Game Friends

The next morning, Ye Qingyun stirred awake and slowly sat up.

He remained silent for a long time before finally gazing out the window, where a blinding, vast expanse of white met his eyes.

A moment later, he rose and walked to the window, and what he saw made him gasp: the entire neighborhood lay buried beneath a blanket of heavy snow.

“Such heavy snow!” Ye Qingyun exclaimed.

His surprise, however, quickly gave way to practicality.

He checked the time; it was around eight in the morning, leaving him just two hours until the public beta of Jianghu launched.

Washing his face, brushing his teeth, and eating—two hours would be more than enough.

A moment later, Ye Qingyun, clad in a trench coat, exited the neighborhood and made his way to a noodle shop.

“Uncle Wang, a large bowl of beef noodles!” Ye Qingyun called out to the middle-aged man busy at work.

This was his usual noodle spot, and he was quite familiar with the owner.

The noodle shop owner was a kind, middle-aged man in his fifties, named Wang Fei.

“Oh, it’s you, young man! Why aren’t you at work today?” the owner warmly replied.

“Well… I resigned,” Ye Qingyun answered after a moment’s thought.

“What? Resigned? But that was a good job! Why would you quit?” The noodle shop owner was visibly surprised.

“It’s a long story. Just say I wasn’t satisfied with my current job.”

Ye Qingyun sighed helplessly, unsure how to elaborate further.

Soon, the noodle shop owner brought over a large bowl of beef noodles and sat down beside Ye Qingyun.

With Ye Qingyun as his only customer at the moment, he didn’t have much else to do.

“Ah, the way you young people think, our generation just can’t fathom it,” the noodle shop owner lamented. “Such good jobs, we could only dream of them, yet you just give them up so casually. Truly, the times are different.”

“There’s no choice,” Ye Qingyun replied. “Life is like that; there are gains and losses. Different eras naturally lead to different ways of thinking.”

As Ye Qingyun ate his noodles, he chatted with the owner.

The noodle shop owner, having seen a bit of the world, understood some things quite clearly.

Ye Qingyun loved talking to such reasonable people.

Not all adults, after all, were so pedantic.

His issues with his family stemmed from their differing ideologies.

His parents were honest folk who hadn’t seen much of the world, and reasoning with them would simply be futile.

They only knew what was good and what was bad, never caring about anyone else’s desires.

Precisely because of this, Ye Qingyun found himself unable to communicate with his parents, leaving their relationship somewhat strained.

He hadn’t returned home in three years since graduating university.

Returning home only ever led to arguments.

Who would have thought that the outwardly calm Ye Qingyun had such a poor relationship with his parents?

After finishing his meal, it was nearly half past nine.

Ye Qingyun bid farewell to the owner and hurried back.

By the time he arrived home, it was already 9:50 AM.

Ye Qingyun quickly powered on his equipment, inserted his account card, donned his headset, and settled back into his gaming chair.

As the final ten seconds counted down, players across the country braced themselves.

Today wasn’t the peak period—that would be the weekend, as many working individuals could only play then.

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”

[Welcome Player Ye Qingrou to the world of Jianghu.]

[Entering game…]

The system prompted continuously.

As Ye Qingyun listened to the system prompts, the darkness before his eyes gradually brightened.

A surge of excitement still coursed through him.

As the temporal vortex faded, his vision gradually cleared.

Ye Qingyun found himself standing in an elegantly furnished ancient chamber—a woman’s boudoir, to be precise.

A fragrant scent permeated the air, a testament to the incredibly realistic simulation.

Ye Qingyun surveyed his surroundings, then glanced down at himself.

She was clad in a fiery red, gold-trimmed dress, her half-exposed bosom immediately drawing his gaze.

A rush of impure thoughts instantly flooded Ye Qingyun’s mind.

After all, he was still a virgin; how could he possibly resist such a sight?

He felt his face flush with heat.

[Warning: Player body temperature rising. Please avoid excessive fantasizing to prevent abnormal status.]

The system abruptly warned Ye Qingyun.

Upon hearing the system’s alert, Ye Qingyun snapped back to his senses and quickly averted his gaze.

She raised her hands and examined them.

These were perfectly a woman’s hands—fair, flawless, and adorned with red koudan on the nails, the ancient term for nail polish.

Ye Qingyun couldn’t resist touching the hand.

It was soft and boneless, smooth as jade, and felt incredibly real, the sensation equally authentic.

He finally raised his hand to her chest.

He simply couldn’t resist testing the sensation of her chest.

“Is it this real?”

Ye Qingyun felt a tingling sensation on her chest, his face filled with shock.

Though he didn’t know what a woman’s true sensations were like, his brain unequivocally told him: this was it.

However, his face quickly flushed, and he immediately lowered his hand.

A wave of guilt washed over Ye Qingyun; he was a man, after all, who had simply created a female character by accident.

Such an accident, a one-in-ten-thousand occurrence, was exceedingly rare in the virtual world of Jianghu.

She was dressed entirely as an ancient courtesan.

Given that the Song Kingdom was far more conservative than the Tang Kingdom, ordinary women would never dress like this; only courtesans would, primarily to attract men.

The flimsy clothes made her feel incredibly insecure, almost as if she were indirectly experiencing a woman’s body.

Not just the body, but even the clothes felt incredibly real.

After examining her body, Ye Qingyun took a few steps around the room to familiarize himself with the game’s controls.

Strangely enough, there was no difficulty at all; it felt just like reality.

The only difference was the body’s posture.

She stood there gracefully, every lift of her hand revealing a soft feminine elegance, and she walked with a gentle sway, utterly demure.

These were not deliberate actions from Ye Qingyun; they were entirely the body’s own innate reactions.

After all, Ye Qingyun’s character was that of a courtesan and dancer, having served for ten years after being sent to Sweetwater Lane at the age of eight.

Thus, the body was endowed with all the appropriate instincts.

Every movement she made was exceptionally alluring.

Combined with his naturally cold disposition, she appeared captivatingly aloof—her expression indifferent, yet her body exuded a mesmerizing, charming grace.

After getting used to the body, Ye Qingyun walked to the mirror and glanced at his reflection.

What he saw startled him.

In the mirror, a heavily made-up woman gazed back—beautiful, seductive.

Ye Qingyun couldn’t help but reach out and touch his own face, an incredibly narcissistic gesture.

Just then, a translucent figure suddenly floated out of Ye Qingyun’s body and stood beside him.

“Ah, big brother, it’s really you!” the phantom woman exclaimed upon appearing, complaining to Ye Qingyun. “I knew it, how could someone look exactly like me? Ye Qingrou, why are you playing a female character?”

Ye Qingyun felt a wave of awkwardness upon seeing her.

He wasn’t surprised, however, as he had known all along that Ye Qingxue was his second consciousness.

“Ahem, wasn’t I trying to give you a surprise?” Ye Qingyun explained awkwardly. “Besides, it’s not like I wanted to play a female character; the system made me!”