Chapter Eighty-Seven: Video

Battle City.

Downtown, Moonlit Gardens, eighteenth floor.

Inside a warm, pink room scattered with oversized stuffed dolls, a girl in a hamster pajama set sat with her bare legs pale and slender, her bright eyes fixed on the virtual screen before her.

Beside her, a boy wearing dinosaur pajamas was watching just as intently.

The virtual screen was playing a video of a battle.

The video was only three or four minutes long, yet the boy and girl stared without blinking, utterly absorbed.

At last, the video ended, and the final credits appeared. Only then did the two of them let out long breaths, as though they had just emerged from the fierce struggle within the footage.

"No matter how many times I watch it, the master is still the master. . . . Too incredible. . . ."

The boy in dinosaur pajamas exclaimed in admiration.

"Pretty good, right? Pretty awesome? It’s got to go viral, right?" the girl asked, her eyes shining as she looked at him.

"Yeah, it definitely will!"

The boy nodded, then hesitated and looked up. "But sis, is it really okay for us to post the master’s battle video online like this?"

The girl froze for a moment at that, then frowned. After a short silence, she clenched her teeth.

"It’s fine. The master was covered in black from head to toe, and he didn’t even show his face. Who could possibly tell who he is? It’s fine."

"Besides, it’s not like I didn’t want to ask for his permission. Didn’t I even run after him back then? I was trying to ask him, but the master didn’t want to see me and just left. There was nothing I could do. . . ."

"And he didn’t even lay a hand on the two of us. That means he doesn’t care whether anyone saw the fight at all. So it’s fine!"

Zhou Xiaozhou kept finding reasons to reassure herself.

After a moment, the boy finally nodded. "All right then. Let’s upload it."

Then his eyes lit up. "But we need a title with some presence!"

"Heh, I already thought of one!"

With a mischievous grin, Zhou Xiaozhou in her hamster pajamas opened a website.

She clicked to upload a work, then typed in a line of text.

The Close-Combat Gunmaster: A Being Who Shatters the Boundaries of the Profession!

"Pretty imposing, right?"

She looked at Zhou Xiaolin with satisfaction.

Zhou Xiaolin’s eyes lit up, and he nodded. "Not bad. Very imposing."

"Mm, then I’ll upload it?"

"Mm!"

Zhou Xiaozhou drew in a deep breath and clicked upload.

Seeing the video finish uploading in the blink of an eye, the girl let out a long breath.

"Please, please go viral. . . ."

Zhou Xiaozhou thought to herself.

Q Station was one of the largest video-sharing sites on Feiluo Star.

Its daily traffic was in the billions.

The site hosted all kinds of videos, but the ones that drew the most mainstream attention were the many news items about the Alliance.

By now, with the power of gene technology, humanity had long since left Earth and entered the interstellar age.

Humans now occupied three entire starfields.

They were the Galaxy Starfield, the Kro Starfield, and the Hundred Rivers Starfield.

Each starfield contained anywhere from a few to several dozen star systems beneath it.

Feiluo Star was the thirty-sixth habitable planet discovered by humankind in the Cloud High Star System of the Hundred Rivers Starfield.

Thousands of years ago, the Human Alliance had come to this planet to develop it.

The so-called Alliance was short for the Pan-Starfield Human Destiny Community Alliance.

In name, all the planets within these starfields belonged to Alliance rule.

But in reality, whether administratively or militarily, each region largely fought its own battles.

The areas were simply too vast. The Alliance found it extremely difficult to exercise strong control over the starfields, star systems, and even the individual planets beneath it.

So the system of self-government was adopted.

Space was not peaceful.

Outside, races such as the Machine Clan and the Insect Clan watched human territory with covetous eyes. Inside, star pirates and separatist powers ran rampant, pillaging and tearing through the stars.

Wars had raged for years, and the outer reaches of every star system were front lines.

Feiluo Star was in a fairly favorable position, lying within the Cloud High Star System near human territory. But the Cloud High Star System itself stood on the edge of the Hundred Rivers Starfield.

And beyond that lay the starfield belonging to the Machine Clan.

For that reason, the entire Cloud High Star System was effectively on the fringe of the interstellar battlefield. No one could say when the machines might go mad and threaten Feiluo Star itself.

That was why the people of Feiluo Star paid such close attention to every piece of news coming from the Alliance, afraid that the flames of war might one day reach their own world.

Though Q Station was not the official news site of Feiluo Star, it was a video-sharing platform with no strict limit on video length. As a result, many official accounts chose to post more detailed video reports there.

The top ten spots on the daily click ranking were basically always occupied by one piece of space news after another.

For example: some space station in a certain star system had been robbed again by star pirates. Or some notorious pirate lord had been surrounded by Alliance forces and fled to who-knows-where. Or the Machine Clan was showing new signs of activity. And so on, and so forth.

There was no end to it.

Beyond these current affairs, there was plenty of other content as well.

Food, combat, weapon reviews, evaluations of gene battle techniques, detailed analyses of tactical planning for various professions. . . .

The list went on and on.

It was all-encompassing.

Because the site was so enormous and its content so rich, it would have looked chaotic without careful categorization.

So Q Station further subdivided its videos into numerous categories. Within those categories, aside from the rankings, there were also recommendations placed in more visible locations, to prevent excellent videos from being buried beneath high-click content.

For that reason, Q Station employed a great many content editors.

They combed through the vast sea of videos, finding those truly outstanding enough to be promoted step by step.

Sun Wenqian was one such content editor.

The category he handled was Combat.

At that moment, he sat at his desk in Q Station’s Tianyao City office building, while before him a massive virtual screen played one video after another.

As a veteran editor, Sun Wenqian could tell from the first few seconds whether a video had any chance of catching fire.

He watched video after video, sometimes shaking his head, sometimes nodding.

The Combat category was fairly popular. After all, Feiluo Star had a considerable number of evolvers. But there were also many who chose not to evolve.

The battlefield was simply too dangerous. Not everyone had the courage to wager their lives there.

Because of that, most combat videos were highly eye-catching.

Whether it was a life-and-death struggle or a one-sided crushing victory, there was always a market for it.

But Q Station was not a combat-video site. Combat was only one genre among many. So if something was to catch his eye and earn a recommendation slot, it had to be truly exceptional.

"Hm, Gold-tier Frenzied Saber, One Versus Ten, Silver White Wolf. . . . Another Gold evolver has uploaded a video?"

One title drew Sun Wenqian’s attention, and he nodded in satisfaction.

There were still relatively few Gold evolvers. Any battle video from one of them could attract a great deal of attention.

After all, the world seen by a Gold evolver was, by its very nature, different from that of most people.

After thinking it over and reviewing several earlier videos he had set aside as promising, Sun Wenqian decided that this issue’s recommendation would go to this one.

But just as he was about to make the choice, another line of text caught his eye.

"The Close-Combat Gunmaster: A Being Who Shatters the Boundaries of the Profession!"

"A gunmaster. . . ? Could it be a gun fighter? Close-combat? Shattering the boundaries of a profession?"

The title piqued Sun Wenqian’s curiosity, and he carefully studied the video preview.

Three minutes later, his eyes flew wide open.