The world of LoveQuest ran on one central mechanic—Favorability Points. Everything revolved around gaining the affection of your target. So when favorability failed to rise for too long, the system would be summoned to investigate for glitches in the world.
“I want something from you too. Don’t I?”
“Yes. You do. But…” He paused, then added, “You’re different.”
That line was… a little contradictory.
Before Chi Zhan could fully digest what he meant, Cen Chi had already packed up his instruments.
“The injury isn’t serious. If you rest properly, you should recover in about a week.”
Chi Zhan nodded.
“But you absolutely can’t get hurt a third time,” Cen Chi warned. “Otherwise you might end up with permanent damage. Things like bending over, lifting heavy objects, even light exercise—they’ll all be affected. I think you understand how serious that would be.”
“…Got it.”
Cen Chi stood and rummaged through the medical kit.
“I happen to have brought some medicated oil. I’ll give you a massage now, and you need to check in with me daily.”
Cen Chi’s hands felt almost magical. The pain that had been sharp earlier was now just a dull ache. Chi Zhan finally relaxed a little.
If it had gotten so bad he couldn’t walk, that would’ve been a nightmare. And just then, he heard Cen Chi’s voice again.
“I won’t go on any more blind dates.”
“…?”
That line… felt like it meant something more.
“…Why not?”
“There was an adventurer,” Cen Chi began, instead of answering directly. “He set off across the sea in search of treasure. He drifted over endless waves, encountered shoals of black and white fish, gentle white whales, and ferocious black sharks—but none of them were the treasure he was looking for. He grew confused. He couldn’t remember what the treasure he’d originally set out to find even was. Every time he came across something new, he would take a closer look, wondering if this might be it. But after all that wandering, he still found nothing. Then one day, bored and aimless, he glanced into the distance—and picked up a floating bottle. Inside was a rainbow.” Cen Chi’s tone softened. “He’d never seen colors so vivid. It stunned him. After that, the fish no longer interested him. He had already found his treasure.”
“But how do you know the rainbow was the treasure he was looking for?”
“That’s a…” Cen Chi chuckled, “secret.”
The rainbow sealed inside the bottle—it was a treasure everyone wanted to claim. The fewer who saw it, the safer it was. Otherwise… it would all come down to who had the sharper claws.
Upstairs was peaceful. Downstairs, chaos reigned.
“Take them all to the station,” Zhou Yanxing said coldly. “Charge them with repeat public disturbance. Five years.”
“F-Five years?!” one of them cried. “On what grounds?! We didn’t even do anything!”
“Didn’t do anything?” Xiao Jia shot back furiously. “You’ve injured Secretary Chi twice. Did you even pay his medical bills? You think just because you’re not hurt, it doesn’t count?”
“We are hurt!” another man snapped. “He kicked me straight into a wall! I didn’t even say anything!”
“President Zhou was acting in self-defense. There’s security footage to prove it,” Xiao Wang said with a snort. “Besides, you’re walking around just fine. He didn’t even hit you that hard—stop acting.”
“……”
They were all afraid of pain. Every single one of them had used a “One-Spray-Heals-All” potion. They had been moaning and wailing a second ago, but now not a single mark remained on them.
Zhou Yanxing caught something odd in Xiao Wang’s words.
He’d beaten them half to death just minutes ago, and now they all looked perfectly fine. Like they hadn’t even been touched.
He ordered the guards to search them.
Sure enough, a bottle of “One-Spray-Heals-All” was found on one of them—he hadn’t managed to stow it back in his system space in time.
“One-Spray-Heals-All?” Zhou Yanxing turned the bottle over in his hand. “What the hell is this?”
“……”
It was like popping a potion mid-boss fight, only to have the boss snatch the bottle from your hand.
This game is too damn real! How is the target of a romance route able to see our items?!
But before they could process it, the bottle vanished—right before their eyes. Gone. In the blink of an eye, all the surrounding NPCs wore the same confused expression.
“What just happened?”
Except Zhou Yanxing. He stared at his now-empty hand.
“What did you do?” he asked, voice dangerously low. “Where’s the medicine?”
“……”
Game items didn’t belong to this world. Normally, they were stored in the system space. For immersion’s sake, players had to manually bring items into the game world to use them. But if not cleaned up in time, those items left traces—what people called bugs.
The game system automatically cleared bugs. That meant deleting the item and erasing the memory of any NPCs who had seen it.
Romance targets were more intelligent than regular NPCs. To prevent them from gaining awareness, the system would block any words like “player,” “item,” “NPC,” or “target” from being heard by them. Memories of seeing items were supposed to be wiped too.
So then… why the hell did this romance target still remember the damn bottle?
The players stared at each other in growing panic.
Was this… another bug?
But before they could worry further, something worse happened.
They were hauled off to the police station. After an extensive investigation, they were found guilty of “public disturbance” and sentenced to one year in prison.
In game time, one month equaled about five real-world days. That meant a year was sixty days. They were going to be locked up in the in-game jail… for two real months.
Suddenly, none of them had the time or energy to worry about bugs. They were all frantically begging the forums for tips on how to survive two months in solitary.
