Chapter 6: The Fox God’s Fury

A wave of uncertainty washed over me, leaving me unsure how to react.

Yet, before I could even formulate a response, the familiar grove that had surrounded me vanished, replaced by an entirely different vista.

I had been kicked out of the game.

Never had I imagined my departure from the game would occur at such a critical juncture, yet in the fleeting instant before I was fully disconnected, I found myself inexplicably compelled to open my pet’s attribute panel.

Everything else blurred into insignificance; my gaze fixed solely on the pale purple experience bar prominently displayed at the top of the screen.

Exp98/100

In that instant, the entire chain of events, the complete causality, clicked into place.

In truth, before my consciousness had even fully returned, she had already, all on her own, painstakingly completed numerous novice quests while carrying me. She had even, despite her labored breaths, managed to secure several monster kills, which explained why my experience bar wasn’t a desolate, empty grey.

This was a sandbox game, boasting a physics engine that mimicked reality with startling accuracy, offering unparalleled freedom, and meticulously simulating sensory experiences to an extraordinary degree.

Players would experience fatigue, hunger, and pain; while the intensity of pain could be customized, other senses, such as weariness, remained immutable.

My gaze drifted to the small clock resting on my study desk, a birthday gift from Su Yingning. It was shaped like Iku, the beloved adorable fox, Su Yingning’s ultimate idol, depicted cradling a soda cup. The time—18:35—was clearly displayed on the cup’s surface.

Six and a half hours had elapsed since I first logged into the game, a stark realization that meant my unexpected, heaven-sent master had diligently carried me for a full six hours.

Throughout those six hours, she had painstakingly carried me through several quests, an act she was under no obligation to perform.

As a guild leader, her priority should have been to rapidly enhance her personal strength and rendezvous with her guild members. This was an unwritten rule for all guild leaders at the launch of a new game, and having been exposed to Su Yingning’s constant chatter, I too understood the critical importance of seizing the initial advantage, especially in a groundbreaking title like [Pursuit II]…

What, then, had driven her to choose to carry me, forsaking the invaluable opportunity to gain an early lead?

A sudden memory surfaced: her panicked and remorseful expression when I had first awakened after being rendered unconscious by the electric shock…

‘Could it be… merely to convey, “I’m sorry, I hit too hard; I never intended to harm you”?!’

‘By the whiskers of the Fox God, could there truly be such a foolish, naive girl in this world?!’

‘To think she would brave countless dangers, toiling until she was drenched in sweat, all for the sake of uttering an apology to a mere collection of inanimate data?!’

‘And here I thought only Su Yingning was capable of such profound foolishness!’

Brewing myself a cup of coffee, I opted against re-entering the game. Instead, I powered on my laptop, intent on investigating the bizarre anomaly that had plagued me within the virtual world.

I had promised Su Yingning I’d play with her, yet here I was, transformed into a stranger’s pet! Stripped of even my personal freedom, how would I ever meet her? Wouldn’t Su Yingning then mock me for breaking my word and, well, ‘eating my words’ (TL Note: A Chinese idiom, ‘shí yán ér féi’, literally meaning ‘to eat one’s words and grow fat’, implying breaking a promise and gaining nothing but a bad reputation or negative consequences.)?

Just then, Su Yingning emerged from her bedroom, her demeanor visibly subdued, her eyes noticeably red-rimmed.

Su Yingning, after all, was my only kin. Seeing her reddened eyes in that moment, a pang of sympathy struck me. “Been trounced again?” I asked.

Su Yingning widened her beautiful, large eyes, as if believing such an act would conceal the fact she’d been crying. “How could that be?” she scoffed. “I have an entire retinue of ‘flower protectors’ (TL Note: A Chinese slang term, ‘hù huā shǐ zhě’, referring to male admirers or protectors of a woman.) at my beck and call! Who would dare cross me? I’m the guild leader of a worldwide top one million ranked guild, after all!”

“I’m not privy to the exact number of gaming guilds in the world,” I mused, “but there are, what, six billion people on Earth? And each major guild boasts tens of thousands of members… even your ‘small’ guild has dozens of players… so ‘top one million’… wouldn’t that make you effectively at the very bottom?”

Evidently, Su Yingning bristled at having her pretense exposed. She snatched the warm coffee I had just brewed and, in a retaliatory gesture, gulped it down in a single draught. “You’re so annoying!” she huffed. “I still have dozens of bodyguards! You absolutely don’t need to worry!”

The coffee cup landed on the table with a resounding thud, a clear indication of the young girl’s foul mood.

Opting not to prolong the argument with Su Yingning, I turned my attention to the computer screen, swiftly accessing the game company’s internal server data.

I only cared about one thing.

At last, I successfully located the player name “Ning Beibei” within the extensive database.

Ning Beibei

Deaths: 3

Level: 1

Exp: 0/200

Scrolling further, my eyes finally landed upon the piece of information I had been most intent on finding.

Player Registration Information

Player Real Name: Su Yingning

****

I lay back in the game pod.

‘How brazen… these youngsters nowadays… believing their true identities are concealed within the game, they feel emboldened to cause trouble with such impunity?’

I meticulously reviewed the data I had just uncovered, realizing it belonged not to Su Yingning, but to an entirely different player—

Player Name: Yujian Lin

Player Real Name: Liu Han

Home Address: Tianyi Garden, Building C, 5th Floor, Apartment 2, Tianyi District, Shengtai City

Occupation: Freelancer

Daily Schedule: Typically wakes at 10 AM, picks up takeout at 12 PM, spends the rest of the time immersed in games.

Living Alone: Yes

Excellent. We shall settle each debt, one by one! One dimension at a time!

Logging back into the game, I swept my silken, beautiful white hair back over my shoulders.

‘Young one, are you truly aware that you are playing with fire?’