Text Simulation

Making money isn't easy. Shen Yi had worked hard for two and a half years and only managed to save fifty thousand yuan after supporting his family. Two hundred thousand was no small amount for him.

"Was it transferred by mistake?" Shen Yi's first reaction was that there must be an error. He had seen plenty of news about such incidents where wrongly transferred money had to be returned.

After calming down a bit, Shen Yi sat down on the curb and stared at the numbers in the text message. The more he looked at them, the more familiar they seemed - he had just encountered this number last night.

"Two hundred thousand... two hundred thousand... that game?!" Shen Yi muttered to himself, his gaze unfocused.

Suddenly, Shen Yi closed the text message and, with both doubt and hope, opened the app called "Dating Simulator."

With a flash of white light, the familiar interface appeared. Shen Yi's three-dimensional attributes were clearly visible, followed by the simulation selection button below.

Name: Shen Yi

Level: lv.1

Strength: 7

Stamina: 7

Energy: 9

Charm: 70

Assets: 219,533.5

Strategy Points: 1

The asset figure seemed like a deep vortex drawing Shen Yi's gaze. He quickly reviewed everything that had happened since he first encountered this game last night.

Initial assets, target characters, real photos, scene composition, Jian Leyi, lifelike experience, insufficient evaluation, synchronized rewards, scene review...

Countless thoughts flooded his mind, gradually coming together. Although it was hard to believe, no matter how incredible the truth might seem, this had to be reality.

Without realizing it, Shen Yi had gripped his phone tightly in his palm, afraid it might disappear if he loosened his grip.

"Ding dong~"

A message notification startled Shen Yi, snapping him back to reality. It was just a message from his work group chat.

Carefully looking around, he stood up with his bag and walked quickly back home. He had many questions that needed answers, and work would have to wait - such trivial matters had to take a back seat to this.

The breakfast shop auntie watched puzzled as Shen Yi, who had just left moments ago, hurried back. She thought to herself that the young man must have forgotten something at home - she'd seen this happen many times before and quickly dismissed it from her mind.

Back home and behind closed doors, Shen Yi didn't even pause to catch his breath before sitting at his desk. He took out his phone and opened the App Store, scrolling all the way down.

Unlike last night, the hundredth position had been replaced by an unfamiliar game, Three Kingdoms Tower Defense.

After checking it out and finding it was just an ordinary pay-to-win tower defense game, he backed out.

Shen Yi carefully searched up and down several more times, finally typing "Dating Simulator" directly into the search bar. The results were varied, but none showed the familiar pink icon.

Not giving up, Shen Yi took out his laptop and searched for information about dating simulators on various search engines, but still found nothing. It was as if the game had fallen from the sky.

Next, Shen Yi searched for information about the Tianhai Foundation. This time he found something - it was a private non-profit organization registered four years ago, neither particularly old nor new.

He couldn't find any more information for now, so he had to set that aside.

"I see... I see..."

After everything became clear, Shen Yi looked at the two hundred and fifty thousand balance in his account and realized it wasn't even the most important thing. He knew what the real key was.

Staring at the pink app icon in the lower left corner of his phone, Shen Yi's heart pounded like a drum. Endless joy welled up from within, making his face flush red. He could only keep clenching his fists and waving them in the air to stop himself from shouting out loud.

Shen Yi kept taking deep breaths to calm himself, but couldn't suppress his rising smile as he excitedly whispered to himself: "This is a cheat code, this is a golden finger, I finally have a cheat code too!"

His reaction didn't do justice to all the novels he had read before. Shen Yi couldn't maintain the composure that protagonists in books showed, remaining unmoved even when incredible fortune fell into their laps.

He tried to tell himself to match those predecessors, but just couldn't achieve it. Using all his strength to keep from jumping and howling like a monkey was the best he could manage.

Now he could only look back at his phone to redirect his attention, otherwise he feared he might do something irrational if he didn't calm down and think.

Thinking about the phone balance, Shen Yi quickly did some mental math and solved another puzzle.

Because he had just paid his rent, his WeChat balance showed 1,240 yuan, plus the 50,000 in his card and the 3.5 yuan spent on breakfast, it added up exactly to 51,243.5 yuan.

This amount matched perfectly with the character's initial assets. Last night Shen Yi had wondered about the odd decimal number, but now he understood why.

Was Jian Leyi a real person? After all, his demeanor and personality had seemed so real.

No wonder he had slipped up - Shen Yi himself knew nothing about luxury goods, so he could only make things up when the conversation went that direction.

After figuring everything out, Shen Yi stood up and went to the bathroom to wash his face again. After drying off, he carefully examined himself in the mirror.

Although his appearance hadn't changed dramatically, he knew his own face best. He hadn't noticed before, but now with the initial assets as a reference point, even slight differences became apparent once he started looking for them.

Looking closer, his skin was noticeably firmer, and several acne scars on his chin from his younger days had completely disappeared. His whole face just looked more pleasing.

Shen Yi thought to himself while looking at his reflection that these changes must be due to the two-point increase in charm - originally his charm was 68, but after last night's synchronized reward, it had reached 70 points.

Shen Yi estimated that the maximum value should be 100 points, and his 70 points was already above average, putting him in the "somewhat handsome" category.

Moreover, looking at the situation, there would be opportunities to improve further. Shen Yi felt intense anticipation rising in his heart.

'This game is truly mysterious...'

Sitting back down and checking the time, it was already 9:40. Even if he took a taxi now, he wouldn't make it to work on time. Shen Yi simply took out his phone and requested leave. Whether his team leader approved it or not didn't matter to him right now.

Now he was eager to delve deeper into this game; work had become less important in his eyes.

Opening the game again, Shen Yi moved his finger to the start matching button. According to the rules, he should have one automatic refresh available for the new day, allowing him to draw two new targets.

Now Shen Yi truly understood - these targets were his source of wealth. The higher the score, the better the rewards, and the rewards could be synchronized with reality. How could this not motivate him?

Just as he was about to press the button, Shen Yi's finger stopped as he remembered another mode - text simulation. He was currently in scene simulation mode, but if he wanted to fully understand this game, he couldn't ignore the other mode.

Thinking this, Shen Yi returned to the three-dimensional attributes interface and clicked [Text Simulation] to explore.

"Dating Assistant Friendly Reminder: Text simulation is reality simulation, which will randomly scan for compatible targets around the player, two at a time, and one can be chosen for pursuit."

"Only one dating target can be selected at a time, and a new selection can only be made after successfully completing or abandoning the current pursuit."

"Each target initially has three simulation attempts, with one attempt automatically recharged each calendar day, or additional strategy points can be spent to recharge."

"If no decision is made within ten minutes of starting the match, the system will randomly select one person as the pursuit target."

"Would you like to start matching?"