Back in the Day, I Raided in Jian Wang 3 to Earn Enough for a House

In 2010, at twenty years old, I was holed up in a rented room in an urban village, living on instant noodles and Lao Gan Ma chili sauce. Jian Wang 3 had been open for less than a year, and prepaid cards cost just fifty cents an hour. I had no money to my name, but I did have a knack for gaming. I created an account in Yangzhou on the Telecom server. In just three months, I went from a newbie with incomplete gear to one of the server’s top PvE raid leaders for gold groups. I ran three or four regular teams every week, along with several pickup groups, and made five thousand yuan a month from raid auction shares. Back when monthly salaries in smaller cities were barely over two thousand yuan, my solid grasp of raid mechanics and practiced leadership let me live more comfortably than most office workers. At my peak, I had a hundred and twenty brothers by my side. Our guild regularly tackled new raids and cleared weekly lockouts, auctioning off mysterious crystals and special-effect weapons on the spot and splitting the proceeds fairly. In 2012, the Yangzhou server merged with Chang’an. The server grew crowded, tensions flared, and PvP warfare shattered the peace of PvE. To protect my brothers, I switched from raid leader to faction commander, leading them into battles large and small and holding our ground. This isn’t an esports legend, just the story of an ordinary player who happened to be there during the best era for the game. I spent ten years of my youth making my way through the world of Jian Wang 3. I found brothers who would risk their lives for me, and with the money I earned, I bought a house outright back home. From Yangzhou to Chang’an, from the Dihua Palace to Frostwind Fort, this is my life, and the real youth of a generation of Jian Wang 3 players.