Clicking on the ti at the bottom right corner of the computer screen, the system's calendar popped up, showing it was already Sunday. Bai Zhongqi couldn't help but let out a long, lazy sigh, talking to himself, "This Thanksgiving holiday really is short. Feels like I haven't done anything, and it's already ending."
Now 25 years old, Bai Zhongqi lives in San Francisco, United States—an average North Arican international student. After finishing his undergraduate studies in his ho country, he moved to the University of San Francisco (USF) across the ocean to scrape together a master's degree in economics.
Bai Zhongqi is quite laid back, indulgent in his laziness, and even lacks any particular grand ambitions. Going abroad was even arranged by his family; it was during the sumr before his junior year of college that his mother told him that having a master's degree from abroad would give him a competitive edge in job hunting back ho.
Without much desire to join the workforce so promptly, Bai Zhongqi earnestly took the TOEFL and GRE, packed up two large suitcases—even including pots and pans stuffed in by his mother—and made his way to San Francisco.
At first glance, Bai Zhongqi might seem like the typical 'mama's boy,' but that wasn't actually the case. Beneath his slackened and seemingly kind and pure exterior, he was a person with firm convictions. This young man, who was already in the latter half of his twenties, was precociously mature, so much so that he lacked interest in the realities of life.
To him, society was like a sticky web where, no matter how much he struggled, he couldn't break free. Self-satisfied successful people, the disgruntled low rungs of society—in the sowhat indifferent eyes of Bai Zhongqi, there was no difference between them. The tis had never changed because of these people's actions, and the saddest part was being no different from them.
Acquiring a fancy diploma, leveraging his family's modest connections, he could beco a small-ti civil servant or secure a permanent position in an enterprise or public institution. In his mother's eyes, his life would be stable, and to others, it would seem prestigious.
As for what her son truly wanted, his mother would think that he was still young, not understanding the experience of those who had gone before. Rather than letting him suffer setbacks for years, it was better to pave a glorious path for him early on.
After all this resignation, what did Bai Zhongqi actually like?
Stars, the ocean, anything seemingly boundless and full of endless potential—those were his favorites. As a child, he loved astronomy; while his classmates were spending fifty cents on instant noodles with flashy cartoon character cards, he saved up ten yuan to buy what the so-called planetarium touted as nebula photographs.
During his middle school years, Bai Zhongqi began to develop a passion for the military, loved navy models, and was imrsed in military-related gas.
After moving abroad, Bai Zhongqi experienced much more freedom. While many international students found it troubleso to leave behind a familiar system and to deal with setting up phone plans, installing Wi-Fi, and managing all sorts of visa docunts, these things did not stress Bai Zhongqi.
He was a very organized person, with a clear-minded approach to tasks that seed completely perplexing to others, he could disentangle the complexities and complete them thoroughly. With his sowhat controlling mother out of the picture, Bai Zhongqi was free to enjoy many things he liked.
For instance, he could display several navy warship and Gundam models at ho, or squat in front of the computer playing so rather ti-consuming and effort-intensive strategy gas.
Unlike many of his classmates who were passionate about eSports gas, Bai Zhongqi, who preferred a slower pace and sought a more imrsive ownership experience, loved certain strategy managent gas.
He couldn't resist Paradox Interactive's major titles, held a preference for the Civilization series, and even in RTS gas, he could accumulate a massive number of units, arranging them for aesthetics rather than quickly completing missions.
"Didn't write the thesis over the break, I'll probably have to crank it out the day before it's due. Anyway, I'm not in the mood to write that thing right now, better to play so gas," Bai Zhongqi thought, pursing his lips and scratching around his mouth and chin with his fingers, then clicked open an icon on the desktop that resembled the stars and the sea.
This ga was Bai Zhongqi's favorite for so ti, nad "Galaxy Domination Guide." Coming across this ga was entirely by chance; Bai Zhongqi found this indie ga in a not particularly famous gaming forum's Star Battle section, available for free download with hardly any replies. Curious because it took up a sizeable amount of hard disk space, Bai Zhongqi downloaded the ga.
Once the ga was downloaded and installed, Bai Zhongqi opened it and was initially sowhat disappointed because the graphics were not as expected. Nevertheless, considering it was an indie ga, it wouldn't support ultra-high-quality graphics with a powerful ga engine. But soon after, Bai Zhongqi was hooked.
This ga, under its diocre graphics, had incredible core content: it was an interstellar warfare strategy ga about developing technology, managing star regions, assembling interstellar fleets, and ultimately dominating the galaxy and the universe.
The controls were simple and intuitive, but the ga offered an almost infinite universe, detailed and accurate technology entries, and a plethora of interesting spontaneous events. Thus, this ga completely took over almost all of Bai Zhongqi's free ti.
In the beginning, Bai Zhongqi set the ga difficulty to the lowest, nad his dynasty "Iridium Star United Empire," chose a golden three-pronged lightning bolt as the emblem, and started his exploration of the universe within the ga.
Due to his good luck, the Iridium Star United Empire's stellar system and its surroundings had rich resources, as well as rivals that were neither too strong nor too weak, allowing the United Empire to develop quickly.
Reviews
All reviews (0)