[ ENDLESS LOVE ]

CHAPTER 03 ♦ GATHERING FOR THE FIRST TIME


last edited: 15.03.18

THIS TRANSLATION IS HOSTED AT ZHANLANN.COM

After all the hard work and effort placed in, An Si Dong was able to completely collate all the pieces for the T0 Vestments of the Devout before the gathering. Finally, with the two pieces of Prophecy gear she received from Qu Wei En, she managed to look like a decent Holy Priest.

Every time she partied with Wan Shui Qian Shan, their tank and priest pair made it very easy to find other DPS positions. Their farming afterwards had also proceeded with ease. A lot of the lower-levelled players around were the side accounts of the high-levelled players. Of course, there were occasional cases where they’d bump into some legitimate rookies. During which, teaching them a few moves on the spot wasn’t too difficult a task for the two of them.

 

*

 

Even though the gathering was at two in the afternoon, An Si Dong was already anxious ever since she woke up in the morning. Mao Yin made fun of her anxiety: “Going for an orgy? Wear that outfit you wore the other day you went out in the middle of the night and go shock their balls off.”

What orgy… her filthy mouth could never utter anything decent. After Mao Yin brought it up though, her hand that had been stretching towards the mini skirt retracted, and changed instead for a normal t-shirt and coupled that with calf-length pants and heel-less trainers.

The girl in the mirror looked very skinny and undersized.

An Si Dong felt a little glum. Despite the fact that she was 1.60 metres tall in height, not fat, and didn’t have too short legs, why was it that she still looked like a stumpy wintermelon? Especially after coming to this northern city to attend university, as far as her eyes could see, 1.80 metres guys and 1.70 metres girls were in such abundance it felt like she was a little dwarf who got mixed into a bunch of humans. What she was thankful for though was that she wasn’t short to the extent of a Gnome.

Why was it that some people had to grow to such heights for no reason whatsoever? They’ll just waste rice when they go to the canteen, and kebab when they go to stalls, so won’t it be so much better to share some of that height with her!

Boarding bus number 22, she reached the gathering point. Though it was still early, there were already quite a number of people around gathered in twos and threes chatting away. A vibrant and handsome guy stood at the entrance shouted loudly: “Sign in sign in! Those who’ve just reached sign in here!”

Inching over slowly, she found her own ID on the sign-in list and ticked it. Wan Shui Qian Shan’s ID was very close to hers, but the space beside it was blank; he wasn’t here yet.

“So you’re Dong Gua MM?” The vibrant handsome guy flashed her a charming dimple and his pearly whites, “I’m Nai He Qing Shen.”

She returned with a courteous smile: “Hello.”

—That handsome guy didn’t appear to be very Qing Shen (情深)*, but rather more of a Qing Sheng (情圣)*.

* Wordplay: An Si Dong is making reference to Qing Shen (情深), which is the last two words of Nai He Qing Shen (奈何情深), by using its meaning: deep love/romance (i.e.: committed boyfriend kind in this case) and pointing out that rather than appearing to be the committed boyfriend type, he appeared to be more of a Qing Sheng (情圣), which means lady-killer/player/an expert with romance.

There was a need for every organisation to have a communications and publicity liaison where there are specialized personnels specifically in charge of this sector. They are often known as the head, spokesperson, ambassador, or mascot. With regards to FREE, Nai He Qing Shen was the one who played a role like that. However, she wasn’t clear whether he was considered the head, spokesperson, ambassador or mascot, or a combination of all four.

No wonder Nai He Qing Shen was so well-known. One look at him told her he was the showy and influential kind of person. It was also hard to not to be known given his good looks, awesome gameplay, high-key ways and high on-camera appearance frequency.

It was said that he was a uni student in charge of a faculty in school, even the student council had traces—very active ones at that—of his participation.

“Dong Gua MM’s here? Where where where?” A rowdy voice neared before an unknown species vaulted over. Along with his green cap over his hair, a nose ring through his nose, and his blaringly conspicuous presence, he popped up in front of her. “Didn’t get to see the other time, so I’mma look properly this time—oh, I forgot to introduce myself, I’m Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo*.”

Bro, your entire being arrogantly blinks of ‘You Definitely Will Not Be Unable To See Me*’!

* Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo (his username) means “you cannot see me”; An Si Dong is contrasting that with his “you definitely will not be unable to see me” appearance that runs completely opposite to the meaning of his in-game username

An Si Dong greeted him, and Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo proceeded to haul a few more guys over. “This is Liu Ru Mei, Si Ye, Ah Li Ba Ba and Shou Ji Diao Ce Shuo.”

Liu Ru Mei, a bashful guy with medium height, was the shy kind to easily blush in front of girls. Si Ye was apparently named so as his girlfriend was crazy about Zheng Shao Qiu’s “Make Bitter Qianlong”*, though he himself was a far cry from being anything similar to Qiu Guan*. Ah Li Ba Ba was a guy with a youthful and rounded baby-face, quibbling that Ah Li would be the name of his future son. As for Shou Ji Diao Ce Suo-kun, whom she wasn’t very familiar with, he had a normal appearance, the only thing was that he had already extracted three different phones as he conversed with them.

* 《戏说乾隆》= “Make Bitter Qianlong” is a Chinese wuxia/historical/romance drama. Zheng Shao Qiu (郑少秋) is the leading actor in the 1991 version.

* Qiu Guan (秋官) refers to Zheng Shao Qiu. “Guan” here is used as a suffix.

“Can’t help it. My phone drops into the toilet bowl too often so I need to buy some backups.”

She stared at the four faces before her. “Why do I feel like you guys look so familiar? Have we met before?”

Si Ye covered with irrelevant talk: “We’re all students, it’s pretty normal to have seen each other before. I think there’s something’s up over there, I’ll just go over and check…” With that said, he lowered his head, all ready to slip away.

That head-lowering action finally had her memories stirring. “You guys! That night at the kebab stall outside North Gate!” The sneaky bunch who kept peeping and spying on her.

“Hehe, hehe…” The four of them laughed dryly very in-sync-ly.

Si Ye teased her: “Dong Gua MM, why are you dressed so plainly today, you should show the P University dudes we T University have beauties too!”

“Exactly exactly, they’d stared at you so hard their eyeballs almost fell out that night, gag.”

“Weren’t you also the one who’s saliva had been dripping all over the floor.”

A species topped off with blaring green popped over. Raising his chin, he donned an extremely wretched smirk. “That day was a date, today’s a gathering. How can they be the same?”

Suddenly, a muted thump sounded, and the people around felt as though the room gave a shake. Their sight, upon turning around, was greeted with Qu Wei En walking in while rubbing his forehead. “Why’s this door frame so low?”

Even though the discrepancy between their in-game characters and real-life personalities were large for the three guys, the largest discrepancy, it appeared, however, seemed to be the female Gnome Mage QWE classmate.

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo wiggled his brows. “Walking without even looking at the door, your eyes must have been busy staring at something huh.”

Qu Wei En walked straight over towards An Si Dong. “How come you came here first on your own? I still went to your dorm to look for you.”

Bro, when have we cultivated such strong bromance? To the extent we’ll leave together even without agreeing we’ll leave together?

Si Ye and company very in-sync-ly and very overly kindly and considerately evaporated, leaving the two of them staring at each other down. Qu Wei En pulled over a chair by the side. “Let’s sit first, they’ll only start a while later.”

It just happened that someone near the stage shouted: “The stereos aren’t working, anyone here knows how to fix it?”

An Si Dong immediately raised her hand, jumping up. “I know!”

She had once organised an event in this multi-function room before. The sound system here was gifted by a company that specialised in producing these gadgets. There’s nothing much to say about its performance but its cable jacks work differently so it was pretty inconvenient to use it.

The person who was currently working with the stereos was a shi jie*. She was slightly taller than her, had a slender figure, slightly tanned skin. Though she had a pretty average appearance, she appeared very experienced and capable. An Si Dong bent down to unplug the two cables before someone surfaced out of nowhere and stole the two cables over. “Let me do it let me do it, I’ve done it before!” It was the vibrant guy who had been welcoming guests at the entrance, Nai He Qing Shen.

* 师姐 = shi jie; female senior (usually referring to female schoolmates that are in grades above yours; may also be used to address graduated female students/alumni, depending on the occasion)

Shi jie flashed her a helpless smile, asking: “You’re Dong Gua MM right?”

“Enh, you are?”

“I’ve heard of you for a very long time,” shi jie smiled, “I’m Qing Shui Liu Shen from FREE.”

“Ah!” An Si Dong promptly wiped the dust on her hands. Feeling as though they weren’t clean enough, she wiped them again on her pants before stretching out her hand, “I’ve also heard about shi jie for a long time too! Nice, nice to meet you!”

Qing Shui Liu Shen was FREE’s former guildmaster. Even though she was a female and her gameplay wasn’t the best, she was well-respected among the FREE members. She’d joined FREE since the very beginning when there were only a dozen or so players when it first started, and had painstakingly established it to what it is today— a large and well-known guild in their server. FREE’s existing system was pretty much single-handed drafted by her. Her ability to remain level-headed, deal with things fairly and systematically and her cooperation with everyone was what contributed to their success today. A lot of players play games for the fun so they weren’t willing to mind trivialities. Qing Shui (Liu Shen) confessed her motor skills weren’t the best so she rarely participated in clearing dungeons. Most of her time was instead invested in managing the logistical aspect of the guild like arranging the foodstuff and medical resources, arranging the groupings. Even noting down the DKP* and other chores were done by her on her own. Nai He Qing Shen often said that half FREE’s credits for attaining so many first kills was Qing Shui’s.

* DKP = Dragon Kill Points; a kind of currency earned by participating in endgame raids, it can spent by acquiring loot from endgame bosses; DKP term is also frequently used to designate raid-level loot system in general.

In real life, Qing Shui had just started her second year PhD in engineering physics with her research direction mostly towards nuclear physics. In other words, she’s going to be a scientist in the future, the dream job of many children as illustrated in their essays booklets.

Nai He Qing Shen holed himself in the cupboard, rummaging around for half a day before popping out, his expression one of dismal. “This widget’s got too many cables and switches. Even their names are all weird. The last time I used it was really long ago so I can’t quite remember…”

An Si Dong: “Let me try.”

Even though he wasn’t all that competent himself, Nai He Qing Sheng still shot her a heavy stare. “Even I can’t fix it, you sure a little girl like you can fix it?”

Shi jie reprimanded him: “What wrong with being a little girl? How are you to judge that little girls can’t compare up to you?”

Nai He Qing Shen obediently endured through her reprimanding, not daring to rebuke.

An Si Dong squatted down and took a glance at the panel, then set the stereo up successfully based partially on her recollection and partially trying her luck. Shi jie pointed to her and said to Nai He Qing Shen: “Still gonna look down on little girls?”

She said, a little ill at ease: “I’ve used this before. The gadgets from the practicals we’d done before are manufactured by the same company as this, so the panels are pretty similar.”

Nai He Qing Shen propped his chest up. “No wonder, how can somehow figure this out on their first try?”

She parroted his words, giving him face: “Exactly, exactly, the gadgets from this company’s pretty hard to use. I need to refer to the instruction booklet every time I used it during practicals, I only managed to properly memorise after using it for a semester.”

Nai He Qing Shen secretly shot her a thankful gaze.

Shi jie said laughingly: “All you know is how to show off in front of PPMM* to impress them.”

* PPMM = pretty girls

Nai He Qing Shen delved into glumness, shooting her a glare. “I don’t show off in front of PPMM!” He said, biting down especially hard on the four letters “PPMM”.

He said he wasn’t showing off in front of PPMM, then what did he mean…?

The event was starting after the equipment was adjusted and tested. A board gathering was ultimately an event for a bunch of people with similar interests to gather and have fun together, to get to know each other and chat and play, and maybe find an excuse to go out and dine together.

An Si Dong had attended quite some board gathering previously, but it sure was her first time to a board gathering with conversations like “Aye, you’re that freaking XXX? So it’s you the one that killed me at the entrance of the instance?”, “Didn’t you freaking kill me too?”, “You killed me six times, I only killed you four times!”, “P, you’re a little scouting soldier, I’m the high-ranking officer, my four deaths’ worth more* than your six deaths!”… and so on going on. -_-b

* referring to the experience of their characters; a high-levelled player dying loses more experience than a low-levelled player

There was a space set aside for activities to be held on the stage. There were two amatuer emcees on the stage introducing to everyone today’s board gathering programme. One of the emcees was a guy, the other… was also a guy. -.-

There were several dozens of people who came. The females that were present, however, only amounted to a single digit. There were not many girls that played WOW to begin with, so when T uni’s guy-to-girl ratio was layered on top of that, females became as rare as DK horse drops.

The door to the room was closed. All around her were a sea of dark heads. She wondered if Wan Shui Qian Shan was here yet? There were so many guys she’d never seen before, exactly which one was him?

“Why aren’t you going back?” A male voice sounded behind her. She was currently in the midst of searching for someone so that voice had given her a scare. Turning around, she saw that Qu Wei En had already taken up an empty seat beside her.

That seat’s saved for someone else!

But she couldn’t really chase him away could she? So, she said glumly: “I’m afraid there’ll be a problem with the sound system again so I’ll sit here by the side.”

There were some amatuer actors on the stage acting out a plot adaptation of a comedy: Iron Forge Princess’s Romance with the crowds beneath the stage bursting into laughter at times. She was completely not in the mood to watch the performance, and so, she stood and walked out. Qu Wei En asked: “Where’re you going?”

“Toilet!” She glared at him fiercely. “You coming with?”

Qu tong xue’s face flushed and turned to pay attention to the performance.

The sign-in attendance sheet was still at the at the counter; the space beside Wan Shui Qian Shan’s name was still empty.

Did he forget? Or did he have something on so he couldn’t make it? She suddenly realised that other than through the game, she had no other way of contacting him. Hence once logged out of the game, they were essentially strangers. Even if they had met outside, they’d brush past each other, unable to recognise each other.

Why didn’t she ask for his phone number earlier?

When she walked one round and returned, the comedy was already over. The next activity was guessing the words. Two guys stood on the stage; one of them was gesturing while the other one was guessing. Owing to their lack of in-sync-ness however, they only got three out of eight correct, and so, their reward was only two lollipops.

The guy that had gestured said: “Aye, pig-headed teammates are the worst. You couldn’t even guess after all my describing; our wavelengths are too far apart.”

The guy who had been guessing just now kicked him playfully. “Who wants to be on the same wavelength as you, I’m definitely not gay!” As they joked, they grabbed their lollipops and went back.

The emcee said: “If that’s the case then let’s have a MM to come up to play with a GG. Yes, that beautiful girl that just entered! Please do come up the stage!”

An Si Dong looked at the surroundings. At seeing how everyone was looking at her, she pointed a finger at herself in suspicion. “Me?”

“Yes, you, please come up the stage!”

She obediently went up. The emcee said: “MM, introduce yourself first.”

Taking the microphone from him, she started earnestly: “Hello everyone, I’m from Huo Shu, my ID is Wintermelon, I’m Xia Tian de Dong Gua in the game. My class is a Priest, from the Alliance faction, please do take care of me…”

“Ah, so you’re the legendary Dong Gua MM, very pleased to meet you, very pleased to meet you!” The emcee’s tone was very ambiguous, and hence, the audience too buzzed.

“Which GG would like to pair up with Dong Gua MM? Please raise your hand!”

—No one raised their hands. -.-b

“Are they no hotties who’d brave it for this pretty MM? You? Do you want to give it a shot?” The emcee pointed at a guy seated in the first row.

Everyone in the first row were players from FREE, hence the bunch of them leant back, shouting in unison: “Ya-mie-die*! We don’t want to die—”

* 雅蠛蝶 = ya-mie-die; (parody) chinese version of ‘Yamete’ which is japanese for ‘no/stop’

Someone behind shouted: “QWE hurry go, what’re you waiting for?”

Despite the deadpan expression Qu Wei En had on when he was pushed onto the stage, the roots of his eyes were completely dyed red. An Si Dong felt like she wasn’t any better than him either.

This is so awkward, can the gossipy masses pay some consideration to the feelings of them? If she really was interested in Qu Wei En, would they still need to gossip about it till now?

Qu Wei En cleared his throat, taking the mic: “You gesture I’ll guess.”

This word guess game was a pair game. The two people would need to work together. One of them would have their back facing the screen. The other person would look at the words on the screen and gesture for the partner to guess. The gesturing person was not allowed to say any of the given words, including words that sounded similar. It was a very reality TV show-styled game.

It was a WOW board gathering, and so, the words they were guessing were obviously WOW-related words. After seeing the first word, An Si Dong immediately said without hesitation: “VanCleef wants to destroy the…”

Qu Wei En immediately answered: “Cathedral of Light.”

“Not this one…”

“Stormwind Keep.”

“Correct! Next!” The emcee didn’t forget to exaggerate. “Very in~sync~ as expected huh~”

In sync your sister! She heart palpitated a devil’s flurry.

The next question. “You AOE monsters using…”

“Arcane Blast.”

“Name.”

“Arcane Explosion.”

“Correct! Next one!”

Succinct and crisp, they didn’t use excessive amounts of words. They’ve already gotten several dozens down consecutively in the one minutes that had passed. As the number of words they got correct increased, the noise from the audience below became louder. Along with that, An Si Dong’s mind was inching more and more towards the verge of explosion.

A name of an item she’d never seen before appeared. The name was very long and they were all sound words. On the sidelines, Nai He Qing Shen said: “Who is it that came up with this question… don’t bother with this one, just skip it. You guys haven’t used your three chances to skip yet.”

Why do they have to skip it? It’s also just in time for them to get something wrong. An Si Dong said it word by word: “This is an item. It has a total of seven syllabus. The first words is a unit of measurement…”

Before she even finished, Qu Wei En said: “Ke* (克).”

* 克 = ke; grams

“The second words is gu-wen-li (古文里)—” She held her voice in in time to hold in the ‘de (的)*’, “—’ni (你)’.”

* the Chinese word 的 (de) works the same way how the Japanese word の (no) works.

“Er (尔).”

Why didn’t he guess ‘ru (汝)’! Glumly, she gestured the number shi (十; number ten).

“Jia* (加).”

* the gesture for number ten, read as shi, (十) is a cross, but it also looks like the addition sign (+), which is read as jia (加) in Chinese

Why wasn’t he guessing ‘shi (十)’! Very glumly, she continued gesturing the ‘shi’ word. “This is still the fourth word.”

“Shi (十).”

Is it so hard for him to guess things the other way round! “The fifth word is—” She held it in once again, “—very commonly used word, geh…”

He noticed the disjoint in her sentence and said before waiting for her explanation: “De (的).”

“What’s on the left of Jiangsu (江苏)*…”

* 江苏 = Jiangsu; a coastal Chinese province north of Shanghai.

“Anhui (安徽)*.”

* 安徽 = Anhui; an eastern Chinese province

“The second word.”

“Hui.” Joining all the words, he immediately came to. “Ke-er-jia-se de hui-ji (Kel’gash’s Signet).”

They only took about thirty seconds. The audience below boiled in excitement. “They managed to guess that too?” “That item seems to be a Horde quest item right, they don’t have it in Alliance.” “No wonder… tsk tsk, so in-sync as expected!”

Exactly, how did you manage to guess that at all? How exactly is your brain grown? An Si Dong mentally gripped Qu Wei En’s brain and slammed it on the wall a hundred times and another hundred times…

And so, for the following guess, she purposely slipped up. “This one is a zhuang-bei (装备; gear)…”

“There’s a ‘zhuang (装)’! This one isn’t counted!”

In the end, they got a total of 23 correct and won three lollipops each. -_-|||

When they got off the stage, Qu Wei En gave her his lollipops: “Have it, I don’t like eating this.”

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo just happened to zip over at that time, and so, she stuffed all the six lollipops at him all in one go. At that, he delved into a dilemma of whether he should take it or not while he carefully peeked at Qu Wei En’s cold gaze with a pained expression.

The emcee found other pairs to go up to play the guessing game several rounds but the live PK section began. Several laptops were placed and players PK-ed on the spot, eliminating the losing ones.

The audience surrounded the arena. An Si Dong didn’t have the heart to view the duels, and so, she was seated outside the gathered people. She’d gone to the entrance to check several times, but Wan Shui Qian Shan still hadn’t arrived.

Was he… not going to come?

An Si Dong sat on the chair and stoned. Her gaze filtering through the gaps between the people, she was able to see Qu Wei En all focused, PKing someone. His fingers flew on the keyboard, eyes drilled on the screen. She’d never seen him so focused before; it had him exuding a sharpness discrepant from his board shorts and slippers.

——That’s probably the legendary blindingly-ultra-focused-intensity. o(╯□╰)o

His opponent was Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo. They two of them battled intensely for five minutes. In the end, Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo was no match for Qu Wei En and painfully lost with a 1:3.

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo hugged the person beside him, howling: “Lao zi I didn’t even enter the top eight! This isn’t fair, I shouldn’t be eliminated just like that, they should have people battle each other in small teams and eliminate people after the top eight is out!”

After being hugged in comfort: “Your luck’s already good enough. I died in the first round… oi oi don’t cling onto me, I like women actually…”

Someone else scorned: “Just look at your speed, it’s not even on the same level as him. How high is QWE’s APM*? Above 200 right?”

*APM = Action Per Minute refers to the total number of actions that a player can perform in a minute.

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo refused to give in: “My APM’s about 180 too, that’s not slow either yes?”

Qu Wei En slanted him a gaze: “So you’re just practising how to type just now*?”

——Savage.

“Phuu!” Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo spat a mouthful of blood (insert post-processing CG), crying a river of tears. “You can’t look down on people like that! I don’t wanna live anymore, let me die, let me die!”

The tong xue, who actually like women, at the side hugged him tightly in a very self-sacrificial manner: “Don’t take things too hard, didn’t you win one round?”

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo raised his head in grief and indignation, snapping himself together. “That’s right. Both victory and defeat are common to a soldier, it’s nothing much. Lao zi* I’m the Netherlands*—the uncrowned king.”

* 老子 = Lao zi; (slightly derogative, may also be used humorously) referring to oneself (for males, but females also uses it jokingy)

* 荷兰队 = Netherlands National Football Team (note that this novel was written three years ago so the context was with reference to three years ago)

“You said an extra word.” Qu tong xue very obviously didn’t know how the word ‘kind’ was written. “It should be: defeat is common to the soldier.”

And so, a certain tong xue who like females had to continue his self-sacrificing.

The board gathering was almost over. An Si Dong stoned at her seat for a while before walking over to the entrance for the fifth time to check the sign-in list, unresigned.

The hallway was very quiet. The door to the classroom was slightly open. The noise and bustle of the people sounded as though they were very far away. She flipped the messy useless paper, flyers and sign-in list on the tables sneakily, then noises that sounded like footsteps from came from behind…

“Can I ask—”

Startled, she grabbed the useless papers to cover the sign-in list before whipping around. The row of glaringly white light affixed to the ceilings of the hallways shone so brightly her vision swam.

In the blurry light, that person, as though walking out from a distant memory, neared.

“Are you Dong Gua?” He pushed his thin-rimmed spectacles on his nose bridge. “I’m Wan Shui Qian Shan.”

——“Are you An Si Dong?” Someone else, too, had pushed his spectacles up like that. Even his smile had been as bright and as gentle. “I’m Wan Qian.”

It was like a curse, inescapable, just like fate.

It was unbelievable for two people to appear so alike one another in the world. The way they talked, frowned, and the angle their lips tilted was exactly the same. Even their names, Wan Qian and Wan Shui Qian Shan, was so similar.

She had once told herself. Four years, just this four year. After she graduated from university, she would stop thinking about him. However, to meet such a person in the last year of her university was as though even the matchmaker sympathised with her fruitless unrequited love and was making up to her.

She immediately came to her senses and hurriedly nodded her head. “I am I am! I thought you weren’t gonna come…”

“Sorry, I was called to discuss my thesis with my tutor at the last minute. I’m only here cuz I took a leave, I need to go back very soon.”

“Oh…” She was a little disappointed. “You’re going after you’ve just arrived?”

His gaze lowered. “Originally, I hadn’t intended to come to the board gathering, I’m just here to see you… looks like my trip here isn’t for nothing now that I have seen you…”

At that, she felt a little bashful, and kicked the ceramic tile beneath her shoes. The emcee in the classroom yelled into the mic at that moment: “All the tong xue that’s just finished the battle, don’t leave yet, we’re taking a photo together later. The respective guildmasters may also want to talk to the guild members in private, so don’t leave the classroom yet.”

“Eh, since you’re here, why not… take the photo before you go?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure.”

It turned out that humans’ eyes were very subjective. Once you’re feeling happy, all the guys you see would handsome, and all the girls beautiful; everything would seem especially pleasant to the eye. Even the Qu Wei En and his scrubbing-brush-like porcupine hair she had wanted to slam against the wall just a while ago seemed beyond adorable right now, so much so it made her want to give it a pat.

It was already the final round of the PK battle. The emcee shouted in excitement: “Nai He Qing Shen wins QWE with a 2:0! Nai He Qing Shen good job! We support you!”

Nai He Qing Shen was the guildmaster of FREE. Nai He Qing Shen, being forum-famous, server-famous even, was often called da shen* by people. She wondered if QWE was able to defeat him. She turned to look at where they were battling. Qu Wei En too turned around at the same time, and so, their gazes met. She was feeling very happy at the moment, so she gave him an encouraging smile, raising her hand and fisting it to give a gesture of encouragement

* 大神= da shen; literally translated as ‘big god’; refers to gurus, very very very pro player

When the third round began, the battle situation reversed. Qu Wei En was as though he had his conception and governor vessels opened up* and was possessed by a devil, sweeping aside his decline from the previous two rounds and won three consecutive rounds with relative ground, clinching victory with a 3:2 in the end.

* 打通了任督二脉 = (lit.) opened up the conception and governor vessels, (fig.) energised.

Nai He Qing Shen grabbed his elbow and sobbed dramatically, shaking his arm: “Didn’t we agree I’ll give you the three lollipops and you’ll let me win? How could you get all pumped and forgot about your promise just cuz the MM gave you a backward gaze and smiled at you? You’re being babes-before-bros!”

Qu Wei En shrugged his hand off in disgust. “You’re one to say, weren’t you the one wanting to win to get babes?”

The prize for the winner was a soft toy dog with its eyes squinted in laziness. The large soft toy with its furry and soft body was very cute. However, it was still very weird witnessing the two guys, both taller than 1.8m mind you, with their hands under the table, one scratching away happily at its head, the other scratching away happily at its tail.

After the prize was presented, the emcee had everyone gather for a collective picture to capture the moment. The people in the first row were to squat, the people in the second row to sit, the ones in the third row to stand, the ones in the fourth row to stand on chairs, and the ones in the fifth row to stand on tables. Everyone was tightly crammed before everyone managed to fit into the picture frame.

An Si Dong, very predictably, was arranged to squat in the first row. Wan Shui Qian Shan was right behind her when she turned. At that, his head lowered and he sent her a slight smile. Qu Wei En, on the other hand, was definitely in the last row. As he was blocked, she couldn’t see him.

After they took the picture, the several guildmasters of the bigger guilds gathered their members for a small meeting. An Si Dong and Wan Shui Qian Shan followed the people walking out. As they did so, they bumped right into Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo coming in. “Dong Gua MM, you’re going already? Not waiting for QWE? We’re gonna go eat later, you coming with?”

Wan Shui Qian Shan walked a distance aside, politely giving her privacy, but that had her feeling very awkward. “Uh, no, I’ve got something on later, I’ll go first… You guys have fun.”

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo didn’t say anything else and went into the classroom.

She caught up with Wan Shui Qian Shan, wanting to explain herself on reflex but not knowing how and where to start.

It was him on the other hand that started, his voice gentle as per normal. “Guys are a little insensitive and might not know to sympathise with others sometimes. Don’t take it too hard, they’re just joking.”

So he already knew about the rumours. Rather than expressing his discontent, he instead helped the people who started the rumours. The innocent remains innocent. The fact that she was in a hurry to prove her innocence made it seemed as though she was very particular about it.

She exhaled, raised her head to exchange a look with him before the two of them walked out.

They had to turn a dozen of corners and make a huge round around the building before they reached the bike shed.

“Uhm… your school’s quite far, why don’t I send you on my bike? In case your tutor waits too long.”

“Sure, I’ll bring you. Which one’s your bike?”

Geh… it seemed like she had forgotten to think about something important.

She pointed at the bright pink and fluorescent green 22-inch mini-bike that boasted childishness, turning her head away, not looking at his laughing expression.

The campus area of T Uni was vast, hence it was difficult to get around without a bicycle. However, that also made the thefts of bicycles very prevalent. After she’d lost three bicycles in a single semester, her senior cautioned her: you can’t depend on bike locks to prevent bike thefts, you need to make it such that the thief wouldn’t want to steal your bike! And so, she proceeded to buy a 22-inch mini-bike that couldn’t be ridden by anyone that was not her size. When she rode the glaringly pink bike with the spray-on green bike on the road, it was bedazzling enough to blind people’s eyes. As expected, her bike had not been stolen for the two years after that.

“Actually, I’ll take the on-campus shuttle bus, there’s a bus stop just ahead at the road intersection.” He held in his laughter as he pointed at the road ahead.

“Alright then…” She didn’t push her bike with her. As she silently accompanied him walking on the road, she was squeezing her brain juice dry trying to come up with a topic of conversation

Before she could even come up with one though, they’ve already reached the road intersection. T_T

The normally slow-as-heck on-campus shuttle bus that took at least half a day to rumble by was suddenly extremely punctual and timely today. Just when the two of them stopped by the bus stop sign post, the electric bus leisurely rumbled in, turning into the road.

“Sorry, I really have something urgent on so I need to go.”

“It’s okay, important stuff comes first…” She lowered her head and kicked a rock on the road. “See you again in the game later…”

The on-campus bus drove nearer and nearer.

“Dong Gua, did you bring your phone?” He suddenly asked. “Lend me for a bit.”

“Oh.” She woodenly fished out her phone and handed it to him. He quickly dialled a string of numbers and stuffed her phone back into her hands.

His smile, beyond natural, was clear and light. “That’s my number. It’ll be more convenient for us to contact each other the next time we meet.”

At that, her face suddenly flushed. The bus driver shouted: “Are you getting on? If not, the door’s closing.”

He turned to board the bus. The driver quickly closed the door and the bus drove away. She could still see him waving at her from afar as the bus drove further and further, before it turned a corner and disappeared.

He said, the next time we meet…

She’s following the same tracks of an overthrown chariot, again and again, going back to square one and sinking herself into the fetters, unable to escape. Or perhaps… it was her herself that was unwilling to part from this vortex, unwillingly to break free.

If Mao Yin knew about this, she would definitely poke her head and scold her. Wailing mentally, she patted her flushing face before reverting back to school to retrieve her bike.

When she returned to the bike shed, she bumped into the people from FREE collecting their bikes after their little meeting. Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo laughed cheekily: “Dong Gua MM, didn’t you have something on and left first? Why’re you still here, who’re you waiting for?”

Who am I waiting for? I’m waiting for your sis!

Right after making that mental remark, she was stung by her conscience and started sobbing mentally. Girl shouldn’t be talking so roughly, shouldn’t be talking so roughly… she definitely had to distance herself from this bunch of guys and Mao Yin in the future.

Still hugging the soft toy dog, Qu Wei En walked over to her, saying, unruffled: “Who was the one that thought of buying such a prize, I’ll be laughed at if I bring this back to my dorms. Have it, it suits you better.” Following which, he dumped the doggie in her bike basket.

She took it out and handed it back to him: “No need, you won if after all your hard work…”

“I’ve given it to you already so just take it. I don’t need it and it takes up space.”

Well I don’t need it either and it takes up space as well! The important thing is, I don’t wanna take anything from you!

She threw the dog at him. He didn’t catch it, so the poor dog fell onto the ground.

He froze.

“Ah! Who’s so heartless, to throw this cute little doggie on the ground?” Nai He Qing Shen rushed over and picked up the dog, touching and patting it. “My little cupcake, my little darling. They don’t want you but I want you.”

Qu Wei En had a poor expression. Feeling that her own attitude wasn’t the best, she softened her tone: “I just don’t like furry toys very much…” At recalling what Qu Wei En had said Nai He Qing Shen wanted to win the prize for a girl. At thinking that he wanted to give it to a girl he liked, she said: “Since Nai He Qing Shen likes the dog so much, let him have it then, that way at least it’ll be put to some use…”

Nai he Qing Shen sighed sorrowfully at the dog: “You don’t understand. What I want isn’t actually this dog.”

Geh, if it’s not the dog… “You mean you want solitude*?”

* (TLer’s own unsure interpretation!) dogs are often linked to the word “单身狗” = single dog, which means to be single/unattached/no boyfriend or girlfriend. Hence when Nai He Qing Shen said he didn’t (just) want the dog, An Si Dong thought he meant he wanted to be lonely/alone/single, because that’s what “单身狗” (single dogs) kinda represent

Nai He Qing Shen stumbled, enraged: “It’s glory! This dog signifies the glory of a champion!”

“Oh.” She touched her nose. “The glory of the three lollipops…”

“I was joking about that! Joking! It was me underestimating the opponent after winning twice consecutively, that’s why I lost!” Nai He Qing Shen imploded. “It’s all your fault. If it weren’t for that flirty look you threw him, why would he suddenly become all pumped up and win the next three rounds! He wasn’t my opponent to begin with, fudge it!”

Nai He Qing Shen tong xue, I’m trying so hard to say a cold joke to lighten the atmosphere, so can you cooperate a little? Why must you always mention the unmentionable?

The gaze Qu Wei En gave Nai He Qing Shen was one that threatened to beat him up right there and then. She compared their figures and decided to help Nai He Qing Shen. At that, she zipped into the space between them: “Ah! This doggie’s actually pretty cute…”

Qu Wei En stuck both his hands into his pocket as he looked up at the sky. “I thought you girls all liked doll-like, cute and furry black bears and stuff. You look like someone who would like it.”

Who said petit and cute girls must play with dolls? She was an educated female of the modern era!

“—even Jing Shui shi jie likes it.”

Qing Shui shi jie very coincidentally walked over: “Are you talking about me behind my back? What do you like?”

Fine… no one said educated females of the modern era could not like furry toys. o(╯□╰)o

sAt noticing the strange atmosphere, Qing Shui shi jie asked: “What’s wrong?”

Nai He Qing Shen on the side pouted his lips, acting cute with the little doggie: “QWE wants to give this cute doggie to Dong Gua MM, but Dong Gua MM doesn’t want it, and she even threw the dog on the ground. Little doggie, Dong Gua MM’s so heartless and cruel isn’t she?”

“No no, my hands slipped just now, I didn’t mean to throw it on purpose… I just felt… “ She explained glumly, “that the dog’s too big. It’ll take up a lot of space if I put it by my bed. I’m used to having nothing else on my bed other than my pillows, so I won’t be able to fall asleep with it being there.”

Nai He Qing Shen sized Qu Wei En up and down meaningfully: “Then wouldn’t your future husband be too pitiful?”

What does my future husband have anything to do with you, and who the heck are you looking at ahhhhh!

Qu Wei En was still looking at the sky: “If you don’t want it then forget it. I don’t want it either.”

Qing Shui shi jie said: “My chinese zodiac* sign’s a dog so I’ve been collecting soft toy dogs since forever. I haven’t seen one like this before, can I have it?”

* there are 12 chinese zodiac signs that are used to date the year of births: the first is rat, then ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and the last is pig.

At such a time, Nai He Qing Shen was very generous, and handed the soft toy to Qing Shui shi jie without hesitation.

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo pushed his bike, shouting from afar. “Stop dawdling, hurry let’s go. I reserved a 5:30pm table, it’ll be cancelled if we don’t reach in time.”

An Si Dong said first: “You guys are going out to eat right? Then go first, I won’t hold you guys up. My dormmate’s still waiting for me to go eat. I’ll see you guys online later, bye!” Before they could reply, she swiftly hopped onto her pink and green bike and escaped the scene.

After dinner, she didn’t log onto the game. Instead, she hung around on BBS. There were not a lot of people on the WOW page forums. A lot of them probably weren’t back after the board gathering yet.

There was someone who made a post with the title as “Finally understood why QWE selected a Gnome as his character”. Even though Qu Wei En’s name had her becoming physiologically anxious, she couldn’t resist her curiosity and stupidly clicked into the post.

Unfortunately, the original poster (OP) only gave a single sentence: “As the title says. Not gonna explain.” The replies of “Re”, “Sigh”, “Man show”, “…”, etc. to this post were also very mystifying.

Another user with an unfamiliar ID said: “Some people like using a persona of themselves when playing a game, while others have vastly different tastes. What’s there to be so curious about.”

The replies to that were lots of ellipses*.

* ellipses are the three dot punctuation “…”

She felt that the person had made a lot of sense. Weren’t Liu Ru Mei and Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo like that?

The thread was very quickly submerged. After 8pm, the number of people online started increasing and the moderators started posting pictures from the board gathering and summed up what happened.

Immediately after they finished posting, a new post emerged tightly after: “Dong Gua MM is so cute, I want to confess! I lub yuu…”

Though it appeared to be just a joking post at first glance, it attracted a lot of views with such a gossipy title and an affixed image. The replies to this thread afterwards shot straight up after that. There were some who also confessed, some who demanded a more HD picture, some who took the opportunity to bump up the page and of course, quite a few who were gossiping about her and Qu Wei En.

The replies made up quite a few pages. There were some inflammatory voices however: “You consider this kinda stuff a beauty? You can grab a lot of these even on the streets. Beggars sure can’t be choosers for you T Uni guys. After all, when you live among a throng of dinosaurs, even a female pig will look like it’s got double eyelid.”

The person not only flamed all the T Uni girls, it flamed an even larger amount of guys. At that, it immediately received a lot of blacklash.

Honestly, the picture was blurry and wasn’t taken very well. She was wearing very normal clothes so it was indeed a very normal picture. Except that everyone had just met this morning, so even if people who knew each other praised around saying someone was a beauty and someone was hot, it might not be the case in reality.

She flipped to the next page. There was someone who posted another picture, and that had the saliva-battle immediately evolving into a… drooling-battle.

That was a very clear photograph. The skillfully angled lighting had An Si Dong’s smile appearing very sweet and her glinting eyes glassy. She had one of her hands fisted and raised before her, the side of her lips slightly tilted. A word to describe her expression would be… too frigging moe!

She couldn’t help but pick up the mirror beside her computer and turned to look at herself. Why did they seem like two separate people?

She didn’t agree with Nai He Qing Shen saying that she was throwing flirty looks when she hadn’t seen it herself, but now that she had…  gosh look that gaze, Nai He Qing Shen wasn’t wrong. -_-!

There was a reply below: “Cute but charming, pure but sexy, oohhhh… Dong Gua MM, you’ve captured my heart the moment I saw this picture!”

“You’ve captured my heart the moment I saw Dong Gua MM at the board gathering! First come first serve, go away!”

“Am a someone who’s got his heart captured by her since first year, all of you go away!”

“Woah, pretty girl, this MM’s quite PP huh…” Mao Yin saw that she was looking at a picture so she popped her head over. After staring at the picture for a while, she felt something was off. “Why does she look so familiar?”

“Because the person in the picture is your dorm mate for three years, the insignificant and humble me.” -_-b

Mao Yin sized her up and down before looking at the picture again: “This photographer is so amazing for being able to shoot a decay into legend without makeup or PS*.”

* PS = photoshop

Stinky Mao Mao, you’re the decay!

Punching Mao Yin away, she carefully kept the picture. Honestly, she had never been photographed so prettily. o(╯□╰)o

THIS TRANSLATION IS HOSTED AT ZHANLANN.COM

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

02 | CONTENTS | GLOSSARY | 04.1

[ ENDLESS LOVE ]

CHAPTER 02 ♦ THE YOUTH OF SEMBLANCE TO HER MEMORY


last edited: 11.01.18

THIS TRANSLATION IS HOSTED AT ZHANLANN.COM IF YOU ARE READING THIS ELSEWHERE YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROPAGATION OF AGGREGATOR SITES, WHICH (SUPPOSEDLY) PUTS ME (WYNNE, ZE TRANSLATOR) OUT OF BUSINESS SO BE NICE AND EFFIN’ DON’T. BE AUTHENTIC YO. READ AUTHENTIC BRO.

When she logged on to the game the second day, there were lots of people who came to greet her as expected, and she added them as friends one by one.

Qu Wei En Whispered her again: “You going to Stockade to farm?” Z L T

She said politely: “Thank you, I’m already level 20, I can handle the quests on my own.”

“It’s too slow to level by completing quests, there’s not much you can play in this game if you haven’t maxed your level.” Z L T

“I’m new to all these so I want to check out the backstories while playing, and familiarise myself with operating the game.”

He paused a while before he replied: “Okay then, call me if you need any help.”

If you repeat a lie a thousand times, it’ll become the truth. Even if Qu Wei En did not bear any sentiments for her in the beginning, after being match-made together by all the gossip, it would be difficult to judge if these ambiguous feeling wouldn’t bud. So the best way was, of course, to nip them in the bud.

She thought about all the quests she did not complete yesterday when she was at Westfall and decided to start from there. Just as she flew to the Westfall map, before she was able to alight the bird, Qu Wei En Whispered her.

[W From][Qu Wei En]: The quests at Westfall are around level ten, it’s not very suitable for you right now, the experience will be discounted. It’s better to go to Redridge Mountains or Duskwood, they’re both at the Eastern side of Elywnn Forest. There are a lot of level 20 plus quests available.

[W To][QWE]: Oh, okay then. Z L T

She turned around and ran towards Redridge Mountains. There were some quests below level 20, and she cleared them easily with the gear farmed from the Deadmines.

[W From][QWE]: You can just skip the green quests, the experience they give is very little. Try to do quests with levels slightly higher than yours, if you can’t clear them, I can help.

[W To][QWE]: I’m not in a rush to level up I’m just looking through the backstories. You can go and continue your stuff, don’t need to mind me actually, I can settle them on my own.

—Bro, it’s very pressurising with you tracking my whereabouts like that! Z L T

As she was typing, her screen suddenly flashed, and a notification prompted her to enter attack mode before an arrow split the air, flying straight at her. Turns how she had attracted the nearby monsters patrolling, so she ran further away instinctively while dealing two DOT* at the target. Who knew that monster was a ranged attacker and five levels above her, so the two DOT completely missed, while the monster’s three Shadow Bolt that hit her shaved off a big half of her health. In her fluster, she, again, slammed into the three monsters gathered on the side, and her little life didn’t seem to be able to be preserved.

* DOT = damage over time Z L T

During the split second between life and death, a player from her faction rushed out from one side suddenly and used a skill that pulled the aggro of the mob, attracting over all four monsters that had been besieging her. She immediately selected the player, ready to heal him.

Just as her fingers were about to click the hotkey for healing, they suddenly froze in place.

His name… Wan Shui Qian Shan. Z L T

Wan… Qian… Z L T

She stared at the name in a daze. Even though it was a very ordinary ID, one without any novelty or freshness; even though that Night Elf had a burly and tall physique, one without any affiliation or correlation.

It had been so long, yet when she saw these two words again, just these two words, they were enough to freeze her.

The Knight that had helped her out was only level 22. Being surrounded by four high-levelled monsters, he, too, fell quickly. She only awoke with a start after the four monsters turned back to finish her off.

[Say][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: …… Z L T

[Say][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Sorry sorry, I’ve never healed anyone before, so I’m not quite familiar with the skill……

[Say][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Hehe, it’s okay. Z L T

While he was talking, Wan Shui Qian Shan released his spirit, spawned at the graveyard, and began to run back to his corpse.

[Say][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: The graveyard’s pretty far, stay where you are, I can resurrect you. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

[Say][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: The monsters here are pretty densely packed, it’ll be too dangerous on your own, I’ll run back with you.

As expected, the minute the resurrected, they entered into attack mode. The health and mana were only filled to half its maximum. The good thing that there were two of them, and so them successfully finished off the monsters.

[Say][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Let’s party and clear quests? Z L T

“Wan Shui Qian Shan invited you to party with him, yes or no?” Z L T

She clicked yes. Both of them sent each other their quests to look through, and they found out Wan Shui Qian Shan had pretty much finished all the quests she had yet to do.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Let’s do your quests first. Some of my quests are the continuation of yours, we can do them together later.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Won’t that be very time-consuming for you, it’s okay it’s okay, I can finish them on my own.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: It’s faster for two people to do together. Moreover, clearing monsters can gain experience anyway.

Wan Shui Qian Shan was different from Qu Wei En. He was very patient, and would always stand on one side quietly to wait for her to submit her quest. He wouldn’t hurry her around in a commanding tone to “come here”, “pick it up” or “faster”. This had actually made her a little apologetic, and so, she very hardworking-ly delved headfirst into clearing monsters.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Don’t charge in front. I’ll pull the aggro, it’s okay for you to deal damage from behind.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Won’t that make me very lacking in bro-code-ness?

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Hehe, I’m a Knight, a future MT*, it should’ve been me protecting you thin-blooded healers and DPS* positions.

* MT = Main Tank Z L T

* DPS = Damage Per Second Z L T

While Wan Shui Qian Shan was pulling the aggro in front, she was doing ranged attacks. Whenever she saw him in danger, she’ll cap a damage-absorbing shield on him and add some health. The two of them cooperated and they were able to kill the monsters very speedily, and finished the quest very quickly. She was worried she would take up too much of his time, so they ran back to the village to submit her quest.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: All the storylines begin here and in Dark Shire. It’s worth going through them in detail, you don’t need to hurry.

It was as though he knew what she was thinking. Z L T

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Puff puff, finally caught up with you.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: You’re a novice right? Z L T

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Enh… Z L T

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: You’ve played for two hours, wanna rest for a while?

She glanced at the clocked. Two hours had already passed unconsciously.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: I’m not tired at all, you?

Frankly, she was currently pumped with enthusiasm right now, and couldn’t wait to help him finish some quests so as to prove that she was not an impeding good-for-nothing.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: I’m not tired either, let’s continue then.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Enh, ^_^

Why was it that when she was brought around by that big cow Qu Wei En, she would feel beyond exhausted, yet when she’s partying with Wan Shui Qian Shan, she’s feeling contented and unconstrained? Seemed like she was indeed not a cow person huh.

The two little mount-less and short-legged characters ran on the road, one in front, one behind. The road was actually really safe, there were rarely any monsters. However, they suddenly entered into attack mode when they reached a spacious fork in the road. Before An Si Dong was able to see the situation properly, she fell heroically down in the burning fire, dead. It was then did she see a red-named Horde Mage standing not too far away. The level was a skull, which meant his level is way above hers. She flipped through his battle history and saw that they were all knocked out and wiped in a second.

[Ai Mu Ti makes a rude gesture at you.]

[Ai Mu Ti spits on you.] Z L T

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: ? Z L T

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: There’s a Horde attacking me, hurry run.

The Knight that had already passed the turn stopped, turned around, and ran back to her. That Horde player had been so focused on sending her all sorts of emotes he hadn’t discovered Wan Shui Qian Shan attacking him. Yet, even though Wan Shui Qian Shan attacked first, he was still burnt dead by a fireball immediately.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Told you to run, why did you come back.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: How can I abandon you on your own and escape on my own?

For some reason, his every sentence made her want to cry.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Don’t move first, wait till he’s gone before releasing your spirit.

Ai Mu Ti upon seeing the two of them not reacting stood on her dead body and jumped around stomping on her several times, before jumping on his wolf to leave.

She ran back from the graveyard to her body. Just as she was about to drink some water and eat some bread after resurrecting to recover, that Ai Mu Ti jumped from behind a tree again, and once again burned her to crisp. This repeated several times, and she finally realised that that guy was bent on bullying them till the end.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Looking at the damage output, that guy’s definitely got his levels maxed out. He’s able to dodge all our damage, we can’t win him.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Then what’re we gonna do?

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Log off first, we’re still low-levelled anyway. When he sees the two off us offline, he won’t guard our bodies anymore. Let’s log on again later on.

With that said, Wan Shui Qian Shan’s icon in the party dimmed. She stared at the screen in disappointment for half a minute before silently clicking log off.

After she closed the window, her QQ blinked. It was Qu Wei En again: “You logged off?”

She said glumly: “There’s a Horde that keeps killing me.”

He immediately said: “What’s his name? I’ll go sort him out, you go and continue your quests.”

She told him his name, and when she logged on again, that Horde player was gone. The Party’s already disbanded. She stood at where she was for a long time, but wasn’t harassed, nor did she see Wan Shui Qian Shan.

After a while he said, but how long was a while?

She accepted a low-levelled letter-sending quest to return to Stormwind City. She only discovered after she returned that the trade channel was filled with cursing. Looking at the username, it was probably Ai Mu Ti’s* secondary account.

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti*]: QWE you SB*, randomly rolling the gear, buying things without paying, seducing other people’s waifu. Detour next time you see this asshole.

* same pronunciation but different words: 爱慕梯 is his main, 挨母踢 is his secondary

* 傻B = sha bi/SB: stupid fvckr/asshole Z L T

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti]: QWE you SB, randomly rolling the gear, buying things without paying, seducing other people’s waifu. Detour next time you see this asshole.

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti]: QWE you SB, randomly rolling the gear, buying things without paying, seducing other people’s waifu. Detour next time you see this asshole.

She Whispered Qu Wei En: “Why’s that person scolding you like that?”♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANTRANSLATIONS.WORDPRESS.COM ♢

[W From][QWE]: He can’t possibly say I killed him till he had to log off right. He’s still Whispering me his profanities now.

That Ai Mu Ti’s pretty smart, to know how to find all sorts of ways to drag someone down, except… exactly what kind of person would be able to qualify for all three of his charges… o(╯□╰)o

These kinds of saliva-spitting, screen-flooding situation was a pretty normal thing. Other than the people involved, no one else would be concerned, until Nai He Qing Shen popped out to say something.

[Trade][Nai He Qing Shen]: You’re joking right? QWE randomly rolling gear? Do you even have the qualifications to party with him?

[Trade][Zhi Zhu Nü Xia]: Promptly taking the first row seats!

[Trade][Si Ye]: It’s very obviously a Horde that’s been killed stupid, opening a secondary account to revenge, just that this revenge work of yours is seriously lacking in standards.

[Trade][Cherry]: Wow, it’s really Nai He Qing Shen, quickly takes a picture together.

[Trade][Nan Gong Yan]: Anyone knows what kind of person QWE is? That secondary account flooding the screen had actually mobilised Nai He da shen* to talk for him?

* 大神 = da shen; guru/pro/very good player, means “big god” directly translated

[Trade][Cherry]: 555*, I missed him… Z L T

* 呜呜呜 = wu wu wu/555; onomatopoeia for sobbing (呜 sounds like the number 5 in Chinese)

Some people took the chance to mock and ridicule.

[Trade][Jiang Dong Xiao Jiao]: Can some people have some independence? Rushing up every time some da shen appears to kiss up, what’s this, our society’s advocating slavery?

[Trade][Zhi Zhu Nü Xia]: You’re too lacking in entertainment spirit.

[Trade][Cherry]: I’m happy to, I’m willing to. If you’ve got the abilities why don’t you go adopt some slaves to chase after you to take your photo. I’m my Nai De da shen’s fan, why, you jealous? Are you more handsome than him, or are you a better at gameplay than him?

But that Ai Mu Ti seriously wasn’t very professional, his screen-flooding while Whispering Qu Wei En flooded and flooded and became a milkshake of something else altogether.

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti]: SB, did your grandpa I * your mom or * your ancestors for you need to kill me non-stop?

* the asterisks were given in the raws; feel free to fill it in with an appropriate word with your own imagination

[Trade][Zhi Zhu Nü Xia]: Puuh*… you accidentally spillt the beans.

* 噗 = Puuh; onomatopoeia for escaping laughter/bursting into laughter

[Trade][Nan Gong Yan]: Ai Mu Ti tong xue*, your ass is showing oi.

* 同学 = tong xue; classmate

[Trade][Si Ye]: See, I didn’t guess wrongly did I. Z L T

Ai Mu Ti got furious, and so he simply flooded the channel with obscenities.

[Trade][QWE]: Next time I see you bullying low-levelled players and guarding their bodies, I’ll kill you till you can’t walk.

[Trade][Zhi Zhu Nü Xia]: Hoh, bullying low-levellers but got killed instead, and you’re still here making an exhibition of yourself. People’s RP* sure have no baseline these days.

* 人品 = Ren Pin/RP: luck (for gaming usually) or moral character/values

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti]: Oh hoh, you jealous seeing how this grandpa can * that girl ain’t it? If you got the capabilities, why don’t you go * her too! Just look at your not even two foot eight’s ladyboy appearance, you definitely won’t have the guts.

[Trade][Si Ye]: Specialising in bullying low-levelled accounts, and sockpuppeting cuz you can’t win a high-levelled account, so you mean you have the guts?

It wasn’t that people starting a fight and arguing was a rare sight on BBS, but bumping into such shameless people was seriously very anger inciting.

It hadn’t been any business of Qu Wei En’s to begin with, yet he got involved and was targeted wrongfully. An Si Dong couldn’t tolerate it any longer, and she replied.

[Trade][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: You done? What, you bullied low-levelled players and that’s reasonable?

She immediately received Qu Wei En’s Whisper.

[W From][QWE]: There are all sorts of people on the web. Close your channel, don’t bother yourself with him.

As expected, Ai Mu Ti upon seeing someone replying immediately became enthusiastic.

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti]: Babe you’re here, didn’t my * feel very good? Way better than that stumpy winter melon ** right? …

The more he said, the more obscene it got. She was so angry her face flushed. It was useless trying reason with him, so she headed to the Redridge Mountains instead; the heart won’t grieve what the eyes don’t see. When she reached the city entrance, a new notification popped up.

[Trade][Liu Ru Mei]: MD*, lao niang* I just left the city for a little while, did city get wrecked by a pig?

* 妈的 = Ma De/MD; fvck it

* 老娘 = Lao Niang; (used jokingly/boastingly, depending on context) referring to oneself (used by females); directly translated means ‘ole mother’

[Trade][Si Ye]: Nang niang*’s back, someone’s ass’ gonna get destroyed…

* niang niang = empress/queen Z L T

[Trade][Liu Ru Mei]: So you got killed by our people, and went on your secondary account to flood the channel? They can’t be bothered to care about you, yet you’re still sticking your nose in. Come let lao niang see. Lao niang don’t know other stuff, but these two I know: healing, and cursing in the streets.

[Trade][Zhi Zhu Nü Xia]: Niang niang is almighty, niang niang go on. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti]: Lowly person, your guy’s seduced by **, you’re still helping him talk.

[Trade][Liu Ru Mei]: Name’s Ai Mu Ti right? Your brain must have been flooded with water or wedged by a door huh, either that or your mom kicked it. Kicked it right into a pig’s stomach, and threw you thrice up into the air after you’re born, catching only twice when you dropped. Your parents ain’t keepin’ you, neither are the pigs and dogs lovin’ you. Even the donkey will kick you, so will a pig trample on you when it sees you.

[Trade][Ai Mu Ti]: You damned ladyboy, all you know is to pretend to be a woman all day long. Liu Ru Mei my ass, can you get more disgusting.

[Trae][Liu Ru Mei]: You’re seriously brave for not suiciding despite growing up to look like this, but without your existence, how would it be able to contrast Dong Gua MM’s beauty. You’re wasting oxygen being alive, and wasting soil being dead. All those carcass-feeding ghosts would get constipation from chomping on your body. If you’re thrown into the toilet, the toilet’ll vomit; if you’re thrown into the dragon’s lair, Onxynia will explode; if you’re thrown into Ahn’Qiraj, C’Thun*’s eyes will go blind.

* C’Thun is a BOSS in World of Warcraft

How, how very valiant… exactly like Mao Yin. Z L T

[Trade][Nan Gong Yan]: All hail Liu niang niang….

[Trade][Si Ye]: Niang niang unify the jiang hu* through the ages Orz

* 江湖 = jiang hu; (wuxia setting) the entire country

Be it typing speed or the inspiration for all the curses, Ai Mu Ti cannot compare up to Liu Ru mei at all. After flooding the screen, he finally slipped away quietly with his tail between his legs.

[W To][Liu Ru Mei]: Niang niang you’re so amazing…. Thank you niang niang.

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: Ohehehe… when you meet these kinds of low people, you gotta use lowness to subdue their lowness, and scold them till they can’t reply. But MM you can’t learn from lao niang, QWE doesn’t like girls so exuberant and zealous like lao niang.

Now that he mentioned it, she had not seen Qu Wei En having any girlfriend throughout the entire three years, so she really didn’t know what type of girls he actually liked. And hence, she very stupidly asked another sentence.

[W To][Liu Ru Mei]: Then what type does QWE like?

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: Hateful. You’re such a peevish little vixen, so naughty! Asking even though you know, doesn’t QWE like types like you?

Goosebumps! She shivered from the chills. Z L T

When she returned to Redridge Mountains again, it was all tranquil and peaceful now. After experiencing this time’s assassination, she was scared witless when she was clearing monsters. While she released her skills, she had to keep adjusting her camera to eye the surroundings to keep a watch out for Hordes passing by. There was once when she passed by the entrance of the mine, and a high-levelled Horde rushed out unexpectedly, and ran away hurriedly, leaving her frozen at her spot, frightened out of her mind, he heart still thumping away in her chest.

[W From][QWE]: No Hordes came to disturb you right?

[W To][QWE]: No. Was surrounded by monsters just now, and a Horde actually came to help me kill them off.

[W From][QWE]: That’s nothing, it’s very normal to help each other kill off the elite monsters. Those kinds of scum that catch low-levelled players and guard their bodies are the minority.

There were, after all, more friendly players in the world, like Qu Wei En and his friends, and that Horde that had helped her, and… Wan Shui Qian Shan.

As compared to the first two, she was more thankful towards Wan Shui Qian Shan, a low-levelled player as weak as her, yet still turned to help her resist that Horde. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

[W To][QWE]: I thought players of different factions would kill each other upon meeting, isn’t that very glory-worthy?

[W From][QWE]: There’s very little glory for killing players in the wild. WOW actually isn’t a very PVP*-oriented game. People are playing PVE* the majority of the times.

*PVP: player-vs-player Z L T

*PVE: player-vs-environment Z L T

That made sense. Also, the language between the two factions didn’t match, and so spitting and stamping some foot after killing really coudln’t incite much dispute. Hence, there naturally would not be some much grudges and disputes.

Just thinking about how people living at two ends of the world can play a game on the same server, that in itself is akin to some kind of fate. Yet half the people from this server was someone you would brush past, someone you cannot party with, cannot send messages to, cannot add each other’s friends, and even cannot communicate with. Other than massacring each other, there was no in-between.

It seemed… pretty melodramatic. She didn’t even properly catch the name of that Horde that had helped her just now. She would not be able to thank that player even if she wanted to.

The Internet was such an illusory thing as such.

Wan Shui Qian Shan… when will he log on again? Z L T

She opened her friends interface and entered Wan Shui Qian Shan’s, but the name showed the player was offline. Suddenly feeling extremely bored, she rounded Redridge Mountains several times, but she didn’t even have the strength to do quests.

Forget it, she should just log off. Didn’t she agree to do the quests with him?

Just as she closed the window, a sudden “ding” sounded and a line of words flashed across her notification centre.

[Your friend Wan Shui Qian Shan has logged on.] Z L T

Thank goodness, thank goodness there were not from different factions, thank goodness she was able to add him as friends, thank goodness they chose the same server, thank goodness…

They were able to meet once again.

 

*

 

Ever since then, An Si Dong did quests with Wan Shui Qian Shan very frequently. Their time online wasn’t very long and their gameplay was relatively more leisurely. They usually would run about all over the map to complete a chain quest and not bear to give up. Wan Shui Qian Shan would also run with her, not letting go even the green and grey quests. Because they rose two to three level every day, which wasn’t very fast, they spent about half a month before finally maxing their level.

And during this period of time, she had been continuously experiencing her classmate’s amiable concern.

When she was level 30— Z L T

[W From][QWE]: Going to Gnomeregan?

When she was level 40— Z L T

[W From][QWE]: Going to Uldum?

When she was level 50— Z L T

[W From][QWE]: Going to Sunken Temple?

Needless to say, Gnomeregan, Uldum and Sunken Temple were all instances. Actually, when they were clearing their quests, they received quests to clear instances, but when Wan Shui Qian Shan shouted on the channel, they weren’t able to find people to party with, and so they didn’t.

Thankfully, a new large party-raid instance Naxxramas opened. Qu Wei En was busy with opening this new instance, and so he had no time to mind her.

There was once she did a Summoning the Princess elite quest with Wan Shui Qian Shan and the two of them were unable to pass despite trying multiple times. This was a chain quest, and they had run across several continents to finish the previous few ones. The reward for the quest was a pretty decent blue necklace, so it was quite a pity.

She lied on the ground looking at the dazzlingly lofty and powerful princess, and really wanted to pull out the producer and designer for World of Warcraft to beat them up. The princesses in WOW probably existed solely to topple people’s beautiful imagination of what the word “princess” depicted. Even a pig that was messing around in the pumpkin patch in the beginners’ village was also called “princess”, and it even had a bunch of other pigs following it!

After comparison with the princess before she, she suddenly felt that her little healer’s appearance was literally an immortal descended from heaven. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Why not we give up. This necklace is for a Mage, and you died so many times even though you don’t have any use for it. All your gears’ gonna finish dropping if we keep going at this rate.

[Party][Wan Shui Xian Shan]: We’ve already reached the last step, it’d be a pity to give up now. Just now when she only had one-third of health left, we were still at full health, it’s just that we ran out of mana. Let’s try going out and using some strength to deal damage this time.

The two of them tried different methods of dealing damage to the princess, but owing to the princess being too violent, they were blasted to ashes within several moves.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Unfortunately a few of my friends are not online. If they were I’d be able to call them over to help.

She opened her friend list, and realised Qu Wei En and Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo were online. Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo was at the Wetlands, which was very near here, and so she sent a Whisper: “Come help me with this elite quest? It’s in Arathi Highlands.”

[W From][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: QWE’s here too, why don’t you just call you?

[W To][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: He’s clearing an instance. If you’ve got something on then never mind.

[W From][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: It’s nothing it’s nothing, I’m idle as ever, I’ll come over immediately.

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo came over very fast. Z L T

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo flew over quickly. Quest monsters of this level were very easy for him. After a few slashes, he yawned and left.

That gossipy guy definitely let the word out because Qu Wei En Whispered her very soon after: “Why didn’t you call me when you couldn’t pass your elite quest?”

[W To][QWE]: Saw you clearing an instance just now so I didn’t want to interrupt. I saw Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo nearby so I called him to help.

[W From][QWE]: I’ve been in the city all the while, not clearing instance.

She hard-headedly decided to act dumb. He couldn’t see her anyway.

[W To][QWE]: Yi*, I’m pretty sure I saw you in Naxxramas, unless I mixed that up with someone else?

* 咦= yi; expression of surprise

He couldn’t say much anymore. After throwing down a “call me if you need help next time”, he didn’t talk to her anymore.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: So you have level-maxed friends, why don’t you have them bring you through the instances? It’ll be a lot faster levelling that way.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Isn’t having someone else bringing you growing up the same as not growing up? I’m a newbie, if I don’t clear the quests, I won’t understand a single thing about this world. If it’s like that, then why is there even a need for me to play anymore.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Hehe, I feel like that too.

Wan Shui Qian Shan also had friends who had wanted to bring him levelling, and asked her if she wanted to join. She had said she wanted to clear quests. He was afraid their quests would then no longer be in phase, hence would not be able to play together in the future, therefore refused his friend’s good intentions politely. She remembered all these.

As they helped each other out along their way, she understood some information about him in real life during their conversation. He was a graduate student from P University next door. He had played a while on another server before, however, he gave up halfway due to his studies. Holidays had started recently, so he was called over by his friends to restart this game.

So he was from P University… they were just a wall’s distance away, how very near. She had been to the restaurant that sat in the street between the two universities so many times, she wondered if they had unknowingly met before?

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: No wonder your gameplay’s so good.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: I’m an amateur player too, my gameplay’s just very average. My friends often tell me off about being disappointing, saying they shouldn’t have let me learn the MT role.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: I think your gameplay’s really good, you’re always several times my damage output 😦

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: That’s because you’re a new player, you’re still not very familiar yet. Actually, there are certain skills for every class. I’m not too familiar with that of healers’ but you can check out the forums for experience threads by other players.

Talking about forums, she thought about something.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Oh yeah, are you on Huo Shu Yin Hua BBS? I’ve seen a lot of people from your school playing WOW on there, it seems like they’re from the same guild as you.

Huo Shu Yin Hua was T University’s BBS, but there were quite a lot of students from other schools on it. P University was a humanities-oriented university so the hype for WOW wasn’t very high. Hence WOW players and guilds from P University often stationed themselves at Huo Shu.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: I go on there occasionally. My ID is Wan Shui Qian Shan in alphabets. Oh yeah, have you joined a guild yet, why don’t you come to ours, everyone knows each other anyway, and it’ll be convenient for clearing instances next time.

Qu Wei En had wanted her to join the FREE guild. But the prerequisites to entering FREE were stricter, and players need max out their levels and pass their entry test before they could enter. Even though the bunch of gossipy guys had said they could make an exception for sao zi, it was still rejected by Qu Wei En. He said to wait till she’s maxed her levels before joining.

She thought about it and then agreed. Very quickly, she received the invitation to join “Qing Mei Zhu Jiu” guild.

The Qing Mei Zhu Jiu guild was becoming larger at a very fast rate. There were players joining every day. Wan Shui Qian Shan was also just a little nobody player who had yet to max his level. And so, after she joined the guild, other than a few people saying “welcome”, there was not much commotion.

This was better. She couldn’t handle all those gossipy guys’ enthusiasm in FREE and BBS.

The night she had maxed out her levels, she logged on to the BBS she had not logged on to for a long time and found out that one of the headliners out of the top ten was actually a WOW thread. The number of comments on this thread led by a wide margin and the caption was very eye-catching: “A Warm Congratulations to FREE Obtaining the First Kill in Thaddius! Long Live FREE!”

The thread had some very infuriating introduction: “We are grateful for the other guilds from Horde and Alliance’s modest declination that had allowed us to be the first to push Thaddius. This glory does not belong to FREE, but to all WOWers.” A snapshot of the BOSS being pushed was attached. The time of post was today 3 am in the morning; they had probably just finished around that time.

Naxxramas consisted of five different wings. The centre wing could only be entered when the other four wings were cleared* within the given CD time. Among the four wings, only the Construct Quarter had four bosses, and Thaddius was the last boss, so the difficulty ought not to be overlooked. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

* to the WOW gamers: this is with reference to the game before Patch 3.3.0 (8^th Dec 2009) was updated… I think; if you play WOW now, it’s different.

A bunch of “Re to headlining top ten”, “congratulations”, “NB”, “you’re welcome”, “FREE is the strongest” kinds of congratulations listed below. Someone asked: “You guys cleared the Construct Quarter so fast, I remembered the first kill across all the servers is on the 17^th right? Are there even five guilds that have passed this instance yet?”

“Who’s the commander?” Z L T

“Who else, it’s definitely Nai He Qing Shen.” Z L T

“How many first kills have FREE gotten already?” Z L T

“Ever since Nai He Qing Shen became FREE’s guild leader, they’ve been getting bunches of first kills. Next is the 4DK* and Kel’Thuzad* right.”

* the four final bosses in Military Quarter are 4 Death Knights (4DK), known as the Four Horsemen. These four dudes are the Lich King Kel’Thuzad’s guards, and Kel’Thuzard (who created the 4DK) is the super ultra final boss in here.

Nai He Qing Shen popped out to say: “As much as I am touched by everyone’s very wise and brilliant impression of me, the commander this time really isn’t me.”

“It’s one thing the commander’s commands are good, what’s most important is FREE’s battle arrangement they have, and that they are able to arrange out 40-man elite teams. Even though the other guilds have some decent teams, they were just a mob of people. Pulling a bunch of people together randomly to push Naxxramas is pretty much equivalent to seeking death.”

There were also some players from Horde complaining. “Lu Hua Jia* majesty, where have you gone. FREE stole the first kill, how can we HSYH brothers endure this!”

* 氯化钾 = Lu Hua Jia; Potassium Chloride (KCL)

Their moans had heaved out the grandee Lu Hua Jia who had long faded out in this circle out: “Aye, it’s all my fault for not having eyes, to let Alliance snatch away QWE. I’m too shameful to face my elders and brothers now.”

“Who’s QWE?” Z L T

“Isn’t he the male lead from FREE who had wanted to unspoken-rule a PPMM from last time?”

“I checked, he hadn’t posted more than 10 posts in this forum.”

“He’s the FREE commander this time right.” Z L T

“Woah, to have KCL* re my post, that’s a lot of faces I got there.”

* KCL is Potassium Chloride, and is Lu Hua Jia (氯化钾)

“Face your ass, save it man, KCL came for FREE’s mysterious guru.”

There were three pages in the WOW page on Huo Shu BBS, HYSY, FREE and Qing Mei Zhu Jiu. The Horde guild HSYH had the longest history and the largest guild. The main members were pretty much all made up of the graduated students from T University. They were also the only guild endorsed by Huo Shu Yin Shan. FREE and Qing Mei Zhu Jiu were Alliance guilds and were made up of students from T Uni and students from P Uni respectively. The number of members in FREE was not a lot, but they had high entry barriers and strict regulations, so the gameplay level of the members on average was higher. Qing Mei on the other hand was better at getting new blood and being prosperous and bustling.

The relationship between the three guilds could be said to be pretty peculiar. If we’re talking about factions, HSYH was from Horde, while FREE and Qing Mei were from Alliance. Players from enemy factions would more or less have some disputes, you killing me and me killing you was a very commonly seen occurrence. Not only so, HSYH was the only one in power from Horde, however, there were two guilds of similar abilities from Alliance. FREE and Qing Mei must join forces in order to resist HSYH. From another perspective however, HSYH and FREE were both from T Uni. Also, it was no new news that T and P Universities had been at each other’s throats for trying to clinch the first-ranked university title in the city. Their in-game disagreement would elevate into flaming each other on BBS, before returning to massacring each other in the game. These occurrences were pretty common.

No matter what, Qing Mei this stepchild was always the most miserable one. However, the members in Qing Mei were very united, so even if their gameplay could not compare up to that of the T Uni’s science-stream guys, they’d take the interpersonal and public relationships route, and hence, grabbing themselves a seat in the Onyxia server.

KCL was the founder of HSYH, he was also one of the stationed members. That year when that batch of grandee was still in school was HSYH’s flourishing period. Onyxia had completely been a Horde-dominated server. The largest disparity was when the two factions had members reaching a ratio of 5:1. It was only afterwards when the seniors had graduated and started working, and no longer had as much time for games did the Alliance faction manage to gradually increase their membership to take up a 45% portion. However, compared to economically-stable office workers, students, after all, could not compare, hence HSYH remained WOW page’s largest guild.

KCL let out a word: “If anyone sees QWE, help me tell him that if he decided to change an account to play Horde, HSYH will definitely welcome him with open arms.”

“Woah, Lu Hua Jia majesty had personally seduced him away from his guild. If it’s me, I’ll immediately switch to Horde. QWE quickly job-hop dude, job-hop.”

“Stop acting, your fangs are showing. I can tell you’re a shill just by looking, what are you pretending to be an Alliance member for.”

“Is that QWE really that NB, so much that even KCL want to dig him over?”

Nai He Qing Shen popped out to say again: “Talking about NB-ness, he’s just a little bit less NB than me. But all of FREE’s first kill records happened when he commanded, so don’t dump all these titles on my head, it’s also a sin to be too NB…”

Members of HSYH comforted each other: “Don’t worry, don’t worry, only 10 bosses have been pushed so far. As for first kills, half of them is HSYH ours, it’s nothing much letting them being ahead of us.”

“Stop faking, just look at what it is that you guys have pushed? They’re all just the door guards for every wing, the weakest ones.”

Of course, there were people who did not accept it: “No matter how many first kills, they were only good in PVE*, how is that good, if it’s his PVP* that’s sick then he’s epic.”

* PVE = player vs environment Z L T

* PVP = player vs player Z L T

“Tong xue*, it’s not your fault for not being NB yourself, but it’s noticeably your fault for not even being able to distinguish NB people.”

* 同学 = tong xue; classmate

“Just go and duel if the two of you don’t give in to each other.”

Some insiders exposed: “The guy used to be T university’s CS team’s team leader. Their amateur student team’s played at the pro-league and got into top eight before. Skills and commanding, which did he lack? And you say his PVP’s not good?”

“Given his intellect, how would an Arts-stream guy be able to understand even if you tell him? It’d be better to tell all this to an Amoeba* than him.” ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANTRANSLATIONS.WORDPRESS.COM ♢

* Amoeba is a freshwater organisation

This was immediately noticed by the slinking moderator: “Please avoid making inflammatory comments targeting groups of people, I’ve edited it for you. This is not to be repeated or I’ll restrict your account.”

Returning to look at the post, the moderator had very trolling-ly changed “Art-stream guys”, “intellect” and “Amoeba” to ***^,囧!

^ *** (three asterisks) usually usually usually stands for something dirty (i.e. sex and the likes of it) so netizens use three asterisks to avoid being censored

The guild leader of Qing Mei also congratulated symbolically: “Congratulating FREE who has once again clinched the first kill for the Alliance faction. You are Alliance’s pride, Qing Mei Zhu Jiu is proud to have an ally like you!”

Immediately, there were people making noise: “What does FREE’s first kill have anything to do with us? Who clinched it for ‘you’?”

“When has FREE and Qing Mei become allies, what’s this showering non-existent affection again?”

There were more people who copied slavishly: “Congratulating FREE who has once again clinched the first kill for T uni. You are T uni’s pride, YSTY is proud to have schoolmates like you!”

Of course, during such a harmonious time, inharmonious sentiments as such were quickly drowned.

While the atmosphere on the page was still pumping hot, the moderator said with a wave of his hand: “We’ve been making preparations for a board gathering* so we’ll take the opportunity to tell you guys about it!”

* board gathering = netizens of the group/page/organisation/guild/etc gathering to meet/eat/have fun/play in real life (usually eating though)

There were people who immediately said: “Wait first, wait till it’s past 12 then let’s bump it up to top ten.”

The moderator also felt that it made sense, and hence changed to posting a brief board gathering notice.

An Si Dong lightly skimmed the posts quickly. She had just maxed her level, and the only instance she had gone through before was the one at the Deadmines
so she didn’t quite understand the stuff they were saying. She thought for a moment, thinking that she ought to pronounce her stance given it was such a major good news. And so, she messaged Qu Wei En: “Just saw the top ten, congratulations, your guild’s pretty amazing.”

Qu Wei En had been invisible-ing online, and he quickly replied: “Same to you.”

“Ah?” Z L T

“Didn’t you max your level, congrats.” Z L T

“Oh, yeah yeah, same same.” Z L T

This time, there was someone else that messaged her and the message popped up on its own, blocking the words Qu Wei En had sent: “Is this Dong Gua? I’m Wan Shui Qian Shan.”

“Oh, it’s you.” Z L T

Before she added him, she checked his ID, WanShuiQianShan, and his experience was very low. It was very obvious he had just registered not long ago and the amount of time he had logged on and posted was very little.

Wan Shui Qian Shan asked: “I saw on the page that there’s a board gathering, are you going?”

Her heart started pumping. What was he trying to say?

“If it’s after school then I’ll probably go…”

Wan Shui Qian Shan said: “Then that’s good.” After which, he sent her a smiley face. By the time she replied, he had already logged off.

Oi, if you have something to say then say it clearly, I’m going to mind-cannon if you leave things like this ahhhhh!

Before she could fantasise though, Qu Wei En’s message popped up again: “You’re angry?”

She hurriedly scrolled to see his previous message. “Was a little busy going through Naxxramas so I didn’t have time to check on you, sorry. I’ll probably have more time after this, let’s go clear instances.”

Mr Important you were the page-famous da shen*, how would I dare to get angry with you! She quickly replied: “I left for a bit just now, didn’t see your message, sorry about that.” ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

* 大神 = da shen; guru/pro/very good at something

“Then that’s good.” Z L T

—Why was it this sentence again? She complained.

“Then it’s confirmed.” Z L T

“Ah? What?” Z L T

She could imagine him on the other side of the web mincing his lips, narrowing his un-slender eyes. “About clearing instances next time.”

“Oh.” Only an “oh” didn’t mean promising anything right.

“Our team’s currently on break, so the people’s free right now. Let’s go, let’s bring you through the simple 5-man instance to get some gear. When you’ve established some foundation then let’s go do raids. “

She’s struck dumb, and hurriedly declined: “No need no need, I’ve already maxed my level, so there’s no don’t need to trouble you to bring me, really.”

“You’re a new player and your quests are only giving eco-green gear. Other than friends, will there be people willing to bring you. It’s no longer the same as when the server just opened, there are not many people who’re willing to bring a low-levelled character around to play.”

“Oh, then okay…” She replied gloomily. Even though she knew he’s saying that for her good, but… bro, why was it that the words you say so depressing?

“QWE has invited you to join his party, do you accept?”

An Si Dong clicked accept and entered the party. There were four people in the party: Ah L Ba Ba, Dwarf Warrior, MT; Liu Ru Mei, Human Priest, healer; QWE, Gnome Mage, ranged DPS; Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo, Night Elf Rogue, melee DPS at the moment. She had originally wanted to ask if she could bring a friend, but seeing how things were, she could only drop the subject.

[Party][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: Where we going? Z L T

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: Dude, where else can a 5-man party go, we’re obviously going to the big three to get T0 gear.

[Party][QWE]: Let’s go ST first, Scholo, then Blackrock last.

An Si Dong didn’t quite understand what they were talking about, and so she typed a question mark. Qu Wei En probably figured she didn’t understand the short forms and explained, and so the two of them sent their messages almost at the same time.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: ? Z L T

[Party][QWE]: Stratholme, Scholomance, Blackrock Depths, these three used to be known as the big three instances and they drop the first set of T0 gear.

Two more messages brushed out below at the same time.

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: Wow, how in unison! Z L T

[Party][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: Wow, how caring!

It’d already been half a month, why can’t they just forget it a little? Qu Wei En too, his lack of their subject continuation and his lack of denial made it hard for her to refute their comments without making things look bad on his side.

[Party][QWE]: Let’s log on to TeamSpeak*.

* TeamSpeak: a voice communication application

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: What century is it, we’re only clearing the big three and we need to use TS? In lao niang’s opinion, let’s not even get that crappy T0 gear, after the next CD let’s team up and bring Dong Gua MM to raid. Just get a T2 gear and graduate man, then the two of you can go clear Naxxramas together.

[Party][QWE]: Dong Gua’s a new player, we can explain a little and play at the same time. Dong Gua, you don’t need to rush to deal damage later, observe Liu Ru Mei more and learn some of his methods.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Oh, okay. Z L T

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: Lao niang’s got no methods, just basing everything on my large amounts of milk*. This depends on how good your talent is, it’s not something you can learn. As for how good Dong Gua MM’s talent is, you gotta ask yourself that.

* ‘milk’ is referring to ‘ability to heal’ here, however may also be interpreted as ‘boob size’, so ‘how good your talent is’ means ‘how good your ability to heal is’, but it can also be misinterpreted as ‘how big your boob is’.

This joke was indeed a little over. Qu Wei En noticeably could not take it.

[Party][QWE]: Watch your words when talking to girls!

[Party][Ah Li Ba Ba]: … Z L T

[Party][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: Niang niang, even though I’m your hardcore fan, I’m not able to be on your side this time…

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: Dong Gua MM, the… big I’m referring to is the high healing ability, it’s an extended meaning, not it’s original meaning. And that talent… I meant it as talent points, it’s very important to add them right. You’re still the shadow priest you were when you were raising your levels right? When you go back, reset it, it’s better I teach you how to add the points for a holy priest.

[Party][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: As expected, niang niang’s tongue blooms resplendent lotuses to the extent you can talk the wrong into right, the bent into straight…

Actually, being in a university where the guys to girls ratio was 5:1, and floating around on BBS every day as well as being influenced by Mao Yin for three years, An Si Dong was already immune to the swear words and dirty jokes guys make between each other. That was only the way they talk. One of her male classmates had once jokingly evaluated her outer appearance to her face: “An Si Dong, quite cute, petit and exquisite with a baby face, just that your figure’s the same as your face, lacking in growth.”

Upon seeing everyone delving into silence, and the fact that they were all here her bringing, she believed there was a need to sacrifice herself to help round the atmosphere.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Actually, QWE’s talent’s better than mine.

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: … Z L T

[Party][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: Shiver… Dong Gua MM, you really are a Priest right? When did you learn the Mage’s ice magic?

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: And a huge ass ice block at one go, the area freezing type. Fudge.

She lowered her head and looked at her chest and recalled the last time she’d accidentally poked him in his dorm—she was stating a real fact. o(╯□╰)o

She had heard that Qu Wei En had TS installed since long ago, just that he’d never used it. After logging on and entering the FREE’s channel, she was very quickly moved into a private room. Other than the five people from their party, there was Si Ye and Nai He Qing Sheng. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

And she listened to the guy whose voice sounded like that of a newscaster’s saying: “Dong Gua MM’s finally here, welcome welcome.”

She looked at the TS. The person speaking was actually Liu Ru Mei. -_-！

Liu Ru Mei in TS was like an entirely different person. He talked dead earnestly, not saying even half a dirty word, and that had her feeling very unaccustomed. “Is it niang niang himself?”

Laughter ensued. The newscaster male voice choked: “That… let’s divide game and real life, so you don’t need to call me niang niang in TS…”

Si Ye continued: “Or else this servant will be embarrassed.” And even sent a coy emoticon with hands covering the face, and even more laughter sounded.

The bunch of people joked around on TS, while Qu Wei En whispered her in the game.

[W From][QWE]: Stratholme is in the Eastern Plaguelands, you can come over here first.

[W To][QWE]: Enh, already flying, reaching soon.

He could have just said that in the party channel, was there a need to Whisper her?

When she reached her destination, Qu Wei En was waiting for her at the alighting point. He traded her two gears, Prophecy Griddle, Prophecy armour; they were all purple gear. Even though she was a rookie player, she knew picking up purple gear not bound to oneself was very valuable. Even a 40 plus level gear could sell for several hundred gold at the auction house, so she hesitated, wondering if she should reject him. [W From][QWE]: It’s a drop from a small monster, nothing valuable, just wear it for now to get by.[W To][QWE]: They have quest to go to Stratholme here, accept it.The scenery of the maps at the Eastern Plaguelands was dark and gloomy. The many full of skeletons and ghouls around made the place very repressed. Hence, she didn’t really do much of the quests here so the map was filled with exclamation marks. She stopped to look at the quest description, the gnome Mage stood beside her twisting its little body.

[W From][QWE]: When are you joining our guild?

Ah, she almost forgot about this. Qu tong xue had wanted her to join the FREE guild, but she went to join another guild on her own. He wouldn’t be angry about it would he?

[W To][QWE]: My friend who’d been levelling with me pulled me to another guild so I joined. I saw that your guild’s pretty strict, and very amazing, so I was afraid I couldn’t really match up.

[W From][QWE]: It’s nothing much, the majority of the people in FREE’s our schoolmates.

[W To][QWE]: I’m so noob, won’t entering your guild through pulling strings make things difficult for you…

He didn’t say anything much after that. When they ran to Stratholme to gather rocks after accepting the quest, Liu Ru Mei was already there waiting for them. Upon seeing her, he immediately sent her a Whisper.

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: How come you went to Qing Mei Zhu Jiu?

[W To]: [Liu Ru Mei]: I was pulled in by a friend.

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: You have a friend from Qing Mei? Who is it?

[W To][Liu Ru Mei]: A rookie too, we met while doing quests. Why?

Liu Ru Mei didn’t talk for a long while. After seeing the flaming on BBS, she’d guessed, too, that the relationship between FREE and Qing Mei weren’t the best.

[W To][Liu Ru Mei]: Was there some unhappiness between you guys and Qing Mei?

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: MM, that’s not just some unhappiness. Qing Mei was originally known as Da Jiang Dong Qu. Their guildmaster duelled with QWE before and lost, so he deleted his account and disbanded the guild. In the beginning when Qing Mei was established, they had been all against QWE and even had bought over players from Horde to assassinate him, and wanted to force him to AFK*. Qu Wei En had openly announced before that he would not party with players from Qing Mei. The fact that you have Qing Mei’s name on top of your head is essentially slapping him right on the face girl.

* AFK = away from keyboard; not referring the temporary unavailable from keyboard (due to power cut or going to toilet or something) here, but the permanently away the keyboard (as in, not playing computer games ever again and the likes)

She almost fainted, to have such a melodramatic inside story. She and Wan Shui Qian Shan were both new players. They were pretty much nobodies after they entered the guild so they’d never heard of such a history before.

[W To][Liu Ru Mei]: Sorry, I didn’t know… Z L T

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: You’re not very familiar with the people there huh?

[W To][Liu Ru Mei]: Enh, I know a rookie from there.

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: Let your friend know and just quit. Qing Mei’s a low-grade brothel guild anyway, people come and go, a lot of them leave after but a night’s stay.

Her perspiration quietly dripped. He hadn’t even said much before niang niang’s nature revealed itself. But could you not metaphorise me as though I’m patron of a brothel… -.-b

She opened her friend list and checked. Wan Shui Qian Shan wasn’t on.

[W To][Liu Ru Mei]: Okay, I’ll let my friend know and quit.

There were not many people still going to Stratholme, but there were also some people bringing low-levelled players to get gears. The three of them stood by the rock collecting point to call in people. Before long, another party came by, three of which were high-levelled players bringing one low-levelled player. They were all from Qing Mei.

[General][Nian Nu Jiao]: Hah, what did I just see? There seems to be a Qing Mei Priest beside QWE? Don’t tell me you guys just met coincidentally at this rock gathering point.

[General][Jiang Dong Xiao Jiao]: Grabs a stool to watch QWE suicide.

[General][Duo Qing Ying Xiao Wo]: Why would QWE suicide?

[General][Jiang Dong Xiao Jiao]: Didn’t he swear that he will never party with our Qing Mei members, now that he’d partied, it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t want to live anymore.

[General][Niang Nu Jiao]: We can treat what some people say as the P they fart; the mouth’s and butt’s use is essentially exchangeable, so you really can’t take them seriously huh. You think everyone’s gonna be like our ol’ guild leader, keeping to their promise? ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

The mocked and ridiculed, questioning and answering among themselves. Of course the people on the other side weren’t incompetent either.

[Say][Liu Ru Mei]: Suicide your sis*, farting P your mom*, promise your grandpa*, which guild was it that started oppressing the other smaller guild just cause they’re larger in the beginning? Which guild knowing their guildmaster MM wasn’t good at PK forced her to duel with the bet of account deletion? And who was it that lost so badly they had no face and then washed their hands of this job? Already dumped like trash yet you’re still lickin’ up their butt canals and calling ol’ guildmaster, trying to act all hero even though you’re just a coward. Lao niang’s seen some lowly scums, but lao niang’s ain’t seen scums as low as y’all.

* some phrases (meant for scolding people) like ‘your sis’, ‘your mom’, ‘your grandpa’ essentially works the same as ‘my ass’ or ‘my foot’.

Ah Li Ba Ba and Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo had already teleported over to the rock gathering point. Qu Wei En said in TS: “Ignore them, enter the instance.” And headed into the instance entrance first.

Si Ye asked in TS: “What happened? Did you bump into people from Horde at the entrance? Need any help?”

Qu Wei En said: “It’s nothing.” Z L T

Before long, Nai He Qing Sheng said: “What happened? Why’re people from Qing Mei flooding the city channel scolding QWE and wanting you to suicide?”

No one in the party didn’t say anything. One of them probably Whispered Nai He Qing Sheng, and so she heard him again saying: “Why’re the Qing Mei people so bored. Given their lack of ability, all they know to do is to talk nonsense, biting people like a mad dog.”

Qu Wei En: “Don’t bother answering them since you know they’re mad dogs then.”

His voice that sounded in TS was slightly different from usual, a little lower, hitting her eardrum clearly through the earpiece. An Si Dong looked at the little Gnome happily running around in front, halted her footsteps and turned around, returning to the rock-gathering location.

The four people from Qing Mei were still there flooding the general channel. She stood, waiting till all four of them stopped talking and focused on her before she opened the guild channel and clicked the button to quit.

The four of them watched helplessly as the “Qing Mei Zhu Jiu” on her head disappear.

[Say][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Satisfied now? Z L T

The four of them didn’t make any sound. Z L T

When she returned to beside her party members, all of them noticed she no longer had a guild name floating atop her head.

[W From][Liu Ru Mei]: Hehe, that’s some character you’ve got there, even lao niang’s never done such an OP thing before, how regretful.

[W From][QWE]: You didn’t need to do that, it’ll be hard for you to explain to your friend later.

Bro, I’m more worried about you being unable to explain things. Your face’s a lot more valuable than little shrimps like us.

[W To][QWE]: Hehe, it’s nothing. I’m just a nameless junior, I’ve never even spoken in the guild channel before, so even if I quit, no one would mind. It’s good as long as you’re not angry.

[W From][QWE]: I didn’t take those words to heart at all.

Liu Ru Mei said in TS: “Nai He, let’s add Dong Gua MM into the guild.” Very quickly, she received an invite to enter the guild.

An Si Dong said: “I’m still very noob right now. I’ll join after I’ve become stronger, so let’s not make an exception to your rules.” With that, she clicked reject.

Nai He Qing Sheng praised her: “You’ve got some drive there!” And so the other people didn’t mind.

After the four of them entered Stratholme through the back door, they were greeted with two elite undead monsters and six seven small monsters. Qu Wei En said: “Dong Gua, you and Liu Ru Mei take one elite each, use shackle the undead to bind it. Ah Li and I will clear the rest.”

She followed obediently and shackled the undead on the right. Ah Li Ba Ba pulled the aggro of the bunch of monsters and Qu Wei En’s Mage sent an AOE* to clear them before they gathered their firepower to finish off the two elite.

* AOE = area of effect Z L T

At that moment, the system gave a ‘ding’, Wan Shui Qian Shan had logged on.

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: I’m sorry… T_T

He immediately replied, his tone a little anxious.

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: What’s wrong? What happened? Don’t cry.

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: I quitted the guild…

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: So it’s just that, gosh you gave me a scare. Did you think it’s because I pulled you into the guild and so I’ll get angry when you quit? ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Enh… Z L T

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: The guild’s just for a bunch of people to game together. So just game with whoever you’re happier gaming with, why would I be so petty about that.

Honestly, she had felt it was happier playing with Wan Shui Qian Shan, but she couldn’t help it, she had to give face to her classmate. Why couldn’t other people be as open-minded about things as Wan Shui Qian Shan?

Qu Wei En called her on TS: “Dong Gua? Still there?”

She raised her head and saw the party had already finished clearing the bunch of monsters in front and had walked a large distance. She hurriedly said goodbye to Wan Shui Qian Shan and caught up.

Their journey so far had been very successful. Qu Wei En clearly explained how to clear the monsters and which skills and things to note about each boss, while Liu Ru Mei was delegating her how to heal as a priest. After clearing their instance, she was able to help look after the other people in the party too.

The more regretful part however… was her luck being a little poor when they clicked the boss for item drops.

As the final boss Rivendare Baron fell, Liu Ru Mei leapt forward to click, and he got a blinking bright… Greaves of Uncanny Courage.

Qu Wei En mocked him: “Plate armour again, did you eat ink for dinner?”

Liu Ru Mei said, aggrieved: “It’s not like I clicked it with my mouth boss.”

“Remember to wipe your mouth after eating.”

Puu… bro, it’s better you take the callous guy route, trying to be humorous sure doesn’t suit you.

Ah Li Ba Ba said: “Then I’ll take it.” Z L T

“For what?” Z L T

“Collection.” -.-b Z L T

Liu Ru Mei started derailing: “Ah, I’ve just noticed Dong Gua MM’s wearing two gears of Prophecy, did QWE give you that? How considerate hm.”

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo: “When was the last time you went to Molten Core, where did you get that Prophecy gear? Bought them?”

An Si Dong’s heart jolted. Z L T

However, Qu Wei En replied quickly: “Got them from the guild storeroom, who would buy these crappy gear? Do I look like I have lots of money to burn.”

Liu Ru Mei protested: “I’m still wearing Prophecy pants hello, how can you actually say Prophecy gear is crappy!”

“Let’s farm in Naxxramas and just get T3 gear. Save you the trouble.”

Liu Ru Mei said kiss-ass-ingly: “Dong Gua MM, you see my hat? It’s a T3 Vestments of Faith from Thaddius, the only one in the entire server, epic ain’t it?”

She looked at the halo on Liu Ru Mei in the screen, saying in beyond earnestly: “Enh, niang niang with that circle on your head, you look like a pure and beautiful angel.”

A round of laughter sounded in TS. Liu Ru Mei was indignant: “Angel your…” He resisted saying the “sister” word. “This is jealousy, naked and undisguised jealousy. You’re jealous I have a T3 hat and your QWE doesn’t.”

Ah Li Ba Ba asked: “Didn’t Thaddius drop two hats, QWE didn’t take?”

Qu Wei En said: “I let Xiao Si took it.”

“Why?” Z L T

“The add-on effect of the good gear works better on him than on me.”

What is an OP person, this is an OP person. -.-b

Si Ye sobbed in TS. Qu Wei En said: “Dong Gua return and submit your quest. We still need to do a follow-up mission afterwards. Let’s clear the smaller monsters first.”

Liu Ru Mei asked: “Hasn’t Dong Gua maxed her levels, why’s she still doing quests?”

Nai He Qing Shen said: “Probably cuz quests will give gear.”

“The gears given by the quests are not the best anyway, why would you want them.”

“That’s because you’re unlucky. No matter how good the drop is, if you are unlucky, what’s the use?”

Honestly, An Si Dong was also wondering why Qu Wei En wanted her to come to quests. It was a little unlike his style, but since it’s the guru’s way of doing things, then let’s not question it. After she returned from submitting the quest, they had just finished killing the boss. After finishing, Liu Ru Mei didn’t dare click it: “Who’s lucky, go click it.”

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo ran up and clicked it—it’s another piece of armour. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

The second boss—shield. Z L T

The third boss—axe. Z L T

…

Nobody went up to click the last boss even after it had lain on the ground for a very long time. They said: “Dong Gua MM, it’s better you click it yourself.”

She fearlessly ran up to click it, and two items, and of purple tier, actually dropped: Runeblade of Baron Rivendale and Deathcharger’s Reins.

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: … Z L T

[Party][Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo]: … Z L T

[Party][Ah Li Ba Ba]: … Z L T

[Party][QWE]: … Z L T

Even QWE was tilted. Z L T

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo howled in TS: “Exactly what kind of RP is that! To drop a sword and a horse at the same time, all we want is a priest armour!”

Liu Ru Mei mused: “I have personally witnessed a DK horse in my remaining years alive… my life is complete.”

Si Ye lamented: “What what? DK sword and horse actually came out? If I knew I should have gone, newbies sure have some exploding RP.”

An Si Dong looked at the two items that were both purple. All the items that had dropped from the previous bosses were only blue. Hence, she asked, feeling a little guilty: “Are these two items very rare?”

“The drop rate for the sword is one in a thousand, the drop rate for the horse is one in ten thousand. To actually have both of them dropping together, what do you think?”

No wonder there had been no drops for gears suitable for her, it seemed like all her RP had been spent on dropping these two items. For her to bump into a one in a thousand chance… if she’d known this earlier, she would have gone to buy a lottery.

The most stimulating thing about playing an online game was being lucky when clicking for items and dropping a very rare item. The gloomiest thing about playing an online game was clicking for items and dropping a not-very-rare item, and, that item turned out to be something you couldn’t use.

Ah Li Ba Bad had taken the sword. Liu Ru Mei said very begrudgingly: “Since Dong Gua MM you got that horse, it’s better you take it…”

“What’s the horse for? Is it better than the one I have now?”

“The speed’s the same, but it’s a lot more eye-catching.”

“Oh, then I don’t want it. You take it.” The horse she was using now was a horse she had purchased for 1000 gold, and so she was reluctant to change it.

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: Dong Gua MM, you’re too kind too considerate too magnanimous, lao niang loves you to death! Next time if you climb a mountain of swords or plunge into a sea of flames, as long as you say the word, lao niang will do it even if you tell me to go chop QWE!

Niang niang only dared to send this sentence only in the game.

“Then can I ask you a question?” Z L T

“I’ll answer a million, a thousand questions of yours, much less one!”

“Why’s your Heal not activating? I’ve seen the action bar going past the halfway mark but it’ll chop off afterwards. Is that done on purpose?”

“Dong Gua MM’s very attentive to the details hmm.” Liu Ru Mei praised. “This is actually one of the very important skills. Did you realise those healing spells require very high mana, and that sometimes you run out of mana when you’re clearing a boss halfway?”

“Enh, but isn’t that because my mana regeneration’s too slow?”

“No matter how fast your mana regeneration is, it wouldn’t be able to stand brainless using of healing spells. Learning how to control when to use your spells is a necessary skill for priests. The Heal action bar takes about three seconds. If your Flash Heal target still has relatively full health, then move your character a little to break off the action bar. This way, you can fully utilise every drop of mana on dealing damage and not excessive healing all the time.”

She’s guilty… She’d indeed been stupidly using the fastest Flash Heal non-stop, and consequentially finishing her mana. Not only so, the amounts healed by her skills weren’t showing its effects very much.

She clicked Liu Ru Mei as the target and tried a Heal. When the action bar hit around 90%, she moved her character a little to interrupt the action bar. After which, she practised it several times. “Is it like this?”

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo sighed emotionally: “Dong Gua MM sure has potential. I’ve seen countless priests that can’t predict and interrupt their action bars.”

”You should look at whose waifu that is, how can that be a normal person?”

They’re at it again, she should quickly stop them. Z L T

“Ah… I realise that when niang niang’s properly taking, he’s actually pretty gentle and soothing.”

[Party][Liu Ru Mei]: Ohehehehe… MM don’t hence fall for lao naing, lao niang’s heart shall not belong only to you. If you fall for lao niang, you will be destined to meet with a sad ending.

While he was typing that, the newscast anchor-like voice in the TS did not even pause. That voice even tirelessly guided her on when to use Heal and when to use Flash Heal as well as how to react to unexpected situations.

People who could split themselves up to such extent is what you called talented. – -b

Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo said softly: “Niang niang, don’t seek death. Careful QWE chops you up so badly you can’t manage your life…”

“It’s okay.” Wu Wei En was very unruffled. “If he dared to say in TS the stuff he typed in the game, not only will I not look into this matter, I will even admire him.”

So Ye urged: “Niang niang, flip out in real life and show him your stuff.”

Of course niang niang didn’t dare—niang niang was once again embarrassed.

Only An Si Dong herself was almost going crazy inside her head. What did he mean “I won’t look into this matter”, bro what’s your relationship with me. Even if I do fall for Liu Ru Mei—of course, this would be purely hypothetical—what right did you have to look into this matter gaaah!

That night, they chatted as they cleared Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Depths twice. As the facts had shown, the entire team’s RP had been completely drained by those two purple gear. Even though her bags were full of gear, other than a cape that was usable, everything else inside was stuff she couldn’t wear.

“I feel like we should name our team ‘Warrior’s Friend’. Every gear we’re getting had been a warrior gear, all we’re missing is one more courage gear to complete the set.” ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

She was a little vexed, she should have called Wan Shui Qian Shan over to join her.

Qi Wei En said: “Let’s end here today, thanks everyone. I’ll treat you guys next time.”

“What next time, it’s already ten plus, my stomach’s grumbling. Why not we go to the North Gate for kebab?”

This suggestion immediately garnered a lot of agreements: “Okay okay, I’m dying from hunger. QWE treat us.”

Liu Ru Mei asked: “Dong Gua MM going?” Z L T

Having eaten dinner quite early and diligently studying all night, she was, too, a little hungry, hence she said: “Okay.”

Si Ye sent a salivating emoji: “Finally gonna see the legendary Dong Gua MM, how exciting…” And so, a bunch of people followed suit in send all sorts of wretched emojis.

Qu Wei En said: “I still haven’t received the board gathering you guys promised me.”

The people making a disturbance in TS suddenly quieted down. Following which, Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo said first: “Ahah, I suddenly remembered my shirt’s still being soaked in the washroom not washed. It’s gonna stink up like that so I don’t think I’mma go.”

Liu Ru Mei said: “I still have a packet of cup noodles in my dorm so I’ll just make do with it. Too lazy to go down.”

All sorts of bailing excuses popped up, the numbers to the bunch of them wanting to be treated quickly decreased down to just the two lonely souls—her and Qu Wei En.

“Let’s go. I’ll meet you below your dorm in five.”

This was a supper she had to treat. On top of that, he’d brought her gaming the entire night, so if she were to call it quits now, it won’t be very appropriate would it? And so, she could only agree: “Okay. I’ll meet you downstairs in a while.”

After logging out and switching off her computer, she pulled open her closet, picked a close-fitting pink shirt and short skirt and changed out of her pyjamas T-shirt before slipping on her newly bought white heeled sandals. Mao Yin teased her: “Where are you going so late in the night? And all dressed up, going on a date?”

She was immediately rendered speechless. Wasn’t she just going for supper with a classmate, why did her brain have to short circuit and pick out such clothes? She could already imagine Qu Wei En changing on just his slippers before leaving.

Perhaps… she looked at the slightly ill-fitting new sandals—perhaps it’s just her self-abased sentiments acting up that had her wanting to make herself appear slightly taller before another classmate of a very tall height.

The five minutes was already up, so she didn’t have time left to change her clothes, so she just went down. As expected, she saw Qu Wei En’s standard configuration—board shorts and slippers, except the shirt this time had an interplanetary design.

The student dormitories were situated in the north side, so the North Gate was just right beside. There was a narrow lane outside the North Gate that was filled with small eateries with kebab stores being the most common ones. It was summer, and so, there was an endless stream of students going there for supper. These stores were all opened until the wee hours.

The two of them found the store that was said to have good food with familiarity and sat down. It was the prime time for supper so the store was bustling full of people. The aroma of kebab floating in the air would always make her feel relaxed.

The stuff sold that the kebab store was very simple—all sorts of kebabs, cold side dishes and drinks; the menu was simply a sheet of paper. An Si Dong said: “I’m treating you today, you order.”

He looked at the menu, saying to the waiter: “Ten chicken wings and five kebabs.”

“Only five kebab… that’s not quite enough though?” She started carefully. “You don’t need to be courteous with the food.”

He shot her a strange look: “I said fifty.”

Five, fifty… she sneakily patted her pocket. Thank goodness she’d brought enough money today. Speaking of which, there was once she’d bumped into Qu Wei En in the school canteen. He’d just returned from playing basketball so he was drenched in sweat. Opening his mouth, he ordered: “Uncle, one kilo of rice.”

Big-sized guys sure had some scary appetites… if he was really hungry, he could probably boil her down and finish her off.

Hold on, why was she thinking about being eaten by him such… ambiguous and double-meaning things?

Qu Wei En also ordered two cups of beer while An Si Dong ordered several cool side dishes. While waiting for their food to be served, she sipped her water boredly, looking around her. She discovered there was a table of guys four five metres away from them that kept looking their way sneakily. Whenever she turned, they’d pretend to chomp away on their meat, but the minute her gaze strays from them, they would continue looking at her whispering to each other.

She leaned close to Qu Wei En, asking softly: “Do you recognize the table of people the third one from the east side?”

He raised his head to take a look: “No.”

“Then why do they keep looking and gesturing this way? Looks like they’re spying on us.”

He corrected: “They’re not spying on ‘us’, they’re just spying on you.”

“Why would they spy on me for?” Z L T

“Because you’re dressed too prettily.”

Phuu… she almost spat her mouthful of water. Bro, can you please not say such stuff with that cool looking poker face, I won’t be able to decipher whether you’re insulting me or praise me.

His fingers tapped on the table involuntarily. “Don’t wear such short skirts when you go out at night in the summer next time.”

Fine, it was really her brain that had short-circuited.

After a short while, their huge plate of kebab came. The two of them ate quietly and didn’t talk.

That… as the host treating her guest, it would seem that there was a need for her to shoulder the important task of starting the conversation to improve the atmosphere?

The beer was iced and bone-chillingly cold so she only took a small sip. He, on the other hand, downed a third of it in a go and put down his cup: “Then you’re still going to owe me the two other times?”

Her eyes rounded: “When did I owe?”

“You said it once the day you went to my dorm, you said it another time this afternoon and one more at night.”

“I’m referring to the same one!” Z L T

He said, very flexibly: “Alright, all the same one then.”

“And that same one is the one today now!”

“Didn’t you say treating me today is for celebrating me getting the first kill?”

Tong xue, your ability to extort me to treat you is seriously too botched… and so she could only say with a bitter expression: “We’re all classmates so why torment each other. I’m also very poor. Now that I still need to use money playing game, I probably need to drink half a month’s worth of free soup after treating you tonight.”

“Then I’ll treat you next time.” Z L T

Let’s leave the next time stuff for next time. She continued looking for a topic to converse about: “I just realised that clearing instances is also pretty interesting today. Turns out there are so many things to note about pushing a boss. If it’s five newbies like me clearing the big three, I sure don’t know how badly we’ll end up. It must have been pretty tough when you guys were opening up the area huh?”

“It is a little tough opening up the area, but the feeling of accomplishment after working together as a team and experiencing all sorts of hardships together then finally pushing the boss is indescribable. Stratholme and Scholomance had been a 10-man instance while Blackrock Depths was a 15-man instance last time. It was only changed to 5-man instance afterwards.” His tone was a little disappointed, as though submerging into his memories. “It’s very pitiful you didn’t get to participate in those days.”

Her brain clicked at his words, and so she asked: “So that’s why you brought me clearing the big three and doing quests?”

He didn’t answer her directly, instead, he said: “All the storylines in WOW pretty much have their own respective instances. Remember in the very beginning when you cleared the Deadmines? The final boss was called Edwin VanCleef. Before he died, he would always say…”

“You bunch of mad dogs! My actions are just!” She imitated the rebel army chief. “Like that right?” Even though she wasn’t quite sure what the Deadmines was for, she knew that every time the boss was pushed, he would always shout that sentence. It’s hard not to remember it after clearing that instance countless of times.

“That’s right. Then do you know why he says that?”

Eh… she shook her head. Z L T

“There is a quest where you take from him a letter. That letter had talked about the past and his grudges with the Stormwind City.” ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

At that time, she had been in a rush so she completely didn’t notice it when she submitted the quest. – -b

“VanCleef was an outstanding architect and had used to be the guildmaster of the Stonemasons Guild. The Cathedral in the Stormwind Keep and City was him and his fellow architects’ work.”

Stormwind City was the largest city among the top three Alliance cities. Sturdy and spectacular, both the Stormwind City Keep and the Cathedral of Light were both made of pure white stone. However, how was it possible for the designer of those two magnificent architectures to be the rebel army chief hidden in the dark Deadmines?

“After the city’s reconstruction was finished, the House of Nobles realised their expenditure overran and hence were unable to adequately pay. Hence, the House of Nobles tried to buy over the guildmaster of the Stonemason Guild, promising him he would be promoted in rank in exchange for the repudiating of architects’ pay. VanCleef rejected their offer and brought the Stonemasons rioting in the streets of Stormwind, escaping the Stormwind City’s military encasement. Following which, he escaped to the relatively unprotected state of Westfall and took over a handful of gold mines in the Deadmines. VanCleef constructed a battleship deep within the Deadmines, the one at the bottom of the instance. There, VanCleef hatched a plan of retribution against the government of Stormwind—he planned to have their battleship break through the heavy blockade of Stormwind City via the inland river and destroy the painstaking work he had created in the past.

—why did this story appear to be such a tearjerker? Also, if is really was so, then weren’t the players that went to the Stormwind City to attack the Deadmines and kill VanCleef what they called “lackeys”?

“The Stratholme we’d went to today used to be a bustling city. After the Scourge, those monsters from the Plaguelands, invaded, the place was infected with the Plague of the Undeath. There used to live human Warriors and commoners in Stratholme. You know the largest boss in WOW at the moment right?”

She shook her head guilty. Z L T

“It’s Arthas. He used to be the only prince of Lordaeron, and was a holy Knight. He was sent to defend against the invasion of the Lich King’s Scourge. However, during the battle, he was corrupted by the Lich King. The humans that have contracted the Plague of the Undeath will become the undead and work for the Lich King. Arthas, in order to prevent the Stratholme’s citizens becoming the minions of the scourge, ordered his knights to purge the entire city before they died.”

“Ah?” Z L T

His tone was calm as he told her the story: “In the end, Arthas was captured by the Lich King and he became a Death Knight under him. He killed his own father and brought the Scourge to invade his own country. Baron Rivendale had been the lord of Stratholme. During the purging of the city when he was meeting with the King, he swore he would seek revenge for the townsfolk of Stratholme, and so, he engaged in a fierce battle with Arthas. In the end, however…”

“I know, he definitely wasn’t Arthas’s opponent. After being killed, he became a Death Knight and the boss of Stratholme right?” She plucked at the chicken wing in front of her that had become cold. “Don’t say anymore, I’m losing my appetite from all your talk.”

Last time when she was still raising the levels, she had even complained to Mao Yin: “Why was this game full of bloodshed and fighting. There isn’t even a single romantic storyline after looking through so many.”

Mao Yin had went over to her side to take a look: “It’s better they don’t create any romantic plots with such terrible-looking characters.”

But now, she knew that stories that were heart-wrenching sad and painful could also happen to those who didn’t have nice appearance, looked ugly and scary or were not even humans to begin with.

Whether a person could move another was independent of his looks.

Upon thinking about that, she couldn’t help but raise her head to look at the Qu Wei En in front of her—was she crazy, what was she looking at him for?

He smiled: “Actually, the part in WOW I feel that is the most beautiful is its numbers and data, but you girls seem to like the storylines and plots better.”

The most beautiful part is its numbers and data… alright, as a student from the computing department, she expressed her understanding with difficulty.

“There are a lot of stories like this, you should go experience them slowly. You can do those normal quests whenever you want but you need to party up for the instances. I’m a thin-blooded Mage so I won’t be able to bring you through the higher-levelled instances alone.”

Huh, what does he mean by that? You mean the reason he’d been rushing her to complete all the quests was because…

She changed her mind, asking again: “Then if it’s a Priest and a Warrior, will they be able to clear it?”

“They still can’t for the level 60 instances, but it’s probably no problem for them for instances below level 55 provided their gear’s good.”

Then she should call Wan Shui Qian Shan to go together when she got back, she thought as she chomped on her chicken wing.

“It’s all cold, don’t eat it.” He called the waiter over. “You don’t like beer?”

He’d already finished his cup of beer while she still had more than half left. “It’s a little cold, and bitter. I’m not very used to drinking it.”

“Then let’s get you juice, I’ll finish your beer.” He turned to say to a waiter. “Can you help me heat this plate of food up, and another cup of juice please, room temperature.”

He took over her cup of beer and then—

That kind of beer cup was the large and heavy one you’d usually see…

It was no different from a normal cup, it had a handle…

Usually, when normal people drank from it, they’d grip it by its handle…

An Si Dong wasn’t a left-hander. Qu Wei En wasn’t a left-hander either…

So, both of them had used their right hand to pick up that cup…

—She stared in utter shock as he picked up the cup like nobody’s business and chugged down the beer along the rim where she’d just drank from.

Fine, he didn’t mind using a cup she’d use, so what was she stressing out about.

It’s just that after he did that, the awkward atmosphere had already smoothened out seemed to have returned again.

In the end, An Si Dong ate a total of three chicken wings and around ten kebabs, everything else was extinguished by Qu Wei En. Checking the time after eating, it was already twelve. ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

“Shit! The North Gate locks at twelve!”

The two of them ran back to the North Gate, but it was, as expected, already locked. Even the streetlights around the area were off so the place was submerged in complete darkness. Qu Wei En said: “Let go by the West Gate.”

The campus of T university was very large, so rounding to the East Gate by foot would take at least half an hour. She looked at the horizontal grills of the metal gate and clenched her teeth: “Let’s flip over.”

It was so no problem for Qu Wei En to flip over such a small gate, and so, he nimbly landed on the other side. An Si Dong had never flipped a gate before, and she was wearing a short skirt and heeled shoes, so it was indeed a little thorny of a situation for her. Flipping over walls was a little similar to climbing mountains. It was easy to go up, but hard to get down. When she stepped on the horizontal grills all the way to the top, her legs started trembling.

Qu Wei En shouted below: “Don’t be scared, just jump down. I’ll catch you below.”

Given his strength, he could probably raise her up like a dumbbell and still have strength remaining. And so, she blindly believed him and released her grip, jumping down.

Qu Wei En really caught her—her held her by her waist.

What was death-inducing for her was that her shirt had flipped up when she was climbing up, so both his hands that were holding her was flat against her bare waist ahhh!

His large and strong hands closing in, he could almost completely wrap her dainty waist within his grasp. His palm scorching hot, they were as though two slabs of burning flatiron pressed against her bare skin.

She held in the impulse to scream with all her might. It was completely dark out and he hadn’t done it on purpose either, so if she were to scream, wouldn’t she just highlight the awkwardness of this situation?

Even her previous boyfriends had never touched her skin. Now that she’d been touched by a guy whom she’s completely not related to out of nowhere, freaking hell, why was it that she still had to suffer in silence and endure it and pretend like nothing’s happened?

She’s sobbing internally. Z L T

The direct consequence of her being so angry she trembled was her limbs not moving to her commands. And so, she, once again, with a throwing-herself-at-him position—slammed head first into Qu Wei En’s embrace.

Geh, why did it feel kinda different from being hugged by her previous boyfriends… see see, after being touched, she’d already smashed the pot after seeing they’re cracks and had actually developed immunity against being hugged with a layering of clothes in between. What’s worse was that she even had the time to think about her feelings in such a situation.

Qu Wei En very quickly pushed her away, helping her find her balance: “You okay?”

Not okay at all! She continued sobbing away internally.

She pretty much power-walked back to her dormitories afterwards and zipped up her dorm without even a goodbye. If she saw him again, she was afraid she would not be able to hold in her impulse of pushing him flat down on the grass, and knock the shit out of him, and punch his eyes blind with her heels, and then stomp several times on his face to leave a dozen plus of footprints.

—the above is purely YY. Z L T

When she returned to her dorm, she pounced head first on her bed and started howling. There was only Mao Yin from their dorm that didn’t go back home. Mao Yin was still awake, and so she set her a glare: “What are you howling for, did you get molested by someone? Told you not to wear such trouble-attracting clothes out in the middle of the night, serve you right.”

That dead Mao Mao, can your eyes not be so discerning?

The scorching and indelible feeling of his hands pressed against her waist still lingering, An Si Dong felt a shiver running down her spine just thinking about it. She figured that there was an impertinent need for her to take a bath.

Her sleep that night was very unsmooth and turbulent. She’d actually dreamt of Qu Wei En pressing her roughly and imperiously against the wall, forcefully kissing her as one of his hands slipped up her shirt to touch her… 囧！

Thank goodness dreaming dreams happens in your head and other people won’t know about it, else, it’d be so beyond embarrassing. -.-|||

When she woke up the next day with two dark circles under her eyes, she gave Mao Yin a scare: “What happened to you? Did you have an erotic dream all night or something?”

You stinky Mao Mao, will you die if you don’t say stuff that hit the nail right on its head?

After lunch, she climbed back into the game. The minute she logged on, she received Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo’s Whisper. “Dong Gua MM, where’s QWE? Even his phone’s off. The entire team is waiting for him, hurry go get him to log on.”

She replied unpleasantly: “I’m not his mother how would I know where he died off to?”

The other side of the Whisper returned her with silence.

Fortunately, she bumped into Wan Shui Qian Shan, and that finally helped her smoothen out her gloom.

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: My friends brought me to clear the big three several times yesterday. We got a lot of Priest gear, pity you weren’t there.

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Really? I also got a lot of Warrior gear, seven pieces of courage gear and even a Baron Rivendale sword, but not a single piece of Priest gear.

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: … Z L T

The two of them looked at the gear in their inventory bound to their accounts very speechlessly.

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Let’s go together next time…

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Wanna go now? I’ve learnt quite some stuff yesterday but I haven’t gotten the chance to try them out. It’s not very good to always be brought around by others, we need strive for self-improvement!

Wan Shui Qian Shan agreed and very quickly sent a request to party up. The two of them partied and went to Town to look for other people.

[Trade][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Newbie Self-Improvement Team, going to Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Depths continuously. We have a T* and a healer. Looking for DPS.

* T = tank Z L T

It was indeed a good team to have a T and healer. Before long, their party was filled. A max level Mage, a level 58 Hunter and a level 59 Druid.

Once they gathered, the Mage said: “Will it be a problem for the tank to have so little health?”

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Doesn’t it say we’re a Newbie Self-Improvement Team.

An Si Dong quietly observed that Mage’s gear.

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: The Mage’s already all in purple gear, why’s he still going to the big three.”

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: The Mage’s probably here to bring the Druid.

Not only were Mage and Druid were from the same guild, their speech spoke of their closeness as well. She remembered Qu Wei En had said that Mages were thin-blooded and weren’t able to bring someone through a high-levelled instance on their own, and so, she expressed her understanding.

The Mage seeing how he had better gear didn’t wait for the Warrior to properly pull the aggro and dashed up to send a AOE attack instead. And so, they were splendidly wiped by the first wave of monsters.

[Party][Shi Shen Yan She]: Priest what are you doing? Can’t even shackle the elite Undead? ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

An Si Dong had wanted to shackle the Undead, but who knew before she had the chance to do it, the Mage had already charged up and his health started dropping like crazy. Hence, she could only change and sent a shield at him. It’s all her fault her speed was too slow.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Sorry, I’m still new to this so I’m not very familiar with it yet…

[Party][Shi Shen Yan Hua]: Then at least heal me, what, are you going to just watch when my health drop?

She did heal him, but before the action bar of her second skill finished, he died. If she’d known earlier, she’d have clicked another healing skill with a faster action bar.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: You’re standing in the middle of a bunch of monsters using Arcane, and there are two elite monsters. Even a god can’t save you, much less us newbies. Since our gear’s not the best, let’s go steady with Blizzard instead.

The Mage upon seeing there’s a skilled player stopped arguing and only said to the Druid: “Just wait for the Priest to come, you don’t need to run.”

They’d just entered the instance so the run back to the dead body was relatively close one. The Hunter and Wan Shui Qian Shan had already released their spirits and started running back. As she ran pantingly and resurrected the Mage and Druid, she added a buff on both of them before continuing forward.

This time, the Mage wasn’t as high key. Instead, he’d changed to an ice element AOE attack to freeze the monsters. Even though he’d attract a little too much sometimes such that it became quite dangerous, Wan Shui Qian Shan was able to pull their aggro in time and they managed to continue on safely.

[Party][Yan’er Guai Guai]: The Mage’s skills are so cool. Release a skill and an entire bunch of monsters fall. It’s making me want to play a Mage as well

[Party][Shi Shen Yan She]: Cool isn’t it? Hehe, if you’re interested, ge, I’ll bring you to play a Mage character.

Yan’er Guai Guai was that little druid. The other three of the people in the party didn’t make any sound and continued killing monsters in silence. So that ge ge’s trying to act cool huh? No wonder he’d rushed up to send an Arcane Blast into a mob of monsters.

After clearing for a long while, An Si Dong realised that Yan’er Guai Guai’s damage output contribution had not increased. Even she who’d sent two Holy Nova AOEs managed to score some damage.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Xiao Dru(id), help us clear the monsters?

[Party][Yan’er Guai Guai]: Huh I need to clear too?

[Party][Shi Shen Yan She]: Yan’er, just follow behind me, you’ve got ge here. The total damage output for the three of them isn’t even a fraction of my damage output and they have the shame to say that.

Bro, we’ve got a tank, a healer and a level 58 player. You’re a Mage in geared in purple from head to toe, is there even any room for comparison? Why don’t you compare your ability to heal with a Priest instead?

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Xiao Dru help the Mage add some health then, it’s pretty hard healing everyone just the Priest alone.

[Party][Yan’er Guai Guai]: I don’t know how to add health.

Then what the heck do you know! Speechless! Z L T

An Si Dong had felt that she herself was already good-for-nothing enough, but who knew there’s always someone better. There’s no such thing as being the most good-for-nothing, there’s only even more good-for-nothing. What else can she say. She should just treat them as a four-man party.

That Hunter was probably also a newbie. When the Mage was attracting mob of monsters AOE-ing there, An Si Dong, who was desperately topping up his health till her hand cramped, finally barely holding out. In the meantime, the Hunter’s little pet automatically went up and attracted another mob of monsters. And so, they were… once again wiped.

[Party][Shi Shen Yan She]: Hunter, change your pet settings to passive! Do you even know how to play?

The Hunter ran back to his dead body, changing the setting without a word. The Mage and Druid naturally laid there waiting for her resurrection. Finally, after much setbacks, they cleared their way to the first boss. The Mage probably cleared till he was too hype and forgot where he was and sent his ultimate skill at the boss. He didn’t need Wan Shui Qian Shan’s reminder in the party either and so, they were, once again, very splendidly OT*-ed, and wiped.

* OT = over-tank or off-tank or over threat; refers to a non-MT player being overzealous in their healing or dealing damage, hence causing the boss to change targets

[Party][Shi Shen Yan She]: Warrior, are you here to frolick? You can’t even pull the aggro of a boss properly, you sure you’re an MT?

[Party][Xia Tain de Dong Gua]: The Warrior had told you to be mindful not to OT three times but you ignored it. We’re all new to this, how can we possibly match up to all that purple gear of yours?

[Party][Yan’er Guai Guai]: Blaming others for your own incompetence. What, it’s his fault for being too strong?

Exactly what kind of powerful Mars logic is that! o(╯□╰)o

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: How glum, we bumped into someone playing zhuangbility*.

* 装B = zhuang bi/zhuang b; means to pretend to be NB but actually isn’t NB at all; ‘zhuangbility’ is its English slang version (kinda)

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: … Z L T

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Don’t talk so uncouthly as a girl.

It was all Mao Yin’s fault and the guys in her class being big-mouthed. For her to actually be disliked by a guy because she talked rudely, gaah!

The An Si Dong sitting before the computer flushed, embarrassed.

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: There are all sorts of people in the game to begin with. It’s not possible for everyone to be a top-notch player and to all speak nicely. Just treat it as practising your patience.

He always said things not too fastly nor too slowly, calmly and unhurriedly, unruffled even if Mount Tai collapsed before him. And that had her feeling, strangely, at ease.

Even though she’d been taught all night by Liu Ru Mei yesterday, the instance-clearing with that Mage today gave her practising opportunities. She felt like adaptability and dexterity had increased rapidly by not just a level.

After being wiped again twice, they finally pushed the boss on their fourth try and got a cloth armour that increased magical damage.

Other than that high-levelled Mage, the Priest was the only class that needed cloth armours. Wan Shui Qian Shan and the Hunter both gave up. An Si Dong rolled a 20, but the cloth armour was taken away by the Druid who rolled a 73.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Xiao Dru, why’re you taking the Priest’s gear? ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

[Party][Yan’er Guai Guai]: What makes you think it’s the Priest’s? I can wear it to.

The system noticed sounded, Hunter had quit the party.

[Party][Shi Shen Yan She]: Quitting halfway through, where’re his ethics.

[Party][Yan’er Guai Guai]: Ge, don’t lower yourself to the same level as the Hunter.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: … Z L T

[W To][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Why don’t we quit too…

[W From][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Let’s try looking for someone else first. Didn’t we say we needed to self-improve?

An Si Dong was ashamed again, and so, she diligently went to help look for people.

[General][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Newbie Self-Improvement team clearing Stratholme. We’ve passed the first boss behind the door. We’ve got healer and T, anyone’s welcome.

[Local][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Newbie Self-Improvement team clearing Stratholme. We’ve passed the first boss behind the door. We’ve got healer and T, anyone’s welcome.

And then… the system notification sounded, following which, she was struck dumb.

[QWE has joined the party.] Z L T

[W To][QWE]: What’re you here for?

[W From][QWE]: Why can’t I be here? Didn’t you say anyone’s welcome.

She took a deep breathe, telling herself to relax. This and that are two different matters so don’t overreact.

[W To][QWE]: Ni Kan Bu Jian Wo’s been looking for you for a long time.

[W From][QWE]: Their team’s full, I’m just a reserve.

[W To][QWE]: You’re a reserve even though you’re so NB?

[W From][QWE]: Of course you’ll be the reserve if you’re late. It’s already very good not having my points deducted. You finished the first boss? Did someone quit halfway?

[W To][QWE]: Enh, got pissed off by the Mage and Druid in the team and left. -_-b

[W From][QWE]: What did the two of them do?

[W To][QWE]: Rushing into a mob of monster to AOE Arcane Blast and getting us wiped, OT and getting us wiped; Xiao Dru other than snatching gear didn’t do anything, zero damage output, zero healing.

[W From][QWE]: Actually it’s not that you can’t AOE with Arcane Blast.

-_-b Z L T

Qu Wei En had originally been Naxxramas serving as a reserve for the raid. Naxxramas was a necropolis floating above Stratholme so he was able to come over to Stratholme very quickly.

[Party][QWE]: I’m here to demonstrate how to AOE a mob of monsters.

His order was as follows: First, attract a mob of monsters, freeze them with Ring of Frost, release Cone of Cold, make use of the slowed movement effect to not be hit by the monster, then release Arcane Blast where the monsters are, then continue Arcane Blast-ing… until the CD for Cone of Cold is done, and then Arcane Blast again, and so on so forth. Other than the elite monsters that were unable to be slowed, all the other monsters could be cleared by an AOE attack. A healer and a T wasn’t even necessary in clearing the mob.

That Mage stopped talking. Z L T

[Party][Yan’er Guai Guai]: What’s so great about that? My ge can do it too.

After being said like that by a xiao MM, that Mage could only bite the bullet and do it. Pity that he lacked the ability to do such precise positioning and distancing. And so, he died after giving an Arcane Blast once.

An Si Dong learnt her lesson this time, she didn’t add his health for him and simply let him die. Wan Shui Qian Shan went to attract more monsters while Qu Wei En sent his AOE to clear them. After dying a few times, the Mage ashamed with tears streaming down his face brought the xiao MM with him and left the party.

Only the three of them were left in the party.

The atmosphere in the three-man party was… a little strange.

[W From][QWE]: The Warrior’s your friend?

[W To][QWE]: Some random person. Z L T

After saying that, she regretted it a little. Wan Shui Qian Shan was no doubt her friend, so why did she pretend to not know him? Why did it make her feel like she’d done something wrong.

[W To][QWE]: Didn’t you say you won’t party with Qing Mei members? Quit then.

[W From][QWE]: Let’s quit and re-party. I’ll call another T over.

The fact that Wan Shui Qian Shan standing by the side not making any sound had her feeling all the more like she’d betrayed him.

[W To][QWE]: Forget it, kinda tired after being messed by those two just now. I’m going to rest a bit. Aren’t you still going in for your reserve in the raid? Let’s party next time instead.

He agreed and left the instance, leaving behind her and Wan Shui Qian Shan looking at each other, not speaking.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Tired? Saw you healing pretty vigorously just now, rest a bit first.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: Okay…

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Did you see the post about the board gathering on BBS?

She immediately switched to the BBS page to take a look. The board gather post in the WOW page, as expected, had been bumped up by all the Re to the top ten. The time was dated next weekend, and the location was of it was in one of the multi-functional classrooms in the school.

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: Dong Gua, are you going? ♢ ENDLESS LOVE CHAPTER 02 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢

Her heart started thumping. Z L T

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong gua]: You?

[Party][Wan Shui Qian Shan]: I’ll go if you go.

Her face was slightly flushing. She pressed both her hands on her face but the heat didn’t dissipate even with the chill, rather, it heated both her hands.

It was only after a while did she type out the following words.

[Party][Xia Tian de Dong Gua]: I’m going.

 

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