A melodious tune began to play.

This background music was neither particularly cheerful nor sad. It was as flowing as the narration spoken by the male protagonist and the many scenes flashing across the screen.

“My father was a philanthropist and a luxury brand. He was once a vibrant man who frequently appeared on television and often graced the covers of fashion magazines due to his handsome appearance.”

“Until that kidnapping incident before I was born.”

“After that, my parents became more low-key in their actions, and they protected me well. I was rarely mentioned by the media. No one knew about our daily lives.”

“Shortly after I was born, my mother resigned from her job to become a full-time housewife to better take care of me. No matter how busy my father was, he always made time to be with me.”

“My father once found a kindergarten he liked, but it was very far from home—a 45-minute drive each way. My father could have chosen to let the driver take me, but instead, he drove me twice a week for three years, until I entered primary school.”

“In his spare time, my father would read me bedtime stories, help with my homework, participate in school parent-child activities, and regularly organize family dinners…”

“So I actually can’t understand when some friends say: their parents are too busy and never have time to spend with them.”

“Could they possibly be busier than the CEO of a company?”

Alongside the protagonist’s narration, a series of scenes flashed across the screen.

There was a scene of the protagonist being born in a luxurious delivery room.

The entire space was extremely spacious, with long sofas and furniture, looking like a hotel suite. Caregivers, nutritionists, and nurses bustled about, while the tables were laden with various nutritious meals, resembling a sumptuous banquet.

The protagonist’s parents held their baby, their faces beaming with happiness.

There were also scenes from the protagonist’s infancy.

In a mansion with its own beach and private dock, several servants moved back and forth, attending to the infant protagonist’s daily needs. The protagonist’s mother also smiled as she accompanied him.

Then came scenes of going to kindergarten.

The protagonist’s father drove a luxury car, with the city’s prosperity flashing by on the roadside. In the high-end private kindergarten, the protagonist engaged in various learning activities, including language, mathematics, science, art, and more.

The teacher’s curriculum was rich and interesting—they would place eggs in incubators to hatch chicks and witness the entire process of caterpillars transforming into beautiful butterflies.

Here, dedicated teachers were teaching all children to draw. Each month, they would learn about different artists and have the children imitate these works with their childish drawing skills. Whether beautiful or ugly, all works were praised and displayed on the walls.

Even the building blocks played with during break time appeared extremely expensive.

“When I was in kindergarten, my father instilled in me a clear sense of time. School started at 7:30 AM. If you were ten minutes late, the gates would close, and you would be fined and have it recorded in your grades.”

“My father never let me be late. He always told me that there are only a few things in this world that money can’t buy, and time is one of them. So, I must cherish every second of my life. This sense of time has always remained etched in my heart.”

“My father didn’t allow me to eat fast food, didn’t allow me to wear electronic watches, and I wasn’t permitted to use a mobile phone until I was 15, with daily usage restrictions. Computer game time couldn’t exceed 40 minutes, which could be extended to an hour on weekends.”

“I tried to get my mother to plead with him, but to no avail. However, he would spare all his time to read with me.”

After the opening sequence of scenes establishing the wealthy protagonist’s childhood background, He An finally found that he could control the protagonist to play the game.

This was the protagonist during childhood, still with the same over-the-shoulder perspective as in the prologue. The gameplay of the first act involved playing and living in the parents’ mansion.

He An quickly realized that this was a standard interactive movie game.

All character models were extremely detailed, and all character dialogues, facial expressions, and body movements were created using motion capture. The exquisitely beautiful graphics made everything look very realistic.

At the same time, all UI elements in the game were either hidden within the scene or integrated with it, guiding the player’s actions without breaking the game’s immersion.

The camera transitions in the game were also sophisticated, employing many techniques typically used only in films.

The only strange aspect was that all characters seemed somewhat stereotypical in appearance. For instance, the wealthy protagonist and his wealthy parents’ appearances seemed excessively attractive—the entire family looked like celebrities.

And the servants, butlers, and drivers in the house completely matched stereotypes.

This felt slightly awkward, but since all characters shared this artistic style, He An quickly grew accustomed to it.

As an interactive movie game, there weren’t many operations to perform. Mainly walking and pressing specific buttons when certain options were triggered—essentially some advanced QTEs.

For example, in the mansion, players could control the young, wealthy protagonist and experience many activities:

Learning to paint in a dedicated art studio under the guidance of a private tutor;

Learning various instruments like the piano and violin;

Riding horses at a private equestrian center;

Archery and playing with dogs on their lawn;

Attending children’s gatherings organized by other wealthy families, playing with inflatable castles, ice cream makers, carousels, and miniature trains in ballrooms with other children of the same age;

Traveling to wildlife parks in Africa with other children on private jets for birthday celebrations, receiving mountains of gifts from high-end stores…

In each scene, players could control the protagonist to experience various interactive scenarios—riding horses, playing the piano, riding miniature trains, and so on.

Besides these mini-games, there were many detailed elements in the scenes, such as conversing with various characters, examining books, newspapers, and news around, opening small gifts, and more.

When switching scenes, many different transition methods were used, similar to film transitions. For example, after completing a group photo, the camera would take the picture, and then this photo would appear at the protagonist’s bedside, starting the next scene.

Between some larger scene transitions, there would be narration from the protagonist, the adult protagonist’s recollections of his childhood.

After the childhood era came the youth era, where the protagonist entered high school and university. However, there were no scenes of relaxed education or alcohol parties as seen in TV dramas. Instead, every minute was tightly scheduled.

Not only did he need to perform well on tests like the SAT, but he couldn’t slack off on any exams during his four years of high school. There were also Olympiads, sports, debates, community service… Any activity that could help with Ivy League admissions would be swarmed with competitors.

The protagonist heard news of a classmate’s suicide and learned about the term “Stanford Duck Syndrome”—everyone pretends to be super relaxed and perfect on the surface, but beneath the water, they’re frantically paddling their legs. When all you see are calm ducks, you feel like the only imperfect person.

And there was the so-called “4”: 4 hours of sleep, 4 cups of coffee, 4.0 GPA.

At different game stages, He An had to make numerous choices.

During childhood, although the protagonist’s daily schedule was strictly arranged, during rest times, he could choose different entertainment activities and different hobbies, such as learning to paint or music, and could choose different entertainment modes during each holiday.

These choices seemed to affect later experiences in youth.

For example, if he learned horseback riding from a young age, then as he grew older, the protagonist’s father would gift him a private equestrian center worth millions of dollars. Participating in equestrian competitions could earn substantial prize money and would also influence future progress.

The game had a financial concept, where certain specific options required specific funds to select. However, for the wealthy protagonist, this restriction didn’t exist because no matter how much money was spent, it would be immediately replenished.

…

Scene after scene quickly passed by.

While immersed in the game, He An also marveled at the waste of scenes and materials in the game.

Most scenes appeared only once and never again. For example, the African wildlife park scene where the young protagonist observed various rare animals, learned a lot of knowledge, and received gifts, after that, this wildlife park scene never appeared again.

Some large scenes were reused, such as the protagonist’s mansion and the equestrian center. As the plot progressed, more activities would gradually unlock in the mansion and equestrian center, with new content to experience every so often.

Even so, this approach was quite extravagant to achieve such a cinematic effect.

He An realized that Mr. Pei had made trade-offs in this extravagant approach: due to the low reuse rate and high detail of scenes, the overall length of the game was compressed.

Generally, domestic AAA game masterpieces would take 8-10 hours to complete the main storyline, though some games with particularly rich side quests or open worlds would be much longer.

The wealthy version of “Struggle” was only about three hours long, and the poor version was probably similar.

It was like a movie, piecing together many scattered, fragmented scenes, using these representative scenes to piece together the full picture of the protagonist’s life.

Of course, if one were to go through all the options, this time might double.

In the game, players could jump back to previous scenes at any time based on the progress line to replay them, a feature common in similar games.

After graduating from university, the protagonist could choose to date and marry different girls, choose to work in his father’s company, become a painter, musician, or horse riding instructor based on his hobbies, or start his own business.

For the wedding, his father rented an entire island in Italy, spent 5 million dollars chartering two Boeing planes to transport guests, booked five-star hotels for all guests, rented 50 special vehicles to transport guests, air-freighted several tons of fresh flowers from the Netherlands, held the wedding on a rock at sea, hired an entire international chef team, and even spent 600,000 dollars on the wedding dress…

At the wedding venue, players could control the protagonist to chat with guests, each offering sincere blessings, and experience the entire wedding process firsthand.

Of course, the game couldn’t recreate the entire island, only giving an aerial view like a film’s long shot. The main scenes were concentrated in the small area around the wedding venue.

But the various meticulously crafted details still left one astounded.

After the protagonist married and had children, his career was smooth sailing. Wherever he applied for a job, he would be immediately hired, and he advanced step by step in his work.

His parents retired and enjoyed their golden years.

During his school years, the protagonist met some poor friends and discovered that his lifestyle was completely different. These poor friends seemed to lack ambition, be idle, and not value time.

So, after achieving enormous success in his career, the protagonist tried to help others as much as possible.

“As I said, my father believed that jungle law was everywhere in this world. We are the people at the top, but countless people are watching us, waiting to see us fall.”

“He said that poor people are lazy, selfish, and unreasonable, and never to believe you can be friends with those poor people.”

“He said, stay away from them, or you’ll bring trouble upon yourself.”

“I still don’t agree with his view.”

“I know that my father’s view stems from that kidnapping incident before I was born, but I still believe that that madman doesn’t represent poor people, and I won’t hate all poor people just because I nearly lost my life at the hands of a poor person.”

“I’ve met some poor friends, and in my view, they’re not different from me. Perhaps they’re poor simply because they lack a bit of ambition, a bit of fighting spirit. But I didn’t have these things from the beginning either.”

“So, I go to universities to give speeches, and I’ve written a book, ‘Struggle and Wealth,’ hoping that my lifestyle and views on wealth will give them some positive influence.”

“I want to tell them that money doesn’t fall from the sky; only hard work is the way to change fate. Only by being dissatisfied with the status quo and not giving up any opportunity can life have a chance to improve.”

“I tell them that I’ve been working hard to learn day after day, never daring to slack off in the slightest, and never daring to waste any time.”

“I tell them that I never wear luxury brand clothes, even those from my father’s luxury brand. I don’t buy luxury cars or throw meaningless parties. Every second of mine must be spent on meaningful things.”

“Undoubtedly, my views have drawn ridicule from many people online. Many feel I have no right to talk about ‘struggle’ because I was born into a wealthy family and never understood what ‘struggle’ truly means for poor people.”

“But there are also many who thank me. My decades of self-discipline have moved them. They say it was my father’s hard work that gave me a better growing environment, and they also hope to give these things to their children through their struggles.”

“I’m glad, which means everything I’ve done is meaningful.”

The final scene was the protagonist arriving at a bookstore in a slum for a book signing.

People lined up, coming one by one to his table, handing over the books they had purchased, receiving signatures, and then expressing gratitude to the protagonist.

There were many people getting signatures. Each time He An had to slide the mouse to sign, he mechanically repeated this action, but each person’s smile and thanks were different, making the task feel meaningful.

A shabby, homeless-looking person approached the protagonist, empty-handed.

The protagonist lowered his head to sign, but realized the other person hadn’t handed over a book, causing some confusion.

Raising his head, he discovered that this homeless person’s face was contorted and suppressed, as if carrying bone-deep hatred.

He An was stunned because, although this homeless person’s face differed greatly from the poor person who kidnapped the protagonist’s mother at the beginning, the expression on his face felt very familiar.

The homeless person’s figure seemed to block the light. He numbly, without any emotion, pulled out a sharp knife from his large pocket and stabbed it violently into the protagonist’s chest!

Screams erupted, the scene descended into chaos, but these sounds quickly receded from the protagonist. The scene spun and rapidly blurred.

With a “thud,” the blood-soaked book fell, coincidentally covering the protagonist’s face. The “Struggle and Wealth” on the cover seemed strangely ironic.

Before the screen went black, the protagonist heard the homeless person’s very faint but clear words:

“Fraud.”