In the hospital, Luo Tiantian breathed a sigh of relief, finally escaping that awkward situation that had made him want to curl his toes in embarrassment.
The test results wouldn’t be ready for another three days, but Su Xiao had already quickly paid all the fees. The final amount made Luo Tiantian’s eyelids twitch, a complex mixture of gratitude and unease rising in his heart.
“…Thank you.” He looked at Su Xiao, his gaze flickering slightly.
‘I won’t say I’ll pay her back later.’
‘I have no money.’
Su Xiao wore a bright smile, her eyes fixed on the tips of Luo Tiantian’s ears, which were slightly flushed from embarrassment.
“I told you, it was my fault to begin with. Besides, I’m happy to be able to help you. However, if you really want to repay me, how about we exchange contact information? You can’t refuse if I ask you out in the future, like for a meal or something?”
Luo Tiantian hesitated as he looked at her expectant gaze.
The other party had just paid a large sum of money for him; refusing directly would seem too heartless, and besides…
“I… don’t have much money to treat you to dinner.”
“I’ll treat you!” Su Xiao interjected immediately.
She took out her phone, pulled up her QR code, and looked at Luo Tiantian expectantly.
Luo Tiantian looked at her. She was probably wearing colored contacts, but was there a hint of a burning gaze in those blue eyes that made him feel slightly uneasy?
‘Is it a delusion, or am I being hit on?’
Ultimately, Luo Tiantian silently took out his phone, scanned the code, and added her as a friend.
“Then… I’ll head back first. Thank you so much for today.”
“Mhm! Be careful on the road! Remember to send me a message when you get home!”
Su Xiao nodded vigorously, watching Luo Tiantian’s figure quickly disappear around the corner of the hospital corridor.
It wasn’t until he was out of sight that Su Xiao retracted her gaze, the corners of her mouth curling up irrepressibly high.
She couldn’t wait to unlock her phone and tap on the photo she had just secretly taken. It captured Luo Tiantian’s side profile, his face slightly red and his eyes dodging hers. The more she looked at it, the more her heart blossomed with joy.
“Hehe, Tiantian…”
She muttered in a low voice, her finger tracing the outline of that exquisite cheek on the screen. She was completely immersed in the joy of her successful “pick-up,” failing to notice a familiar tall figure stopping not far behind her. That person’s gaze was fixed intensely on her, specifically on the exceptionally familiar face on her phone screen.
Shen Xixi almost thought her eyes were playing tricks on her.
She had followed the GPS to this location and immediately spotted Su Xiao, who was standing with her back turned, giggling foolishly at her phone.
Just as she was about to step forward and call her name, her gaze was firmly seized by the photo set as Su Xiao’s wallpaper.
‘Is that… Baosi?’
‘A game screenshot?’
‘No, that’s not right.’
The background was a modern hospital corridor, and the lighting was the fluorescent glow of reality.
But that face — those eyes, the curve of that nose, the slightly pursed lips, and that unique, cold, fragile temperament…
How could he be so similar to the Baosi she had encountered in the game? It was as if the same character model had been transported directly into reality, merely swapped into simple modern clothing and given a haircut.
‘It must be AI.’
‘That hateful Su Xiao, using an AI image to annoy me, right?’
Due to the displeasure of being offended, Shen Xixi’s voice was somewhat cold and hard.
“Su Xiao, what are you doing here? Randomly photoshopping my character’s picture to use as a lock screen?”
Su Xiao, who was immersed in her fantasies, was startled by the sudden voice. She turned around and, seeing it was Shen Xixi, her silly grin instantly transformed into the irritation of having her territory invaded and a stronger sense of defiance.
She immediately turned off her phone screen and protected it against her chest.
“What do you mean, your character’s picture? Nonsense! This is a real person I just met and successfully hit on. A living, breathing beauty! It has absolutely nothing to do with your broken game!”
She became more excited as she spoke.
“I think you’ve gone stupid from playing games. You see everyone as your NPC. Do you really think the whole world revolves around you? ‘Your character,’ my foot! Have you no shame? This is my beauty!”
Shen Xixi’s brow furrowed at this string of retorts, but Su Xiao’s reaction only deepened the suspicion in her heart.
“A real person? You just met him? In a hospital? What does he look like? What’s his name?”
“None of your business!”
Su Xiao stiffened her neck and took a half-step back, refusing to show weakness. “Why should I tell you? Anyway, he’s a thousand times, ten thousand times better looking than those fake people in your game. He’s beautiful and pitiful, with much more warmth than someone cold-blooded like you!”
Shen Xixi was moved to angry laughter.
Su Xiao’s defensive, bristling, and incoherent behavior was so ridiculous that getting angry felt like a waste of emotion.
“Fine. Your beauty, your warmth.”
Shen Xixi didn’t bother to entangle herself further with this obviously delusional person, and her gaze cooled down. “I hope it’s real. You keep on daydreaming here. Just don’t cause trouble outside, and especially don’t bring any random people back to my place.”
With that, she turned and left.
Her high heels clicked sharply against the hospital floor tiles, reflecting her surging displeasure.
Su Xiao’s words were like a small thorn, pricking a spot in her heart that she couldn’t quite identify, but it felt very uncomfortable.
‘Fake people?’
‘Cold-blooded?’
Shen Xixi admitted that she often lacked patience and warmth for people and things in reality, but that was because reality was often vulgar, troublesome, and difficult to operate according to her wishes.
Games were different.
Especially *Huaxia Divine Realm* and that Baosi — there, she could feel a level of realistic interaction she had never experienced before. It wasn’t just code and modeling; it was more like an entity with an independent soul and reactions.
The face on Su Xiao’s phone screen flashed through her mind again.
‘Was it really just an AI image? Or a coincidence?’
‘Could there really be someone in the world so similar to Baosi’s model?’
Shen Xixi shook her head, tossing the absurd thought away.
Rather than letting Su Xiao’s gibberish affect her mood, she would rather do something that allowed her to truly control the situation.
Returning home, Shen Xixi walked to the game room and sat back into the virtual pod.
The hatch closed, the system started, and her consciousness submerged.
The login interface flashed by, but she didn’t enter the game world immediately. Instead, she pulled up the top-up interface and the **[Deep Customization Service]** that required secondary verification.
She wanted to see Baosi immediately.
Right now.
King You’s character information loaded. she was in her palace study, but the expected red figure was nowhere in sight.
A system prompt appeared at the right time:
**[Respected SSVIP Player, the Special Assistance Character — Baosi, whom you are following, is still in a forced rest and emotional buffering state. Estimated remaining time: four shichen. This is a protective mechanism and cannot be skipped through conventional means.]**
“Cannot be skipped? That just means not enough money was spent.”
Shen Xixi clicked on the **[Deep Customization Service]** and found a sub-option labeled **[Emergency Summon/Status Reset (High Consumption)]**.
**[By paying a massive amount of game coins (convertible via real-world currency), you can forcibly awaken/reset the status of a specific NPC and briefly increase their interaction priority and emotional responsiveness. The consumption amount depends on the complexity and current status of the target NPC. Minimum startup amount: 500 game coins (approximately 50,000 dollars in real-world currency).]**
To Shen Xixi, it was nothing more than a bit of pocket change. The 500,000 she had topped up earlier had barely been touched.
“Activate.”
**[Please confirm. You will consume 500 game coins to use ‘Emergency Summon/Status Reset’ on the Special Assistance Character — Baosi?]**
“Confirm.”
**[Operation in progress… Resources successfully deducted… Attempting forced intervention… Conventional reset encountered resistance…]**
Shen Xixi didn’t even blink.
“Continue.”
**[Injecting additional resources… Intervention intensity increased… Please wait patiently.]**
The system prompts flickered several times.
Luo Tiantian had just returned home when he received several text messages.
**[My heart is filled with melancholy since you left, my dear. I specially bestow upon you fifty game coins to ease my longing. I hope for your speedy return.]** * 5
250 game coins!
He had received 250 just by logging in!
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