Tree of the Future

This is an online game novel where "the protagonist is an NPC," but Chuan Guo Hongchen does not take the power-fantasy route of "the NPC crushes players and rises to the top." Luo Yu is trapped in Novice Village No. 891002—a piece of code, a thug, a monster no one cares about—and the only clue that can change his fate is experience points. Thus the most interesting part of the book emerges: like an experimenter, he adjusts the force and angle of his strikes time and again, verifying game mechanics and treating the "hidden algorithm" as a secret path to freedom. This writing—akin to "studying a door lock in a sealed room"—gives this novel of under a million characters a quiet, slow-burning charm. The author's tone is light and grounded, with a strong sense of the everyday; the wuxia jianghu episodes involving escort agencies, sieges, and secret treasures are written with relish, the conflicts are not intense, and the reading pressure is very low. It belongs to that category of online game novel that can carry you to the end without relying on face-slapping and leveling, suited for slow reading late at night. If you are used to sharp-paced power fantasies, you may find the buildup slow and the climaxes weak; but if you enjoy imaginative works where the author takes game rules seriously, this book is worth a read.