“Proud, clever, steady yet not rigid…”
Quan Heng’s voice carried a bleak hoarseness. Like a prisoner who’d finally given up resistance, he made his last confession: “You won’t overshadow his light—you make him shine, and you’re no dimmer than him for it.”
“If I weren’t jealous of you over Yu Huaiting, I’d like you as a player too, Fu Songcheng.”
Yet Fu Songcheng merely stood in place, a hint of impatience on his face.
Quan Heng’s words were indeed pleasant to hear, but Fu Songcheng had never needed or cared about others’ evaluations—especially those from a defeated opponent.
Through the amplifier, Quan Heng seemed to want to keep rambling about his “insights and reflections,” but Fu Songcheng couldn’t be bothered to listen any longer.
He lowered his eyes and glanced at the watch on his wrist.
He had two minutes and fifty seconds left in the real world.
“Hope there’s enough time.”
Fu Songcheng recited inwardly.
Without any hesitation, he turned and strode off on his long legs, leaving the still-chattering Quan Heng behind.
Fu Songcheng walked quickly out of the office building, his gaze sweeping the street corner—he remembered there was a 24-hour convenience store nearby.
He walked briskly into the store and quickly locked onto an exquisitely packaged cheesecake in the refrigerated case.
Bringing back a “specialty” for the puppy—at zero cost.
Carrying the cake, he returned to the instance.
During the ten minutes waiting for Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting had spotted Lin Feng and Chen Yu, run over to fight Lin Feng, and beaten the man until he used a teleport item and fled in disgrace.
He’d also caught Bai Mu, made her return the love letters Fu Songcheng had sent her, and told her to keep her distance from Fu Songcheng.
At the same time, he’d given Chen Ke no small amount of trouble.
In those brief ten minutes, Fu Songcheng hadn’t been idle in the real world; Yu Huaiting hadn’t been idle in the instance either.
The moment he clearly saw the delicate little plastic bag in Fu Songcheng’s hand, his eyes lit up instantly. He reined in his antics and sidled up to Fu Songcheng, hooking his little finger against Fu Songcheng’s palm.
Fu Songcheng’s ear tips flushed faintly at the hook, and he gave Bai Mu a slight nod.
Seeing Fu Songcheng arrive, Chen Ke finally breathed a sigh of relief and swiftly tapped a few times on his system panel.
[System Notification: Player Chen Ke has transferred 1,500 points to you.]
“Mr. Fu, if there’s nothing else, please take Mr. Yu and go.”
Don’t leave Yu Huaiting here to plague him—Chen Ke was already annoyed enough just from work.
“If Mr. Fu ever wants to experience it again, you’re welcome to take Dawn’s missions anytime.”
Fu Songcheng glanced at the points in his account and nodded slightly. “If Dawn ever needs company for high-difficulty instances in the future, you can look for me and Huaiting too.”
Fu Songcheng was calculating the time in his head.
Based on his earlier estimate, the time flow ratio between the real world and Death Party’s rest area was roughly 1:15.
One day in the real world was half a month in the rest area.
He planned to take Dawn’s missions again after a month—exactly two days later in the real world—when he’d go have a “heart-to-heart” with Quan Heng.
And during this month in the game, he could use his deal with Shen Ning to visit Source Star’s channel and have a good “chat” with Shen Ning.
Fu Songcheng laughed at himself inwardly: so busy, holding tea parties everywhere.
“Let’s go.”
Fu Songcheng reined in his thoughts and turned to look at Yu Huaiting.
He still held the cheesecake stolen from the convenience store. Under Chen Ke’s expectant gaze, he led Yu Huaiting slowly away.
The moment Yu Huaiting heard the word “go,” he happily leaned in, draping himself over Fu Songcheng in front of everyone with no proper posture at all.
A flash of white light, and the two teleported away together.
Watching the spot where they’d vanished, Chen Ke rubbed his chin. “Bai Mu… are those two male colleagues?”
Bai Mu answered decisively: “Yes.”
The next second, Bai Mu lowered her head and, expressionlessly, shared gossip in Dawn’s core group chat with Xu Qingyao.
[Bai Mu]: Who gets it, family! Fu Songcheng took a newbie into a real-world instance, and the mission reward he got was just to swipe a cake from a convenience store for his little boyfriend!
[Xu Qingyao]: So shippable, so shippable!
[Xu Zhun]: Holy crap? I want a little cake too! Sister Xu, you’re the richest—please keep me, please treat me!
Xu Qingyao’s skill let her get extremely high discounts when buying items from the instance shop.
Most of Dawn’s public account points were in her hands.
She’d buy goods at low prices, then Dawn would mark them up slightly and distribute them to internal players or wealthy lone-wolf players outside, earning the difference.
So when it came to assets, Xu Qingyao ranked among the wealthy in all of Death Party—though it was all public funds.
[Xu Qingyao]: You pay me for the cake and I’ll give you a discount; but if you dare freeload off me, I’ll give you a fracture.
[Xu Qingyao]: Smile.jpg.
[Zhao Yixing]: That’s not how you rhyme…
Zhao Yixing, who came from a bamboo-carving craftsman background, carried a somewhat old-school literati air in daily life and couldn’t help but complain in the group.
[Xu Zhun]: Oh no, who let Old Zhao from the Qing Dynasty into the group? Kick him out, quick!
[Bai Mu]: I added him… Xu Zhun, don’t say that about Uncle Zhao. Uncle Zhao’s thin-skinned—he’ll probably leave the group himself in a bit.
[Zhao Yixing]: No way (不彳亍).
[Xu Qingyao]: Hahahahahaha! Why are you abusing the elderly!
[Peng Rui]: You’ve practically forced Uncle Zhao into using modern internet slang.
[Zhao Yixing]: …
On the other side, Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting had finally finished all the matters of leaving the instance and returned to their private space.
The moment they stepped inside, Yu Huaiting draped himself over Fu Songcheng like he had no bones, his tone carrying a rare sense of defeat: “Songcheng-gege, teach me how to run instances from now on.”
Fu Songcheng was taking the cheesecake out of the bag. Hearing this, his movements paused, and he turned his head with some amusement to look at him. “Isn’t your current way of clearing fine? Slay gods when you meet gods—can’t you just cut your way through on your own?”
Yu Huaiting’s head drooped on Fu Songcheng’s shoulder, grumbling sullenly: “Not fine. When I couldn’t find you, all I could do was cause destruction, and in the end it was that Lin guy’s group who found you first.”
The sourness and chagrin in his tone were almost overflowing.
To Yu Huaiting, strength was instinct, but when it came to unraveling threads and searching for clues to find Fu Songcheng, his combat prowess seemed clumsy and useless.
Fu Songcheng’s heart softened.
He turned around and raised a hand to ruffle Yu Huaiting’s messy white hair, just as many years ago, when he’d promised to teach him to read.
“Alright.” Fu Songcheng’s voice gentled, carrying encouragement. “I’ll teach you slowly.”
Yu Huaiting jerked his head up, eyes sparkling, and nodded hard. “Mm!”
Fu Songcheng opened the cake’s packaging box, handed him a little spoon, and asked seemingly casually, “Speaking of which, I’m curious—how did you finally learn to read?”
Yu Huaiting took the spoon, dug out a big chunk of cake, and stuffed it into his mouth, answering indistinctly, “I’m so smart—self-taught.”
Misbehaving again—dodging the question.
Fu Songcheng didn’t call him out. Following the thread, after finishing petting the dog’s head, he curled a finger and tapped him lightly on the head.
“Then let me ask you again—when did you remember that we’d met before?”
Yu Huaiting clutched his tapped forehead, his gaze instantly turning aggrieved, accusing Fu Songcheng: “Your memory’s terrible! You don’t even remember me!”
“During the Avalon instance, watching you fool them like teasing a child, I just felt—so familiar.”
Hearing this, the corner of Fu Songcheng’s mouth couldn’t help curving into a smile. “And your memory is so much better? It took you this long to recognize me.”
Yu Huaiting let out a soft humph, clearly dissatisfied with that assessment.
He set down the cake in his hand and suddenly made his move—wrapping an arm around Fu Songcheng’s waist and shoving him down onto the soft bed.
The two rolled once across the bed. Yu Huaiting pinned Fu Songcheng down from above, his gaze turning highly aggressive, as if appraising his prey.
“Then I’m hungry now.”
Yu Huaiting lowered his head, his nose tip nearly touching Fu Songcheng’s, their warm breaths intertwining. “Shouldn’t a boyfriend ‘feed’ me first?”
His hand restlessly slid down along Fu Songcheng’s waistline, his intent plain as day.
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