Picking Up Fragments

Outside, Jiang Siming, who had bought an 18 credit beef brisket rice box for a late-night snack, intended to return home. As he passed an office area, he noticed a large billboard.

It displayed "4AM PUBG team recruiting" in bold letters, followed by some recruitment criteria:

Must be over eighteen years old.

Minimum 2000+ hours of gameplay.

KDA above 4.0.

Average damage per match above 500.

Must have a rank of 3000+ in Asia server and 4000+ in other servers.

No bad habits, willing to follow instructions, and in good health.

Preference for sniping talent.

Offering a monthly salary of over 50,000, including meals, accommodation, tournament bonuses, and season-end bonuses.

Seeing this recruitment notice, Jiang Siming was itching with curiosity.

The conditions were fantastic—50,000 monthly and everything covered.

But he realized he might not meet their standards yet.

His game account hadn't clocked more than a hundred hours, his score was just 1200, and his KDA and damage stats were far below the requirements.

Despite winning several matches recently, his stats hadn't improved much due to the previous setbacks.

He didn't meet the criteria at all, and joining the team would mean daily training with team members, no flexible schedule, essentially obeying the team's commands entirely.

Having just escaped the hardships of regular work, Jiang Siming temporarily didn't want to be under someone else's control and left after a quick glance.

Back home, after devouring the beef brisket rice, Jiang Siming cleaned up, took a shower, and was about to start gaming when there was a knock at the door.

Opening it, he found the landlady.

"Anything, Auntie Luo?" Jiang Siming asked with a furrowed brow.

Auntie Luo was his landlady, but Jiang Siming didn't particularly like her—she was too materialistic, stingy, and lacked empathy.

At the first glance, Auntie Luo's eyes nearly popped out, examining Jiang Siming with a leering smile.

"Little Jiang, I'm here to check in on you and talk about a couple of things."

"Go ahead, I'm listening." Jiang Siming stood at the door, showing no intention of letting her in.

Auntie Luo, undeterred, after eyeing Jiang Siming several more times, said with a sly smile, "Firstly, there's a tenant visiting tomorrow. It'd be good if you rearranged the living room, making a good impression on the new tenant."

Auntie Luo's apartment had two bedrooms and a living room. Jiang Siming rented only one room. The other had a couple who moved out last month, leaving it vacant.

"Auntie Luo, bringing a tenant is fine, but remember our agreement—not to bring in strange or unclean people."

Jiang Siming was straightforward. He didn't want a messy or unsavory roommate, such as prostitutes, gamblers, or gangsters; he'd move out immediately if that happened.

He was fairly content with the previous couple who were clean and pleasant, except for the occasional loud noises at night.

Auntie Luo laughed heartily, "Don't worry, Little Jiang. This time, it's a girl—clean and pretty. I wouldn't risk my property on some unruly person."

"That's good. What's the other thing?"

"The other thing is, your rent for this month is due soon. Whenever you have time, come and pay it," Auntie Luo said with a greedy grin.

Although Jiang Siming wasn't angry, he didn't have a good impression of her.

He'd been living here for over a year, and every month, Auntie Luo would come right on time to collect the rent. There couldn't be any delay, or else she'd demand extra payment.

Once, when he was short on cash and requested a two-day extension, despite pleading, she didn't agree. Ultimately, Jiang Siming had to use a credit card to pay her.

As Jiang Siming was about to get the money, Auntie Luo unexpectedly seemed lenient.

"Actually, Little Jiang, if you're short on cash, it's fine. I can give you a few extra days."

Before she finished, she added, "My back's been aching these days. If you come to my place and give me a massage, I won't charge you extra. How about that?"

The rumored sugar mama's happy ball? Trying to groom herself a boy toy?

Upon hearing this, Jiang Siming didn't say a word, turned, went into his room, brought out 2,000 credit, placed it on the living room table, and then slammed the door shut.

"Cut the nonsense! Trying to save face!" Auntie Luo exclaimed dispiritedly, picked up the money, and left, twisting her bucket waist.

After getting rid of the annoying and disgusting landlady, Jiang Siming returned to his computer desk, fired up PUBG, and continued his solo journey.

Upon entering the lobby, Jiang Siming noticed numerous invitations from strangers.

Thinking it was just advertising, Jiang Siming ignored them and set his settings to block invitations, proceeding with solo play.

Meanwhile, in the Douyu live streaming room, the re-streaming Dumb Little Sister, now without her daytime dejection, returned to her "smiling" face and continued chatting with her viewers.

However, each time she died and returned to the lobby, she couldn't resist checking if Jiang Siming was online.

"Maybe he's not playing today," Dumb Little Sister thought.

Suppressing her downhearted mood, she prepared to start another game but noticed Jiang Siming's ID's "+" sign lit up again.

However, in no time, it turned off again, displaying that invitations weren't available.

Her friend noticed it too and quickly tried to calm her.

"Dumb Dumb, his ID is famous on Douyu, didn't you see the forums? Many people want him to play for you. That's why he disabled the invites."

Dumb Little Sister found this reasonable and reluctantly adjusted her mood to continue her live stream.

Jiang Siming became serious as he entered the game.

Since this game became his cradle for fulfilling dreams and aspirations, he couldn't treat it like any other game.

Though he currently had no plans to join a professional team, Jiang Siming still hoped to elevate his rank—maybe higher ranks had a better chance of getting item drops.

This time, it was a small map—the newly released Sanhok map.

Jiang Siming looked around in the sky but didn't spot any loot crates.

But he didn't lose hope and flew towards Bootcamp.

Bootcamp was the most terrifying spot on the small map, with more than twenty players dropping on average every round, as bloody as the airport.

Many people dropped there, either getting killed on landing or ambushed by others, earning it the name Bootcamp—the place where one "trains" themselves.

When parachuting, Jiang Siming realized his parachuting skills were awful; others had already landed while he was still in the air.

Although he wanted to rush to the central building for weapons, others who landed earlier already had guns, making it a suicide mission.

Helpless, Jiang Siming landed in a deep trench near the building.

Slow parachuting often resulted in a halfway loss in the game.

Sighing, Jiang Siming thought he needed to check parachute techniques in his free time; otherwise, all his skills would be useless.