When everything is progressing smoothly and on track, time can slip away unnoticed, disappearing at a speed that leaves one feeling a sense of dread upon realizing it.
This day was one where Lu Qing decided to reward his three good roommates from Room 5012 for their strong support of his "endeavors."
"Northern Courtyard" is a relatively authentic northeastern Chinese restaurant located in a prime spot on the commercial street of a university town in Tianhai City. It was opened by a young couple from Harbin and spans three floors, making it quite sizable. While the dishes may not be absolutely authentic, they are passable under the supervision of the head chef.
The reason for choosing this place today was primarily to show gratitude to Li Mingshi for his significant contributions during recent live streams.
At around 3 PM, the group skipped their classes and gathered in a private room at the restaurant.
At the moment, Lu Qing was downstairs ordering food, so the spacious room was left with only the three of them chatting idly.
"Wait, Brother Li, how many classes did you fail attendance for this semester?"
"None. I’m a model student with excellent values and a healthy, upward mindset. How could I fail?"
"But I haven’t seen you attend many classes…"
"Well, my clones went to sign in for me. It’s normal you didn’t notice."
"..."
Old Li truly lived up to his reputation, exuding an air of authority with his words.
Zhang Yang, feeling a bit deflated, turned his attention to Wen Le, who was sitting at the large round table playing a mobile game.
"Brother Wen, what are you doing?"
"Can’t you see? Playing a game."
"What game?"
"A gacha game."
"What’s a gacha game?"
"Anime-style, girls, mobile, character-building, game," Wen Le replied impatiently.
"Oh… but Brother Wen, why do you look like you’re in pain? Doesn’t seem like you’re having much fun."
Zhang Yang grinned cheekily, completely unfazed by Wen Le’s bad attitude. After all, he was the lowest in the dorm hierarchy and had always been easygoing.
"Because I pulled a trash character. It’s frustrating. I wasted a lot of summoning tickets. So, no, I’m not happy."
"Huh? What character? Let me see."
Zhang Yang leaned over.
Seeing this, Wen Le tilted his phone screen and pointed to a character in the list:
"See this? This girl. I just spent 70 pulls to get her. If you calculate it at 16 yuan per pull, that’s pretty expensive, right?"
"Yeah, Brother Wen, but you got what you wanted, didn’t you? Why aren’t you happy?"
Zhang Yang was confused.
Wen Le rubbed his temples, took off his black-framed glasses, and cursed through gritted teeth:
"Because after pulling her, I found out that in the game’s story, this girl made a bet with an orc, lost, and became his pet. She has to obey him without question. I thought no sane writer would actually make her lose, but… the game’s lead writer decided to pour poison down the players’ throats! They actually wrote her losing. Can you believe it? So, I pulled her, and now I feel like a clown. Am I not just a Thunderclap Hill berserker?"
"!"
Although Zhang Yang wasn’t familiar with gacha game terminology, even from a real-world perspective, he could sense something deeply wrong—no, even a malicious intent from the developers, as if they were feeding the players a massive pile of toxicity.
"That’s pretty disgusting," Li Mingshi chimed in, looking up from his phone, clearly annoyed by the writing.
"Sigh."
Wen Le sighed and slammed his phone shut:
"I’m used to it. We gacha game refugees are like this. When a company feeds us trash, we just blacklist them and move on to another developer’s new game. But you can never guard against these sudden, awful plot twists. Even if they try to fix it later, it’s hard to overlook."
"Think about it. I spend 648 yuan at a time, and the character I paid for was someone else’s pet. How does something like that get approved? How does it pass through layers of review, from the lead writer to the setting team leader to the department head, and end up being fed to the players? Who can tolerate that?
And let’s not even talk about those storylines where side characters have office romances, teammates flirt with each other, siblings openly show affection, gacha banners feature married couples, the main heroine gets physically close to male side characters, or the heroine gets captured by the male antagonist for days… These kinds of plots would make even the legendary Shennong die from toxicity."
Wen Le ranted, clearly harboring deep resentment toward these toxic storylines.
"Wait, Brother Wen, isn’t that just random pairing? That’s way too much. If we’re immersed in the story, watching all these men and women messing around, aren’t we just the third wheel? Like we’re part of their play, just a camera in the room?"
Zhang Yang was also starting to feel uneasy.
"Exactly. So, I’ve decided: from now on, I’m going UNumberOne!"
"What does that mean, Brother Wen?"
"No males, no play."
"??"
"If a gacha banner has male characters, I won’t pull. I’ll just walk away. That way, I can avoid being stabbed in the back by the writers and fed trash.
If you’re making a male-oriented game, delete all the male characters and go all-female. If you’re making a female-oriented game, make it an otome game, no problem. But now, you’re trying to cater to both sides, making money from both, and in so-called 'general audience' games, you’re including cuckolding plots. Not only is it greedy, but you’re also constantly betraying the players. Games like that—I’ll trace them back to the producers and the company, and I’ll never spend another penny on them."
He sighed, "You know, in the gacha game community, truly 'general audience' games are rare. After all, the quality of the development team varies, and the logical thinking of male and female writers is often incompatible. It’s like male-oriented and female-oriented novels—they can’t be merged, or it’ll cause conflicts.
So, this balancing act is impossible. You can never predict what kind of landmine they’ll drop.
I’ve been out of the gacha scene for a while, bought a lot of console games, thinking that playing AAA titles and non-NTR adult games would be safe. But recently, I picked up my phone, remembered the hundreds of thousands of yuan I’ve spent on a few gacha games, and couldn’t help but want to log back in…"
Zhang Yang: "?"
Old Li: "Not you, Wen."
"A hundred thousand yuan?"
The two exchanged glances and fell silent.
They quickly reached a consensus—
"You, my friend, have too much money to spare."
…
Creak—
The conversation stopped abruptly as the door opened.
Lu Qing, having ordered a dozen signature dishes, walked into the room. Seeing his three brothers deep in conversation, he couldn’t help but ask:
"Did I miss something?"
"Not much, Brother Lu. Brother Wen was just criticizing some game companies. By the way, Brother Lu, do you play games?" Zhang Yang asked.
"Me? I stopped a long time ago. Back in the day, I only played maid games. Other than that… not much interest."
"What about gacha games?"
"I got burned by the storylines, so I don’t play them much."
"! Then let me ask you something."
Suddenly, Wen Le’s gaze sharpened, and his tone turned piercing: "Aren’t you writing a book?"
"Yeah."
"Then I want to know—if you were the lead writer for a game company, would you adhere to certain principles when writing storylines involving female characters?"
"Principles?"
Lu Qing pulled out a chair and sat down, not answering immediately.
Instead, he thought about his creative methodology,
then, with a very serious expression,
said gravely: "Yes."
He continued:
"There are three things I won’t write—giving away female characters, killing female characters, and NTR.
I only write male-oriented stories, so I always consider the reader’s experience from their perspective."
……
……
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
