☆ Chapter 15

Next Spring?

He Yi almost laughed out of sheer frustration.

They were still together, and this little guy was already thinking about the “next spring”?

Well, the next spring would still be him—no matter how many springs there were, it would only ever be him.

Of course, He Yi wasn’t going to say that out loud.

Facing Ling Shaoze’s threat of “I’ll just quit the game,” he responded with a cold face, “I’ll be following you for the next two days. During those two days, you’re not allowed to go looking for any ‘next spring.’ Otherwise, I’ll follow you around every single day. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t enjoy having your ex tagging along while you’re trying to cozy up with your new flame, right? And if you stop logging in or quit the game altogether, I’ll come find you in real life.”

A flawless counter-threat. Downright perverted, really.

Ling Shaoze: …?!

Once again, he was plunged into self-doubt. Why were all the men he attracted getting progressively more deranged and clingy than the last?

Annoyed, Ling Shaoze said, “Do whatever you want. Follow me if you feel like it.”

Anyway, it was just a game. As long as he didn’t give consent, this guy couldn’t even touch his virtual hand.

Over the next two days, Ling Shaoze didn’t bother with monster hunting. Instead, he picked up a bunch of laid-back quests—herb gathering, mining, fishing. He was basically living the life of a chill, zen gamer.

As promised, Yijian Fenghou did exactly as he said—followed Ling Shaoze around nonstop, occasionally doing the same tasks, but most of the time just staying at a not-too-far, not-too-close distance—always within visual range.

Ling Shaoze directly blacklisted him. Whatever the guy said, he couldn’t hear it anymore. He even returned all the gifts Yijian Fenghou had given him before.

He Yi didn’t dare push too hard either. He was afraid if he pressured this kid too much, he’d quit the game in anger for real.

After all, Ling Shaoze was a homebody in real life. If he went into full hermit mode, it wasn’t like He Yi could just bust down his door and drag him out.

When the two days were up, Ling Shaoze noticed the shadow that had been following him had disappeared.

He let out a huge sigh of relief. The sweet taste of freedom was delicious!

At this point, he had zero interest in finding the next spring. Honestly, he was terrified of running into another pervert.

As for Pervert Y, some time had passed, there was still no sign of him returning.

Ling Shaoze figured—even if he hadn’t acted like a total player—as long as he stayed cold and distant and respected Pervert Y’s condition of “no new relationships within a year,” then after a year, Pervert Y would run out of excuses to bother him. And he certainly wouldn’t waste time and energy on someone who clearly would never like him back.

Once Ling Shaoze figured it out, he thought—why bother flirting and messing around in an online game? Wouldn’t it be better to just enjoy himself solo? Wouldn’t it be great to be a proud, single dog focusing purely on gameplay? Whether it’s PvP, PvE, or a chill life-sim kind of playstyle, they each had their own kind of joy!

After running into two pervert exes in a row—each one more intense and dramatic than the last—Ling Shaoze finally decided, after much inner struggle, to abandon his grand (and gloriously scummy) dream of seducing all seven top-ranked male gods in the game.

As for the remaining five top-ranked male gods? Let the other guys and girls enjoy them!

Right now, all he wanted was to shine in solitude!

…Unfortunately, that noble dream didn’t last long.

After finishing up a fishing quest, and with the second ex who’d been tailing him now gone, Ling Shaoze returned to the western part of the main city to hand in the quest to the NPC. Then he checked into an inn and switched back to his long-inactive male priest avatar.

But the moment he stepped out of the inn, a pink arrow came flying straight at him.

Hearing the whoosh in the air, Ling Shaoze looked up and quickly dodged to the side, trying to avoid it.

But of course—not only was the pink arrow homing in on him, it changed direction mid-flight to keep him locked as its target.

What the hell was going on? Wasn’t the main city an absolute safe zone where attacks were forbidden? And who the hell shoots pink arrows anyway? It’s so dramatic and ridiculously over-the-top!

Ling Shaoze’s brain was full of flashing “WTF WTF WTF” banners—but it was too late. The pink arrow still struck him…right in the heart.

He looked down at his chest and saw the arrow dissolve into a giant floating pink heart made of shimmering lights, complete with glowing mini-heart animations.

He didn’t lose a single drop of HP, but a system prompt suddenly popped up in front of him:

“A Fated Encounter from the Heavens! Congratulations, player, you’ve been struck by Archer [Hunter]’s orange-tier legendary item Cupid’s Love Arrow and now become his Fated Partner! This relationship cannot be dissolved for three days. During this time, you must complete daily couple tasks together—failing to do so will indefinitely extend the relationship until three consecutive daily tasks are completed. Rewards await upon successful completion…”

Ling Shaoze stood there stunned in the digital wind, completely disoriented: What the hell is a ‘Fated Partner’?

Wait a minute—Hunter? That name rang a bell. Wasn’t that the ID of the top-ranked archer in the game?

But he didn’t want to flirt with any more leaderboard gods! He just wanted to live his peaceful single life! Why did this nonsense have to happen to him? What kind of rotten luck was this?! Was he cursed or what?!

Just as Ling Shaoze was frozen in a full-on WTF face, a dazzling figure descended from the sky in front of him—a cool and fierce-looking guy with short white hair and sharp, striking features.

What Ling Shaoze couldn’t ignore was the fact that this guy also had a big, matching pink heart flashing on his chest.

No doubt about it: this was his freshly minted, forcibly assigned system-certified partner. Completely free (and mandatory), courtesy of the game.

Expressionless, Ling Shaoze asked, “Hey, man. I’m really not in the mood for romance right now. I just want to game. Is there any way to swap out this ‘Fated Partner’ thing for someone else?”

The white-haired cool guy looked slightly surprised, but quickly composed himself and replied with equal coolness: “Sorry, can’t be done. The fastest way to break the Fated Partner bond is to cooperate with me and complete the required couple tasks each day. I didn’t expect the system to pair us either. If you have any requests, just let me know—as long as it’s within my ability and doesn’t go against my principles, I’ll do my best to help.”

Ling Shaoze rubbed his temples. “Is there at least a way to hide this damn thing for now?”

Ling Shaoze pointed at the big flashing pink heart hovering in front of him and Hunter. The thing was way too conspicuous and eye-catching—it had already attracted a crowd of curious onlookers. Some even gathered around, whispering and pointing, and a few in-game couples came over to ask how they got such a heart effect.

Unable to deal with the growing crowd, Ling Shaoze had no choice but to retreat back into the inn. He waved at Hunter to follow him inside for a private chat.

Cool-guy Hunter got the hint and followed without a word..

Once the two were back inside the room Ling Shaoze had just rented—still within the time limit—Hunter finally said, “Just open your Partner Panel. You’ll see the daily tasks there.”

Ling Shaoze pulled up the game menu and saw that the usual “Couple” tab had been replaced by “Fated Partner,” and now there was a new dropdown list of tasks.

At the top, it read:

“Daily Task 1: Please share a deep and intimate hug with your partner for ten minutes, followed by a tongue/kiss for three minutes.
Reward: After completion, the Heart-to-Heart visual effect can be manually hidden!”

Ling Shaoze: …?!

What the actual hell—This is straight-up softcore smut disguised as a quest!

Who on earth makes out with a complete stranger just because they got randomly paired as “fated partners”?!

…Okay, sure, fine, technically he had done that before—with that Pervert Y in real life, and with his two other in-game exes…

Still!!

Ling Shaoze was equal parts appalled and…weirdly resigned.
He suddenly felt like a total scumbag, having the internal monologue of,
“Well, it’s not like it’d be the first or second time I’ve done something this casual… what’s one more?”

And hey—Hunter’s avatar was pretty hot. Honestly, this wasn’t a bad deal.

Gritting his teeth, Ling Shaoze turned to look at Hunter and said,
“So what, it’s just a hug and a kiss, right? Let’s get it over with!”

But to his surprise, cool-guy Hunter replied with utmost seriousness:
“How can you be so casual about this? I—Hunter, top-ranked archer—have never even had my first kiss. I’ve never held a guy or girl’s hand before! I think we should take things step by step. Let’s start with hand-holding.”

Ling Shaoze: …?!?!

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Author’s Note:
Hahaha! Was that smooth or what? Old He (Hunter) really went all in with that move!

T/n: The new chapter is up🎊🎉 I’m really struggling these days to put chapters out sorry for the delay😭😭 I’ll try to maintain the daily updates like before but let’s see🤔😉. So yeah join our ML in his journey to being turning into a full blown pervert😏 and joined the chaos🤣. You can support the original author here. If you’re enjoying what I’m doing you can buy me a Ko-fi. Happy Reading 🎊😁.