CH 4

Yue Ran warmly sent his guildmates off using the {wave a small handkerchief} gesture and watched their characters disappear at the instance dungeon lobby, then he continued to wait for Dying Star. 

Probably because the first few rooms of the instance dungeon were easy, his cousin found the time to message him.

[(Private) Attired Guqin: I see that Dying Star is also in this dungeon, are you here to find him?]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Yep.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Don’t act impulsively. Wait for me and we’ll figure something out.] 

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: No.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Do you have any evidence that proves you are the real Dying Star? ]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: No.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: …Wait for me.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: No, I want a piece of him first.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Do you still remember Sunken Moon?]

Surprised by the question, Yue Ran remembered the somewhat fond memory.

Sunken Moon was an elite player that he met in the game three years ago. They often challenged each other, and when Yue Ran deleted his account in the spur-of-the-moment, he didn’t think of sending a farewell message to Sunken Moon. Later, he found out that Sunken Moon became a streamer, a very popular one too. 

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I do, why?]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Dying Star could regain his fame in such a short time after his long retirement, was mainly because of Sunken Moon’s help.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: (flip table)]

Fuck that fond memory! 

Fuck the friendship they had. I can’t believe he would stab me in the back like that!

Qin Xiujie worried his cousin couldn’t contain his rage and quickly typed the entire story.

Sunken Moon had a lot of followers because of his strength.

Although it was common for elite players to have alt, they played on their main account most of the time. A week ago, he logged into an alt during his stream at the new server, saying that he wanted to play arena with an old friend. The fans looked at the character ID and found the friend was Dying Star. From that day on, Sunken Moon kept playing his alt, obviously for Dying Star. 

Because of Dying Star’s history of refining a White Phoenix, he was often the topic of conversation, even when his account had been deleted.

Now that he was back, he acted down to earth and answered many support players’ questions. He even invited people to run dungeons and do arenas. Because of his friendliness, he gained a group of fans in a short time.

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Understand now? Sunken Moon paved the way for Dying Star, maybe for his own agenda, or maybe to spice things up for his stream, but nonetheless, it was Sunken Moon’s genius idea that helped Dying Star accumulate his popularity. You have no evidence, compared to that ‘Dying Star’ who has Sunken Moon as his witness. If you rushed in without a plan, they would make false countercharges, and their loyal fans would kill you until you delete your account.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: (flip table) (flip table) (flip table)] 

[(Private) Attired Guqin: If he dared to take dead weight into the dungeon, he must have some skill at least. You, on the other hand, haven’t played for three years—you are basically no different from a noob. Not only do you not have evidence, but you also can’t even defeat him in PK. Who would believe in you?]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: (pensive) (bang head on ground)]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Most importantly, they picked a great time. Sunken Moon knew the most recent update was coming. Have you opened the production window yet? There are three new pieces of content from today’s update, they completely revamped it. ]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I saw.] 

[(Private) Attired Guqin: If Dying Star can’t refine out a White Phoenix, this update will be his downfall.]

Tef Ejc kjr ifoa rqffmtifrr.

‘Ugbvemalbc’ kjr atlr ujwf’r ylu ofjaegf, la kjr rjlv ab jirb yf atf ujwf vfrlucfgr’ qgbevfra jmmbwqilrtwfca.

Kjxf rewwbcfg obg fzjwqif, atfs tjnf ‘rewwbcfv gfolcfwfca’ lc atflg qgbvemalbc klcvbk. 

C rewwbcfg mjc gjlrf rlz rqlgla yfjrar, olnf bo ktlmt jgf ybecv ys atf mtjgjmafg ys vfojeia. Pc batfg kbgvr, j wjz ifnfi rewwbcfg klii jikjsr tjnf atfrf olnf rewwbcfv mgfjaegfr. Ktf ijra rqlgla yfjra lr gfolcfv bg ajwfv ys atf qijsfg, j ogffvbw ulnfc ys atf mgfjabgr obg qijsfgr ab tjnf oec klat gfolclcu.

Freedom to what degree?

Summoners could create their own aides. Open the summoned refinement and there is an array in the ‘summoned refinement window’, players can place items into the array. It could be rare materials, unbound spirit beasts, minerals, etc. The same combination would yield different results if the item’s placement was different in the array.

In this game, there are ten rare items for each job class, which can only be obtained through production. 

For example, rare summoned spirit beasts for summoners, weapons for swordsmen, magic arrays for mages, etc. The White Phoenix that Yue Ran refined was one of the rare ten.

However, because of the high degree of freedom and the complexity of items, not all the rare spirit beasts had been discovered.

There were many players playing swordsmen. Naturally, this job class had eight of their rare weapons in existence, while for the poor summoner with a smaller player base, there were only four rare spirit beasts discovered. One of them was White Phoenix, which went into the abyss when the account was deleted. This was another reason Dying Star was brought up so often. It was such a missed opportunity because the method to refine a rare summoned creature could be sold for as high as six digits. Even if he didn’t want to continue playing, he could have sold the secret!

Qin Xiujie was super surprised to learn that his cousin was Dying Star, and he knew Yue Ran wasn’t stupid. 

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Why didn’t you sell it? Surely you had several people contacting you for it right?]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Yes, but during my teenage years, I had a superiority complex. If I can’t play, no one can. But this was also my biggest regret (tear).]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Why did you delete your account?]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: You think I wanted to? At that time, I didn’t do so hot on my practice exam. Both my parents knew I was playing this game. They watched me delete it.] 

If he hadn’t deleted it, he could just log onto Dying Star on the old server, and immediately expose the imposter.

No point crying over spilt milk. In order to attract a wave of new players for this summer, the game underwent many updates. Not only did they release more difficult instance dungeons, when they added five new items to each job class, they also overhauled the production window.

He actually refined White Phoenix by mistake, and he has long forgotten what materials he might have used. Now, after the update, there was no way for him to refine the bird again.

Thinking about this made him extra unhappy! 

Yue Ran ground his teeth, ran out to get a box of ice cream and ate two large scoops on his way back. Now he felt slightly better.

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Then what now?]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Leave everything to me. He often invites strangers, so I will get in touch with him and see what kind of character he is. If we can, we will take off his cover. But for now, ignore him.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Fine.] 

Thinking of his malicious cousin, who was very good at screwing people over, dealing with this person was his specialty.

Finally persuading his cousin to do nothing, Qin Xiujie was relieved.

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Good boy, I will bring you souvenirs once I am back.

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Oh? Where are you now?] 

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Out on vacation, and right now I am at your husband’s place, eating and drinking to my heart’s content.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I see.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Your husband is very handsome. We are in the same university, you will see him once the semester starts (evil laugh).]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Not interested.] 

[(Private) Attired Guqin: many people are chasing him, yet you turned down a chance to gain an advantage, don’t say that this cousin didn’t help you.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Still not interested, he is an alpha, right?]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Yes. Didn’t you say you want to find an alpha in college? He is ready to be taken (evil laugh).]

But the plan could never catch up with the change. 

I dreamed of a future, but God had sealed the window shut.

Yue Ran ate more ice cream quietly and typed.

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I have no future with him (light a cigarette).]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: ?] 

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I don’t want to talk about it today, it’s too painful.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Go take a nap if you’re tired. I expect this new instance dungeon will take us the whole afternoon. I might not have time to play with you today.]

Yue Ran thought the same thing as well.

He switched to the guild chat and as he was ready to ping his ‘husband’, he saw a flash message at the top of his screen from a very familiar ID. 

[(Horn) Dying Star: Anyone with a summoner question can add me. Please don’t send requests for personal questions and please don’t be too hard on me everyone (pray) (pray) (pray).]

Fuck, why can’t you send it in world chat? Why must you show your existence using the horn!

Yue Ran nibbled on his spoon and glared hatefully at the message.

But the message only stayed on the screen for a few seconds and soon was replaced by a new message. 

[(Horn) Sunken Moon: Ha ha, I will reply in his place. He is a single dog and had never been in a relationship. He might as well be doomed to stay single forever (joy).]

[(Horn) Dying Star: Shut up, aren’t you a single dog yourself? You have no right to say this about me!]

[(Horn) Sunken Moon: w8]

Yue Ran watched their conversation gloomily. Among his train of thought, a keyword caught his attention as he sent a message. 

[(Horn) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Hubby, hubby~I am getting off to take a nap, I thought you might not see my message in the instance dungeon, so I wanted to send it to the highest place for your eyes. Look at me (two finger hearts).]

Jiang Xiao saw his message and knew his little summoner was doing his job again.

[(Horn) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: Okay, have a good nap.]

[(Horn) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Kiss me so I can sleep soundly (sad)?] 

[(Horn) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: (kiss)]

[(Horn) Vault of Heavens Essence<: (super happy)]

A couple’s account and interacting so sweetly on top of that, it instantly crumbled every player’s face on the server.

[(World) Old Mountain: To be dignified by this quality of dog food.] 

[(World) Dying Star: (lemon)]

[(World) Sunken Moon: (lemon)]

[World] I am Coming: (cry)]

[World] Snow Sea: (lemon)] 

The world chat blew up very quickly, everyone had sour grapes.

Yue Ran’s motive was, of course, to make Dying Star unhappy by stealing the limelight—even just a little was a success so he logged off.

Before the game client closed, he looked at the last horn message, and the picture of the little summoner and the swordsman sitting on the horse suddenly appeared in his mind. He also felt sour.

What happened to me today? 

First, his red line of fate was cut off in the hospital, he ate countless amounts of dog food on the subway, bought an account that came with a fake husband, discovered an imposter while playing the game, and when he finally did a comeback at that person, he also suffered as a single dog.

He covered his fragile little heart that couldn’t withstand all the news and fell on his bed.

He slept until the evening when his parents had just returned home.

His father’s name was Yue Shizhong, a university professor. His mother’s name was Deng Ling, a fashion designer. They were an AO pair, and as he was the only child in this family, they doted on him very much. When his parents saw him opening the door for them with his bed hair, Yue Shizhong smiled, “You just woke up?” 

Yue Ran replied, “Yes”, and took his lab test to them. “I have something to tell you.”

Seeing his solemn expression, his father asked, “Something happened?”

Yue Ran explained, “I went to the hospital a few days ago for a test, and got the result today.”

Yue Shizong’s expression changed, and the speed of his heart instantly increased. 

Deng Ling was also startled as she fixed her attention on her son.

Yue Ran took a deep breath. “I…”

“Wait!” His father interrupted him, ran to the master bedroom, and returned quickly with a bottle of quick-acting heart reliever held tightly in his hand. “Okay, continue.”

Yue Ran: “…” 

Translator has something to add:

CG is holding a 10k celebration (almost there)! With the help of my lovely editors, DarkSapphire and Sahloknir, two bonus chapters for Mutated Pheromones are one of the prizes in the pool. Best of luck everyone!