“Now he’s interfering with someone else’s auction again. Figured it’s him,” Yu He said indignantly as he stared at the auction house page.

He’d been in Xianxia Online for so long that, because of Jiaojiao and Mingyue, he’d almost forgotten about Tang Chao. Yu Guo hadn’t mentioned him again either. If Tang Chao hadn’t raised the bid tonight, Yu He probably wouldn’t have remembered him anytime soon.

Just like that scumbag. Someone’s buying something and he has to mess with it. Really… there’s nothing nice to say.

“…Maybe those two have some kind of grudge. I heard Zhizi Yugui’s RNG luck is pretty bad,” Tang Shaoqing rubbed his face, not understanding what had given Yu He that impression.

He’d only realized after adding WeChat that the one who’d hired him to boost was Yu Guo. He’d been pleasantly surprised. After all, Yu Guo was close to Yu He. If Yu Guo had started playing, maybe Yu He was too?

He’d even farmed a bit extra for her and taken meticulous care of everything. After all, she was his future sister-in-law… ahem.

Logically, it shouldn’t be like this.

Yu He casually opened the anonymous forum and searched Zhizi Yugui’s name. “There’s not much negative stuff about him on the forum…”

Mostly people kneeling and sucking up to an RMB whale.

By contrast, when Yu He searched Tang Chao, “There are tons of posts about ‘Scumbag Tang Chao.’”

Tang Shaoqing: “…”

Looks like he needed to start hanging out on the anonymous forums too.

Guji: u1s1, Zhizi Yugui shows off with Luo Yan every day, especially when your account logs in, you’re guaranteed to see a 99-yuan firework

Guji: He’s really got it out for you

Guji: Probably just bored

Guji: Where’d you go

Guji: ?

Guji: sb1傻逼 meaning idiot/dumbass. But on this context, it’s more of a complain and joke can you stop ghosting me every day, people get emotional too, yingyingying QAQ

Guji: Ying?

Gu Ji looked at himself, like a forsaken wife, and fell silent, then angrily typed—

Guji: Guo Jiao logged off, didn’t she? So are you chatting somewhere else? You dog man

Tang Shaoqing also fell silent.

Tang: You’ve always thought there was something between me and Guo Jiao?

Guji: Isn’t there?

Tang: You know I already like someone

He’d accidentally let it slip once when he was drunk. Thankfully, without revealing anything else.

Guji: Yeah, wasn’t it Guo Jiao??

Tang: …

Guji: …

No wonder Guji had teased the two of them in the guild before. He’d thought it was just Guji messing around as usual. Turns out it had been a misunderstanding.

Then…

Tang: Did you say anything to Guo Jiao?

Guji: Just… just casually said a few things

Tang: …

Guji: I’m sorry…

Guji: QAQ

Guji: I’ll treat you to a meal once I move to the main campus

Tang: …I’ll go try to fix this

Guji: Okay…

Guji: I thought you divorced Guo Jiao because you were playing hard to get

Guji: No wonder she hasn’t really spoken in the guild lately…

Tang Shaoqing felt his head throb with pain.

His brain must’ve short-circuited. How had he not seen this coming?

Yu Guo had probably thought Tang Chao had toyed with her, then gone to complain to Yu He. Those two likely both thought Tang Chao was a scumbag now.

Why did he suddenly feel like abandoning the account?

“Hello? You still there?” Seeing that Voice Changer hadn’t said anything for a while, Yu He couldn’t help asking, after browsing the forums.

“Here.” Tang Shaoqing steadied himself and sent a shared-mount invitation.

[Player “Doting on He-jiang” has invited you to ride together]

“Where to?” Yu He paused, then clicked Accept.

“The usual spot,” Tang Shaoqing said.

Yu He thought it was somewhere he didn’t know, but it turned out to be Northern Plains.

In Xianxia Online, in-game time followed real-world time. It was already late at night, the sky pitch-dark, snow still falling in soft flurries.

There were quite a few players around, probably because of tonight’s hidden dungeon.

Luckily, Northern Plains was a safe zone by design. The two red-named players just walked around openly.

“Hide everyone else. I want to show you something,” Tang Shaoqing said.

“Okay.” Yu He did as told.

[Player “Doting on He-jiang” set off 99 fireworks for you]

Yu He’s heart skipped.

On a snowy night, fireworks carved themselves deep into the sky, scattering softly around them. Mixed in with the faint glow of fireflies, it was breathtakingly beautiful.

…Fireflies?

Yu He switched the camera angle and took a closer look. They really were fireflies, exactly the same as the ones they’d seen in the hidden dungeon earlier.

“When we first entered the dungeon, I noticed these fireflies could be caught. It just requires bottles as tools,” Tang Shaoqing, who had actually read the script, delivered this nonsense with deadpan seriousness.

So that was why he’d been buying bottles in world chat.

“When did you catch them? I didn’t even notice,” Yu He asked.

“Secretly. I wanted to give you a surprise.” The gathering animation wasn’t very noticeable, and with fireflies everywhere in the dungeon, he’d grabbed some whenever he had the chance.

Something stirred in Yu He’s chest, and he hesitated.

Should he tell him that he’d actually been deceived by Jiaojiao… or just keep things like this for now and slowly let it fade?

After all, he’d said it himself, he wasn’t crossing into real-life involvement, just wanted to play games together.

Lying felt awful. Even a well-intentioned lie carried a lot of pressure.

Just as Yu He was wavering, Tang Shaoqing suddenly let out a soft “Hmm?.”

“What is it?” Yu He asked.

“These fireflies seem like they can reproduce. Let’s go home and try,” Tang Shaoqing said.

“Okay.” After a moment’s thought, Yu He ultimately said nothing.

After showing off their affection in the Northern Plains, the two of them, completely oblivious to the World Chat and nearby area blowing up, headed back to the manor.

Manors could house pets, spirit beasts, and plants. In theory, raising fireflies should be possible too.

“Done.” Tang Shaoqing placed a jar of fireflies onto the grass. The system indicated that they had begun breeding.

You could raise all sorts of things in Xianxia Online. Fireflies were a first, probably another hidden dungeon Easter egg. Not particularly useful, but perfect for showing off affection.

“What’s this egg?” Yu He wandered around the courtyard and suddenly noticed a pink egg in the incubation slot.

There was nothing special about it, but in the few days since he’d started playing, he hadn’t seen a spirit beast egg before. It felt pretty novel.

Speaking of the egg, that was actually the main reason Tang Shaoqing had bought this account in the first place.

When he’d previously gone to Weiyun company to meet Gu Qiyun, he’d happened to overhear people talking about a pink egg. It seemed to be some kind of hidden spirit beast, nothing particularly powerful, very hard to hatch, but with an interesting setting once it did hatch.

As for how it was interesting, even he didn’t really know.

Later, Mingyue had casually mentioned that he was incubating a pink egg and that Jiaojiao quite liked it, but it just wouldn’t hatch.

The egg had already been bound to Mingyue’s account, and he’d planned to give it to Jiaojiao after it hatched, but since it was bound, he couldn’t trade it.

Around that time, while Tang Shaoqing was doing backend maintenance, he’d also happened to discover that Mingyue had been mistreated. After thinking it over, he decided to buy a small alt account and play for a bit.

After all, having played games for so long, he still had a bit of desire for unknown things and that was part of what made games fun.

“I don’t know either. We’ll find out once it hatches. Let’s gather some materials for incubating spirit beasts tomorrow,” Tang Shaoqing said as he stuffed a bit more cotton around the egg.

“Okay.” For some reason, he suddenly felt a little excited…

“It’s getting late,” Tang Shaoqing glanced at the time in the bottom-right corner of his screen. “Go to sleep.”

“Mhm.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

After logging off and lying in bed, Yu He scrolled through □□ on his phone for a bit. In the fan group “Shou He’s Alphas”, people were talking about Xianxia Online, and he casually clicked in to take a look.

[Ah, ah, ah, North Plains really has a hidden dungeon!!! QAQ]

[I’m from Chang Xiang Si server, saw it live]

[I heard a Marrow-Cleansing Pill dropped, holy crap]

[Was there only one Marrow-Cleansing Pill?]

[No idea]

[What game is this?]

[Xianxia Online]

[Kinda wanna start playing]

[Come on in, sister!]

[I heard that pill was auctioned for a crazy price… I went to look and damn, I don’t wanna work hard anymore]

Yu He curved his lips slightly. Just then, a WeChat notification popped up at the top of the screen. Before he could tap it, his cat suddenly pounced right onto his face.

Yu He: “…”

The orange cat’s full name was Ju Youjing. He was a boy, not young anymore, extremely clingy, and a bit shy around strangers, but once familiar, he turned into a little tagalong.

Yu He picked up the cat, staring thoughtfully at the dangling balls between its hind legs.

Kitty, Dad’s doing this for your own good.

Yu He kissed the cat on the head, wearing the relieved smile of an old father.

After soothing the kitty and lying back down on the bed, several messages from Tang Shaoqing had already come in on WeChat.

Tang: Is big brother asleep?

Tang: Are you coming back for National Day?

Tang: Anything good to eat near your school?

Tang: Asleep?

Tang: [kitty acting cute]

Yu He quickly replied—

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: Not asleep yet

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: I should be going back for National Day if nothing unexpected comes up

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: Near the school… there’s a little spicy hotpot place that’s pretty good, it’s been open for years and always has customers

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: There’s also an old grandpa by the overpass selling candied hawthorns. His yam hawthorn ones are really good

Tang: Okay

Tang: I’ll treat you to a meal then, big brother

Yu He curled his lips into a smile.

The kid had really grown up.

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: Sure ah

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: Guess all that kindness I showed you when you were little wasn’t wasted

Daming Lake’s Xia Yuhe: [hands on hips]

Tang: [kitty kiss]

He’d been too good to him.

Now the kid was starting to push his luck.

Jie Jie: Sorry for late upload! Posted 2 to make up for it. Thank you for understanding~