62: Chapter 61 Craze

[ Cause and Effect Fate Platform Announcement: The visitor system is now fully online. ]

[ Welcome to the era of Yanhuang Civilization. ]

These two lines of text appeared without any warning. They were not a pop-up. They were not a push notification.

They were branded directly into the very center of every Fate Platform user's consciousness, no matter what you were doing.

Sleeping, fishing, trading, posting, livestreaming... even those Yanhuang Civilization survivors who hadn't logged into the Fate Platform at all, as well as the 2.8 billion foreign civilization visitors who had just arrived.

Everyone, at the exact same instant, saw these two lines of text.

Following this was a detailed System explanation.

[ visitor system details are as follows: ]

[ 1. This System is a subsystem of the Cause and Effect Fate Platform, designed specifically for survivors of various factions outside the Yanhuang Civilization. Survivors of foreign civilizations are connected after being invited by the Cause and Effect Fate Platform and use the Fate Platform with the status of "visitor". ]

[ 2. Visitor permissions: Can browse content in major World Echo channels; can post in World Echo · Symphony Realm, limited to one post per person every three days. Core functions of the Fate Platform such as posting, map positioning, magic sea compass, and Karmic Trading Realm are not open to visitors. ]

[ 3. Visitor identification: Visitor user avatar frames are gray, and the label "visitor" and their respective civilization faction are marked after their ID. ]

[ 4. Visitor fees: Six hours online per day costs one karmic point. ]

[ 5. Privacy protection features are launched simultaneously: Yanhuang Civilization survivors can independently choose public mode or private mode, setting whether their own posts and comments are visible to visitors. ]

[ May the light of civilization shine upon every sea area. ]

——

The moment the announcement crashed down, President Lu Xingye's livestream room went completely dead for three seconds.

It wasn't a network lag. It was everyone's brains crashing simultaneously.

She maintained the posture of one hand holding the ship's rail and the other holding a spear, her mouth slightly open, eyes wide and round.

The Iron-Spine Ray from a moment ago had escaped. She had stabbed her spear into the gap of its ventral armor but hadn't pierced through; after breaking free, it rolled and dove into the deep water, disappearing. A small piece of gray fish scale and a thread of blood still hung on the spear tip.

She had no heart to care about that anymore. Her mind was filled with those two lines of golden text.

—— The visitor system is now fully online.

—— Welcome to the era of Yanhuang Civilization.

"This..." She looked down at the bullet comments area of the livestream room.

The nature of those scattered gray foreign language bullet comments suddenly changed at this moment. They were no longer "aliens that appeared from who knows where," but rather an official, formal, System-level existence stamped by the official announcement.

After three seconds of silence, the bullet comments surged out like a breached flood.

Yanhuang Civilization text.

An overwhelming amount of Yanhuang Civilization text.

"Holy! F*ck!"

"Announcement! Did you guys see that announcement just now!"

"visitor system??? So those foreigners with gray avatars just now were..."

"Is it real? Not a Fate Platform BUG?"

"You f*cking telling me this is a BUG? The official announcement is already out!"

"Fate Master himself issued the announcement! A Cause and Effect Fate Platform subsystem!"

"I thought I was hallucinating just now, okay! I pinched myself three times!"

The bullet comments poured down like a waterfall, like a rainstorm, directly drowning the few, already sparse, gray foreign language bullet comments until they were nowhere to be found.

President Lu Xingye stood on the deck, the sea breeze blowing into the collar of her jacket, causing the brownish-green metal piece at her collarbone to sway gently. She heard the sound of a string snapping in her mind.

"Something big happened..." She muttered, then suddenly realized—she was still livestreaming!

Tens of millions of people were watching!

She quickly adjusted her expression, closed her mouth, cleared her throat, and tried to say something.

"Um—family—"

She got stuck after three words. What to say? What was good to say?

The bullet comments didn't give her any time to organize her thoughts.

"Xingye, did you see that! visitor system! People from the entire foreign civilization can get on the Fate Platform now!"

"So those foreign civilization survivors just now weren't random entries—they were invited by Fate Master!"

"2.8 billion! The announcement said it! 2.8 billion foreign civilization survivors!"

"Oh my god, what kind of concept is this? Plus our 1.4 billion, the entire Earth Star has over 4 billion people on one platform?"

"No, no, many people in foreign civilizations have died, now it's just over 2 billion. Plus our 1.4 billion plus, that's over 3 billion—but that's still over 3 billion!"

"Xingye, you've become an international internet celebrity! You really have!"

"Hahahaha, the first Yanhuang Civilization streamer to be watched by foreign fans!"

"Stop joking, okay! This is a very serious matter!"

"Serious about what? Look closely at the visitor system! It's a castrated version! They can't even post! They can only say one sentence every three days! Map, compass, and Trading Realm are all locked!"

"Exactly! Isn't this just equivalent to opening a read-only mode for them? They can look but can't touch."

"I just thought those few Stars and Stripes bullet comments were quite scary... but now that I've seen the announcement, it seems okay?"

"Okay??? Don't you think the significance behind this is terrifying? Fate Master has pulled everyone on Earth Star into the Fate Platform! What kind of vision is this? What kind of magnanimity is this?"

President Lu Xingye finally found a gap where she could interject.

"Wait, wait a second!" She waved her hand forcefully at the camera, "Everyone, stop spamming for a moment—I want to ask a question—"

The bullet comments slowed down by 0.3 seconds.

"So... those foreign friends with gray avatars from just now... are you still here?"

As soon as she finished speaking, a gray bullet comment slowly floated up from the very bottom of the comment stream. It was in the language of the Stars and Stripes, with the Fate Platform's automatic translation into Yanhuang Civilization text below it.

[ "Visitor · David Reeves (Stars and Stripes): Yes. I'm still here. I just read the announcement. So... this platform belongs to the Yanhuang Civilization? All this time?" ]

—— Yes. I am still here. I just read the announcement. So... has this platform belonged to the Yanhuang Civilization all along?

Another one.

[ "Visitor · Alan MacDonald (Fog City): I've been here for three days. I thought it was some kind of global System. Turns out... it's yours." ]

—— I have been here for three days. I thought this was some kind of global System. Turns out... it's yours.

Another one.

[ "Visitor 38472ke. Was auch immer das ist, es hat mir vor zwei Tagen das Leben gerettet." ]

—— Thank you. No matter what this is, it saved my life two days ago.

The gray bullet comments were like whispers beside a winter hearth, popping up sporadically. The interval between each one was very long—because each person could only say one sentence every three days, these visitor users were entrusting their only allowed comment to the livestream room of an eighteen-year-old Yanhuang Civilization survivor.

President Lu Xingye stared at those gray words for five seconds.

Then she suddenly smiled; since it was Fate Master's decision, she chose to support it unconditionally.

"Welcome," she said to the camera, not the signature, energetic laugh typical of her livestreams. It was a very light smile, with her eyes feeling a little hot.

Her voice was not loud, but the more than 20 million people in the livestream room heard it clearly.

The bullet comments went quiet for a beat.

Then—

"Welcome!"

"Welcome!"

"Welcome!"

They spammed in perfect unison for over three hundred floors.

—— But the silence did not last long.

Because President Lu Xingye's livestream room was one of the top few in popularity across the entire Fate Platform, it was naturally one of the first few places to be used by everyone, including Yanhuang Civilization survivors and foreign civilization visitors, as a public square.

Seven minutes after the announcement was released, the flavor of the bullet comment area began to change.

A gray bullet comment squeezed in.