Minecraft: The Road

On the summer day after the college entrance exams, Zhang Jilin entered Notch’s tournament server.

The global tournament would run for a year. There were no prerequisites and no registration: the gates stood wide open, and simply entering counted as competing. He resolved to throw himself into it.

Though he got into a decent university, his soul had always belonged to this blocky world. Here, he met many people. Some became his closest friends, while with others he would share his whole life.

But in the end, his companions turned on him, and the one he loved pushed him into the abyss. He kept falling through a soundless darkness, with no end in sight.

+ He had long forgotten how he lost the tournament or why he dropped out of college. All he could remember was walking alone down a brightly lit hallway, carrying a cardboard box. No one called after him.

+ After that, he became a delivery driver. Then one night, the game screen went completely black, and he thought it was all over.

+ When he opened his eyes again, a tournament arena built from perfectly square plants and giant grass blocks stretched before him. Somehow, he had returned to the competition.

He soon figured out what was happening: he was trapped inside a game character, whose body was being controlled by a boy named Ouyang Bin on the other side of the screen. The only way they could communicate was through the chat box.

People milled around him. Those familiar usernames and banners all belonged to people from his past. Without hesitation, he left a message in the chat box that only the boy could see. The arena buzzed with its usual commotion, but some people would be kept awake all night.