The pretty girl who plays with people's feelings is going to be severely punished.

With the phone right next to her mouth, Yu Lian didn't dare utter a single curse, afraid that the despicable person would overhear something.

In fact, even if Pei Shaoyuan used a breathy tone, there was still some sound. Her phone wasn't like Ao Chen's cheap Android phone that made a whirring noise like someone drowning.

You can hear even their breathing clearly, let alone anything else.

The silence on the other side was ambiguous. Yu Lian didn't care whether he had heard her or not, fearing that if the time dragged on any longer, Pei Shaoyuan would cause trouble again.

"Turn off screen sharing, and stop playing. I need to eat."

Her voice was tense, as if she were being held hostage by a robber and could only use coded language to ask her husband for help, hoping that the despicable man would understand and hang up quickly.

"Turn off what?" Pei Shaoyuan laughed angrily, not allowing her to make any small moves. He grabbed her cheeks from below and forced her mouth open, making it much more difficult for her to speak.

He stared at the phone, his voice menacing as he demanded, "Who are you?"

The scoundrel didn't reply immediately, and those few seconds of silence felt exceptionally long. Yu Lian was torn between feeling guilty for being caught in bed with another man or regretting the impending loss of her son, Da Guobiao.

On the screen, Huo Wu, who had just joined, sent a message, which was quickly turned off. The despicable one finally spoke, but his voice didn't have the same subtle smile as when he was talking to Yu Lian.

Very seriously.

"Hello, I'm the boss's power leveler."

Yu Lian was stunned by these words. She couldn't believe there was such a person with exceptional emotional intelligence. Pei Shaoyuan was skeptical: "Just play quietly if you're being boosted, why make a phone call?"

Despite his despicable demeanor, he remained polite: "I stream all my boosting games, so my boss doesn't mind. If there are no problems, I'll continue. I need to submit my order tonight."

Pei Shaoyuan couldn't find a single fault in the innocent working-class persona he played. If this person really was a male mistress, then he was too despicable, too self-degrading, and too hypocritical.

They are formidable rivals.

He frowned, looking at Yu Lian's obviously guilty expression, and then at the game interface on the screen that he didn't quite understand.

"Intimate relationships, isn't that what you call 'that'? Show it to me."

Although Pei Shaoyuan doesn't play King of Glory, he knows a little about it for Yu Lian's sake, and knows that they can form close relationships and be a couple.

I had also investigated Yu Lian once before.

The screenshots of intimate relationships that Yu Lian sent over at the time were all from female accounts.

I'm still glad he didn't check the duration of the wake-up call.

Now that Ao Chen, who had been erased and disappeared, was about to resurface, Yu Lian immediately objected and opened her mouth to stop him: "Wait—"

Before he could even finish speaking, their intimate relationship was already revealed through a despicable display of inexplicable subservience. He seemed to genuinely believe himself to be a mistress caught by the wife, doing whatever Pei Shaoyuan told him to do.

Among the close relationships that are at most level four or five, the level fifteen rabbit ear label stands out.

I could make a black-haired male character even without being told.

Not wanting to appear too despicable, I closed the page again, as if realizing what I'd done, and said apologetically, "Oh, I can't look? I'm sorry, it was just a subconscious thought..."

"...Who is this?"

When Pei Shaoyuan was in a relationship, the questions he asked most were "Who are you?", "Who is he?", and "Who is this?". Even if Yu Lian sent him a picture of a cat or dog on the street, he would still ask if it was male or female.

He was already annoyed enough when he saw that all her close relationships were with women, let alone men, male friends, and best friends.

What kind of friends does Yu Lian need? Best friend, husband, brother, dating buddy, ranking tool, ATM, he can be them all.

Every additional person next to her means that one of his positions will be squeezed out.

"What do you mean, 'who'? Just a regular friend. Don't you have any friends?" Yu Lian couldn't pretend to be a quail anymore; she was angry even when she was in the wrong. Afraid that her despicable behavior would bring up Ao Chen's game homepage again, she struggled like an eel for a few moments, and finally broke free, relying on Pei Shaoyuan's reluctance to press her down too hard.

I frantically searched for the exit button on my phone, but couldn't find it after a few tries, so I angrily swiped the background apps closed.

All sounds ceased abruptly.

Pei Shaoyuan looked at her silently. Her hair was frizzy from being rubbed, and the neckline of her T-shirt was crooked, revealing half of her shoulder. Two faint red finger marks appeared on her cheek after he had pinched her for a while.

He was still cursing; he had a terrible temper.

"I already said it's a game boosting service, why are you asking? If you can't date, then don't date. Why are you always questioning my motives? Does dating mean I can't talk to other guys? Don't you talk to other girls either?"

Her words sounded more like a preemptive strike, intended to protect the man she was intimate with.

Pei Shaoyuan's lips twitched slightly: "What did you say when I was talking to the waiter at the restaurant last time?"

Yu Lian paused, frowning as she recalled. It was just a temporary tactic she used to create a scene during their breakup, but she hadn't expected him to remember it for so long, and now he had changed his mind, leaving her furious.

"You still remember that waiter? He's quite unforgettable."

When Pei Shaoyuan was questioned like this, he instinctively wanted to raise three fingers to swear, but then he realized what he was doing and slowly clenched his fingers into a fist.

"Now is not the time to change the subject. I'll do it even if you don't tell me. What is it?"

"Looks like those of us who are good at both talking and doing are being eliminated by the market?"

Yu Lian didn't even want to talk to him. If she really went along with his words, she would say that he had no skills other than going straight up and down, and that he relied entirely on his waist strength. She also had the nerve to say that he could do it.

"We're really just friends. I've never even met him in person, we just play games together. I don't like him, and he doesn't like me. We've known each other for a year. If I were to have anything going on with him, would it be your turn?"

When Yu Lian is angry, she dares to say anything, saying whatever is most offensive, as if she wins by hurting the other person.

After the last sentence was uttered, Pei Shaoyuan stared at her for several seconds.

His breathing was labored, and his voice was colder and harsher.

"A year. A man who spends a year playing games with you and listening to your voice every day, how could he not like you? Are you really stupid or just pretending? Do you need me to tell you how miserable you were in my mind when we were playing games together?"

"My bed is covered in my marks, and I'm being compared to some game friend I've never even met, someone whose identity I don't even know. Should I thank him for letting me have my turn?"

The last three words were almost spoken through gritted teeth.

Yu Lian opened her mouth, wanting to retort that not everyone is as lecherous as him, but when her eyes met his, she chickened out. Pei Shaoyuan raised his hand, pretending to straighten her hair, but instead of smoothing it down, he mischievously ruffled it.

Her hair was so soft it felt like her hands were buried in down feathers. She looked incredibly adorable with her neck tucked in, her eyes darting around as she watched his expression. His mood strangely improved again.

"It wasn't my turn, I snatched you away. It's like I got someone else's lucky break, which is really annoying... Have you ignored all my efforts?"

Yu Lian had never seen someone so unpredictable. It felt like the kind of person who was diagnosed with a mental illness during a premarital checkup and then blamed the difficulty of dating for tormenting him like this.

He was actually mentally ill.

With her hair covered in a messy bird's nest, she didn't dare to provoke him any further; arguing wouldn't do any good.

"I'm really hungry. Are you going to cook or not? I don't want to wait anymore, let's order takeout."

She had only asked him to cook to get him out of the way of watching the car accident, but now that he'd seen it, she wasn't going to be so easy to talk to anymore.

Pei Shaoyuan had no objection. He was indeed excited that Yu Lian was willing to eat the food he cooked, but after calming down, he still felt that it was not very healthy for Yu Lian to eat his cooking after she had been overworked and had lost her voice. She should eat something nourishing.

He leaned in for a hug, holding his phone up to her face so she could order. His flight was that evening, an urgent one. Yu Lian readily agreed to go to H country; he wanted to get there as soon as possible to finish dealing with his grandfather and have more time to prepare and furnish his accommodation.

Ideally, we'd like her to stay so she won't want to leave.

The crystal exploded, and Ao Chen remained silent on that page for a long time. Only when his right arm, which had been holding the phone for so long, became sore and numb did he finally turn off the screen.

Honor of Kings was the only game he could be good at in front of her. And now, even that, he lost to someone else in front of her.

I still clearly remember Yu Lian's voice on the phone the day I went to youth training. She asked him with a smile if he could buy her a house based on his net worth.

If this game had been played before he went to youth training, would she still have asked that question? He didn't know.

Ao Chen wasn't someone who got discouraged easily; to be precise, he wasn't easily discouraged. He could drift through life aimlessly, and he never had any great ambitions. Before he met Yu Lian, he earned enough money to eat his fill and was happy as long as his parents didn't scold him for sponging off them.

But he happened to know Yu Lian.

We still have to fight for this.

Youth training sounds prestigious, but when he arrived at the training camp with his suitcase, there were hundreds of others like him, all sleeping in shared dormitories. It's like throwing a stone and killing five hundred great nations because someone has five or six national standards.

How many will be able to stand out?

He can't even beat the archers that Yu Lian casually recruits and knows. How can he be a youth training program?

Lying in bed, the final dragon-stealing sequence played out in his mind frame by frame. He hated post-match analysis; after every training session, he was always the one who slept the longest and fastest during the coach's debriefing meeting. But today, he couldn't control himself, thinking about it with regret, as if he had lost more than just a top-tier match—his entire life was over.

The new guy who moved to the top bunk got out of bed and was shocked by his posture, saying he looked like he was lying in a coffin.

Ao Chen glanced at him: "I'm not going to continue with youth training. I'm not worthy."

The person in the upper bunk looked at him with surprise, wondering what had gotten into him again: "What's wrong now, Brother Bupi? You lost the game? I remember you were pretty high in the peak rankings. Just lose a couple of games and climb back up. Even KPL pros lose in the peak rankings. If you don't lose, then it's not a big deal."

Ao Chen fell silent; he couldn't connect with an idiot who only knew how to play games. He opened NetEase Cloud Music and numbly selected his favorite background music.

He knows nothing.

He didn't lose the game; he lost the reason for playing in youth training.

The music started.

How much pain it hurts is something I don't have the courage to ask you... How afraid I am that you let go too easily... How ridiculous that I'm the only one left who can't forget you... The ridiculous thing is that I can't be as carefree as you...

Ao Chen turned over, facing the wall, tears welling up in his high nose bridge, forming a dimple. Before he could bury his face in the blanket, a WeChat notification popped up.

"Xiao Lian's inner monologue: To reach the top of the national rankings, I have many people to thank, especially my actors, who I would have done even if they didn't say it."

"Xiao Lian's inner monologue: What's your award this week? Let's film a little skit after you receive your award and peak ranking. But when are you going to release your professional award, bro?"

Xiao Lian's inner monologue: [Image] Take a picture of this.

Ao Chen immediately turned off the music.

What are you crying for? Let's go to the top!

The higher your peak ranking, the better the screenshots from the mini-drama will look.

"1: Just know to give in to what you need, child."

"1: The professional standard is fast. A photo with someone costs 500."