“Simple, just use this.”

Evelyn took the computer, quickly found a piece of software. William Clark glanced at it—it was a black icon in the shape of a human silhouette, named [Virtual No.1].

“Looks pretty ordinary.”

“Just try it and you’ll see.”

She nodded her little head vigorously. “Trust me, it’s fun!”

William Clark saw how confident she looked and decided to give it a try.

He double-clicked to open it. The screen instantly went black, no flashy graphics, just a single line of text: “Welcome to [Virtual No.1], please create your first character!”

“Please select gender [Male] [Female]”

“Is this a game?” he asked.

“Not exactly, it’s a kind of, a kind of… oh, whatever, it’s just fun!”

Evelyn looked uneducated, lacking in vocabulary.

William Clark shrugged and casually picked female.

“Please select a basic template!”

A simple table appeared on the screen. William Clark looked at her, and she said, “Pick whatever, you can change it, and you can delete it after creating.”

Well, that’s fine then.

“East Asian, young, black hair and black eyes, slim and tall body type, default measurements template, default skin template, default face template…”

He clicked confirm, and the screen went dark again.

Immediately after, as if the vast universe was lit by its first ray of light, a soft line slowly traced across the screen, first sketching a rough facial outline, then quickly becoming refined.

From flat to three-dimensional, from head to torso, with eyebrows and eyes, with a sense of life… In no time, a girl wearing only underwear appeared before his eyes.

Not like Hatsune Miku or Luo Tianyi, those anime types, but a three-dimensional, realistic virtual human!

“Whoa—damn!”

……

At this moment, William Clark looked at the girl—plain face, plain figure, expressionless like a passport photo.

Below were two options: [Load Template] [Manual Adjust]

“Manual!”

It switched to a page similar to 3D modeling, with a dense, colorful, extremely complex toolbar on the right.

He glanced at it, then immediately switched to [Load Template].

“[Urban Beauty] [Ancient Beauty] [Sexy Bombshell] [Innocent Girl]…”

If those were normal, the ones after were odd: “[Taoist] [Martial Artist] [Soldier] [Police Officer] [Doctor] [Teacher] [Wife]…”

He looked at Evelyn, shocked: “You’re actually making me play an H-game?!”

“Bullshit, you’re so ignorant! But when it first came out, it really was pretty explicit—none of the characters wore clothes, and the officials had to step in and fix it. Go on, keep going!”

William Clark immediately felt like he was customizing a character in a game, and first clicked [Urban Beauty]. The girl’s appearance instantly changed—now she had curly hair, high heels, and looked like a stylish, beautiful office worker.

Whether it was the softness of the hair, the detail of the clothes, the texture of the red lips, or the shading of the eyeshadow, it was all astonishing. But just like with Grace Turner, after looking for a while, it started to feel a bit unnatural.

He clicked [Ancient Beauty] next.

This time, she had hairpins and jewelry, a light silk fan, and a graceful, smiling demeanor—a true lady of a noble family.

William Clark got the idea and asked, “Can I create my own template, like upload a photo?”

“That’s not possible with this one, but [Virtual No.2] can.”

“Awesome, can you help me set it up?”

He suddenly got excited, grabbed his own laptop, and quickly downloaded a few pictures.

But Evelyn didn’t move, and said with a straight face, “No.1 is the free version, not very smart, and has limited features. No.2 is the upgraded version, you have to pay—100 yuan a month.”

“Is there a No.3?”

“No.3 is the professional version, 1,000 yuan a month. It’s usually used for film, as singers, or for competitions. It can even be combined with VR for private customization—basically, you can load your virtual character into VR and, um, do a lot of things with them…”

“Then what are we waiting for, let’s use No.3!” William Clark slapped his thigh.

“I only have ten thousand yuan in savings, how can I use No.3?”

Evelyn shouted too, “Don’t we have to pay for electricity and internet? What if we run out of money!”

“I’ll help you earn it!”

“How are you going to earn it?”

“Oh, just download it first, download it first…”

After much back and forth, Evelyn finally agreed to download [Virtual No.2], reluctantly paid the 100 yuan.

At this point, William Clark was like someone who had lost a child and suddenly found them again—so excited he was almost crazy. After downloading, he had Evelyn upload the pictures one by one.

She looked at the beautiful women and asked, “Who are they?”

“This one is Charlotte Reed. Charlotte Reed, 21 years old, dominates the entertainment industry!”

“This one is Jessica Thompson, this one is Linda Baker, the twin stars of Hong Kong Island!”

“This is Emily, this is Sophie, HE… TUI! Jackie Harris!”

Turning 2D pictures into 3D, that technology already exists now. He wasn’t too surprised, but when the converted characters appeared before his eyes, he was genuinely shocked.

That’s right—shocked.

The quality completely blew [Virtual No.1] out of the water, with none of that unnatural feeling—it was just like a real person! Anyone would say, this is a real person!

“No wonder you guys use virtual celebrities as the mainstream…”