24: Chapter 24 Zhou Xiaoyi's Reluctance to Part

"It's hopeless, you might as well just crash."

"Why not try an emergency landing? You might survive if you're lucky."

"If that doesn't work, just parachute out."

Seeing the suggestions from his viewers, Wang Ye had no choice but to attempt an emergency landing.

If an emergency landing proved impossible, he would have to parachute.

Wang Ye piloted the old biplane Hawk III, plunging once again into the thick, dark storm clouds.

Amidst the lightning and thunder, the plane, with its fuel nearly exhausted, glided through the clouds.

The plane's altitude began a frantic descent from two thousand meters.

Wang Ye was extremely nervous; his palms were sweating as he gripped the control stick.

The wind howled in the downpour.

Turbulent air currents battered the biplane's wings, causing it to shake violently from side to side.

Above the clouds, the sun blazed, its light blinding.

Below the clouds, the temperature plummeted, and it was dim and dark, with poor visibility.

With fuel exhausted, even on a clear day with perfect visibility, an emergency landing would still be extremely dangerous.

Let alone now, in the middle of a storm with obscured vision, and with Wang Ye being only a half-baked pilot.

The plane's altitude kept dropping, and the fuel was completely bottomed out.

Now, an emergency landing could only rely on gliding.

Wang Ye spotted the Airport from a distance; its appearance brought him a glimmer of hope.

Being able to make an emergency landing at the Airport was definitely the best option.

If he tried anywhere else, the probability of crashing would be very high.

Wang Ye adjusted his flight angle, trying his best to align with the Airport runway.

However, a fighter plane without power couldn't make sharp turns; otherwise, it would easily plummet directly.

The plane suddenly dropped sharply.

Wang Ye's face turned deathly pale from fright.

He almost wanted to bail out.

Fortunately, he stabilized the plane the next second, and it continued to glide forward.

But after gliding for another distance, he realized that it seemed the plane wouldn't be able to glide onto the runway at all.

Wang Ye was still unwilling to give up, hesitating in his heart whether to parachute.

After hesitating for a dozen seconds, he decided to parachute after all.

But just then, the plane suddenly fell vertically.

Before he could open the canopy, the plane had already crashed into the ground.

[You died.]

Looking at the three large words in front of him.

Wang Ye went completely silent.

"Hahaha, does this count as Brother Wang dying from recklessness?"

"Yeah, he could've survived, but he ended up crashing."

"Brother Wang is going to emo, everyone stop laughing."

...

[Mission: Intercept Japanese Army bombers attacking the Airport completed. Assist in destroying Japanese Army bombers completed. Number of kills: 0, Number of assists: 1.]

[Your flight skills are passable, you assisted in shooting down an enemy fighter, and your performance was decent, but you became the only pilot to crash in this air battle. Game rating: 70.]

Seeing the five words "the only pilot to crash," Wang Ye found them extremely jarring.

And when the viewers saw those words, they laughed even harder.

"Sigh, brothers, forget it. At least I cleared this dungeon in one go; if I'm the only one who crashed, so be it."

"I'm tired of playing today, I'm ending the stream now."

After saying that, Wang Ye immediately ended the stream.

Leaving hundreds of thousands of viewers in the livestream room watching a black screen.

...

Two days had passed since the closed beta.

Zhou Yang took a look at the game's backend.

The two thousand closed beta players had basically all logged in and played.

In these two days, the total playtime for these players reached thirty-six thousand hours, averaging 8 hours per person each day.

Of course, this was also because they were basically all streamers; after all, this was their job, and an eight-hour workday was quite normal.

Some even streamed for 16 hours a day. If it weren't for the virtual pods, they wouldn't dare to stream like that because it would be easy to die from overwork.

Meanwhile, the closed beta players had died nearly fifty thousand times in total.

On average, each person had died about twenty-five times.

Zhou Yang saw that the most extreme closed beta player had died fifty times in one day and still hadn't broken down; that was just ridiculous.

After checking that person's play records, even Zhou Yang felt a bit embarrassed.

Because that guy was just unlucky in every way, often dying within a few minutes of starting.

His ways of dying were more bizarre than the last.

If this were made into a death compilation, it would definitely go viral.

Over these two days, he had already finished the main battles following the Battle of Shanghai.

Zhou Yang planned to start the open beta on the day the competition began.

At that time, the first battle of the Battle of Shanghai, the Hongkou battle, would begin.

The closed beta these past two days only featured small dungeons, not the major main storyline dungeons.

Small dungeons had lower difficulty and were less likely to discourage players.

If he went straight for the big ones and tormented the players to death with no hope of winning, they would probably be discouraged and quit right away.

Zhou Yang didn't want to scare the players away; otherwise, how would he earn emotional points?

In these two days, he had earned a few hundred thousand emotional points.

If he waited until all those viewers watching the streams joined the game, the emotional points he could earn would definitely increase exponentially.

The main strategy was to lure the players in first and then kill them.

Thinking this, Zhou Yang couldn't help but reveal a smile of a scheme about to succeed.

Online, the popularity of [wwii: eastern meat grinder] was also getting higher and higher.

On the Anti-War Competition trending list, the search term about the game was currently at the top.

Under the trending search entry, Netizens were discussing it frantically.

Some streamer players from the closed beta shared their experiences.

"I feel that compared to [wwii: eastern meat grinder], the other games currently participating in the competition are lacking something."

"Those games are like selling dog meat under the banner of a sheep's head; the gameplay is one thing, and the plot is another. The game and the plot are too disconnected."

"I can only say the game is fun, but I don't feel where the 'anti-war' part is."

Soon, five days had passed since the closed beta began.

There were only two days left until the competition started.

Zhou Yang ended the closed beta.

In the livestream rooms of the major streamers, the streamers were all somewhat reluctant to part with it.

The viewers were also somewhat reluctant.

Although they knew that after two days, when the Anti-War Competition started, they would still be able to play it.

But during these few days of streaming the closed beta, they had earned quite a bit of money, and their follower counts had also increased significantly.

They really couldn't bear to see such good days end.

Even though these past few days they had been playing by dying in all sorts of ways and being tormented in all sorts of ways.

But watching the traffic rise and the number of people in the livestream room increase more and more.

They were in pain and happy at the same time.

Zhou Xiaoyi's livestream room.

At this moment, she was chatting with her viewers.

"Wuwuwu, bros, just thinking that I can't play this game for the next two days makes me so sad."

However, the viewers in the livestream room didn't buy her act.

"Sister Yi, stop pretending. You must be very happy that you can't stream this game for the next two days, right."

"Yeah, yeah, I saw you performing all sorts of ways to die these past few days; I felt miserable for you."

"It's okay, two days later we can see Sister Yi being happy again."

"I hope the game planner brings something big for the open beta; I want to see more of Sister Yi's ways of dying."

Seeing that her viewers clearly didn't believe her, and even wanted to continue watching her perform new ways of dying later, Zhou Xiaoyi's face instantly fell.

"Bros, believe me, I'm really sad. After all, if I don't stream for two days, maybe many bros will leave me."

This sentence of hers was the truth, but the previous one wasn't.

Anyway, it was very contradictory.

On one hand, she was thinking about traffic, and on the other hand, she was afraid of continuing to experience all sorts of ways to die.