What It's Like Being a Vampire

In the home of third uncle and aunt of Xia Libing, Xia Nianqing, who had just started junior high school, and her younger brother Xia Ting Lei, in fourth grade of primary school, were huddled at the dining table in the living room, glued to a tablet computer watching a streamer livestreaming a game.

Today being Sunday, their parents were both out due to last-minute commitments, leaving the siblings under the supervision of a cousin who was over for a meal. Naturally, the siblings were doing as they pleased.

Xia Ting Lei originally wanted to seize the tablet to play Honor of Kings, but his sister had claimed it first, and he was still out of his league against her. Therefore, he could only resort to pestering her from the sidelines—if he couldn’t play, she couldn’t watch in peace either.

However, as he watched, he also became engrossed in the livestream. Consequently, the siblings ended up watching the livestream together, enthralled.

The streamer was a fairly renowned gamer, always providing content on the most popular game trends. His streams were engaging and immensely popular.

Today, he was showcasing a rather exclusive game—the newly-released beta version of, “Genesis of Voice”, a game specifically designed to be operated through voice commands only.

Following the in-game guide, the streamer completed a few minutes of voice recognition calibration and a brief character setup. Then, after matching with other players, he was ready to join the game.

“There are desktop and mobile versions of this game. Even though it operates with voice commands, we can see corresponding captions on the screen. See, as I am speaking, my words are quickly identified and displayed on the screen. Damn, this recognition accuracy and speed is quite scary. Even if I try to speak faster and with a slight accent, it doesn’t have much of an effect.”

Just after the streamer had said a few sentences, the game completed loading. With the somewhat eerie and mysterious BGM, a deep voiceover began: “You rise from the weeds, look around, and are amazed to find that you are in a forest you’ve never seen before. You recall that you were asleep in the office just now…”

The streamer cut in, “Wow, this voiceactor is quite impressive. For a game, it should be AI-generated, but whether it’s the tempo or the emotion, it really feels like a real person speaking. This is quite…awesome…”

As he was talking, the game’s voiceover paused. After he finished, the game responded: “It seems like you’ve hit your head and are starting to babble, as if everything around you is a game.”

“Damn! I was startled! Was that voiceover really a real person?! Do they have a dedicated narrator for each game? No… the voice seemed to be directed just at me. According to the matching earlier, there are eighteen of us in this game. Wouldn’t that mean there needs to be eighteen…” The streamer stopped halfway after seeing a reminder from the audience in the chat feed about game rules, hastily adding, “Seems like I can’t stray away from the game while the voice input is on, let me focus on playing the game first.”

The narrative voice continued: “You babbled on whimsically while moving forward carefully. Stopping every few steps and observing every now and then, seemingly worried about getting lost. Suddenly, you hear footsteps. You look towards the sound, spotting a tall young man dressed in coarse linen clothing, carrying a bamboo basket. He looks like someone from ancient times, appearing from behind a large tree, you shout out to him:….”

Knowing that now was his cue, the streamer raised his voice, calling:”Bro!”

A second after he inputted his voice command, the narrative voice continued: “The young man hears your call, gives you a surprised glance, then walks towards you.”

Then, sounds of footsteps trampling through the grass could be heard, before a heavily accented voice that was typical of West Sea province asked: “Bro, you called me?”

The voiceover then prompted: “You begin to ask about the information you are concerned with:…”

The streamer asked: “Bro, where is this place?”

The West Sea-accented voice replied: “This is Rolling Mountain. No, wait, what mountain was it? Big Stick Mountain? Oh, forget it, let’s just call it Rolling Mountain, this is the Rolling Mountain!”

“Bro… where’s Rolling Mountain? And wait, what era is this? Are we on Earth?” The streamer asked again. He knew this was a time-travel story before entering the game, but he didn’t know the specifics. He wasn’t sure if he had time-traveled to ancient China or another world. Anyway, as long as he found and saved a girl named Xiang Xiang, that would be a win.

“I forgot about the location, systems told me just now though. Hey, big brother, you really are a player, aren’t you? That’s pretty interesting, this voice sounds so clear, I thought you were an NPC at first.” The man with the West Sea accent said, “By the way, I’m ‘Gently Flying Wild Rhino’, I livestream on Fishfire platform. Later, you can come and follow me, my room number is…”

There was a loud “BOOM”, interrupting the West Sea-accented player, then the voiceover came back on: “Just as the young man in front of you was cheerily babbling on, all of a sudden, a bolt of lightning struck him from the sky. You too, were thrown back. When you propped yourself up and looked over, he had completely disappeared. It seemed as if his previous ramblings had violated some unknown taboo, and he was struck by divine retribution.”

Quickly, the streamer switched off the game’s voice input feature, then chuckled to the livestream audience: “I knew this dude was in trouble. The stuff he was saying clearly violated the game’s story and rules. But I didn’t expect the penalties to be like this—struck by ‘divine retribution’ and just like that, he’s gone. Interesting! Definitely interesting!”

The streamer turned the voice input back on in a hurry and continued to play along with the voiceover’s guide.

“I should follow the direction from which the guy came. Maybe I can find the way out of these mountains.” Now that the streamer had gotten hang of the gameplay, he used “self-narration” to impact his game trajectory.

Indeed, the voiceover said: “You started to follow his footsteps, but soon found that his direction wasn’t towards the outside of the mountain, but deeper into the mountain. You remember that his bamboo basket was filled with herbs, he most likely was returning after gathering them up from deep within the mountains. The direction he was going was the way to exit the mountain. But just as you decided to change your direction and head back, faint sounds of fighting could be heard…”

When the streamer started playing along with the game’s background, he soon found himself immersed in the game, as though he was a person who had truly time-traveled to another world.

The game’s voiceover was very smooth, and its tone would change correspondingly based on the background environment and the progression of situations. Coupled with BGM and related sound effects, it was quite easy for players to get lost in the game world.

The voiceover not only focused on individual players, but also switched between different players after players’ in-game names were confirmed, providing narratives from a third-person perspective for all players in a scenario, creating an effect of a “group performance”.

After playing for over forty minutes, the livestreamer was unfortunately “killed” by a female player. But he could still choose different “perspectives” to continue listening to the game’s progress.

“Even if I’m not directly participating, not playing, just listening in, it’s still interesting. It really feels like I’m listening to a radio drama. In fact, it’s even more engaging than many radio dramas. When I first heard about the game’s mechanics, I thought it was just a more advanced tabletop role-playing game, but the actual experience is completely different!”

“The storyline framework of the game itself isn’t complicated. But with every player able to impact the game and numerous variables, the constant changes in the storyline and the continuous emergence of various branching plot lines, which all intertwine very reasonably without deviating, are really quite ‘awesome’.”

“And the arrangement of the players’ identities is also excellent. Some are time travelers, others are natives, and the victory conditions are different. There are also NPCs. When you talk to them, unless they intentionally reveal it, you can’t easily tell whether they’re a player or an NPC. I was totally confused when I was ‘killed’ by ‘Little Madame’ just now!”

“If the NPCs in the game are indeed AI-generated, they must have passed the Turing Test, right? Teng Jiao Interactives this unknown company that popped out of nowhere is too technically strong. I hadn’t heard of them before!”

“Just to be clear, this experience is entirely real. There’s no script, I even had to buy this public test invitation code from an auction site…” said the livestreamer with a sense of awe. After he was “killed”, he could relax and chat extensively with his livestream fans.

It wasn’t just the livestreamer. Xia Nianqing, and her brother Xia Ting Lei, who had been watching the livestream, were also highly engaged and fascinated. In fact, this wasn’t Xia Nianqing’s first time watching a livestream of this game. From the first day of the public test, the game quickly dominated the top spots on various game livestream rankings.

Although it was only a small-scale public test and the number of players was limited, most of the people watching the livestream couldn’t play the game themselves. Seeing others play, or more accurately, “listening” to others play, also offered a unique experience. Every time a livestream ended, it was like finishing a radio drama – the degree of excitement and interest varied, but it was always captivating.

As a result, the invitation codes for the Genesis of Voice public test were quickly bid up to four digits on auction sites.

While Xia Nianqing and Xia Ting Lei were watching the livestream, a tall figure appeared behind them and joined them in listening to the livestream. It was their cousin, Xia Tianhuo, who had been kidnapped in Burma earlier.

“You two are not studying or doing your homework but rather watching a livestream. Be careful lest I tell your Aunt and Uncle on you!” After the game ended, Xia Tianhuo started lecturing his cousins.

The siblings didn’t show the same reverence to Xia Tianhuo as they did to Xia Libing. Xia Nianqing rolled her eyes at him: “Brother Huo, it’s Sunday, okay? And I’ve already done my homework. Watching livestreams is also part of my research for our club’s sociology project. It’s not just for fun, though Xia Ting Lei still hasn’t finished his homework…”

Xia Ting Lei also chimed in, grinning: “Come on, Brother Huo. When you were in school, you were way cooler than me. You regularly skipped school, and fought from first year to third year, then from third year to the school’s office. I heard you stood outside the office shouting, ‘I’ll take on ten guys!’ before you were beaten by the school’s uncle…”

“Who told you such nonsense…” Xia Tianhuo couldn’t help but pick up this mocking rogue and spank him, but the boy just laughed as he was hit, and Xia Nianqing even started filming on her phone, laughing as she said: “Hit him harder, Brother Huo! This kiddo has thick skin, my mom usually uses a rolling pin. Your strength isn’t cutting it. Xia Ting Lei, look at the camera. Come on, cooperate a little, scream in pain…”

Xia Tianhuo was left speechless. Of course, he wasn’t hitting hard, just trying to scare the boy, but he couldn’t hit him for real. If he were to accidentally hurt him, the joke would go too far, so he had to give up and put Xia Ting Lei down, ignoring the mischievous kid and going to the fridge to grab a drink.

“Brother Huo, I heard you were kidnapped before?” Xia Nianqing handed her tablet to her brother to play Honor of Kings, then moved closer to her cousin who was sitting on the couch looking at his phone, and asked softly.

“Who told you that?” Xia Tianhuo frowned.

“I guessed it! Well, to be honest, I overheard my parents talking about it in their room. No wonder back in March when Sister Bing was here, my parents sent us to Aunt Yang’s house for a few days. They were on a mission to rescue you! Hey, Brother Huo, come on, tell me about it. How were you kidnapped, and how were you rescued? What were the kidnappers like, did they have AKs?” Xia Nianqing asked eagerly. “Why was Sister Bing the first to know about this? Why didn’t you inform my dad or my uncle directly?”

“Go, go, go, go watch your livestream.” Xia Tianhuo pushed her head away, secretly relieved. When he had to call for a ransom, he called Old Xia, who wouldn’t let slip the contents of the emergency call. If he’d called his cousin Yang Zhen’er, or the cousin in front of him, the whole world would probably know he calls her “mom” by now.

“Hey, tell me! We’re both your cousins, there’s no reason to tell only Bing, but not me!” Xia Nianqing whined.

“So why is it that, being my cousin, you’re as meek as a quail in front of Old Xia, but act like a jumping flea in front of me?”

No matter how persistently Xia Nianqing bothered him, Xia Tianhuo wouldn’t discuss his kidnapping with her. Once she finally ran out of patience, she resignedly went back to her room to watch dramas.

Xia Tianhuo picked up his phone and started browsing information about the game, Genesis of Voice.

He knew that the game might be related to Xiang Kun and Old Xia’s work on some kind of research base or research center. He had met that bald kid, Xiang Kun, once before he went abroad last year.

Moreover, Yang Zhen Er and Tang Baona were also deeply involved in this game.

Reportedly, when they were testing the game internally, the narrator was Nana. However, now they had changed the voice. Although the new voice was also pleasant to listen to, he would have preferred to hear the Tang Baona version of the narration.

…

Today is April 19th, a full month since Xiang Kun and Old Xia went to Peng City to meet Zhang Qian.

Genesis of Voice began its small-scale public testing just five days ago and quickly exploded on the internet, becoming a hot topic of public concern.

As time passed, people’s focus shifted from the game’s inherent playability to other aspects.