[Damn! Damn! Damn!!]
[Help! Right now besides shouting ‘help,’ I seriously don’t know what else to say!]
[Me too… help!!! Can someone please come out and explain what on earth is happening? Is there a problem with the higher-ups of the game? It feels like the internal system bugs are getting more and more frequent lately! Although there were occasional system operation bugs in the past, it’s just been way too frequent recently…]
[Is it because of Jiang Yan? It feels like the frequent bugs and anomalies in the game all started after Jiang Yan appeared.]
[People used to say Jiang Yan is the Lord God's illegitimate child, and I thought it was just a joke. Just because he's good-looking, the Lord God favored him (even though many people won’t admit it, the Lord God’s preference for good-looking real NPCs is pretty obvious), but now, it really doesn’t make sense unless Jiang Yan is the Lord God's illegitimate child!]
[No no no! I feel like even calling him an illegitimate child doesn’t explain it! Everyone knows that although the Lord God created the game and has certain privileges inside it, he still essentially has to abide by the internal rules of the game’s instances.]
[Exactly! It’s like a game company in the real world developing a game. To ensure the game runs properly, developers can’t just casually tamper with the code, or the entire game will collapse.]
[It did collapse. Wasn’t that instance just now a complete crash?]
[That’s exactly the problem! How could an NPC who was already dead and devoured by the scrapped data flow of a collapsed instance possibly appear again completely intact?]
[Exactly! Even if the Lord God wanted to revive him, it would have to be after the instance completely collapsed, retrieving him from the scrapped data flow and reconstructing him. There’s absolutely no way he could appear in the instance just now like that!]
[Too creepy… way too creepy… by the way, in the instance, what were those few blue data chains surrounding Jiang Yan? That stuff didn’t seem like residual original data from the collapsed instance.]
[No idea, but clearly it was because of that that Jiang Yan survived the collapse.]
[So, what is Jiang Yan, exactly?]
[And that husband of his… it’s really strange. Although repeating system NPCs is a common phenomenon in instances, I’ve never seen Jiang Yan’s husband in any other instance. He only ever seems to appear in instances with Jiang Yan?]
[Right right right! His identity always seems to be Jiang Yan’s husband.]
[Regarding Jiang Yan’s husband, our guild once investigated this. We have some credibility here. That man named Yu Xiu, to be precise, should be Jiang Yan’s ex-husband. According to our investigation, the two divorced half a year ago, and after that Yu Xiu disappeared. Jiang Yan and his friends and family even reported him missing to the police.]
[Is the person upstairs from one of the Four Major Guilds?]
[No, we’re just an obscure little guild. I believe if we could find this out, the Four Major Guilds probably did too, just for some unknown reason, they never shared it or discussed it on the forums. Today I’ll talk about what we found]
[According to our deductions, Yu Xiu most likely entered the game during the time he went missing after divorcing Jiang Yan, and later failed an instance and became a system NPC of the main system. Now, here’s the question. Has anyone seen this man named Yu Xiu, either as a player or as a real NPC in any instance?]
[I brought up this question on the forums before, but it didn’t make any waves. He seems like he just....]
[But the number of instances each player and real NPC participates in is limited, and the people they encounter are also limited. Maybe Yu Xiu was eliminated and corrupted in his very first instance? So it’s normal that most players haven’t seen him.]
[We thought about that too. But like the person on the second comment said, the Lord God does show preference for good-looking players and real NPCs. What’s more, in the game’s entertainment section, the looks ranking always draws just as much attention as the strength ranking.]
[Exactly! Just like when Jiang Yan first entered the game. He hadn’t even finished his first instance, and he already shot up to the top ten of the rankings. For his husband to not leave a single name or image on the looks list is absolutely impossible!]
[Right now the situation is, even if you comb through the entire database of all current players and real NPCs in the game, you still can’t find a single trace of Jiang Yan’s husband from before.]
[Damn… those two… what even is this?]
[By the way, why hasn’t the main system announced the elimination results for that instance yet?]
[Hmm… I was just about to say. Even though we all saw that the entire instance collapsed with our own eyes, the progress display on the main system still has that instance stuck at 99%.]
[Huh?!!]
[Damn!! What the hell is this?!]
[Is the main system still bugging out?]
An already-collapsed instance is not marked as scrapped, no clearance or death reports for any players or real NPCs have been broadcast by the main system, and instead the instance progress is stuck at 99%. This has never happened in the history of the game.
At the same time, players who missed the Jiang Yan instance livestream because they were in other game instances logged into the forum after clearing their own
[What’s wrong with the main system recently?? I was doing the “Sea Kraken of the Death God” instance and halfway through the instance jumped to a volcano?!]
[Don’t even talk about it! Do you know what it felt like when I was fighting that snowy mountain wildman, and the white-furred beast suddenly turned into a Qing Dynasty zombie?! Damn! I couldn’t even use the instance-obtained items! If there hadn’t been a player with onmyoji tools, I’d have died right there today!]
[Sympathies… Compared to that, I’m just a real NPC, assigned the role of a rich heir, but I had to wear dirty beggar clothes the whole time and couldn’t even change. That’s really not worth mentioning now.]
[What’s going on, is the Lord God not working today? Is the main system going off the rails??]
[Uh… just a suggestion… maybe check out the replay of Jiang Yan’s instance.]
[Jiang Yan? What happened with Jiang Yan again?]
At this moment, the replay of Jiang Yan’s “Giant” instance had long been pinned to the top of the game video section, and countless players and real NPCs flooded in with “what happened” and left with “holy shit.”
In the past, forum posts about Jiang Yan were mostly just jokes.
Everyone just thought he was too attractive and eye-catching, which earned him the Lord God’s special favor.
But now, almost everyone realizes something truly unspeakable seems to have gone wrong with the main system’s operations, and this anomaly clearly has something to do with that bizarre real NPC named “Jiang Yan.”
#JiangYan
#WhatIsJiangYan
#JiangYanAndSystemBugs
#JiangYansHusband
---
For a while, the entire game forum was completely dominated by the name 'Jiang Yan', and posts themed around 'Jiang Yan' kept popping up.
Among them, quite a few players and real NPCs who are members of the Four Major Guilds took the initiative to share non-confidential information their guilds had investigated about Jiang Yan.
Among them, posts from members of Valen Church and Puppet Workshop received the most attention. After all, these two guilds had previously issued a public bounty on Jiang Yan.
[As a small nobody at the bottom of the guild, I can't reveal too much extra stuff. I don't know much either. What I want to say now is our Puppet Workshop targeting Jiang Yan really isn't because our boss is jealous of him!!]
[Yeah!! Who's the one spreading rumors that Movie King is jealous of Jiang Yan? Why would Movie King be jealous of Jiang Yan? What does Jiang Yan have that Movie King would be jealous of?]
[Exactly! No matter how strong Jiang Yan's momentum was before, he's still just a newbie NPC. Aside from the appearance rankings, he didn't even get into the top ten on any other list. Didn't even crack the top twenty. Movie King firmly holds the number one spot on the real NPC rankings. Why would he be jealous?]
[The funniest part is, someone even said our guild leader is jealous of Jiang Yan's looks? Come on, what is this, a real-world entertainment talent show? Do you think Movie King could be that shallow? And besides, isn't Jiang Yan's appearance famously plain?]
[I’ve always found that point really strange. Jiang Yan's looks feel just refined, delicate. The most notable feature is how pale he is. Why does everyone think he’s insanely beautiful? Of course, that 'everyone' includes me...]
[Me too... not just me, even in the instance livestream earlier, we saw it. Even included Cao Youfeng.]
[I’ve never figured this out. As everyone knows, there are a lot of good-looking top players in the game. Many are even widely acknowledged to be better looking than Jiang Yan. But people’s aesthetics differ, so usually there are differing opinions. Yet Jiang Yan somehow fits everyone's aesthetic.]
[Yes yes yes!! And those blue eyes of his. It's said to be some kind of iris heterochromia? But clinically, iris heterochromia has never produced such a clear blue. So beautiful it looks fake.]
[And weirdly captivating. My friend ran into Jiang Yan in a previous instance and said when he saw those blue eyes, he couldn't help but sink into them. He thought Jiang Yan must have some kind of charm item.]
[I’ve always wanted to say Jiang Yan feels like a ball-jointed doll, the kind of beauty that feels fake. Especially those eyes. Way too similar.]
[Could Jiang Yan be a custom-made doll by the Lord God??]
[But Jiang Yan has real-world parents, a hospital-issued birth certificate. According to the gathered data, he was indeed born naturally, not even a test-tube baby.]
[Creating a perfect human-like puppet and disguising it as a human identity shouldn't be hard for the Lord God, right?]
[Not hard, but what would be the reason? What's the Lord God's purpose?]
[Raising-sim project??]
[Damn! That is possible!]
[Don’t mislead people upstairs. As a member of Valen Church, the first guild to discover Jiang Yan’s abnormalities and issue a bounty, I may be a small nobody, but I can clearly tell everyone Jiang Yan's identity is not that simple.]
[Care to elaborate? What’s complicated about Jiang Yan’s identity?]
[My permissions are limited. I don’t know much, and a lot of things are confidential and can’t be disclosed.]
[But what can be confirmed is Jiang Yan is absolutely not some dependent raising-sim character for the main system or Lord God. On the contrary, Jiang Yan is highly likely to be an extremely dangerous existence to the entire game. Just look at the current situation. Jiang Yan is bringing BUGs. BUGs. BUG. That’s also why we’re hunting him.]
[Damn! Damn! Damn! Is that true?!]
[But Jiang Yan was born naturally, conceived and raised like an ordinary person. How could he bring BUGs to the game?]
[That’s exactly where the Four Major Guilds’ high-level members are arguing now. Valen Church and Puppet Workshop currently believe that Jiang Yan’s existence poses a threat to the game and to all players and real NPCs. But Dawn Guild doesn’t think Jiang Yan is a problem, and Yin-Yang Realm doesn’t seem to have taken a side yet.]
[So, what’s the attitude of the upper-level members now? Can you leak a bit for small nobodies like us?]
[I don’t know much, but from what I do know, the Four Major Guilds’ leadership can currently be summed up in four words: complete chaos...]
---
At the entrance of the Puppet Workshop guild base, many flashy posters were pasted up, most of them celebration posters for the achievements players in the guild made in instances.
Among them, Movie King was the main focus. And because Puppet Workshop had a relatively high number of real NPCs, the guild entrance looked like the front gate of a real-world entertainment company that showcases and promotes artists.
On both sides of the outer gate, the blue data walls were sprayed with all kinds of street-style laser-colored graffiti, stylish and trendy.
Even the guild members on duty today were dressed particularly flashy, with multicolored hair, various chains and accessories hanging on their bodies. The little girl leading them even had a circle of colorful laser streamers wrapped around her right wrist.
She squatted in front of the turnstile, chewing bubble gum as she looked at the man in front of her, who was wearing a crisp black business suit, a cartoon shark headgear, and carrying two cups of milk tea, and said:
“Sorry! The president already gave orders. Before Jiang Yan is killed, the Puppet Workshop base refuses entry to any outsiders.”
“Am I an outsider?”
Spade K shook the milk tea in his hand. Peach flavor, Movie King’s favorite. The silver ring on the ring finger of the hand holding the milk tea bag flashed slightly.
The Puppet Workshop duty squad looked at each other.
Speaking of which, though their relationship had never been made public, it wasn’t a secret either.
For so many years, the two guilds had a competitive relationship in public, but their leaders would enter each other’s guilds as easily as returning home.
Only, now it was different.
“Sorry, the president said, now you count as an outsider.” The little girl said while chewing her gum.
“Is that so? Then why is Su An here?” said Spade K.
Just as he finished speaking, a half-human-sized mirror appeared out of thin air behind the turnstile. Su An stepped out of the mirror, wearing his usual dangerous yet innocent smile: “I’ve been found out”
Spade K was always easygoing. If it were before, he would definitely have exchanged a few greetings with Su An and made a few jokes.
But today, he just said blandly, “So now I’ve become the outsider, and Li Jing is the insider?”
Li Jing, codename Priest, president of Valen Church, one of the four major guilds.
“That, I can’t say!” Su An smiled indifferently.
The air around Spade K suddenly turned cold. He was angry.
In an instant, everyone at the turnstile had a slightly stiff expression, and the atmosphere grew tense.
These past years, Spade K had been increasingly in a retirement-like state inside the game, rarely showing up in instances, even less taking action. He no longer looked like a player, more like one of the game’s internal administrators.
Moreover, because he was easy to get along with, players weren’t afraid of him.
But that top rank on the strength leaderboard that had never been shaken, those instance videos recorded in the game’s history, all reminded everyone that this man had always stood at the top of the game’s food chain.
He had even crossed into the torrents of system data and strange instance tides more than once, snatching back his lover and companions from the hands of the Lord God and the Main System.
Even if now he put on a cartoon headgear every day, trying to express his mysterious identity to players, he still couldn’t hide his bloodthirsty nature.
The little girl gave Su An a fierce glare.
Damn it! Every single person from Valen Church was a walking troublemaker!
Then she stared warily at Spade K in front of her, chewing her gum, and blew a pink, translucent bubble, then bit and popped it.
With a pop sound, a drop of cold sweat slid down her temple.
She understood. If today Spade K really wanted to eat meat, they would all become the meat in his mouth.
But the president’s order could not be disobeyed.
---
"The decor in your place is always so strange."
The man wearing a golden mask stood beneath a massive oil painting of a rabbit on a red velvet background, fiddling with a crystal-clear blue glass orb in his hand, and remarked.
This was the president’s office of the Puppet Workshop.
Unlike the formulaic interior designs of other guild presidents or high-ranking members, the Movie King's office décor frequently changed according to his mood, which was related to the ability granted by his item.
For example, today’s office was styled in a dark theme.
Emerald green silk carpet, yellow walls, chandeliers shaped like red and white mushrooms, strange glowing plants scattered across the corners, wallpaper, and ceiling—the entire room looked like a cave from another world.
Among it all, the most eye-catching was undoubtedly that over three-meter-tall giant rabbit oil painting.
A red velvet background, a white rabbit, and black mourning attire.
The label below the frame read the painting’s name: The Widowed Rabbit.
“The Widowed Rabbit,” the man in the golden mask read the name aloud and asked, “Did she kill her own husband?”
Dressed in a pure white toga with golden trim in a traditional classical style, he looked solemn and sacred, completely out of place in this cartoonish and surreal room that resembled Alice’s dreamscape.
“Think whatever you like.”
The Movie King, wearing a cartoon rabbit head identical to the one in the painting, lounged on a green hill-shaped sofa, holding a stuffed carrot plushie in his arms and a cup of milk tea in his hand.
Peach flavored.
“You don’t fit my room today,” the Movie King said as he looked at the man wearing the golden mask. “In twisted fairy tales, the priest is always the villain.”
The priest lifted his chin slightly. His expression was hidden beneath the golden mask, but the Movie King could still feel that he was smiling.
“Do you still think I’m the villain?” the priest toyed with the blue glass orb in his hand and looked at the rabbit on the sofa.
His voice was steady and ethereal, like a classical pipe organ playing in a cathedral.
The Movie King said nothing.
The priest continued unhurriedly, “The truth is right in front of you. The main system has already been heavily damaged. The Lord God’s current condition is not good. Do you still choose to trust Spade K?”
As he spoke, he tossed the blue glass orb to the person on the sofa.
The Movie King reached out to catch the orb and turned it over in his hand. The crystal-clear blue was purer and more sacred than the most beautiful sapphire in the world.
It was Jiang Yan’s eye.
Dropped from the giant’s level-two dungeon, the eye of Jiang Yan, who should have become a system NPC.
He still said nothing.
“I don’t know what Spade K’s stance is, and I don’t understand why he continues to protect Jiang Yan even when the evidence is clear. I only know that we’ve stayed in this world for far too long, so long that you and I have nearly forgotten that we were once human.”
The priest spoke as if chanting a hymn.
“To guard the gods, guard the world, guard all living things... This is the mission of us saints. Killing that demon called Mephistopheles, who seeks to seduce the world, is not a betrayal of our holy souls gifted by God…”
“Put away your item ability, it doesn’t work on me,” said the Movie King lazily from the sofa.
The priest paused, then withdrew his hymn-like tone and laughed lightly, as if nothing had happened. “I believe you can distinguish right from wrong.”
The Movie King ignored him, simply fiddling with the peach milk tea in his hand.
After a brief silence, he finally spoke. “That husband of his... what exactly is he?”
He, without a doubt, referred to Jiang Yan.
“A person whose every trace in the real world is fabricated and nonexistent. A being who harbors a frenzied obsession with the dead, who only appears as a fixed NPC in the dungeon where his wife exists. What can he be?”
The priest’s voice grew heavier. Clearly, he was very wary of him.
The Movie King fell silent again. The glass eyes of the rabbit head grew a shade redder, adding a touch of eeriness and bloodlust.
“Where is he now?”
“Where else could he be? The dungeon hasn’t collapsed. It’s in the process of resetting.”
—
"Yanyan, Yanyan?"
The familiar voice brought Jiang Yan back to consciousness. Before he could open his eyes, his body was already overwhelmed by the familiar pleasure and exhaustion, and the pain that felt like his body was being split in two made him tremble instinctively.
Pleasure and pain intertwined, and together with the familiar body heat and breath, he almost wanted to pass out again.
"Yanyan, Yanyan? Are you okay?"
Inside the narrow campus storage room, sunlight poured in through the small green glass window on the ceiling, scattering like floating gold.
The beautiful little fairy lay naked on the idle walnut desk, his waist held down by a large, slender hand. Fine sweat dampened his obedient black bangs, and bright kiss marks covered his cream-like white body, as if he were a porcelain doll that had been played with until broken.
"Yanyan?"
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