Quietly online, it’s been almost a year since I last logged into Nine Yin. The scenery hasn’t changed much, but it seems the game has updated to a new version. I quickly opened the friends list to see if anyone is still playing so I could ask for some guidance, but no friends are online.
Well, good friends would do, acquaintances would also help, but no good friends are online.
Then there’s the revenge, finding them to mess with could be fun; I wonder if that girl I used to hate has gotten married again yet, but even revenge friends are not online.
On the rooftop of the Chengdu morgue, the sky gradually turned a deep red, and I quietly stood alone watching the sunset, feeling a bit disappointed. The scenery in Nine Yin is truly beautiful, it’s just a pity that the people who once shared this beautiful view with me are no longer online.
In everyone’s life, I always believe there are some very special things that only you and those who have experienced them with you can truly appreciate; no one else can understand. Just like how, at 4 AM on April 30, 2016, I was still awake playing games, to my mother, that was the action of a true gaming addict that she could not accept. But to me, those were very special moments because I met myself and my friends at the most wonderful time.
In the chat room of the XX guild at dawn on April 30, 2016, a young man named YY asked: “Why is it so crowded at this hour? Why aren’t you all sleeping? Don’t you want to go out for the holiday? Playing games like this ruins a whole generation.”
So we all headed into Nine Yin to hunt YY. After “massacring” our own people for being “bored”, we switched our target to the Guild Leader, with the female team attacking, the male team playing music, and the “middle” team buffing, the whole group stirred up a corner of Suzhou. Throughout those long nights, the price we paid was blurry days because of lack of sleep, some of us dozing off in class, others dazed at work. But it seemed no one cared about that; after every working day, the joy was when we gathered, sang together, laughed, talked, and played games. It was as if we were friends outside the real world, as if everything would always be like this…
Nine Yin True Classic – the place where you always have a home to belong. Anyone who has played Nine Yin for a long time will surely understand, no matter how different each person’s personality is, there will always be a place that can become a shelter for you.
I am lucky to have found such a home. When bullied by “evil enemies”, all I need to do is chat in the guild channel, specify the location, and three minutes later, five hundred brothers are at the scene. Ready to fight back to reclaim justice for “my brothers”, if fighting back doesn’t work, the five hundred brothers switch to verbal combat, both sides bickering about each other’s families, lovers, and professions like true rascals. At first, I was surprised, feeling it was a bit too much, but gradually I realized, behind the swearing and insults between the sides, it seemed… no one was actually sad.
Then there were the seasons of Nine Yin updating new features, new dungeons, new events, and we all had to grind like crazy. Some would think to take advantage of the afternoon to log into the guild and participate in the event answering questions, while others skipped classes to grind the event at home.
I remember there was a time when many exchange token events were held, our guild’s girls created dozens of clone accounts. I logged into my computer, my eyes barely open, my back hurt from sitting too long, but I still insisted on finishing grinding the clone accounts of my friends so they could go to school with peace of mind, muttering in pain, vowing to myself that I wouldn’t grind during the next event, it was too hard, I would not chase after the exchange tokens anymore. After the event season, everyone had new exchange tokens and gathered to show off in the big cities, the guys in the guild just laughed, saying they could never understand the passion of girls. And it’s true, they’re right, because girls only swear like that symbolically; when the next event comes, after seeing the enemy girls flaunting their new exchange tokens on the streets, we had almost forgotten our vow, and then we ground together again, continued to suffer then vowed together not to participate in the event anymore… then forgot, just like that, a never-ending cycle with no way out.
Nine Yin has had seasons of server merges, seasons of boss battles, and continuous warfare. But for us carefree girls like me, what does everything mean, until one day, someone in the friends list told me I was too useless, too lazy, and couldn’t even level up my profession to level 5, asking me to log into my account and spend an entire afternoon farming for me to reach level 6. They said, “Farm so you can play music for me to fight in the future.” I’m a girl who doesn’t like fighting, but I didn’t realize why I ended up playing music for real. So, while my guild was in a tense battle, I and a new girl friend were sitting in a small corner behind the Suzhou morgue, playing music and chatting about everything under the sun. She told me, “My boyfriend asked me to play music for him, love between couples stems from collective love; collective love nurtures couple love. I’m so glad to be in our guild, thanks to our guild, I met him.” I just smiled when I heard that, feeling a bit euphoric.
Day by day, month by month, year by year, everything continued like that and we grew closer. We were close friends, comrades on each other’s friends list, the people who made me want to farm relationship points, regardless of whether they played male or female accounts. They were brothers, “my younger siblings”, close friends in the guild. They were the ones whom whenever I posted a line of poetry in the guild channel, they would help me create an entire poem.
They were the ones who could take me to the riverside in Chengdu, planting flowers and fruits, brewing osmanthus wine, competing to see who had the best alcohol tolerance. They were the ones who joined me in the game to welcome the New Year at the Luyang Bridge, with fireworks lighting up the sky, everyone taking a few reunion photos together. They were the ones in front of whom I could easily talk, laugh, and cry. They shared their stories with me, and I shared my life with them. Together we shared, together we listened. Ah, we all loved art. I remember once my guild was singing, everyone fought to sing, we sang from 2 PM to 10 PM, and after singing, we were all exhausted, unable to talk. Looking back after a long time, I felt that everyone treated each other sincerely back then.
Nine Yin passed through me like that, and even more so, Nine Yin was no longer just a game; we met outside, chatted, ate, made friends, and… got married. Not me getting married, but another couple in my guild; I was just a guest at their wedding. But seeing other friends from the guild attending the wedding with me, I felt a bit moved. It turns out we have traveled together through a long journey, from when people got to know each other, fell in love, and now they have gotten married. Isn’t that wonderful?
However, every party must come to an end; the beautiful things often fade quickly. I don’t remember much about my days with Nine Yin after that. I don’t remember how the Guild Leader thought about the game, I don’t remember how everyone missed the Guild Leader back then, I don’t remember why everyone was online less, and I also don’t remember why friends sent me farewell messages; perhaps they were busy studying, working, with families, moving abroad, busy with everything. So I said, “I’m busy too”; I was busy because I couldn’t witness any more farewells. I don’t remember anything clearly.
Because the number of people left in the guild gradually decreased, my guild merged with another guild. Maybe it was a new breeze, but I believe everyone of us has a place to commemorate, to remember, that can never be replaced. That is the place where we had the most fun, where we were most devoted to each other, when we were most alive because we were surrounded by the people we cherished the most.
Occasionally we have messages asking about each other, small gatherings, offline meet-ups with one or two people, and the teasing comments infused with “thug” culture on Facebook. All of that helps soothe the longing for a place I can no longer set foot in, because we can never gather together fully as we did back then.
I went back to the game, alone. And of course, just a sunset afternoon in Chengdu in Nine Yin can make my mood swing as if I were under the influence of osmanthus wine. It sounds funny because I’ve never had osmanthus wine, only my character in Nine Yin drinks it, and yet I still feel tipsy. Perhaps it’s the drunkenness that makes me remember a song everyone used to play in the guild, a Chinese song I was familiar with word for word – Just at the moment of meeting someone
We cry together
We laugh together
We gaze up at the vast sky with countless twinkling stars
We sing together
The song of time
Only then can we understand, what is that embrace for?
Because just at the moment of meeting someone
Leaving behind graceful footsteps
The wind blows, flowers fall, tears like rain, because we don’t want to part
Because just at the moment of meeting someone
Leaving behind a decade of promises
If we could meet again
I still want to forever remember you
If we could meet everyone again
I still want to remember you all forever.
– Thanh Mai –