Recently, my Douyin feed hit me like a critical hit from Ye Xiu himself. Suddenly, I’m seeing fans and cosplayers standing in the streets of Zurich, living out Glory World Championships from The King’s Avatar (Quan Zhi Gao Shou) in real time!

2025 marks the year of the Glory Worlds Championships in the novel’s timeline, and fans are taking that seriously: flying to Zurich, Switzerland, recreating scenes and cosplaying Team Happy in Old Town Zurich. Even 10 years after the novel’s conclusion, the love for The King’s Avatar hasn’t dimmed one bit.

As someone who read 1,727 chapters without knowing a single thing about MMORPGs in 2017, this novel still lives rent-free in my head. And seeing these fans on Douyin unite in Zurich to be part of the Glory World Championships timeline instantly brought me back.

Suddenly, I’m reliving every moment that made me love this story. The characters, their banter, their goals, their flaws and their growth. The funny, the chaotic and the deeply heartwarming. Each character carried a different reason I fell in love with the series.

What really blew my mind is how Switzerland’s tourism bureau fully leaned into this. They officially named Ye Xiu as their 2025 “Tourism Explorer”, and launched a co-branded campaign called “25 Years Meeting in Zurich”, inviting King’s Avatar fans to visit. There are themed tour packages, branded cafés, and check-in points where fans can “follow in Ye Xiu’s footsteps.” It’s the perfect mix of fandom meets real-world experience—and a brilliant sign of the influence this novel carries.

The future timeline we once treated like fiction? It’s now our present. Watching people physically stand in the “2025” the novel once imagined feels surreal. There is nostalgia and also this unexpected surge of pride. Because Team Happy’s journey was always about starting over, rebuilding from nothing, and refusing to give up even when everyone else counted them out. Maybe that’s why seeing Zurich filled with fans feels like the perfect full circle moment. We’re all carrying a small piece of Team Happy into the real world.

Ten Years of Glory. And we’re right on time.

Me: moved on.
Also me in 2025: crying over the Glory World Championship like it’s real.

As Glory reaches its ten years anniversary, I can’t help but also reflect on my own journey. This blog has also witnessed my own 10 years and I am very thankful that I had an avenue to explore and write down my thoughts over the years (even tho I was missing for a huge chunk). It is definitely interesting to look back and compare my various stage of life versus the content I wrote at different points. What I thought about the dramas and characters at the point of writing had a lot to do with who I was and what I had experienced at that point of my (then, rather young) life. While history might be cringey, it recorded my growth. Reading back now, I am able to offer and appreciate many different perspectives that I could not comprehend back then and it surprises me how I am so different despite being the same person. Thank you for being part of my journey.

Happy Anniversary, Glory. To our ten years of youth.

Dated Jul 2025