The "Wang content" in young people's lives is incredibly high.

It has seeped deep into everyone's daily life.

Recently, players of Honor of Kings have been quite occupied.

When they open the game, the voice line for defending the tower has changed to "Protect our Yingxian Wooden Pagoda". After closing the game, they rush to the comment section to ask: Where is the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda? How old is it? Why was it chosen?

This wooden pagoda that has stood in Shanxi for 970 years has been "fished out" from the game canyon by a group of young people.

And the leader of this movement is a hero that cannot even speak a single word.

No one can understand the voice lines of Dunshan. Among more than 100 heroes in the entire canyon, only his lines are pure sound effects — just like a radio that is not tuned to the right frequency. It does not matter if you can understand him or not, since he never relies on words. When his teammates are about to fall, he stretches out his iron arm to shield them. When the tower is about to collapse, he dives right in and repairs the tower bit by bit.

He is the only hero in the entire game that can repair the tower. Other heroes defend the tower by standing in front of it and taking damage; when Dunshan defends the tower, he treats it as his own life and devotes all his efforts to restoring it.

The 2026 anniversary limited skin of Honor of Kings is given to Dunshan, named "Millennium Pagoda", which is completed in collaboration with the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, the Shuozhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, under the academic guidance of the Shanxi Ancient Architecture and Color Sculpture Mural Protection Research Institute. By the way, this skin is given out for free.

There are tons of hidden details in this skin: the shield surface is structured after the pagoda body, you can hear the rolling sound of wooden mechanisms when he raises his shield, and the back-to-city animation shows dougong strongmen and little lions repairing the pagoda together. There is even a smaller Easter egg: a group of swift apodes can be seen in the special effects. In real life, the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda welcomes this kind of bird every spring and summer, which feeds exclusively on the moths hiding in the wooden cracks. They are just like a group of unpaid pagoda guardians, except that their working hours are a bit short.

The first reaction of players after seeing this is surprisingly consistent:

"It turns out to be the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda."

"I've never known there is such a pagoda before."

For the vast majority of these young people, the name of this 970-year-old cultural relic is heard for the very first time.

And there is indeed another group of pagoda guardians on the pagoda. They are not game NPCs, and they need to climb up the pagoda regularly for monitoring, record the tilt data of the North Flat Pillar, prevent fire, moisture and pests, and revolve around the same wooden pagoda all year round.

This year, Honor of Kings has joined hands with Tencent Charity to launch the "Protect the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda" public welfare campaign, to support the daily management and protection of the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, distribute public welfare funds through the Tencent Foundation, support the daily maintenance of the pagoda, and guarantee the working needs of frontline pagoda guardians.

The tower in the game can still be repaired even when its HP bar is empty; but the real pagoda in the real world has no HP bar, no respawn, and completely relies on people's year-round care and protection. The defense tower in the game and the real Yingxian Wooden Pagoda have achieved a cross-dimensional and cross-time echo.

 

Mutual Devotion Between Heroes and Players

The "Millennium Pagoda" skin and the real Yingxian Wooden Pagoda fit each other so perfectly as if they had been arranged in advance.

As a support hero who never speaks and only works silently, Dunshan has never been the most eye-catching character in the canyon. While the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda enjoys a high academic status, it is not as crowded as Dunhuang and the Forbidden City as a cultural tourism destination. In addition, Dunshan already has the story background of "construction" in the game's worldview, which makes this collaboration feel like a fated arrangement.

In the game, if a player identifies a certain hero as their main hero, it not only means that the player has spent a huge amount of time playing the game, familiar with the hero's voice lines, skills and every skin of the hero, but also means the player has invested deep emotional attachment to this hero.

Players can't wait to learn everything about their favorite heroes.

Not long ago, a Douyin user shared her travel experience that resonated with a large number of game players: when she passed by an unknown ancient building, she looked up and saw a flying apsaras mural, froze on the spot, and felt as if she had "found the real-life Yang Yuhuan".

What this netizen shared is exactly the "Flying Apsaras Encounter" skin of Yang Yuhuan in Honor of Kings. This skin was launched in 2018, which took 167 days of polishing, more than 40 million players received this skin, and the wearing rate reached 85.2%.

Some netizens replied in the comment section that they went to the Mogao Caves to see that mural in person just because of this skin.

The emotional investment in heroes and the emotional resonance with traditional culture generate cultural resonance among the player group. It is exactly this kind of resonance that makes a skin launched 8 years ago still have lasting appeal.

Honor of Kings has launched more than 120 heroes so far, each with distinct character positioning and personality. Therefore, when they extend beyond the game, they have a much larger stage to perform.

Compared with Dunshan and Yang Yuhuan, the experience of the hero Marco Polo seems a little more "playful".

Marco Polo used to be a very popular marksman hero. With his highly mobile skill set and high operation ceiling, he has always been a frequent presence in professional competitions. But in the fan-made content of players, everyone affectionately calls him "Little Pineapple". And because his combat ability is very weak at level 1, he often cannot beat most heroes in the lane. Therefore, players jokingly say that he can only "sit in jail under the tower", hide under the defense tower waiting for minion waves, and grab the wild monster pheasant in the game to speed up his development.

Over time, "eating roast chicken" has become an abstract self-mockery for Marco Polo players waiting to develop. The joke that "Marco Polo's CP is roast chicken" has spread widely.

Some players even said that when they traveled in Yunnan, they ignored all the so-called delicious and characteristic roast chicken, but as soon as they saw a vendor wrote "Marco Polo Fried Chicken", they felt that they had to buy one to taste it, to "support" Marco Polo.

And the game official adopted the strategy with the most bullet comments last year: they actually sent Marco Polo to Xuwen, the hometown of pineapples in China. This time, "Little Pineapple" really went to sell pineapples. He immediately started his business with the title of "Agricultural Assistance Ambassador", and even shot a live streaming sales video with fluent Leizhou dialect. Players had been calling him this nickname for years, never expecting that the official would take it seriously.

Of course, thanks to this collaboration, many players learned for the first time where Xuwen is and why it is the main pineapple producing area in China. Thanks to this event, the pineapple unsalable dilemma in Xuwen last year was also alleviated.

The word "nong" (short for Honor of Kings, originally a joking term) has gradually derived a complete set of discourse system: players call each other "nong friends", ranking up in the game is called "doing farming work", top players are jokingly called "agronomists", and game peripherals are called "nong valley". The word "nong" has evolved from a teasing meme into an identity symbol actively used among players.

Later, Angela became the "Shaanxi Yaozhou Apple Agricultural Assistance Ambassador", and this joke became really interesting. A gift box contains four crispy Qin apples, a limited-edition collection card, and a hidden plush pendant.

The bullet comments in the live stream were very honest at first: "I'm here for the packaging, I'm buying it for the card." "Who understands, I bought a box of apples just for a card." After a while, the bullet comments changed: "The apples look so crispy." "I placed an order, supporting agricultural assistance."

Later, a large number of unboxing notes emerged on Xiaohongshu, with highly consistent remarks: I originally placed the order for the peripherals, but I was shocked by the apples themselves.

From "I am a nong player" to "I help farmers", the word "nong" has evolved from game slang into real tangible social value.

From the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda to Yaozhou apples, from Dunhuang flying apsaras to Xuwen pineapples, in these stories, heroes are no longer just game characters, but have become social symbols for young people to connect with each other and pursue beautiful shared consensus.

 

Heroes Have Become a Common Language

During Angela's agricultural assistance live stream, a fun competition session of professional esports players peeling apples was arranged on site.

Professional players who are famous for their fast hand speed in the competition field all "failed" when facing the tiny apple peel, and were accurately teased by netizens as "bronze rank apple peeling".

Even young people who have never played Honor of Kings must have heard many game slangs like these. Classic examples include "Play safe and don't take unnecessary risks", "Stay steady, we can win" and so on.

In August this year, in Xining, Qinghai, a food delivery rider encountered someone causing trouble with a knife on his way to deliver food. He did not rush up directly, but first put the two takeout orders on his bike on the roadside steps, then walked around to the side and rear of the perpetrator, using the momentum of the electric bike to make the perpetrator drop the knife. Then he and passersby around subdued the perpetrator together, and waited for the police to arrive.

When the video was uploaded online, netizens recognized that action at a glance — it is Sun Ce's ultimate skill!

So the nickname "National Server Top Sun Ce" emerged from the bullet comments and comment sections.

Later, he attended the commendation ceremony, wearing a Sun Ce themed rider uniform made by Meituan. A reporter asked him if he was scared at that moment, and he said a very funny and very down-to-earth sentence: "The takeout orders are innocent."

That takeout order was finally delivered safely. The four words "National Server Top Sun Ce" made countless netizens understand the situation instantly with tacit understanding.

Nowadays, game slangs originating from the Honor of Kings community can be seen everywhere in our lives. These memes are not limited to specific heroes, but carry the abstract yet positive new values of young people in the Internet era.

Recently, a kind of chain message is popular among players: Tell everyone your main hero and the lane