By the time evening came and Ling Mo got back, he saw Xia Xinyan sitting on the sofa, staring at the TV.

A show was playing, but her gaze clearly wasn’t on it at all. It was like she was looking through the screen, at somewhere far beyond it.

To put it simply, she was spacing out.

On that face that always made his heart race, there seemed to be a few traces of loneliness.

Ling Mo couldn’t help pausing for a moment.

Was she... bored being alone?

Could she have been waiting for him to come back?

He suddenly felt a little stupid.

Since she saw him as her boyfriend, then when she asked what his plans were before, she’d probably wanted him to take the initiative and invite her along, right?

How had he not realized something that obvious before...?

Idiot.

This was the first time he’d ever judged himself like that.

Pretty coincidentally, it matched exactly what Xia Xinyan had been thinking too.

But this time, he really was just moving himself for no reason. Right now, Xia Xinyan was only still hung up on the ability issue from earlier.

The fact that the power helping her most right now, and giving her the biggest boost in combat, was actually succubus rather than beastification, was something she simply couldn’t accept.

Was she really supposed to treat succubus as her main ability from now on?

The moment she thought about the future...

“Nice to meet you. What’s your ability?”

“Succubus.”

“Succubus? You mean the kind that bujibuji squeezes the—[BEEP]—out of people?”

No. She absolutely could not accept that.

Sure enough, as long as you’re alive, you can’t truly make peace with everything. Even if you really did die once before, as long as you get dragged back, the world will sooner or later stuff your life full of gut-wrenching crap all over again.

Goddamn fate.

Only when Ling Mo’s voice sounded beside her did her drifting thoughts get pulled back.

“Um... are you hungry?”

It was already dark outside. But the dining table and kitchen were still spotless, making it obvious dinner hadn’t been made.

Hearing that, Xia Xinyan tilted her head slightly and looked at him, pressing her lips together.

She didn’t know whether being jealous of this guy counted as being jealous of herself.

But in Ling Mo’s eyes, that expression looked full of grievance, and it stabbed straight into his heart.

“I’m sorry.”

“...Why are you apologizing?” Xia Xinyan paused slightly.

Did he see through what she was thinking?

Was she really showing it that clearly?

“I...” Ling Mo originally wanted to say something, but after thinking it over, those things seemed like the kind you could only understand without saying out loud. If he spelled them out, it would just make things awkward between them. After hesitating for a moment, he changed the subject instead. “I’ll go make dinner.”

After saying that, he turned and walked toward the bedroom.

Xia Xinyan stared at his back for a few seconds, then curled her lips.

At least he had some self-awareness.

But the moment she thought about how, in future direct combat, she might have to rely on this guy, she felt inexplicably irritated.

She had no intention of exposing her succubus traits too early. So before her beastification ability had grown stronger, she had no other choice at all.

Mm... she really was feeling wronged.

Back then, she had at least been someone who could stand on her own. Now she’d fallen to the point of being an accessory living under someone else’s roof. No matter who it was, not everyone could accept that kind of gap right away.

Fortunately, after the tempering of her previous life, her mentality was still pretty solid. Even if she had complaints, she usually only vented them inwardly. She rarely showed them on her own, especially when it involved issues that could affect a relationship.

And from another angle, Ling Mo hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

Maybe that was what made Xia Xinyan the most depressed of all—she couldn’t even find anyone to take the blame. As for Tianji... that guy didn’t even have a physical body. Even if she made it carry the blame, there was no way to vent it on him.

[Once the host’s strength reaches a certain level, the external link form of this system can be unlocked to assist the host in battle. At that time, this system will be able to possess an extended body.]

[However, this system does not recommend that the host harbor such hostile thoughts toward it. Violent girls are not liked.]

“...”

Xia Xinyan fell silent for a while, then got up and went to the kitchen.

As for what exactly she was thinking in her heart, this time even Tianji couldn’t detect it.

During dinner, the atmosphere between the two improved a little. Mainly because Xia Xinyan had basically come out of her earlier frustration. She also started chatting with Ling Mo about what he’d mentioned today—his club.

Back in college, Ling Mo had joined an esports club. To put it bluntly, it was just a gathering place for gaming enthusiasts. They’d also taken part in some local esports tournaments and had even won several awards. As a hardcore gaming nerd himself, Ling Mo got along very well in the club. So whenever the club occasionally held dinners or meetups like this, he usually went.

There were quite a few friends in the club who were close to him. After the game pods for Realm of Divine Descent were fully rolled out, they all moved into that game together as well. Some wanted to make money, and some just wanted to try something new. But no matter the reason, when a group of friends queued together and ran dungeons, it really did give Ling Mo a lot of convenience in the early stage, when individual strength was still lacking.

So in this life, Xia Xinyan also wanted to help that old group of friends from the club. If they could start playing the game earlier, maybe that could change their fates.

Even though those people couldn’t really be considered her friends anymore.

The fact that Xia Xinyan was so interested in his life made Ling Mo pretty happy, and he was more than willing to share funny stories from the club with her. But just as they were chatting happily, he suddenly heard her bring up the matter of gifting game pods to the club, and he froze on the spot.

“You... want to give our club game pods?” For a moment, he thought he’d misheard.

Xia Xinyan smiled and nodded. “Mm. Your friends should be really interested in this game too, right? My family still has a batch of game pods that arrived early, but no one at home plays, so they’re just sitting there anyway. I figured I might as well give them to you. They’re free to begin with.”

“Uh... isn’t that kind of inappropriate?” Ling Mo hesitated.

He knew very well that even if the game pods were said to be free, getting one from the first few batches wasn’t easy. You either needed money or connections. On the market right now, scalpers had already pushed the price of game pods up to several hundred thousand. The problem was, there really were rich people buying them outright at those prices.

For students like them, all they could do was wait for some unknown future batch of free game pods.

He hadn’t expected Xia Xinyan to be generous enough to give them a whole batch.

That probably... cost quite a lot too, right?

“It’s fine.” Xia Xinyan stood up, walked around to his side, and sat down beside him. She leaned lightly against him and said softly, “Your friends are my friends too. Sharing fun things with friends is normal, isn’t it? Actually, I’d wanted to join the esports club before too, but a bunch of things delayed me until now... So, can you recommend me into the club?”

Ling Mo was dumbstruck. “I... ah... I...”

He’d been hit with a fatal blow again.

Was she choosing to actively step into his social circle because of him?

That was something he might never even have dared imagine before.

Maybe having your girlfriend get too deeply involved in your life wasn’t necessarily a good thing. But for a straight-laced guy like Ling Mo, the things that could hit him right in the heart were basically just these. Being understood more by his girlfriend, in any aspect at all, as long as it was something he thought he had a shining point in, would make him excited.

Like gaming.

And thankfully, Xia Xinyan hadn’t approached him because she actually liked him as a person. Otherwise, she probably really would’ve been scared off by his straight-man personality.

And when something is too beautiful, people can’t help worrying that the dream will shatter.

Especially someone experiencing that kind of beauty for the first time.

Maybe at this moment, Ling Mo had truly fallen for her.

“Okay. I’ll recommend you tomorrow. They’ll definitely welcome you. Then we can queue up and run dungeons together.”

“Mm, okay.”