HLM – Chapter 1 The Lord’s Heart

Beijing, early winter, nighttime. The cold wind howled outside.

By the time Wang Bo got off work, it was already pitch dark outside. He looked at the string of code on his computer screen and let out a sigh of relief—overtime was finally over, and he could go home at last.

He instinctively glanced at the bottom right corner of his screen. The time displayed gave him a shock—it was already past ten at night! He hadn’t realized he had worked overtime for four hours today!

“Damn it, when will these days ever end? Five workdays a week and four of them with overtime, and not a single cent of overtime pay. This is like misery opening the door for misery—pure hell.” Wang Bo let out a helpless sigh. He wasn’t worried about being overheard; by this time, the office was already empty.

After shutting down his computer, turning off the lights, and locking the door with practiced ease, he grabbed two phones from the corner of his desk and headed toward the subway station.

There was still a thirty-minute ride after getting on the subway. Wang Bo pulled out a phone to kill time. Earlier, he had taken two phones with him—one was his own domestic-brand phone, and the other was his supervisor’s test device.

The so-called test device was just a regular smartphone, but it was specifically used to test-run certain programs or games. The IT company Wang Bo worked for wasn’t very big or well-known, and didn’t make much money. But with the mobile gaming market booming, the company decided to jump on the bandwagon and try to cash in. Lately, they had been developing a number of games, and all employees were required to participate in internal testing.

These internal tests weren’t for fun; they were to identify bugs and glitches. So naturally, employees had little interest in the games. Some of the higher-ups didn’t bother playing at all and simply dumped their test phones on subordinates to play on their behalf.

Muttering, “Must be nice to be a boss,” Wang Bo unlocked the screen. The dark interface displayed only a single 3D heart-shaped icon. For reasons unknown, the development team had chosen a bright green color for the heart instead of the usual red, which looked a little off from common expectations.

He opened the in-game guide, which was filled with dense and complex information. Wang Bo had no patience to read it thoroughly, so he skimmed for the main points.

According to the guide, once a player launched the game, they would receive a “Lord’s Heart,” which could improve their physical fitness. No matter how weak a person was, once they possessed it, they’d become a beast in human form. If the Lord’s Heart was bound to a piece of land, the player would become the land’s lord and gain control over it.

Aside from the Lord’s Heart, the game also featured another item called the “Heart of the Territory.” This item was essentially a fragment of the Lord’s Heart and could affect specific areas within the territory. The rest of the guide was even more convoluted, and Wang Bo, growing annoyed, didn’t bother reading on.

Finally, the game allowed players to reset their progress. If they were dissatisfied with their territory or encountered issues during development, they could withdraw the Lord’s Heart and start over on a new piece of land. However, doing so would completely erase all progress made on the previous territory.

After getting the general idea, Wang Bo tapped the 3D Lord’s Heart icon. Instantly, an image of Earth appeared on the screen, and the green Lord’s Heart hovered in the upper right corner.

The game’s opening sequence used 3D animated visuals. A spinning Earth rotated on the screen, and then, like Google Earth, the camera zoomed in from a distant view to a close-up.

The next part resembled a geography documentary, with various countries flashing across the screen in quick succession. Wang Bo wasn’t interested in the cinematic intro—he was here to test for bugs—so he casually dragged the green Lord’s Heart icon from the corner to the center of the screen. That action counted as binding the Lord’s Heart to a territory.

As soon as he released his finger, a dialog box popped up on the screen:

Territory Location: Southern Hemisphere, New Zealand, Otago and Canterbury region, Dominion of the Sun.

Territory Area: 1,000 square kilometers (250,000 acres, 100,000 hectares).

Territory Population: 1 (Lord Wang Bo).

Territory Buildings: Roberts Castle.

Resources: Unknown.

Heart of the Territory: None.

Accept this territory: Yes? No?

Wang Bo glanced through the information and clicked “Yes” without much thought. But the moment he tapped “Yes,” he suddenly felt something was off. He paused to think, but couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Dismissing it as overthinking, he lowered his head and prepared to play the game.

As soon as he made his selection, the phone screen froze. Only a single line of text blinked on the screen: “Territory being received. Please wait patiently, Lord.”

He waited for half an hour. The subway had already arrived at its final stop, but the blinking text was still there.

Wang Bo tried restarting the game, even powering off the phone entirely, but nothing worked. The device seemed to be completely frozen—no response at all. He thought about removing the battery, but he didn’t even know what brand the phone was. It turned out to be an advanced unibody model—the kind where the back cover couldn’t be removed, and naturally, neither could the battery.

Ironically, that brought him a sense of relief. After all, he didn’t want to go home and continue working after a whole day of overtime—even if it was just playing a game. But what difference did it make if it was a game he didn’t even enjoy? That might as well be overtime too.

Exiting the subway station, a gust of cold wind greeted him. Wang Bo pulled his down jacket tighter around him and strode quickly into his rented apartment complex.

At the entrance, a middle-aged man was selling roasted sweet potatoes from a pushcart grill. Wang Bo recognized him, though they weren’t close. He just knew his last name was Liu, and usually called him Brother Liu.

Brother Liu had a good business mind. He ran a small street stall at the entrance of the complex, changing products with the seasons: vegetables in spring, fruits in summer, snacks in autumn, and roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts in winter. His year-round rotation always brought in steady income.

Seeing Wang Bo, the man greeted him warmly, “Xiao Wang, why are you back so late? Want a roasted sweet potato? It’s still hot—grown back in the hometown. Fragrant and sweet, you’ll sleep like a baby after eating one.”

Wang Bo was a bit shy by nature, and couldn’t just walk off after such a friendly call. So he walked over and said, “Brother Liu, you’re still open at this hour? Alright then, pick me a sweet potato—but hey, hey, hey, that one’s way too big, don’t you think?”

As soon as Wang Bo said he’d buy one, the man picked out the biggest sweet potato and put it on the electronic scale. While weighing it, he joked, “You don’t know, Brother Wang, the younger the girl, the more fun she is—the bigger the sweet potato, the better it tastes. Xiao Tao, what are you doing over there? Your Uncle Wang is here—aren’t you going to say hi?”

From the other side of the grill emerged a little boy bundled up in a thick down jacket. In a crisp voice, he said, “Hello, Uncle Wang!”

Wang Bo forced an awkward smile. “Just call me Brother Wang. I’m not old enough to be an uncle yet.”

Now that the kid had come out, Wang Bo couldn’t very well ask for a smaller sweet potato—it didn’t feel right, especially when they were braving the cold with a kid to make a living.

Brother Liu wrapped the sweet potato in newspaper and handed it to him. Then he turned to his son and said, “What does Dad always teach you? Just a greeting? Don’t you have anything else to say?”

Wang Bo played along and asked, “That’s right, Xiao Tao, what else does your dad teach you?”

The boy’s eyes twinkled mischievously as he grinned and recited, “Mhm! Daddy also teaches me Tang and Song poems. I’ll recite one for you—When young one doesn’t work hard, grown-up ends up in I.T.…”

Wang Bo nearly smacked the sweet potato on the man’s head. What grudge do you hold against me? Teaching a kid to roast me like this late at night?

Brother Liu was embarrassed too and quickly said, “Just joking, Xiao Wang—don’t take it to heart. That’ll be ten yuan for the sweet potato. Just ten.”

Wang Bo handed over the money, took the sweet potato, and headed back into his little apartment. He shared the place with a friend, but the friend was already deep asleep, curled up with his girlfriend.

Quietly changing into slippers, Wang Bo tiptoed into his room. He peeled back a bit of the newspaper and took a couple of bites. The sweet potato really did taste great—soft, sweet, and smooth. As he peeled off the skin, the golden-yellow flesh with hints of reddish-brown was revealed. The warm, sugary aroma filled the air, whetting his appetite.

Looking out the window at the howling wind, Wang Bo suddenly remembered the winters of his rural childhood. Back then, the whole family would sit around the fire, and his father would roast sweet potatoes for him. The ones they grew weren’t nearly as big, but somehow, they seemed to taste even better.

Halfway through the sweet potato and lost in thought, he pulled out his phone again. The screen hadn’t changed at all—still frozen, still unresponsive. He had no choice but to put the phone aside, wash up, and go to sleep. Once the battery ran out, it would shut off by itself.

Lights off. Bed. Eyes closed. Sleep. After a long day of exhaustion, he drifted into slumber quickly.

In his dream, a paradise-like land slowly emerged: fertile fields stretching for miles, rolling hills, birdsong and blooming flowers, lush green trees, wind sweeping over waves of grass, beasts roaming peacefully. And finally, the vision settled on a majestic, ancient medieval-style castle…