Lu Ting worked grueling 996 hours year after year, and for years, the only way she unwound was with a city-building mobile game.
The game asked players to build a city from scratch, expanding its territory, growing its population, and improving the happiness of its residents.
Lu Ting had restarted eight times.
The little people in her city either threw nuclear bombs at one another, suffered natural disasters when the ecosystem fell out of balance, or wiped each other out in a bio-war.
After pouring her heart into the game and spending a fortune on it, all she got was this. Lu Ting was completely numb.
On her final restart, she decided to lie flat. She only opened the game once a day while killing time in the bathroom: Whatever happens, happens.
What she didn't expect was that whenever she grumbled from stall number two in the company restroom, the little people in the game could hear her
When the client sent over their umpteenth round of revisions, Lu Ting said, “Damn it!”
On the barren, empty land, the people who still lived by hunting heard a mournful cry from a distant valley. They all laid down their swords and knives and worshipped devoutly:
“It is the voice of the gods! The gods are telling us to clear the weeds and sow the fields!”
And so, farmland appeared in the city.
When her boss made another empty promise, Lu Ting said, “What good are your promises? Pay us already!”
The little people received the divine message: “Promises… money… The gods want us to invent something we can use to buy food!”
And so, currency appeared in the city.
At last, Lu Ting realized something was off and tried to communicate with the little people:
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
The game was silent.
What the heck? Was there a bug? Lu Ting shouted in frustration, “What the hell!”
The priest caught the words “what the hell” perfectly: “The gods are warning us not to rely on them for everything. We must learn to stand on our own!”
Lu Ting: “? So only swear words get picked up?”
Later, under the gods’ guidance, the little people felled trees, planted crops, built infrastructure, established schools and prioritized education, and expanded their territory as their population grew.
The residents followed her instructions, and her city began to soar up the rankings.
Many years later, Lu Ting’s city had maxed out its tech tree and set out to conquer the stars, planting statues of Lu Ting, their goddess, on every planet they occupied.
A young child asked their parents, “Are there really gods in this world?”
Their parents smiled. “Of course. It’s just that our goddess… always gets censored.”
[Blurb written on June 23, 2026]
Theme: Strive to live well
