A Note Before the Foreword:
Regarding questions of purity: The female lead is not pure. Among the male leads, two have impure emotional histories but pure bodies, while the rest are pure in both mind and body.
The female lead’s personality is not perfect, nor are the male leads’. They all have both good and bad traits. The buff on the female lead amplifies their obsessions, not their abilities.
The female lead has a switch—her halo only activates when she falls for someone. So for a long time, she won’t understand the reason behind it, but even when she figures out the pattern, she can’t change her feelings, because the heart doesn’t deceive itself the way the brain does. She only has a thing for looks—her type.
My reading tastes are weird and niche, so I decided to write for myself. My writing isn’t great and there’s not much logic to it. Feel free to skim through. If you don’t like it, I hope you find stories you enjoy and never run out of reading material! Please be kind—kind words bring good karma. If you’re going to come in here with low-class behavior and spew garbage everywhere, don’t blame me for cursing you out.
One
When the doorbell rang, Chen Jia was in the middle of a heated argument with someone on the Guagua Forum.
She set her phone down next to her computer and went to open the door.
At the door stood a delivery driver she didn’t recognize. Chen Jia ordered takeout every day, but she could barely remember any familiar faces among the delivery guys and girls who came by. She took the food and was about to close the door when the delivery driver raised a hand to stop her.
Chen Jia’s hand gripped the doorknob as she asked warily, “Is there something else?”
The delivery driver looked like an ordinary working man—wearing a riding helmet, of average build, and with a middle-aged voice. He was scrolling through his phone, tapping at something, while apologizing to Chen Jia. “It was raining just now, and I slipped on the road. Not sure if the cake got damaged. Miss, could you open it and take a look? Ah, I hate taking cake orders the most. If it’s broken, I’ll have a new one sent over for you.”
“I didn’t order a cake,” Chen Jia said. She flipped through the receipt—the address and phone number on it were both hers, so it couldn’t have been misdelivered. She figured it might be from her online boyfriend, and her doubts faded.
She opened the package. The cake inside was perfectly intact, with no signs of damage. So she let the delivery driver go and returned to her computer desk, picking up her phone to continue the argument.
Watching the other person grow increasingly unhinged, their insults escalating from Chen Jia’s parents to her ancestors, Chen Jia fired off an even filthier retort, then decisively blocked them and deleted her account.
Only then did she have a moment to check her WeChat messages.
Because she gamed, Chen Jia was in a lot of group chats, all of them lively—she’d barely been away for half an hour and they were all at 99+ unread.
She tapped open a chat pinned at the top with an anime guy avatar: 22-year-old male college student, C City, abs guy.
The message was from ten minutes ago: “Baby, have you eaten? I ordered you a cake for a snack. Stop dieting.”
Chen Jia had been too busy arguing with someone to see it. Now she opened the cake, scooped up a big spoonful, and shoved it into her mouth—no sign of dieting at all. Her fingers flew across the screen as she replied, “Why do you keep ordering me food? So annoying. I want to get even slimmer so I look better when we finally meet in person.”
The other person replied faster than Chen Jia could type: “Don’t stress about your body. We’ve video-called before. I’m not going to judge you. You’re perfect the way you are.”
Chen Jia typed: “I really can’t do anything with you. Don’t order takeout for me again next time, okay?”
After seeing the sticker sent by the abs guy on the other end, Chen Jia exited the chat window and found a contact labeled “Doctor from City 32a.” The other person had already sent four or five messages, all urging Chen Jia about when she would get on the game.
As a healer ranked in the top twenty of the guild’s combat power, Chen Jia put on quite the airs. If it weren’t for this person, the vice guild leader, urging her, Chen Jia would usually find an excuse to decline. But with this person around, Chen Jia knew that no matter whether today’s guild war ended in a win or a loss, she’d still get a red envelope out of it.
Chen Jia quickly replied: “Just got off work and got home. Haven’t even had time to eat yet. I’ll get online right away.”
She was crafting an image of herself as someone utterly devoted to the guild.
The truth was that Chen Jia had been holed up at home for over a year already—otherwise, why would she be in the game looking for a romantic partner to mooch off of?
Seeing Chen Jia’s reply, the other person’s messages became less urgent: “No rush, eat first. Just be online and in the voice channel by 7:30 sharp.”
This guy didn’t usually interact much with Chen Jia. She’d heard through the grapevine that he had a wife and kids in real life. He was generous with red envelopes in the group chat but never flirted with women. Several of Chen Jia’s girlfriends had tried their luck with him—some were even prettier than Chen Jia, not heavily photoshopped, and more skilled at playing the game than she was—but none of them managed to win him over. Everyone privately concluded that this guy really was just here to play the game, so they turned their attention elsewhere.
Chen Jia’s current in-game partner was ranked third on the assassin leaderboard. You see, the healer leaderboard Chen Jia was on was mostly played by actual girls, with very few guys pretending to be female. Aside from a few rich women, very few people actually bothered to compete for rankings. Even Chen Jia had to spend a hefty amount of money just to barely reach the top ten, trading blows back and forth with the ninth-ranked “Pear Blossom Jam.”
The competition among those on the assassin and warrior leaderboards was far more intense. Chen Jia’s partner was probably some rich heir in real life—at least his family had some money. He’d only been playing this game for three months and had already climbed to third place on the leaderboard, showing just how deep his pockets ran. He was also very generous with gifts for Chen Jia. Every time a new version update brought a recharge-for-white-hair event, the abs guy would log into her account and top it up to the guaranteed 4,000 yuan, letting Chen Jia pull the gacha herself.
Speaking of how the two of them became partners, Chen Jia actually hadn’t planned on getting together with this abs guy.
At the time, the abs guy had only been playing the game for a week. Chen Jia’s guild was ranked second, with good benefits, but not as cutthroat as the number one guild.
Chen Jia was wearing a new outfit her in-game master had gifted her, idling around, when she happened to see her master leading a newbie from the guild through a dungeon.
Chen Jia loved showing off. She immediately applied to join the party, and the moment she got in, she turned on her mic and fussed over her master with concern, as if she was afraid the newbie dungeon would exhaust him. Chen Jia’s looks were average, and most of the photos on her social media were heavily edited, but she had a sweet, adorable voice. It soothed her master—a man with a thing for loli voices—to no end. He genuinely felt that his current disciple was wonderful and really cared about him, unlike his previous disciples who would say thanks after receiving gifts and then rarely keep in touch.
Rich guys cared about emotional value too.
So the abs guy developed a bit of a favorable impression of Chen Jia on the spot. In the days that followed, as they spent time together in the guild, the abs guy noticed that although Chen Jia seemed wealthy, she was quite low-key. She usually teamed up with her master and master’s wife and other regulars, rarely flirting around. Before long, the abs guy found himself falling for Chen Jia.
He was actually decent-looking in real life. Although Chen Jia had completely charmed him with her sweet voice online, he was genuinely worried that her real appearance might be terrifying. During their ambiguous phase, they had video-called, and while she didn’t quite reach the fairy-level standard in the abs guy’s mind, Chen Jia wasn’t ugly either. Plus, he had developed real feelings for her during their time together—he was in the honeymoon phase, so he couldn’t care less about all that. He was head over heels in love, glued to Chen Jia’s side in the group chat every day.
The abs guy thought smugly, She’s making me public—she cares about me.
Little did he know, most of the time Chen Jia was farming dungeons, she had WeChat voice chat on with him, but in the game, she was actually bossing her sister around to farm for her. Meanwhile, she was playing other games and chatting with the “fish” she had on the line there.
Chen Jia wasn’t a professional gold-digger. She just loved gaming and spending money, but she couldn’t bear to use her parents’ hard-earned allowance, so she found willing idiots online to squeeze some pocket money out of for fun.
The game she played on her phone was the national hit Honor of Kings. Her skills were decent—she mostly climbed to the highest rank on her own, occasionally taking boosting orders to earn some hard-earned cash. But she soon realized that grinding out boosting orders didn’t pay as fast as being a paid companion. So she opened an account to take companion orders, earning over ten thousand a month. The spending culture there was lower than in MMOs, so Chen Jia didn’t bother looking for a boyfriend in Honor of Kings.
But she deliberately kept no boundaries, being all sweet and gentle with every client, which left some of them feeling flustered and paying extra generously without hesitation.
Guild battles were usually handled by Chen Jia herself, but she also had a Honor of Kings companion order on her hands. This client paid quickly and was pretty chatty. So Chen Jia called her sister out of the room, “Chen Yue, take this order for me tonight. Just play Yao and latch onto the client’s head. I’ll send you the client’s game ID in a bit.”
Her younger sister Chen Yue hadn’t hit her rebellious phase yet and usually listened to her sister, but today she wasn’t having it. “What’s fun about playing Yao? I want to play Shangguan Wan’er.”
“After you finish the hour, you can play Shangguan Wan’er all night for as long as you want. This client just likes it when I play Yao and latch onto him. Be good, and I’ll split my cake with you.”
Chen Yue looked at the cake in front of Chen Jia, which was already a mangled mess from digging into it, and didn’t dare show her disgust too openly. She remembered how her deskmate at school today mentioned getting twenty yuan in monthly allowance, unlike herself, who only got five yuan per hour for helping her sister with orders. Sure, she earned more than her deskmate, but it was all hard-earned money—she always felt like her sister had way more cash on hand.
Chen Yue knew today was her sister’s guild battle time, which was the perfect moment to ask for a raise. She said, “I don’t care—I want ten yuan an hour. Playing Yao is boring as hell, I’d rather play another hero and win faster. Some clients are weird too, always showing off their skills, and when they lose, I have to type comforting messages. Wouldn’t they win earlier if they didn’t play stupid?”
“Why do you have so much crap to say? Complaining that your sister is exploiting you, huh? Good heavens, without your sister, do you think anyone would hire a little elementary schooler like you to play games?” Chen Jia smoothly guilt-tripped Chen Yue. “Eight yuan an hour—which of your classmates earns money as fast as you? An essay only pays one yuan, and you have to write for ages. Now you get to relax playing games and make money at the same time. Only your sister would think of such a good deal for you.”
After much persuasion, Chen Yue finally took the phone with satisfaction, ready to serve as her sister’s stand-in. Fortunately, Chen Yue was even better at gaming than Chen Jia—otherwise, Chen Jia wouldn’t have brought her sister along to earn money together.
Over on the other side, Abs Guy received a text from the delivery rider: “It was a woman who answered, not some guy. Don’t forget to give me a good review!”
Only then did Abs Guy put his mind at ease. Lately, he’d been feeling like Chen Jia might be a man—otherwise, how could she understand him so well? It was almost like they were a match made in heaven. Remembering the online scam news he’d seen before, he wondered: could Chen Jia’s face be AI-swapped, with some grubby guy behind the screen?
If that were the case, he’d truly become the laughingstock of the dorm, a story his roommates would remember for a decade.
Zhang Zhian, who slept in the bunk below and was his closest friend in the dorm, saw him fiddling with his phone and leaned over to ask, “So? Let me see your girlfriend’s photo.”
Xu An’an, Abs Guy, shoved him away. “What are you thinking? Taking a sneak photo is so unethical. My wife didn’t lie to me—she really is a woman.”
Zhang Zhian was at a loss for words. Xu An’an wasn’t the richest guy in the dorm, but he didn’t seem like the type to be blinded by love either. How had he gotten so wrapped up in an online romance these past few months?
Xu An’an was a local from City C. Word had it his family had started out running a supermarket three generations ago, which had now grown into a listed group with branch companies in every major city—they were loaded. His grades were mediocre, and his only hobby was gaming. Early in the semester, word got around that the kid had fallen into an online romance.
Zhang Zhian had occasionally overheard the other person’s voice. Whenever Xu An’an had free time, he’d be on a call with Chen Jia, and sometimes the volume was loud enough to leak through the headphones. Chen Jia’s voice was soft, carrying a hint of that distinctive southern accent—a pleasant voice, all things considered.
Since they were in the same major, the two got along well, and Xu An’an would occasionally bring up Chen Jia. Gradually, Zhang Zhian pieced together a picture in his mind: a formidable woman who clocked out from work, went home, and spent her time gaming.
He’d never been in a relationship with an older woman, but he knew how into it people in love could get. He could only pat Xu An’an on the shoulder and sit back down at his own computer desk.