After playing around with it for a while, Ryan Howard remembered why he had downloaded this game in the first place—to dominate the field in the game and be the coolest guy on the pitch.

So he tapped “Next,” ready to enter the game.

The phone screen flickered, first going black, then white—and then returned to the phone’s home screen.

Ryan Howard stared at his phone’s home page, stunned for a moment, then realized the game… had crashed!

“What the… what the heck!”

Ryan Howard quickly found the game icon and tapped it again. At the same time, he prayed that the character he had just created was still there, so he wouldn’t have to start all over.

But this time, nothing happened after he tapped it. If it weren’t for the fact that he could still swipe the phone screen back and forth, Ryan Howard would have thought his phone had frozen…

After repeating this several times, Ryan Howard had to accept the reality that there was probably something wrong with the game and he could no longer get in.

So he deleted the game, planning to download it again.

But no matter what he did, he couldn’t find the game in the app store.

No matter what keywords he used to search, he couldn’t find this game called “Dream Soccer World,” as if it had never existed in the app store at all.

Unwilling to give up, he used his browser to search for the game’s name directly, but still couldn’t find any useful information—he found all sorts of soccer games, but not the one he had just played.

“This is so weird…”

Ryan Howard was extremely frustrated. The impact the game’s modeling had given him had made him really look forward to it, but he never expected it to end like this.

So it was one thing that he couldn’t dominate on the real field, but now he couldn’t even entertain himself in a game?

God, are you just messing with me, Ryan Howard, on purpose?

Chapter Two: Who are Ronaldo and Messi?

“It’s over, it’s over…”

As he walked into the classroom, Ryan Howard muttered under his breath, looking worried.

Not being able to play the game last night had left him very annoyed, but now he couldn’t even care about that, because when he woke up, he realized a very serious problem—his facial data from yesterday had all been collected by that so-called game, and then the game disappeared. Could it have been some hacker’s Trojan program? Specifically designed to collect facial data from gullible, kind-hearted people like him?

In this era where you can pay just by showing your face, facial data is as important as fingerprints and bank passwords.

Would that mysterious hacker or organization use his facial data to steal his money?

How could he have been so stupid as to believe there was really a game that could use 3D scanning technology for modeling?

If there really was such an amazing game, why was there not a single mention of it online? Why were there no reviews in the app store?

So it was basically a Trojan program!

“It’s over, it’s over…”

Sitting at his desk, Ryan Howard had no mind to organize his backpack, just staring blankly at the desktop, muttering to himself.

He started to worry about the money in his WeChat wallet—all painstakingly saved up from grabbing red envelopes in class and family group chats, a few cents here and there, his hard-earned cash.

“What’s over?” The chubby guy sitting next to Ryan Howard, the one who had bumped into him yesterday, asked curiously. “Ryan Howard, did you get into trouble again?”

Ryan Howard turned to look at his deskmate: “Hey, Big Scott, let me ask you something… If your fingerprint or password got leaked, would you be afraid that your money in WeChat or Alipay would get stolen?”

Big Scott nodded seriously. “Of course I’d be afraid!”

Ryan Howard pointed at himself.

“What?”

“My, my password just got stolen.”

But Big Scott’s expression relaxed. “Oh, yours… Then don’t worry about it. You don’t even have fifty yuan combined in your Alipay and WeChat. Even if your password got stolen, the hacker would probably cry at how poor you are, and maybe even feel sorry enough to give you another ten yuan. Wouldn’t you make a profit then?”

Ryan Howard was furious. “What do you mean? You’re looking down on me? What’s wrong with forty-eight yuan and seventy-three cents? Even a mosquito is still meat! If you’ve got the guts, don’t grab my red envelopes next time!”

“Don’t even mention your red envelopes. You send one yuan and split it into a hundred parts… Damn, there aren’t even fifty people in the class group, and every time you send a red envelope, you at least get back fifty-four cents!”

“Then don’t grab them! But you’re always the first to grab!”

“I’m just fast, okay?”

“Fine, fine, you’re fast, you’re a quick-draw, super fast!”

As the two of them bickered, a group of boys walked into the classroom from outside. Among them was Kevin Carter, surrounded by several other boys, all excitedly discussing the early morning soccer match.

“Kaiser got another hat trick! He’s amazing!”

“Yeah, yeah, your man is still your man, truly worthy of the title ‘Emperor Caesar’!”

“That free kick was insane! Before he took it, Kaiser even pointed to the top right corner of the goal, and then he actually kicked the ball right in there! Calling his shot was so cool!”

“The emperor’s sword points where he wills, unstoppable!”

“And his signature collar-raising celebration after scoring was as domineering as ever!”