ALIBEC: Chapter 1 - Start Over

Huaguo, Jinling City.

It was an autumn evening. On the walkway, only a few scattered figures were strolling by. [Tiantian Internet Café] was relatively secluded; the surrounding residential areas were all rather old, with more retirees than young people. Although it was located in a major city like Jinling, there were hardly any new customers at this hour.

“Are you brain-dead? Not guarding mid? …No, seriously, can you even play support? Where’s the Dark Mage—Dark Mage, what the hell are you doing? I f—”

“Hello, could you open a computer for me?”

A light, magnetic voice interrupted.

The Internet café’s front desk guy, who had been swearing nonstop, froze mid-curse, forcibly swallowing the rest of his foul language.

He shot to his feet, the angry look still lingering on his face instantly replaced with a standard customer-service smile. The mouse he had been holding slipped from his hand with a loud clunk onto the desk.

A soft chuckle came from the person in front of him.

Caught red-handed cursing at his game, the front desk guy felt his face burn as if on fire. He couldn’t even worry about his in-game character afk-ing; instead, he started rummaging around the messy desk.

When the awkwardness had faded a little, he finally fished out the registration form from the pile.

Cautiously raising his eyes, he met the gaze of the customer before him.

The newcomer wore a crisp, clean white shirt, had a well-proportioned build, a slim waist, and long legs. A black mask covered his face, but the only visible part — his eyes — were like two gentle crescent moons, faintly amber under the indoor lights.

Perhaps because his earlier smile hadn’t quite faded, his eyes still shimmered with a soft, luminous light.

The front desk guy found himself momentarily dazed by the small mole near the outer corner of those upturned eyes and mumbled, “Uh… hello… um, could you take off your mask, please?”

He pushed forward the new-style card scanner. “Put your ID card here.”

The young man obediently removed his mask, his lips curving in a faint smile.

As he moved, the front desk guy’s jaw dropped — embarrassingly wide — and for several seconds, no sound came out.

— No way…

— Bro, with a face like that, why aren’t you making a name for yourself in showbiz? What are you doing in my tiny Internet café?!

When the card scanner finally beeped, the front desk guy double-checked the ID several times before learning the customer’s name.

Sui Ning, 19 years old.

Was this guy some kind of celebrity?

The front desk guy swallowed hard, quickly finishing the registration. When the young man walked toward the machines inside, he finally returned to his own computer.

As expected, the game was already lost — a massive DEFEAT filled the center of the screen — but he couldn’t even care about the rank he had just dropped. He opened his browser and started searching.

“Sui Ning, Sui Ning… is this it?” he muttered, puzzled. “Girls’ Good News: The Eternal Greaseball Sui Ning Eliminated in the First Round?”

It looked like some tabloid piece from an obscure variety show.

He clicked it open. The photos inside could only be described as a “demonic carnival” — though it was a male talent show, every contestant had on heavy makeup and bizarre outfits, to the point where it was impossible to tell who was who.

After searching for a while, the front desk guy still couldn’t find anyone in the pictures who resembled the young man he’d just met. He gave up, shaking his head.

Yeah, as if any random handsome guy who comes here to surf the net is actually a celebrity.

——

Meanwhile, the subject of his silent speculation, Sui Ning, had no idea the front desk guy was running an entire drama in his head. He slipped his ID card back into his pocket and headed toward a computer in the corner.

[Tiantian Internet Café] wasn’t very big — at most, it counted as a small cybercafé where you could also grab some food. There weren’t too many customers, but not too few either; most were regulars.

“Winter Queen, use your ult already! What the hell are you doing?!”

“Support, protect me—damn it, I got killed again! Useless support!”

“I’m taking top lane. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll feed!”

Walking deeper inside, Sui Ning took in the scene: of the ten people playing, nine were on the same game, and the last one was watching a live stream of it.

<War of Glory>.

Lowering his gaze, Sui Ning seemed to be in thought.

——

Seated at his station, Sui Ning picked up the charging cable on the desk and plugged in his phone. At last, the device — dark for two full days — displayed the charging battery icon again. It still couldn’t be turned on for now, but it was enough to ease the knot in his chest.

In a future society like this, two days without a phone was enough to drive anyone crazy.

Leaning back in his chair, he let out a long breath.

This had to be one of the most awkward, difficult moments of his life — inexplicably arriving in a parallel, future-like world and taking over the body of a stranger with the same name, without even having time to process it before being told by the landlord to move out within five days. The reason? The rental platform had run off with the money!

The original Sui Ning had paid a full year’s rent through the Dandan Rentals app, but when the platform vanished, so did the money. He wasn’t the only victim, but he was definitely among the worst-off — with only 500 yuan left on him, nothing in the bank, and barely enough to make it through the month, let alone pay next month’s rent.

What followed was even more unbearable to recall — power outages, internet cutoffs, water shut-offs. All the consequences of the rental platform’s collapse were left for the tenants to bear.

That apartment was already little more than an empty shell. Even if the landlord took pity on him and let him stay for the last five days of the month, it was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

If it had been the Sui Ning from before, there would have been plenty of ways out — parents, friends, professional teammates — any of them could have helped him.

But now—? Sui Ning sighed helplessly.

All the contacts and information in his phone had been wiped clean by the body’s original owner. Perhaps because the original had tried to end his life by taking sleeping pills, the memories Sui Ning inherited after waking were patchy and incomplete.

He turned on the computer, his gaze shadowed.

The screen showed the same news article the front desk guy had just seen earlier.

[Girls’ Good News: The Eternal Greaseball Sui Ning Eliminated in the First Round]

[Comment]: The idiot finally got lost. Can’t sing, can’t dance — how did he even get into the show? One person managed to make the whole talent program stink. Take my precious idol away from him!!

[Comment]: He actually claimed to be Pei Siyuan’s wife… I’m not even a Pei fan and I’m disgusted, ughhh, demons begone!!

[Comment]: At 3:49 in that earlier video, did he push someone?!

[Comment]: Speechless. Black-hearted, poor character, no skills — where did this so-called young master get such strong backing?

[Comment]: Young master? Don’t make me laugh. How could a real one get eliminated in the first round? He’s just a fame-leeching idiot, puke puke puke.

[Comment]: Probably slept with Boss Wang, hehe.

[Comment]: I’m dying of laughter. His super-topic plaza is gone, hahaha! The big fans even turned anti and trampled on him—!!

[Comment]: HAHAHA this is legendary — someone said even typing “Sui Ning” feels dirty. Now he’s about to be the first “you know who” in the whole industry, grass hahahaha.

Scrolling further down revealed tens of thousands more comments — insults, gossip, “rational” analysis — but Sui Ning didn’t bother to read any more.

Posts like this were endless.

From scraps of memory and the exposé posts online, Sui Ning could piece together some of the original owner’s story: defying his parents to enter the entertainment industry for the sake of chasing a star; somehow getting into an 18th-tier talent show; trying to throw himself at a top film emperor only to be ignored; and making a fool of himself in front of the entire nation…

Thinking of this, Sui Ning’s fingers pinched at the small stack in his pocket: an ID card, five 100-yuan bills, and a slip of paper scrawled with the blood-red words I refuse to accept this.

Counting the phone on the desk, this was all he owned now.

“…Sigh. So what exactly were you refusing to accept?” Sui Ning murmured. “Nothing they said seems wrong… and you didn’t even leave me enough memory to compare.”

The questions left behind by the original owner were far too many.

Closing the webpage, Sui Ning silently observed a three-minute moment of mourning in his heart.

“Nineteen… how nice.” The young man lowered his gaze, his voice soft. “So many possibilities still ahead.”

“No matter what, I’ll live the future well. Not just for you — for myself too.”

He let out a slow breath. When he looked up again, there was already a streak of boldness and recklessness between his brows.

Back in the days when e-sports wasn’t recognized, as the founder and pioneer of MOBA games in another world, as the five-time champion who had climbed up from the gutters, Sui Ning had gone through far worse days than this.

Penniless and homeless? That was child’s play.

It was precisely because of this that he had forged an iron heart — one that remained calm in any situation, one that firmly believed “As long as I have my hands, I can make it.”

— After all, as a professional player, as long as these hands could still operate, he dared to fight for another round.

“Make those who don’t understand you applaud you, make those who do understand you go mad for you — is that enough?”

“Consider it my thanks for you not cutting off my hands when you tried to kill yourself.”

Curling his fingers, Sui Ning lowered his eyes and tapped lightly on the desk.

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