Chapter 1001: Prologue
Three people burst out from the back door of the bank, as police cars screamed toward them with sirens blaring.
“Damn, we start off with a robbery and a shootout right away? Does it have to be this intense?”
At first, Zou Zhuo was restrained, afraid that killing cops would make things hard to clean up. But then he looked at the other two guys—they were spraying bullets like they were free, and in the blink of an eye, the open space ahead was piled high with wrecked police cars and dead officers.
Zou Zhuo figured he might as well let loose, so he hunkered down behind cover and started firing wildly.
As a next-gen VR system, the Matrix Game Pod operated on a completely different principle from traditional VR shooting games. Zou Zhuo’s current experience was exactly like shooting at a real-life firing range: raising the gun to aim, pulling the trigger, countering recoil, finding cover—he had to do all of it himself.
Of course, since ordinary players had no real-life live-fire experience, their accuracy would be terrible if they played this way, so the game itself provided some assistance.
In Easy Mode, when a player performed a shooting action, the system would automatically make slight corrections to their movements, mainly regarding their gun-holding posture. It felt like being at a shooting range with a dedicated instructor behind you, adjusting your stance—maybe gently lifting your arm, maybe pressing down on your head. In short, it constantly improved the player’s shooting accuracy by correcting their posture.
Through this prolonged automatic correction, players could subconsciously learn the correct gun-holding posture and become more familiar with tactical moves like finding cover and rolling during gunfights.
Plus, the initial tutorial missions were relatively simple. The enemies had poor aim, the player had thick health and full armor, so there was no worry about getting killed.
After taking out several carloads of cops, Zou Zhuo and the other two robbers finally made it to the main road and jumped into a car that had been prepared in advance.
Sirens wailed. A police car pulled up from behind, and a single shot hit the driver right in the temple.
Zou Zhuo, sitting in the passenger seat, was stunned: “What the hell??”
Before he could react, the character Michael he was controlling had already grabbed the steering wheel, opened the left door, shoved the dead driver out, and slid into the driver’s seat himself.
For actions that most players couldn’t pull off, the system would temporarily take control of the character to complete them, kind of like a cutscene.
“Fuck you!” Michael yelled as he yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. The two cars collided violently, and the police car instantly veered off course, slamming into a tree by the roadside.
“Yoho!” The three in the car cheered happily as the vehicle sped off into the distance.
Zou Zhuo suddenly realized—was he supposed to drive now?
He hadn’t even gotten his driver’s license yet, but he understood the basic principles of a car: the clutch, brakes, gas pedal, shifting gears, handbrake—he knew the general idea.
But… he’d never actually touched a real car!
It wasn’t his fault. He lived in the capital but couldn’t get a license plate, and his daily routine was just between home and the Thunder Interactive headquarters. Even if he got a license, what good would it do…
“Damn, calm down, calm down…”
Zou Zhuo was panicking, but luckily, after gaining control of Michael, the car was already moving smoothly along the road. He didn’t need to worry about the gears or even step on the gas—he just had to handle the steering wheel.
He adjusted the wheel bit by bit, keeping the car on the road. To his surprise, the steering was much more precise than he’d imagined.
In some PC and mobile racing games, the car’s steering was incredibly sensitive—a slight tap on a button or a nudge of the virtual joystick would send the vehicle swerving wildly. But this driving experience felt much closer to reality. The steering adjustments were very small, and making a right-angle turn required turning the wheel two full rotations, which made controlling it much easier.
“So this is what driving in real life feels like… I’ve been fooled by racing games for over twenty years…”
Zou Zhuo was overwhelmed with mixed feelings, because he realized that driving in real life and driving in games were two completely different experiences…
When he reached that last right-angle turn, Zou Zhuo had no idea how to handle the steering wheel properly. He just cranked it wildly to the right, and with the system’s assist adjustments, he barely managed to make the turn. But the moment he got onto the railroad tracks, a train suddenly came barreling through, smashing into their car and sending it flying to the side, totaled.
Zou Zhuo sat in the driver’s seat, dazed from the impact. Luckily, he was wearing a seatbelt, or he’d have no idea where he’d been thrown. Although the game pod greatly reduced the pain and impact sensation, this was still a simulation of a real car crash, so it took him a while to shake off the dizziness.
Old Trevor wanted to take a shortcut to the helicopter, but Michael insisted on sticking to the original route. In the end, both Michael and Brad were shot and collapsed. Trevor didn’t want to abandon them, but with too many cops and no backup, he could only flee into the vast snowstorm…
The next part of the story was told from an omniscient perspective. Zou Zhuo saw Michael’s funeral and saw Michael, who wasn’t really dead, standing outside the cemetery.
Wearing a hat and sunglasses, hiding his true identity, Michael calmly watched his own funeral, flicked his cigarette butt to the ground, and turned to walk away.
Zou Zhuo’s vision gradually went black, and in the center of his view, the game’s title appeared: *Grand Theft Auto*.
After a brief black screen, the view shifted again.
This time, it was still a cinematic perspective. Zou Zhuo wasn’t attached to any character but floated like a ghost in the air. Michael, dressed in an expensive suit, sat on a couch with a vacant look in his eyes.
“Is your son, James, a good kid?” a voice asked.
Michael laughed as if he’d heard a joke: “A good kid? Why? Did he go help his mom’s poor people? No. He just sits around all day, popping pills, jerking off, and playing video games nonstop. If that’s what you call a good kid, then no wonder this country is in such a mess.”
The slightly effeminate psychiatrist leaned forward a bit: “And what about you?”
“Me?” Michael frowned. “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon like that little brat. When I was his age, I’d already been to prison twice. I’ve robbed banks, pimped girls, and smuggled drugs.”
The psychiatrist: “Do you consider those your accomplishments?”
Michael’s emotions began to stir: “Those were opportunities I had back then. At least I seized them!”
The psychiatrist gave a faint, knowing smile: “And what did those opportunities bring you?”
Michael stood up from the couch: “They brought me… this mess! A big house! A useless son! And I can only talk to you because no one else wants to deal with me! I’m living in a dream right now, except it’s a fucking nightmare!”
After venting at the psychiatrist’s office, Michael seemed much calmer. He pushed the door open and left, looking a bit defeated.