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"Don't! No!"
Keqing cried out in genuine horror, her hand jerking the mouse frantically across the pad. She was trying to force the hammer to snag on anything—a brick, a pipe, even a loose shingle—but it was too late. The bald man, Wu Ke, had already cleared the edge of the platform. The hammer scraped uselessly against smooth stone as he plummeted.
He hit the Lookout Rock with a dull thud. In her panic, Keqing tried to push off the rock to stabilize herself, but the angle was disastrous. The hammer struck the stone and launched the character even further to the left, away from any safety.
Crack. The iron cauldron hit the grass. Welcome back to the happy hometown.
At that exact moment, a calm, philosophical voice echoed from the speakers: There is no feeling more unforgettable than starting over.
It was the ultimate salt in the wound. This narration was perfectly timed to mock the player's despair. After over an hour of painstaking progress, being sent back to the very first tree was a psychological blow that would have crushed a lesser person. The further one climbed, the more devastating the fall became. Keqing sat frozen for a few seconds, staring blankly at the screen. Then, her eyes sharpened, and she gritted her teeth.
Is this it? Is this all it takes to break me? It's just the starting point. I've done it once, and I can do it again!
Driven by a mix of spite and determination, the skilled Yuheng began her second climb. Her familiarity with the lower obstacles allowed her to navigate the old tree and the boulders with high-speed efficiency. Within minutes, she was back at the foot of the building ruins.
This time, she whispered a silent mantra to herself: be prudent, stay calm, do not rush.
She hooked the electrical distribution box and launched herself toward the triangular steel frame. She caught it, but her grip was shallow. The moment she tried to pull herself up, the hammer slipped. She fell, but she didn't panic. She reset and tried again. On her third attempt, she finally secured a firm hook on the steel frame and used it as a fulcrum to swing higher.
The next ledge was tiny—a mere sliver of stone protruding from the wall. Keqing's first attempt at hooking it resulted in a reverse-thrust that nearly sent her flying backward. Fortunately, she was being much more cautious this time; she hadn't put too much power into the swing, allowing her to stay on the ruins.
It took more than twenty attempts, but Keqing finally found the perfect angle. She flew steadily upward and snagged the iron guardrail of a house perched on the cliffside.
"Phew... that was actually quite difficult." Keqing wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. She could feel her heart racing, the adrenaline of the narrow escape still coursing through her.
She continued the climb. The next section required her to move horizontally to the left, hooking a ladder that had been placed across a gap. While many players struggled with the physics of the swinging ladder, Keqing found it intuitive. She navigated the rungs bit by bit, moving with the calculated grace of someone used to inspecting high-altitude construction sites.
She emerged from a small hut at the end of the ladder and realized she had to hook onto the roof to keep going. Once she landed on the shingles, she used the hammer to vault upward just high enough to scout the terrain ahead. When she saw the next section, her expression soured.
Stairs were hanging upside down, ignoring every known law of physics. Desks, chairs, and random furniture were piled in a chaotic, vertical mess. The complexity of the geography made her head ache. The difficulty had clearly spiked to a new level.
But she wasn't about to turn back now. Since a vertical jump from her current position wasn't enough to reach the stairs, she had to drop back to the eaves of the hut to gain momentum. She missed the first hook and fell, but luckily, there was a long platform to the left of the hut that caught her, preventing a trip back to the start.
Keqing spent the next half hour locked in a battle with the furniture. Every hook point was tiny, and every swing felt like a gamble. Eventually, she cleared the stairs and reached a sight that made her eyes twitch.
To her left, on the very edge of a sheer cliff, sat a lone barbecue grill. Directly above the grill was a massive, jutting rock—the only way up. There was zero room for error here. One slip would send her past the platforms and straight down to the bottom.
Keqing swallowed hard. She carefully nudged the bald man onto the top of the grill. She extended the hammer upward, feeling the tension until the metal head finally clicked against the rock. After confirming the hook was stable, she flicked the mouse. Wu Ke soared toward the mountain on the upper right.
She reached a section of smooth, rounded stones. She needed to use one as a fulcrum to reach the next ledge. But luck was no longer on her side. As soon as the hammer struck the stone, it slipped on the polished surface. Wu Ke began to slide. Keqing tried frantically to catch a nearby edge, but the more she struggled, the worse it got. She pushed herself further and further into the open air.
She watched in silent, helpless fury as the mountain receded into the distance.
Paji. Welcome back to the happy hometown.
The narrator spoke with a terrifyingly relatable tone: It feels like... like the day before an assignment is due, and you accidentally delete the entire document you spent weeks writing.
Keqing's expression froze. Her cat-ear-styled hair seemed to wilt. After another hour of intense, soul-crushing labor, she was back at the tree. And the game was sitting there, calmly comparing her failure to a lost clerical report.
It was too much. "This is bullying!" she cried out. "This game is absolutely, intentionally deceiving!"