Wendy was shocked: "Is your cat sentient? Is it disgusted by the spoon you used or the cake I scooped out of it?"
Wen Zheng: "He definitely dislikes you. Give me the rainbow one, don't touch it."
Wendy, itching to get her hands on the cake, stopped causing trouble and handed over an untouched piece. Wen Zheng took a spoonful, and Da Hei promptly stuck out its tongue and licked it.
“…So cute.” Wendy’s eyes were glazed over. “It’s so adorable that he doesn’t give us any face.”
Wen Zheng: "...?"
Wendy was lost in thought for a moment before saying, "The national cat beauty pageant is about to start this year. Have you thought about bringing your cat? I think it's so cute and unique, it's sure to get a good result."
“If Dahei wants to go, I’ll sign up.” Wen Zheng’s words were incredibly maniacal to Wendy: “It’s all grown up now.”
Wendy was in a daze: "…………"
After finishing their meal, Wen Zheng handed a small chip to Wendy.
"Do as we agreed. There are some documents inside. I will notify you when there are any new updates."
Wendy, who hadn't done anything wrong in a long time, said enthusiastically, "I understand, expose him!"
Author's Note: Wen Zheng: Dahei, you're an adult now, you need to learn to sleep by yourself.
Big Black: ? ? ?
(The author took a break today; the real slap-in-the-face session begins tomorrow!)
Chapter 38
The joint event of the Cat Lover Live Streaming Competition and the Black Box Test has now reached its 30th day. The three-star and lower-level dungeons have been tested by hundreds of millions of players worldwide and will officially conclude today.
A week later, a 20-day test event for dungeons ranging from three stars to platinum will begin, and a brand new feast of even greater scale awaits many players in the survival space.
As a professional streamer, Shan Yu Yu Lai is known for his dedication, so he naturally wouldn't miss any weekend with high viewership. He received a call from his agent that evening, read the post where Lao Gao was criticized on the forum, and did some last-minute memorization before finally entering the game in a good mood.
Good evening, everyone. Have you all had dinner yet?
With a flash of white light, he appeared in the central crystal hall. After opening the barrage of messages and exchanging pleasantries as usual, he checked his equipment and inventory.
"It got colder again yesterday, did everyone put on their warm clothes? Don't catch a cold just to look good... Hahaha, yeah, don't compare yourself to me, I'm healthy and exercise regularly... Thank you Little Raindrop for the hundred bombs, thank you Deep Space for the fifty bombs, everyone don't need to spend any more money... Thank you Bubble for the three hundred bombs from my house, okay, okay, I'm not reading the rest."
Shan Yu opened the menu: "I'm really surprised to have been in first place for so long. I heard the fan club has organized a lot of activities. I suddenly appeared in the Weibo fan group a few days ago. Did you guys see it? If not, it's okay, I'll go again next time. Anyway, I'm really grateful to you all... It's your support that has allowed me to persevere all this time. Thank you. Haha, I won't say any more cheesy things, let's hurry up and queue up for a game?"
After watching the comments for a while, Shanyu pretended to be troubled: "Duo queue? Maybe I should just forget about it... Little Z seems to be a little unhappy with me because of what happened last time. Why? I don't know..."
"Okay, I'll pick a fan to queue for a game today. ...Quiet, quiet, moderator, come on, I'll stop when I say stop...Stop! Oh, is it a little girl? Come on, add me." Shan Yu opened the panel and received a friend request from someone with the ID [Cheng Mei], while at the same time seeing [z-bkc] online.
The little fan was thrilled and rushed towards Shan Yu a few seconds later, following the team's coordinates. She was dressed as a typical loli, with pink twin tails, and only reached Shan Yu's waist in height. She waved from afar, shouting, "Shan Yu, ahhhhhh—"
Shan Yu quickly raised his hand to stop them, but it was too late. Nearby players had already heard the familiar name and looked over. Shan Yu didn't care about anything else and quickly joined the queue.
In an instant, the two were teleported into the instance.
Blue light dots formed a human shape. Shan Yu opened his eyes and joked, "It was a complete mess of a flight..." He suddenly paused.
His teammate, dressed in all black with a unique pendant around his neck, slowly opened his eyes—
"Wen, Xiao Z!" Shan Yu was so shocked she almost blurted out Wen Zheng's name, but thankfully she shut her mouth in time: "We weren't in a team, were we? How come we're matched together again? What kind of fate is this?"
He smiled as he finished speaking, seemingly surprised and delighted. He opened his arms to hug him, but then suddenly noticed that his comment section was completely blank.
"Um?"
He couldn't care less about performing anymore. He frowned, turned off the bullet comments and then turned them back on, repeating this several times, but it was still blank.
"Mountain Rain." Wen Zheng nodded to him. "What a coincidence."
"It's quite a coincidence. Little Z, look at your comments. Has anyone said anything?"
Wen Zheng made a gesture, and after a moment said, "Blank space. Is it a bug?"
Shan Yu sighed helplessly: "The streamer competition has come this far, and this still messes up. The programmer who loves cats is probably going to have his bonus docked... Is it a problem with the chat or the connection to the live stream? If it can't connect, there's no point in us playing this game. Have any other streamers encountered this problem?"
“Let’s all go down and take a look,” Wen Zheng said.
"Okay, if anything's not right, call me."
This was the first time Shan Yu, a streamer for so many years, had encountered such a problem with the cat-themed live streaming assistant. He temporarily went offline and checked his own live stream on the host computer, where a flood of comments said he could see the stream.
- We can see Shan Yu's broadcast and send comments; it's probably a bug in the assistant plugin.
- Boss, I checked a few other live streams, and in any of the survival mode streams, I couldn't see any chat messages during the dungeon. It's not your problem.
- That must be a problem with the plugin. Has anyone called customer service?
-We've tried several times already, let's just wait and see how things are resolved.
…………
Shan Yu felt a little relieved after reading it: "I won't be watching you, but you can't use foul language or prohibited words. The room manager should keep an eye on you."
After giving his instructions, he returned to the game and opened his eyes to find that Wen Zheng had already come back.
"We can broadcast it," Wen Zheng said. "Are you coming or not?"
"Haha, of course."
Only then did I belatedly feel the joy of realizing that a storm was brewing.
There are so many players in the game, and there are only four people in a dungeon at a time. The fact that he was able to queue up with Wen Zheng twice in a solo queue is simply an unbreakable bond!
Thinking of this, his smile became even more genuine: "It's been so many days since I've seen you. How have you been?"
Wen Zheng's expression was very serious, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts: "It's fine."
Shan Yu wasn't in a hurry to restore their close and friendly relationship. Looking around, she saw that they were in a modern corridor with sparsely arranged spotlights overhead, and she didn't know where they were.
"Where are the other two?" he asked casually, opening the menu, a mouthful of blood immediately choking him.
[Chengmei], [Dawang0917].
Haha, Shan Yu thought, why are you still entangled with that person? Their reputation is ruined.
Wen Zheng: "We must have been separated by the system. Let's go and see where we are."
Having said that, he took the lead and went forward, and Shan Yu had no choice but to follow.
The corridor appeared to be part of a large public building, with fire safety systems and emergency exit signs spaced at intervals. The echoes were loud and the space felt empty, adding to the eerie atmosphere.
The model of this instance was unexpectedly large, and unlike the Jacaranda, it didn't have a maze-like layout. The two walked for quite a while before reaching a fork in the road where a signpost appeared.
"The basketball court is to the left, and the badminton court is to the right," Shan Yu said. "Is this a multi-purpose sports stadium?... Ah, here's a map."
A huge floor plan of the venue was embedded in the wall not far away.
Looking up, you see the "Mayflower Sports Center," and the layout of the venue matches its name. The central plaza resembles the stamen of a flower, surrounded by five oval petals, like cherry blossoms—it's very beautiful.
“We’re in the ball sports area now.” Shan Yu found the red dot representing their location, pointed to it, and said, “Later, let’s find an exit and go check out the central square.”
Seeing that Wenzheng could only nod, Shanyu smiled and put his hand on his shoulder: "Why do you seem to be in a bad mood? Is it so boring to stand with me?" Then he joked: "Which do you prefer, me or the King?"
Wen Zheng used a clever trick to gently pull himself apart, creating two body lengths between them. He then gave him a rare smile and said, "What do you think?"
As the storm was brewing, he walked side by side with him toward the basketball court and said seriously, "I was wrong last time. I shouldn't have argued with the King on a whim. I've been wanting to apologize to him, but unfortunately I don't have him as a friend and I can't find him on Weibo."
Wen Zheng said naturally, "He doesn't use Weibo."
"Is that so?" Shan Yu asked in surprise. "It seems you two have a really good relationship. May I ask why he... was angry last time?"
Shan Yu kept bringing up the topic of the last time, clearly having her own ulterior motives.
That was his most glorious battle; because he turned the tide, he was instantly hailed as a superstar. For days afterward, his mind was filled with how triumphant he was that day, how he single-handedly saved the battle, and how the other two, acting impulsively and failing at the crucial moment, had given him a huge windfall…
Wen Zheng pondered for a moment, then pushed open the door of the basketball court and said, "We have different views on love. He thinks that what's like a flower fairy isn't love."
"Isn't it called love?" Shan Yu said, "You didn't see the ending that time, so you don't know the whole story."
"I really didn't look at it."
"Then let me explain it to you briefly..."
Wen Zheng walked to his right, and the two slowly walked to the center of the stadium, outside the court.
The timeline of this instance is a bit strange, because there's a manually operated scoreboard that's been phased out by history on the sidelines. But there's also a referee's table with a large screen embedded in the wall and smart devices, which is clearly more modern.
While the mountain rain was pouring down, he quietly turned the 6 on the scoreboard upside down, making it a 9, as the opponent looked towards the center of the court.
"The Jacaranda Flower Fairy was originally a flowering tree that was about to be cut down. In his previous life, the male protagonist saw her and thought she was very beautiful. He tied a red ribbon he found on the road to her branch. Because the flowering tree with the red ribbon was very beautiful, people followed suit and tied it on and made a wish. The flowering tree gradually became a tourist attraction and was preserved by the city's planning."
"After that, the flower fairy cultivated herself into a spirit. Every time she made a human friend, she faced the inevitable death. In this way, she sent one human after another away. The day she met the male protagonist from her childhood, she had just said goodbye to her last friend in the world..."
"She originally didn't want to have any more contact with humans, but because of her past love, she decided to adopt the reincarnated male protagonist and raise him well—is this the scoreboard?"
Shan Yu's mouth was dry from talking, and he finally realized that he had followed Wen Zheng around for a while without noticing anything.
"Okay," Wen Zheng said. "Go on, I'm listening."
"Haha, actually, there's not much else to it. The female demon originally didn't intend to have a relationship with the male lead, but spending so much time together made it too easy to develop feelings for him. So, after the female demon faked her death, she couldn't resist the temptation and met the male lead again under a different identity. After that, she couldn't resist her longing... Anyway, she gave the male lead a happy life. Isn't that love?"
Wen Zheng stopped and looked at him: "I don't know, but Your Majesty doesn't think so. Regardless of whether the male protagonist ends up well or not, whether he feels fulfilled or happy when he looks back on his life before he dies, the female protagonist's initial intention to fake her death and change her identity stemmed from her own desires."
Shan Yu felt a little stifled, not expecting Wen Zheng to speak up for someone like that. She forced a smile and said, "What difference does it make?"
“Some people are always more concerned about whether their conscience is clear.” Wen Zheng pointed to the referee’s table: “You go over there, I’m going to take a look around the stands.”
"OK".
Shan Yu ran to one side and absentmindedly flipped through the pages.
Why would Wen Zheng speak up for someone like that? And he acts like there's something wrong with me. Could it be that he's really dating that person?
So fast!
They clearly had a fight that day, and they seemed really angry. Could it be that they've already made up and contacted each other privately? In reality, have they met?
He knew that only the scoreboard was useful in this venue, so he paid little attention to it. In addition, he couldn't see the live chat, so he became even more distracted.
After searching around without success, he returned to the center of the room and said, "There are no strange words or symbols, no trace of the main plot, only numbers on the scoreboard." The scoreboard was fixed to the table and inconvenient to take away. When Shan Yu said this, Wen Zheng said, "Memorize it, let's go to the next hall."
The chat room, which they couldn't see, was already buzzing with excitement, as countless viewers rushed into Wen Zheng's or Shan Yu's live stream.
When Wen Zheng tampered with the scoreboard, he made no attempt to hide it from anyone. No one would believe he didn't do it on purpose. Moreover, the two are currently popular live streamers, and their feud is growing at a rate of ten posts per day on the forum.
Such a high level of attention destined this extraordinary live stream to become a viral sensation on Weibo.