Any secret admirer who received an invitation like this would probably wonder whether there was something wrong with their hearing or their ability to understand words.
Mu Ning froze for a moment, then looked up at X.
He was looking at her, too, waiting for her answer.
“…Ah. Sure.” Mu Ning replied.
Was this what it felt like to be so stunned by a piece of good fortune that had fallen straight out of the sky?
X nodded and turned toward the entrance of the office park. As they walked, he asked, “What kind of food do you usually eat?”
“The food around here is pretty similar, so anything is fine.” Mu Ning asked, “Is there anything you don’t eat?”
“I’m not very good with spicy food.”
“Then how about chicken soup rice?”
“The place next to Yoshinoya?”
“Yes.” Mu Ning smiled. “The food there is pretty good, right?”
X nodded.
There were plenty of restaurants around the office park, enough to satisfy the lunch needs of all the office workers. Since everyone had limited time and hated waiting in line, they would immediately move on to the next restaurant if their first choice was too crowded.
Fast-food restaurants also served customers quickly, so when Mu Ning and X arrived, a table had just become available.
A server wiped down the table, and the two sat across from each other and scanned the QR codes to order their meals.
There was a glass pitcher of water on the table. Mu Ning took two black ceramic cups, filled them with water, and handed one to X.
He accepted it and thanked her.
Then he glanced at her with his deep brown eyes, raised the cup, and took a sip.
“You said you liked Nova’s character. Could you tell me why?”
Echoes of the Ruins was a pixel-art puzzle game available on Steam. Its puzzles were moderately difficult, and its story was quite interesting.
Among all the NPCs, Nova was one of the more annoying characters. Not only did he damage an important item belonging to the player right at the beginning, but he also frequently ignored what people told him and spoke in a confusing, disjointed way.
Mu Ning guessed that X liked the game, too. It was also possible that he had been involved in some part of its development.
“Maybe it’s because I’m sensitive to these things as a narrative designer. About a third of the way through his storyline, I gradually began to feel that his real personality wasn’t actually the way he presented himself.”
“What was he really like?”
“There have already been plenty of analyses and interpretations of his character.”
“Mm.” X put down his cup and looked at her. “I’d like to hear your interpretation from back then.”
“He’s actually very sensitive and gentle. He wants to sincerely care for other people, but he’s afraid that they won’t return his feelings and that he’ll end up getting hurt. So he acts crazy and talks nonsense to hide his true feelings.”
The main gameplay of Echoes of the Ruins involved exploring the Echo Tower, climbing higher and higher while collecting items, uncovering the story, and solving puzzles.
The developers had deliberately designed the first playthrough so that there was no turning back. Poisonous fog from the lower levels kept spreading upward, so once players completed the map they were exploring and entered the next level, they could never return to the previous one.
“The maps were designed so that you couldn’t go back, right? Before leaving the floor where Nova was, I suddenly felt uneasy about leaving him behind. So I went back to his room and checked every interactable object again. I couldn’t find any clues, so my only option was to click on him and trigger more dialogue,” Mu Ning explained.
Normally, once an NPC’s main storyline had been completed, the character would simply repeat random lines from a limited pool of dialogue.
“I must have heard every line at least three times. I was practically falling asleep, and just when I was about to give up, a new line finally appeared.”
Nova had complained in frustration:
“Ahhhhh! You’re so annoying! Fine, fine! Since you’ve kept me company for so long, I’ll tell you about a secret room where you can return to the previous floor. But it’s full of skeletons, so you’d better make sure you don’t become the next one!”
Mu Ning couldn’t help commenting, “I wanted to tell him right then, ‘The tsundere act went out of fashion years ago!'”
The moment she finished speaking, her ears caught a very soft laugh.
She looked up in surprise.
X’s lips had curled into a slight smile, but it lasted only a brief moment.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Falling for someone was an instinctive surrender to her feelings, something her rational mind had no control over.
Flustered, Mu Ning lowered her gaze to the teacup in front of her. She picked it up and took a small sip before speaking again.
“Can I ask you something? Were you involved in developing Echoes of the Ruins?”
Instead of answering verbally, X picked up the employee ID card he had casually removed when he sat down. He turned it around and held it out toward her, making sure she could see the front.
Spirit Whale Interactive · Echo Studio
Producer
Jing Xuan
Mu Ning’s eyes widened.
Every line on the ID card, including the neat identification photo against its plain white background, challenged everything she had assumed about him.
So even his employee photo was that handsome.
And his name was Jing Xuan.
The previous night, she had come up with dozens of possible names matching the initials JX, imagining countless combinations that might sound beautiful.
Yet his actual name sounded even better than any of the ones she had imagined.
“…So you’re the producer of Echoes of the Ruins?” Mu Ning asked.
She instinctively looked him over again.
Statistics showed that game producers were, on average, around thirty-two years old when they released their first game. Jing Xuan looked considerably younger than that.
…Of course, it was possible that he simply had a youthful face.
“I wasn’t the producer back then. I was only the lead planner.”
“I heard Echo Studio has a secret AAA project that’s already been approved for development. Could you be the one in charge of it?”
Jing Xuan nodded.
Mu Ning took another sip of tea before finally giving him a thumbs-up.
“You’re amazing, boss!”
Jing Xuan responded with another slight curl of his lips.
Then he asked, “You’re a narrative designer?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Which company?”
“Lightyear Matrix.”
“Oath of the Eternal Night?”
“Yes. You probably haven’t played it, though.”
“I have,” Jing Xuan replied. “I check out every game when it enters open beta.”
“How far did you get?”
“The third chapter of the main story.”
“Which male lead do you like best?”
Jing Xuan looked as though the question had caught him completely off guard.
“I…”
Mu Ning hurriedly clarified, “That’s not what I meant! I was asking which male character you think has the most developed personality and storyline, from the perspective of a producer or lead planner.”
Oath of the Eternal Night had launched two years earlier, and Jing Xuan had apparently forgotten some of its details. He thought carefully before answering.
“There was one character I still remember. I think he was a vampire, but I’ve forgotten his name. Sorry.”
“Valerius.”
Jing Xuan nodded. “Based only on my experience with the first three chapters of the main story, his character has more room for further development than the others.”
“He’s always been one of the most popular characters in our game!”
“Weren’t you running a collaboration event last month?”
“Yes.” Mu Ning smiled. “Did you help boost our sales by participating in the collaboration?”
“No. I usually only drink Americanos, so…”
“No, no! I was just joking!”
“Then which character are you mainly responsible for?” Jing Xuan asked. “Next time there’s a collaboration event, I’ll make a purchase to support it.”
“Valerius. I created his character concept independently during the game’s second closed beta.”
Jing Xuan paused in surprise.
For a brief moment, an almost imperceptible, delicate silence settled between them.
Mu Ning lifted her cup and drank some tea, suddenly afraid to look at Jing Xuan again.
Her gaze wandered until she noticed a server approaching with their food.
Two bowls of chicken soup rice, each with different toppings, were placed in front of them.
She should have been hungry by now, but her excitement, happiness, and the overwhelming feeling that everything was too dreamlike had suppressed her physical hunger.
Mu Ning scooped up a spoonful of soup with her white porcelain spoon. As she swallowed it, she felt as though her heart had been filled with a giant balloon full of hydrogen, making her feel light enough to float away.
They ate quietly for a while.
Mu Ning raised her eyes over the rim of her bowl and stole a glance at the man sitting opposite her.
He had such elegant table manners. Even when drinking soup, he barely made a sound.
“Actually, I happen to have two questions I’d like to ask the lead planner of Echoes of the Ruins. Would that be okay?”
Jing Xuan looked at her. “Hmm?”
“Why did you design the maps so that players couldn’t go back before completing their first playthrough? I’ve seen some negative reviews claiming that the developers were deliberately making things difficult for players.”
Mu Ning looked up at him, worried that the question might offend him.
Jing Xuan’s expression remained calm.
“The story has multiple endings, which are triggered according to what players collect during their playthrough. Preventing players from returning to previous levels during the first playthrough gives them a chance to unlock every ending. Otherwise, players would tend to concentrate on just a few endings, especially the ones with happy outcomes.”
“Oh, I see! The reasoning is actually pretty simple.”
“Mm. The motivations behind many gameplay designs are simple. Players just tend to assume there’s some kind of conspiracy behind everything.”
Mu Ning nodded.
“I have one more question. Was the anime Made in Abyss one of the inspirations for your game?”
“It seems quite a few game reviewers have already pointed that out.”
“But I wanted to hear it confirmed by the expert himself.”
“Don’t call me that.” Jing Xuan smiled. “But yes, it was one of the inspirations.”
“Was Girls’ Last Tour another one?”
Jing Xuan’s fingers paused slightly around his chopsticks. He looked at her, seeming genuinely surprised.
“How did you figure that out?”
“Even when the poisonous fog could catch up with the protagonists at any moment, the main story still gave them time to enjoy a proper geothermal hot spring bath, wash their dirty clothes, and hang them out to dry while the weather was finally clear. That part felt so much like Girls’ Last Tour!”
Jing Xuan stared at her for several seconds without saying a word.
Mu Ning began to feel uncomfortable. She wondered whether she’d revealed too much enthusiasm and was already trying to think of something to say to smooth things over when Jing Xuan’s phone vibrated.
He put down his chopsticks, picked up his phone, and answered the call.
“I’m having lunch. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”
It might not have been an urgent matter, but once the call came in, it was difficult not to feel that time was moving differently.
They didn’t continue their deeper conversation afterward. They finished eating in about ten minutes, left the restaurant, and walked back to the office park together.
The hydrogen balloon filling Mu Ning’s heart was now rapidly deflating. The thought that she had no idea when their next chance encounter might happen left her feeling deflated and miserable. Even her footsteps seemed to grow heavier.
They reached Building F in no time, and Jing Xuan stopped.
Mu Ning forced herself to perk up. She shook the paper bag in her hand and smiled.
“Thanks for the cake. Maybe we can have lunch together again sometime.”
Jing Xuan nodded.
Mu Ning sighed inwardly. She let her gaze rest on his face for one last moment before reluctantly looking away, accepting that their time together was over for now.
“By the way, I forgot to ask.”
Jing Xuan suddenly spoke again.
“What’s your name? I’d like to update your contact information.”
Mu Ning froze just as she was about to turn around.
“Mu Ning. Mu, as in admiration, and Ning, as in lemon.”
“So that’s why your WeChat name is ‘morning.'”
“Exactly! Next time we run into each other, you can greet me by saying, ‘Good morning.'”
Jing Xuan nodded.
After a two-second pause, he said,
“Good morning.”