The aftermath of the holiday strategy meeting left the office in a state of suspended animation. The announcement that a pixel-art farming game was contending for the flagship slot against the juggernaut *Frontline Duty: Oblivion* had turned Project Team 1 into a spectacle. Employees from other departments walked past their glass walls, pointing and whispering.
Zhong Ming ignored them. He had a more pressing problem than office politics: The Audio.
A farming simulation lived or died by its atmosphere. In a world ravaged by the Omnic Crisis, "silence" was usually a precursor to an air raid siren. The concept of a peaceful, ambient soundscape was alien to the current generation of sound engineers.
He sat in the audio booth with Li Wei and the company's assigned sound specialist, a middle-aged man named Old Chen. Old Chen was a veteran of the war sim genre.
"So, for the farming sound," Old Chen said, sliding a chip across the table. "I took the liberty of preparing a base layer."
He played the track.
It was a low, rumbling bass with the sound of mechanical gears grinding and a distant explosion.
Zhong Ming stopped the track. "Old Chen... that is the sound of a tank factory."
"Exactly!" Old Chen nodded enthusiastically. "Industrial. Gritty. It shows the struggle of taming the land! Players love grit."
"No," Zhong Ming rubbed his temples. "We need the opposite. We need *nature*. I need the sound of wind blowing through tall grass. I need the sound of water trickling over stones. I need the sound of a spade hitting soft earth, not concrete."
Old Chen looked baffled. "Soft earth? Who wants to hear that? It's weak. It lacks... impact."
"I need 'White Noise' that is actually pleasant," Zhong Ming insisted. "It induces a state of calm. It's ASMR."
"ASMR?" Old Chen and Li Wei asked in unison. The term didn't exist in this world's lexicon.
"Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response," Zhong Ming explained. "It's a tingling sensation that begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It's triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli. It creates a sense of well-being and relaxation. That is the core of *Green Valley*'s experience."
Old Chen looked at him like he was speaking a dead language. "Director Zhong, I have a library of 50,000 gunshots. I can get you water dripping from a rusty pipe in a dungeon. But 'wind in grass'? That's... that's background noise. We delete that to save space."
Zhong Ming realized the cultural gap was wider than he thought. The war had stripped the world of its quiet moments. No one had recorded the sounds of nature in decades because nature had been a battlefield.
"Fine," Zhong Ming stood up. "If the sounds don't exist, we make them. We're going on a field trip."
...
**Recruitment**
Before he could leave, he had one more personnel issue to resolve. He needed a writer.
He sat in the small interview room across from a young woman with messy hair tied back in a loose bun, wearing a sweater that looked two sizes too big. Her name was Lin Xia.
She was a transfer from the Narrative Department of the *Frontline Duty* team. According to her file, she had been placed on "administrative leave" three times for writing "unnecessary emotional dialogue" in a tactical shooter.
"Your file says you were reprimanded for giving a generic soldier NPC a backstory about his daughter's birthday," Zhong Ming said, reading the tablet.
Lin Xia slumped in her chair. "It added depth! The players needed to care about why they were holding the line. But Producer Zhou said it was 'bloat'. He said players skip dialogue anyway. He told me to stick to 'Hostiles at 12 o'clock' and 'Move out'."
"Did the players skip it?" Zhong asked.
"The playtesters who triggered it... they paused," Lin Xia said quietly. "One of them said it made the victory feel hollow. That's why Zhou hated it. It made the killing feel heavy."
Zhong closed the file. "How do you feel about writing a game where no one dies?"
Lin Xia looked up, confused. "No one dies? What's the conflict?"
"The conflict is weeds. The conflict is a broken fence. The conflict is loneliness," Zhong Ming said. "I need to populate a village with twelve characters. They need schedules, birthdays, favorite foods, and secrets. I need the player to care about them not because they hold a gun, but because they are their neighbors."
He slid a notepad across the table.
"Can you write a character who is a grumpy old man who secretly loves kittens? Can you write a romance arc that feels earned over two in-game seasons?"
Lin Xia's eyes, previously dull and defensive, began to shine. "A... romance arc? In a video game? Like, dialogue choices? Gift giving?"
"Exactly. Social simulation."
"I can do it," she said, leaning forward. "I can do it better than 'Move out'."
"Welcome to Team 1," Zhong Ming said. "Pack your bags. You're coming with us."
...
**The Field Trip**
An hour later, Zhong Ming, Lin Xia, and a reluctant Li Wei were in a self-driving taxi, heading out of the city center. Old Chen had stayed behind, grumbling about wasting time.
"Where are we going, Boss?" Li Wei asked, watching the skyscrapers thin out. "The ruins are dangerous."
"We aren't going to the ruins," Zhong Ming said. "We're going to the Agri-Domes."
The Agri-Domes were massive, transparent biodomes constructed by the government to grow food in a controlled environment after the war poisoned the soil. They were sterile, efficient factories of agriculture, but they were the only places where "nature" still existed in District 9.
They arrived at Dome 4. After a strict security check and a thorough decontamination spray, they stepped inside.
The air changed instantly.
It smelled of wet soil, fertilizer, and green life. The temperature was humid and warm.
Li Wei sneezed. "It's... thick."
"Listen," Zhong Ming commanded.
They fell silent.
There were no engines. No sirens. No drone hums.
There was the rustle of leaves as the ventilation system blew air through rows of hydroponic corn. There was the buzzing of pollinator drones that sounded almost like bees. There was the faint gurgle of water flowing through irrigation channels.
Lin Xia took a deep breath. "It smells... alive."
Zhong Ming pulled out a high-fidelity recording device he had checked out from the equipment room.
"Walk," he ordered. "Record everything."
He handed the recorder to Lin Xia. "I want you to record the sound of your footsteps on the soil path. Not concrete. Dirt."
He turned to Li Wei. "Find the irrigation valves. Record the water flow. Close your eyes and listen to the rhythm."
Zhong Ming himself walked over to a patch of experimental crops. He dug his hand into the soil. It was dark, crumbly, and cool.
He pulled out a small handheld shovel he had brought. He pressed it into the earth.
*Thump.*
It was a dull, heavy sound. Solid. Satisfying.
He did it again, twisting his wrist.
*Thump. Crunch.*
He turned the soil over.
"This," Zhong Ming said, holding the recorder close. "This is the sound of progress. The sound of building."
They spent three hours in the dome. They recorded the snap of a stem, the rustle of wind against plastic sheeting, and the splash of water in a trough.
As they were leaving, Zhong Ming paused by a small decorative pond in the dome's relaxation area.
A frog jumped in. *Plop.*
Zhong Ming smiled. "Did you get that?"
Li Wei nodded, looking at the waveform on the screen. "It's... a simple sine wave decay. But it sounds... pleasant."
"That is the sound of a world healing," Zhong Ming said. "That is the sound of *Green Valley*."
...
**The Prototype**
Back in the office late that night, Zhong Ming synthesized the sounds with the visual prototype.
The screen showed the pixelated character, a simple farmer in a blue shirt.
Zhong Ming pressed the button to use the hoe.
*Chunk.*
It wasn't a generic digital beep. It was the sound of metal hitting earth, layered with a faint, satisfying crunch of gravel. The character's animation popped—a slight recoil in the arms, a spray of pixelated dirt particles.
*Ding.*
A tile of tilled soil appeared, slightly darker than the surrounding grass. A small sparkle animation hovered over it.
Then, Zhong Ming pressed the button to plant a seed.
*Plop.*
*Shhh-click.*
The sound of a seed falling, followed by the rustle of the character covering it with soil.
Finally, he opened the inventory and selected the watering can.
*Splish-splish-splish.*
The sound of water was rhythmic and light. It wasn't the sound of a fire hose or a mechanic sprayer; it was the sound of a metal can with a rose head, sprinkling life.
The tile turned a darker, wet brown.
Zhong Ming sat back. He had only tilled four squares of virtual land. But the combination of the specific "thump" of the hoe, the visual feedback of the dirt changing color, and the rhythmic water sound created a loop.
He looked at Lin Xia. "You try."
Lin Xia took the controller. She tilled a square. *Chunk.*
She planted. *Plop.*
She watered. *Splish.*
She did it again. And again.
"I like the sound," she murmured. "It feels... clean."
"It feels productive," Zhong Ming corrected. "In a world full of noise and chaos, this is a small patch of order. You create something, and the game acknowledges it instantly."
He turned to Li Wei. "This is the 'Core Loop'. Farming isn't a chore. It's a ritual. Now, program the growth cycle. Six seconds for a turnip to sprout. We need to see results fast for the demo."
Li Wei, usually the first to complain about overtime, was staring at the waveform of the hoe sound.
"You know," Li Wei said slowly. "This sound... it has a weird frequency profile. It cuts through background noise but doesn't hurt the ears. It's... addictive."
"It's the 'Click'," Zhong Ming said. "The sound of work being done. Now, get back to work. We have a demo to build."
The team dispersed to their stations. The atmosphere was different now. It wasn't just frantic coding; it was crafting. They weren't building a weapon; they were building a garden.
Zhong Ming checked his bracelet.
**[System Notification]**
**[Task Complete: Acquire Organic Audio Assets.]**
**[Culture Points: +20]**
**[Hidden Achievement: ASMR Pioneer.]**
**[Reward: Basic Dynamic Music System.]**
A new folder appeared in his system files: *Dynamic Music System*. It allowed the background music to shift seamlessly based on the player's activity—calm piano while walking, upbeat guitar while running, and soft ambience while fishing.
"Perfect," Zhong Ming whispered.
He looked at the clock. 2:00 AM.
He looked out the window at the neon-lit city. In three weeks, they would release a game about silence and soil into a market obsessed with noise and fire.
It was a gamble that could ruin him. But looking at the small, pixelated patch of tilled soil on his screen, Zhong Ming felt a peace he hadn't felt since his previous life.
The war was over. It was time to grow.