Fu Songcheng’s ear tips reddened slightly. He raised a hand and pressed it against Yu Huaiting’s chest, pushing him back a little distance, his tone indulgent: “Just came out of the instance—you’re covered in smells and haven’t even showered yet. And I brought you a little cake.”
Yu Huaiting pursed his lips in dissatisfaction but obediently didn’t take the next step.
He leaned in and planted two hard kisses on Fu Songcheng’s lips with crisp smack-smack sounds, then reluctantly let go, rolled off the bed, and picked up the neglected cheesecake, digging in with big bites.
“Delicious.”
Yu Huaiting evaluated indistinctly.
Fu Songcheng propped himself up to sit on the bed, watching him, marveling at the wonder of fate.
“Mm. Glad you like it.”
Glad you like it.
Fu Songcheng leaned against the headboard, opened his system panel, and skillfully brought up the communication interface to send Chen Muhuai a message.
Chen Muhuai was currently still in a solo mission inside an instance and couldn’t do real-time communication. Fu Songcheng could only leave him a message via love letter.
Yu Huaiting turned his head and saw Fu Songcheng writing a love letter. He leaned over, his tone sour: “What’s with you—sending love letters everywhere?”
Fu Songcheng didn’t even look up, countering flatly: “What’s with you—getting jealous everywhere?”
Yu Huaiting was choked off by that, huffily turned his head away, and ate his cake in a sulky, aggrieved manner.
After a while, the system gave a ding, and Chen Muhuai’s reply came back short and fast.
Just one single character: [Safe.]
Evidently he was fairly busy in the instance—being able to spare the time to reply with one character was already the limit.
Still, seeing that character set Fu Songcheng’s mind at ease.
Just then, the system popped up two more notification sounds in succession.
[System Notification: Player Lin Feng requests to add you as a friend. Additional message: “Fu Songcheng, hello.”]
Yu Huaiting’s eyes were sharp—he spotted the two characters “Lin Feng” at a glance. Like a cat whose fur had bristled, he grabbed Fu Songcheng’s wrist and threatened viciously: “Reject! Reject right now! Don’t you dare add him!”
Fu Songcheng looked at Yu Huaiting’s state of facing a mortal enemy and found it amusing. He tapped [Reject].
Before Yu Huaiting could continue his outburst, another message popped up on the panel.
[System Notification: Player Chen Yu requests to add you as a friend. Additional message: “Mr. Fu, hello.”]
Yu Huaiting frowned, about to repeat the trick and press Reject, but Fu Songcheng backhandedly stopped him.
“Wait.” Fu Songcheng’s gaze sharpened. “The two of them taking turns adding me—there must be something going on.”
Yu Huaiting, furious, wrapped an arm around Fu Songcheng and spoke by his ear: “I’d like to see what there is to talk about.”
Fu Songcheng openly showed him the system panel and pressed Accept.
Soon, Chen Yu’s message came through.
[Chen Yu]: Mr. Fu, did you catch an NPC in the instance? Lin Feng and I, in a previous instance, also ran into a very strange NPC.
Fu Songcheng looked at this probing message, a cold smile curving at the corner of his mouth, and replied rapidly.
[Fu Songcheng]: Already killed. What intel do you want to fish for from me?
Chen Yu was silent on the other end for a moment, as if weighing his words.
[Chen Yu]: No, Mr. Fu misunderstood. This time I mainly came to apologize to you.
[Chen Yu]: That NPC told us that we stole a victory that belonged to you. It cursed us out horribly… And after the A Thought of Old Dreams instance, we immediately entered an extremely high-difficulty instance and nearly died inside it.
Fu Songcheng raised an eyebrow.
An apology?
He didn’t believe they’d have any surplus guilt.
[Fu Songcheng]: None of my business. If you want to apologize, skip the empty talk and give something real.
The other side replied in seconds.
[System Notification: Player Chen Yu has sent you an item.]
[A-rank Item: Peeping Mirror]
[Function: After placing this item, it can continuously spy on the situation at a designated location.]
[Item Description: “I will always be watching you silently.”]
Fu Songcheng looked at the A-rank item in his mailbox, the smile in his eyes deepening—though the smile didn’t reach the bottom of his eyes.
They’d probably guessed that he hadn’t “killed” that NPC as his reply claimed, but had kept the Source Star NPC captive.
This so-called “apology” was really just a painless probe and a gesture of goodwill.
For players of Lin Feng’s and Chen Yu’s level, they absolutely had other S-rank items in hand.
Offering an A-rank item as an apology—neither cheap enough to seem beneath them, nor costly enough to hurt them.
But an item delivered to his door—how could he not take it?
Fu Songcheng accepted everything without refusal, casually tucking the [Peeping Mirror] into his backpack, and replied perfunctorily with a couple of useless lines like “you’re too kind” and “a pleasure cooperating,” then closed the chat interface.
Meanwhile, Source Star.
From the moment Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting cleanly “killed” Quan Heng in the system space—causing Quan Heng’s virtual body to dissipate on the spot—the livestream, interrupted by a “technical malfunction,” was finally restored.
The instant the livestream room opened, the long-accumulated bullet comments flooded the entire screen like a bursting dam.
[Holy shit! It’s finally connected! What happened just now, official? The signal cut out at the crucial part—are you insane?!]
[So how did Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting actually clear it? Can someone recap it for me?!]
[Rigged! Absolutely rigged! I saw that NPC talking to them!]
Facing the furious audience, Shen Ning sat before the director’s console, coldly directing the water army accounts under her command to start controlling the narrative.
[Internal news—apparently some employee dissatisfied with the company used their authority to tamper with the instance data, trying to take revenge on players inside the game.]
[Yeah, yeah, I heard that too. That employee seems to have been fired already—that’s why the signal cut out.]
[No wonder there was always controversy about unfairness along Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting’s storyline—so there was an insider!]
Under the water army’s guidance, the narrative began to gradually shift.
Immediately after, Death Party’s official account posted a notice in prominent positions across all channels.
In the notice, the officials sincerely apologized to all viewers, acknowledged the major lapse in internal management, and stated that the company’s higher-ups had already carried out emergency structural reorganization, clearing out all involved personnel.
At the end of the notice, the officials, in an extremely humble tone, begged all viewers to give the game another chance, promising more spectacular events to come.
Shen Ning’s cleanup work proceeded methodically. Quan Heng’s death had, ironically, quelled the controversy over unfairness.
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