Swoosh—
An arrow sliced through the air, embedding itself deep into the dead center of the bullseye.
Mr. Jiang Mo lowered his recurve bow. He tilted his head, studying the target seventy meters away, before pulling another arrow from his quiver to repeat the motion.
"Want to try the moving targets at seventy meters?" The coach stood beside him, completely relaxed. At this point, there was nothing left he could teach Mr. Jiang Mo. "It's a damn shame you aren't out there competing for the national team."
Mr. Jiang Mo released another arrow, then set the recurve bow aside. "I'll pass, Coach. It's just a hobby."
"Just a hobby..." The coach shook his head, a wave of regret washing over him. If Mr. Jiang Mo actually competed internationally and brought home some glory, he'd be able to ride those coattails for the rest of his career.
"Well, keep at it. I'm going to check on the guys in the other two ranges." He turned to leave, but his eyes caught someone storming toward them with an aggressive, hostile stride.
The man was a total stranger. The coach frowned, barking out, "Hey, hey! Who do you think you are? Don't you know this is a private training range?"
"Are you Mr. Jiang Mo?" The man completely ignored the coach, walking straight up to Mr. Jiang Mo and sizing him up from head to toe.
Jiang Mo nodded calmly. "I am. Can I help you with—"
"You're the son of a bitch who played with my sister's feelings!" the man roared, cutting him off. The moment he confirmed the identity, he lunged forward, grabbing Jiang Mo by the collar and pulling back a fist to strike.
Jiang Mo wasn't about to just stand there and take a punch. With the coach standing right there and security cameras running, he had all the proof he needed that the other guy initiated the fight.
He caught the man's incoming fist, twisting his body in one fluid motion, and executed a textbook shoulder throw. The guy slammed hard onto the floor.
"Jiang Mo! Stop, stop! I already called security!" The coach, just hanging up his phone, turned around only to find the arrogant intruder groaning on the ground, clearly in immense pain from the impact.
This was bad. If someone got seriously injured on his watch, his bonus for the month would be completely wiped out.
"It was self-defense," Jiang Mo corrected him earnestly. He nudged the man's leg with the toe of his shoe. "Stop faking it. Why don't you start by telling me who your sister is."
As long as it wasn't his wife's brother, it didn't matter. (Then again, Miss Lin didn't have any brothers, did she? Just some cousins on her aunt's side.)
"Brad!"
While Jiang Mo was lost in thought, the doors to the training range burst open again. Along with a few security guards, two women hurried into the room.
The coach felt a headache brewing the moment he saw them. "Mandy? Autumn? What are you two doing here... Wait! Is this your brother?"
"Brad..." Mandy rushed over to help He Zhao up. When she looked up at Jiang Mo, her pretty face was completely flushed with embarrassment. "I am so sorry, Jiang Mo. My brother caused you so much trouble."
"Screw that! You actually dared to throw me?" He Zhao clutched the back of his head, his face contorting in pain. "The hell you lookin' at? Keep walkin'. I'm telling you, it's the honor of a lifetime1 that my sister even looks at you!"
"Shut up, Brad!" Mandy looked like she was on the verge of tears. "No cap, that's actually low-key fire, but how could you come here and cause trouble for Mr. Jiang Mo? How am I supposed to practice here after this?!"
Jiang Mo remained entirely silent throughout the ordeal, content to just watch the drama unfold. Beside him, the coach and the security guards were completely bewildered, unable to figure out what kind of soap opera they had stumbled into.
Even the police found it hard to mediate relationship drama, let alone a few security guards.
"Mr. Jiang Mo, maybe we should give you guys some space to sort this out?" the coach suggested in a low, awkward whisper.
"I'm sorry about this, Coach." Jiang Mo sighed. He was thoroughly annoyed and didn't want to waste another word on them.
To be honest, he had only spoken a few words to Miss Mandy during their initial group training sessions. Once he booked the private range, their interactions were limited to polite nods whenever they crossed paths.
Once the security guards and the coach left the room, Jiang Mo spoke up. "Miss Mandy, I have never done anything to lead you on, have I?"
Mandy bit her lip, shaking her head vigorously. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Jiang Mo. My brother completely misunderstood, like, literally..."
"Misunderstood what? You clearly like him!" He Zhao pointed an accusatory finger at Jiang Mo. "The hell you think you're doin'? I heard you talking when I came to pick you up. If he didn't seduce you, why would you fall for a man who's already engaged?!"
...
...
"So, this short story on Zhihu2 is about a guy who clearly has someone he loves, yet he tricks another girl into marriage."
Inside the tiered lecture hall, the professor was droning on endlessly from the podium. Below, the students were huddled in their seats, using various clumsy or clever angles to hide their smartphones or whisper among themselves.
Though Ms. Lin Shuang had moved out of the university dorms, she maintained a good relationship with her three roommates. At the very least, they still sat together during lectures.
Right now, tucked away in the back row by the window, her roommates shared a short web novel with Ms. Lin Shuang. They claimed that all three of them considered it an absolute classic—a daily cautionary tale to ward off romance.
Zhihu stories were never very long. Within fifteen minutes, Ms. Lin Shuang finished reading the angsty, heartbreaking tale, leaving her scratching her head in sheer frustration.
"Ugh, what an absolute scumbag!" Ms. Lin Shuang whispered her review to her roommates.
The three girls nodded in unison, looking like proud mentors. "Nah bro, that's actually insane. No cap, he is a total red flag," the roommates added, their reactions to the story being identical to Ms. Lin Shuang's.
However, those three were perpetually single, while Ms. Lin Shuang didn't consider herself single at all. That brought a burning question to mind: Did Jiang Mo have a first love?
In the story they just read, the male lead could never forget his ex, yet he still deceived another girl into marrying him.
The original novel Ms. Lin Shuang belonged to had featured countless women. Most urban, male-oriented web novels were packed with female characters, and the Main God's Game format was no exception.
Jiang Mo's junior from the police academy, the senior female detective handling investigations at the precinct, the wealthy young ladies from various training courses, the strangers matched into his party during every instance of the game...
Ms. Lin Shuang was merely one of those wealthy young ladies with very little screen time.
Granted, she had read over eight hundred thousand words of the novel without seeing the protagonist get genuinely close to anyone, but who was to say an old childhood sweetheart or a high school campus beauty wouldn't pop up later down the line?
And knowing the genre, she would undoubtedly be ethereal, gentle, and quiet.
After all, Ms. Lin Shuang had read plenty of male-oriented web novels.
Connecting her phone to her Bluetooth earbuds, Ms. Lin Shuang dialed Jiang Mo's number. He had told her she could call whenever she wanted. If he actually picked up, she decided she would just hang up immediately.
The phone rang for a few seconds before Jiang Mo's voice drifted through her earbud. "Hello? Lin—"
Ms. Lin Shuang abruptly cut the call. Her heart rate began to accelerate. He had actually answered. Shouldn't he be busy hitting bullseyes right now?
Beside her, a roommate nudged her arm and whispered, "Ms. Lin Shuang, why is your face so red? Don't tell me you're listening to some R-rated audio drama during class? That's low-key wild."
"If I had an R-rated audio drama, you know I'd share it with you guys, no cap," Lin Shuang shot back in a low voice, earning a supportive thumbs-up from her roommate for being a true friend.
The phone in her hand vibrated twice. It was a couple of WeChat notifications.
Jiang Mo: Why did you hang up?
Jiang Mo: Did class just start, or did you call me in the middle of a lecture?
Summary:
Jiang Mo practices his recurve bow skills at a private training range until an aggressive man named He Zhao breaks in to confront him. Following a quick self-defense display where Jiang Mo throws him to the ground, Mandy arrives to apologize for her brother's wild misunderstanding. Meanwhile, Lin Shuang sits through an academic university lecture, reading a tragic online story that makes her question Jiang Mo's past relationship history.
Trivia:
Jiang Mo practices his shots at seventy meters out.
He Zhao accuses Jiang Mo of leading on his sister Mandy.
Lin Shuang has already moved out of her university's shared dorms.
The Main God's Game novel that Lin Shuang reads features over eighty thousand words of text without showing the protagonist getting intimate with anyone.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A traditional Chinese idiom meaning 'the fortune of three lifetimes,' used here to aggressively exaggerate how lucky Jiang Mo should feel to receive Mandy's affection.
2 ↩ Zhihu is a well-known Chinese Q&A and community website, frequently hosting user-submitted short stories, fictional serials, and web novels within its threads.
Notes:
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Autumn - A young woman who enters the training range alongside Mandy and the security guards.
• Mandy - A young woman practicing at the training facility who rushes in with security to stop her brother from causing a scene, becoming deeply embarrassed.
• Man - The given name of He Man, 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.
• Zhao - The given name of He Zhao, an aggressive man who confronts Jiang Mo at the archery range and gets thrown to the ground.
• 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.