Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating

Chapter 8 - On the day of the big wedding, Yearning For escaped with his new flame, while Xiao Tianjing ran away with all the betrothal gifts

Before the two people involved responded, the World Channel exploded first as it was flooded with messages at an astonishing rate. No one was even be able to read anything anymore without locking the screen in place.

[World] Is Gege Big: ?

[World] Don’t Ask when I’ll Return: ???

[World] The Wind is Freer than Me: Am I hallucinating from pulling an all nighter?

[World] I’m like Dust: Yearning For and Xiao Tianjing? Slag guy X experienced swindler? Experts exchanging blows? Strong VS Strong?? Final battle at the summit of the Forbidden City???

[World] Sleep Earlier: Wait?? What kind of hidden plotline is the Wrath of the King of Yaos?!

[World] Peachy Fate: Is that important? All I want to ask is what kind of strange combination are those two? I just went out for a meal, and within an hour, the melon eating world can’t contain me anymore?

[World] Love Eating Dumplings: Fuck, that swindler is seriously lucky, she actually got a treasure map and a hidden quest. The rewards from that could probably overturn the heavens ba?

[World] Luoluo doesn’t know what’s shame: Ha-ha. Person in the know is here to disclose the inside story: that treasure map was given to Xiao Tianjing by Yearning For.

[World] Don’t Ask when I’ll Return: ???

[World] Sleep Earlier: [doubtful]

[World] Goodnight to the world: [don’t understand] But however, aren’t treasure maps binding items? How can he have given it to her?

[World] Really Like Lulu: They must have fought for it together in a party bei. Yearning For is really amazing ah, how many quests did they have to do just to get that treasure map? He can be regarded as a benchmark for all slag men.

[World] Love Eating Dumplings: And his partner is even Xiao Tianjing; warm the heavens, warm the earth, warm the swindler, I love slag men. (a play on the movie Warm the heavens, warm the earth, warm the heart. It’s like… a play on ‘heartwarming’ LOL)

[World] Peachy Fate: @Today’s Bewildering Reward

…………

Horrified, Jing Huan watched as players in the world wrote about his story with Yearning For and wrote all the way to Chapter 42 in one go — on the day of the big wedding, Yearning For escaped with his new flame, while Xiao Tianjing ran away with all the betrothal gifts.

Fuck, where were they even going with all this?

He moved his mouse over to the quest bar to get a glimpse of the quest prompt.

Hidden quests were a special setting in Nine Chivalrous Heroes. Players often triggered them when servers were newly launched, but very few popped up afterwards.

In any case, Jing Huan played the game for such a long time and hadn’t even seen one before, let alone trigger one. He knew almost nothing about this quest.

There was only one simple sentence as the quest hint: “Please go to Mount Luojia 132.72 to seal the King of the Yaos”.

All right then.

[Party] Xiao Tianjing: Gege… Did I cause trouble? [crying]

Xiang Huaizhi did not reply immediately.

He was almost deafened by Lu Hang’s cries.

“What the fuck! Hidden quest!!” Lu Hang was so excited that he almost dropped his mobile phone. “Treasure maps actually have hidden quests too? You’re gonna get rich this time! The rewards were super sick to begin with, now that you’ve triggered a hidden quest, then what would you still need Enchanting Pearls for? It’s possible for you to just get a divine artifact from this!”

“That’s impossible. Hidden quests have never rewarded players with equipment.” Xiang Huaizhi interrupted his fantasies.

“Okay, a divine artifact is exaggerating it a little…” Lu Hang moved closer to him. “Ask Xiao Tianjing quick, ask if what she said before this still counts.”

“What did she say before?”

“What else? Didn’t she promise to give you anything she digs out?”

Xiang Huaizhi did not answer him.

At present, he was not interested in anything other than the Enchanted Pearl. He followed Xiao Tianjing to dig out the treasure map because he thought that just in case she really dug out an Enchanted Pearl, he should be able to buy it from her at its market price right afterwards.

“God of War Gege?” The voice of Xiao Tianjing sounded from his headphones again, “… I really did cause trouble, didn’t I.”

Xiang Huaizhi placed his hands on the keyboard, but deleted his message right after typing two words.

He pressed down on the push-to-talk key. “You didn’t.”

Jing Huan was stunned.

… This person’s voice…sounds strangely pleasant?

He didn’t deliberately suppress his voice or make it sound lower; it was a very common intonation, yet listening to it made one feel comfortable.

Makes sense, you couldn’t be a slag guy without this sort of qualification.

Jing Huan said, aggrieved, “But people in the World Channel are scolding me.”

Xiang Huaizhi didn’t open up the World Channel, so he naturally did not know that it had currently turned into a complete mess. “Just block it, and it’ll be fine.”

Jing Huan, “Un, I’ve blocked it… So what are we going to do now? Do we do this quest?

Xiang Huaizhi also looked at the quest bar. “Wait first.”

“But the quest has a time limit of 48 hours.”

Xiang Huaizhi opened up the official website. “Hidden quests all have a time limit of 48 hours. Let me check the information first. Deaths in hidden quests are handled in the same way as normal deaths. If we rush in rashly, we may drop levels from getting killed.”

“Is the Boss that terrifying?” Jing Huan paused, then said excitedly, “Gege, does that mean you’ll help me kill the Boss?”

Xiang Huaizhi stated the facts, “My name’s on the quest, you can’t trigger the battle without me.”

Jing Huan sneered inwardly, but his words were as sweet as sugar, “Thank you Gege!”

Xiang Huaizhi, “… I’ll go check the information. Will you be around tomorrow afternoon?

“I will be, Gege.” Jing Huan obediently said, “I’ll always be around.”

“Then let’s set the time for tomorrow afternoon first, so that leaves us a bit more time just in case we can’t complete it the first time.” Xiang Huaizhi moved his mouse over to the option to leave the team. “That’s it for now then.”

“Gege wait!” Jing Huan stopped him in a hurry. “… Shall we add each other as friends? Otherwise, how do we contact each other later?”

Xiang Huaizhi raised an eyebrow. “Un.”

His tone sounded very reluctant.

Jing Huan sneered coldly.

Fine, dislike me now, but there’ll come a day when you’ll love me ‘till you go mad.

No sooner had they added each other as friends then Yearning For flew away. Jing Huan returned to the main city, looked for Yearning For on his friend list, and checked his information.

Yearning For, Male, Level 150, Race: Demon, Sect: Mount Killua.

Personal Signature: None.

Today’s mood: None.

Friends’ Evaluations: None.

… Is this man pretending to be reserved and aloof? Even his 70-year-old grandmother had a personal signature.

Jing Huan propped his chin on his hand, clicked on his Friends’ Evaluations, and found the words “Gege” from the system and clicked on it like crazy.

【Yearning For has not opened up Friends’ Evaluation, your evaluation has failed! 】

“…”

Jing Huan closed his information straight away.

The next day, Jing Huan went to school. He had a class in the morning, and the old professor regarded him as a primary target for roll call, so he had to attend it.

Gao Zixiang saved a seat for him long long ago. When Jing Huan arrived, Gao Zixiang and Lu Wenhao had their heads close together. Jing Huan did not know what they were talking about.

“What, did my departure create opportunities for both of you?” Jing Huan sat in the empty seat and crossed his knees. “Got together just like that?”

“Got together your ass!” Gao Zixiang looked up. “We’re reading big news.”

Jing Huan didn’t care much. “What news?”

“You won’t be interested even if we tell you anyway, it’s about Nine Chivalrous Heroes.”

Jing Huan glanced sideways. “…what happened?”

“Actually, it’s not that big a deal. Someone on another server dug up a treasure map and ended up digging out a hidden quest… This game has been in operation for ten years, yet there are still hidden quests that haven’t been triggered yet, don’t you think that’s ridiculous?” Gao Zixiang put his mobile phone in place. “Last night, a server-wide system message suddenly popped up on our game interface. Our guild was in an instance at that time, and we were all dumbstruck by the message.”

Jing Huan: “…”

Hasn’t this news spread too fast?

He shifted his gaze away. “… Isn’t it just a hidden quest? What’s so rare about that?”

“Ha? And you still have the gall to say that. Have you ever seen what a hidden quest looks like?” Gao Zixiang laughed at him.

“I——” How could I have not? The quest in the announcement screenshot you’re looking at now was triggered by me, your grandpa! “… I’ve never seen one.”

Gao Zixiang patted his shoulder in consolation. “Actually, the focus of this isn’t entirely on the hidden quest, but on the people who triggered it…”

Halfway through talking, Gao Zixiang suddenly realised something and immediately shut up.

“The people who triggered the quest? Who was it?”

“No, nobody.” Gao Zixiang paused. “Anyway, they aren’t good people. One’s a slag guy, and the other’s a female swindler, they’re both notorious. They’re considered to have gotten together now.”

Jing Huan, “?”

Jing Huan, “Sometimes, you shouldn’t just listen to people’s one-sided opinions.”

“I’m not spouting nonsense. That’s what the people on that server are saying. That female swindler is still being chased by one of the big guilds in the server, and she probably doesn’t even dare to log into her account nowadays ba. The man isn’t a good guy either. If it wasn’t because his character’s a little strong, he would have been hunted down long ago.” Speaking of the slag guy, Gao Zixiang felt a bit dissatisfied on account of his good friend’s older sister and thumped the desk heavily. “If you ask me, it’s their fault that they got scolded that badly by the players in their server, they deserve it.”

Jing Huan didn’t expect to have to get scolded by his friends this early in the morning, and now his head throbbed. “Shut up.”

Lu Wenhao felt bored from being so idle. He opened up the Nine Chivalrous Heroes’ forum and refreshed it again.

But who would have known that this refresh would’ve brought out something extraordinary——

A post from an “Illusion” server player.

【Gosh, I received the system news early in the morning, and all I can say is that the Idle Pavilion Guild is really miserable now! 】

The original poster didn’t say much fluff and immediately attached a screenshot of the game——

[System News: The players Xiao Tianjing, Yearning For, in this server triggered the hidden quest of [Wrath of the King of Yaos]. The hidden quest is related to the stability of the server. If the two players successfully seal the King of Yaos within 48 hours, the stability of this server will increase by 200 points; if the quest fails, then 100 points will be deducted from this server’s stability. Within forty-eight hours, players in the server can strengthen the equipment attributes of Xiao Tianjing and Yearning For through “contributing materials” at the Forging King. Contribute to your server and and cheer on your warriors! ]

Server stability was one of the most important attributes of all servers, and it had a great impact on the major guilds — the reduction of server stability would greatly enhance the chances of guilds being robbed by thieves, and even the guilds’ potion fields may get wrecked in serious cases.

That meant that the major guilds in the server all had to contribute some materials within 48 hours… to “cheer on” Xiao Tianjing and Yearning For.

At this moment, the Idle Pavilion guild channel that was usually bustling with excitement was as quiet as a chicken; a heavy atmosphere permeated within.

Within ten minutes after the system news came out, no one in the guild popped up.

No one knew how much time had passed before there was finally a response in the channel——

[Guild] Don’t Ask when I’ll Return: …then…do we still hunt Xiao Tianjing these next two days?