Under Fu Songcheng’s repeated warnings—and a few cold-faced threats—Yu Huaiting finally restrained himself somewhat.
At least he no longer tormented Fu Songcheng to the point of fainting—but it wasn’t much better either.
The next morning, Fu Songcheng downed a high-grade recovery potion and forced himself to the training room.
Chen Muhuai would be forcibly pulled into an instance tomorrow. As his former supervisor, Fu Songcheng had to make the most of the remaining time to spar with him a few more rounds.
For this, he’d reported to Yu Huaiting in advance the night before—and gotten bitten hard several times by a certain jealousy-fueled someone.
Chen Muhuai had previously only moved around novice instances; his points and items were pitifully few, and his base attributes naturally couldn’t match Fu Songcheng, who trained daily with the “number one” as his partner.
Fortunately, Fu Songcheng struck with great restraint, patiently guiding him through moves and counters the whole time.
It wasn’t until noon that Yu Huaiting rubbed his messy white hair and slowly crawled out of bed.
He sighed and, with practiced ease, went to the training room to find his highly career-minded wife.
“Whoa! Caught you two!”
Yu Huaiting stepped into the training room and was immediately greeted by the sight of the two in close-quarters combat—and instantly felt sour.
Was this Chen Muhuai interested in Fu Songcheng?
It’s just sparring—why so close!
Even though Fu Songcheng had given him advance warning, he still felt a green glow over his head right now.
“Let me fight him instead!”
Yu Huaiting strode forward, pulled Fu Songcheng aside, raised his chin, and looked down at Chen Muhuai with a condescending air, utterly unceremonious: “Number one on the Power Ranking, Yu Huaiting.”
Chen Muhuai already knew this was Fu Songcheng’s boyfriend, but at their first meeting he couldn’t help but mutter inwardly: His gentle, courteous supervisor had actually found such a…
Indescribable creature.
Arrogant and domineering written all over him.
After getting Fu Songcheng’s nod, Yu Huaiting didn’t even take a weapon.
With only the most basic hand-to-hand, one clean kick sent Chen Muhuai flying three meters away.
Chen Muhuai slammed heavily onto the protective mat, his features scrunched in pain, unable to get up for a long while.
That kick thoroughly sent all his inner complaints flying—leaving only one thought in his head: Have behaved. Please spare me.
Fu Songcheng: “…”
Speechlessly, he kicked Yu Huaiting back. “I asked you to spar, not kill.”
Only after Chen Muhuai endured that burst of pain and struggled to prop up his upper body did Fu Songcheng walk over and hand him a basic recovery potion. “He moves fast, but before he applies force, his shoulder dips very slightly. Don’t stare at his legs—watch his shoulder. You need to learn to analyze an enemy’s combat habits. A few more rounds.”
Chen Muhuai downed the potion and, with a roar, charged at Yu Huaiting again.
Unsurprisingly, after barely two exchanges, he was violently flung down again.
On one side was Yu Huaiting’s merciless hell-tier beating; on the other, Fu Songcheng’s calm, precise technique analysis.
And so Chen Muhuai cycled endlessly between getting pummeled and chugging potions, feeling his little life flickering like a candle in the wind.
By evening, Yu Huaiting’s hands were sore from all the hitting, and Chen Muhuai could finally, under the other’s slightly loosened pace, barely last seven or eight exchanges.
“Can’t move… really can’t move anymore.”
Chen Muhuai sprawled spread-eagle on the floor, gasping and wailing. “You two living ancestors, tonight I’ll buy you a drink—consider it thanking my teachers.”
At the word “drink,” Yu Huaiting immediately glanced guiltily at Fu Songcheng.
He still remembered getting drunk and beating Fu Songcheng up last time. Bringing up old matters, he feared Fu Songcheng was still angry.
“Let’s go. But you’re only drinking juice.”
Fu Songcheng hadn’t taken that matter too much to heart—Yu Huaiting had sincerely apologized afterward, and he didn’t want to leave Yu Huaiting with psychological scars.
“Great!” Yu Huaiting’s face instantly lit up, and he pushed his luck, tightly hugging Fu Songcheng’s arm and rubbing against him.
Though Chen Muhuai was full of gratitude, watching this scene, he genuinely couldn’t bear to look.
…
Rest area tavern.
By the dim, hazy light, Chen Muhuai tipped his head back and downed half a glass of hard liquor in one gulp.
“Good thing you’re here.” He blurted this out of nowhere and reached out to pat Fu Songcheng’s shoulder heavily.
Yu Huaiting’s radar blared. His gaze instantly shot toward Chen Muhuai like a blade.
Stabbed by that murderous look, the heartfelt words on the tip of Chen Muhuai’s tongue instantly vanished. He gave a dry laugh and forced a recovery: “…to have such a wise, brilliant, and emotionally uninvolved-with-me great leader like you.”
Yu Huaiting let out a soft humph, only then withdrawing his death glare, and lowered his head to sip his juice.
“That’s just how he is. Ignore him.”
Fu Songcheng, at the center of the storm, smiled. The words seemed to be soothing, yet carried no hint of apologizing for Yu Huaiting—instead, it asked Chen Muhuai to bear with it.
Chen Muhuai looked at the two before him, a trace of uncontainable envy surfacing in his eyes.
In this instance where life could end at any moment, to have a beloved companion—how fortunate.
“I searched the player roster for three whole days. But my parents… they didn’t enter the rest area.”
The moment those words fell, the atmosphere turned heavy.
What it meant not to have entered the rest area—all three present knew it clearly: they’d been eliminated in the first round of novice instances.
Failing to obtain a ticket into the survival game meant death.
Seeing Chen Muhuai gripping his glass tightly, his hands trembling slightly, Fu Songcheng’s thin lips parted—but he found not a single comforting word he could say.
What use was comfort?
He couldn’t bring the dead back to life.
From a very young age, Fu Songcheng’s parents had passed away one after another from illness.
For a long time, he’d grown almost numb to the emotion of “loss”—even preparing himself mentally to lose everything around him at any moment.
At this moment, all he could do was sit quietly and play the role of a proper listener.
But Yu Huaiting was, by nature, unable to sit still.
While Chen Muhuai was immersed in sorrow, Yu Huaiting was holding a bubbly fruit soda, biting the straw and noisily slurping, the ice clinking against the glass with crisp sounds—forcibly shattering the heavy atmosphere to pieces.
Fu Songcheng gave him a helpless sidelong glance.
Sensing the gaze, Yu Huaiting immediately let go of the straw and blinked like nothing had happened. Those thick lashes fluttered innocently, and he even flashed Fu Songcheng a fawning smile, as if begging for praise: See how good I’m being?
Fu Songcheng sighed inwardly and resignedly raised the glass before him.
“You’re entering a formal instance tomorrow. Be careful in all things.”
Chen Muhuai took a deep breath, suppressed his emotions, and raised his glass with both hands to clink.
Seeing this, Yu Huaiting joined the fun and raised his soda glass too, the condensation on its surface refracting the tavern’s dim yellow light.
Ding—
Three glasses clinked softly together, the crisp sound quickly drowned out by the noisy surroundings.
Chen Muhuai’s tone was low: “For a tomorrow of unknown life and death.”
Yu Huaiting most disliked his mournful, sentimental manner and cut in loudly: “For tomorrow!”
Hearing that clean, decisive declaration, Fu Songcheng couldn’t help but laugh softly.
The next day, after seeing Chen Muhuai into the instance, Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting didn’t plan to linger in the rest area.
In these few short days, Yu Huaiting had dumped all the massive points he’d accumulated from fighting in instances without blinking onto Fu Songcheng’s attribute panel.
Agility, strength, mental power…
Every stat was forcibly raised to the terrifying level rivaling the number one on the rankings.
Because of this, Fu Songcheng entered the Power Ranking at forty-ninth place.
Fact proved that in any game, pay-to-win players are invincible.
He planned to lie low for now and see the attitude of the guild [Dawn] and the whole player base after a week.
Yu Huaiting’s “number one” status was too conspicuous—staying in the rest area now was no different from standing at the center of a farce. Better to go straight into an instance and cut the two of them clean out of the outside conflicts.
The two crisply pressed the option to enter an instance.
[System Notification: Loading instance.]
[Instance Name: Offering of Peace (A+ rank)]
[Instance Type: Role-play / Survival]
After a brief teleportation dizziness, Fu Songcheng was the first to open his eyes.
He hadn’t been dropped directly into the instance’s physical scene—instead he was in a pure white preparation space.
In his hand, he held a wooden plaque carved with two characters: “Evil God.”
The system’s cold mechanical voice echoed by his ear: [Player identity detected. Your initial identity in this instance is: Evil God. As a privilege, you may select one of the seven players present as your “Believer” in advance.]
Fu Songcheng looked at the seven player silhouettes floating in midair and rolled his eyes somewhat speechlessly.
Besides Yu Huaiting, who else could he choose?
Without hesitation, he raised his hand and tapped the air at Yu Huaiting’s silhouette.
White light flickered, and Yu Huaiting’s form quickly solidified in the space, slowly opening his eyes.
“Songcheng-gege.”
Clearly he’d also received the system notification and learned he’d been chosen by the “Evil God” Fu Songcheng—his expression visibly perked up.
He proudly showed Fu Songcheng the identity plaque he’d originally drawn.
“Look, the identity I actually drew is this.”
Fu Songcheng lowered his eyes to look. On the old wooden plaque were clearly carved two characters—
[Priest].
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