Even after finishing breakfast, Wen Rui still saw neither hide nor hair of Zhou Ye. Auntie must have been right about Zhou Ye staying back in the office. Wen Rui shook his head and marvelled at the thought. Zhou Ye was the quintessential 'child of another family'. The one parents whipped out as an example when they were nitpicking on the inadequacies of their own spawn.
[And then there's you,] he thought with a rueful smile. [Gone so far down the wrong track that no one wants you anymore. Well done, you.]
Wen Rui had the weekend off since it was off-season for his boy group at the moment and he'd already refused Manager Qu's request to stay back in dorms and start catching up with the forgotten routines and lyrics early. He figured he would just spend it quietly in this house for the weekend, and if he managed to catch Zhou Ye at some point, good.
He briefly considered texting, then decided against it. Knowing Zhou Ye, he would come back for a meeting if Wen Rui requested it, no doubt treating this 'marriage' as a professional contract that he had to respect and adhere to. But Wen Rui didn't want him to do that. If Zhou Ye had important work to settle, they could handle this in their spare time. It wasn't a big deal.
Left with no other plans for the day, Wen Rui found himself at a loss. He didn't feel at ease in the apartment, and even though the spacious balcony had been converted into a beautiful greenhouse that was decorated with pod chairs, he didn't feel like he had any right to poke around the place.
Sighing, he went back to his room.
And, like many 18-year-old boys who had a weekend to chill away, he made a beeline straight for the computer.
The one good thing about losing his memories and waking up in the future was the sheer advancement in technology. If Wen Rui had had any pleasant surprises since the amnesia, it would be the state of the art gadgets he found himself owning. Beside his phone, the computer sitting on the desk in his bedroom was something he wanted to check out.
He switched it on, hesitating when the log-in screen lit up. Something told him that the password was no longer 'GoddessSu4evaNo1'.
After a long pause, he tried his birthday. Plain and simple, but it worked.
Thank goodness.
There were many games installed on the computer, but most of them weren't updated yet. It made sense if he considered that he was a busy new idol who seemed to spend most of his time away. One icon on the desktop caught his eye, a shining gold gateway with emeralds and sapphires embedded into its fantastical frame. The icon was named 'Elysium'.
This was Wen Rui's favourite game and had been ever since he'd first started playing at 15. It was an MMORPG, set in a unique fantasy universe that was a combination of myths from many different cultures. Wen Rui wasn't that surprised to discover that he was still playing this even now. Despite really enjoying it, a lot of his friends had stopped logging on by the time he'd been 18. During 3rd year of high school, Wen Rui too hadn't really played anymore. He had been so caught up with trying to defeat Zhou Ye in school rankings and sweep Su Jiali off her feet, that he hadn't had the time.
Out of curiosity, he downloaded the patch and was impressed once again by how quick the internet speed was. It seemed like the LAN cable was routed to his PC, which came as a shock. Why wasn't it in Zhou Ye's study? Wen Rui couldn't imagine coming home and using the computer that often, he would have expected Zhou Ye to insist on having the faster connection for work purposes.
In no time at all, the epic music of the log-in page blared through the surround sound speakers. Wen Rui opened the server list to select the one his main avatar was in, and was stunned when he saw the number of new servers that had been added. Was the game this popular now?! The servers all had red buttons next to them too, indicating that they were congested with the sheer number of people playing at once.
Wen Rui had expected to return to a dead game. Slightly more excited now, he keyed in his account details.
The screen changed to a page with six icons on the right side. These were all avatars he had created in the past, with his main right at the top. He clicked on the first icon and a young blond elf with cold, blue eyes materialised on his screen in a burst of sun rays, a book in one hand and a staff in another. His class was a Priest, a healer/support role that also could deal light damage. A wave of nostalgia welled in Wen Rui, and he clicked and loaded this character, 'Lui', without hesitation.
The familiar serene background music of his in-game cottage was soothing. Lui sat on his little armchair by the fireplace, with his baby pet Pegasus flying in colourful circles about him. Almost all of the names on his friends' list were blacked out, but the guild that he had joined ages ago, 'Ascent', hadn't kicked him. He opened their page and saw that the small cosy group of casual players had since grown into a full-blown first-tier guild. His old guildmates, such as 'Mathias', 'XiaoLingLove', and 'SixTruths', were now highly ranked officers.
The guild chat started flooding with questions about him.
Ocean56: ??? Who's Lui???
WaringMan:? We have a Lui? Newb?
CandyMaster7: Er, there are 2 hundred + ppl in the guild, how d'you guys even remember every1's names
Ocean56: WTF notta newb go c his stats
None of the officers replied to the guild chat, but Lui's PMs started ringing.
Mathias: ??? Holy s***, ure back?
XiaoLingLove: AHHHHH!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! OMGGGGG I THOUGHT U QUIT 4 GD QAQQQQ deliver my soul mr priestttt
Wen Rui felt his lips twitch. It was nice to see his online friends again because they gave him the illusion that nothing had changed. That was the beauty of the internet, right? No one really knew each other in real life, so even though Wen Rui's world had been tossed upside down, everyone still treated him like he was just 'Lui', the once top-ranked Priest in the server.
Not anymore though. Not ever since Nacht stopped playing.
He opened his friend list once again, eyes automatically scanning for that one special name that had an icon with a wine flask next to it. The wine flask indicated that this other player was a 'bosom friend', and could only be achieved after the completion of a thousand friendship quests together.
Nacht's name was still dark grey. He hadn't seen it light up since he was 16 years old. That day, he'd logged on as per normal, waiting at the NPC that gave out the usual friendship daily quest. But Nacht hadn't appeared. He hadn't appeared the next day either, or the next. Wen Rui had sent in-game PMs, at first asking when he was next likely to log in so that they could sync playing times. And then, after a week of no replies, he'd asked whether everything was all right.
But he hadn't received an answer. It was like Nacht had completely vanished from the face of the earth, dropping the game without so much as a warning to Wen Rui. Like the hours they'd sunk together into this game to become the best PvP and raid duo meant absolutely nothing to him.
Wen Rui felt his heart sink. He'd been hoping, he admitted, that he would receive news of Nacht's return. That when he hovered over Nacht's name, the status panel would tell him more than just 'last logged on: 5 years ago'. But what the hell. It wasn't like he was living in some sort of epic gaming web novel, where they would suddenly reunite and find a new way to climb to the top after a thousand chapters of epic battles.
This was reality. Elysium was nothing more than a game and Wen Rui shouldn't depend on it to escape from real life. He decided to reply to the other PMs and distract himself from Nacht.
Lui: Hey
Mathias: ?! Ure real u didn get hacked
Lui: Lol yeah
Mathias: s*** my a** has been saved, we finally hav a non-fail priest for 5v5 arena
Lui:? What arena
Even at 18, when Wen Rui had stopped playing frequently, there hadn't been any arena. Mathias seemed to realise that Wen Rui had left the game for too long because he was patient when he explained the new PvP format that the developers, Greenstone Games, had implemented. This 5 v 5 arena game style was only 2 seasons in, but already a hit. It reminded Wen Rui of Overwatch, in that players would choose fixed characters—who were popular NPCs in the MMO itself—to fulfil the roles of tank, DPS, healer, and support. They would then have to fulfil certain objectives, depending on the map.
At some point, even Wen Rui's favourite game had evolved to become an E-Sport phenomenon with a global competitive league. Wen Rui was struck with the sudden feeling that he was the only person stagnating in the same spot while everyone else raced past him.
It was lonely.
Mathias spent most of the afternoon letting Wen Rui spectate his arena solo queue games, in the hopes that Wen Rui's interest would be piqued. And he did find it pretty neat. The character designs looked exquisite, and had both balanced skills and exciting backstory lore. By the time 5 p.m rolled around, Wen Rui was already checking forums on tips for how to play Lumiel, the arena's Priest NPC, in support build.
Mathias: Bro u in? we need some sexy priest/SM to spice our game up for ranking matches
Lui: …
SM stood for Shadowmaster, which was Nacht's class. Nothing obscene, although people often joked about the priest/SM pair because of how kinky it sounded.
He was just about to ask Mathias more questions when a knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Auntie should have left the apartment by now so there was only one person this could be.
He stood up.
Lui: brb
Mathias: oi wait! at least tell me if ure keen?
Mathias: bro?
Mathias: imma take that as a yes?