Chapter 105: Long Time No See

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Xu Nuo said, "People always change, and isn't it natural for everyone to do their best for the one they like?"

They had once assumed Xu Nuo could never genuinely fall for anyone, let alone lose her head over someone. Yet here she was, head over heels for a virtual game character. Her assistant could only say, "Don't understand it, but best wishes."

Viewers noticed that Xu Nuo had changed again. Gone was the cold indifference of recent weeks, when she seemed to be avoiding something about this game. Now she was utterly obsessed with Gu Qianyan.

Although Gu Qianyan was the game's biggest traffic draw, Xu Nuo wasn't playing him because of the hype. She genuinely liked him.

Every match, she played Gu Qianyan—ranked, casual, matchmaking, even AI bot matches. Top lane Gu Qianyan, mid lane Gu Qianyan, jungle Gu Qianyan, bot lane Gu Qianyan, and even support Gu Qianyan. And it wasn't blind enthusiasm without skill; she genuinely played him well, with unmatched mechanics, dazzling in every position.

She decked Gu Qianyan out in the flashiest outfits and equipment, fought the fiercest and most stylish battles. She made no effort to hide her affection for him—she might as well have grabbed a megaphone and announced it to the entire stream.

Even her fans could barely handle this blaze of passion. "Our queen, you're truly devoted to Brother Gu."

A viewer teased, "You've already mastered Brother Gu to perfection. When the romance route goes live at six tonight, you can just play this like a dating sim."

"Romance him? No need for that," Xu Nuo said.

"Why not?"

Seeing how much she adored Gu Qianyan, viewers had assumed she'd be eagerly anticipating the romance route update.

"A waste of time." Just thinking about having to grind through those tedious romance quests like everyone else annoyed her. "Can't I play him without romancing him?"

"But if you romance him, it's more immersive—like you're actually dating him."

Seeing that comment, Xu Nuo frowned and became even more resolute in her decision not to pursue the romance route.

Before long, the officials gave their response and solution regarding the story chapter issues. To summarize: it was a very official reply. A data error, they said, without revealing specifics. They had prepared a data replacement.

"Replacing the data... that'll take at least half a day," Xu Nuo said absently while on the phone with the officials. "I have a stream tonight."

The officials were accommodating: "We can do it anytime on our end."

Xu Nuo hesitated. "Then... wait another day."

When she went live that evening, Xu Nuo's energy was clearly lower than in the morning. She kept spacing out for some reason and made several mistakes, though she managed to salvage them with extreme plays.

[Is streaming too tiring for you?]
[Streaming both morning and night—you don't have to push yourself this hard.]
[Yeah, Brother Gu's hype won't die down that fast.]

Some viewers assumed Xu Nuo was streaming so frequently because of Gu Qianyan's popularity, and that she was worn out.

In reality, Gu Qianyan had kept Xu Nuo energized these past days—she felt no fatigue at all. It was just that today, her mood was particularly low.

Seeing that her state was poor and team fights were prone to errors, Xu Nuo simply exited the match after a few rounds. She had already done nearly everything there was to do with Gu Qianyan—everything that could be done, she'd done. Without fighting, she didn't know what else to do with him. Bored out of her mind, she clicked into the AI training mode, uploaded her recent battle data, and fiddled with the parameters half-heartedly.

Training a character to mimic your own combat style and sending it into battle sounded interesting, but the process itself was less entertaining. The bullet comments showed many viewers wanted to see Xu Nuo romance Gu Qianyan.

Xu Nuo watched the Gu Qianyan on the map obediently clearing monsters and tapped her own forehead. Why overthink it? It's all just data anyway.

So she entered the new romance mode. It was largely the same as otome games—nothing novel.

"He's being chased and injured. I happen to have the medicine to save him, but it's meant for an important supporting character and I only have one dose. What should I do? A: give it to him but discard him afterward to cut ties. B: don't give it to him and report him instead. C: don't give it to him, but take him back and shelter him." Xu Nuo complained, "These options are all ridiculous. Isn't there anything that matches what I'd actually do?"

[What would you do, sis?]

Xu Nuo: "Obviously I'd give him half the medicine so he recovers his strength, then kill all the pursuers behind him to erase the traces. Otherwise, he's already barged into my territory—whether I help him or not, how am I, a defenseless girl, supposed to fend off the villain faction's suspicion? Isn't he just bringing trouble to my doorstep?"

Xu Nuo continued with a thorough analysis that left the viewers stunned.

[......You're amazing.]
[As expected of our queen.]

But wait—this was the romance route for Gu Qianyan. Falling in love with him was the whole point. Our queen, aren't you missing the point? Watching Xu Nuo charge off in a completely different direction, picking the worst possible options every time, the fans who usually took such pride in her gameplay finally understood what humility meant.

Xu Nuo kept playing at her own pace until reaching an affection score stage. The viewers had no expectations left by now. The scoring process was also unusually long—so long that Xu suspected her internet was lagging.

Finally, after about a minute, the score slowly materialized: one hundred.

[???]
[No way.]
[The system must be glitching?!]
[How could it be a perfect score? I don't believe it. There's definitely something wrong. How can it be one hundred?!]

Based on how Xu Nuo had been playing, Gu Qianyan's affection toward her probably wouldn't even reach passing. There was no way it should be a perfect one hundred.

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A one hundred meant one thing: Gu Qianyan's affection toward her was absurdly high. She smoothly claimed her reward—a legendary limited-edition skin. To date, no one besides Xu Nuo had scored a perfect one hundred—though to be fair, the mode had only launched tonight.

Regular players were reporting scores in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Even finding someone above ninety-five was rare.

Anyone with eyes could see how flawed Xu Nuo's choices and romance approach were. Yet she got a perfect one hundred. The "inside job" accusations found fertile ground again. Many players began suspecting the officials had given Xu Nuo special treatment.

Given Gu Qianyan's obvious popularity and Xu Nuo's absurd luck with him, her name quickly hit the trending searches.

First time: she pulled Gu Qianyan in a single draw. Luck—understandable. Second time: a convenient bug gave her a skin that shouldn't have appeared, one with an extremely low drop rate. Could still be chalked up to luck. Players grudgingly accepted it.

Third time: her clearly subpar choices earned a perfect score, plus another skin as a reward. Three strikes—this wasn't about luck anymore. This was blatant rigging.

The wall of accusations put pressure not just on Xu Nuo, but on the officials too.

The officials had no choice but to discuss issuing a statement with Xu Nuo. Her account had pre-existing issues, they said; the dev team was already working on a fix, and they would correct and restore the erroneous data.

A statement of that caliber did little to reassure the players. Weren't the officials admitting Xu Nuo's account had problems? Who was to say whether it was a genuine bug or intentional on the officials' part?

Besides, Gu Qianyan was widely acknowledged as one of the hardest characters to master, yet Xu Nuo had picked him up with unnatural speed, dominating matches as if she were playing an entirely different game from everyone else. Was that also a "data error"?

It was just short of accusing Xu Nuo of cheating outright.

Fans who followed Xu Nuo naturally knew she couldn't possibly be cheating—the camera showed everything clearly; she played every match herself. But against the overwhelming tide of condemnation, their voices were drowned out, unable to spread far.

The situation had escalated beyond a game streamer colluding with officials for publicity stunts. It had become accusations of officials having no bottom line in chasing hype, rigging a streamer's account to break game balance.

And the request Xu Nuo had made earlier—to postpone fixing the erroneous data—was no longer something she could decide.

In her stream, many curious players arrived after hearing the news. Faced with accusations against her skill, Xu Nuo gave a cold laugh.

"Do I need to cheat?"

Completely unruffled, she said, "Give me any account you want. I'll destroy you with whatever I'm on."

Could the viewers stomach that arrogance? Immediately, someone provided an account.

Xu Nuo logged in without hesitation. The account didn't have Gu Qianyan. Unfazed, she topped up money and pulled. The first ten-pull yielded nothing but junk. Par for the course. Xu Nuo stayed calm and pulled again. The second ten-pull was a qualitative leap—Gu Qianyan appeared, along with a matching gear set and skin.

Xu Nuo used this starter account to queue a match, diving into the fight without a word. Smooth combos, precise timing, zero wasted movement. Three minutes in, she'd secured a triple kill. No pentakill only because cooldowns hadn't come off.

By now, Xu Nuo couldn't be bothered to check the bullet comments. She was entirely focused on racking up kills. This new account had pitifully few skins and equipment, making her Gu Qianyan look conspicuously plain. She wasn't in the mood to spend much time on this account anyway.

In under ten minutes, the match was over.

The viewers were dazzled, their amazement overflowing. They had watched Xu Nuo execute those plays with their own eyes—whether they were natural was obvious at a glance.

[Sorry for doubting Sister Nuo before. After watching the stream, I'm fully convinced.]
[I said it before—no way Sister Nuo cheats. But so many people wouldn't believe it.]

One by one, the viewers were won over by Xu Nuo's performance, and an outpouring of apologies flooded the screen.

Of course, there were still a few stubborn, discordant voices. [Pfft, what does beating up in low ranks prove?]
[Go play in high ranks if you've got the guts. Stomping noobs proves nothing.]
[Are you people insane? First you accuse her of cheating, and when she disproves it, you whine that it's low rank. What's wrong with low rank? Since when does being able to execute combos depend on rank?]

Gu Qianyan's high skill ceiling was common knowledge. Landing those smooth combos already proved Xu Nuo's mechanics. But some people just refused to let it go.

The screen was mostly praise, with a small part suspicion and slander. At the moment, Xu Nuo had no energy to deal with the emotionally charged viewers. The officials had sent word: her account would be taken in to fix the bug.

This fix came with no guarantees. Would they really have to take back that god-tier skin? Would they really have to replace those two story chapters? The viewers weren't the only ones worried—Xu Nuo was too.

[Sister Nuo spent so much money. Her account will be fine, right?]
[Not necessarily. I once had a terrible experience—I was playing some small game and hit a similar issue. After I reported it, they wiped my account clean. I'd dumped a few thousand into it, and all I got in compensation was a few skins and some game currency.]
[Damn, what game? Name it so we can avoid it.]
[Two good news items: one, that crappy game went out of business a while back. Two, I filed a complaint with the consumer association before it shut down, got my losses back, and even made some money on top.]
[At least you got your losses back.]
[Eh, it wasn't about the money in the end. The worst part was that the characters and pets I'd raised for so long were gone just like that, and they wouldn't even restore them. Even if I started over, it wouldn't feel the same. That's why I quit the game.]

Just a few lines of chat—and of course, Xu Nuo happened to see them.

"Beep, beep..." By the time Xu Nuo realized what she was doing, she had already dialed the game's official contact number.

Still live on stream, Xu Nuo snapped back to alertness and hung up immediately, then stepped away from the camera to send a text message instead. After confirming she could still log in, she returned to her own account.

007, the rabbit boy avatar, was hanging around the top-left corner of the main screen waiting for her. The background image had randomly switched to that familiar night scene—except this time, unlike before, Gu Qianyan was nowhere to be seen.

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Xu Nuo asked in her usual tone, "Little Seven, where did Brother Gu go?"

007 replied, "He is fighting for the master right now."

The cute rabbit even made a gesture of rolling up its sleeves and throwing a punch.

Xu Nuo asked, "Where is he fighting?"

007 said, "In the AI training grounds."

AI training grounds? It seemed she'd just left him there after logging off last time. Xu Nuo clicked in—all battle data had been uploaded and analyzed.

Without her control, Gu Qianyan faced the enemy alone, sword in hand. Every move was precise and clean. Longtime viewers could clearly see Xu Nuo's personal style in it. Not eighty percent of it, but at least sixty.

The AI simulation difficulty kept climbing. Gu Qianyan breezed through the first few rounds, then started a new challenge—and failed.

To Xu Nuo and the more knowledgeable viewers, this came as no surprise. The enemy side's overall awareness and coordination were far superior to her team's. Aside from Gu Qianyan, her allies were all ordinary AI.

This round tested the player's individual skill, understanding of the game, and ability to train the AI. To win, Gu Qianyan would have to single-handedly carry the entire team. Training him to that level would be quite a challenge.

Xu Nuo had no mood to train Gu Qianyan right now. She casually tweaked a few inconsequential parameters and tossed him back into battle.

Sure enough, the match started clearly against them. Only Gu Qianyan was above the enemy's level; the AI teammates were all idiots.

Xu Nuo knew her own skill level well—this match was a guaranteed loss, no suspense about it. But the viewers watched with tension and excitement, hoping for a miracle, praying Gu Qianyan would carry the team.

Xu Nuo snacked on melon seeds while chatting with the viewers. Before she knew it, the match had reached its climax. No doubt about it—this next team fight would be a wipe. But the familiar annihilation sound effect never came. Instead, what rang out was the enemy team wipe sound.

Xu Nuo's hand, holding a melon seed, froze.

What just happened?

That far behind? With such a massive strength disparity, and they still wiped the enemy team? Since Xu Nuo hadn't taken this match seriously from the start, she hadn't been watching closely. Now she finally began to analyze seriously. She hadn't expected what she found.

Gu Qianyan's performance didn't look like something she had trained at all. It was very different from her usual style.

Her fans all thought of Xu Nuo as a warrior, because no matter what role she played—marksman, mage, support—she played them like a warrior. Relying on her superior mechanics, she attacked aggressively and ferociously, showing off with dazzling plays, scaring enemies off through sheer force of presence.

But this Gu Qianyan—every move seemed precisely calculated. The seemingly inconspicuous plays were all laying groundwork for the eventual comeback, building momentum like a snowball to close the gap and expand their advantage. No recklessness, no brute force. He protected his teammates as much as possible, cautious to a fault, until he had farmed enough to stand a fighting chance—then he seized the enemy's opening and led his team to wipe them.

Then, in one decisive push, he won the match.

If Xu Nuo were playing, she would never have chosen that approach. She preferred fighting the enemy to the death, crushing them through sheer dominance, and if she made a mistake in the mid-to-late game, she could be taken out at any moment.

Most viewers cheered for Gu Qianyan's victory. Only Xu Nuo and a handful of fans noticed that something was off.

[Our queen's account really is broken—she can't even control her own AI.]
[Who possessed Gu Qianyan?]

The famously hardest AI stage had been cleared, yet Xu Nuo didn't feel any real joy. She ended the stream listlessly.

The computer screen was still glowing.

Xu Nuo sighed and poked Gu Qianyan, who stood on the victory podium.

"Brother Gu, what do I do?"

So tired, so sleepy. Xu Nuo let her face flop onto the desk. She was just a gamer. Why did she have so many problems? The inexplicable error chapters, the god-tier skin that leaked into the pool—how was any of this supposed to end? It was rare for her to feel so lost and helpless.

"If you're tired, get some rest."

The man's voice was gentle and warm.

Xu Nuo closed her eyes, lying on the desk, and slowly drifted off without realizing it.

Then she opened her eyes again. What greeted her was a brilliant starry sky. A breeze swept past her, brushing through her hair. She turned around—and met those eyes directly.

"Long time no see."

Unlike his perpetually gentle expression on the screen, this face now carried a tangle of emotions: the pain of regret, the joy of reunion after long separation, and something else—the predatory certainty of a hunter eyeing its prey, tinged with danger.

"B-Brother Gu."

Gu Qianyan pressed down on Xu Nuo's shoulders, the force gentle yet unyielding, guiding her to sit on the grass.

"Mhm."

They sat in silence. Xu Nuo was close to pulling the thread right out of her sleeve. The man beside her—was he Gu Xingze? Lu Ciyuan? Or Gu Qianyan?