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Chapter 538 Fortress
The reason I'm so sure it's the movie, not the original novel of the same name.
The reason is simple: on the exterior walls of high-rise buildings along the river, there are large posters of Shu Qi. She is wearing a military uniform, looking heroic and spirited, with the caption, "Are you ready? It's both an opportunity and a test."

"Waiting for you to join us! Steel-willed youth, ready to set off!"

"Women on the battlefield are no less capable than men."

The text is nonsensical and the fonts are incredibly cheap and dull. You could pay a college student online for 50 yuan to use Meitu Xiu Xiu and they wouldn't have produced something like this.

Below the poster, a group of young men in military uniforms, including Lu Han, walked by. They all violated regulations and had hair that extended beyond the brim of their hats. Their overall appearance resembled a newly debuted boy band from a talent show.

A news broadcast played over a street loudspeaker: "We live in an era transformed by 'Fairy Vine,' a super-energy substance from outer space. Fairy Vine has replaced oil and coal, propelling rapid human development, but it has also attracted the covetous eyes of extraterrestrial civilizations. Major cities have been destroyed one after another, and life has regressed. Shanghai is one of the few fortresses that humanity can stand against an alien mothership."

"What a wonderfully read broadcast!"

Gray Rain couldn't help but complain, "And since it's supposed to be wartime, a time of regressed life, why are these passersby dressed so fashionably, looking so relaxed, and some are even walking their dogs?! Does this look like a post-apocalyptic war?"

"Don't ask, it's just part of the setup."

Li Sheng weakly waved her hand. The film *Shanghai Fortress* had an investment of 300 million yuan, was six years in the making, and grossed 120 million yuan at the box office, earning a respectable 2.9 rating on Douban.
It surpassed 739 games (3.2 points), Turandot (3.1 points), and Fuchun Mountain Dwelling (3.0 points) and Investiture of the Gods (3.0 points).

They narrowly lost to Dream of the Entertainment Industry by a margin of 2.2 points.

Logic? What logic do you need? Isn't this a soft sci-fi romance film?

"In short, the most urgent task is to find the opposing player in the one-on-one deathmatch."

Li Sheng quickly took off his hazmat suit, took out his laptop from his backpack, and ran to the traffic light. The passersby ignored him, and the vehicles drove around him.

He used his laptop to connect to the traffic light circuits and, using a one-click hacking program he bought from the Whale Song Guild, hacked into the city's surveillance network.

Then, everything went black before his eyes.

For some reason, all the surveillance footage was loaded with a beauty filter from Dianzhongdian, making the already overly clean and tidy passersby look even more glamorous and obscuring their original appearance.

What can I say?
Li Sheng took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and silently entered the code commands to search for images of people that did not fit the environment and could be captured by all the surveillance cameras.

The next second, without any warning, the lights and electricity of the surrounding buildings suddenly went out, vehicles on the road lost control and collided in a chain reaction, and the advertising screens on the high-rise buildings flickered incessantly, as if they had been subjected to a strong electromagnetic disturbance.

Correspondingly, the dark clouds in the sky slowly rotated, forming a huge cyclone in just over ten seconds, casting a shadow that covered the sky and blocked out the sun.

Eerie blue lightning flickered at the eye of the storm, and a colossal, disc-shaped ship could be vaguely seen emerging from within it.

Uh... according to the movie's setting, this seems to be a scene of an alien mothership invasion.

All loudspeakers simultaneously broadcast, "Emergency notice, emergency notice! All personnel must take cover according to the pre-battle plan. Please be careful."

"what!"

"ah!"

"Alas!"

Passersby let out genuine screams and scattered like headless flies, each with their own unique escape style. Some ran calmly with their hands in their pockets, while others ran frantically, stealing glances at the sky in between their frantic efforts. A classic case of everyone running their own way.

Shila-

The disc-shaped mothership unleashed a white beam of light, striking the spherical energy barrier covering Shanghai and tearing open several gaps. Then, like mushrooms spewing spores, thousands upon thousands of metal spheres, each two to three meters in diameter, were released from the side of the disc and flew into the gaps.

After entering the breach, the metal ball automatically transformed into a mechanical unit with four arms and two legs, spewing out hot flames from the nozzles on its feet as it swooped down toward the city.

For some reason, these mechanical predators, which should be very advanced in their design, always give off a cheap, plastic feel.

If Industrial Light & Magic, the film special effects company founded by George Lucas in 1975, is a pioneer and leader in the global special effects field,
The special effects of these mechanical predators are derived from the Industrial Light Magic's half-brother, the Agricultural Light Magic, or the Industrial Bull Magic.

"Wow, these special effects are ridiculously cheap!"

Gray Rain, holding binoculars, was almost speechless with astonishment. Compared to the predators, the combat drones that humans had sent out to fight looked much cheaper, and their texture was practically all plastic.

The level of detail is so high that it's not even as good as the drones Li Sheng made by hand, let alone the more refined model airplanes in college competitions.

Both sides maneuvered at high speeds in the air. The predator fired beams with its four arms, while the drone retaliated with missiles. The aftershocks of the battle hit the exterior walls of high-rise buildings, creating explosive fireballs and smoke that looked like they had been copied and pasted from a free special effects library.

"The special effects of Shanghai Fortress are probably on par with those of Bureau 749, but they don't feel as good as the Yin Jiao Dharma Image in the 2025 strongest bomb, 'Fengshen Part 2'."

Li Sheng didn't even look up, ignoring the explosion overhead, and continued hacking into the city's network.

However, even after infiltrating the city's highest-secret UNDC (United Global Defense Council), a so-called global defense committee established by 97 countries setting aside their past grievances, a thorough search of the UNDC headquarters—filled with incomprehensible lighting equipment, striving to create a sci-fi atmosphere, yet eerily spotless—did not yield any trace of the player.

“Hmm,” Gray Rain rubbed his chin. “Since this is neither the real world nor a parallel universe with a complete worldview, is it possible that we are still inside the killing field entity?”

"Ok?"

Li Sheng raised his head. Indeed, when he first became a player, he had done a mission at a monster-themed amusement park with Crimson Racer, Su Jie, and others.
It was later learned that the theme park had fallen into the killing field from another world through a rift.

"Makes sense."

Li Sheng nodded, then immediately took out his Wanyan communication headset and dialed Yuan Zhixia's cousin, Yuan Donglian, "Hello, is this Miss Yuan?"

"Hey, are you an ant?"

Unexpectedly, customer service representative Xiao Yuan seemed to have known in advance that Li Sheng would call, and her tone was quite subtle: "You are currently on the set of the movie 'Shanghai Fortress,' where an alien mothership is invading Shanghai, and you are trying to search for your opponent in the deathmatch mission, right?"

Li Sheng and Hui Yu were both startled. "WTF, how did you know?"

On the other end of the headset, customer service representative Xiao Yuan took a deep breath. "Right now, you two are live streaming."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Rewind 10 minutes. Tie Gu from the World Nuclear Flat House Guild was still dressed in his usual short haircut, sunglasses, and work jacket. He was sitting in the corner of the subway car, holding a cup of bubble tea in his left hand and a birthday cake for his twin children in his right.

Brother Tiegu has been a player for quite some time, and the salary and benefits offered by Changsun Yao's World Nuclear House are not low, enough to afford luxury cars and supercars.

However, Tie Gu, who started out as an air conditioner installer, is still used to the life of an ordinary person. Taking the subway across the city gives him a sense that life is still peaceful and beautiful and will not be disrupted.

Are these two people in the movie "Shanghai Fortress"?

"I don't know. I remember the main characters were Lu Han and Shu Qi. Who are these two?"

Across the carriage, a conversation between a couple wearing headphones and watching a movie on their phone caught Tegu's attention.

Before joining the World Nuclear House, he had been a lone wolf player for a while. He paid special attention to minor anomalies in his daily life and immediately used his reconnaissance skill to see through the phone screen.

"puff--"

Tie Gu spat out a mouthful of milk tea and coughed repeatedly amidst the surprised looks of his fellow passengers.

As seen in previous strategy videos from Feiwang, Ant subtly changes his appearance each time he carries out a mission, but his magical pets remain unchanged and always appear in their original forms.

The two chatted animatedly while watching a pirated movie on their phone screens, oblivious to everyone around them. "Does this look like an apocalyptic war?" one of them remarked.

"Don't ask, it's just part of the setup."

Upon seeing this, Tie Gu couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. Ant had become infamous after the London incident, earning him a fearsome reputation. He had been directly added to the "List of Extremely Dangerous People" of many national intelligence agencies, ranking not far below the leader of the Laughing Troupe, "The God of Laughter."

Could it be that the ants have gotten involved in some supernatural event again?

Without hesitation, Tie Gu immediately opened the player panel and sent a message to the guild leader, Changsun Yao, "Boss, can you contact Pi Fu? I think there's something going on here."

"could not be reached."

Changsun Yao, in her office at the World Nuclear Peace House, saw the couple's phone screen through the footage broadcast from Tie Gu's action camera, and jumped up from her chair.
"Damn, they're like ants. You control that couple first, don't let them close the webpage, and don't let them get off the subway. I'll contact the Special Affairs Bureau to get more people right away."

"what?"

Tie Gu's eyes widened. At that moment, the subway train slowly slowed down and was about to stop at the next station. The couple, full of doubts about the two strange characters in the pirated movie, prepared to get up and get off the train.

Not being a member of the Special Affairs Bureau's Mobile Task Force, and lacking suitable skills, Tegu, seeing the couple had already reached the car door, had a sudden inspiration. In a corner where no one was watching, he used a straw to pick up two pearls and suddenly spat them out.

The physical prowess of a melee-type superhuman allowed him to treat the tapioca starch pearl as a subsonic bullet, accurately striking the couple in the neck.

Without uttering a sound, the two rolled their eyes, staggered backward, and sat back down in their seats without attracting the attention of other passengers.

'That was close.'

Like a master detective, Tetsuya, having successfully anesthetized the two, wiped the cold sweat from his brow. Pretending to bend down to tie his shoelaces, he secretly steadied their phones to prevent the screen from automatically turning off. 'Where are the Special Affairs Bureau people? Come help!'

(End of this chapter)