In the emptiness of his silver eyes, a black-haired woman suddenly appeared.
The man gazed at Jiang Ye, engraving every detail of her face into his memory.
Jiang Ye had no doubt that the shifting waves of light in the NPC’s silver pupils at this moment were line after line of rapidly streaming code.
She had an intuition: this man was analyzing her data.
And she was completely defenseless, utterly powerless to resist.
This NPC was of a very high level.
Jiang Ye’s mood switched from her previous playful mode to one of sharp vigilance. She studied the man, but found no information about him being a boss: no level or HP were displayed. But there was no way he was a player. This lack of information made her even more tense.
Within the unnaturally still waters, a stormy tension began to build.
Jiang Ye stayed silent, unwilling to make any rash moves.
Between her and the man was a taut, invisible, transparent thread, stretched tight by their mutual gaze, with no slack at all.
“Are you having fun?” The man suddenly smiled gently, his tone warm.
That tightly wound string quivered.
“Not bad.” Jiang Ye didn’t hold back her praise, steadying her nerves, doing her best to act relaxed and fearless as she replied with feigned nonchalance, “Not as good as you devs, though. You’re even better at playing than we are.”
What kind of twisted developer came up with these crazy mechanics?
She liked it.
“Developer?” The man tilted his head slightly, lifting his lips in a smile, making no attempt to deny it. “Oh, I suppose you could say that.”
Within this exchange, the string that had been stretched so tight blended into the sea, vanishing.
The atmosphere eased.
“Are you the embodiment of this egg?” Jiang Ye asked, seeking a way to start a conversation with this NPC and trigger a quest.
Everything in the game could be traced if you paid attention.
This guy wouldn’t appear here for no reason, nor would he react to this egg for no reason.
“Not exactly.” The man weighed his answer. His voice was always gentle, making her unconsciously lower her guard.
“I am connected to it,” he explained.
“All right. Here’s the situation. This egg should belong to me.” Jiang Ye was very polite. “May I ask if you can give it to me?”
“What makes you so sure?” The man smiled at her.
That smile put Jiang Ye on edge.
A ridiculous thought crossed her mind.
Had she just spent 1,000 gold coins on a lottery only to get scammed? Damn system!
Jiang Ye quickly tapped back to the lottery screen and checked her system notification, confirming she had indeed won the egg.
The black-and-white notification was clear as day. Relieved, she let her tense nerves unwind.
Looking up, she found the man regarding her with interest. His gaze made her uncomfortable.
It wasn’t the look of one person observing another, but more like a deity lowering himself to watch ants on the ground.
Jiang Ye had seen this sort of gaze before.
Back when she worked on Blue Star, there were always self-important people who looked at her that way. Even after she transmigrated, she hadn’t been spared those looks.
But the NPC’s gaze was still somewhat different.
There was no arrogance in his eyes, only a pure, top-down observation, devoid of emotion, just curiosity. Rather like a statue of Buddha towering in a temple—eyes unspeakably calm and without spark, but somehow, in the act of being observed, radiating boundless compassion.
Yes.
Compassion.
Jiang Ye felt extremely uneasy beneath that gaze.
“What… What are you doing?” She decided to change tactics and regain the initiative. “By rights, since this egg is mine, that makes you mine too. I’m the owner of the egg, so I’m your owner as well.”
“Owner?” The man said the word with a hint of doubt.
“Good boy.” Jiang Ye grinned and reached out to pat the eggshell.
Before she could touch it, a beak poked her hand away.
Just then, Guide 233, who had disappeared without a trace, reappeared.
“Take your filthy paws off!” Guide 233 squawked angrily at Jiang Ye.
Facing the man, her whole demeanor changed like a Sichuan opera face changer: her tail feathers swayed delightedly, just like a dog’s tail wagging.
“Greetings, Master Lian,” Guide 233 said respectfully. “Sorry for waking you in this manner. I’m Guide 233, you can call me Xiao Er, or San San.”
“Hey,” Jiang Ye stuck her head over. “So what’s the situation now?”
Guide 233 unceremoniously spread her wings and smacked Jiang Ye’s face out of the way, continuing to address the man called Lian reverently, “Master Lian, may I take a photo of you? Our other staff would love to see your face.”
“Your staff are into 2D character models?” Jiang Ye snarked. “San San, here’s an idea for you.”
“Don’t call me San San!” Guide 233 immediately growled. “It’s Xiao Er or San San!”
“Oops, my bad.” Jiang Ye shrugged. “Look, here’s a business proposal. Once you’ve got this NPC’s photo, print it as a limited-edition card series and sell it to your coworkers. We split the profits 50-50. How about it?”
“Who’s an NPC! Your whole family’s NPCs!” Guide 233 protested, disgruntled. “I’m a Guide, not that kind of person! You greedy little–!”
Lian himself seemed interested in what Jiang Ye was proposing.
“Limited-edition cards? Card series? Splitting profits? Can you tell me more about these?” His voice was as gentle as the sea under summer sunlight.
“Of course!” Jiang Ye saw a business opportunity, instantly perking up. “It's a marketing strategy really.”
K-pop fans use this method all the time.
Buy an album, get a random card. A full set is 12 cards.
People who like to collect will buy many albums to get the full set, or swap extras with other people.
“Well? Tempted?” Jiang Ye finished her pitch, looking expectantly at Lian. “If we sell these to players, with a bit of marketing, we could make a fortune.”
“I don’t need money,” said Lian.
“Then why’d you ask?” Jiang Ye was exasperated.
“I was curious, is that not allowed?” Lian asked politely.
Never hit a smiling man.
“Fine,” Jiang Ye forced out between clenched teeth.
“We Guardians would never stoop so low as to join forces with you!” Guide 233 quickly flew up, positioning herself between Jiang Ye and Lian.
“Guardian?” Jiang Ye noticed the term.
Guide 233’s gaze darted evasively, but then she seemed to remember Jiang Ye was about to be deleted anyway, so she stiffened her neck and said proudly, “Yes, Guardians are in charge of this new map!”
“Oh.” Jiang Ye understood.
So this was the second-in-command?
Guide 233 turned her head and relayed Jiang Ye’s situation to Lian, including the part about the Supervisor sending her here.
Of course, this was done through data transmission, which Jiang Ye couldn’t hear.
To her, it was just a good-looking guy and a bird having a staring contest.
Jiang Ye yawned, growing impatient at the wait.
“So what now? Can I take the egg and head back up?” Jiang Ye asked.
“No!” Guide 233 replied decisively. “Player Jiang Ye, your gaming journey ends here.”
“Huh?” Jiang Ye dug at her ear. “Say that again?”
“I said—” Guide 233 raised her voice, but before she could finish, Lian looked at her and she fell silent.
The conversation continued between Lian and Jiang Ye.
“Player Jiang Ye, I’m sorry to learn you ended up in this bugged map due to an accident,” Lian said calmly. “To resolve this, we need to erase your game data.”
“So, you mean I need to delete my account and start over?”
“You could look at it that way.”
“Will I get compensated for the reset?”
“Compensated?”
“It was your company’s Login Device acting up that put me here. I couldn’t leave or log out the whole time.” Jiang Ye counted off on her fingers, “I spent a fair bit of gold coins developing my Island. I think all those costs should be considered as part of my compensation.”
“Naturally,” Lian smiled slightly. “If you can confirm your Login Device is fully legitimate, we will compensate you with no exceptions.”
Jiang Ye cleared her throat.
She felt a little guilty at this part.
She hadn’t really done anything wrong, but it was A-Xing who bought the Login Device on the underground market, and she was the one who got screwed over.
It was just a series of accidents that brought her here.
Jiang Ye looked back at the ocean cubs, still frozen in time, and asked, “If I delete my account, what happens to them?”
“Naturally, they’ll be erased,” Guide 233 interjected. “They shouldn’t have appeared at this stage anyway.”
“And the rest of my Island?”
“Erased!” Guide 233 shot her a glance. “None of this was supposed to exist right now.”
“So after my data is deleted, the Island will reset to just the original 4 square meters, right?”
Guide 233 nodded.
For some reason, this realization filled Jiang Ye with a vague sense of loss.
But she knew, after all, these ocean cubs and everything on the Island were just strings of data.
Their affection and fierce protection were nothing but the inevitable result of their programming.
The palm trees flourishing in the sunlight, the lively shrimps and crabs crawling on the morning beach—they were all just data.
Jiang Ye let out a soft sigh.
“Is there really no other way besides deleting my account?”
She looked at Lian, wanting to fight for her rights a little more.
Lian was as gentle as water, but there was no shaking his stance.
“No,” his voice was as light as a ripple, but he was completely unwavering. “Player Jiang Ye, we’ll give you three days to handle your account. In these three days, you can transfer anything from your current account.”
“To show our sincerity, a brand-new experience pod will be delivered to you. Please provide your shipping address within three days.”
“Player Jiang Ye, you may create a backup account for the data transfer during this period.”
“How heartless.” Seeing things were hopeless, Jiang Ye stopped struggling. She’d anticipated this moment, so though she was frustrated, she only joked lightly, “You’re such a pretty NPC, but you’re as cold as ice.”
While Guide 233 was distracted, Jiang Ye poked at the eggshell again.
“Mmm—” Lian’s frosty expression suddenly melted.
Hearing the sound, Guide 233 blushed pink all over.
After teasing the NPC, Jiang Ye felt much better.
“All right,” she withdrew, facing Lian’s indifferent gaze again. She grumbled inwardly: this NPC reacted to teasing as a programmed response, not out of shyness.
So dull.
“I accept the reset.” Jiang Ye stretched lazily. “But first, Second Boss, can you help me fix the logout issue?”
“No problem, let me take a look.”
As soon as Lian finished, he stepped closer to Jiang Ye.
His fingertips were icy cold as they touched Jiang Ye’s temple.
With a light touch, Jiang Ye felt something inside suddenly unblock.
“It’s done.” Lian’s voice was gentle, though, if you looked closely, he’d gone a shade paler.
“Player Jiang Ye, for the next three days, you are free.”
“Three real-world days, right?” Jiang Ye double-checked.
“Of course,” Lian nodded.
“Then during these three days, can I take this egg to play with on the surface?” Jiang Ye pleaded. “I did spend a thousand gold coins on this.”
Lian hesitated.
“Doesn’t your company pride itself on fairness and impartiality?” Jiang Ye persisted, “I won that egg fair and square. It’s only right I get to play with it.”
“How is that your egg! It’s obviously mine…” Guide 233 tried to object, but halfway through realized it was risky, so she shut her beak fast.
“You?” Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow. “You tampered with the lottery?”
“Ha!” She seized Guide 233 by the sore spot. “As a staff member, you interfered with my progress and influenced the lottery results— isn’t that a violation? In the end, this whole egg thing was a trap to lure me here, right?”
Guide 233’s beady black eyes shifted guiltily. She didn’t dare say a word.
She certainly wasn’t going to tell Jiang Ye that all of the system’s deliberate tricks before had been her fault. Taking advantage of bugs in the unstable map, she had discreetly tweaked a few system settings to drain more money from Jiang Ye and make things go against her on purpose.
Originally, the idea was to scare Jiang Ye off so she’d voluntarily quit and the bug could be quietly erased. Who could have predicted this player would thrive instead, start a hit live stream, climb to the top spot, and even get other players to file complaints—alerting the other Guides to what was going on.
And so, things reached this point.
Lian could tell at a glance what Guide 233 had done.
He extended his hand, palm up, and as Guide 233 landed on it, he gently blew. Instantly, Guide 233 scattered like data fragments, dissolving into points of light.
“What did you do to her?” Jiang Ye was stunned.
“She repeatedly broke the rules, concealed the truth, and altered the system without authorization.” Lian’s voice stayed mild, but his words were icy cold, chilling to the bone. “She has been erased, as is fitting.”
Jiang Ye’s heart went cold.
After all, the bug wasn’t solely Guide 233’s fault. She was careless and irresponsible at first, timid and unwilling to deal with problems—she was clearly a newbie.
Apart from her bad attitude, at least she’d clumsily given Jiang Ye a free ten draws.
Okay, that had only lured her into awakening the NPC.
Lian, for all his gentleness, was ruthless and decisive.
“Three days from now, after I’m erased, will you do the same to me?” Jiang Ye stared at Lian directly.
“No,” Lian denied instantly.
Jiang Ye’s eyes lit up.
“I’ll provide you an option to delete your own account,” Lian smiled gently. “Only if you refuse will I take special measures.”
“Oh,” Jiang Ye snorted. “How generous of you.”
Vengefully, she poked the shimmering, galaxy-patterned Pet Egg hard.
“Mmm…” Lian endured much better this time, only giving a muffled grunt, not losing his composure.
Once he’d recovered, he whispered, “Don’t mention it.”
“Hmph!” Jiang Ye couldn’t be bothered to look at him anymore. Without another word, she grabbed the Pet Egg and, with a quick operation, left the seabed and returned to her Island.
It was nighttime.
Jiang Ye reappeared in her wooden hut above the ocean.
She flopped onto the sofa, closing her eyes, trying to sort her thoughts.
“I really don’t want to say goodbye to this little Island,” Jiang Ye muttered irritably.
“In life, there are always farewells,” a clear male voice replied.
Startled, Jiang Ye opened her eyes to see Lian leaning against the partition wall of the living room.
“No way, officer, you’re still chasing me?” Jiang Ye groaned. “Didn’t you say I’m free for three days?”
Lian pursed his lips and pointed at the egg in her arms.
“So you can’t stray too far from this egg?” Jiang Ye guessed, taking the egg and moving away from Lian step by step.
Once the distance between them exceeded five meters, the man, who had been distant, instantaneously appeared in front of her again, then politely stepped back to maintain a proper distance.