Chapter 4: Is Polar Light a Deal Between Us?

The Purple Orchid Tower pierced the clouds, its exterior built from interlocking purple-brown stone, looking eerie and mysterious beneath the pale pink sky.

Even though it was just data modeling, Zhu Rong couldn't help but marvel—this was an exquisitely crafted, magnificent structure.

Inside the tower, about a dozen people had gathered in the central hall.

Most were rather exotic character types—a six-eyed cat that Zhu Rong had never seen before, a dragon-type character who looked a lot like Jingzhe, and a thorn manipulator derived from vines and similar creatures.

Zhu Rong followed behind Dorothea, carefully observing the people in the room.

"Sect Leader." The dragon-type character's tone was amused. "You went and kidnapped Jingzhe's little incubus?"

"What do you mean, Jingzhe's little incubus? He's not even close with Jingzhe."

Dorothea pushed Zhu Rong forward and pointed at the elegant-looking white dragon.

"His name is Hete, ranked fourth in the arena. Stay away from the ones with dragon horns—they're no good."

"Mm..." Zhu Rong nodded, awkwardly meeting Hete's gaze. "Hello."

"Huh, you're kinda cute."

Hete had just reached out to touch him when Dorothea's snake tail whipped him.

There was a hint of threat in Dorothea's eyes.

"Jingzhe has a contract with him. You can try touching him if you want."

"Fine."

Hete spread his hands, his sharp claws brushing reluctantly past the hem of Zhu Rong's clothes.

"If you ever come to your senses and decide to ditch Jingzhe, remember to look me up... I'm quite fond of little incubi."

"Since when did you like incubi?" The thorn manipulator beside him shot him a sidelong glance. "You just think his skin looks good."

Hete looked utterly matter-of-fact.

"Good-looking skin is a bonus, okay!"

"Besides, I've barely ever seen any incubi before? Almost nobody picks incubus in this game... no strength, no mechanics—just pretty and cute."

Turning his head, Hete looked at Zhu Rong's character and licked his lips wistfully.

"Where'd you buy that skin? Send me the shop link."

"This is a system-imported face." Zhu Rong scratched his head sheepishly. "It fused some incubus elements with my own face. Didn't cost any money."

"?!"

Hete's eyes practically went red. "Can you hurry up and unbind from Jingzhe? I'll pay you to start a new account—bind with me instead, okay?"

"Could you at least poach me behind my back?"

Dorothea glanced at him helplessly and kicked him away in annoyance.

Under her protection, Zhu Rong walked over to the thorn manipulator.

Dorothea continued the introductions. "This is Little Yu, ID Yu Yuan. He joined Polar Light two months ago—he's a newbie like you."

Hearing the word "newbie," Zhu Rong felt an inexplicable sense of kinship and quickly extended his hand.

"Hello, I'm Rongrong."

"Mm." Yu Yuan pulled out a grapevine and placed it in Zhu Rong's hand. "A gift. Grow it for a while and it'll produce little grapes. This one's been cultivated by me—it'll be very sweet."

"Thank you!"

Zhu Rong quickly tucked the grapevine into his backpack, planning to go back to his little house later and pick a spot to plant it.

"That six-eyed cat over there is named Eve, ranked twelfth on the leaderboard."

"And this ghost lady..." Dorothea's expression stiffened for a moment. She leaned close to Zhu Rong's ear and whispered, "Just remember she's a ghost. She's a bit... strange."

"Okay." Zhu Rong nodded.

After making the rounds, Zhu Rong had only roughly memorized the faces—he couldn't match the names to the people at all.

But as a mascot, he probably wouldn't have much of a presence anyway.

After today, he could just lie back and collect experience and dimension coins.

Zhu Rong thought.

Dorothea walked to the head seat, and the others gradually took their places. Zhu Rong picked a spot and sat down.

It wasn't until the bell at the tower's peak rang that the chatter in the room fell silent.

Zhu Rong glanced around the seats—only the two spots next to the head seat were empty.

"Where are Jingzhe and Ziyue?" Dorothea frowned.

"Ziyue went to help the neighboring guild with the new Empress dungeon," Yu Yuan said flatly. He paused, then glanced at the other empty seat. "Jingzhe got angry. No idea where he went."

"?"

Dorothea furrowed her brow and asked in disbelief:

"Angry? What's he angry about?"

"Hete said he traded one moment of physical pleasure for a permanent baby lock." Yu Yuan spread his hands helplessly. "Then he got angry and took off with the Daros Storm."

The Daros Storm, currently the only weapon in the Otherworld Verdict that could switch between melee and ranged—it appeared in almost every publicly visible match video of Jingzhe's.

"..."

Dorothea was utterly floored by this reason and couldn't be bothered with the temperamental dragon.

"Let's just ignore him and start the meeting."

Immediately after, the guild documents were transmitted to everyone's homepage.

"On the fifteenth of this month, the new guild rankings will refresh. For the past three months, everyone in our guild has worked very hard—we've held steady at second place in total win points, less than a hundred thousand points behind the first-place guild, Malevolent Descent. Taking the top spot won't be too difficult."

The data pages were presented, and Dorothea flipped through the member list.

"As long as Little Yu shows up for every session this month and doesn't pull that 'one arena match per month' record again, right?"

After saying that, she shot Yu Yuan a look.

Yu Yuan turned his head away as if he hadn't heard, seemingly watching the aurora outside the tower.

"Also." Dorothea turned to the next page. "Hete, the guild's potions are running critically low. Can we really not recruit a single alchemy-type player? We're Polar Light, the second-ranked guild!"

Hete had a stalk of foxtail grass in his mouth. "Sis, this is a full-dive game. Ask around—who wants to be a chemist in a game like this? Malevolent Descent's potion maker is a chemistry teacher offline, and their guild actually pays him a salary."

Dorothea: "..."

"Fine."

She skipped the content in front of her and flipped straight to the next page.

"Lastly, the schedule for the next season. You all probably know already—Jingzhe might not be able to play the full season this time. I hope everyone can redouble their efforts and do their utmost to hold our current numbers."

As her words landed, gazes kept drifting toward Zhu Rong.

Though no one said anything, Zhu Rong could more or less feel their resentment.

The brief meeting ended quickly. Zhu Rong stood by the tower's hanging window, gazing at the eternal aurora above.

"Little Rongrong baby." Hete sidled over with a grin.

"What is it?"

Zhu Rong turned to look at him.

"What are you looking at?" Hete asked.

Zhu Rong shook his head. "Nothing."

The two fell silent for a moment.

Zhu Rong mulled it over for a bit. "Do they all think I'm the one holding Jingzhe's account back?"

"Huh?" Hete blinked, then smiled. "Why would you think that? This is just a guild, just a game. Most people have the same mindset as me—just here for the fun of it."

"Oh..."

Zhu Rong felt a little better. Then he added, "I thought everyone would feel sorry for him."

"How could they?"

Hete's expression could now only be described as disgusted.

"You probably don't know Jingzhe well. If you knew him even a little, you'd just laugh at him for something like this. When Dorothea first found out, she laughed so hard she disconnected."

Zhu Rong: "..."

"Is it because he's not a good person... that everyone's like this?" Zhu Rong asked cautiously.

"Not really."

Hete waved his hand.

The next second, Zhu Rong heard him say: "He's not even a person. How can you talk about him having character?"

Zhu Rong broke out in a cold sweat.

He remembered by the shore of Boli Lake, when Jingzhe had just woken up—that expression, fierce enough to look like he wanted to strangle him.

He really didn't seem like an easy person to get along with.

"So you're level twelve now—want to think about leveling up? I can carry you." Hete gave a thumbs-up, pointing at himself. "Fourth on the arena peak leaderboard. Any dungeon you want to farm, I'll take you."

Zhu Rong had rarely done dungeons before and couldn't think of any he wanted to run, so he just shook his head.

"Maybe later. I haven't decided yet."

"What's there to decide?"

Hete tapped open his homepage and found it was set to private. "How about we add each other as friends first? I'll help you figure out which dungeon to farm first."

"..."

Zhu Rong had never been good at refusing people, so he accepted the friend request.

"There really is contract content from Jingzhe..."

Hete had just said that when Zhu Rong remembered that embarrassing string of text and immediately set it back to private. "Never mind, better to keep it hidden."

"Sure, I already finished reading it anyway." Hete spread his hands. "You seriously haven't done anything? How about starting with the simplest one—Elemental Blessing? Complete all ten elements and you get a bunny outfit."

He glanced at the rough cloth clothes Zhu Rong was wearing.

"Hurry up and finish it so you can change clothes. It's too ugly."

"Is it really that ugly?" Zhu Rong glanced at his outfit. "I think it looks pretty good..."

"Don't trust your feelings."

Hete was about to keep talking when he received a message from Dorothea.

He clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes.

"What is it?" Zhu Rong asked.

"Nothing." Hete's tone was lazy. "Jingzhe wants you to go find him."

"?"

Zhu Rong's heart skipped a beat and he instinctively shrank back. "What does he want with me..."

"No idea." Hete glanced at the message again. "He's waiting for you at Kedta Forest. Kedta Forest seems to be the Elemental Blessing dungeon spot. If you want to run it when you get there, just call me."

"Oh..." Zhu Rong nodded.

He opened his map. The Kedta Forest area hadn't been unlocked yet, so he could only teleport to the nearest anchor point.

The forest was damp and gloomy. Zhu Rong followed the indicated direction, heading deeper into the woods.

The trees along the path were covered in arrow marks with traces of ice elements, slowly healing.

Zhu Rong pushed aside the vines and walked to the marked location.

It was a cold spring, giving off a chill mist.

A faint glow shone in the middle, along with many reward chests and materials waiting to be collected.

Zhu Rong stood there dumbly, looking left and right but seeing no one.

"Raise your noble head."

A cool voice came from above, carrying a hoarseness moistened by the water vapor in the silent forest.

Zhu Rong looked up. A black dragon tail hung down from the branches.

Jingzhe's expression was foul as always, his face cold.

"I've cleared the beginner dungeon for you. Collect your rewards yourself."

"Huh?" Zhu Rong stood frozen. "Why did you clear it for me?"

"?"

The man furrowed his brow. "Didn't you agree to join Polar Light for Dorothea? I thought you already had the self-awareness to devote yourself."

Devote himself...

It sounded subtly suggestive.

"Is Polar Light a transaction between us?" Zhu Rong's fingers twisted the corner of his rough cloth clothes. "Like, if I want to join Polar Light, I have to obey you unconditionally and stuff?"

"You're hopelessly stupid."

Jingzhe leaped down from the tree. "Hurry up and level to sixty so I can get back to the arena and my dungeons. Understand?"

"Okay."

Zhu Rong didn't know why he'd suddenly changed his mind about carrying him through dungeons—just a day ago he'd said he couldn't be bothered to spend three months leveling him up.

He quickly opened all the reward chests. They were indeed generous.

Besides some beginner weapon materials, there were plant seeds and the bunny outfit Hete had mentioned.

Pink, overalls with suspenders, and a fluffy tail on the back.

Zhu Rong put it on right away.

"?"

Jingzhe's brow furrowed tightly. "Do you always change clothes out in the open like this?"

"Huh?" Zhu Rong was still fiddling with the tail and looked up. "This is a game. And I'm not stripping naked to change—I just click to swap outfits."

Jingzhe couldn't be bothered to argue and turned his head away. "How much experience did you gain?"

Zhu Rong finally got the fluffy tail off. The gap at his lower back was just right for him to stick his incubus tail out.

"Let me check." He opened his homepage. "Only eight hundred more to level thirteen. You're amazing... you got me over five thousand experience in one go."

His tone was so sincere, his pale pink eyes sparkling, the heart-shaped tail behind him swaying naturally.

The praise made Jingzhe a little uncomfortable.

"Add me as a friend." Jingzhe sent a request. "Don't set it to private with me. I want to see your experience bar and quests."

"Okay."

Zhu Rong accepted his friend request.

Now he had three friends total.

Dorothea, Hete, and Jingzhe—all top-ten players on the peak leaderboard.

He'd also successfully joined a very strong guild.

All things considered, today was Zhu Rong's lucky day.

"Tch." After looking at his homepage, Jingzhe let out a silent sigh. "What have you been doing this past month since you registered?"

Zhu Rong tugged at his hem and thought carefully.

"Building a house. My little house is already two stories."

"I've also planted a lot of lotus flowers. Once I learn how to make night lights, I'm going to build a little pavilion."

Jingzhe: "...?"

Were they even playing the same game?

"You plant flowers in the game every day?" Jingzhe asked in disbelief.

Zhu Rong hesitated. "Not every day... sometimes I go up the mountain to gather materials."

Jingzhe felt slightly relieved. At least this silly deer knew to gather materials to improve himself.

"What did you gather?"

At the mention of this, Zhu Rong perked up.

He pulled an octagonal handheld lantern from his backpack. It was quite exquisite, pale brown in color, and when lit, the center looked like stars were twinkling.

"I made it." Zhu Rong grinned. "I searched several mountains before I found this wood. It's very rare."

Jingzhe: "..."

Damn it. Relieved too soon.