Chapter 1: The Lord’s Heart

Beijing, early winter, night, the cold wind howling.

When Robert Walker got off work, it was already pitch dark outside. He looked at the pile of code on his computer screen and breathed a sigh of relief: Overtime is over, finally I can go home.

He instinctively glanced at the bottom right corner of the computer screen, and the time displayed there gave him a shock—it was already past ten at night. He hadn’t realized he’d worked four hours of overtime today!

“Damn it, when will days like this ever end? Working five days a week, doing overtime on four, and not even getting paid for it. It’s really the ultimate in misery.” Robert Walker sighed helplessly. He wasn’t afraid of being overheard; by this time, the company was already empty.

Shutting down the computer, turning off the lights, locking the door—after skillfully completing this routine, he grabbed the two phones from the corner of his desk and headed for the subway station.

There was still a half-hour ride after getting on the subway. Robert Walker pulled out his phone to kill time. Earlier, he had taken two phones—one was his own domestic model, and the other was his boss’s test device.

The so-called test device was just an ordinary smartphone, but it was used specifically for testing some programs or games. The IT company where Robert Walker worked wasn’t very famous or big, and there weren’t many ways to make money. So, with the mobile gaming market booming, the company decided to seize the opportunity and developed quite a few games recently, requiring all employees to participate in internal testing.

The internal test games weren’t for fun, but to find bugs and loopholes, so the employees weren’t interested in them. The bosses didn’t even bother to play, just handed their test devices to their subordinates to play for them.

Muttering “It must be nice to be the boss,” Robert Walker unlocked the screen. On the dark phone screen, there was only a 3D heart-shaped icon. Who knows what the game development department was thinking—the heart icon was emerald green instead of red, which felt a bit off.

He opened the game guide, which was full of complicated information, densely packed. Robert Walker didn’t feel like reading it in detail, so he skimmed for the key points.

The guide said that after opening the game, players could obtain a “Lord’s Heart,” which would improve physical fitness—no matter how weak someone was, as long as they had it, they’d become a human beast. And if the Lord’s Heart was bound to a territory, the player would become the owner of that territory and gain control over it.

Besides the Lord’s Heart, there was also an item called the “Territory Heart” in the game. This “Territory Heart” could be seen as a split-off from the Lord’s Heart and could directly affect a part of the territory. There was a lot more explanation after that, but he was annoyed and didn’t read further.

Finally, the game could be reset and restarted. If you weren’t satisfied with your territory, or if problems arose during development, you could withdraw the Lord’s Heart and choose a new territory to develop. However, in that case, all previous progress would be wiped out.

After roughly reading the guide, Robert Walker reached out and tapped the 3D Lord’s Heart. Immediately, an image of the Earth appeared on the screen, and the 3D green Lord’s Heart showed up in the upper right corner.

The game’s opening used a 3D animation style. The round Earth spun on the screen, and then, like Google Maps, the view zoomed in, shifting from a distant to a close-up view.

Next, it was a bit like a geography documentary, with various countries flashing by on the screen. Robert Walker was only testing the game for bugs, so he wasn’t interested in the intro. He casually dragged the green Lord’s Heart from the corner of the screen onto the map, which counted as binding the Lord’s Heart to the territory.

As soon as he let go, a dialog box popped up on the screen:

“Territory location: Southern Hemisphere, New Zealand, Otago and Canterbury, Land of the Never-Setting Sun.

Territory area: 1,000 square kilometers (250,000 acres, 100,000 hectares).

Territory population: 1 (Lord Robert Walker).

Territory building: Roberts Castle.

Resources: Unknown.

Territory Heart: None.

Accept territory: Yes? No?”

Robert Walker glanced over the information and immediately tapped “Yes.” But after pressing “Yes,” he suddenly felt something was off. He thought about it for a while but couldn’t figure out what, so he assumed he was overthinking and looked down, ready to play the game.

However, after he made his choice, the phone screen froze, displaying only one line of flashing text: Territory being received, please wait patiently, Lord.

He waited for half an hour, and by the time the subway reached his destination, the text was still flashing on the screen.