Fu Songcheng unhurriedly swallowed the rice porridge. When he lowered his lashes, his peripheral vision inevitably swept to the bedside.
Yu Huaiting hadn’t pulled up a chair—he was crouched aggrievedly by the bed, both hands folded over the edge, his chin propped on the back of his hands, staring fixedly at Fu Songcheng.
Those eyes that usually held a careless air were now bright and sparkling, brimming with crushed starlight, like a puppy hoping for its master’s praise.
Under his stare, the base of Fu Songcheng’s ears began to burn faintly again.
He stopped reaching for the spoon and cleared his throat, trying to make his voice sound steady, though it was still somewhat hoarse: “What are you staring at me for? Aren’t you hungry?”
Hearing this, Yu Huaiting’s gaze unscrupulously slid from Fu Songcheng’s reddened earlobe all the way down to the collarbone slightly exposed by the loose pajama—where several ambiguous red marks still lingered.
He looked at Fu Songcheng with a grin. “Not hungry. I’ve already eaten my fill.”
Fu Songcheng’s hand jolted to a stop. His mind instantly flashed back to last night’s absurd, out-of-control scenes—those damp kisses, the heavy breathing, his own uncontrollable tearful sounds…
Flustered and angry, his cheeks flushed bright red.
Without thinking, he raised his free hand, curled his index and middle fingers, and unceremoniously knocked Yu Huaiting on the forehead.
The force wasn’t actually heavy, but Yu Huaiting cooperatively let out an “Ouch.”
Fu Songcheng glared at him, then seemed to remember something and spoke hesitantly: “Don’t you find it strange?”
“Hm? What’s strange?”
Yu Huaiting tilted his head, taking the opportunity to catch Fu Songcheng’s fingertips resting on the bed’s edge, idly kneading his soft finger pads.
Fu Songcheng didn’t pull his hand back, letting him knead, his reason quickly returning. “We’re ‘Bitter Couple’ now. According to the identity rules, there should be an extremely strong contact penalty between us—but it’s been so long…”
Fu Songcheng looked at their clasped hands, still unable to suppress his blush. “By all logic, last night’s… degree of contact, plus how close we are right now—the system couldn’t possibly have no reaction. Why has the penalty mechanism failed?”
Yu Huaiting chuckled softly. His fingers slid along Fu Songcheng’s finger gaps, firmly yet gently interlacing with his.
“I don’t know either. But don’t you want to be close to me?”
Fu Songcheng was laughed into anger by this glib, impossible-to-reason-with-when-it-came-to-serious-matters demeanor. He set down the nearly finished porridge and opened the system panel.
He projected it directly so Yu Huaiting could see too.
The instant the light screen popped up, dense text refreshed madly.
The sheer volume of messages was staggering.
And the announcement hanging high at the very top of the public screen, bolded and pinned in crimson, read:
[System Announcement: Death Party 4.0 version update complete! Blue Star open beta now live! Welcome all new players to the carnival!]
Blue Star open beta.
Every ordinary person in the real world, without exception, had been forcibly pulled into Death Party.
The messages on the public screen refreshed at extreme speed. Fu Songcheng narrowed his eyes, rapidly catching useful information.
[What the hell is this? Everyone’s gone mad—everyone’s gone damn mad!]
[Help! Is there anyone who can save me! I don’t want to die! I just escaped a room full of mirrors!]
[Holy shit, so the people who disappeared before are all in here?!]
The vast majority of posts were filled with breakdown, terror, and curses.
Clearly they’d just survived their novice instances, their minds still on the verge of collapse.
But amid these panicked voices were also some from veteran players.
[Finally opened the public screen?]
[Pulling in people worldwide? How many are going to die?!]
[Selling low-grade healing potions! 10 points a bottle! Authentic, guaranteed! DM if you want!]
[Veteran leads newbie! High-level player leading F-rank instance runs, survival rate over 90%, guaranteed clear! Only two spots left, come quick!]
Panic and calculation, despair and opportunity—the whole spectrum of human nature.
Fu Songcheng watched quietly, his mood somewhat heavy.
He was suited to scheming and killing, but he didn’t like it. He’d rather be in the original world, scheming and weighing gains and losses with a bunch of clothed people—than watch people shed the outer garment of civilization and turn into beasts, trampling one another.
His own private message interface was unexpectedly clean.
Aside from a few system-issued version update notices, there were only messages from Chen Muhuai.
[Chen Muhuai: Engineer Fu! Did you see the announcement? The whole world’s been pulled in! I found a few more old colleagues.]
[Chen Muhuai: I’ve been soaking in the training hall these two days. Learned a few new fighting techniques. Let’s get the whole team together in a few days.]
[Chen Muhuai: Engineer Fu, you’re not replying again. Nothing’s happened, right?]
Fu Songcheng replied:
[Fu Songcheng: I’m fine. Just finished handling some personal matters.]
After chatting with Chen Muhuai for a few exchanges, they agreed to meet once Chen Muhuai cleared his formal instance. Fu Songcheng closed the private message interface.
“You knew already?” Fu Songcheng asked.
“Got woken up early this morning by the system bombarding me with messages.”
Yu Huaiting pursed his lips. “Ding-ding-dong-dong, so damn noisy—I turned off all message alerts. After that, I saw you were sleeping soundly, so I thought I’d order you breakfast.”
He paused, his gaze turning dark again. He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice: “You were too tired then—I didn’t dare wake you…”
Bang!
Fu Songcheng couldn’t take it anymore. He raised his hand and knocked Yu Huaiting on the head again—much harder than before.
“Talk properly.” Fu Songcheng warned through gritted teeth, his ear tips red enough to drip blood.
Yu Huaiting didn’t get angry at the knock. Instead, he stood up, grinning, and with a long stride got directly onto the bed.
He crossed over Fu Songcheng and sat cross-legged behind him.
“What are you doing?” Fu Songcheng’s body went weak; he instinctively wanted to dodge.
“Give you a massage?” Yu Huaiting’s broad, warm palm pressed directly against the small of Fu Songcheng’s back.
The pressure was just right—kneading and pressing the sore sides of Fu Songcheng’s waist, neither too hard nor too soft.
“Let me show you my messages.”
Yu Huaiting shared his system panel. Unlike Fu Songcheng’s clean interface, Yu Huaiting’s private message icon was flashing madly, the red dot at the top right showing a scalp-numbing “999+.”
“Your private messages blew up. Aren’t you going to look?”
Fu Songcheng raised an eyebrow and asked.
Yu Huaiting didn’t spare the cursor even a glance. “What’s there to look at? Apart from people cursing me, there are people trying to win me over, or trying to pay me to kill someone. Boring as hell.”
Fu Songcheng didn’t need to guess—after the 4.0 update, what new players cared most about was probably the rankings.
He glanced at the public screen. Sure enough, many people were already discussing the big shots on the rankings, and the frequency of the three characters “Yu Huaiting” appearing was absurdly high.
“Everyone’s entered the game now. Who knows if instance matching will get even weirder.”
Fu Songcheng sighed softly.
“It’s fine.” Yu Huaiting pursed his lips carelessly, his hands not stopping, even fawningly pressing at the hollow of Fu Songcheng’s waist. “Anyway, even combined they can’t beat me.”
Fu Songcheng rolled his eyes speechlessly and backhanded Yu Huaiting’s hand. “No one’s asking you to go fight.”
“Oh…”
Yu Huaiting dragged out the sound in reply, his previously animated expression instantly collapsing.
He pursed his lips, those just-bright eyes now drooping slightly, exactly like a large vicious dog forbidden by its master from going out to bite people—radiating regret from head to toe, as if to say what a shame I can’t go bite someone’s neck off.
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