Chapter 14: The Stream Begins

On the television screen, a bespectacled man with somewhat shifty, rat-like features appeared before the camera, shouting in an instantly recognizable voice.

“Hello everyone, I’m Captain Ao.”

“I’m sure you all watched the trailer for 《Resident Evil》 yesterday. When I first saw it, I was blown away. I never expected a gaming company like Miteng to possess such incredible technical skill, so the moment the game launched, I downloaded it right away.”

He paused deliberately, emphasizing his words as he continued, “And most important of all, this game is completely free to download!”

Yet the chat in the live stream was not buying it at all. A dense barrage of mocking, skeptical comments flooded the screen.

“Captain Ao, your Old Feng has flown to heaven! You still dare to take sponsored streams?!”

“Captain Ao, a dog really can’t stop eating shit! Come on, tell us how much money you took from Miteng this time!”

“You’re actually using ‘free’ as a selling point? As if you haven’t shilled free games before! Ten fucking minutes in and three ads pop up, and every single one forces you to watch for a full minute before you can close it! Now you dare recommend another free game? Your Old Feng is really never coming back down from outer space!”

Another comment was spammed repeatedly, its sender clearly furious: “Last time, I believed your bullshit and bought 《Return of the Little Sage^[1]》. Even now, whenever I think about it, I want to slap myself twice in the face!”

Watching the comments scroll past, Captain Ao did not care in the slightest. Miteng had simply offered far too much money. So what if Old Feng took a bit of verbal abuse? Once this stream was over, he could just buy Old Feng a new car to make up for it.

“All right, I’m sure you guys can’t wait to see Miteng Company’s blockbuster either. Let’s get started.” With that, Captain Ao put on his gaming helmet.

The stream’s display soon went dark. A few seconds later, an imposing line of text slowly surfaced on the screen.

《Resident Evil: Raccoon City – Prologue》

The moment the title appeared, another wave of mocking comments swept the chat, the vitriol not diminishing in the slightest.

“I bet we’ll see the first ad within five minutes!”

“I bet we’ll see one in three minutes!”

“I bet an ad pops up right after the title! If it doesn’t, I’ll eat my gaming helmet on the spot!”

Captain Ao ignored the comments. Soon, the Resident Evil title faded away, replaced by an interface for selecting pain simulation fidelity.

“Oh? I didn’t expect this game to feature pain simulation,” Captain Ao said, slightly surprised.

Pain simulation was not uncommon in modern virtual reality games; many titles incorporated it, and it was one of the core experiences of VR gaming. A game without pain simulation was like food cooked without salt, always feeling as though something were missing.

However, this technology remained quite expensive. From hardware sensors to software algorithms, and from neural signal decoding to haptic feedback, every single step demanded top-tier technical teams and massive financial investment.

Typically, only AAA blockbusters with production budgets exceeding a hundred million Yuan included it as a standard feature.

Although the representatives from Miteng had praised the game to high heaven when signing the sponsorship deal, blathering on about a revolutionary experience that would redefine the horror genre, Captain Ao had always kept a clear head.

He had taken plenty of sponsored deals for free-to-play games and knew full well what kind of trash they were: full of crude, shoddy models and cookie-cutter gameplay, popping up three ads every five minutes, with each ad forcing you to watch for thirty seconds before you could close it.

In his eyes, free-to-play games were the sewer of the gaming industry.

So even though he took the sponsorship for 《Resident Evil》, he had never truly expected it to be a masterpiece. He had even prepared for the worst: after finishing today’s stream, his reputation would completely collapse, and he would simply quit streaming. He would take the money Miteng paid him, find a place where nobody knew him, and quietly enjoy the rest of his life.

But now, it seemed things might take a turn.

“Brothers, this is pain simulation! That’s something only proper blockbusters feature! Looks like Miteng Company really broke the bank this time! Let’s see how high this pain simulation fidelity can go.”

Finishing his sentence, Captain Ao began adjusting the pain simulation settings, sliding the slider all the way to maximum in one go.

The screen instantly displayed 100% pain fidelity. Next, he dragged the fidelity down to the minimum, but it locked at 5% and would not go any lower.

“Did you all see that?! The pain simulation in this game can reach one hundred percent fidelity! And the lowest setting is locked at five percent! This is definitely a hardcore game with maximum immersion and intensely realistic pain!”

Captain Ao shouted exaggeratedly as the chat beside him scrolled furiously.

“Is Miteng Company crazy?! The maximum pain fidelity actually goes up to one hundred percent! Are they really not worried someone will die from the pain?”

“In regular blockbusters, the cap on pain is twenty percent at most, and you can manually turn it off completely. Compared to that, this is brutal.”

“Even a phenomenal hit like 《Battlefield Vanguard》 only goes up to fifty, and its lowest setting can be adjusted to a one-percent no-damage mode. What the hell is Miteng trying to pull?!”

“This game is probably going to scare off more than half the players.”

“I’m starting to panic, but why do I want to play it so badly…”

While the comments were still flooding the screen, Captain Ao had already adjusted the pain fidelity to 10%.

“Brothers, I might be bold, but I’m no idiot. One hundred percent pain? That’s for the hardcore lunatics to challenge. I’ll test the waters with ten percent first.”

Right at that moment, a Super Chat worth a thousand Yuan was pinned at the very top.

“Captain Ao, if you dare to stream today with one hundred percent pain fidelity the entire time, I’ll tip you one hundred rockets!”

Seeing this Super Chat, Captain Ao’s heart skipped a beat. A single rocket cost ten thousand Yuan, and a hundred rockets meant one million Yuan! In all his time streaming, he had never received one million in tips in a single day.

Nobody questioned whether the person who sent the Super Chat meant what he said, because the account belonged to the top-tier wealthy scion, Principal Wang^[2], who had never once broken a promise when it came to tips.

Still, Captain Ao hesitated. After all, this was one hundred percent realistic pain. Hardly anyone dared turn on the fifty percent pain setting in 《Battlefield Vanguard》; only the most hardcore players ever touched that kind of thing.

He had tried turning it on once before, but the beatdown had left him howling in agony, and he hadn’t dared open 《Battlefield Vanguard》 again for an entire week.

He was certain that if he enabled one hundred percent realism, he would probably end up wailing for his parents.

Just as he wavered, donation chimes sounded in rapid succession.

A barrage of comments from players followed right behind, scrolling endlessly across the screen.

“Captain Ao, if you dare play with one hundred percent realistic pain, I’ll send you a rocket too!”

“That’s right, we’ll tip you too!”

In the bottom-right corner of the screen, gift animations exploded one after another. Starlight, airplanes, and sports cars layered over one another as a dense flood of tips piled up in an instant.

Driven by intense curiosity, everyone was desperate to see just what kind of experience this unprecedented, one hundred percent neural-synchronized pain would actually be.