May 16th, Wednesday.

Binhu Residential Complex.

Qiao Liang was playing GOG with several fans in a team battle.

“Kill quickly, kill quickly! The enemy mage has no ultimate!”

“No ultimate, no ultimate, we can kill them!”

“Uh… now they have no ultimate.”

“Now the enemy mage has no ultimate, can anyone add some damage?”

A teammate’s voice came through the team voice chat: “Old Qiao, whose side are you on? Don’t give false reports! Tell us clearly whether they have their ultimate or not!”

During the previous team fight, Qiao Liang had been caught off guard and was the first to die. As his teammates were rushing over, he shouted, “The enemy mage has no ultimate!” So everyone rushed in for a 4v5 fight, only to be wiped out by the enemy mage’s perfect ultimate while the other enemies swarmed them.

Qiao Liang said somewhat embarrassedly, “Sorry everyone, I’m getting old and my memory isn’t what it used to be. I thought that mage had just used their ultimate. How did it recover so quickly?”

“Alright, that’s enough for today. I need to rest.”

Qiao Liang exited the team, took off his headphones, and stretched.

The 515 Gaming Festival had officially begun yesterday at midnight, and more than a day had passed since then.

During this time, Qiao Liang had been grinding like crazy.

Playing network games with friends on Tenda’s platforms earned a gift package every day, with a chance to open rare in-game items. After playing for an hour, you could also receive a random cash red envelope…

To put it simply, players were responsible for playing the games, and Tenda was responsible for throwing money at them!

Although Qiao Liang considered himself a hardcore gamer, he couldn’t possibly buy all the epic weapons in “Sea Fortress,” nor did he own all the skins in GOG. Moreover, the rewards included cash red envelopes.

While these rewards weren’t particularly significant for Qiao Liang, they were a nice bonus.

He would be playing games anyway, and now there were such generous rewards for doing so. It only meant playing a bit more, so why not?

Of course, besides playing games, Qiao Liang was also keeping an eye on the money-burning war between Tenda Group and Finger Company.

From the current situation, Tenda Group was completely dominating!

Although Finger Company and Longyu Group had also launched a series of promotional measures that players initially found attractive, they paled in comparison to Mr. Pei’s grand gesture!

After all, one was offering discounts, while the other was giving things away for free—there was a fundamental difference.

After the detailed rules of the 515 Gaming Festival were revealed, players immediately entered a state of celebration. Even those who only played IOI and not GOG once again expressed sincere envy toward GOG players.

After all, although IOI’s skins were discounted, you still had to pay money for them, while GOG was frantically giving things away just for logging in and playing!

As for who would win this money-burning war?

Most players hadn’t even considered this question.

Was there any doubt? Of course, it would be Mr. Pei.

Because in matters like this, Mr. Pei seemed to have never lost, and players had 100% trust in him.

When it came to other things, it was hard to say, but when it came to burning money, Tenda had never backed down from anyone.

It wasn’t that Tenda had more money, but that they were more daring.

Moreover, players didn’t care who won the money-burning war between gaming companies. As long as they could get tangible benefits, the more intense the money-burning between the two companies, the happier the players would be.

The game he just played had left Qiao Liang mentally exhausted. After stretching, he decided to take a short break and open his fan group to secretly see what everyone was discussing.

“Huh? Shangyang Games has released a new game!”

“A new game? Is that true? I hadn’t heard any promotion for it before!”

“It’s absolutely true! The game is called ‘Fitness Battle,’ and it’s a mobile game. It’s available on many platforms—just search for it and you’ll find it!”

Seeing the discussion in the group, Qiao Liang was also somewhat surprised.

A new game?

Tenda hadn’t announced any new games launching recently, had they?

But as people in the group continued discussing, they shared screenshots.

This game called “Fitness Battle” really was a product of Shangyang Games!

Judging from the name, this seemed to be a game related to fitness, so many people in the group were slightly disappointed.

What’s so fun about that?

In most people’s imagination, “Fitness Battle” should be a game similar to a fitness simulator or a traditional game wrapped in fitness packaging, so they weren’t interested.

After all, currently on the market, the only games that could remotely be linked to fitness elements were these types.

Rather than playing such games, they might as well get a membership card at Tuoguan Fitness.

After all, if you go to Tuoguan Fitness and can stick with it, you’ll lose weight, but can you lose weight playing this game? Wouldn’t you just be staying at home getting fatter?

People’s confusion was understandable.

Their first reaction was not to connect this game called “Fitness Battle” with the game announced at the smart fitness clothing rack launch event!

The name of the game wasn’t mentioned at the launch event, and the promotional page for “Fitness Battle” didn’t mention the smart fitness clothing rack.

There weren’t many players who paid attention to the smart fitness clothing rack in the first place, and most of them had no expectations for the game that came with it. So when many people first saw this game, they didn’t make the connection and didn’t think about it that way.

They chose to download it solely because of Tenda’s golden reputation.

Qiao Liang certainly wouldn’t miss out.

Although this was a mobile game, its size was not small by mobile game standards. Qiao Liang guessed that the game’s content might be quite rich.

Moreover, games produced by Tenda were always of high quality. When had Tenda ever cut corners?

With such expectations, Qiao Liang immediately downloaded the game on his tablet and launched it.

…

After a brief black screen, the game’s opening CG appeared on the screen.

The CG’s art style leaned toward a cartoon-like anime style, with very distinctive character features.

The scene appeared to be ruins of some ancient building. It was late at night, with no moon or starlight, only a few dim oil lamps placed on the broken walls of the ancient ruins, giving the entire scene a somewhat sinister atmosphere.

Among the broken walls and pillars of the ruins, eight people sat cross-legged in a circle. Beneath them, a huge magic circle emitting an eerie red glow connected them all, pulsing slowly like a heartbeat.

The camera swept across, giving a glimpse of these eight people’s appearances.

The overall style was still anime-like cartoon characters, including cute girls, well-endowed mature women, and smaller-framed lolis and shotas…

These characters had obviously been carefully designed. Their appearance perfectly matched the aesthetic preferences of anime fans, with hairstyles, hair colors, and costume details all fitting their character traits.

These people wore different clothes that matched their character designs, though all the clothes had a somewhat sporty style.

The strangest thing was that none of these people had perfect bodies.

For example, the mature woman character, despite her impressive curves, clearly had a small belly, and there seemed to be some excess fat on her upper arms and thighs, making her look less toned.

The other characters each had their own issues, just less obvious.

At this moment, all eight of them had their eyes tightly closed, brows furrowed, and occasionally swallowing, as if enduring terrible pain.

In front of them, in the inner circle of the magic formation, there were eight extending lines, each with a type of food placed on it.

Braised pork, fried chicken, milk tea, barbecue skewers…

They all looked very tempting.

These foods continuously emitted aromas that stimulated the eight people’s sense of smell, and they seemed to be swallowing more and more frequently.

Some were barely able to restrain themselves, struggling to control their hands to prevent themselves from reaching for the delicious food in front of them.

At this moment, an authoritative voiceover came: “Hold on, the ritual is almost complete!”

“As long as you can stick to your diet and endure hunger, you will eventually defeat the terrible Fat Demon!”

But immediately after, another cunning, seductive voiceover followed: “It’s okay, it’s okay to eat a little occasionally!”

“You’ve already worked so hard. Don’t you deserve to eat a little, replenish your energy, and reward yourself?”

“What’s the point of living if you can’t eat whatever you want?”

“Just one small bite won’t hurt!”

These two voices swirled around everyone, constantly influencing them.

Finally, these people’s willpower reached the breaking point.

“I can’t take it anymore, I’m starving, just one bite!”

Someone pounced on the food in front of them.

After the sound of voracious eating, the others’ psychological defenses instantly collapsed, and they all rushed toward the food in front of them, stuffing it into their mouths without restraint.

“Hahahahaha…”

A wild laugh rang out as layers of black smoke suddenly rose from beneath the magic circle, transforming into a huge, obese demon.

“Poor humans, your willpower is so fragile. How could you possibly seal me with such a trick?”

“Well then, consider these as gifts for you!”

The huge Fat Demon waved his hand, and countless bubble-like orbs of light floated out from his body and merged into these eight people.

Immediately afterward, these eight people’s bodies visibly expanded!

Before, they were just slightly out of shape, not particularly noticeable unless you looked carefully, but now they were obviously overweight.

The eight people’s conditions varied. Some had fat growing only in specific areas, but others had gained weight all over, with their once decent appearances almost reaching a breaking point.

With a burst of maniacal laughter, the magic circle completely dimmed, and the Fat Demon swirled up in a cloud of black smoke and flew away.

The eight people collapsed to the ground, dropping the remnants of the food they were holding.

“It’s over, we’ve failed!”

“We still couldn’t resist the temptation of food. The Fat Demon has escaped, and we’ve been parasitized by his fat avatars. We can no longer control this magic circle!”

Everyone’s faces showed complete defeat, with two female characters even lowering their heads and starting to sob.

But soon, one of the slightly chubby but sunny-looking girls stood up: “No, we can’t just give up like this!”

“The Fat Demon will continue to seduce humans, parasitizing them with his fat avatars, eventually becoming the host of all humans. Our human lifespan will be greatly reduced!”

“Our willpower is not strong enough yet, and our physiques are not robust enough.”

“But with rigorous training, we still have a chance to drive away the Fat Demon’s avatars parasitizing our bodies and seal the Fat Demon again!”