Early morning.
A suffocating weight pressed down on him.
Five warm, soft bodies were tangled against him.
The air was thick with an intoxicating fragrance.
When he opened his eyes, he no longer saw the familiar ceiling.
A vermillion gauze curtain hung from the intricately carved ceiling, swaying gently in the morning light.
“Senior Brother, you’re awake?”
A voice came from the left, and a delicate little face leaned in.
The girl was around sixteen or seventeen, her collar loose, revealing a stretch of snow-white collarbone.
Her eyes sparkled, and Lin Xiao’s dazed face was reflected in her pupils.
“Xiao… Luoyi?”
Lin Xiao heard his own hoarse voice.
The girl smiled, the corners of her eyes curving into crescents.
“Senior Brother, are you still asleep? Otherwise, who else could it be?”
He remembered.
Lin Xiao, lead programmer of the blockbuster romance xianxia game Immortal Love.
Three days ago, a flood of players posted on the forums asking for help: “Why did my gentle and lovely immortal suddenly turn dark?”
So he had to cut his vacation short and return to the company to fix bugs.
After three straight days of work, he finally found the problem.
Turns out, in the game’s settings, some options that reduced affection would randomly increase the darkening value by 0 to 10 points.
The new intern, who was an Excel whiz, didn’t think twice and just wrote 10 rand().
In Excel, `rand()` returns a random number between 0 and 1, so writing it that way was fine.
But the problem was that the game used the standard library, where `rand()` returns a number from 0 to `RAND_MAX`.
How big is `RAND_MAX`? 2 to the 15th power minus 1.
That meant every time a player made a choice affecting the heroine’s affection, they had to tread carefully, as if on thin ice.
Otherwise, one affection-reducing choice could trigger a critical hit to the darkening value.
Lin Xiao quickly wrote a patch.
But just as he submitted the code, his heart gave a sudden jerk.
And then he ended up here.
The situation now was… he was in the hidden “sleeping together under one blanket” ending that every player dreamed of.
“Xiao’er.”
A cold, clear voice came from the other side.
That was a sleeping face.
Ling Qingxue, the master route heroine in the game.
Her eyes were closed now, her long hair like ink spilled on the pillow, and she let out a sleepy murmur.
Even the master needed to sleep?
Just as this absurd thought surfaced, his waist suddenly tightened.
A slender, jade-white hand wrapped around him from behind.
“Xiao Lang, you’re awake, why didn’t you tell me?”
Her voice was seductive to the bone, the ending drawn out long and soft.
Lin Xiao didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
Gu Huan’ge, the current demon lord of the Demon Clan, the most aggressive romantic target.
“He just woke up. Don’t mess with him.”
This time it was a dignified female voice.
Chu Qingchen, the Third Princess of the Great Chu Immortal Dynasty, now the Human Empress.
She was leaning at the outermost edge, already sitting up, tidying her slightly tousled hair.
“Master doesn’t need to get up early.”
The final voice rang out, completely devoid of emotion.
Shuanghua, the spirit of an ancient divine sword, now in human form, knelt at the foot of the bed, staring at Lin Xiao without blinking.
In the game’s setting, sword spirits didn’t need sleep.
She would watch over her master all night… no matter what he was doing.
Five pairs of eyes, five gazes, five equal shares of love.
“I…”
Lin Xiao opened his mouth, his throat dry.
“Let me get some water.”
He tried to get up, but his body felt as heavy as if nailed to the bed.
Xiao Luoyi’s arm was wrapped around his left arm, Gu Huan’ge’s hand was locked on his waist, and Ling Qingxue was pressing down on his right hand.
No way he could move.
Chu Qingchen gracefully got out of bed, walked to the table, and lifted the jade pot.
“Warm water.”
The Empress brought the cup to his lips.
“You drank quite a bit last night.”
Lin Xiao drank half the cup with her help.
The water was just the right temperature, but a chill ran down his spine.
Was the bug fixed?
This doubt clung to him like a bone-deep maggot.
“System,” he thought in his mind.
No response.
“Menu.”
No response.
‘Looks like it’s not a system story. My only cheat is my understanding of the game mechanics and my foreknowledge of the plot.’
“I need to do a stress test,” Lin Xiao murmured to himself.
“Verify whether, in this perfect ending, the immortals’ affection is really that stable.”
As the lead programmer, he knew exactly where each immortal’s landmines were.
And a stress test was essentially dancing in a minefield.
If the bug was truly fixed, one or two affection-lowering choices wouldn’t immediately cause the immortals to turn dark.
“Senior Brother, what are you muttering about?”
Xiao Luoyi blinked and asked.
Lin Xiao took a deep breath, signaled Luoyi not to worry, and then turned his gaze to the just-awakened master, Ling Qingxue.
This was the immortal most prone to triggering yandere events in the game.
“Master,” he said in as calm a tone as possible, “I want… to go down the mountain and establish my own faction.”
The drowsiness in Ling Qingxue’s eyes vanished.
She sat up and looked at Lin Xiao.
Instantly, the temperature in the entire hall seemed to drop by several dozen degrees.
Lin Xiao’s heart leaped into his throat.
In his mind, he had already rehearsed dozens of yandere outbreak scenes he had written: imprisonment, brainwashing, breaking the third leg…
But after three suffocating seconds, Ling Qingxue just smiled faintly.
“Xiao’er has grown up. It’s only natural for you to have such thoughts. But establishing your own faction is no small matter. Let your master make the arrangements for you first.”
Her tone was still gentle, with no obvious yandere tendencies.
Lin Xiao was stunned.
He turned to Xiao Luoyi.
“Luoyi, I’ve actually always wanted to tell you… I like men.”
Xiao Luoyi’s eyes went wide.
Then she burst out laughing, shaking with mirth.
“Xiao Gege, you’re such a joker! That’s not what you said last night when you were having fun with Sister Huan’ge.”
Lin Xiao saw Gu Huan’ge looking at him and swallowed his saliva.
“Demon Lord, humans and demons are ultimately different. Between us…”
“Different?”
Gu Huan’ge raised an elegant eyebrow, her fox ears twitching.
“Are you saying I’m not good enough for you?”
“No, it’s just…”
“Then stop talking nonsense.”
She waved her hand decisively, cutting off any further words.
It was Chu Qingchen’s turn.
“Your Majesty, I believe the Great Chu Immortal Dynasty’s system needs reform. I propose… abolishing the monarchy and moving toward a republic.”
The Empress was silent for a moment.
“You want me to give up the throne and stay by your side forever? That’s… not impossible.”
‘Is this… right?’
Finally, Shuanghua.
Lin Xiao picked up the immortal sword she resided in.
“Shuanghua, this sword isn’t very comfortable to use. I want to switch to another.”
Shuanghua looked at Lin Xiao quietly.
“Master, Shuanghua is the spirit of this sword. To change swords, you must first sever the blood pact between us.”
“Then… how do I sever it?”
“Kill me,” Shuanghua said in a flat voice.
“Or I kill Master.”
‘Finally! Finally some sign!’
But before Lin Xiao could react, Shuanghua let out a sweet laugh.
“Shuanghua was joking. Everything is up to Master. If Master’s new weapon also doesn’t suit you and you think of Shuanghua, Shuanghua will always be here waiting for you.”
‘Damn, Shuanghua’s response made me feel a tinge of guilt.’
All the stress tests were finished.
No sudden darkening, no yandere outbreak.
Affection was as solid as rock.
Lin Xiao let out a nervous sigh of relief.
‘Maybe… I can live peacefully in this world?’
Three days and three nights of debugging had left him exhausted.
Finally, he could sleep soundly.
“Let me sleep a little more, my immortals…”
—
When Lin Xiao woke again, the first thing he felt was…
“No, where’s my body?”
He couldn’t feel his body at all.
He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were as heavy as lead.
He tried to raise his hand, but he couldn’t even feel a single finger.
Only his hearing was still working.
Heavy breathing.
Breathing right next to his ear.
“Xiao’er, you’re awake.”
A familiar voice rang out, gentle enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
It was Master Ling Qingxue.
An ice-cold hand stroked his cheek, moving as softly as if handling a rare, fragile treasure.
“Don’t be afraid. Your master is here.”
Lin Xiao wanted to speak, to ask what had happened, but he couldn’t even move his lips.
“You’re always thinking about leaving.”
Ling Qingxue sighed faintly, her fingertip sliding along his cheek, slowly down to his neck.
“Saying you want to go down the mountain and establish your own faction… Is your master not good enough to you?”
“Saying you like men… That child Luoyi can’t bear to hear that. Now there’s no man within a hundred miles.”
“How could you say humans and demons are different? … Don’t you know that the reason the demon clan and humans have never crossed paths is because of Huan’ge’s love for you?”
“Saying something about moving toward a republic… Your master doesn’t understand that, but Qingchen has become unable to listen to anyone but you.”
“Oh, and you even mentioned changing swords… Shuanghua was very hurt.”
Her voice grew softer and softer, gentler and gentler.
“So, your master thought all night. Instead of letting you have wild thoughts all the time, it’s better… to just let you stay here quietly like this.”
“That way, you can stay by your master’s side forever, forever.”
Lin Xiao felt some cold, sticky medicinal liquid being poured down his throat.
“This potion will make you obedient. You won’t move, and you won’t talk nonsense.”
Ling Qingxue’s voice was almost pressed against his ear.
“Don’t worry. Your consciousness will stay awake. I’ll come see you every day, talk to you, and take care of you myself…”
“Just like this, we can be together forever, forever.”
Lin Xiao’s consciousness, trapped in his immobile shell, let out a silent, desperate scream.
‘I curse this—the bug wasn’t fixed at all!’