Research Room, Service Hall.
The large lab smelled faintly of something burnt. Experimental tools were scattered crookedly across the tables, and strange, unidentifiable scraps littered the floor. He Wuning carefully stepped over the mess and approached the main workstation, where a group of people were gathered.
A researcher wearing a bizarre, full-head goggle apparatus looked up. A curl of singed hair on his forehead was still smoking faintly. He greeted He Wuning cheerfully: “Ah! You’re here, Xiao He!”
Yi Luo, clearly very familiar with the place, reached out and flipped up the man’s headgear. “What did you call him? Call him Brother He.”
“Okay, okay—if you can crack this thing today, I’ll call you not just brother but father!” The researcher, his face marked red by the goggles, hurriedly waved him over. “Come on, take this file and see if you can scrape off some powder.”
Without waiting for a reply, he shoved the file into He Wuning’s hand.
He Wuning glanced silently at the fragment of “Administrator Permission” on the workbench, about to begin, when the door opened again. A short-haired woman with glasses stepped inside and nodded politely. “Looks like I made it just in time.”
“Another explosion just now?”
She asked casually, as if asking whether it had just rained.
The researcher rubbed his hands awkwardly. “Uh… I tried using aqua regia to see if I could dissolve the fragment, but it just exploded. Then something actually warned me…”
“You really need to keep him under control, Director Li!” said Xue Xun, wiping sweat from his brow. “He’s way too dangerous!”
So that’s where Xue Xun had been—off fetching reinforcements.
The once-overzealous researcher immediately toned down his mania upon seeing his superior, rubbing his head sheepishly.
“Hello, Mr. He,” said Director Li with a polite nod. “I’m Li Liangzi, and this is our tech division’s Zuo Qianming.” She smiled slightly—an apology on the surface, but with unmistakable pride in her subordinate. “He’s a bit reckless, yes, but most of the special tools that can actually damage monsters in-game were invented by him.”
“His awakened ability is Synthesis—he can combine real-world weapons with certain in-game items. Yi Luo’s rifle, for example, was made by him. And if you’ve done missions with Xing Yue, you’ve probably seen that massive cannon too.”
At the mention of his inventions, Zuo Qianming perked up again. “Actually, that cannon’s still being improved! I’m trying to optimize the synthesis ratios to boost item stats even further. So far, the only product I’m truly proud of is Yi Luo’s gun—my masterpiece! It even has a glorious name!”
He Wuning raised an eyebrow in mild curiosity. Yi Luo covered his face with one hand.
Zuo Qianming threw out his arms dramatically: “Sniper Rifle No. 379!”
“...May I ask,” He Wuning said dryly, “what number the cannon is?”
“Flame Cannon No. 231!” Zuo Qianming declared with the same passion.
He Wuning: “......”
He was silent. There was no honest way to compliment that naming sense.
“Ahem,” Yi Luo said, backing away a few steps as if the sheer nerd energy were physically painful. “There’s plenty of people here already, and I won’t be much help anyway.”
“So I’ll just… head to the cafeteria. You guys have fun.”
He waved vaguely and then bolted.
He Wuning, seeing Yi Luo flee for the first time, raised an eyebrow in surprise. Director Li cleared her throat, slightly embarrassed. “When Xiao Zuo was developing the sniper rifle, he dragged Yi Luo through a lot of… unconventional testing.”
Zuo Qianming nodded gravely. “He’s a man who has suffered for science.”
He Wuning suddenly had the distinct feeling he might be in danger.
Xue Xun edged closer behind him. “Don’t worry, Brother He, I’ll keep an eye on things. We won’t let him do anything too extreme. We’re just testing, that’s all.”
“If anything goes wrong, I’ll yell for Xing Yue to restrain him.”
Somehow, Xue Xun’s attempt to reassure him had the opposite effect.
Zuo Qianming turned to Xing Yue. “Can you wait outside? Once we’re done, you can come back in.”
Xing Yue frowned. “Why?”
Zuo Qianming spoke in all seriousness: “You bring… bad luck. You know, the line between science and mysticism is thin. I swear that explosion shouldn’t have happened, but with you here…”
Before Xing Yue could strangle him, Xue Xun hurriedly intervened, persuading him to leave the lab.
Then he turned back, face solemn. “Brother He, from this point on—you’re on your own.”
He Wuning weighed the file in his hand. “So what exactly do you want me to do?”
Zuo Qianming’s eyes shone with excitement. “Grind it! Scrape me some powder off! I want to analyze the material—see if it’s even on the periodic table!”
He Wuning stepped up to the lab bench. Without hesitation, he did as instructed, applying the file to the Administrator Permission Fragment. After just two strokes, a familiar mechanical voice rang out overhead: “Warning—player detected…”
He Wuning looked up. The Voice of the World stuttered for a few seconds, glitching into a burst of static—then abruptly changed its message: “Administrator authority detected. Authentication approved.”
Zuo Qianming’s eyes lit up. “I knew it! It really has to be you!”
Xue Xun, trembling in the corner, said, “You people seriously aren’t afraid of being punished by the game? That’s a rare-grade item!”
“I’m a player,” He Wuning said coolly. “If I pull an SSR and decide to dismantle it to see what drops, what’s the game going to do about it?”
Xue Xun: “…”
It was technically sound logic—but in a game where people actually died, that kind of confidence felt insane. Xue Xun couldn’t tell anymore whether they were the crazy ones or he was.
Zuo Qianming clapped He Wuning on the shoulder with great admiration. “Now that’s the spirit of experimentation!”
Xue Xun looked near tears. “Director Li, please, say something!”
Director Li rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. Seems the file isn’t working. Try this instead.”
She bent down and pulled out a welding kit from under the table.
Xue Xun: “…”
Yeah, it was probably too much to expect the boss of a man like Zuo Qianming to be normal.
Q-chan, perched on He Wuning’s shoulder, looked up at him with shining eyes. “Sweetie, the way you gave the Voice of the World a heart attack was so cool~”
Zuo Qianming’s gaze shifted toward it, rubbing his hands eagerly. “Is that your system? Can I maybe—”
“This one’s off-limits,” He Wuning said flatly, not even looking up as sparks crackled from the welding tool in his hand.
Zuo Qianming reluctantly looked away.
A few moments later, after enduring grinding, slicing, hammering, and literal fire, the Administrator Fragment still remained utterly unscathed—not even a speck chipped off.
Zuo Qianming even tried fusing it with a weapon, but that failed too.
Everyone sighed in disappointment—except Xue Xun, who exhaled in sheer relief.
Still, it wasn’t a total loss. Zuo Qianming handed He Wuning a weapon.
“They said you prefer daggers, but I don’t know if you can handle a broadsword. Doesn’t matter though—you’ll get used to it. This is my Tang Broadsword No. 488—a level-10 equipment maxed out for attack power, nothing else. I think it suits you.”
He Wuning drew the blade for a quick look, then slipped it into his inventory and tossed the scabbard back at Zuo Qianming. “I don’t need the sheath.”
He turned to leave. Xing Yue was leaning against the doorway. “Yi Luo’s in the cafeteria. Said you should go mooch a meal off him before you head out—today’s braised pork ribs.”
He Wuning nodded and walked off toward the cafeteria.
Behind him, Zuo Qianming stared at the sheath in his hands, eyes blazing with manic inspiration. “Right! Of course! According to the law of conservation, if I remove the sheath, I can strengthen another part even further…”
Director Li adjusted her glasses. “Start with level-20 gear. By the time your research is done, he definitely won’t still be level 10.”
“Right, right!” Zuo Qianming crouched down and began rummaging eagerly through the debris-strewn floor for materials.
Xue Xun quietly slipped out of the room. He glanced down the empty hallway, sighed in weary resignation, rubbed at the dark circles under his eyes, picked up his oversized mug of oversteeped tea, and shuffled off toward his office.
He Wuning entered the cafeteria.
It wasn’t a mealtime, but the place was still open—tech division people with no set schedule, combat department survivors coming and going at random hours, and exhausted logistics staff like Xue Xun who practically lived on coffee. The canteen operated almost twenty-four hours a day.
Right now, though, it was nearly empty. As soon as He Wuning walked in, he spotted Yi Luo sitting alone at a long table, bent over his plate—building a tower out of pork ribs.
He Wuning: “…”
Yi Luo looked up just as another pork rib piece toppled off his “tower” with a plop. His eyes widened in surprise. “So fast? I thought Zuo Qianming would keep you there all night—I was just about to go rescue you!”
He Wuning glanced at the “structure” in front of him, his expression complicated. “What are you even doing?”
Yi Luo made a gesture for him to wait. “Hold on, almost done.”
He Wuning folded his arms, deciding to see what nonsense he was up to this time.
Yi Luo carefully placed the final rib, then pulled three sparkler sticks out of his pocket and poked them into the gaps between the ribs. Looking up, he said, “Make a wish. Quick.”
He Wuning blinked. “What?”
“This unlucky guy who got dragged into the game on his birthday—consider this a belated celebration.” Yi Luo flicked open his lighter. “Hurry up, I don’t know how long these things will last.”
He Wuning frowned at the “pork rib cake” in front of him. “Can you even still eat this after lighting it?” he muttered.
“Of course you can,” Yi Luo said, lighter in hand. “If you won’t, I will. You eat the stuff underneath.”
He Wuning chuckled and sat down across from him, clearly amused but pretending to complain. “What’s with the three sparklers?”
“Means you’re at most three years old,” Yi Luo said just in time to dodge the kick He Wuning aimed under the table. “Ready? I’m lighting them.”
“Mm.” He Wuning gave a noncommittal hum. Yi Luo lit the sparklers, their hiss and crackle filling the quiet cafeteria—but He Wuning just sat there, making no move to make a wish.
Yi Luo urged him, “What are you spacing out for? Make a wish!”
“Wish to who?” He Wuning leaned back lazily. “I’m fine just watching the show. No need for wishes.”
Yi Luo was about to laugh when a shrill alarm suddenly blared through the cafeteria. His expression froze, then changed drastically. “Oh no!”
He grabbed He Wuning with one hand and scooped up the ribs with the other. He Wuning, acting on instinct, picked up their trays too, following him out in confusion as they bolted for the door.
Behind them, Xue Xun’s furious yell echoed down the corridor: “Yi Luo, are you out of your mind?! Setting off fireworks in the cafeteria—what’s wrong with you?!”
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The author has something to say:
Help!! Are you people reading this with microscopes?! OTZ
I just wanted to show that only one guy remembered He Wuning shares a birthday with his younger brother—time to flex that “boyfriend power”! Such an elegant bit of foreshadowing! Such subtle romance!
And you all noticed?! Forget it, forget everything! Pretend only he remembered, okay??
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