Red Alert: Glory of the Republic

Lin Feng never imagined that his ordinary life after retiring from the special forces would be turned upside down in such an unbelievable way. A Red Alert player, he was driving his XPeng P7 into a highway tunnel when the emergency lights suddenly went out. Amid the shrill crackle of electricity, the car’s onboard system, Xiao P, suddenly materialized as a silver-blue hologram hovering in front of the steering wheel. Its mechanical voice issued an unmistakable command: Welcome to the Red Alert battlefield. Your vehicle has been converted into a Chinese Construction Yard. Deploy it to trigger the beginner mission.

The dashboard switched to a battle progress bar: 0/300.

“Win every battle to unlock the time-space passage back to reality.”

As the treads crushed the unfamiliar red earth, Lin Feng’s special forces instincts kicked in. He positioned a line of Tesla Troopers with precision and used an Engineer’s skills to repair a collapsed bridge, but was pushed to the brink when he encountered a Soviet Apocalypse Tank battalion. A woman’s voice came through the encrypted channel: “The Allies have a Gap Generator on the flank. I’ll take Mirage Tanks around back!”

The player controlling the Allies was Su Qing, another transmigrator swept into the world of Red Alert. Her Prism Tower formation and Lin Feng’s Chinese war industry worked together flawlessly. From the ruins of Stalingrad to Einstein’s laboratory, the two developed a rapport beyond compare over three hundred life-or-death battles. When the smoke cleared after their final victory, the Construction Yard’s control panel produced two return tickets. Lin Feng looked at Su Qing’s cheek, smudged with virtual smoke, and suddenly took her hand. “Once we’re back in the real world, want to keep teaming up?”

The hologram faded, and two XPeng P7s pulled up side by side in the plaza by the highway exit. Their windows rolled down, and the two people who had fought shoulder to shoulder in the world of Red Alert smiled at each other in the real-world sunlight.