In Xianxia Online, players can have their own residences. If you have a bond, after getting married at the Matchmaker, you can even build a shared residence, basically like a marital home.
Just like guild grounds in the capital, residences are also safe zones. Red-named players won’t be attacked here.
What can a residence be used for? Incubating and raising spirit beasts, cultivating spiritual herbs, and even digging ponds to raise fish. Overall, it’s quite player-friendly.
“It’s fine now.” Mingyue put away the mount, and the two of them stood together in the courtyard.
Yu He didn’t speak. He’d originally planned to divorce immediately, but ever since Mingyue had called him “wife,” Yu He had felt that things didn’t seem so simple.
World Chat was still clamoring, nothing more than people cursing Jiaojiao and Mingyue for being a pair of dog men and women who ran away too fast.
Yu He cleared his throat lightly and continued using the female voice. “I need to tell you something.”
“Mm.” Tang Shaoqing curled his lips.
“This account was something I bought yesterday. I don’t know if the previous owner told you.” He’d originally planned to use Jiaojiao’s identity to get close to Tang Chao, but thinking about it now, the cost of using this identity was way too high.
“Stop lying to me. Don’t I know you by now?” Tang Shaoqing chuckled softly.
Yu He: “??”
“I’ll farm the gear, I’ll buy the spirit beasts, I’ll spend money on the outfits. Wife, don’t run anymore.”
It sounded exactly like a domineering CEO’s line from an old-school romance novel, and he was the delicate little wife who’d run away carrying 108 babies.
This Mingyue guy was a fool.
“If you don’t believe me, I can show you the transaction records.”
“Mm, I get it.”
“??”
“I’m really not Jiaojiao.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“How about I change my name and we get divorced?”
“Changing your name is fine. Divorce is out of the question.”
As he finished speaking, a trade window popped up on the screen—
[Player Mingyue has gifted you 1x ‘Name Change Card’]
[Accept or Decline]
F*.
Furious, Yu He changed his name on the spot.
Just like his other in-game names, they were simple, two characters: “He-jiang.1This is similar to -chan in Japanese. I decided to use the Chinese pinyin for this, rather than using Japanese, since, well, it’s Chinese, lol. Add a pink loli avatar, and it was perfect, neatly matching the three X-jiang Princesses in his dorm.
Flamboyant enough.
A man’s idea of cuteness was just that plain and unpretentious.
Staring at the two words “He-jiang,” the curve of Tang Shaoqing’s lips grew wider and wider. He casually transferred another name-change card from his main account and changed his name to: “Doting on He-jiang,” fully inheriting the fine tradition of couple usernames from a certain MOBA.
Yu He stared at those three words and felt that the game ID he’d used for years had been tainted.
“Wife?” Seeing Yu He stay silent for a long time, Tang Shaoqing called out with a laugh.
“…” Screw off. He didn’t want to see him right now.
Fuming, Yu He logged off immediately.
His experience bar was still just a little short of level 99. The marriage hadn’t even been dissolved. And his username had been ruined.
He was absolutely furious.
On the other side of the screen, Tang Shaoqing took a sip of milk tea. Watching the person vanish instantly, and the avatar turn gray. He couldn’t help feeling a bit annoyed.
Maybe he’d teased him too hard. Would his big brother quit the account altogether?
Yet after the annoyance came a mouthful of sweetness.
In a few days, he’d be able to see his big brother in person.
Just then, the phone on the desk suddenly vibrated a few times. He picked it up and saw the caller ID: “Gu Qiyun.”
Gu Qiyun, President Gu, the boss of Xianxia Online. He was also Tang Shaoqing’s direct senior from school, though already graduated. A pretty impressive guy. The game company he founded, Weiyun, had gone public only a few years ago and had already become an industry leader.
With his career established and his love life just as smooth, he was a man who had already registered his marriage and hadn’t been defeated by the world.
The two of them got along well. As for Tang Shaoqing liking Yu He, he was the only one who knew.
“Hello?” Tang Shaoqing set the cup down and lifted the phone to his ear.
“What, in a great mood?”
“Pretty good. Something nice happened.”
“Does it have to do with him?”
“Mm.” Tang Shaoqing’s voice carried a smile, but he didn’t elaborate.
Since he clearly didn’t want to talk about it, Gu Qiyun didn’t press the issue and smoothly steered the conversation back to work. “How’s it looking after the optimization?”
“Pretty good. I picked up a few booster jobs, and I also found and fixed some minor, nonessential bugs.” Tang Shaoqing switched his computer screen to a three-window view of his alt accounts. One alt, a healer, was still in the middle of running newbie quests and hadn’t reached max level yet.
Standing beside the alt was an assassin named “Tang Chao,” decked out in discontinued, limited-edition gear that practically radiated the scent of RMB, having just finished cleaning up a ring of red-named boss mobs for a quest.
“Alright. I’ll leave it to you, then.”
“Don’t worry.”
“You’ll be heading back to the main campus soon, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The spicy hotpot there is pretty good.”
“Got it, got it.”
Over on Yu He’s side, he shut down the game. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do next. He’d already submitted his raw voice lines, and he couldn’t be bothered to pick up a new project. So he went to the dorm group chat to trash-talk for a bit, set up a weekend meal, and, feeling quite satisfied, scooped up his cat and started petting it.
Halfway through the petting, a video call suddenly came in.
It was his mom.
“Mom.” Yu He sat up straighter with Orange in his arms, no longer as relaxed as before.
Growing up, the total time he’d spent with his parents probably didn’t even add up to two or three years. He’d been raised by nannies the whole time, so he was honestly not very used to her regular calls.
“Has Orange put on weight again?” Mother Yu’s skin was very well cared for. In her 40s, she still looked like she was in her early thirties. With light makeup on, she looked as if she’d just gotten home.
“Yes. It’s pretty heavy now, I can barely hold it.” Yu He rubbed the cat’s head.
“How about buying a treadmill? You two can run together when you’re free.”
“I’m not fat.”
“Then let Orange use it.”
When it came to his mom’s habit of wanting to buy him all sorts of expensive things, Yu He, who’d been raised frugally for many years, still wasn’t quite used to it.
Laughing it off, he skipped past the topic. Then Mother Yu added, “Do you still remember Tang Shaoqing?”
Tang Shaoqing?
The name sounded extremely familiar, yet for a moment, he couldn’t quite recall the face that went with it.
Tang Shaoqing was a financially disadvantaged student whom his parents had sponsored. He’d heard that a lot had gone wrong in his family. His father had gone to prison, his mother had run off, and his relatives all watched coldly from the sidelines, none of them willing to take him in. He also had a sick grandmother at home.
It was probably back in elementary school. One day, his dad suddenly brought home a little steamed bun; skinny and tiny, a stark contrast to Yu He, who had been so chubby as a kid he’d looked like a little ball.
Later, the two of them evened out. Yu He slimmed down and grew more and more well-proportioned, while Tang Shaoqing was no longer so thin.
They played together throughout all of elementary school. Later, Tang Shaoqing was taken away by his grandmother. It was also Yu He’s father who paid for her medical treatment. Although she didn’t recover completely, she got better by 70% or 80%.
After they were separated, the two of them kept in touch a little. Not often, but they never forgot about each other.
After high school, Yu He moved into the dorms, attending an ordinary senior high school. Tang Shaoqing, on the other hand, seemed to have gotten into a top school. Yu He often heard his name mentioned by others.
And just like that, they gradually lost contact.
“What’s up with Tang Shaoqing?”
Why did she suddenly bring him up?
“He came by with his grandma earlier to drop off some things. That kid’s really grown into a looker now; completely different from when he was little.”
“Oh.” Yu He lowered his head and tried to recall what Tang Shaoqing had looked like as a child. The memory was already a bit blurry. All he really remembered was the little guy following behind him, calling him ‘big brother,’ and being very well-behaved.
“He got into University A, majoring in computer science. He’ll be moving to the main campus in his sophomore year, right next door to you.”
Damn, that was impressive.
City A’s famous 9852Launched in 1998, hence 985 = year 98 and month 5, so May 1998. Equivalent to Ivy League. university was University A, one of the top-ranked schools in the country.
Their own University D was at best just a regular university, not even a 211.3211 Project started in 1995. Less prestigious than 985 but better than ordinary unis. Equivalent to second-tier elite. By coincidence, or misfortune, it happened to be right next to University A, separated only by a snack plaza.
“He’ll be moving over in a few days. Help him settle in when he does, alright? I’ll send you his WeChat.”
“Okay.” Yu He was actually quite curious about this childhood playmate.
Yu He opened the WeChat contact his mom had forwarded and sent a friend request.
Tang Shaoqing’s WeChat was very simple. He hadn’t even set a custom ID. It was still the default string of complicated numbers.
The request was accepted pretty quickly, almost instantly.
Tang: Big brother?
Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: It’s me
Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: When are you moving over? I’ll come pick you up.
Tang: Probably after the National Day holiday
Tang: Sorry to trouble you, big brother.
Tang: [Kitten acting cute]
Author’s Note:
Guess who the kitten acting cute.jpg was stolen from.
Jie Jie: Apologies for the late update! Got too busy! TT
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