Chapter 238: The Forbidden City
Many players who had never paid any attention to *Minecraft* before clicked on this video out of intense curiosity.
As a result, the very first scene stunned a large number of people.
"Is this in-game footage?"
"The graphics—how can this be in-game footage? Where are the pixels? I can't see a single pixel!"
"This is no different from a high-quality CG! Chen Mo, you're tricking me again!"
The first thing to appear in the video was the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City.
The camera passed through the central gate, crossed the Golden Water Bridge, and arrived at the Gate of Supreme Harmony.
At this point, the camera zoomed in, clearly showing that the lifelike stone lions, which had appeared realistic from a distance, were actually made up of individual blocks. Though covered in pixels, their spirit was identical to that of real stone lions.
The camera moved past the white jade staircase. Although it couldn't perfectly capture the Nine-Dragon Relief in the center of the steps, it still conveyed the essence of the carving's design.
Multiple shots switched rapidly, showcasing the details of the architecture.
The resplendent glazed roof tiles.
The plaque at the center.
The palace lanterns on either side.
The tranquil groves and pavilions.
And the interiors of the halls.
Beds, desks, cushions, incense burners, potted plants.
The camera then arrived at the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where the Nine-Dragon Screen and the golden imperial throne appeared at the center of the screen, solemn and majestic.
Afterward, the camera began switching rapidly between different angles, accompanied by a melodious Chinese-style background music, displaying other details of the entire Forbidden City.
Finally, the camera pulled back, the city gates closed, and the music gradually faded away.
But the video wasn't over yet.
At the very end, a smaller screen appeared, showing the construction process of a certain palace in fast-forward.
Laying the foundation, erecting the red pillars, laying the golden glazed tiles... It fully recreated the entire process of building a structure.
Players who watched this video were stunned from start to finish.
Chen Mo's Weibo post began to be shared wildly, with comments piling up!
"Stop trying to pass off a documentary as a game..."
"Was this really made in *Minecraft*?"
"Mom asked me why I was watching on my knees the whole time!"
"Chen Mo, you're a goddamn architectural genius! Please accept my knees!"
"I heard there's a place in Beijing called the Forbidden City that's a pretty good imitation."
"I'm suddenly interested in this game! Can you really build the Forbidden City in it? That means any other building is a piece of cake, right?"
"The details are incredible! Even though you can see some pixels, it's so damn exquisite that I want to lick the screen!"
"But I want to ask, is this thing hard to make? Imagining piecing this together with blocks... Yeah, I feel like even with a hundred thousand years, I could do it."
"It's definitely hard, but the difficulty makes it challenging!"
...
Without any particularly large-scale promotion, just relying on a single Weibo post and a single video, #MinecraftForbiddenCity# suddenly became a trending topic!
The views of the related video on websites also skyrocketed.
Moreover, the way this video suddenly exploded was different from *Gokuraku Jodo*.
*Gokuraku Jodo* started mainly in the anime community, then fermented through major video sites, and eventually spread to a larger player base through its relatively catchy style.
The *Forbidden City* video, on the other hand, spread through recommendations on major video sites and news outlets.
In particular, many news websites' gaming sections treated this video as the most important gaming news of the day, reposting and spreading it wildly.
This news was even reported by some TV stations, so that even many people who never played games learned about *Minecraft* and that someone had built the Forbidden City inside it.
After all, this video wasn't as utilitarian as other game promotional videos. Its content was very eye-catching, and it also promoted Chinese style and traditional culture, which was very appealing to traditional media. There were no restrictions on the player base; everyone enjoyed watching it.
The name *Minecraft* began to be known by more and more people.
"Chen Mo built a Forbidden City in *Minecraft*" became a topic of repeated discussion, even vaguely threatening to overshadow *Thousand Prisons*.
This topic stayed on the trending list for an entire week.
Two weeks later, just as the topic's popularity was about to fade, Chen Mo posted another Weibo.
"*Minecraft*: Rebuilding the Old Summer Palace. Note: Still in-game footage."
The netizens were shocked. Damn, another one?
It had only been two weeks since the Forbidden City video, and now a new one was out, and it was the Old Summer Palace?
Thanks to the impact of the Forbidden City video, even more people watched this one. After all, the Forbidden City is a real existing structure, but the Old Summer Palace? It was destroyed long ago, leaving only ruins!
Although many educational programs had tried to recreate the Old Summer Palace in its prime, it was too difficult. Fully replicating it using computer technology based on historical data would require a huge investment with no profit, so how could ordinary educational programs afford that?
At most, there were some pictures, but the expressiveness of pictures compared to videos was far too lacking.
Everyone knew the Old Summer Palace was magnificent, hailed as the "Garden of Gardens," but for a long time, what it actually looked like was all left to imagination, with no concrete concept of the specific scenes.
But now, Chen Mo had actually built the Old Summer Palace in *Minecraft*!
This time, the netizens were even more excited, all eagerly clicking on the video.
The video opened with a passage of text.
"In a corner of the world, there is a world wonder; this wonder is called the Old Summer Palace."
"Please imagine a building beyond words, a building like a moon palace; this is the Old Summer Palace."
"Please use marble, jade, bronze, and porcelain to build a dream, use cedar for its framework, adorn it top to bottom with gems, drape it in silk, build a temple here, a harem there, place statues of gods and mythical beasts inside, decorate it with glaze, enamel, and gold, and apply cosmetics."
"Please let the poet-architect build the thousand and one dreams of *One Thousand and One Nights*, then add gardens, pools, fountains, and flocks of swans, ibises, and peacocks."
"In short, please imagine a dazzling cave of human fantasy, whose appearance is a temple, a palace, but is in fact a unique wonder in the world—that is the Old Summer Palace."
—Victor Hugo.
This passage was written by French author Victor Hugo to Captain Butler, condemning the destruction of the Old Summer Palace by the Anglo-French forces. The words describing the Old Summer Palace in this passage have also been remembered by countless people as a classic description.
The text gradually faded, and a map of the Old Summer Palace appeared on the screen.
The camera continued to pull up, and the character from *Minecraft* appeared outside the frame, making players realize that the map was inside the game.
The character walked among the ruins of the Old Summer Palace and discovered a special portal.
The character leaped into the portal and entered another world.
Genius remembers this site address in one second: