At this moment, what she was stepping on didn’t seem to be concrete, but rather some kind of sinking swamp.
How could walking on flat ground give her a feeling of weightlessness?
By the time the two of them reached the main entrance, the car had already arrived.
Jing Xuan opened the car door first, holding it steady, letting her get in first.
The air was clean and slightly cold. The center armrest in the back seat was folded down, holding two bottles of Nongfu Spring mineral water.
Mu Ning sat down, taking off her canvas bag and placing it on her lap.
Jing Xuan gently closed the door and reported the last four digits of the license plate to the driver: “2078.”
The car started moving, and the entire cabin fell into a subtly awkward silence.
Mu Ning unconsciously squeezed Nova the plush doll, using her peripheral vision to catch glimpses of Jing Xuan.
When he wasn’t smiling or talking, he really did seem cold, distant, and unapproachable—that was why, despite running into him so many times, she had never mustered the courage to go up and strike up a conversation.
“…Why did you book a private car?” Mu Ning asked.
“If you’re unlucky enough to get a smelly car, it’ll ruin your mood.”
Mu Ning curved her lips upward in the dim light: “It’s really not to hit your reimbursement quota?”
“Only business expenses can be reimbursed.”
At this moment, Mu Ning thought to herself that even if he happened to be a high-level player, she’d accept it—if she was only going to fall once in her lifetime, falling into this man’s hands wouldn’t be a loss.
The place was very close; it seemed like less than five minutes had passed before they arrived, before the seats had even warmed up.
The car pulled over to the side, and Mu Ning followed Jing Xuan out of the car, saying, “It’s this close, and you’re still used to taking cars to get around?”
“No. I usually walk. Occasionally bike.”
“Then we could have easily walked here too.”
“I was worried you’d find it hot.”
Mu Ning curved her lips upward again: “Next time you can ask me first.”
Jing Xuan paused noticeably, then said, “Okay.”
The bar faced the street. Inside, the lighting was dim, blues music swirled around, and low murmurs of conversation mixed in—not noisy at all. Mu Ning felt that “small tavern” was a more fitting description.
The place was full at this late hour, with only the bar counter seats remaining.
Jing Xuan asked if she was willing to sit there; if not, they could go somewhere else.
“Sitting at the bar is fine, I’m good with anything,” Mu Ning said.
The two of them sat down on the high stools. The bartender handed over the menu while greeting Jing Xuan with a smile: “Off work this late today too?”
“Yeah.” Jing Xuan tilted his chin slightly toward Mu Ning, signaling the bartender to pass the menu to her.
Mu Ning flipped through it, unable to make up her mind, and asked Jing Xuan: “What do you usually like to drink?”
“Coca-Cola.”
“…Huh?” Mu Ning glanced at him. “A Cuba Libre?”
“No. Just Coke with ice.”
The bartender quickly interjected: “On our turf, we don’t say it like that. We call it ‘dark soda.'”
Mu Ning: “And then one glass sells for five times the price of a can of Coke, right?”
The bartender laughed heartily: “The menu and prices are set by the boss, nothing to do with me.”
“Then I’ll have a ‘dark soda’ too.”
Bartender: “Got it. So that’s two Cokes with ice, right?”
Mu Ning: “…”
Mu Ning flipped through the menu again, then asked Jing Xuan: “Which of the snacks you said were really good is it?”
“We can order a snack platter—it has a bit of everything.”
“Is the portion big? Will we not be able to finish it?”
“I’ll do my best.”
The unpretentious Coke with ice arrived first, served in a Collins glass.
Mu Ning took a sip. It was refreshing and crisp, with strong carbonation.
“…Is it just my imagination, or does it really taste a bit better than canned Coke from the convenience store?”
The corner of Jing Xuan’s mouth lifted slightly: “Might just be the price filter.”
“You only drink iced Coke?”
“I occasionally drink other things. But I don’t have a high tolerance for alcohol, so I order those very rarely.”
“It feels…”
Perhaps because the distance between them was a bit far and the music a bit loud, Jing Xuan leaned his body toward her, tilting his head down slightly, and asked with a nasal tone: “Hmm?”
Mu Ning raised her voice a little: “It feels like coming to a bar and drinking Coke is very much in line with your persona.”
“What kind of persona am I?”
“…Not easy to sum up. A persona that’s pretty rare in real life.”
“Teacher Mu has seen a lot of personas?”
When Jing Xuan said this, he was looking straight at her. Even though his face was in the shadows, his gaze had a bright sharpness, as if probing into her heart.
Mu Ning turned her head away somewhat stiffly, held the straw between her lips, and took a sip of Coke, asking with a smile: “…Why did you start calling me ‘teacher’ again?”
Jing Xuan also picked up his glass and took a sip. After a moment, he said in a slightly muffled tone: “I don’t know. Just a feeling.”
“What feeling?”
Before Jing Xuan could answer, the server brought over the snack platter on a wooden tray with a handle, interrupting their conversation.
Seaweed squid, pumpkin tempura, cheese fish sticks, pepper chicken nuggets…
Mu Ning casually picked one up and tried it. The seasoning was wonderfully subtle—a deliciousness that felt refreshingly new.
“Are you someone who exercises often?” Mu Ning looked at him. “You eat all these high-calorie foods with cola, but you’re not fat at all.”
“I swim once or twice a week, but I don’t do much other exercise. I’m not really a fan of sports that make you sweat a lot.”
Mu Ning glanced at him, reflecting that she shouldn’t have had her mind instantly flooded with dirty thoughts when she heard that: not liking sports that make you sweat a lot—that’s a bit of a problem, huh.
“Swimming must be great for shaping your body, right?” Mu Ning asked again.
Jing Xuan took a sip from his cup and answered rather uncomfortably, “…Maybe.”
Mu Ning realized Jing Xuan had taken it the wrong way and quickly explained, “I didn’t mean anything else… I was just saying, if it works well, I’d like to try it too. I really lack exercise.”
…She shouldn’t have explained.
Perhaps because Jing Xuan realized his earlier reaction had been too self-absorbed, the atmosphere instantly became even more awkward.
—This was the trouble with the real world, wasn’t it? In the virtual world, there was no awkwardness. If you made a wrong choice, you could instantly switch out and re-enter, reload a save and start over, and if affection dropped, you could just pay real money for in-game purchases and spam gifts to raise it back up.
Was there any way to salvage this?
Mu Ning closed her eyes, threw caution to the wind, and said, “Swimming is great for shaping the body. It’s visible to the naked eye.”
Even in the dim lighting, Mu Ning could see that after a moment of surprise, Jing Xuan’s fair ears turned completely red in an instant.
Mu Ning took a long sip of her iced cola to cool herself down.
Alert cleared: Jing Xuan absolutely could not be a high-end player.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Of the whole plate of appetizers, Mu Ning liked the pepper chicken nuggets the most. After finishing one, she reached for another.
Her fingers touched something, and she paused, seeing Jing Xuan’s hand pulling back.
“You go ahead…” Mu Ning said hurriedly.
“You take it. I’m not hungry…”
As he spoke, Jing Xuan moved the plate closer to her, as if afraid she couldn’t reach it easily enough.
Their exchanges on WeChat had been so smooth and effortless, so why did everything become so clumsy and flustered in person?
And to make matters worse, after drinking too much cola, Mu Ning felt an uncontrollable burp rising up. She quickly turned her head away and covered her mouth.
After the burp, she glanced back at Jing Xuan.
The smile still hadn’t left his face.
…Could she file a complaint that this place didn’t have a crack in the floor to crawl into?
After her image was shattered, Mu Ning actually became a bit more at ease. She ate casually, drank her cola, and brought up a topic about Jing Xuan’s encyclopedia entry that she hadn’t gotten into on WeChat earlier: “So you were already making games back in college?”
“Yeah.”
“I looked up the game you entered in that competition and won second place with, Echo Tower. There are no resources online anymore, just some related articles.”
“That one was really immature. I took it down myself.”
“The articles said you made it entirely by yourself.”
Jing Xuan nodded. “I developed it with Godot. Compared to the mainstream Unity or Unreal 5, it has a relatively lower learning curve, so I could basically handle it alone. Since it was also my graduation project, my advisor gave me some support too.”
“What about the art and music assets?”
“Some were open-source resources, and some I paid for commissions. The character art and the theme song were commissioned.”
“How long did it take?”
“Around eight months.”
“Impressive.” Mu Ning praised him sincerely. “Will I ever get a chance to play it?”
“You already have.”
“…Huh?”
“Chapter four of Echoes of the Ruins is it. Though it was refined and improved from the original Echo Tower.” Jing Xuan looked at her. “The original Echo Tower only had two maps, five levels, and one NPC…”
“…Nova?”
“That’s right, Nova. The hidden ending of Echoes of the Ruins is the original ending of Echo Tower.”
Mu Ning was stunned.
She finally fully understood why, when she mentioned she’d gotten the hidden ending, Jing Xuan had immediately followed up by asking her to have lunch together.
She felt a shiver of fate washing over her.
Jing Xuan took a sip of cola and asked her, “What about you? How did you get into the industry?”
“Your tone sounds like you’re asking ‘how did you get into the adult industry.’ Although it does have that kind of miserable vibe, you don’t have to ask it so dramatically.”
Jing Xuan laughed at that.
“Both my parents are teachers. They spend all their energy and time on their students, so they never had time to look after me. I learned to entertain myself at a very young age. We had a computer at home back then, so I naturally got exposed to games. MMOs, Japanese RPGs, gal games, simulation management… I played pretty much every genre. Later, during grad school, a senior recommended me for an internship at a game company, and after graduating, I naturally went into this industry…”
Mu Ning noticed a hint of a smile forming on Jing Xuan’s face, stopped talking, and asked, “Did I say something wrong?”
“No… It’s just that you seem to be treating me like an interviewer.”
“…It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to poach me over to Spirit Whale Interactive Entertainment.”
“Not really recommended.” Jing Xuan said honestly.
“Why not?”
“The boss is a bit…”
“I see.” Mu Ning picked up a piece of pumpkin tempura and bit into it with a satisfying crunch. “So how’s your project going?”
“Not great. The boss doesn’t even know what he wants—he keeps overturning progress and starting over.”
“So how did you get roped into the project team?”
“Pie in the sky. And the power of money, I guess.”
“Pretty high annual package?”
“Decent.”
“Can you say?”
Jing Xuan glanced at the bartender behind the counter, who was listening with great interest.
The bartender let out a small chuckle.
Mu Ning leaned toward Jing Xuan. “It’s fine—we won’t let him hear. Just whisper it to me.”
Her long hair cascaded down, brushing against his arm, sending faint, ticklish ripples through his skin.
Her warm body heat carried a soft, sweet fruity scent. She tilted her head openly, offering her ear to him. Her earlobe was fair and delicately shaped, and because she had drawn close to the glass candle in front of him, it glowed with a translucent red, almost revealing the dark traces of her veins beneath.
Jing Xuan held his breath.