The group deliberately skirted the earlier topic and chatted about a few other things.
As the rest area’s simulated night gradually fell, the people in the tea bar slowly dispersed.
Chen Muhuai checked the time on his terminal, stretched, and stood up. “Alright, let’s call it here for today. I still need to go back and take stock of the supplies left from my last instance. Engineer Fu, let’s get together again when there’s a chance.”
“Sure.”
Fu Songcheng gave a slight nod.
Just as the group was about to disperse, an old colleague named Li Yang suddenly rubbed his hands together awkwardly and shuffled hesitantly up to Fu Songcheng.
He had heavy dark circles under his eyes, his gaze darting, as if engaged in some inner struggle.
“Fu… Brother Fu…”
Fu Songcheng stopped and quietly waited for what he had to say.
This subordinate had little presence in conversations or his project team—the honest, dutiful type.
Li Yang swallowed hard, as if throwing caution to the wind, his voice dry: “I know you rank pretty high on the Power Ranking, Brother Fu. I’m about to enter an instance again, but in my last one I used up almost all my life-saving items.”
“Brother, do you have any items you don’t need? Or… could you spare me a few points?”
The moment these words came out, the few who hadn’t gone far froze.
Points and items were life. Asking someone for these was no different from demanding they cut their own flesh and bleed in the real world.
Yu Huaiting had been lazily spacing out, but hearing this, his phoenix eyes—which always carried a hint of careless laughter—instantly went cold.
“Water in your brain?”
His body pressed directly toward Li Yang, and he said darkly, “Begging at our door? Who do you think you are, daring to open that mouth? And what’s your relationship with him, to go straight to calling him ‘brother’?”
Li Yang, frightened by the killing aura Yu Huaiting had honed through real blood and battle, staggered back two steps and looked to Fu Songcheng for help. “Brother Fu, I really have no other way. I don’t want to die…”
Fu Songcheng’s expression didn’t change. He raised a hand and lightly placed it on Yu Huaiting’s taut arm, his slender fingers giving a reassuring squeeze.
“It’s fine. I’ve got this.”
Yu Huaiting gritted his teeth, shot Li Yang a vicious glare, and retreated to Fu Songcheng’s side, his gaze still scraping over Li Yang like a knife.
Fu Songcheng looked at Li Yang, the corner of his mouth even carrying a very faint, very well-bred smile.
“Li Yang, back at the company, we worked in the same project team for three years.”
Li Yang nodded hurriedly, as if grasping a lifesaving straw. “Yes, yes, Brother Fu!”
“Since we worked together for three years,”
Fu Songcheng cut him off mercilessly, his voice without a shred of warmth, “how do you still not know that I, as a person, hate being asked for things?”
Li Yang’s expression froze on his face, the blood seeming to run cold throughout his body in an instant.
Fu Songcheng stepped forward. “The rest area guarantees all players their most basic living expenses—not enough to fill you up, but not enough to starve you either. Afraid you won’t survive the next instance, yet wanting to live—what you should do isn’t hold out your palm, but go to the training room.”
“I’m scared!” Li Yang covered his face, his voice frantic. “You think everyone’s like you and Yu Huaiting?”
“I watch the people around me turn into minced meat. When I close my eyes, I see those monsters’ faces! I want to live. I want to live even if it means crawling on my knees, drinking mud water!”
“Then go do it.”
Fu Songcheng watched his outburst quietly. “If you can do anything to live, then a better method than asking me for points and items is…”
“Go into an instance. Go fight monsters, or scheme against other players. Last time you used up your items and points to survive—I give them to you now, and you’ll use them all up again next time you enter an instance.”
“I’m not running a charity. My items and points also came from instances.”
At this point, Chen Muhuai, from a distance, sensed the tension in the air.
He knew Fu Songcheng’s words were entirely reasonable, but he couldn’t bear to see Li Yang like this either. He gave a laugh, put on a playful face, and leaned in, throwing an arm around Li Yang’s shoulder and half-dragging him a little distance away.
“Alright, alright. You—really, you’re so desperate you’re grasping at straws. Asking someone outright for items and points—how did you even manage to open your mouth.”
Chen Muhuai turned and gave Fu Songcheng an apologetic smile, throwing him a look. “Engineer Fu, don’t hold it against him. He’s just been scared out of his wits these past two days by the system’s headcount announcement. I’ll set him straight. You two go back and rest first.”
Fu Songcheng gave Chen Muhuai a deep look, said no more, and turned, tilting his head at Yu Huaiting. “Let’s go.”
Yu Huaiting looked at Li Yang, pointed at Fu Songcheng, then at Li Yang, silently mouthing a threat: “Engineer Fu.”
Then he followed Fu Songcheng out of the tea bar in a few quick strides.
Watching the two’s retreating backs, Chen Muhuai sighed and tapped a few times on his terminal.
Beep—
Li Yang’s terminal rang. He looked down to see 150 points transferred from Chen Muhuai.
Li Yang’s eyes reddened as he looked at Chen Muhuai, his lips trembling, unable to speak.
“Alright, don’t look at me like that. This is all I can give you.”
Chen Muhuai patted his shoulder, dropping the playful expression from before, and said earnestly, “Engineer Fu still feels a sense of old ties toward us old colleagues—otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed to come to the gathering, much less waste so many words on you.”
Li Yang clenched his fists tightly and said in a low voice, “But he…”
“He’s not heartless.”
Chen Muhuai smiled bitterly. “Before I entered my first formal instance, I was nervous and anxious too. Before that, I’d been muddling along in novice instances.”
Hearing that Chen Muhuai had the same symptoms as himself, Li Yang couldn’t help being curious. “And after that?”
“Brother Fu shared some instance experience with me, and he and his boyfriend even trained me together.”
Chen Muhuai recalled that painful experience, both grateful and frightened in retrospect. “He and Yu Huaiting acted as my sparring partners in the training room. Yu Huaiting beat me until my whole body ached. But afterward, when I entered instances, I learned how to dodge fatal injuries, how to keep my muscles’ conditioned reflexes under extreme fear.”
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