill in this world.

Unfortunately, this trashy online game was different from others' Golden Fingers. Killing the first life didn't even drop a first-kill gift package.

Killing the Household Servant didn't solve Zhou Yan's current predicament. The prison cell was specially made, and with his current Body Tempering Second Layer cultivation, he couldn't open it. However, games are often illogical.

Zhou Yan didn't find a key on the Household Servant, but after opening the loot interface, the key appeared among the spoils of killing the gate-guarding Household Servant.

At the same time, the Household Servant's four-piece set also dropped: Household Servant Hat, Household Servant Short Shirt, Household Servant Trousers, and Household Servant Cloth Shoes.

After picking up all of these, a surprising scene occurred. The clothes on the Household Servant's body did not disappear with the dropping of the equipment, and when Zhou Yan equipped the clothing, it fit him perfectly.

One must know that this Household Servant was only about 1.7 meters tall, while Zhou Yan's height was 1.8 meters. It should have been ill-fitting, but it fit perfectly.

He could even pick up the loot again after picking it up from the game panel, stripping all the clothes off this Household Servant and putting them into his game inventory.

What was the difference? The items picked up by the System were bound, while the items Zhou Yan manually picked up were unbound.

Unbound items had certain wearing conditions; because they didn't fit, they couldn't be directly equipped, but this didn't prevent Zhou Yan from manually forcing them onto his body.

In this short time, the game panel had encountered three bugs.

First, he clearly attacked the jaw, which isn't a fatal attack, but because the hit detection was on the head, it was judged as a vital attack, and he was lucky enough to land a critical hit, almost instantly killing the Household Servant with one punch.

Second, the sudden drop of the prison door key. Because the Household Servant had the prefix "gate-guarding," whether he carried a key or not didn't affect his chance of dropping one.

Third, the loot rewards and the actual corpse-looting rewards were counted as two separate instances. He also figured out the principle: it was also due to the influence of model production.

After all, in the original version, except for some special items or equipment that would disappear from the corpse model when you picked up loot, the corpse model wouldn't change after you took other items.

Zhou Yan's eyes lit up. The collision of a trashy online game with reality could actually produce such effects!

However, there was no time to dwell on it. Zhou Yan opened the prison door and began his escape. The Dong Family's guards were not useless; although they had relaxed a lot, there were still people patrolling regularly.

When the patrolling guard saw the empty cell and the corpse dressed only in underwear, how could he not know what had happened? He immediately began to organize people for a full-Family and full-town search.

The Dong Family itself was not small, making it difficult for Zhou Yan to leave. Coincidentally, a small team searching for Zhou Yan discovered him.

He had already prepared for a desperate fight, but who knew the Household Servant leader would say:

"You, kid over there, you're temporarily assigned to my Dong Hu's squad. Come with me to leave the Dong Family and search for the villain Zhou Yan in town."

"Remember, he's currently wearing an ill-fitting Household Servant robe."

"If you see someone with ill-fitting clothes and they look unfamiliar at first glance, detain them first, regardless of whether it's him or not."

It turned out to be the set bonus, combined with the moon being obscured by clouds, which made Dong Hu momentarily mistake him for a familiar but nameless junior Household Servant.

For a moment, he didn't know whether to praise the Dong Family for being meticulous or overly meticulous.

In such a short time, the information obtained was so detailed that if it weren't for the game effects, he would have been captured by now.

But because it was too detailed, they didn't immediately question this "Household Servant" who acted strangely but didn't meet the conditions.

And so, with the help of the enthusiastic citizen Brother Dong, Zhou Yan successfully made it outside the Dong Family estate.

The flashback ended. With a short rest, Zhou Yan's HP recovered by 10 points, reaching 22, and his stamina recovered directly to 30, reaching its current maximum after his Meridians were severed.

Recovering a certain percentage of HP and stamina after exiting combat was also a small bug in the early version that could be used to farm stamina and increase exploration efficiency. Unexpectedly, it came in handy now.

Putting his Household Servant hat back on, Zhou Yan once again triggered the set effect.

Although the prologue reward wasn't generous, it gave him a crucial function: the mini-map feature that could help him escape.

As long as he opened the mini-map and avoided the marked Household Servants, he would be completely safe.

As long as he could escape outside the town, he would find a way to use the System to become stronger.

"Dong Family, Zhou Family, just wait, I'll make you pay for this sooner or later!" Zhou Yan gritted his teeth. This grudge, which almost made him die of pain and follow in his predecessor's footsteps, had to be avenged!

"Let me see where the monsters are spawning. Hmm? Why is there one right above my head?"

(Some of the early plot, because the author's writing is limited, some parts are not very well written.)

(And it's quite intertwined with some subsequent content, making some of the early content difficult to modify.)

(So the content of the first 50 chapters might be unsatisfactory. I hope everyone understands, and you can also treat it as a prequel or an extra chapter.)