The cold game displayed a cold system announcement.
After a few minutes of confusion, Li Shuoxing finally understood the current situation.
As he stared at the closed production workshop and the favourability pool in the upper left corner, he only felt a hot gas rising from his belly, which finally into a great sneer that rushed out of his throat.
“Shit!”
Anger and impulse took over Li Shuoxing’s mind at that moment, driving his body.
By the time he came back to his senses, he had already left his home and arrived at a mobile phone repair shop outside his neighbourhood.
The shopkeeper, who was in his thirties or forties, with half-length hair and a rather dishevelled look, asked him lazily:
“Wipe the phone, right? Have you backed up your data? Any data that needs to be kept?”
Li Shuoxing: “…Yes. My QQ and WeChat data have to be kept.”
These two must be kept. The accounts of friends and editors were here.
Shopkeeper: “Mm.”
Li Shuoxing: “And the stuff in the memo also has to be kept.”
It was full of ideas, written and unwritten, quite a number of them. It’d be a great loss if they were lost.
Shopkeeper: “Mm.”
Li Shuoxing: “And all the photos in the gallery, they also have to be kept.”
Shopkeeper: “Mm.”
Li Shuoxing: “And…”
Shopkeeper: “Usually there shouldn’t be any more.”
Li Shuoxing: “…”
He was speechless at first, but after a moment admitted that after keeping these, there was nothing else in the phone that needed to be kept.
He handed over his phone.
The shopkeeper took it, but didn’t take it. He added a little more strength, but the phone was still firmly in the customer’s palm.
The two were in a standoff for a few minutes.
The shopkeeper compromised. “Young man, if you don’t give me your phone, how can I wipe it?”
Li Shuoxing snapped out of it.
He said, “I’m sorry…”
He loosened his fingers and, watching the thin phone being taken and placed in front of the computer behind the counter, he suddenly felt some inner turmoil.
He didn’t know why he felt that way.
Maybe it was because there were too much stuff in his phone and it didn’t feel safe to hand it over casually…
The small shop was less than twenty square metres, and with a rectangular counter and a table set up, even turning around was difficult.
Li Shuoxing stood leaning against the counter, his eyes moving with the shopkeeper’s movements.
He said absent-mindedly, “Can wiping the phone wipe out malware?”
Shopkeeper: “Definitely. Why else would people wipe their phones?”
Li Shuoxing: “Then what happens to the malware that gets wiped?”
Shopkeeper: “…”
What happens to the malware?
Of course, the malware will continue to be malware.
He thought today’s customer was a little strange, so he simply kept his mouth shut. Silence was golden.
Li Shuoxing continued to talk. It didn’t matter if the shopkeeper didn’t answer him. He could talk to himself. “If the malware has been used, data has been generated in it. If it’s deleted, then that data…”
Actually, what malware, what data, it was all a sham.
What Li Shuoxing wanted to ask was…
If I delete the game, what happens to the little person?
Will he get hungry, will he get cold, will he get lonely and depressed because of my sudden disappearance?
Tsk.
How can data be depressed?
But is there enough food stored at home? Although there’s still some pumpkin, he has always hated pumpkin. He wouldn’t cry again because he has to have pumpkin with white rice, right?
Tsk.
So what if he cries? He deducted me 1998 favourability points for no reason today! Doesn’t he feel that I’ve worked hard to earn my favourability bit by bit?
But the game is about to open the Double Eleven event, and that thick travel journal has just started. Right, there’s still contribution points. I haven’t even spent all the money I’ve put in yet!
Two conflicting thoughts tugged back and forth in Li Shuoxing’s mind, making his expression keep changing.
Then.
He saw the shopkeeper plug his phone into the charging cable, flick the mouse and open the software.
Li Shuoxing’s head was muddled and he blurted out, “Wait!”
What followed was super similar to the beginning.
Another emotion took control of Li Shuoxing’s mind, driving his body.
By the time he came back to his senses, he had already returned home with his phone.
Nothing seemed to have changed except that an hour of time had strangely been devoured.
Li Shuoxing: “…”
So what was I fussing about for.
With a long sigh, he lowered his head and rested it on the table.
His head lowered for two seconds, Li Shuoxing still felt a strong sense of unwillingness after compromising.
He was reluctant to curse the little person, but he couldn’t not scold this game.
In the past, Li Shuoxing didn’t find the developer’s contact information in the game and let it go. However, this time, he decided to look for it to the end. It’d be better to check his consumption records one by one to find out the company’s phone number, and then call and get angry at them.
Li Shuoxing directly opened his WeChat.
He used a mix of Alipay and WeChat. That bill of 648 was spent through WeChat.
This number was easy to find. Li Shuoxing had barely even swiped before finding the consumption record.
He viciously clicked in and looked at the company name—
…Eh?
He was surprised to find that the recipient of this 648 wasn’t a company account, but a private account nicknamed Su <sup>1</sup> Su is written in English instead of Chinese. .
Su.
Su?
Su Mingqian?
Li Shuoxing had a strange look on his face. “…I can’t set the little person’s name in the game since it’s set by default. The game’s payment account is a private account, and its nickname is the little person’s surname.”
He had a guess.
Su Mingqian can’t be the name of the game developer, can it?
Well, isn’t it a little narcissistic to use your own name in the game?
He then clicked on the contact information below and found that the private account’s contact information didn’t include a phone number, but instead gave a message system. At the top of the message system, the private account’s avatar was displayed.
Li Shuoxing took a look and saw a dark purple background with light white hanging wisps, a wisteria pattern.
The avatar was also so artistic, more in line with the narcissistic temperament… hmm?
At first glance, he didn’t think anything of it, but after a couple more glances, Li Shuoxing suddenly noticed something off.
After examining the small picture for a long time, he finally found what was wrong with it.
Those clusters of hanging wisps floating down weren’t flowers and leaves, but 0’s and 1’s.
This was a wisteria landscape composed of 0’s and 1’s.
Not to mention, the combination of science and aesthetics was quite romantic. The strong narcissistic feeling had been reduced a lot, bringing out the game developer’s identity.
But…
“It still doesn’t seem right.”
Li Shuoxing frowned.
When playing this game, although he would curse the trash game to eat shit from time to time, his mind had acquiesced that this was a game developer with considerable strength.
It was a very understandable logic.
Without some strength and staff, how could the game be made so well?
But now, the flow of funds told him that this wasn’t a development of a company, but that of an individual.
There did seem to be such a possibility.
But it always felt a little strange…
Li Shuoxing was a little shocked by this surprise. In his thoughts, half of his originally prepared angry cursing had unknowingly dissipated.
In the end, after a long pause and some pondering back and forth, Li Shuoxing still felt that he had already found it and couldn’t just let it go.
He began to type.
“Is this game Love Bar developed by you alone or by your team? Most of it is okay, the memory system has highlights, the openness of the game world is amazing, and the key point is that the lover’s AI system is superbly done—”
As he wrote this, Li Shuoxing suddenly realised that the direction of the message went against his original intention. He hurriedly corrected it.
“No, the key point isn’t this. The key point is, can you fix your favourability system? Haven’t I said, this favourability has been mysterious since the beginning of the game, adding and subtracting all of a sudden with no fixed number at all. Before +10-10 wasn’t much, so I put up with it, but now your game’s getting better and better, with a -999 all of a sudden, and a double hit at that. Don’t you suspect players will complain about you—”
He had written to the word limit and couldn’t edit any more.
Li Shuoxing looked at the long string of text above and felt that the meaning was about there, so he simply wrote his phone number in the contact information under the message and sent it directly.
After sending it, Li Shuoxing waited for a while.
Unfortunately, the other side didn’t reply.
For the rest of the day, there was not a word of reply from the other side. The message that’d been sent out seemed to sink to the bottom of the sea with a gurgle, not even a splash of feedback to be seen.
It was already midnight.
Li Shuoxing had grinded for a day, finishing off 12,000 words, and he was a little high from writing. Although he had stopped his pen, he was still so excited he couldn’t sleep. He could only lie at the head of the bed and casually read a history book.
It was just that this book was a bit poorly written. It could neither make him sleepy nor immerse him into the text. Li Shuoxing had been trying for half an hour, but he was still staring hatefully and was dizzy at the text.
Suddenly, a “ding” sounded.
An advertisement banner popped up on the phone screen.
Li Shuoxing carelessly swept a glance, and his eyes suddenly paused.
Love Bar: The Double Eleven sale is about to begin. Are you ready for the annual shopping feast? Three major venues, hundreds of items, exclusive skins, mysterious gifts, all in today’s grand event~
Li Shuoxing: “…”
He leaned over, took his phone, swiped the screen and opened the game.
The moment he entered the game, Li Shuoxing felt a little lighter all over.
He told himself:
I entered the game for tomorrow’s limited-time event. I still have game currency in the game that I haven’t spent. I can’t waste it.
The screen flashed and a familiar picture appeared.
Li Shuoxing took a glance and didn’t see the figure of the little person.
He opened the system narration flashing on the screen and saw a series of text swiping through the screen. He didn’t know how much the little person had done alone in this short day…
After a few seconds, the scrolling of the text finally stopped.
Li Shuoxing looked at the narration again and found that what had appeared on the screen was like this.
Yesterday, 11:00pm
[Su Mingqian takes a shower.]
Su Mingqian: “…”
[Su Mingqian is in a daze.]
Today, 00:00am
[Su Mingqian goes to bed.]
Su Mingqian: “…”
[Su Mingqian is in a daze.]
Today, 00:30am
[Su Mingqian closes his eyes.]
[Su Mingqian is not asleep.]
Su Mingqian: “…”
[Su Mingqian rolls over to face the wall.]
[Su Mingqian rubs his eyes.]
[Su Mingqian rubs his eyes again.]
[Su Mingqian rubs his eyes red.]
[Su Mingqian buries his head in the crook of his arm.]
[Su Mingqian pulls up the blanket to cover himself.]