The Lady Who Strikes First, the Lady's Sharp Shriek... Dawn Breaks

"Waaaaah, my account, waaaaah..."

Du Wanyi was crying as if she'd lost a loved one, clutching her phone and sobbing. The well-dressed woman beside her looked somewhat speechless. Although she didn't quite understand... her close friend seemed really upset?

A game account...

If she remembered correctly, their Tongtong had quite a lot of accounts in this game, and they were all pretty impressive. Maybe she could give one to her?

"Wanyi, stop crying. Our Tongtong plays this game too, and she has quite a few accounts. I'll have Tongtong give you one," the well-dressed woman said, patting her close friend's shoulder and gently comforting her.

"Waaaah, you wouldn't understand. I don't want it. I want my own, waaaah..."

The well-dressed woman: "..."

"Ah? This... what's the difference?" the well-dressed woman asked curiously.

This question instantly ignited Du Wanyi's anger: "You wouldn't understand! This is like my child, raised from the ground up! I don't want someone else's!"

The well-dressed woman: "..."

Although she didn't understand, she respected it. The well-dressed woman gave up arguing with the lady and switched tactics to comfort her close friend.

"How did the account get banned? Was it a wrongful ban? Why don't you contact customer service and see if they can unban it?"

The well-dressed woman was fairly familiar with the process, since the family's golden retriever was a hardcore gamer, and their family was in the entertainment industry. This kind of business was practically second nature to her.

Especially for those who topped up a lot of money, there was a certain degree of leeway to pull some strings.

There was a widely circulated rumor online: one server was filled entirely with internal staff, and the only real player was a rich Middle Eastern guy.

The entire company of a few hundred people would revolve around this one person, occasionally generating some "hatred" to put him in a rivalry, then trample him from behind, with others cheering along and swearing loyalty—making it all feel extremely intense.

That Middle Eastern tycoon who was unknowingly made the center of the show would just swipe his card, top up, and spend without batting an eye.

With that whole setup, they'd make at least five million dollars a month. If they launched a new event or something, there was no ceiling. Everyone was happy...

All the game's rules revolved around him. They even introduced Middle Eastern-themed gear, quest costumes, and a one-stop service that had him feeling satisfied from head to toe!

Du Wanyi was also a big spender in games. She had money, so she definitely swiped her card without hesitation. Someone like her was a premium user, so pulling strings for her should be simple.

Of course, that was assuming she didn't cheat...

The well-dressed woman's words instantly snapped Du Wanyi out of her pitiful crying, like grabbing onto the last lifeline.

"Right! I can still appeal!" Du Wanyi sniffled hard and started looking for customer service to file an appeal.

Then...

"What do you mean I've already appealed three times and you won't unban it?"

"I haven't! I haven't played this game at all recently! Did you ban the wrong person? Is this a wrongful ban?!"

"Ugh, I order you to unban my account right now, this second! Otherwise—"

"Click... click..."

Du Wanyi: "..."

The well-dressed woman: "..."

The moment the call was disconnected, both of them fell silent. After a while, Du Wanyi silently resumed hugging her phone, letting her little pearls of tears fall, looking utterly pitiful.

"Waaaaah, my account, waaaaah..."

The well-dressed woman: "..."

The well-dressed woman took the phone, carefully checked it, asked the customer service for some backend details, and finally got the login device information.

According to the customer service representative, the login had been completely normal, with passwords entered through regular channels—ruling out the possibility of someone else operating it...

"Everything checks out?" The well-dressed woman furrowed her brows.

If all these permissions were normal, it could only mean the account had been authorized on another device—and more than once. They even knew the secondary password.

Suddenly, a thought flashed through the well-dressed woman's mind, and her expression turned strange: "Wanyi, could it be... your Hanhan played it?"

"Impossible, absolutely impossible!" Du Wanyi's tone was extremely firm.

"Do I not know our Little Hanhan's personality? Haven't I always said she's got a head start? Since she was a child, I made sure to play my Street Fighter highlight reels before Little Hanhan went to sleep. But she was out cold the moment she hit the pillow..."

"Then in elementary school, when StarCraft was all the rage, I thought about giving her a head start. The moment I picked her up from school, I took her to an internet cafe and set up two computers. But she shut down my computer and then pulled the power off in the whole cafe..."

"After that... after that, Little Hanhan grew some courage and started hitting people. I tried countless times to give Little Hanhan a head start, but every single time, all I got was a beating."

"Impossible, absolutely impossible. Little Hanhan would never play games. If she did, I'd eat it!"

Du Wanyi's tone was resolute, her eyes blazing like she was about to march into an internet cafe and log in for a satisfying session.

The well-dressed woman: "..."

After a moment of silence, the well-dressed woman quietly opened the match history panel, and brought up the series of consecutive losses that the young lady had racked up, along with the "friendly friend request" notifications on the backend.

"Wanyi, why don't you take a look at this?"

"What is this? Let me see..."

"AARGH—" Du Wanyi let out a piercing shriek.

"That scheming wretch! Waaaah... my account, waaaah... ugh, she's already hit me enough, and now she's using this to get back at me? Waaaah... I'm cutting ties with her, waaaah..."

Du Wanyi pitifully hugged a bucket of popcorn and shoveled it into her mouth—that's right. What she said she'd "eat" was popcorn.

Soon enough, one bucket was gone, and she moved on to the next. In a certain sense, the lady was indeed a woman of her word—"strong as an eagle."

The well-dressed woman: "..."

Clicking open the scoreboard for each match, the well-dressed woman noticed something off: "Hmm?"

A big question mark appeared over her head. In the five-man team, she recognized four of the names.

"Grandpa Niu" was Ye Cheng's—she'd looked into his background before and memorized his gamertag along with it.

"Innocent College Girl" went without saying, that was her close friend's account. The key was the other two accounts.

"Mixed Rad" (Hun de Luo) was a name both accounts had, differing only by a number. This name she knew all too well—it was the same one her Tongtong loved using for games.

So... their Tongtong was involved too?

Not only that, but "Hun de Luo 2"—if she wasn't mistaken, that should be their Xiaoyu.

The identities of four people were now revealed. The last one left... "Kindergarten Boss"?

What on earth?

A look of confusion appeared on the well-dressed woman's face. It couldn't actually be a real kindergartener, could it?

It was probably just messing around, the same as Ye Cheng's "Grandpa Niu" name—also an abstract person... wait, no one in that squad had a normal name. They were all abstract.

Their circle of friends had the most abstract names of all. A woman pushing forty, acting all young and innocent to trick college boys. Sure, college kids were one of the most naive, harmless groups out there, but that didn't mean you should mess with them like that, right?

"Wah wah wah... Huh? Hehe, what are you looking at? Can't you see I'm crying my eyes out here? Why aren't you coming over to comfort me?"

Du Wanyi cried for a good while but found no one coming to comfort her. Well... of course, Da Huang didn't count as a person.

Da Huang was right there too, reaching out a doggy paw to pat Du Wanyi, almost like a comfort. Too bad he couldn't talk, but Du Wanyi already felt the sentiment.

She tossed him a handful of popcorn as a thank-you.

Seeing that the lady friend still hadn't come over to acknowledge her, Du Wanyi sniffled twice and walked over herself, poking her head out from behind the lady friend's back.

She saw the phone screen—stats that didn't look human, and match durations to match.

Du Wanyi: "???"

"Wait, Hehe, give me the phone first. Let me see what's going on here."

Du Wanyi grabbed the phone back and started studying every single match. She was sharp-eyed and quickly noticed the squads—the item builds in those games were less human than the players themselves.

No wonder she kept losing streak after streak...

Du Wanyi suddenly had an epiphany. So it wasn't deliberate revenge to ruin her account—they were just genuinely bad at the game. And then the system flagged it as intentional losing.

After all, when Du Wanyi played herself, she averaged around 100 interactions per match. But the moment the missy joined? It was a straight slide down the ranks.

If the system didn't detect that, it would be a miracle.

As for the appeal—the missy had already appealed a few times, got the account unbanned smoothly, and got it back... only to keep losing ranks.

That's why Du Wanyi's appeal got rejected outright. Once or twice was one thing, but they kept at it. They were basically treating the game company like a joke.

Even if they had backdoor favors, there was a limit. You get warned that many times, and you still refuse to change—who else are they going to ban?

The King of Glory, in his clear-eyed judgment, would never let a single bad guy slip, nor wrong a single good person.

If there was any doubt, consider yourself the bad guy—sent back for review until you accept the verdict...

"Wanyi, don't be too upset. Hanhan didn't mean it..." The lady friend saw her bestie's face looking a bit off and quickly tried to comfort her.

"Dammit, I knew it! It's all because you started gaming from the cradle—treating video games like poison in childhood. Now look who can't keep up!" Du Wanyi gnashed her teeth, face full of fury.

The lady friend: "???"

"Start from the cradle"... that's not quite how the saying goes, is it?

The lady friend's mouth twitched. Then she heard some noise and looked over. On the screen, a ghostly face was pressing up against the lens.

The lady friend froze, then flopped over and "slept" on the ground. Da Huang kindly draped a blanket over her, then went back to watching the horror movie with great interest.

Du Wanyi had lost the mood to keep watching. Tap tap tap—she started blowing up the missy's phone with calls and texts!

"Message failed to send!"

A red exclamation mark appeared—she'd been blocked. The missy had predicted the wife's move, struck first, and blocked her.

Du Wanyi: "???"

"AHHH—"

"My freaking account!!!" Du Wanyi's shrill scream echoed through the private theater, while Da Huang watched on with glee, munching popcorn nonstop.

...

At the same time, someone else was also having a sleepless night.

The Tang residence, Tang Yuyao's room.

"Why won't you answer my messages?? AHHH—"

Tang Yuyao screamed.

The little son next door, who had just barely fallen asleep, was jolted awake by the shout. He had a nightmare, startled stiff. His eyes flew open in terror, drenched in cold sweat... Uh oh, there's something haunted in the house!

Over in the master bedroom, Old Master Tang got up.

"Why is the rooster crowing so early today?" He mumbled, still half-asleep, but climbed out of bed and started getting dressed to go out for his morning exercise.

...