The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 681 Removing the "Cyber ​​Chastity Lock"!
Netizens were still excitedly cheering.

But the players in the game have already taken action—

After hearing that "offspring can be used as a life," the animals gathered around the campfire couldn't wait to scan the players around them, thinking about finding animals of the same species to cooperate in having offspring.

Right before Xu Meng's eyes, the animals that had been stubbornly guarding the campfire, refusing to move an inch for fear of having their spot taken by someone else, finally began to move.

The saber-toothed tiger went to find another saber-toothed tiger, the squirrels gathered together, and the sika deer huddled together affectionately.

There are also dire wolves, lizards, bison, camels, otters, beavers, koalas...

It's fortunate that several different migrating caravans have come together here; otherwise, with so many different species, it would be questionable whether they could find their own kind.

At least a third of the animals around the campfire can now find members of their own kind.

But finding someone of the same clan does not guarantee that you will have offspring.

We're still a long way off!

Before they embarked on a long break to gamble on probabilities, they had a more pressing issue—

They found their own kind.

But it wasn't that they found someone of the same kind.

Three sika deer, five beavers, three bison, six squirrels... such large groups living together are everywhere.

Even numbers are fine; everyone can gather together to admire each other's fur colors, make a few "yo-yo-yo" sounds, and those who like each other can be assigned to other groups.

Since they are all animals, jealousy and rivalry won't be too serious.

But those odd numbers are a problem—

If there are 3 or 5 animals of the same species, or if the number was originally even but some of them are unwilling to participate, then no matter how they are combined, there will always be one left over.

Yao Yao, "gaining status through her son," was able to stay close to Xiao Meng.

After a long and arduous trek, Yao Yao was so happy to be able to snuggle up with Xiao Meng by the campfire under the night sky, feeling that all the hard work had been rewarded.

Of course, this didn't stop her from enjoying the gossip.

She sat cross-legged on the omnidirectional treadmill, watching Xu Meng's live stream while also watching the "Animal Blind Date Event" on the other side.

Initially, these animals did encounter difficulties in finding a mate, which even led to some conflicts.

If an odd number can't be paired, just let one die!
But players' creativity is boundless, so how could they be stumped by such a small problem?
Yao Yao soon heard an outrageous conversation coming from the team channel:
"Wait a minute! The rules don't say it has to be 1-on-1!"

"It's not like we're really going to do anything. We just need to sleep together for a long break. As long as there's enough space, the three of us can sleep together!"

“动动脑子！如果生孩子是两两组合的概率问题，那3个人睡就有2种二二组合，4个人6种组合，5个人10种组合！产生后代的概率只会更高！”

"This rule is basically encouraging sex parties, isn't it?!"

"I completely understand! My fellow humans are all my wings!"

"Good, good, good! The era of having fewer children and better births is completely over. Let's have as many children as possible!"

……

Surprisingly, after these absurd conversations, they actually quieted down and stopped arguing.

But instead of resting, they still gathered in twos and threes around the fire, watching Xu Meng's live stream as families.

Clearly, they still hoped to follow Xu Meng's group and see if they could hitch a ride with her.

Moreover, gorillas that can start fires are rare and valuable talents!
Xu Meng didn't take up too much of everyone's time. She helped pull out a few burning pieces of firewood from the campfire and, together with the gorilla, lit more fires to keep all the animals warm before taking a long rest.

The cat, Xiaomeng, leaned against Xu Meng.

The other animals, gathered around the campfires, gradually drifted off to sleep.

The flames crackled, casting a warm, dim yellow light upon the various animals, creating an invisible shield in the night that kept the darkness at bay.

Time begins to accelerate...

Unbeknownst to the expectant players, while Xu Meng was playing the game with them, he had already finished considering what he said he needed to "think about" and had already begun to act on it!

Before the players even brought it up, Xu Meng had already decided to gradually unlock these restrictions, and naturally made arrangements well in advance.

The long rest by the campfire wasn't over yet, and many players in the virtual world received special emails—

The well-known "pervert" player Xiaohuajiao did not play "Animal Kingdom". Instead, after hastily drawing the new character in "Frost and Snow Project", he logged into "Blue Sea Sailing" without hesitation and headed to London.

She wanted to meet Queen Anne and see if the princes of that era were as handsome as those in the movies.

However, her progress was not going very well.

—This doesn't refer to gacha pulls. In "Frost & Snow Project," gacha pulls are incredibly easy now, and spending is all on clothing and furniture.

The problem lies in the navigation.

As mentioned before, a large number of British players, encouraged by their own game streamers, stayed in the world of "Sail the Great Seas" to act as "King's Protectors".

But instead of crowding outside the London palace, they adopted a smarter tactic—

They mobilized all their ships and deployed them in the waters off the ports of each island.

Ships are still expensive, but with each version update of "Sailing the Blue Seas," players have made a lot of money, and buying a ship is no longer as unaffordable as it was at the time of the game's launch.

Of course, once the ship sinks, it often means losing most of the wealth you've earned in the game, so you'll still cherish it and won't rashly join a battle that could lead to the ship sinking.

These British players, with their thousands of ships, certainly wouldn't block the shipping lanes and perish together with the warships of other countries—especially the Xia Kingdom and the United States.

They simply split into more than 20 groups and blocked all the popular routes.

Upon seeing a ship approaching, they fired two shots, then turned and fled!

The goal is not to sink the opponent, but to force the opponent into battle and prevent them from entering the [fast sailing] state for a long time.

This move successfully turned the entire Atlantic into their strategic depth, infuriating players from other countries who exclaimed "despicable" on Mengjin and social media!
Little Pepper was one of these people. Enraged, he clung to the ship's railing, brandishing his straight sword and cursing at the British ship in the distance.

Just then, a flash appeared in her vision, then quickly moved to the edge of her field of vision, flickering and emitting a faint light.

Xiao Huajiao paused for a moment, then realized what was happening and opened the interface.

Sure enough, a new email appeared in my inbox.

Title: Top Secret Functionality Test Invitation from Dream Building Games Company

The words "[Top Secret]" were even in bold, bright red font!

"Fuck!"

Little Pepper blurted out a swear word in a completely unladylike manner.

She was really surprised.

Top Secret Functionality Test for Dream Building!

'How could something this awesome be mine?!'

Little Sichuan peppercorn was extremely surprised.

She asked herself if she had anything special about her; she was neither well-known, nor a top-tier player, nor even a big spender on in-game purchases.

'Does Zhumeng think so highly of me?!'

But after the initial shock came overwhelming joy!
He immediately realized something was wrong and nervously glanced at his teammates on both sides, afraid that someone would discover his secret.

But she was already trash-talking the British ship in the distance, so adding another sentence didn't seem out of place at all; her teammates didn't even turn to look at her.

This put her mind at ease a little.

But I don't dare read this email here.

She yelled a few more curses at the distant ship: "Coward! Wimp! Bald monk!"

"The French are all better than you!!"

After hurling his insults, he pretended to be extremely angry and stormed back to his cabin.

After closing the door, she carefully opened the email and read it meticulously.

"Dear player: Hello!"

Zhumeng is about to conduct a top-secret functional test.

However, we cannot disclose the test content in advance until you agree to participate in the test and sign a confidentiality agreement.

If you are interested in participating in this test, please click the link at the end of the email to be redirected to a dedicated page to register your personal information.

If you do not intend to participate, please ignore this email.

Other--

Whether you wish to participate in this test or not, please keep this information confidential until the official announcement is made.

Otherwise you will be permanently excluded from the pool of candidates for all future similar tests.

This email will be automatically deleted 5 minutes after it is opened.

Please make a decision as soon as possible.

—Dream Building Games Company
-
The caution with which they pursued their dreams surprised Xiao Huajiao once again.

This also made her even more curious about the content of this test.

Without much thought, she quickly opened the link at the end of the email, registered her information, and signed an electronic confidentiality agreement.

Before signing, she carefully reviewed the consequences of any potential violation.

Good news: Building dreams doesn't have to lose money.

Bad news: You will be blacklisted by Zhumeng and your service will be terminated.

For today's users, this is worse than losing money!

Xiao Huajiao felt a chill run down her spine. She quickly scrolled back to the beginning of the agreement, read it word by word, and then signed her name.

After submitting, a new email appeared on the page.

"Due to the long-term, day-after-day petitions of a large number of users, they oppose the restrictions on sexual behavior imposed on users in the virtual world by Dream.

We hope you can understand: this is not a simple matter of review.

Given the current global scale of DreamWorks, relaxing restrictions would have a drastic impact on the lives and beliefs of tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of people.

We must be extremely cautious.

For the same reason, when we decide to relax the restrictions, we also ask you, as a tester, to keep this confidential.

Yes, we have decided to conduct limited testing on this sensitive feature.

After being selected by an algorithm, you were chosen as one of the first test participants, and some of the restrictions on engaging in sexual activity in the virtual world were lifted.

If you are interested in participating in this test, please download the dedicated patch from this page.

If you do not wish to participate after learning about the test content, you can close the page and exit; you only need to keep the test confidential.

—Xu Meng
-
"Yay!" Little Pepper shouted excitedly, raising his arms!
He then quickly covered his mouth to avoid accidentally revealing the secret.

She downloaded the patch without hesitation.

The download speed on the Dream Building server goes without saying—it's almost instantaneous.

There's no need to log off or restart; Xiaohuajiao simply opens the patch and completes the update automatically.

Little Pepper blinked, somewhat confused, as she looked at the pop-up message "[Restriction lifted]".

She felt nothing.

After hesitating for a few seconds, she looked at the bolted wooden door in front of her and carefully put her hand inside her clothes.

—As everyone knows, there are only two places in the entire virtual world where you can take off your clothes.

One is a private bath in an ancient Roman bathhouse.

The other is the dream machine in the Dream Building Games Company, which is constantly refreshed and allows for "secondary entry into the dream".

But now, Little Pepper has successfully taken off her underwear!

Her eyes immediately lit up!

She quickly dressed and rushed out of the cabin, calling out to her teammates on deck, "I have something urgent to attend to and need to leave for a bit!"

"You guys go first!"

"Let me know when you're almost in London!"

Please send an email or private message, not a video or voice call!

After saying that, he didn't even wait for his teammates' response before quickly disappearing from the deck.

The teammates were left looking at each other in bewilderment.
-
Of course, Xiaohuajiao wasn't the only one to receive this email.

A valiant sniper transformed into a Siberian Husky is chasing a pheasant in the forest with his lynx teammate when a streak of light suddenly flashes before their eyes.

But he was at a critical moment, how could he possibly pay attention to emails?

It howled and chased after the pheasant relentlessly, eventually managing to bite its neck after a kilometer-long pursuit.

Only on the way back to camp did the dog free up its paws to open the email.

Then I was shocked by the three words "Top Secret" in bright red.

After signing the confidentiality agreement and seeing the contents of the test, they were even more astonished, their mouths agape.

The pheasant sensed the dog's mouth opening and instantly darted away to continue its escape.

But the valiant sniper didn't pursue them any further, focusing instead on reading the test invitation Xu Meng had written line by line.

……

Instead of chasing new content, renowned sex toy manufacturer Chen Qi is busy conducting scientific research in the Mushroom Kingdom, testing the effects of these magical mushrooms in his "professional field".

He already had some ideas, and in addition to creating a highly flexible mushroom bed, he began to conduct detailed research on hallucinogenic mushrooms, agility mushrooms, and growth mushrooms.

……

The Illusion Moon is diligently creating children on the wasteland;

Karn, a British player, is intercepting warships of other countries at sea.

Fang Shuo is currently on the sixth level of the Abyss Cavern, fighting against abyssal creatures while bearing a tremendous upward load.
Niiiko is boarding a Deep Rock Mining Company transport ship, leaving the atmosphere and heading towards Titan's headquarters.

……

In the virtual world, players who were selected by the algorithm and deemed suitable to participate in this test received test invitations almost simultaneously.

The wording in Xu Meng's test instructions is highly misleading.

Both the terms "top secret" and "limited testing" suggest that the number of players participating in this test is very small.

But that's not actually the case at all!

The truth is:

All players who were selected through the algorithm and were likely to genuinely need this feature—that is, players who had long-term, stable, and frequent contact with fixed opposite-sex player friends and whose interaction was very intimate—received a test invitation at the same time.

This is by no means a small-scale, experimental test.

It was not a test, but a massive-scale test!
Tens of millions of users participated in the test!
However, due to Xu Meng's actions and the threat of "blacklisting," not a word of this major, large-scale test leaked out.

Sometimes, even when two people discussing tactics face-to-face receive an invitation at the same time, they'll put on an act and pretend nothing happened.

Everything on the internet was normal, with everyone discussing updates to Animal Kingdom and other games.

Beneath the calm surface, those players who finally removed their "cyber chastity belts" were like tigers unleashed from their cages.

They all dropped what they were doing and rushed to their beds without waiting a moment longer!

(End of this chapter)