33: Chapter 33 Counterfeits and Genuine Gold

Chapter 22: Counterfeits and Real Gold

The press conference for Spark Interactive Entertainment was held on the top floor of a landmark building in Jianghai City.

CEO Zhao stood in the center of the spotlight, with a promotional video for "super captain: Incheon" rolling on the large screen behind him.

The 4K rendered visuals were incredibly gorgeous: an American soldier in high-tech exoskeletons flipped a tank with one hand, walking leisurely amidst cannon fire.

"We don't export oppression; we only export satisfaction."

CEO Zhao waved his arms toward the camera meaningfully,

"War should be an epic of heroes, not about making players gnaw on frozen potatoes, suffer abuse, or face amputation.

What Spark Interactive Entertainment wants to bring to the whole world is a truly industrialized blockbuster."

Driven by capital, online public opinion shifted to the other side.

A flood of press releases blanketed the internet, labeling "ice and snow world" with tags like "self-torture," "emotional blackmail," and "crude graphics."

Millions of unsuspecting players, drawn in by the special effects, swarmed into the servers for "super captain."

Madman Jack received a business invitation from Spark Interactive Entertainment.

The other party offered a number that was impossible to refuse.

There was only one condition: he had to try out "super captain" during a live stream,

and give one review—"Now this is a real war game."

The live stream room opened.

Jack sat in the ergonomic chair, his eye sockets still slightly bruised, his cheeks gaunt.

He expressionlessly put on the new holographic helmet sent by Spark Interactive Entertainment.

"Brothers, let's try the new stuff," he said, his voice hoarse and devoid of emotion.

He entered the game.

What greeted his eyes was the Incheon beachhead.

The seawater was a crystal-clear azure blue; the warships in the distance were densely packed, yet as neat as toy models.

The character Jack controlled was named "John," standing two meters tall, with arms thicker than thighs, carrying a Gatling gun with infinite ammunition in his hand.

A system prompt popped up: [Eliminate the "bandit" army ahead and save civilization!]

Jack moved the joystick. The operation felt light and airy, lacking any sense of weight.

He charged toward the trenches on the beach, where the enemies wore khaki padded uniforms,

and didn't even have facial contours, appearing only as mechanical targets moving in sequence.

"Da da da da—"

Jack pulled the trigger.

The muzzle of the Gatling gun spat fire. Wherever the bullets landed, the enemy fortifications shattered into smooth geometric blocks.

After being hit, those "enemies" dissolved into a burst of golden experience numbers, without even a single drop of blood being spilled.

He maneuvered John to jump onto a five-meter-high platform and smashed his fist onto the top of a tank.

With a deafening roar, the tank disintegrated in a burst of exaggerated flames, dropping a pile of colorful supply crates.

The bullet comments in the live stream room scrolled rapidly.

[The graphics are indeed amazing; watching this is stress-relieving.]

[This is the super captain I wanted; this is actually fun.]

[Su Yun's one is too heavy; playing it shortens your life.]

Jack stared at the screen. He killed and slaughtered his way through this dazzling battlefield full of light pollution.

After killing for an hour, his kill count on the data panel reached ten thousand, but he felt cold.

It wasn't the bone-chilling extreme cold of Chosin Lake, but a physiological nausea.

The snow here was white, yet held no warmth.

The gunshots here were loud, yet had no echo.

There were many people here, yet they were all cold data codes.

Jack stopped moving.

He stood on the beach littered with corpses—if those glowing fragments counted as corpses—looking at John's face, exquisitely sculpted by the modeler, filled with a sense of justice.

He thought of Little Shandong.

He thought of the child who had frozen off his heel but still handed him a potato.

He thought of the sound of bones breaking when the Platoon Leader held the steel rail.

"What is this?" Jack muttered to himself.

John's health bar was full and even regenerated automatically.

In the ten thousand battles just now, he hadn't felt an ounce of pain, nor had any comrades fallen before him.

He was a god, rampaging through this false, superiority-filled filter.

"What the hell is this!"

Jack suddenly erupted, ripping off the holographic helmet and slamming it onto the table.

The five million viewers in the live stream room were stunned. The monitoring personnel backstage at Spark Interactive Entertainment were also stunned.

Jack faced the camera, his eyes blazing with fury, his chest heaving violently.

He pointed a trembling finger at the gorgeous scene still running automatically behind him.

"You call this war? You call this art? Who are you insulting?"

Jack grabbed the microphone, his voice echoing across the entire internet: "The enemies in here line up like idiots to die!

You turned the will of those who risked their lives for their homeland into experience packs for you to grind?

Is this the 'civilization' you speak of? Is this the 'satisfaction' you want?"

"Spark Interactive Entertainment, you not only don't understand the Volunteer Army, you don't even understand American soldiers.

War involves bloodshed, death, and is cold and cruel. Garbage like you aren't even fit to carry shoes for Su Yun!"

He opened the computer's backend and, in front of millions of people, right-clicked the icon for "super captain."

[Are you sure you want to delete the game and all its components?]

[Confirm.]

The progress bar flashed by rapidly.

"I'm not playing this dress-up game with you. At worst, I won't take this advertising fee! Brothers, if you're willing to follow me to see real history, let's go."

Jack directly closed the live stream feed provided by Spark Interactive Entertainment and re-logged into that dark interface marked with a broken medal—"ice and snow world."

That night, the entire internet witnessed what it meant to "vote with your feet."

Players who were originally waiting in line saw Jack's video and quit the Spark Interactive Entertainment servers one after another.

In less than two hours, the online count for "super captain" plummeted, dropping from three million directly to less than thirty thousand.

The stock price of Spark Interactive Entertainment hit the daily lower limit fifteen minutes before the market closed.

In a rented room on the other side of Jianghai City.

Su Yun sat in front of the screen, looking at the backend data.

Queue count: 5,800,000+.

This number was still rising.

On the emotional value panel, the dark red dots representing "Anger" and "Shame" were converging wildly.

Xie Dabao sent a message: "Su Yun, I'm going back too. That kind of hack-and-slash game makes me want to vomit."

Dai Dai also posted: "I'd rather go back to Chosin Lake to see Little Shandong. Even if it's just helping him bury a pile of dirt, it's better than dancing in that gorgeous fake world."

Su Yun didn't reply to the messages.

He looked at the photos of the two flattened hilltops, his expression grim.

"CEO Zhao, your biggest mistake was underestimating today's young people,"

Su Yun tapped the keyboard with his fingertip,

"What they want has never been an anesthetic to escape reality, but the backbone to stand tall."

His phone vibrated.

CEO Zhao's furious voice message came through, his voice nearly breaking: "Su Yun! You won?

You think you won! I'm telling you, don't think you're the only one who can make systems. I will make all your precious players die in the servers!"

Su Yun directly blocked the number.

He brought up the system backend.

The garbled code interference from across the ocean was still ongoing, even penetrating the terrain rendering layer.

That was an attack originating from a North American underground server.

Smith was unwilling to accept defeat; he was employing asymmetric competitive tactics.

"Want to play big?" Su Yun lit a cigarette and watched the smoke dissipate, "Then I'll play with you to the end."

He hit Enter, and a server-wide announcement lit up:

[Volume Two: Full-Scale Counterattack. Officially Launched.]

[Battle Name: Breakthrough on the Imjin River.]

[Battlefield Hint: This is not an exercise. There are no respawn points. We will cross this ice river and drive them out.]

Jack entered the game again.

This time, there were no cold, stuffy boxcars.

He found himself on a gray riverbank.

The artillery fire roaring in his ears was deafening.

That wasn't a system sound effect, but the carpet bombing from the American heavy artillery group dozens of kilometers away.

The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder smoke and ice shards.

Jack looked down at his hands.

This time, he wasn't holding the single-shot "Old Stovepipe"; he held a captured M1 Carbine that smelled faintly of oil smoke.

His body still felt heavy; due to his previous amputation experience, his right leg ached faintly in the cold wind.

"Wang Jie! What are you thinking about! Check your ammunition!" A familiar voice sounded beside his ear.

Jack turned his head sharply.

It was the Squad Leader.

He wasn't dead; in this story arc belonging to the "Counterattack," he was still alive.

"Yes!" Jack stood up straight, a surge of warmth flooding his chest.

He was no longer the streamer who only cried from being abused.

He was an Infantryman of the 39th Army of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army.

Ahead lay the frozen Imjin River.

Over the ice surface, American illumination flares rose one after another, turning the pitch black night into a ghastly white day.

From the pillboxes on the opposite bank, tracer rounds from heavy machine guns drew lines of fatal blockade.

"Everyone, put on your white bedsheets!" the Squad Leader roared,

"When the three signal flares go up, no one is allowed to lie down! Charge across for me!"

The system interface popped up real-time parameters:

[Temperature: -22℃]

[Ice Thickness: 15cm (continuously thinning)]

[Mission Objective: Breakthrough the Imjin River and occupy the south bank position.]

Jack lay prone in the cold mud, looking at the turbulent river under his feet, its ice layer cracking.

He could feel the vibration of the current beneath the ice—it was the rhythm of death.

Crack.

A crisp sound came from the distance.

Jack's pupils contracted.

It was an artillery shell hitting the center of the river; the ice layer was collapsing.

Red text lit up on the system: [Warning: Heavy units cannot pass. Infantry must complete the crossing before the ice completely shatters.]

From the mountains behind him, countless streams of fire suddenly lit up. It was the roar of the Volunteer Army's Katyusha rocket launchers.

"Charge!"

A piercing whistle cut through the sound of artillery.

Jack sprang up from the snow, his white cloak fluttering in the wind.

The countless white figures beside him, like a blizzard surging upstream, rushed toward that shattering ice field.