Mu Ning had a habit. Whenever she was reading a book, watching a drama, or enjoying a movie and reached an especially exciting part, she would always switch to something else for a while before continuing.
After aimlessly scrolling through Xiaohongshu for three minutes, she took a deep breath and returned to the chat.
morning: Why did you buy me milk tea?
X: Because standing someone up isn’t very polite.
Her heart, which had been floating happily up in the sky, suddenly felt as though gravity had dragged it straight back to earth.
She had better not overestimate the situation. If she objectively examined the pitifully few interactions between herself and Jing Xuan, she wouldn’t arrive at the conclusion she was hoping for.
Most likely, he was simply very well-mannered.
morning: Then thank you!~
She opened the bag and discovered that it was actually fruit tea. Out of politeness, she sent him a photo of the cup with the straw already inserted.
Jing Xuan didn’t reply again.
Perhaps she had accidentally killed the conversation.
Mu Ning spent half an hour staring blankly at the four-star character card story that the outsourced team had submitted. She picked off the purple nail polish she’d applied out of boredom the previous Saturday, then drank her fruit tea, which had thirty percent sugar, until only a third remained.
After that, she opened Jing Xuan’s chat again.
It was like asking a hungry person to sit in a room with a delicious, sweet cake and expect them to remain completely calm.
Actually, Mu Ning had never been particularly ambitious.
Her family wasn’t wealthy, but they had enough to live comfortably. Throughout her childhood, whenever some new and popular toy or gadget came out, if other children had it, she could usually get one too after listening to her parents lecture her about it for a while.
Perhaps because she was reasonably clever, she never had to work too hard to maintain a ranking around fifteenth in her class. At the key high school in her hometown of Chucheng, that was already good enough to get her into a relatively low-ranked university among China’s top 985 universities.
She had chosen English as her major because her parents had given her a few options, and she picked the one she was relatively interested in. She wouldn’t admit that her real motive had been to make it easier to access overseas websites and read fanfiction written by foreign women.
Her parents considered working in the gaming industry unconventional and unacceptable. To Mu Ning, however, it had simply been the natural next step. If her parents had objected so strongly that they threatened to cut ties with her, she wasn’t incapable of compromising a little.
She disliked trouble. Whenever she evaluated something and decided that the effort required wasn’t worth the potential reward, she would simply give up.
It wasn’t as if she’d never had crushes on other boys. But after watching her classmates go through the endless cycle of getting together and breaking up, she’d decided that real-life romance was simply too much trouble. Compared with falling in love with fictional characters in a virtual world, its advantages were negligible, while its disadvantages were numerous.
At the same time, she had another problem. Whenever she tested the waters with a guy she liked and he showed that he liked her back, she would immediately feel that he was too easy to get. Her interest would quickly disappear.
Mengmeng had once spoken up on behalf of all those unfortunate boys.
“Girl, look at that face of yours! If you flirted with someone just to test the waters, what kind of modern-day saint could hold out against you for more than two rounds?”
And yet Jing Xuan was the only exception in her life so far—the only man who made her want to overcome her tendency to settle for the easiest option, her dislike of trouble, and her habit of losing interest too quickly.
She wanted to keep exploring his universe, again and again, until she finally discovered the ultimate answer to the mystery that was “X.”
morning: The fruit tea is delicious! Thanks again!
morning: I feel so much more motivated to work now. I could even pull a millstone all day!
Twenty minutes later, she finally received a reply.
X: I was giving a presentation just now, and my phone was on silent.
Then he quoted her first message.
X: Glad you like it.
morning: Actually, I don’t really like eating apples, so I’ve never tried this new drink before.
morning: It turned out to be much better than I expected.
morning: Although it’s a little sour.
Jing Xuan quoted the first of those three messages and replied:
X: I’ll remember that.
Then he quoted the third message.
X: Is it sourer than a lemon?
Heat quietly crept up Mu Ning’s cheeks.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, but she suddenly lost the ability to think of a proper response.
He might not look like it, but what if Jing Xuan was actually an expert at flirting?
He had a face so beautiful that he could probably have been breaking girls’ hearts in bulk since the fifth grade. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how popular he must be with women.
So could his way of speaking—perfectly serious on the surface, yet mixed with a subtle, almost imperceptible hint of flirtation—be some advanced technique that only a highly experienced player could master?
Mu Ning avoided that topic and instead quoted his earlier message about giving a presentation.
morning: What kind of presentation?
X: Internal training for the studio at Spirit Whale’s Dongcheng base.
morning: So they invited Teacher Jing to give the presentation?
X: Yes.
morning: Did you know you have an encyclopedia entry?
X: I know.
X: Did you look me up?
morning: I think it’s normal for someone to search for a person after discovering that the random WeChat friend they added turns out to be a big name in the industry, right?
Oath of the Eternal Night had official WeChat stickers, so Mu Ning picked a cute chibi sticker of Valerius acting adorable and sent it to him.
X: What did you think after reading my entry?
morning: My main thought was that you’re only twenty-eight!
X: Are you saying I look much older?
morning: I’m saying it’s incredible that you’ve already become such an amazing producer at twenty-eight!
A moment later, X sent her a sticker.
It was Valerius scratching his head with a smile.
Clearly, he’d followed the trail from the sticker she’d sent and added the entire collection.
X: Luck played a part in it, too.
morning: As the saying goes, luck is also a part of strength.
morning: No need to be so modest, Teacher Jing.
X: You can just call me by my name.
morning: …Jing Xuan?
X: I’m here.
Someone walked past behind her, and Mu Ning instantly closed the WeChat chat window at lightning speed.
She grabbed the fruit tea beside her and took several vigorous sips until the straw made an empty sucking sound. Her heart was still racing.
She had plenty of work left that afternoon. If she continued chatting with him, there was little chance she’d be able to concentrate properly.
morning: I’ll get back to work for a bit!~
X: Go ahead.
When Mu Ning chatted with her friends, she often stopped replying whenever she had something to do. Her friends were much the same, so nobody thought anything of it. Whenever they wanted to talk again, they would simply send a message and pick up the conversation naturally.
But after telling Jing Xuan she was leaving to do something, she found herself at a loss about how to start another conversation with him.
Mu Ning skipped dinner and worked straight through until eight in the evening. After clocking out, she went to the chicken soup rice restaurant they’d visited last time.
After eating at enough places around the office, she had realized that most of the food was much the same. The chicken soup rice wasn’t so amazing that it stood head and shoulders above every other dish.
She sat in the same seat Jing Xuan had occupied last time, scanned the QR code to order, and opened their chat.
morning: I’m done with work!
Her message received a reply two minutes later.
X: Then you must have been busy for a long time.
X: More than six hours now.
It almost sounded as though he were saying she’d ignored him for more than six hours.
Mu Ning really wanted to select their entire chat history and send it to Mengmeng, who had more experience with romance, to ask her to evaluate her impressions of Jing Xuan.
She felt that he was a little too good at this.
morning: I was reviewing the copy the outsourcing team sent over.
X: Are you the leader of the copywriting team?
morning: No. I’m just an ordinary worker with no official title or recognition.
morning: I’m pretty familiar with Valerius’s character, so I handle the distribution and collection of all outsourced work related to him.
X: Hasn’t your project been trending on the hot search lists quite often lately?
morning: Yes.
morning: We’ve given our competitors plenty to laugh about.
X: No.
X: I know it definitely wasn’t your fault.
morning: How do you figure that?
X: Someone who has the patience to trigger more than thirty conversations with an NPC just to unlock a hidden storyline must be a serious and responsible person.
Mu Ning couldn’t remember where she’d read it, but apparently, the most effective kind of “dirty talk” for East Asian people was actually praise.
She was beginning to understand why.
The waiter brought her meal. Mu Ning ate a couple of bites to give herself some time to recover before picking up her phone again.
morning: I heard the company at Spirit Whale’s Dongcheng base has a cafeteria. Is that true?
X: Yes. I’m eating there right now.
morning: You’re eating, too?
X: Too?
Mu Ning took a photo of her chicken soup rice and sent it to him.
X: Looks like you really like this place.
After hesitating between offense and defense for a moment, Mu Ning decided to launch a somewhat subtle attack.
morning: It’s not actually so delicious that I absolutely had to eat here again after such a short time.
A much longer period passed before Jing Xuan finally replied.
He sent her a photo of his own meal tray.
It contained meat, vegetables, whole grains, staple food, fruit, and yogurt. The variety and healthy balance were obvious even from the picture.
X: I tried it for you.
X: It doesn’t measure up to your chicken soup rice.
Over the past two years, artificial intelligence had become increasingly popular, giving rise to all sorts of ways to date AI companions. If you had a programmer friend who could help, you could even get around some restrictions and chat with AI about things unsuitable for younger audiences.
Mu Ning had tried the first option, but she’d given up after only half an hour because the experience was too awkward. She wasn’t sure whether she simply didn’t know how to train the AI or whether her background in copywriting had made her unusually demanding when it came to the logic and consistency of a personality conveyed through words.
At this stage of technological development, a truly interesting human soul was still a Tower of Babel that AI couldn’t reach.
Of course, future developments were another matter.
This was the first time she’d experienced how enjoyable chatting with a man could be. It was like a game of ping-pong, with the ball going back and forth between them.
The next day, Mu Ning was busy from morning until night. She rushed between various meeting rooms, attending meetings with the art team, the operations team, and her own copywriting team. Naturally, she had no time to play their little game of ping-pong with Jing Xuan.
After seven in the evening, half the people in the office had already left. Mu Ning went to the break room to finish her takeout, then returned to her desk and started working on the configuration tables.
She worked herself to the bone every single day, so why was there always more work left to do?
The notification sound for a WeChat message rang through her over-ear headphones.
Mu Ning clicked the icon in the lower-right corner of her screen.
A red dot indicated an unread message.
It was from Jing Xuan.
X: What time does your studio usually finish work?
morning: It depends. We get busier when there’s a version update. We’re about to start Valerius’s birthday event, so things have been pretty hectic lately. I can’t finish my work before nine.
X: Are you still working overtime at the office?
morning: Yes.
X: Then carry on. I won’t disturb you.
Mu Ning wanted to slack off for a while, but she also wanted to get home early. After thinking it over, she decided to power through and finish everything. Then she could go home, take a shower, lie comfortably in bed, and chat with Jing Xuan to her heart’s content.
At nine-thirty, Mu Ning ran through the copy she’d configured. There were no errors, so she saved her work. She fed a summary of that day’s tasks to an AI and had it generate a daily work report. After sending the report, she shut down her computer, clocked out, and left.
Sometimes, she felt that the only part of the day that truly belonged to her was the time between finishing work and falling asleep.
But by then, all her energy had been drained. She barely had enough strength left to enjoy her own free time, let alone spend it however she wanted.
With tired steps, Mu Ning took the elevator down to the first floor and walked out of Building C.
The seasons in this city were barely distinguishable. Even though it was already autumn, the weather remained so hot and humid that it felt like the height of summer.
Her phone vibrated.
The screen lit up with a notification from Xianyu, a secondhand marketplace.
Someone had purchased some of the merchandise she’d listed after leaving a fandom.
She opened the message and replied to the buyer, saying she’d ship the item the following morning.
Then she turned off her screen, held the phone in her hand, and started walking again.
“Good morning.”
Mu Ning turned around in surprise.
In front of the bench in the space between Buildings C and B, Jing Xuan was crouching down. He was dressed in his usual all-black outfit, and his black backpack rested on the bench.
He seemed almost to blend into the night.
Two cats had gathered in front of him, eating something from his hand.
Across the darkness, Jing Xuan glanced at her for a moment before lowering his head again. Patiently, he fed the cats the rest of what he was holding. Then he dusted off his hands and said to the little cats, “The person I’ve been waiting for is here. I have to go now. You two should head back, too.”
The cats seemed to understand him. One of them let out a little meow.
Jing Xuan stood up, picked up his backpack with one hand, and walked toward her.