Following the guidance into the commander’s main tent, Yu He hurriedly canceled the princess-carry action.

He must’ve had a screw loose…

But ever since learning about how Voice Changer had been screwed over, his impression had shifted a little.

As Yu Guo said, Voice Changer probably wasn’t a bad person. He was just insecure, which was why he used a voice changer. He hadn’t meant to deceive anyone’s feelings.

And he was… pretty dumb and rich, too.

“Shen… Yu? That name’s pretty nice.” Yu Guo deliberately emphasized the “Yu.”

What a coincidence.

The man in iron armor stood inside the tent. The model was well-built, striking and heroic, though his face was expressionless, giving off an aloof, cold aura.

Tang Shaoqing’s eyes curved slightly as he stared at that “Yu.”1It had the same character for Yu He’s Yu.

[Handed the Silk Fan to Shen Yu]

“A’Ying?” Taking the fan, the man’s expression softened. He gently stroked the fan’s surface, as if caressing his beloved.

Then an MV cut in.

[It was the first autumn after the demon race abducted Great Gu’s Seventh Prince, the year the first shot was fired between the Central Plains and the Northern Desert.

Shen Yu, the legitimate son of the Shen family of sword cultivators and the Yu family of pill refiners, was dispatched to Northern Plains, the grasslands where the Central Plains and the Northern Desert met.

There, Shen Yu encountered a blond, blue-eyed little girl, barely over ten years old. Dirty and disheveled yet lively and full of energy, she clung to him, calling him “big brother” over and over. Fifteen-year-old Shen Yu was completely helpless against her.]

Tang Shaoqing rubbed his nose, suddenly reminded of his childhood self.

[Most of the Northern Plain’s natives were displaced by the war, wandering east and west in unrest. Naturally, the little girl called A’Ying ended up staying in the camp, helping with cooking and laundry.]

[Year after year passed. The Seventh Prince remained missing, the demon race repeatedly caused trouble in the Central Plains, tensions between the two sides grew ever tighter, and A’Ying and Shen Yu became increasingly close.]

[Until that day, the Seventh Prince’s soul lamp was extinguished. With a single order from the one in the imperial city, war began.]

[The war was brutally devastating. Millions of corpses afloat, blood flowing for a thousand miles. Wherever it reached, the wails of wronged souls filled the land.]

[The demon race lost that war utterly, crashing headlong into a trap, as if… as if they had mistaken the trap for Shen Yu’s location and thrown everything they had into it.]

[When the smoke cleared over the setting sun and the battle cries fell silent, Shen Yu searched everywhere, stepping over corpses, yet he could no longer find the girl who once chased fireflies with a small silk fan.]

The MV ended. The screen froze on the final scene: Shen Yu holding a blood-stained silk fan, a one-winged firefly resting upon it.

“‘A’Ying… was she from the demon race?” After watching the MV, everyone felt a lingering sense of heartbreak.

“Probably, right? She came as a spy, then met true love, betrayed the demon race, and all that… Can we talk to Shen Yu?”

Tang Shaoqing walked up to the man kneeling on one knee and pressed F to initiate dialogue.

“What did he say?”

“He said they’d discovered A’Ying’s identity a long time ago. The map they showed her was fake. Even though both locations were traps, the one A’Ying told the demon race about was the trap’s location.”

“He was gambling. Gambling on which side A’Ying would choose without ever considering how she felt.”

After the dialogue ended, a black-clad figure emerged from somewhere unknown. His face was unclear, his origins uncertain.

“Boss fight?”

Tang Shaoqing continued talking to the black-clad man. “He says A’Ying was exploited by the demon race. They broke her wings to extend her lifespan and threatened her into infiltrating the camp to steal intelligence. If she succeeded, they’d return her wings; if she failed, they’d destroy them and kill her.”

“After all… for a firefly, wings are more important than life itself.”

“This is hard to bear…” Yu Guo said quietly.

“I need to cry for a bit,” Porridge sniffed.

It was indeed painful. Yu He buried his face in his cat’s fur and took a deep breath.

When a healing-type cat meets a BE storyline…

The BE storyline wins.

A’Ying fell in love, while Shen Yu, bearing the weight of righteousness, deceived her. Wings mattered more than life, yet once it came to Shen Yu, life no longer mattered. She stood above everything else, even if it meant throwing it all away and never flying again.

“The black-clad man is talking to Shen Yu.”

“There may be a way to revive her. Are you willing to try?” The black-clad man asked.

Shen Yu tightened his grip on the fan and immediately agreed.

“The premise is that it goes against your mission.”

Mission.

To protect the Central Plains?

If he couldn’t even protect the one he loved, what right did he have to speak of righteousness?

“Use your heart’s blood to activate the formation. If it succeeds, the two of you will be bound together for life. If it fails, you will die as well.”

Shen Yu agreed without hesitation.

Whether it was true or not, whether it could succeed or not, he could no longer muddle through life alone.

The scene shifted. The formation had already been drawn. It was that lush, shadowy grassland. At night, it would be blanketed by drifting fireflies, and now and then, faint silhouettes of two people chasing and playing could still be seen.

[Defeat the Black-Clad Man and seize the formation manual]

A new objective appeared. The group immediately got to work at their keyboards, ready to go all out.

Worthy of being a boss, it had thick HP, high damage, and was tough to fight. Even with four people, it was a struggle.

“If you went out and fought like this, someone would probably start suspecting your identity…” Porridge suddenly said mid-fight.

“Huh? Who?” Yu He asked casually.

“You.”

“?”

“Your gameplay is way better than Jiao Jiao’s. Jiao Jiao… well… it’s hard to describe.”

“It’s alright,” Yu He said modestly.

He’d played this type of mobile game before, even played healer roles. Once you got the hang of it, his performance was passable.

“And you didn’t even check whose romantic partner he is,” Tang·hands-on-hips·Shaoqing said unhurriedly as he calmly released his final skill. The boss’s HP bar dropped to zero.

“Tsk tsk tsk, this public display of affection… even a monk like me can’t stand it.”

Yu He: “…”

Guoguo: //// Damn it, I really can!!

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: Give it up.

[Obtained “Revival Manual” ×1]

After the boss fell, the screen suddenly darkened and another MV played.

The formation activated. The grassland that had been bathed in blazing sunlight was instantly covered in snow. A man lay there with his eyes closed, holding a silk fan in his arms. On the fan rested what seemed to be a small insect with broken wings.

Not far away in the snow, a black wolf was curled up, cradling a tiny tabby cat in its embrace, snow piling up on their bodies.

The snow continued to fall, like countless firefly souls descending to embrace the earth.

The screen went dark again, then switched back to Northern Plains. The four of them stood there blankly, looking so stunned they could’ve sat down and played a full round of mahjong.

[Congratulations to players “He-jiang,” “Doting on He-jiang,” “Guo Jiao,” and “No Money For Porridge” for clearing the hidden dungeon “Fireflies”]

“Is it over?” Yu He was a bit slow to react.

“It’s over…?!” Yu Guo was still mulling over the wolf and the cat in the final scene.

“It kind of feels like there’s more to it,” Porridge rubbed his chin.

That last scene was obviously telling a story ah.

“Do you remember the Seventh Prince? He was a half-cat demon,” Tang Shaoqing licked his lips and reminded them.

“!”

With that reminder, everyone more or less had a guess.

“The wolf was probably that black-clad man… He wanted to revive the Seventh Prince. Didn’t the Seventh Prince get taken by the demon-race boss? That black-clad man was probably the demon-race boss.”

Porridge went a bit blank. “So, they’re cut sleeves2Gays…”

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah—” Yu Guo scrubbed her face and let out a roar under her roommates’ baffled stares.

This Easter egg was really…!!

So shippable!

Just a bit tear-jerking TvT.

Tang Shaoqing dug out the script he’d stolen earlier from the cluttered desktop on his computer and read through it carefully.

In the original setup, the Seventh Prince Gu Li had been frail since childhood. Jiang Wang was a wolf cub from Northern Plains who’d been captured and passed from hand to hand, eventually becoming Gu Li’s “beloved pet.”

Sparks flew between the two, while the struggle for the imperial succession grew increasingly intense. Neither of them lived well. Gu Li was assassinated, and Jiang Wang, barely alive, was thrown back into the Northern Plains.

Later, Jiang Wang cultivated forbidden arts in the Northern Plains, unified the demon race, and brought Gu Li back to his side. But Gu Li’s body was already beyond saving.

From then on, Jiang Wang searched everywhere for secret treasures, traversing the entire continent. In the end, Gu Li still passed away.

And that led to the later storyline.

A sweet love story…?

Tang Shaoqing stared coldly at the title written by who-knew-who.

In the end, they didn’t actually put this pair’s story into the game, just brushed past it and left a cliffhanger. After all, same-sex relationships were still a sensitive topic, and with Xianxia Online being so popular and under so much scrutiny, plenty of eyes were watching.

“Do girls all like this kind of gay stuff?” Porridge couldn’t help asking after hearing Yu Guo’s outburst.

“So shippable ah, bruhh!!” Yu Guo yelled.

“…What about you, Xiao He?” Porridge asked again.

Tang Shaoqing raised an eyebrow.