Two Ford Mustang sports cars roared through the bustling streets, masked bank robbers sticking their heads out of the passenger window, shouting excitedly while firing a Gold AK47 into the air, forcing back the police helicopter tracking them from above.

This is "GTA10--Return to Liberty City," a city covering an area of a thousand square kilometers, a third larger than New York.

Every few blocks, you can see Players robbing banks/casinos, stealing military trucks, and vying for gang territory. Long guns and short guns blazing in chaotic delight.

Li Cheng and Gray Rain disguised themselves as Ordinary NPCs, calmly watching from a café.

Uh... "GTA10" is mainly played by Players in the 2070s, with the game setting in the 2010s United States. Whether to avoid copyright or due to the carelessness of the production team,

there are many bugs in the city’s setting, such as passersby with iPhone 17s showing "Avatar 3," street vendors selling plush dolls of milk dragons, and giant billboards hyping posters of Kobe’s retirement tour...

Uh, they got the date right on this last one; it is indeed 2016.

"What we can be sure of right now is that Zak is definitely caught, and the internet monitoring department can follow the clues to take over Garrosh and Yawei’s accounts to launch attacks on others.

The pager has been exposed, so it definitely can’t be used anymore."

Li Cheng looked through the enigma notes, pondering.

Carlos gave him a total of three enigma notes, the first instructing him to stay in a submarine and wait. The second was a warning to guard against torpedo attacks. The third informed him which Teleportation Gates to open to access popular online game worlds.

And that was it.

"What does it mean? Should I just go through any Teleportation Gate, and there won’t be any danger? There are still ten hours until the finals."

Li Cheng slightly frowned, but Gray Rain took it easy, saying relaxedly: "Then just stay here for a while. Anyway, there’s no danger."

Boom! 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

A mighty military armored vehicle came to a screeching halt outside the window, and two young men and women in gothic attire jumped out, striding into the café, politely ordering two cups of coffee from an NPC.

The two were dressed in black and white formal wear, with heavy makeup on their faces and small accessories like leather collars and skull pendants. However, in 2070, gothic style had become a mundane fashion, and their conversation was quite normal.

"Bro, did you bet on this Grand Tournament?"

"Yeah, I bet on RLG to win."

"Not ’King’s Road’ or ’Lost Paradise’? RLG doesn’t stand a chance, don’t let it be like last year."

"fnmdp, RLG will make it to the quarter-finals or semi-finals?"

The gothic young man suddenly got excited, his face flushed, "It’s not about the quantity but the height of the peak,"

Then he spouted some hard-to-understand words, like "If Spring has compassion for flowers, would it let me be young again,"

"Home is lucky to have RLG as an audience for three lifetimes,"

"Actually, everyone knows the professional team; if you hold a hundred Grand Tournament finals, Brother Bing can win 97 times. It’s just that the 3 times he didn’t win were seen by the audience, but the industry teams all recognize Brother Bing as the champion."

Sitting in the corner, stealthily listening, Gray Rain smacked his lips, and whispered: "Why do these words sound so familiar? The esports circle still sounds like this fifty years later."

"It’s not just the esports circle; the fandom atmosphere in all competitive projects is basically like this. It’s human nature."

Li Cheng calmly said: "You switch to Japan’s newspapers in 1985, they wrote about Koichi Kobayashi facing a critical moment, facing black and white chess, choosing white, opting to headbutt Nie Weiping’s shoe sole!"

"Oh oh."

Gray Rain, deep in thought, quickly picked up Li Cheng’s spare phone to browse the betting websites.

Li Cheng looked dumbfounded, "What are you doing?"

"Hurry up and place a bet on our win. If we wait any longer, the odds won’t be the same."

Gray Rain justified, "In the Grand Tournament, there are over a hundred professional teams worldwide competing for a ticket to the finals for fourteen golden coins; the competition is fiercely intense."

"Even if you win the bet, there’s no way to spend the money."

Li Cheng rolled his eyes, "There’s basically nothing fun in the reality outside the game."

He turned his laptop to show Gray Rain the external data.

The entire planet’s ecological environment has regressed significantly, with acidic rain constantly falling from the sky, billions of people all living in supercities made of steel and concrete, needing protective suits just to walk their dogs outside.

It’s hard to say if it’s good or bad, but due to the United Government’s promotion and widespread use of automated, unmanned factories, a large number of manufacturing jobs are completed by unmanned factories, ordinary people don’t need to go into factories to screw bolts,

and they receive monthly credit points issued by the United Government to shop online with.

If they do not wish to live idly or become overly immersed in virtual worlds,

they can choose to work from home, engaging in relatively creative work, such as scientific research, music, poetry, novels, games, film and television creation, etc., to earn extra credit points.

As for whether there’s an audience in the AI era is another matter.

"Isn’t this too... awesome?"

Gray Rain scratched his head, "Everyone’s lying flat, there’s no need to work."

"For ordinary people who wish to lie flat, it’s naturally the best time, but for workaholics and social Darwinists, it’s not as wonderful; social classes have been massively reduced and compressed, it’s hard to rise above others unless you join the United Government or manage to qualify as one in a million Astronauts."

Li Cheng swiped the screen to enlarge Earth’s low orbit, where it was dotted with dense metal debris, rotating rapidly around Earth at first cosmic speed.

Upon pause for observation, you could even see SpaceX logos printed on some metal fragments and the large face of a Musk who wished to remain anonymous.

Gray Rain asked confusedly, "What is this?"

"One major reason why everyone’s lying flat, space debris."

Li Cheng briefly explained: "In 2050, which was four years before Skytop Company appeared, a Player with the ID ’Li Risheng’ entered this Script World, using space-based orbital weapons, he threatened sovereign nations, thus gaining control of the entire world."