“Pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Fu Changxun nodded graciously. “So your name—‘Dagong’—is a pun on ‘Working Stiff,’ I take it?”
Dagong shrugged. “Not entirely. I really am a working stiff. Just a corporate drone. The name fits.”
Despite his words, the way he spoke was effortlessly laid-back—nothing like the bitter, overworked image he described.
As Fu Changxun took a seat in the private room, he glanced up and noticed Dagong staring at him.
Caught in the act, Dagong didn’t even flinch. With perfect composure, he gestured to Fu Changxun’s collar. “You’ve got a little sauce there.”
Before Fu Changxun could respond, Dong Zi—who had been a silent wallflower until now—suddenly reached out and firmly clamped a hand over Dagong’s.
His grip was not light.
“Hello. I’m Dong Zi,” he said evenly.
Their eyes locked. Sparks flew—metaphorically, but with enough tension to fill the room. If their stares had sound effects, it’d be crackling electricity with a side of smoke.
A beat later, Dagong withdrew his hand.
He gave an apologetic smile to both of them. “My bad. This is my good buddy, Zhang Feifei.”
The slightly haggard man finally looked up. Only now did Fu Changxun realize—he wasn’t actually in his thirties. He just looked older.
Probably from stress.
With that dead-fish stare and a naturally jaded expression, he could easily pass for ten years older than he was.
“Hey. Zhang Feifei,” the man said hoarsely.
His voice was just like his face—raspy, beaten down, and thoroughly defeated by life.
Dong Zi didn’t have a good impression of either of them. Fu Changxun, however, seemed lost in thought.
Their first encounter ended in mutual probing, both sides testing the waters.
Fu Changxun met the other man’s gaze and said calmly, “Here’s the situation: you’ve successfully unified the players in City C, but many of them are abusing their abilities to act like tyrants. One of them even kidnapped a teammate of mine. How do you plan to deal with that?”
Dagong raised his brows in an impressively convincing display of surprise. “That’s odd. Sounds like a misunderstanding.”
“There’s no misunderstanding,” Dong Zi snapped coldly. “One of your people—calls himself ‘Mo-ge’—is flaunting his identity as an ability-user and going around robbing NPCs across the city.”
Dagong rifled through his memory for players with the surname “Mo.” He had a good guess who it might be.
Still, he kept his expression composed, face unflushed, voice steady. “Lack of discipline on my part. Embarrassing. To prevent this from happening again, here—take this.”
He glanced over, and Zhang Feifei promptly handed over a coin-shaped object.
“This item is exclusive to players. Carrying it marks you as one of us.”
Then Dagong added bluntly, “Of course, doing so also means you’re joining our collective.”
Fu Changxun took the coin between his index and middle fingers but set it down the moment he heard that.
“No, that’s not what I meant. We don’t need your supplies. In fact, we brought back a lot of gasoline from City S. We’re more than capable of trading.”
Fu Changxun continued, “And we’re not lacking in firepower either. Ah Zi’s pretty damn good in a fight. So what I’d like to ask is… keep your people on a leash. Don’t let them stir up trouble.”
Dagong smiled, not retracting the coin, but simply nodding. “Of course.”
“Well then,” he said, “let’s move on to how we’ll cooperate over the next ten days or so.”
Their goal was simple: maximize the player survival and clearance rate.
But while two tacticians could work together smoothly, the two bruisers beside them looked a little lost.
Two hours later, the discussion wound down. Dong Zi finally snapped out of his mechanical daze and joined Fu Changxun in nibbling on some cold dishes.
At the end of it, Fu Changxun lifted his empty glass, revealing the clear base with a crisp clink as he set it back down on the table.
“That’s all for now. I need to head back,” he said. “Here’s to a pleasant collaboration.”
Dagong raised his own cup in a mock toast. “Pleasure doing business.”
Fu and Dong left together. After a brief silence, voices drifted from the private room.
“You think he was telling the truth?” Zhang Feifei asked, his dead-eyed face turning to Dagong. “Could you see what their abilities were?”
Dagong tapped his finger against the table. “Mental-type. Looks solid.”
He leaned back and sighed. “Shame though—they’re with the government’s Special Affairs Office. No way we can recruit them.”
Zhang Feifei slumped even more. “Told you. Total waste of a trip.”
“No, not really.” Dagong chuckled softly. “At the very least, I confirmed they’re a couple. Which means, if we work with one, the other tags along. That’s a win.”
Zhang Feifei’s fish-dead eyes lit up a little. “Huh? They’re gay? That’s…”
Dagong glanced at him. “You got a problem working with gay people? Or are you worried about appearances?”
Zhang Feifei: “The second one, obviously.”
“It’s the goddamn apocalypse. Who gives a shit if you’re gay or straight? Hell, you could marry your busted-ass Roomba and no one would care—as long as you’re not bothering anyone.” Dagong stood up as he spoke.
Zhang Feifei immediately dropped the whole gay/not-gay debate and grumbled, “My little Ai’s perfectly fine, okay? Don’t go acting like she’s junk…”
Xiao Ai was a beat-up old robot vacuum he’d rescued from a trash bin years ago.
After repairing it, he started treating it like a pet—it didn’t shed, didn’t eat, didn’t poop, and only needed a little charge to go zooming around the house.
Dagong never quite understood the appeal of walking a robotic vacuum cleaner, but it didn’t get in the way of their friendship.
They were among the first batch of players to enter the game. Thanks to their sharp instincts, they cleared the rookie instance in just two hours.
Their names were broadcasted globally.
The moment they rose to fame, Zhang Feifei’s panicked “Holy shit!” became his nickname.
But in real life, the two of them had always been dirt poor. So they’d gone all-in on speed-clearing instances, racking up points, and flipping in-game goods to get rich.
Which meant Fu Changxun’s idle guess earlier had actually been spot-on.
Dagong said, “Let’s go. Now that our alliance’s confirmed, time to show a little sincerity.”
As they walked, he added, “Think they’re talking about our abilities or relationship too? Good thing the livestream wasn’t running. The Doctor’s power is Hypnosis. The guy with him can manipulate objects. Both solid skills. Honestly, I’m jealous—they’ve got way better stuff than we do…”
***
Elsewhere, Fu Changxun and Dong Zi had just returned to their hotel.
“He kept staring at you.”
On the way back, Dong Zi couldn’t hold it in anymore. “You think he’s got some weird fetish or something?”
Fu Changxun let out a quiet laugh. “You’re overthinking it. My guess? He has an ability that requires visual contact to activate—and he’s already used it on us.”
Dong Zi relaxed a bit. “Oh, that’s fine then… Wait—he already used it?!”
He tensed up all over again. “What kind of ability? It’s not something like hypnosis, is it?!”
“No,” Fu Changxun said gently. “It’s probably non-aggressive. Maybe something that lets him scan for our abilities.”
He paused. “I can tell—his interest in us far outweighs any hostility or murderous intent.”
Yes, the guy had felt a flicker of killing intent toward them. Fu Changxun could sense it.
It was faint, very faint—but he’d been a psychologist long enough to recognize emotional undercurrents with uncanny precision.
Anyone else probably wouldn’t have even noticed the man’s curiosity, let alone his intent.
Dong Zi looked even more displeased. “We approached him to cooperate, and he still entertained the idea of killing us?”
His face remained grim the entire way back.
Fu Changxun couldn’t help but laugh, though he was half-exasperated. He spent the walk trying to steer the conversation to lighter topics.
“How’d it go? Everything smooth?” Director Qiu had been anxiously waiting, worrying something might’ve gone wrong. When he saw the two of them return safe and sound, he finally relaxed.
But Dong Zi’s expression didn’t look like things had gone well…
Fu Changxun gave him a nod. “We’ve come to an agreement. He’ll cooperate with us.”
Qiu Yi sank into a chair. “Good. That’s good.”
He’d been so worried he hadn’t even eaten breakfast. Now that the deal was sealed, he ran off to share the good news with the others before grabbing a compressed biscuit to fill his stomach.
The pair had barely been back for a few minutes when there was a sharp knock at the door—thump thump thump.
Lu Zhaodi called out, “Who is it?” but got no reply. She cracked the door just a sliver to peek outside.
What she saw made her immediately slam it shut and yell, “It’s that guy from yesterday! The one who tried to rob us! Gege, jiejie—what do we do?!”
It was “Mo-ge,” the very same.
But today, the swagger from yesterday was gone. He looked distinctly more cautious.
In his left hand, he held a little boy—none other than Lu Tiangan, the runaway brat from yesterday.
Mo-ge knocked again, and when no one responded, he called out directly, “I know you’re in there. Don’t worry, I’m not here to rob you. I didn’t realize you were under Dagong-ge’s protection yesterday—my bad.”
With that, he placed a new backpack and the boy down at the doorstep, then turned to leave.
Yesterday’s incident—robbing a group of the old, sick, and injured—hadn’t sat entirely right with him. But Mo-ge had told himself he hadn’t really done anything wrong. That was, until his superior’s superior summoned him to the office and made it crystal clear: these people had actually returned from City S.
City S—the infamous death zone, from which no one ever came back alive. And they’d made it out… in a beat-up minivan.
The realization left him both shocked and impressed. Under Dagong’s orders, he was now here to return what he’d taken.
Along with the kid from yesterday, who’d randomly latched onto him and wouldn’t say where his family was—but had outright declared they were all players.
“What exactly did Dagong-ge tell you?”
Just as Mo-ge turned to go, the door opened, and Dong Zi stepped out, crouching slightly to clear the frame.
Mo-ge didn’t recognize him, but it was obvious he was one of the returnees.
After a moment’s thought, Mo-ge replied, “He said you guys are strong—stronger than me. Told me to return your stuff and maybe spar a little while I’m at it.”
Fu Changxun quirked a brow. “Dagong-ge really is a top-tier leader, huh?”
Not only did he send someone to return supplies and offer an apology, he even managed to use it as a subtle way to gauge their strength.
This kind of unassuming gesture, a quiet bid to win people over—it was something few could pull off.
No wonder he ranked first on the Points Leaderboard. He’d truly earned it.
