Mission Objective: Within five minutes, successfully cook one of the following dishes: Tomato Heart Scrambled Eggs, Celery Stir-Fried Heart-shaped Beef, or Hot-and-Sour Heart-shaped Shredded Potatoes. If either player dies, the mission fails. Whichever team finishes faster wins.
Mission Progress: 0
Song Guang tossed him a knife.
“You cook.”
There was a small icon glowing on the cutting board. Chi Zhan grabbed some eggs and began cracking them. On the other side, a flurry of petals from the opponent’s “Heavenly Maiden Scatter Flowers” skill swept toward them. Song Guang raised a shield, rebounding the attack back at the enemy.
Now what?
Chi Zhan glanced over at Song Guang’s rapidly dwindling health bar. A question mark popped up above his own head.
He tapped it, and two options appeared:
- Hug (restore 5% HP)
B. Kiss (restore 50% HP)
Even an idiot knew which one to pick.
Without hesitation, Chi Zhan chose B. The next second, the blue-haired Ice King leaned over and kissed the Little Sprite on the cheek.
The Sprite’s face flushed red immediately.
The healing effect was… dramatic.
So that’s how you heal? Chi Zhan was honestly impressed.
“I’ll fight. You cook, alright?”
Chi Zhan had higher attack power, while the Little Sprite was built for defense and tanking.
Chi Zhan began laying into their opponents as Song Guang moved to the cutting board. Chi Zhan accidentally cracked an egg too hard, spilling yolk all over the surface. Meanwhile, the oil in the pan had already burned off. Silently, without complaint, he wiped the board clean, re-cracked the eggs, reheated the oil, and calmly went back to cooking.
Every so often, he glanced back—just one look was enough to put him at ease.
I fight, you cook… isn’t that perfectly reasonable?
Besides, Song Guang was keeping an eye on everything. The moment Chi Zhan’s HP dropped even a sliver, he’d come over and give him a quick hug before turning back to the stove like nothing happened.
The enemy couple got completely wrecked.
They were so focused on fighting that they forgot about the actual objective—until they realized they couldn’t land a kill and were just wasting time. Panic set in. One tried to cook, the other tried to help, but just as one picked up an egg, the other snatched the bowl to load it with tomatoes instead.
They started yelling at each other over voice chat, calling each other idiots.
Meanwhile, on Chi Zhan’s side—
The world was peaceful.
Song Guang, though he seemed slow, was actually moving with clinical precision: oil first, then eggs, and finally had Chi Zhan slice the tomatoes. There was only one cutting board between them, but they never got in each other’s way. Everything was orderly, no stress, no squabbles.
By the time they started on the second dish, too much time had already been wasted. Only two minutes left. Chi Zhan was chopping celery—badly, all jagged edges and crooked lines—while Song Guang had already finished slicing the beef and was just waiting for the celery to hit the pan.
The other side was just starting to cut the meat. Still arguing over who should handle the knife. Total chaos.
Third dish. Only fifty seconds left.
Chi Zhan had no bandwidth to pay attention to the enemy team anymore. Song Guang was still calmly slicing potatoes into thin ribbons.
But it took thirty seconds to heat oil, and stir-frying would take at least forty. No way they’d make it in time.
The male mage was pacing nervously beside him. Song Guang seemed mildly annoyed.
“Come here.”
Chi Zhan walked over. He hadn’t even finished typing What do you need me to do? when the Little Sprite leaned in and gave the mage a soft kiss on the cheek.
“Mwah.” A pink heart popped up.
The kiss heals HP.
…But his health bar was full.
The mage stood frozen in place. Heart bubbles began floating over his head.
At the same time, a notification flashed:
Congratulations! You’ve completed the hidden mission “Kisses and Cuddles Even When You’re Free,” and earned +1 minute bonus time!
“…???”
The couple on the other side were still arguing over who should heat the oil. If the game allowed friendly fire, they’d probably have beaten each other to death by now. There was no way they’d be kissing or cuddling.
With their one-minute bonus, they had time to spare. Song Guang even had enough left to arrange the shredded potatoes into a heart shape.
—Challenge complete!
They were awarded a couples’ title: “So Sweet It’s Deadly.”
Chi Zhan: Did you know about that hidden mission?
Otherwise, how could he have just done that out of the blue?
Song Guang: Nope.
Song Guang: Just had a feeling… that doing it would calm you down.
“……”
That wasn’t calming. That was boiling over.
After a pause, Chi Zhan asked: Do you have school tomorrow?
Song Guang replied with a question mark.
Song Guang: I’m not a student.
Chi Zhan: You’re barely online every day, I thought you were still in high school.
Song Guang: …
Song Guang: Minors aren’t allowed to date early.
Song Guang: I haven’t adjusted my schedule yet… Sorry, I’ll be more mindful about the timing.
Chi Zhan had meant no blame at all. Seeing that Song Guang had misunderstood, he quickly clarified: That’s not what I meant. If work’s been busy, make sure you get plenty of rest.
Song Guang: After all, we’re just fake boyfriends, right?
He didn’t usually use punctuation or show much emotion when he typed. But the tone in that message was unmistakable.
…Was Song Guang actually upset?
Chi Zhan didn’t know what to say. He sent a meme to ease the tension: crying cat.jpg
[Song Guang is typing…]
Song Guang: Ignoring cat.jpg
Wait, that’s a thing? Chi Zhan was stunned.
Chi Zhan: crying cat.jpg
Song Guang: Ignoring cat.jpg
Chi Zhan: crying cat.jpg
Song Guang: Ignoring cat.jpg
……
They repeated that dumb exchange a bunch of times before Chi Zhan finally realized—if Song Guang was really mad, he wouldn’t be going back and forth like this.
Chi Zhan thought for a while, then picked another meme from his folder… but hesitated.
This one was a bit…
After a long pause, he finally hit send.
Chi Zhan: cat begging for a kiss.jpg
Unexpectedly, Song Guang replied almost instantly
Song Guang: Not kissing cat.jpg
Chi Zhan: ……
Yep. He’d lost this round. No way to talk his way out of it now.
Chi Zhan: I only said that because I thought you were a student back then.
Cute! I wish hes the ML