Chapter 25: The Solitary Brave

"They are all brave."

"The scar on your forehead, your differences, the mistakes you’ve made."

The scene shifts from live-action to animation. The male protagonist, who has no money to buy a gift, is being scolded by the female lead.

"How can you be so useless? Is two thousand eight hundred really that expensive?"

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry..."

"They all need not be hidden."

"Your tattered doll, your mask, your true self."

In front of the shopping mall, the male protagonist, working a part-time job, accidentally tears the mascot suit he is wearing. Terrified of having to pay for it, he tries to sew it up in a public restroom.

The evening shift is about to begin, and he hasn't even finished applying his clown makeup.

"They say you must tame every monster with light."

In a flashback, the female lead speaks of things she believes to be correct.

"They say you must stitch up your wounds, for no one loves a clown."

The barrage of viewer comments thins out. The song itself is of excellent quality, and when combined with the system's optimized rendering, it strikes straight at the heart.

Well, it will probably take a few weeks for this song to become an anthem for elementary school students before everyone becomes fully desensitized to it.

...

The chorus begins.

"Who says those covered in mud are not heroes?"

"I love you for walking the dark alleys alone, I love your unyielding posture."

The male protagonist runs through various scenes in the small town, day and night, weaving through streets and alleys, heading to his next job.

In some dark alleys, there are other outcasts of society. The male protagonist glances at them.

They are also watching him, as if wanting to say something.

The positive interpretation here is that once the protagonist succeeds, he can pull everyone else up with him.

"I love you for facing despair, refusing to shed a tear."

Back in reality, Gu Meng, reflected in the mirror, closes his eyes, while the Gu Meng outside the mirror sees his own eyes growing brighter.

"I love your ragged clothes, yet you dare to block the gun of fate."

"I love that you are so much like me, with the same scars."

Thunder and rain rumble faintly in the background, but while the sky has tears, I have none; all I feel is a burning rage.

"Will you go? Are you worthy, in this tattered cloak?"

"Will you fight? Yes, fight, with the lowliest of dreams."

This segment is accompanied by in-game animation, where various versions of the male protagonist—broken and shattered by tragedy—emerge as phantoms from the true protagonist.

Self-abuse, self-mutilation, suicide; yet the true protagonist has endured it all and remains standing.

A true warrior dares to face a bleak life and stare directly into dripping blood.

Although the visuals show the male protagonist, everyone feels that these lyrics are clearly singing about Gu Meng himself.

And Gu Meng is using his own personal experience to inspire everyone watching outside the screen who is currently in a difficult situation.

"To the whimpers and roars in the dark night."

"Who says only those standing in the light are heroes?"

Beside the Gu Meng in the mirror, a man appears for half a second and pats him on the shoulder.

It is Gu Ritian. If you watch this part in slow motion, it is obvious that it was done with special effects.

Gu Meng is quite skilled at capitalizing on the "Heavenly Old Man." When asked, he calls it "paying tribute" and "nostalgia."

"They say you must quit your madness, just as one wipes away dirt."

In the shadows, there seem to be dark hands reaching out, but Gu Meng ignores them.

The Gu Meng inside and outside the mirror walk toward each other, merging into one, resolute and self-assured.

"They say you must climb the stairs, and the price is bowing your head."

Gu Meng does not go upstairs; he chooses to walk down the stairs and into the game world.

His retreating figure as he walks down the stairs merges with the figure of the male protagonist in the game as he awakens and leaves the female lead.

Comments begin to scroll across the screen: "The Stairway to Godhood."

They are still relatively sparse for now.

...

It isn't until the song is nearly over, as the screen shifts to show all the phantoms of the male protagonist disappearing and him walking firmly away from the unfinished building, that the barrage of comments begins to surge.

Everyone is moved by the system-optimized video and Gu Meng's singing. The comment section is flooded with praise.

"My mind is blank. I don't know what to say, I just feel incredibly pumped."

"Damn it, I just want to fight now! Fight, yes, fight, with the lowliest of dreams!"

"I want to punch something."

"I already punched my tablet, and now the screen is cracked. What do I do?"

"I knew the Dragon King could sing—he’s even released albums—but I never expected him to evolve to this level."

"But, but it’s just so good."

"He wrote the lyrics and music himself, too. So impressive."

"President Gu is a great talent."

"This is true emotion."

Beyond the ordinary fans, Gu Meng's enemies are also watching this promotional theme song.

Wang Feng, currently in the CEO's office at Peak Games, takes out his phone. Seeing a notification from the police asking him to cooperate with their investigation again, he curls his lip in silence.

"These people still haven't caught the killer after all this time. What is going on? It doesn't look like they're trying to make me a scapegoat... Do they really think I did it, or are they just messing with me?"

He continues to loop the song that gets catchier the more he listens to it: *The Lonely Brave*.

"I love your ragged clothes, yet you dare to block the gun of fate..."

"This song is really good... Does Gu Meng know something?"

When his old rival appears in the music video again:

"Damn it, I’m jealous that he has such a good son. Gu Ritian has been having nothing but bad luck for the past two years, and the only lucky thing he has is his son."

Wang Feng thinks of his own son, Wang Jian, who is already thirty and doesn't even like female celebrities—he only likes "2D paper cutouts."

He spends all his time playing those mobile games, pouring insane amounts of money into them, and looks down on live-action interactive games.

He’s nothing like me. Are female celebrities not exciting enough?

Why doesn't he get on with it?

He's so old, and he hasn't even brought a girlfriend home. If it weren't for the fact that the nanny still finds "stuff" in the trash can, I would have thought my son had physiological problems.

"What is so good about those pay-to-win gacha games? Players love them, and my son loves them too... But since he likes them so much, maybe I should let him try making one?"

Seeing how capable Gu Ritian's son is—having never made anything other than interactive games and achieving this kind of success on his first try—Wang Feng is tempted.

The mobile game market is growing larger and larger, and the profit margins are far higher than those of the interactive game market.

His good-for-nothing son once said he wanted to make an ACG game that catered to his own twisted fetishes and needed funding.

But there are more and more people making ACG games now, and the waters are deep. All of his connections are in the entertainment industry. If he just jumps in with a sum of money, can he succeed?

...

On the other side, as a distant relative who was one of the few at the original Maodou Company who wasn't too corrupt, Meng Juju has been fired.

Unable to maintain her extravagant lifestyle, all her male models have left her.

Now, she can only hug six buckets of fried chicken and eat them to console herself.

Today just happens to be Thursday, and she spent three hundred yuan to buy six "V me 50" meal sets.

This terrifying woman—to be able to eat so much fried chicken.

And this isn't even her limit; her strength should not be underestimated.

"Damn it! I never used to check what day of the week it was when I bought fried chicken!"

Gritting her teeth as she watches Gu Meng singing on the screen, Meng Juju is so angry that she bites off half a piece of original recipe chicken in one go and gulps down an entire bottle of cola.

Thinking of her current desolate situation—without six black men—she can't help but sigh.