It didn't matter if it was a grueling thousand meters or just a quick lap around the housing complex-the moment her brain realized oh, they're exercising, a heavy wave of dizziness and vertigo would reliably hit her. Psychological tricks were entirely useless.
She had barely cleared a hundred meters before Lin Shuang felt like her lungs were actively trying to combust.
Why was she running again? Oh, right. To stay alive.
Yet, mid-stride, she found herself seriously questioning whether staying alive was even worth this much trouble.
"Don't breathe through your mouth," Jiang Mo said, his voice floating over as if from some distant shore. "Use your nose. We can slow the pace. There's no rush."
Lin Shuang clamped her mouth shut and trailed behind Jiang Mo, tracing a full loop around the complex. The moment they completed the lap, she decided her physical exertion for the day had officially reached its absolute limit.
"No more..." She slowed to a dragging walk, waving a hand dismissively as she sucked in air. "I'm... I'm done!"
Before she could finish her declaration of independence, her wrist was caught in a firm grip. The male protagonist, looking entirely unaffected by the cardio, picked up the pace like a relentless demon, dragging a miserable Lin Shuang along with him.
Though evening had fallen and the blistering sun had dipped below the horizon, the ambient temperature remained stifling. Even a light jog was enough to drench a person in sweat. Lin Shuang was the unfortunate type whose face flushed a violent, bright crimson the moment her heart rate spiked. With her hair pasted to her forehead by sweat, she was acutely aware that she currently looked like an absolute trainwreck1.
Jiang Mo, naturally, was her exact polar opposite.
Aside from a light sheen of perspiration, the only real change brought on by the workout was a palpable spike in his masculine aura. It suddenly clicked for Lin Shuang why women gravitated toward athletic men. Beyond the obvious benefit of a great physique, there was an undeniable magnetism to a man radiating raw energy post-workout. Especially basketball players-the jersey-style uniforms highlighting clean, well-defined muscle lines, the brief flash of abs beneath the hem when leaping for a jump shot, and the water droplets scattering from their hair during a halftime break...
"Do you play basketball, Mr. Jiang?"
Suddenly struck by inspiration, her mind flooded with vivid, highly aesthetic mental images. She actually forgot the agonizing burning in her chest for a moment, her pace picking up slightly.
"I played for a bit back in university," Jiang Mo replied. He paused, a hint of reflection tempering his tone. "At the time, I figured it might help me land a girlfriend. But the police academy was notoriously short on women, so I eventually gave it up."
Lin Shuang stared ahead in silence. (Note to self: never ask him about his past again.)
Noticing her sudden quietness, Jiang Mo cast a sidelong glance full of mild confusion. "Why do you ask?"
"Just curious," Lin Shuang mumbled, her lips twitching. A sudden, sharp stitch2 flared in her side. It wasn't the dull ache of a menstrual cramp, but the distinct, agonizing pinch of swallowing too much air while talking mid-run.
"Let's walk it out," Jiang Mo said, slowing his strides to a casual stroll. "What time can you get up tomorrow morning?"
"What time do you usually wake up?" Lin Shuang asked.
"Six," Jiang Mo answered.
"...Then I'll wake up at six too," Lin Shuang resolved. She rapidly calculated her usual night-owl schedule and decided she was officially enforcing a strict ten o'clock bedtime tonight.
In reality, if the stakes were high enough, anyone could force themselves out of bed. Lin Shuang knew perfectly well that building physical endurance was her literal lifeline. Even if she had managed to firmly latch herself onto the male protagonist's metaphorical pant leg, he wasn't a guardian angel who could materialize beside her at a second's notice.
Take the first round of the game, for instance. She had spawned on the third floor while he was down on the first. Even if they both sprinted toward each other, the margin for error was terrifyingly slim.
Jiang Mo didn't voice any skepticism regarding her sudden burst of discipline. Instead, he mulled it over for a moment before offering a soft, alternative suggestion. "Actually, you could sleep in until six-thirty. Just wait for me to come over, and we can run together."
Lin Shuang's internal alarms flared. She eyed him warily. "You don't trust me?"
"It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of safety," Jiang Mo countered gently. "I have the ability to drive over and accompany you, so you might as well wait for me."
"But isn't that incredibly tedious for you?" Lin Shuang asked. "You have to drive fifteen minutes out of your way just to watch me suffer through a jog?"
"Aren't you worth it?" Jiang Mo said. He reached out, his palm lightly tapping the top of her head in a reassuring gesture before guiding her toward a nearby park bench3.
The bench faced a small public square. The evening dusk had brought out crowds of local retirees who currently monopolized the exercise equipment, while a slightly younger demographic lost themselves to the synchronized, rhythmic pulse of plaza-dancing4 nearby.
"You know about the accident that took my parents, right? I assume Aunt Lin filled you in," Jiang Mo said quietly, his gaze fixed on the bustling crowd. "I can't afford to lose anyone else I care about to a stupid twist of fate or a momentary lapse of caution."
He had never truly escaped the wreckage of that crash. It had fundamentally warped his perception of reality, casting a permanent, dark shadow over his worldview. His insistence that she never go out alone, his compulsion to swap out her deadbolts, his purchase of surveillance equipment-it all bled from a single, deep-seated terror. Jiang Mo was utterly petrified that a single oversight or his absence at a critical moment would result in the people around him coming to harm.
He delivered the confession in a perfectly flat, tranquil cadence. But Lin Shuang, armed with the meta-knowledge of the original plot line, possessed the perspective of a god looking down from above. She knew far more than Aunt Lin ever did. That car crash hadn't been a mere accident.
"Mr. Jiang..." Lin Shuang reached out, wrapping her hand firmly around his. Her mind raced at a mile a minute, desperately trying to calculate the optimal way to lift his spirits. Stripping away her knowledge of the future plot, a normal girl in this scenario should probably feel deeply moved and appropriately bashful.
And how did an arrogant, wealthy heiress typically express bashfulness? Probably by throwing out a line like, 'You have amused me, commoner. I am pleased.'
(No, absolutely not. Let's not derail the character setting into pure absurdity.)
After cycling through a dozen conflicting ideas, Lin Shuang ultimately lifted their joined hands between them. "In that case, why don't you just move into my complex, Mr. Jiang? The apartment right next to mine was sold recently, but I hear the owner is looking to rent it out. I'll cover your lease."
Jiang Mo blinked, turning to look at her. The heavy, suffocating melancholy that had been pooling in his chest suddenly dissolved into pure bewilderment. "Miss Lin, your methods of consolation are certainly... unique."
"I'm not trying to console you. I'm making a pragmatic inquiry," Lin Shuang said, her brows knitting together with earnest intent. "How else am I supposed to comfort you anyway? Tell you to 'accept my condolences' or give you some empty promise like 'don't worry, I'll definitely be fine'? You don't want to hear that garbage. Besides, I'm sure you've been sick to death of hearing people offer condolences for over a year now."
When standard people learned of a tragedy, a profound awkwardness usually took over, forcing them to retreat behind polite, hollow platitudes. But Jiang Mo had lived with that grief for a long time; those phrases had undoubtedly lost all meaning.
"Think about it," Lin Shuang pressed on, building momentum. "If you live right next door, you can just step outside your flat to find me in the morning. And if some actual psycho shows up, you'll be close enough to hear through the walls."
Furthermore, keeping him within arm's reach would drastically streamline her efforts to raise his affection meters. Then again, given Jiang Mo's fiercely protective and deliberate nature-the man was already shopping for engagement rings, meaning he had fully committed to the idea of marriage-the progress felt almost too seamless.
Was it really supposed to be this easy to win over the male protagonist? If he was this straightforward to manage, how exactly did the endless parade of women in the first half-million words of the original novel manage to fail so spectacularly?
Lin Shuang couldn't fathom what specific trait of hers had earned this singular favor. Riddled with genuine perplexity, her natural disposition won out, and she simply asked him directly. "To be completely honest, Mr. Jiang... there's something I can't quite wrap my head around."
"What's that?" Jiang Mo asked.
"Well... why are you being so incredibly good to me? And why are you so set on marrying me? Is it truly just because our blind date happened to go well?"
"Isn't the ultimate goal of a blind date to find a spouse?" Jiang Mo responded, his eyes locking onto hers with absolute sincerity. "This isn't a casual courtship. Because we entered into this with the explicit premise of marriage, every interaction we share is a deliberate step toward understanding, compromising, and adapting to one another. Every ounce of effort I invest in you is entirely worth it."
Summary:
Running alongside Jiang Mo within her neighborhood complex, Lin Shuang confronts extreme cardiovascular exhaustion and her own self-sabotaging thoughts about survival. Her subsequent interaction with him transitions from lighthearted musings regarding athletic men into a deep exploration of his lingering grief from his parents' fatal car accident. Seeking an unconventional way to alleviate his anxiety, she suggests that he rent the apartment next to hers to ensure her safety, leaving her highly perplexed about the true nature of his sudden emotional commitment toward their impending marriage.
Trivia:
Lin Shuang experiences immediate dizziness purely from psychological conditioning the moment she anticipates physical exercise.
Jiang Mo previously attended a police academy where the heavily skewed male-to-female ratio prompted him to quit playing basketball.
The tragic car accident that killed Jiang Mo's parents was hidden from common knowledge and was actually a premeditated event.
Jiang Mo has already gone as far as seeking out an engagement ring despite their interactions originating entirely from a formal blind date.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A modern colloquial exaggeration meaning "ugly out to the horizon," localized idiomatically here as "looked like an absolute trainwreck" to mirror the character's dramatic internal self-deprecation.
2 ↩ Refers specifically to a respiratory side stitch or transient abdominal pain induced by talking while running, which the translation notes is explicitly distinct from normal internal body aches.
3 ↩ The source text describes Jiang Mo lightly patting or tapping her head ("拍了拍...脑袋"), a ubiquitous romance trope in East Asian media often referred to as a "head pat" used to signify protective affection.
4 ↩ Square-dancing or plaza-dancing, a highly popular social and physical exercise phenomenon among middle-aged and elderly citizens in public urban squares across China.
Notes:
• Lin Shuang - Lin Shuang is a college student transmigrated as a cannon fodder in an infinite game. To survive its horrors, she adopts a detached persona, clinging to the male lead for security while finding solace in small rewards like cake. Navigating the original owner's complex social ties with anxiety, she hides her true self, focusing solely on comfort and survival within the deadly, surreal game world.
• Shuang - A college student who transmigrated into a web novel as a doomed side character, Lin Shuang is a delicate-featured girl with bangs. Anxious to survive the infinite game, she masks her desperation by playing the opportunist, clinging to the male protagonist, Jiang Mo. Navigating the game’s dangers, she monitors forums and leverages their growing closeness—even renting an apartment to stay near him.
• Lin - A university junior and Jiang Mo’s fiancée, she is a resilient survivor who transmigrated into a doomed supporting role in a web novel. With a delicate build and bangs, she masks her vulnerability with a clever, observant nature. After trading her sedentary life for tactical combat with a Tang dao, she meticulously practices origami survival skills and exercises with Jiang Mo to forge vital alliances.
• Jiang Mo - A cold, calculated strategist in the Infinite Stream, he masks a predatory nature with a gentle persona. As a former boxer living a solitary, tidy life, he balances lethal survival skills with a guarded temperament. He acts as a devoted protector to Lin Shuang, navigating the game's dangers with detached pragmatism and a methodical, controlled approach to both combat and his personal life.
• Jiang - Jiang Mo, a towering 6'3" former police academy student and athlete, is a top-tier survivalist in the Main God Space. Known for his powerful stature, sharp martial arts, and archery skills, he balances a pragmatic, stoic exterior with deep, trauma-rooted protectiveness. A weary-looking yet fit solo-ranker, he masks his intense devotion to his partner and fiancée, Lin Shuang, with cynical humor.
• Mo - Jiang Mo, known as Silent Jiang in the Main God’s Game, is a towering 6’3” martial artist and archer. Once a righteous police academy student, he is now hyper-vigilant yet remains calm and protective. He serves as a devoted mentor to Lin Shuang, with whom he shares a disciplined, evolving relationship—from forced laps to a deliberate, mutual commitment toward marriage, balancing his aloofness with care.
• He - A fierce, aggressive man who storms into a private training range to confront Jiang Mo over an alleged emotional deception involving his sister. A woman who speaks with strict, anxious bureaucratic formality over the phone. She is the sister of a man who caused an incident at an archery range.