On the fifty-third attempt, Yu Huaiting and “Fu Songcheng” emerged from the Avalon instance.
Quan Heng’s portrayal of Fu Songcheng was growing more and more convincing, and Yu Huaiting’s reactions were growing more and more identical to how they’d been in the original livestream.
To Quan Heng, it was like drilling a question set over and over—even without understanding why, he could arrive at the correct result.
“Settlement’s done. I’m heading back to my room.”
“Fu Songcheng” turned and walked toward the rest area without a shred of reluctance.
The frequency of his steps, the angle of his turn, even the shadow cast when he lowered his lashes—all matched Fu Songcheng down to the last detail.
“Wait a bit.”
Yu Huaiting’s arm barred across “Fu Songcheng’s” chest, precisely blocking his way.
“Fu Songcheng” stopped, brows furrowing slightly.
He didn’t immediately look at Yu Huaiting’s face—instead his gaze first landed on the arm blocking him, paused for zero point five seconds, and only then followed the arm up to look at Yu Huaiting, speaking coldly: “Move your hand.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry to leave.”
Yu Huaiting not only didn’t move his hand—he stepped forward and planted himself directly before “Fu Songcheng.”
“What do you want?”
“Fu Songcheng” looked at him in confusion, his tone just right.
Yu Huaiting froze, then irritably scratched his messy white hair. “I don’t know what I want either.”
He truly didn’t know. He felt he himself was strange, and Fu Songcheng was strange too.
“If you don’t know what you want, go get your head checked.”
Reprimanding Yu Huaiting verbally, but Quan Heng’s heart was leaping—he could feel that with each rewind, they drew a little closer to the tavern invitation. He was almost overfitting.
Soon. Just hold on a little longer. Wait just a tiny bit more.
At least so far, the plot had gone as he’d hoped.
“Fu Songcheng” turned cold-faced, stepping sideways to go around Yu Huaiting, while silently counting down in his heart.
Three, two, one.
“Don’t!”
Sure enough, Yu Huaiting stuck to him again, calling out to make him stay. “Clearing a B-rank instance this fast—let’s celebrate?”
“I remember you’re number one on the Power Ranking? You call this little bit of results worth celebrating?”
“Fu Songcheng” lowered his eyes. Just now Yu Huaiting had grabbed Fu Songcheng’s arm—but now he hadn’t grabbed his.
He watched Yu Huaiting’s hand almost greedily, but it was soon time for the next line. “Go back and rest, alright?”
“Let’s go for a drink! Just one!”
Yu Huaiting stepped back, deliberately drawing out his voice. “Look, I’m begging you like this—just keep me company!”
“Drinking alone is no fun.”
Finally, this moment!
Even though Yu Huaiting didn’t make those sticky, clingy little gestures toward “Fu Songcheng” that he had with Fu Songcheng, Quan Heng had finally gotten Yu Huaiting’s invitation. He’d finally gotten his chance!
Reason told him it wasn’t enough—there was still a difference between how Yu Huaiting treated him and how he treated Fu Songcheng. But emotion had already made its choice first.
Just this once. This time, he would kill Fu Songcheng, replace him, and leave the dream with Yu Huaiting.
“Fu Songcheng” closed his eyes, forcibly suppressing the madly rising corners of his mouth, and imitated Fu Songcheng’s helpless manner. “…Let go.”
“You agree?”
Yu Huaiting’s eyes lit up.
“I just can’t bear to let the tavern’s players face the ravenous you.”
…
“Fu Songcheng” shook off his hand forcefully and smoothed the rumpled cuff. “You lead the way.”
“No problem!” Yu Huaiting immediately beamed and walked ahead.
Walking behind, “Fu Songcheng” stared at Yu Huaiting’s unguarded back, his gaze turning utterly dark, a sick obsession curving at the corner of his mouth.
Success. He had no patience to go through countless more attempts—just like this, he’d clumsily tricked Yu Huaiting into the invitation.
Even if it was fake—wearing Fu Songcheng’s skin, using Fu Songcheng’s tone—Yu Huaiting’s response was like telling him: Congratulations, you got it right.
The system tavern.
The two sat down in a secluded, quiet booth.
The service robot glided over, projecting the virtual menu.
“Fu Songcheng’s” slender fingers tapped casually twice on the screen and ordered flatly: “Low-alcohol fruit wine. Put it on his tab.”
In truth, Quan Heng liked hard liquor—the stronger and harsher, the better he liked it, just as he liked a flamboyant, dazzling player like Yu Huaiting.
But after this, he decided to drink fruit wine.
Yu Huaiting leaned over to glance at it and smacked his lips in distaste. “Ordering this sickly-sweet fruit juice—who are you trying to fool?”
“You.”
“Fu Songcheng” leaned back against the sofa and asked frankly, “Since when do you get a say in what I drink?”
Though it was bickering with Yu Huaiting, Quan Heng somehow tasted a hint of sweetness in it.
Yu Huaiting snorted sulkily and turned to swipe rapidly through the menu, deliberately picking the highest-proof, most expensive hard liquors, ordering several bottles in one go.
The drinks were delivered.
Before “Fu Songcheng” was a glass of clear fruit wine giving off a peach aroma, while before Yu Huaiting was a spread of frosty bottles of hard liquor.
Yu Huaiting poured a full glass of amber spirits and tipped his head back, downing the high-proof liquor in a few gulps.
At the same time.
Source Star.
The real Fu Songcheng sat on the sofa, still digesting the vast, cruel truth.
Footsteps came from outside the door.
Knock knock.
“Enter.”
Fu Songcheng quickly flipped the documents face-down on the table, adjusted his breathing, and looked expressionlessly toward the door.
The gray-suited secretary walked in quickly, bowing respectfully. “President Quan, the hibernation pod is ready. You may connect at any time.”
Fu Songcheng raised an eyebrow.
Quan Heng.
The founder of the Death Party game—the one eyeing his little dog lover, the driving force pushing him and Yu Huaiting toward the Bitter Couple identity branch. Thanks to his experience in the instance, he’d quickly clarified his current identity while flipping through the materials.
Fu Songcheng leaned back against the chair without showing anything, his fingers lightly tapping the armrest as he unobtrusively fished for information: “Have all the parameters been verified? After entering the instance, can you guarantee I’m teleported to the designated location?”
The secretary nodded immediately. “Confirmed. The coordinates are locked near the designated booth in the system tavern. Your identity access port is open, and the virtual avatar to be projected has finished loading.”
“Ensuring you can smoothly interfere with Yu Huaiting and Fu Songcheng’s interactions and interrupt their storyline.”
Fu Songcheng suppressed the chill in his eyes and stood up. “Then take me there.”
The secretary led the way, passing through a metallic corridor, and pushed open a heavy security door.
At the center of the room was a sleek, pure-white hibernation pod, its lid already open, blue breathing lights flickering inside.
The secretary stood by the pod and dutifully gave the final safety reminder: “President Quan, I still need to remind you again. Because this time you’re not entering in the conventional experience mode, but directly in physical-interference form into the player rest area, you will retain your memories but no longer enjoy a Source Star observer’s save-load ability.”
“In the rest area, Source Star people and Child Star people are subject to the same physical limitations. If you’re injured or killed in there, the damage will apply a hundred percent to your spirit body.”
Leave a Reply