Part 1: An Invitation from the Sky
"Life is a high-stakes game of Texas Hold'em. Most of us spend our whole lives carefully counting the loose change in our pockets, terrified of losing the bus fare home. Then one day, some invisible dealer tosses you a golden chip and, with a smile, pushes you to the final table. You look around and realize you're surrounded by sharks who can read your every heartbeat, your every breath. And you... you don't even know if a flush beats a straight."
--------------------------------------------------
"So, can you be my bestie?"
Jenny's voice was a stone cast into a deep pool, sending ripple after ripple across the chaotic surface of Ruby's heart. The wind on the mountaintop was cold, making his cheap "NICE" track pants rustle, but he couldn't feel it. The Mustang's engine had cooled, but something inside him was heating up uncontrollably.
In the end, he gave no verbal answer. Under the gaze of Jenny's clear, bright eyes, he just nodded heavily, like an idiot.
Maybe they really were like soulmates from an old story, each playing a lonely tune in their own world that no one else could understand, until tonight, when the music finally found its echo on a distant shore. Or maybe, they were just two foolish kids who couldn't find a seat in the hypocritical world of adults, huddling together for warmth in the cold mountain wind.
Whatever. Who cares.
That's what Ruby told himself as he handed the Mustang's keys, which seemed to still hold a residual warmth, back to Jenny. This sudden, ephemeral experience, one that felt like it could be blown away by the wind at any second, had come quickly, and would probably go just as fast.
Just like... just like last night.
Just like everything that had happened yesterday, at that godforsaken Oculus River Pier...
Once the thought surfaced, it was like a venomous vine growing up from the abyss, instantly ensnaring all his other thoughts, violently dragging him from the peak of Mount Gosselin back twenty-four hours to that bizarre night—a night that still made him wonder if he'd just had a ridiculously absurd dream.
...
Yesterday afternoon, just as he was preparing to continue his "slacker philosopher" routine—contemplating ultimate questions like "is the end of the universe just another convenience store" with a bag of Lay's original potato chips and a half-bottle of ice-cold Coke—an unknown number, like a precision-guided missile, struck his cheap phone with its peeling screen protector.
"Yeah? Who's this?" Ruby's voice was raspy with the grogginess of being woken from his folding chair, laced with a "you-better-not-be-a-telemarketer-or-I-hope-your-company-goes-bankrupt-tomorrow" irritation.
"May I speak with Mr. Ruby, please?"
The female voice on the other end was like a glass of Perrier straight from an ice bucket, with a slice of lime. It was crisp, clean, each word hitting his eardrum with a faint, elegant fizz. The voice was so pleasant that he instinctively sat up straight, nearly crushing the chips in his hand to dust.
"This is him. Who're you? Selling insurance? Look, I'm broke. My parents have money, but they're not my problem. They're saving it all for my future wife." He kept up his usual slacker bravado, the most effective defense mechanism he'd evolved over twenty-two years of survival on Marin Street.
"No, Mr. Ruby." The voice let out a light chuckle, one devoid of mockery, filled only with a pure amusement, as if observing a rare and fascinating creature. "I am the head of Player Experience for Skybound Aces. My name is Gao Qiong."
Ruby froze completely. The hand holding the potato chips stopped mid-air, crumbs snowing down like a golden, salty blizzard.
Skybound Aces!
"Oh! Oh! Player Experience?" He shot up from his chair, instantly switching into hardcore gamer mode, his feedback pouring out like machine-gun fire. "Hi! Yeah, the game is awesome! But listen, that 'Phoenix Wing' skinsuit, can you guys make it a little cheaper? A virtual item costs more than my electricity bill for a year, don't you guys feel any guilt? Also, that 'Avalanche Peak' track, the third checkpoint is in a seriously troll-y spot. I suspect your level designer is a huge Batman fan, always hiding things in the damn corners..."
"Mr. Ruby," Gao Qiong politely interrupted him, her voice taking on an undeniable gravity. "We've noticed that your in-game performance is... exceptional."
"Exceptional?" Ruby paused, then let out a small scoff, trying to sound nonchalant. "It's alright, I guess. Just flying around. Nothing special." He was playing it cool, but inside, he felt like he'd just had a bucket of iced plum juice dumped over his head on a scorching summer day. Every pore was screaming in delight. After all, the ID "Ruby" was a persistent nightmare hanging over every flight player in Skybound Aces.
"You're being modest. Let me put it this way: last week, when you set the new record on the 'Avalanche Peak' track, our backend system flagged your run as a 'data anomaly' three separate times, triggering a highest-level security alert."
"Data anomaly? I don't cheat!" Ruby was instantly on guard. This was a matter of principle.
"We know you don't," Gao Qiong's tone became more serious, which only made it more convincing. "We've reviewed your flight recording repeatedly. To better understand your technique, and to express our respect for a top-tier player such as yourself, we would like to invite you to an official, offline player appreciation banquet."
"Appreciation banquet?" Ruby's eyes lit up.
In his mind, those words automatically translated to: an all-you-can-eat buffet of sizzling barbecue and fresh seafood, official Skybound Aces merchandise, and maybe even a chance to meet the developers and complain about their stupid quest designs face-to-face! It sounded like a pie falling from the sky—a premium, melt-in-your-mouth Wagyu beef pie!
"...Is it free?" Ruby swallowed hard, asking the most crucial question.
"Of course. The location is the Oculus River Pier, tonight at 8 PM," Gao Qiong added. "You will see directions when you arrive."
"The pier? Which hotel? Or is it a cruise ship?" Ruby asked, his mind already running through the possibilities, like the Victoria or the Pearl of the Orient.
There was a two-second pause on the other end, then Gao Qiong's voice returned, a mix of surprise and amusement. "You'll know when you get there. We await your arrival with the highest respect."
The line went dead.
Ruby stood frozen for a full three minutes, like a statue struck by lightning. His brain had split into two tiny figures. One, wearing a wrinkled suit and thick glasses, was screaming in his ear: "It's a trap, you idiot! They're gonna harvest your organs! Don't go!" The other, wearing a crown and a cape embroidered with "King of the Sky," was floating on a cloud, high on the praise of "highest respect" and "top-tier player."
In the end, the tiny king kicked the tiny suit-wearer off a cliff. Vanity, it turns out, is a far more powerful motivator than the will to live.
That evening, he rummaged through his entire wardrobe and found his finest attire: a light black shirt with "GAME OVER" printed on the chest. The collar was a bit faded, but he thought it was cool, full of post-modern deconstruction and irony. Wearing the flip-flops that had carried him through countless summers, their treads worn smooth by time, he got squashed into a photograph on the rush-hour bus and arrived on time at the Oculus River Pier marked on the map.
And then, his worldview was shattered by the first sledgehammer blow.
The Oculus River at night was like a spilled glass of ink mixed with neon lights. The river breeze was damp and fishy, making his skin feel sticky. The pier was deserted, except for the ships. There were tired-looking cargo ships puffing black smoke, gaudy tour boats blasting tacky dance music, and a few private speedboats that looked like toys.
Ruby wandered between them like a lost soul who couldn't find his congregation. He began to suspect he'd been pranked.
Just as he was about to give up, he saw it.
At the very end of the pier, in the darkest berth, it rested in silence. You couldn't call it a ship. It was a "maritime fortress," or a "black palace."
It was like a prehistoric leviathan forged from obsidian and futuristic alloys, slumbering in the abyss, so massive it seemed to devour the very light around it. Three carbon fiber masts rose from its deck, reaching closer to heaven than any man-made structure should. On its hull, a line of elegant, silver-blue script reflected the pier's dim yellow light with a chilling gleam of money and power—"Black Pearl."
And below the name, a smaller, intimately familiar logo—"Skybound Aces."
Skybound Aces.
Ruby's pupils contracted. A chill shot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
He wanted to run.
This time, the urge was stronger, more real than ever. His mind went blank, with only one voice screaming: Run! This was not the player appreciation banquet he had imagined! No gaming company would charter a super-yacht that looked more monstrous than Godzilla just to entertain one broke player! This wasn't an appreciation banquet, it was an ambush! He felt like an idiot, a moron blinded by the promise of a "premium buffet." "Small people should live like small people; don't expect anything from a world beyond your comprehension"—his mother's nagging, full of life's wisdom, rang in his head like an alarm bell.
His heel was already lifted, his calf muscles tensed, ready to execute his brain's most logical command—flee!
But he had only half-turned when a figure appeared in his line of sight, appearing so silently it was as if he had been standing there all along.
It was an elderly gentleman dressed in a black, high-collared tunic suit. His hair was white, but his face was unlined. He was thin but stood ramrod straight, like an ancient sword sheathed and enshrined in an ancestral hall. Not sharp, but possessing a heavy, profound dignity that could calm all the winds on the river. His face was placid, his gaze gentle yet penetrating.
"Mr. Ruby, there is no need to be alarmed," the elder's voice was not loud, but it carried a strange cadence that seemed to soothe the soul. "Miss Gao Qiong is already waiting for you."
Ruby flinched, completely baffled as to how the man had identified him at a glance on this chaotic pier.
The elder seemed to read his mind. "When all the lights on this river stand still for one man, identifying you is not a difficult task."
The sentence was like a bow being slowly drawn across an ancient string instrument, each note plucking at his tense nerves. Ruby shrewdly caught the key point: "For one man? I thought this was a player banquet? Where are the other players?"
"Mr. Ruby, you are the only player being thanked tonight."
Only me?
His heart sank straight to the bottom of the river.
It's over. This isn't just an ambush, it's my last meal. He was already imagining the various ways his corpse, minus a few organs, would be dumped into the river.
But he didn't run. Because he knew that in front of this old man, "running" was one of the two most pointless actions in the world. The other was "refusing."
A gangway made of polished aluminum and reinforced glass, shimmering with a soft blue light, connected the pier to the ship. It was like a bridge to the future. This side was the mortal world; that side was the realm of the gods.
The "slap, slap" of his cheap flip-flops on the mirror-smooth gangway sounded exceptionally jarring, a crude offense. He looked at the flowing light strips on either side and instinctively shoved his hands in his pockets, not daring to touch the railings. He was afraid the germs from the bus handrail on his fingers would stain this pristine world that wasn't his.
When his feet touched the deck, laid with premium Burmese teak, a scent of sea salt, fine wood, and something else he couldn't define—something cold and sharp—enveloped him. He felt like he hadn't boarded a ship, but had entered the lair of another species. An absurd thought popped into his head: if a bird had the audacity to poop on this deck, what kind of cloth would they use to wipe it? An Hermès scarf?
As his mind wandered, the elder stopped before a magnificent set of doors. They were black, made of an unknown material that seemed deeper than the night itself. Two intertwined Ouroboros serpents, carved from gold, coiled on the doors, their emerald eyes seeming to watch him with living intensity.
The elder did not knock. He simply bowed slightly and made a gesture for Ruby to enter on his own.
Ruby took a deep breath and raised a trembling hand. But just as his fingertips were about to touch the doors, which felt heavy enough to separate two worlds—
With a faint, almost inaudible hiss, like a snake's whisper...
The doors slid open inward, silently.