Chapter 165
As his friend was leaving, he grew increasingly irritated. Was he not handsome enough?
He was still fuming as he sat in his sports car outside.
So he edited the various clips he had recorded earlier into a video and posted it on his Moments.
Sure enough, his Moments exploded!
Others kept asking: "Where is this?"
"What place is that?"
"Oh my god, this looks so interesting!"
"How much does it cost? I want to try it too!"
Many people were asking questions, and various WeChat calls came in, but he ignored them all.
He had just been utterly crushed by Gu Qingyan, so now he wanted to use this to make others jealous.
Misery loves company, after all. Others must feel this pain too.
He drove his sports car at breakneck speed in a deserted area, which made him feel slightly better.
He decided he needed to strive alongside Gu Qingyan.
They were good friends, after all. The gap between them couldn't be too wide.
Otherwise, what if Gu Qingyan didn't want to be his friend anymore in the future?
Where would he find someone to play games with then?
With this in mind, he immediately returned to his family's company and told his father he was ready to start working.
His father was quite shocked but felt his son had finally grown up and become responsible.
So he quickly arranged a position for his son, fearing the boy's enthusiasm might be short-lived and he'd forget about it soon.
Two days passed.
He only answered Gu Qingyan's call after all this time.
Just as he was about to tell Gu Qingyan about the changes he'd made recently, Gu Qingyan blurted out: "Did you upload that video to the internet?"
"What video?" His friend was completely baffled.
Gu Qingyan grew anxious: "The video of the gaming pod!"
His friend breathed a sigh of relief: "No, I just posted it on my Moments!"
His Moments were all rich second-generation friends, only about forty people he had known since childhood. It was difficult for outsiders to penetrate his social circle.
Moreover, he had set his Moments to be visible for only three days.
Most of the time, he rarely posted anything on Moments.
That day, he had only posted because Gu Qingyan had utterly infuriated him.
Gu Qingyan said: "Somehow it got reposted online, and now netizens are talking about it everywhere."
His friend felt a chill and said: "Let me check it out first, then I'll call you back!"
He hadn't looked into it before, so he opened his Moments.
Good grief, there were tons of likes, comments, and replies.
Many people were praising it effusively, showering it with compliments.
Lots of people wanted to know where exactly this was.
He hadn't replied to any of them, as he had been busy these past few days.
Hearing what Gu Qingyan said, his friend immediately went online to check.
One glance, and he was instantly drenched in cold sweat. It was the number one trending topic.
The comments had exploded to 20,000, posted by a public account.
"It says rich people are all playing this now," the post read.
Then it showed the video he had recorded.
In it, he played for 5 minutes the first time and was killed by an NPC.
The second time he played for 10 minutes.
The third time he played for 20 minutes.
The entire gaming pod looked incredibly impressive.
Netizens went wild in the comments.
"What's going on? Did technology advance 10 years while I wasn't paying attention?"
"What on earth is this thing? As long as it's not too expensive, I'll sell everything I own to buy one."
"Isn't this the gaming pod from sci-fi novels? My god, it actually exists in real life? I want to try it so badly."
"So rich people really do live in a different dimension from us? I've never been so envious of the wealthy before."
After reading all this, his friend called Gu Qingyan, his voice trembling: "I really didn't know about this. I just posted it on my Moments!"
Now everything was clear. Someone had taken his Moments post and shared it online.
Then a public account reposted it, and it went viral on the internet.
Gu Qingyan said: "Forget it!" He was also feeling quite overwhelmed now.
His friend felt so guilty he wanted to shrink into nothingness.
Gu Qingyan said it was fine and comforted his friend a bit before hanging up.
He let out a heavy sigh and returned to Starry Sky Kindergarten.
Gu Qingyan was such a show-off.
Whenever Shen Wei was nice to her, she couldn't help but flaunt it on various platforms.
So when they had decorated this place initially, he had bragged about it extensively on his Weibo.
That's how people had traced it back to this Gu Qingyan.
They dug up information about Starry Sky Kindergarten, and now things had really blown up.
Gaming pods were supposed to exist only in science fiction novels.
And for a game to be this immersive, it must be extraordinary.
With it being the number one trending topic, netizens were all clamoring to play this game, catching the attention of many big names in the gaming industry.
Even the national esports team took notice, expressing their desire to come and play a round.
With such endorsements, the esports and gaming communities were all focused on this matter.
Some bigwigs even called Shen Wei's father or Shen Wei directly to introduce people.
They all said there were individuals who wanted to come and see this gaming pod.
In fact, there had been ongoing research on gaming pods in China, with several projects dedicated to it.
But progress had been extremely slow.
Many problems were difficult to overcome.
So when this gaming pod appeared, the scientific community wondered if someone else had already surpassed them in their painstaking research.
This development shook the scientific community to its core.
The esports circle wanted to play, the scientific community wanted to study it.
Even the computer science community was intrigued.
The software algorithms would also provide valuable insights.
So these three groups, which originally had little overlap, found their way here through various connections, creating a tidal wave of interest.
The online buzz also intensified.
Even fans in many livestream rooms came to Shen Wei's stream, asking her how many more pieces of black technology she was hiding. They urged her to show them, saying there shouldn't be anything that her esteemed livestream fans couldn't see.
Shen Wei had no choice but to start another livestream.
She invited many big names from the tech industry, the national esports team, and computer science experts.
She simultaneously initiated an online broadcast.
This attracted even more attention.
After all, the TV station had taken over the culinary competition event, and they still needed to make some preparations. That project was on hold for now.
Many people flooded into the kindergarten's livestream room, having heard that there was a product here that transcended the times, which piqued their interest.
Shen Wei specifically opened a new livestream room. Without any promotion, the stream gained 300,000 followers as soon as it started.
As soon as people joined, they were dazzled by the various special effects.
Many effects had sound, high-quality visuals, and even vibrations.
It seemed fine at first, but became a bit overwhelming after a while.
Shen Wei directly turned off the donation feature, and the barrage of comments flew by like a blur.
"It's unbelievable that a kindergarten would have something like this."
Gu Qingyan stayed by Shen Wei's side throughout, watching her cautiously.
After all, this trouble was ultimately caused by him, so now he didn't even dare to breathe heavily.
He was afraid of causing any more problems for Shen Wei.
Shen Wei directly entered the system space with her consciousness and spent 5,000 points to customize a plausible origin for the gaming pod.
It wasn't originally necessary.
Because nobody had paid much attention to this gaming pod.
They thought it was part of some secret research.
But now that the whole internet knew about it, the gaming pod needed to have a public identity.
The system could create a backstory from scratch, eventually crafting a real character.
It cost 5,000 points, but Shen Wei felt it was worth it.
The character the system created was a small-town scientist.
He had been fascinated by science fiction novels since childhood.
He had many insights about gaming pods in particular.
After developing this device, he disappeared, with the last footage of him vanishing on a street corner.
After seeing the various materials provided by the system, Shen Wei finally felt at ease.