Monster-Hunting Ring

Sixteen-year-old Niu Bi lives in a slum in the southwest corner of Haitian City. His mother, Ma Min, is an ordinary worker, and his hot-tempered father, Niu Xin, beats him at the slightest provocation. After dropping out of school, he works as a loader at a wholesale market, sparing no effort, earning about two hundred yuan a day to barely help support the family. One day at an antique market, a white-haired, youthful-faced old man cajoles him into buying a "family-heirloom antique" ring for one hundred yuan; by the time he comes to his senses, he has been cheated, and he chases the man for two streets without catching him. When his blood accidentally seeps into the ring, it opens another space: the old man claims to be the creator of this "Dream Space," a world resembling an online game, with monsters, levels and attribute panels. Killing monsters can yield gold coins and equipment, and these spoils can be brought back to the real world for use. From the cheapest goat horns and plain equipment to priceless super-artifacts and super magic crystals, anything you have the skill to fight out, you can take away. From then on Niu Bi levels up, changes class, keeps pets and fights bosses in this game world, while in reality he uses the resources brought by the ring to gradually change his own and his family's circumstances, becoming entangled in the grudges and conflicts among a policewoman, a rich girl, a queen from another realm and many others. The story escalates from an urban power-fantasy into a confrontation involving ancient artifacts and a cultivation system, finally closing at "The Moment of Waking from the Dream." Monster-Hunting Ring was first published on Pinshu Network under the urban supernatural powers category. About 640,000 characters long and completed, it is a typical early-2010s "cheat power plus monster-killing loot" power fantasy, often regarded by readers as an early sample of the "plane travel / game-world crossover" setup.