The news hit like a bolt of lightning—so sudden and shocking that it left Jiang Yi completely stunned.
“What? No way! Isn’t he an NPC? How could he be a player?!”
Jiang Yi had always assumed Chi Zhan was just another unplayable target. When he eventually learned Chi Zhan wasn’t a romance option, he’d been disappointed for ages. He’d tried to console himself—“It’s fine, even if I can’t date him, we can still be friends.”
Lu Xiao let out a surprised “ah” and said, “I thought he was an NPC too, but Zhou Yanxing said he likes him! I mean, romance targets wouldn’t fall in love with NPCs, right? Otherwise, wouldn’t that just break the whole system?”
Suddenly remembering something, Lu Xiao tapped into the player panel and asked, “What’s Secretary Chi’s full name again?”
Jiang Yi answered as Lu Xiao typed it into the friend search field: Chi Zhan.
[Searching for friend, please wait…]
A few seconds felt like an eternity.
Three seconds later, Jiang Yi stared wide-eyed at the screen.
The search returned a message:
[Match found: [Chi Zhan]. Would you like to add as a friend?]
“This—how is this possible…” Jiang Yi murmured in disbelief.
In this world, every name was unique. To ensure authenticity, most people registered with proper names. Of course, some speed-demons managed to snag troll usernames like “Daddy” or “God.” But regardless of intent, every ID was one-of-a-kind. NPCs and players also couldn’t share names—so not even a common name like Zhang Wei could be reused.
So, for this name to appear in a player search, only two explanations existed: either Secretary Chi’s real name wasn’t Chi Zhan… or Chi Zhan was a player himself!
Jiang Yi felt dizzy. The person he’d secretly liked for so long… was a player all along? He couldn’t tell whether to laugh or cry.
Lu Xiao tapped [Send Friend Request], muttering, “God, I want to know how he managed to capture Zhou Yanxing. Think he’d share some strategies with me? Huh… that’s weird. Why can’t I add him?”
She tapped a few more times in frustration, but the friend request button remained grayed out and unresponsive.
Jiang Yi was still in a daze. But if this was true… did that mean he could actually ask Chi-ge out in real life?
In this world, avatars only allowed a 5% deviation from real-life appearances. That meant Chi-ge in reality likely looked almost identical to how he looked now.
Sure, he’d been heartbroken in the game, but if he could build a real-world connection with Chi-ge? Maybe they could be friends—or something more. After all, everyone who chose to enter this game was probably into guys, right? The thought sent a fresh wave of hope through Jiang Yi.
While Lu Xiao puzzled over the friend request issue, Jiang Yi sat there lovestruck and useless. With no one else to rely on, he took matters into his own hands and opened Chi Zhan’s profile. He expected to see the usual details—name, gender, birthday, age—but instead, there was just a single line on the screen:
[This player is currently not in the service region. Please try again later.]
***
They had never encountered something like this before.
Lu Xiao and Jiang Yi stared at each other in confusion.
“What does that even mean? It’s not the same as being offline.”
Jiang Yi looked equally lost. After a pause, he offered, “Maybe Chi-ge’s in the suburbs right now? Bad signal?”
“That’s a pretty ridiculous explanation,” Lu Xiao scoffed.
They contacted customer service, but the rep only recorded their complaint and gave no further answers. So when Jiang Yi later bumped into Chi Zhan at the restaurant, he lit up with genuine surprise.
“Chi-ge!”
Now that he knew Chi Zhan wasn’t some expendable NPC doomed to be replaced but a real-life player, Jiang Yi saw him in a whole new light. That “Chi-ge” came out of his mouth soft and shy, completely different from before.
Chi Zhan had been waiting for Jiang Yi to say something, but all he got was stammering… until Jiang Yi blurted out:
“Chi-ge, can I have your phone number?”
Chi Zhan blinked. “Didn’t we exchange numbers before?”
Back when Jiang Yi was still interning at Zhou Rui, they’d already added each other on WeChat and swapped contacts.
Jiang Yi said quickly, “No, I mean—not the in-game number. Your real phone number. Is that okay?”
The moment he said it, his heart climbed straight to his throat. He braced for rejection.
Chi Zhan didn’t answer right away. After a beat, he said, “Isn’t this reality?”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant!” Jiang Yi panicked.
Did I say it too vaguely? Or is he just trying to reject me gently so I won’t take it too hard?
Still, he couldn’t give up now. As the saying goes—go big or go home! A bicycle might just become a motorcycle if you gamble hard enough.
“I mean—after we log off the game, can we still keep in touch?” Jiang Yi asked nervously. “I always thought you were an NPC… only found out today you’re a player. No wonder you didn’t look like any of those background characters. Honestly, I almost mistook you for a romance target in the beginning.”
Those words slammed into Chi Zhan like a tsunami. He fought to keep his expression neutral and forced himself not to show the shock rising in his chest.
“How… how do you know I’m a player?” he asked, voice calm despite the turmoil in his gut.
“Hmm?” Jiang Yi didn’t even wait for the full question. He blurted it all out: “I found you through the friend search system! Every ID in this game is unique, and that trick—Lu Xiao came up with it. He’s a genius. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier! Chi-ge, let’s add each other again, okay? That way, even if we log off, we’ll still be able to talk.”
Then Jiang Yi frowned again.
“But for some reason, your status keeps saying you’re out of the service region. Is this a new kind of bug? I’ll report it to customer service later.”
Chi Zhan’s breathing subtly quickened.
If he hadn’t been forcing himself to stay calm, he’d have already grabbed Jiang Yi by the shoulders and asked—Can you find my real identity in the real world?
He knew very little about the player rules, but from the certainty in Jiang Yi’s tone, he was now sure of one thing: in this world, he was considered a player.
…But what the hell did that even mean?
Suddenly, Chi Zhan remembered something—when he was scanned by the main system, he had heard unfamiliar voices… strangers calling out to him.
He hadn’t paid it much attention at the time.
But now, after everything Jiang Yi had said, that moment resurfaced in his mind with terrifying clarity.
