Mu Ning’s parents were both teachers. In their small prefecture-level city in the provinces—not the capital—one taught high school history and the other taught middle school math.
They were the most stereotypical kind of teachers in the eyes of ordinary people: stern, old-fashioned, and dedicated. And, of course, very conservative.
Even now, they didn’t really support Mu Ning entering the gaming industry. They felt that since she’d majored in English, the safest career path would obviously be to return to their hometown of Chucheng and take the civil service exam. The second choice would be to get a teaching certificate and become an English teacher like them. The third would be to work as a tutor at one of those education and training institutions that had been slashed hard and were barely hanging on by a thread. At the very least, she should do something international like that senior from high school, Xia Li, who also graduated with an English degree and had worked under Old Mu—something in operations. Otherwise, what was the point of slogging through six years of English study with all that painstaking effort?
Of course, Mu Ning didn’t dare talk back: So I can play every game that doesn’t have a Chinese localization without any barriers, duh.
In the family group chat, her two teacher parents would occasionally, without a word, send her an article from some public account—either about the National Press and Publication Administration tightening game license approvals, or about hundreds of game startups going bankrupt in some city, or about some state media outlet publishing another piece condemning some game for sexual innuendo and poisoning the physical and mental health of teenagers, or about some expert analyzing how the gaming industry’s golden age was over…
In short, they harbored a simple, long-standing wish: that this “electronic opium” industry would get wiped out in one fell swoop just like the tutoring industry, so she’d obediently come back home and take the civil service or teaching certification exams.
Meng Meng burst out laughing. “What can I, a Shandong girl, even say? I’ve already been disowned from the family tree.”
They’d arranged to meet for dinner on Sunday at some Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan bistro. Although Mu Ning thought that putting “Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan” and “Bistro” together had a weird vibe to it, she couldn’t resist Meng Meng’s curiosity for novelty foods.
As it turned out, the expected epic fail never happened—actually, a few of the dishes were pretty tasty.
Indeed, much of life is a process of forming prejudices, reinforcing them, or overturning them.
Mu Ning took a bite of rose-sauce grilled milk fan and continued, “Once, I couldn’t help myself and fired back with a statistical report. It said China’s gaming industry had an economic scale of over a trillion yuan, and one leading game company alone contributed 15 billion in taxes.”
“And then? What did your parents say?”
“My mom replied six hours later, asking me: ‘The real estate industry, which has already gone cold—what was its scale in hundreds of billions a few years ago?'”
Meng Meng laughed heartily.
Mu Ning: “Tell me, why do I go out of my way to humiliate myself like that?”
“Don’t they have any curiosity at all about what you actually do?”
“No. Before and after our game’s launch, we released a bunch of promotional PVs, right? After my dad watched them, he said the dialogue was too explicit and asked if I wrote it, telling me that as a girl, I shouldn’t create content like that.”
“God help us.”
Mu Ning shrugged.
“So if they found out your future son-in-law also works in the gaming industry, they’d disown you, wouldn’t they?”
“…Wait a second? Who’s the future son-in-law?”
“Jing Xuan, duh.”
“Shh!” Mu Ning looked around guiltily like a thief. “…We literally just added each other on WeChat!”
“With all that charm you’ve got, it’s only a matter of time.” Meng Meng grinned.
“Don’t exaggerate and mess with my head.”
“Any normal man would admit I’m speaking the plain truth.”
Mu Ning was flattered, the corners of her mouth curling up.
Meng Meng asked, “Any progress these past few days?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you already add each other on WeChat? Haven’t you chatted?”
“…No.”
Meng Meng’s expression was filled with doubt about her identity as an otome game writer who’d crafted a story line that had gone viral.
“He’s a real person, not a character I created…”
“Don’t you have any smooth talk to put to use?”
“…No.”
“Just ask him out to dinner, straight up.”
“…That’s way too aggressive. If he rejects me, I’ll be mortified.”
“If you don’t send a message soon, you’ll just rot in his contact list.”
Mu Ning sighed.
After dinner, she caught a movie with Meng Meng, then browsed through Miniso and a novelty goods store, buying a bunch of cheap, useless little things that would lift her mood, before each of them hailed a cab home.
After showering, Mu Ning lay in bed, did some light editing on the pretty food photos she’d taken today, picked six, and posted them to her Moments with the caption: “From now on, I’ll believe that any two seemingly unrelated things paired together are perfectly reasonable.”
This time of night was basically peak hours for everyone scrolling through social media. The moment her status went up, she got a few likes.
She pulled down to refresh, and a comment popped up—her heart nearly skipped a beat uncontrollably.
“X: Is it spicy?”
Mu Ning tapped on the comment, about to reply, then switched out and opened Jing Xuan’s chat window instead.
“morning: [Image]”
“Morning: I took a photo of this place’s menu, you can take a look~ There are plenty of non-spicy dishes~”
Soon, “typing…” appeared at the top.
Mu Ning often felt that the product manager who came up with the “typing…” feature must have deeply understood that the secret to increasing interpersonal engagement is “suspense.”
No one could see those six characters and not anticipate the other person’s reply.
“X: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you want to become a repeat customer?”
“Morning: 9 points”
The “typing…” indicator flickered on and off, taking far longer than the previous reply.
Just as she was full of anticipation, the blinking text disappeared.
Mu Ning grabbed the Valerius plush doll by her pillow and smacked it a few times, suppressing a bit of her exasperation.
She waited and waited, but X didn’t reply again.
Staring blankly at the chat window was just too silly.
But just as she was about to switch to Xiaohongshu, a photo popped up on the left.
A plush doll leaning against a row of books.
A wizard’s hat, a red scarf, holding a potion bottle in its hand.
It was Nova.
“Morning: Official merchandise? I don’t think I saw your official account post about it, or did I miss it?”
“X: Operations thought sales wouldn’t be great, so it wasn’t mass-produced in the end.”
“Morning: …Are you showing off? /knock /knock”
“X: No.”
Then, the “typing…” indicator flickered endlessly again.
What kind of earth-shattering news was worth him hesitating over for so long?
“X: If you like it, I’ll give it to you.”
“Morning: Really?!”
“Morning: Then I won’t be polite /cute”
“X: No need to be polite. Nova will be happy to be sent to someone who understands him.”
…So formal, so watertight. No wonder he’d made it to the position of producer.
“X: How would it be convenient to give it to you?”
“Morning: Call me a flash delivery”
After a moment, Jing Xuan finally replied.
“X: Okay. Send me your address.”
“Morning: …I was joking”
“X: I didn’t catch that.”
“X: Then?”
“Morning: How would it be more convenient for you to give it to me?”
Mu Ning wanted to take back her praise for that product manager: she’d sign a petition to remove this damn “typing…” feature. The heart of an unhealthy overworked office worker couldn’t withstand such extreme push-and-pull.
Finally.
“X: Tomorrow at noon 12, meet at the entrance of Building F?”
“Morning: /OK”
“X: See you tomorrow.”
Mu Ning deleted the tilde in her reply, not wanting to seem too eager.
“Morning: See you tomorrow”
Very calm, very proper.
The chat ended there for today. Mu Ning scrolled through the not-so-long chat history from the beginning, unable to stop herself from laughing out loud.
Reviewing and summarizing, she felt she’d performed quite well.
But the good mood that carried into her dreams was dealt a harsh blow the next morning, the moment she turned off Do Not Disturb on her phone.
At seven in the morning, Jing Xuan had left her a message.
“X: Sorry, I have an unexpected business trip. Should I give it to you after I get back?”
“X: Or I could arrange for a colleague to deliver it to you first.”
Mu Ning glanced at the outfit she’d carefully picked out last night, hanging on the RIGGA drying rack she’d hauled back from IKEA by the door, sighed, and replied to X.
“Morning: It’s fine. Let’s do it after you get back from your trip”
“Morning: Wishing you smooth travels~”
The reply came instantly.
“X: I’m really sorry.”
“Morning: No worries, no worries~”
The anticipation of meeting fell flat, turning into a dark cloud hanging over her head.
What was even more annoying was that Sister Gua had assigned the task of writing the plot for Valerius’s birthday card to someone she’d brought over from another team.
Mu Ning didn’t make any futile attempts to fight it, thinking, whatever, let it be.
Hopefully the revenue would plummet and the game would shut down, problem solved.
At noon, she had lunch with another unfortunate colleague from the copywriting team, and when she returned to the floor where “Lightyear Matrix” was located, the front desk girl called out to her.
“Your milk tea is here.” The front desk picked up a takeout bag from a certain tea shop and handed it to Mu Ning.
Mu Ning was surprised: “I didn’t order milk tea?”
The front desk checked the receipt: “It’s yours. Someone ordered it for you.”
Mu Ning took the bag, puzzled.
The delivery address on the receipt read “XX Tech Park, Building C, 23rd Floor, Lightyear Matrix Front Desk.”
The name was “Mu Ning.”
The phone number was the company front desk’s number.
The note read: “Please forward to Mu Ning from the copywriting team at the front desk.”
That way of writing with full punctuation at the end of every sentence—Mu Ning was very familiar with it, but she didn’t think it could be real.
Back at her desk, Mu Ning took a photo of the bag.
She spun her office chair, hesitated for a long time, then finally opened WeChat on her computer, pulled up Jing Xuan’s chat, and sent the photo over.
“Morning: I received a milk tea”
“X: Is 30% sugar enough?”