Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 110

Chapter 110: The Real World 8

Zhou Zhou is now the player with the highest topic volume in Nightmare City, but very few people actually know him.

Because in the instance, except for the eliminated players who can leave some videos for review, there is no other way to see information about the players.

But just as people were hotly discussing this matter, a player named Zhao Yi released a video, claiming that the player in the video was Zhou Zhou.

The background of the video was in a library, and the content showed a young man in a white shirt pulling a ghost out from the gap between bookshelves.

The young man looked very young and handsome, with an outstanding temperament, the kind that would catch your eye in a crowd.

Some players found that this video seemed to have been posted here before, when the forum first came out, but that video was censored.

“Hype?”

“Which family’s upcoming celebrity is here to leech off the hype?”

“But he does look quite handsome.”

“Impossible! A man who can survive in such a brutal game like Nightmare City cannot possibly be this delicate. Zhou Zhou must be a man who is steadfast and strong, both on the outside and inside.”

“Haha, did you guys see the other video that players dug up? He actually kneaded the ghost into a ball and took it away. So awesome, which star is this, I’m a fan.”

Everyone thought this video was also just some people impersonating, and the topic went in all sorts of chaotic directions, with some talking about appearance, some talking about their favorite celebrity, and some guessing what the real Zhou Zhou looked like.

Until some players came out to authenticate it.

“The person in that video really is Zhou Zhou, I’ve been in instances with him before, and we managed to clear it by just lying down and winning in the end.”

“I’m not sure if this Zhou Zhou is the one at the top of the rankings, but he is indeed called that.”

“It’s really him, I added him as a friend, and I even asked him about this specifically. He replied to me, Zhou Zhou is a really nice person and has a lot of courage…”

Suddenly, a group of players online all claimed to have done instances together with Zhou Zhou, and they all spoke very highly of him.

Originally, the players didn’t really believe it, because for someone to stand out from countless players and become the number one on the rankings, and on top of that be young and good-looking, with a good personality and courage, does such a person even exist?

Little did the players know, their unintentional ridicule was actually closest to the truth.

Not long after, another video was leaked, also from a player who was eliminated from an instance and released the instance video. In it, a deep male voice called out the name “Zhou Zhou”, and the delicate-looking young man looked up in confusion and responded.

This finally confirmed Zhou Zhou’s identity, and the players who came flocking were extremely excited. Who could have imagined that the number one ranked player would look so young and handsome?

Some people also inquired about Zhou Zhou’s real-life identity, since he seemed to be of student age, but it seemed that no one knew about this.

Instead, it made Zhou Zhou’s identity even more mysterious.

This even made it onto the hot searches of many news outlets, although they didn’t release any pictures of Zhou Zhou, because the laws of the Interstellar Era are very strict when it comes to portrait rights. Without permission, these media outlets cannot use Zhou Zhou’s videos or photos at will.

However, these two clear videos had already been widely circulated in private.

Although Zeus knew about this, he didn’t bother to intervene, because to him, there were already many people who liked him in the Interstellar era, and everyone knew his name. It was only a matter of time before everyone also knew Zhou Zhou’s name.

Unaware that he had become a celebrity, Zhou Zhou was initially interested in the forum, but after finding that every time he raised a question, the direction it went was very strange and he couldn’t get any useful replies, he didn’t really look at it anymore. So he didn’t know that the forum was now going crazy over him.

It’s just that during this period, the number of people doing instances suddenly increased a lot, even more than the initial number assigned by the system.

Although Zhou Zhou was a little puzzled, seeing the constantly increasing scores in the background still made him very happy.

It seemed that his first instance was quite effective, and it was time for him to start designing the second instance.

These past few days, Alvia had been busy preparing for his trip abroad, and the bracelet had also been retrieved from the research institute.

Just as Zeus had said, Zhou Zhou could use the bracelet to enter and exit Nightmare City and the real world on his own, and he could move freely within 50 meters of the bracelet’s range, no longer needing Zeus and Alvia to set it up in advance.

Zhou Zhou knew that Alvia had been busy during this period, so he rarely went to disturb him. He himself was also studying and designing the next instance.

Ever since his instance was put into use, he would receive a large sum of points every day without doing anything, even more than when he was doing instances one by one before.

For his next instance, Zhou Zhou wanted to design content related to romance and love, which sounded a bit strange, since Nightmare City was a game focused on horror. But as a dating game NPC, this was Zhou Zhou’s original job after all.

Moreover, he wanted to recreate the Love Academy from his memories for everyone to experience.

Love Academy was a system instance, so Zhou Zhou obtained the usage rights for the instance scene from Zeus. The scene for his next instance would be the Love Academy from his memories.

The current Love Academy instance has not changed in its overall scale and general scene, but in order to adapt to the atmosphere of horror scenes, many of the internal structures of the buildings had been modified by Zeus. Zhou Zhou needed to restore the entire scene.

Zhou Zhou had seen every blade of grass and every tree in Love Academy countless times, he could draw out those scenes with his eyes closed.

So these past few days, he had been very busy as well, staying at home without leaving much.

After building the scene, it would be the design of the storyline. After all, since it was related to romance and love, he first needed to understand what the current mainstream dating games were like.

The one he went to last time didn’t count, Zhou Zhou felt that game couldn’t even be considered a dating game. If he had to say, it would be more fitting to call it “100 Ways for a Dating NPC to Die”.

So this time Zhou Zhou was cautious and didn’t let Alvia take him. Instead, he asked his other friends for advice, and secretly had Zeus bring him.

There were many dating games in the Interstellar Era, some involving dating NPCs, some gaining favor through completing missions, and some for real people to date, which was basically online dating.

Because the Interstellar Era not only had long-distance relationships, but even relationships across different planets and star systems, the distances were too great. As a result, some games were specially designed with beautiful scenery, various entertainment venues suitable for couples, and so on. Lovers who couldn’t get together in real life could go on dates in these games.

Although Zhou Zhou was there to observe, in reality he and Zeus felt completely out of place in the game.

A young man and a child, standing on the intimate couple’s street where everyone was holding hands and being affectionate, they didn’t fit in at all.

Zeus felt nothing, since he was just there to accompany Zhou Zhou. It didn’t matter to him whether the surroundings were of couples or just air.

But the more sensitive Zhou Zhou looked at those couples, his emotions changed obviously, from initial curiosity about how other couples interacted, to gradually becoming silent, and finally envious.

He used to feel very happy interacting with his many romantic partners before, but why was it different from the couples here?

The couples here always had an atmosphere that others couldn’t join in, and sometimes when couples played around and teased each other, even though it was very normal behavior, why did it feel embarrassing to watch?

Zhou Zhou felt that everyone dating seemed very…sweet.

He wanted to date someone too.

With longing glances continuously looking at the passing couples, Zhou Zhou pulled the seemingly 7 or 8-year-old Zeus along, somehow feeling endlessly hurt, and able to sense a kind of wordless loneliness.

Zhou Zhou didn’t know this was the curse of being single, after all he had never directly faced so many real couples before.

“Zhou Zhou, are you done observing? Let’s go eat.” Zeus shook Zhou Zhou’s hand and looked up to ask. Although he didn’t really eat, after being with Zhou Zhou for a while, he knew Zhou Zhou ate very regularly and really liked human food.

“I’ve seen enough, are you hungry? Let’s go eat.” Zhou Zhou pulled Zeus through the sea of couples.

The slender figures gave off the feeling of a little father leading his son.

Although the observation work was finished, Zhou Zhou still felt that many things weren’t quite right. Was that how couples interacted?

When walking together, they had to hold hands and interlock fingers. They would feed each other food, call each other’s names affectionately, go to movies and shopping together. Sometimes they would even hug, and he saw some couples kiss while hugging.

Hmm…is this what dating is like?

Zhou Zhou pondered for a long time and felt that he might have had countless fake relationships before.

He had never done any of those things!

Zhou Zhou paced back and forth in his room. Although Ke Li and the others said love wasn’t as solid as friendship and family love, what should he do if he wanted to date someone, like the couples he saw before?

Zhou Zhou: “Ke Li, I feel that although friendship and family love are very important, romantic love is also very important. Can we have all three?”

Ke Li: “Huh? What are you talking about Zhou Zhou? Of course romantic love is the most important. If someone gives me a girlfriend right now, I’ll give them my sister.”

Xue Li: “Do you think I’m blind? You think I can’t see? If I have a boyfriend, I’ll sell Ke Li cheaply to my boyfriend to set off fireworks.”

Zhou Zhou, Xue Li and Ke Li had a group chat where they would sometimes chat and slack off. During work hours, these two would occasionally secretly chat with Zhou Zhou. They had no idea they had distorted Zhou Zhou’s values before, and were still wishing to find a boyfriend/girlfriend before the end of the year.

Zhou Zhou chatted with them for a long time, and suddenly realized that everyone seemed to want to date someone.

Zhou Zhou: “Do you have to only date one person when dating?”

Ke Li: “Zhou Zhou, you’re still young, you don’t understand. Think about it, what if you’re dating several people? A wants to go to the movies, B wants to go shopping, C wants to stay at home, and all three want you to accompany them, who would you accompany?”

Zhou Zhou: “Can’t the four of us do things together?”

Ke Li: “No, A, B and C would fight if they were together.”

Zhou Zhou: …I didn’t know either.

Ke Li: “So being able to have a good relationship with one person is already very impressive. Moreover, if you really like someone, there is no room for a third person between you two.”

Xue Li: “Although my brother talks a lot of nonsense, I agree with this point. Ke Li, you sound so logical, how are you still a single dog until now?”

Ke Li: “Like you have a boyfriend.”

After that, the messages were just the two single people hurting each other, while Zhou Zhou didn’t send any more messages. He looked at what Ke Li sent with some thoughtfulness.

This was the first time that Zhou Zhou didn’t have any misunderstandings or confusion, but truly began to understand this matter.

*

At the Imperial Palace, Alvia was dressed formally, waiting for someone.

He had even come out of the palace himself, watching as a small aircraft swaggered down to land on the open grounds.

Normally, no aircraft was allowed to fly over the palace grounds, and even other people entering the palace could not bring their aircraft inside, but had to stop outside the palace.

But now, an exception had appeared.

After the cool-looking aircraft landed, a woman stepped out from inside.

This woman looked very young, and extremely beautiful. She was dressed in a crisp outfit, carrying herself with a dashing aura without losing her feminine charm.

The usually expressionless Alvia smiled rarely upon seeing her: “Long time no see.”

The woman walked up to Alvia in a few steps, her smile brighter than the sun, and she pulled the taller Alvia into a warm embrace.

“Dearest Al, long time no see.”

Alvia bent down very cooperatively and also hugged her back.

The relationship between the two seemed very intimate. And Zhou Zhou, who had just come out of the game, saw the scene of the two embracing.

Zhou Zhou: !!!