Online Dating, Fooled 800 Times - Chapter 7
Yue Qing stared at his screen, which had once again gone gray, feeling completely bewildered.
…He remembered the ID “Man-eating Sunflower.” If it was due to the previous dungeon equipment conflict, he’d already contacted the party leader to compensate her. Could there be some other problem?
The screen lit up, and Lu Ze sent a message:
[Lu Ze: Why’d you quit the guild?]
With three minutes left to respawn, Yue Qing calmly opened his phone and replied.
[Yue: No point in staying.]
[Lu Ze: What do you mean by pointless? I’m planning to hold a bonding ceremony with my Qiuqiu in the guild territory later. How can you come if you aren’t in the guild anymore?]
[Yue: You sure your Qiuqiu would want to join a guild like this?]
There was silence from the other end.
With a few taps on his phone, Yue Qing transferred over three hundred yuan, and attached a note to reimburse the name change fee.
[Lu Ze: ?]
[Yue: I don’t want anyone to misunderstand that I topped up my game card with a Ruby card.]
Lu Ze sent a voice message, both angry and amused, “Screw you, you’re barely even playing the Beginner Island. Will you die if you don’t go a day without finding some new way to curse others? If you keep being so sharp-tongued, you’ll never find a girlfriend.”
Yue Qing said indifferently, “Thanks for your concern. I won’t die if I don’t have a partner.”
“Keep talking tough, keep talking tough.” Lu Ze was probably in the middle of a dungeon. The faint sound of sword energy could be heard in the background. “Fine, I changed the guild name, now are you willing to join? Don’t make a fuss about small meaningless details. You’ve only been playing for a few days and don’t even understand the gameplay. The key to group fights in this game is having a large group. Otherwise, no one will care if you keep dying at the respawn point.”
“…”
Yue Qing really couldn’t understand where this guy’s passion came from at his age. A game is a game. So what if you die? If you can, just respawn. If not, log off. It’s not like the other side can crawl over the network cable and poke him in the forehead.
Let’s act more mature.
The screen remained gray, and the private chat scrolled twice. Yue Qing, not wanting to spoil the fun, casually replied, “Let’s talk later.”
Lu Ze muttered, “Don’t put on an act, I can hear you mentally cursing me. I’m telling you, it’s not a problem with the game, it’s just that you don’t have the passion. Stepping onto a familiar map after all these years, we comrades in arms instantly rediscovered the passionate, surging spirit of our youth…”
Yue Qing reached out and muted the sound.
He was also puzzled by something else. Lu Ze’s tendency to chatter had been evident since high school. Year-round, he was like carrying the Three Gorges Dam around his neck, constantly releasing floodwaters. How had Lin Qiu managed to endure this for so long?
He didn’t know if love was truly that powerful, but brotherhood certainly wasn’t.
The three-minute resurrection countdown reached zero, and he sat up straight, seeing a response to the question mark he sent earlier.
[Man-eating Sunflower] had also thrown out a question mark.
She still seemed very unsatisfied.
He’d explained everything already. Did she miss the previous message? Yue Qing decided to simply not get up again, typing, [I’m not familiar with the game controls. What happened before wasn’t…
Thirty-five feet from his corpse, the Kong Shan avatar idly tossed and caught her fan a few times before yawning.
[[Private Message] Man-eating Sunflower: Oh my god.]
[[Private Message] Man-eating Sunflower: You’re really shit at this! /shock/shock/shock]
Yue Qing: “…………”
How’s he shit?
[Lu Ze: You muted me again, didn’t you?]
[Lu Ze: Don’t blame me for not warning you. The internet scene isn’t as pure and simple as it used to be. There are too many people who don’t follow the rules. A while ago, a powerful faction commander in the old server was caught scamming people. Ooh, you don’t see this often. Guess what?]
[Yue: ?]
[Lu Ze: Some 14 year old kid was exposed to be using his grandmother’s ID to play the game. Here’s another piece of news: a certain party leader took a six-hour high-speed train to meet someone they were connected to in-game. You know what happened next?]
[Lu Ze: Across from him sat a burly man. He was so frightened upon entering the hotel that he called the police and in tears. His interview was featured on primetime social news with the headline, “Boys Should Protect Themselves Outside, Too.” ]
“……” As his message windows were spammed with one piece of gossip after another, Yue Qing’s brows twitched repeatedly, deciding to send a voice chat. He held his phone to his lips and said ruthlessly, “Send one more and you’re blocked.”
The world was finally at peace.
He ignored the PMs from [Man-Eating Sunflower] and directly abandoned his herb-picking mission, choosing to return to the respawn point.
The white-haired swordsman, holding his forehead, rose from the high point. He was still injured, his robes stained with blood. The consecutive deaths had inflicted him with the “Weakness” debuff, slowing his movement speed and reducing all stats.
He opened his backpack, found a Calming Pill and took it. At this point, if any Qiankun player glanced at his interface, they would know he was a complete novice. The Jiange Sect was renowned for its numerous and complex skills, but [Rush]’s skill list was still at its default settings, with even his most crucial skill yet to be activated. However, because of the Tianwu Weapon on his back, few dared to provoke him. He was also contentedly idle, so naturally, he wouldn’t take initiative to explain his skills.
The Far North was vast, with dozens of respawn points densely packed across a single map. Without any landmarks, Yue Qing had no idea where he was.
He pressed M to open the map, but before he could even check the coordinates, he realized something—
He may not know where he was, but [Man-Eating Sunflower] did.
The Kongshan, large fan in hand, stood silently in his blind spot at the outermost edge of the respawn point, waiting for him to step out of the pavilion.
The next second, a familiar, life-threatening ink-colored countdown appeared above his head. Five seconds later, the swordsman, who had just risen, fell to the ground again.
Because of the Weakness buff, his Luck attribute was reduced, and a colorful array of [Rush]’s bound items were released and scattered around him.
For some high-level players, a fully upgraded piece of equipment costs thousands of gold. Naturally, they can’t afford to let other players snatch it away. However, the game’s money-making schemes were as endless as online netizens. Dropped equipment must be redeemed from the local gods in the main city half an hour later, costing five thousand gold each.
The surroundings were empty. The Big Fan holding Kongshan slowly came to a stop beside his head, jumping up and down.
[[Private Chat] Rush: …]
[[Private Chat] Man-eating Sunflower: It’s so cold, why are you lying on the ground resting? /surprised /covering mouth /shy]
Yue Qing watched her jump around him like she had ADHD.
Other things aside, her typing speed is really fast. How did she manage to type, jump up and down, and add three emojis all at the same time?
[[Private Chat] Rush: Is this necessary]
[[Private Chat] Man-eating Sunflower: Do you think it’s necessary?]
[[Private Chat] Rush: Still angry?]
[[Private Chat] Man-eating Sunflower: How could I be angry? ^-^]
[[Private Chat] Benfu: I explained it to her.]
“Her” refers to [Wild Female Baboon]. Yue Qing really didn’t want to type this ID out character by character.
[[Private Chat] Man-eating Sunflower:?]
[[Private Chat] Man-eating Sunflower: You explained it to her? Who? What? When? What did you say? /Daze]
Yue Qing opened his message box and found the exact time.
[[Private Chat] Benfu: July 12th, 9 PM.]
[[Private Chat] Benfu: It wasn’t intentional.]
The Kongshan stopped jumping up and down and froze in place.
Yue Qing looked at her long skirt and ugly fan, leaned back in his chair, and took off his glasses. He felt a slight strain in his eyelids.
What a headache.
His eyesight was good, with only 50 degrees of mild myopia in his left eye, and he only wore glasses when working. Lately, he’d been staring at screens for extended periods, which was already enough to make the eyes weary. Now, he was spending another half an hour arguing with the person on the other side, who seemed like an elementary school student, about who stole whose gear.
These tedious days were like living in jail.
With a ding, the private chat channel buzzed. Yue Qing didn’t move, typing in the chat box, [I’m glad the misunderstanding is resolved. I have things to do…
[[Private Chat] Man-Eating Sunflower: Bro, you must have lived under a rock in your previous life, you talk BS all the time.]
[[Private Chat] Man-Eating Sunflower: I don’t think you’ve ever truly reflected on your mistakes. :)]
[[Private Chat] Man-Eating Sunflower: Stop guessing, you don’t know me. All you need to know is that every day I, Man-Eating Sunflower, am on this new server, it will be your eternal nightmare! /sunglasses/sunglasses/sunglasses]
Yue Qing’s hands, which had been typing on the keyboard, froze. He took a few heavy breaths before he clenched his fists, with great restraint.
“…………?”
————
After discovering [Rush] was a complete novice, Xiang Kui killed him eighteen times in a row over the course of several days.
It wasn’t that she was trying; she only realized the number had reached eighteen after checking her kill log.
Hmm? Seems weird, let’s kill him. Still feels weird, let’s kill him again. This cycle continued until she quickly reached eighteen kills. The opponent had even learned to reduce damage as soon as his hands left the keyboard.
Qiankun Online had a well-developed social scene, and was dubbed the most authentic Jianghu. But the Jianghu isn’t filled with just heroes and eccentrics; there are always a few cowards. Xiang Kui had been playing the game for years, and she’d rarely encountered fights initiated spontaneously with no underlying conflict. Most people reacted to being killed in one of the following ways: either they endured the beatings, tried to return the aggression, or simply switched servers and sold their accounts.
But [Rush] was strange. The strange thing was that he seemed genuinely unmoved by the killings. He was quiet and usually blocked all chat channels—he’d only recently turned them active to question her. Could it be that he was simply feeling guilty and couldn’t bring himself to speak out?
Xiang Kui’s intuition told her something was amiss, so she contacted Lin Xi, a spectator outside the venue.
[Lin Xi: So he still thinks I don’t know about what he did and is testing you? I’m just confused why he’s sending me these endless series of paragraphs. Does he consider this an explanation?]
Xiang Kui read the message log forwarded by Lin Xi. The scumbag rambled on and on, mostly trying to justify himself.
[Lin Xi: A while ago, the Qiankun officials cracked down on cheating in ranked games, and he was on the list of cheaters. He told me he was just using skill monitoring. Do you believe it? Anyways, I don’t.]
In fact, Xiang Kui had suspected it before. How could one person’s skills vary so drastically? But the ranked match points [Rush] possessed hadn’t moved an inch these days. Now that Lin Xi had explained it, it made sense. He’d probably been cheating or using a proxy before.
Those who could play the field like an eight-handed octopus were really built different. Their words were a bit more flowery than the average person. Those few paragraphs not only explained why he hadn’t logged in recently, but also implicitly explained his and his apprentice’s innocence. The main point was: even if we break up, you shouldn’t go online and bash me. Lin Xi didn’t feel bothered to reply, so she copied a script from online and sent it to him, acting out a story: [You’re so special! You’re different from any other guy I’ve met. You give me a sense of alienation, a sense of loneliness…]
[Lin Xi: He asked if I knew Shark Xiaokui.]
[Xiang Kui: Now you know how to feel guilty? /Hesitant/Hesitant]
[Lin Xi: Not necessarily. [Rouge Button] has been posting bounties on clues to the server-wide loudspeaker every day lately, with the prices constantly rising. I guess everyone in the server knows.]
[Lin Xi: Aren’t you still playing Tianren? Honestly, Button knows you so well, they would definitely recognize you at first sight if you went online as an Assassin.]
“…”
Xiang Kui stared at the black text in the dialog box, her fingertips dangling in the air for a few moments. The corners of her lips, which had been slightly raised, slowly drooped.
The air conditioner was set a little low. She reached for the remote control on the table and clicked it to 27 degrees. Then she stepped onto the carpet and went back into the room, finding her indoor socks from the closet and putting them on.
The apartment was small. She lived alone. From the entrance, she could see that except for the bright and spacious area around the computer desk in the living room, the rest of the room was dark and filled with stuffed animals, the labels removed. In the middle sat a few large bears, wearing handmade bow ties of various colors, their plastic eyes reflecting the dim light of the computers.
It wasn’t messy, but it couldn’t be described as tidy either. Normally, no one else would be here. After all, it looked like if it housed even one more dog, they’d be crammed to the point of having no room to sleep.
Five minutes had passed since she put on her socks, but Xiang Kui still hadn’t figured out how to respond.
She opened her phone again, and her friend withdrew her tentative probe, deftly changing the subject.
[Lin Xi: But that’s nothing~ ^-^]
[Lin Xi: You won’t even tell me your new ID. If you tell Button, I’ll be furious! /Bang the table/Bang the table]
“…”
Xiang Kui wasn’t in a particularly good mood when she came online.
She picked out some important daily tasks to complete, planning to log off early for bed. As usual, she glanced at her Enemy List before bed—[Rush]’s profile picture was gray.
The little Kongshan, her fan hanging on her back, stood alone in the main city for a moment, suddenly unsure what to do.
The prerequisite quest for the Heavenly-level weapon was still a day away. The guild had only two members online, the leader was absent, and no one else was speaking in chat.
It was past nine o’clock, the peak time for active players, and the public channel is still bustling with activity:
[[World] Pink Pig: So boring! Who here wants to date me online? The kind that makes me lose ten pounds after breaking up /crying puddles]
[[World] That Mockingbird: [Jiange Sect · Conversation with Senior Brother Su Chi] Can someone tell me where Senior Brother is? There’s no one in the quest directions except Yun Xian! I’ve been searching for half an hour! QAQ]
[[World] World’s No. 1 Wangwang Sword: Here we go! The traditional art of a Jiange Sect noob is here, hahahahahahaha!!]
[[World] Sad Social Animal: [That Mockingbird] As everyone knows, Senior Brother isn’t human. If you get closer, you can see the greatsword Yun Xian is holding. Click on its wooden hilt to trigger the conversation.]
[[World] That Mockingbird: I clicked, and he told me to leave? The quest isn’t even completed! QAQ]
[[World] Egg Passing By: LMAO another one fell for it. Wait until he’s in human form. Interrupting someone’s relationship will cost you favorability!]
Teasing newcomers is so much fun, and the world channel was suddenly flooded with a cheerful inputs.
Xiang Kui held the mouse, her gaze fixed on the constantly scrolling world channel, gradually blurring out of focus, lost in thought, until a line of yellow text suddenly refreshed.
[System Notice: It’s useless to say that everything has its ups and downs; the outcome will be determined in the final throw! The battle between the [Without a Pair] and [Prairie Fire] guilds has officially ended. [Without a Pair]]: 127/537, [Prairie Fire] 98/429. The [Without a Pair]] guild has won. The victorious party will officially occupy the [Fengguo County] territory in one hour.]
Huh?
[Prairie Fire] has been engaged in a guild war with [Without a Pair] recently?
These kinds of wars between large guilds require full participation from the entire organization. The more commercial guilds even go so far as to detail which team will be online at which time, which is extremely tedious.
No wonder no one had come to bother her these past few days… She’d thought [Warlord Li Li] had given up after her pride was hurt by the GM…
Xiang Kui was still pondering when suddenly, a familiar sound of wind reached her right ear. A healing reduction debuff was placed on her. [Punishment] used his skill to tickle her, then stood face to face with her like a psychopath.
[System Notice: You’ve been issued a bounty by [Warlord Li Li]! Bounty: 50,000 gold.]
[[World] Warlord Li Li: The guild war is over, now focusing on scrap collection.]
[[World] Warlord Li Li: A 5-man team is hunting down [Man-Eating Sunflower] across the entire map. Blades are merciless, so please stay out of the way to avoid accidental injury! /Cleaning Knife/Cleaning Knife/Cleaning Knife]
At the same time, a ding sounded.
[System Notice: Your enemy [Rush] is online.]
Xiang Kui’s head was buried in the dim light of the desk lamp, her eyes sparkling. Looking at the world channel and her own name blowing up again, she couldn’t help but lift the corners of her mouth slightly.