The prep time before entering the instance wasn’t long. Maybe it was just the game giving the current players a brief moment to meet and get a feel for each other. Ling Mo had originally planned to chat with Fatty a bit more, but the system beat him to it and teleported them into the instance first.

The teleportation in the game felt strange in a fascinating way. It was similar to lying down in the game pod and entering the game. Your consciousness sank, then slowly floated back up, like falling asleep and waking again.

So for the first few seconds after entering an instance, a player’s mind gradually woke up. Their control over their body, and their awareness of the outside world, also became clearer bit by bit.

When his vision returned and he opened his eyes again, all he saw was dimness.

His body felt warm. There was a pleasant sense of relief, like all pressure had been released, as if he had just woken from a good sleep.

But where was this?

After hesitating for a moment, he tried moving his body a little.

Then... he touched something... soft, and not exactly familiar.

He froze.

“Could you... move your hand for a second?” Xia Xinyan’s voice suddenly rang out, carrying a strange note. “Now’s not really the time for this kind of thing.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a light beside them suddenly turned on. Only then did Ling Mo finally see the situation around him clearly.

This was a bedroom. The curtains were drawn, but sunlight still leaked in slightly from the edges, enough to show that it was daytime. At this moment, he was lying on the big bed in the bedroom—with Xia Xinyan.

The light had come from the bedside lamp.

Xia Xinyan had turned it on.

And the hand he had just stretched out to test his surroundings had, by sheer awful luck, landed right on her chest.

This was the same sensation he had personally experienced with his face in yesterday’s instance. Even though the memory had mostly faded, the moment he felt it again, that old embarrassment came rushing back.

“...Sorry!” He hurriedly pulled his hand back. “I didn’t know we’d appear here...”

Damn, was this the game’s sick sense of humor?

What kind of spawn point put players on a bed?

And the clothes they were wearing now weren’t even what they had on before entering the instance. They had changed into pajamas, as if they really were a young couple waking up together.

The pajamas were fairly conservative, but with only a thin layer of fabric in the way, the scenery beneath still seemed faintly visible. For a man, this kind of scene was full of temptation.

The problem was, this wasn’t a level of intimacy they had naturally reached through getting along. It was a situation the game had forcibly shoved onto them, and that gave Ling Mo a serious headache.

He couldn’t deny that in this kind of setting, he had no reaction at all. But having a reaction only made things more awkward. Even though Xia Xinyan herself had said she had become his girlfriend, he still believed their relationship was nowhere near that of a real couple. What she knew about him was still only surface-level. If they wanted to become an actual couple, then first they had to truly get to know each other and see whether they were even compatible, right?

He didn’t want to become the kind of scumbag who ruined a girl’s whole life.

And even setting aside his own moral line, he had to think about his safety too. She was a rich young lady, after all. If he accidentally did something wrong, or let her down somehow, maybe he’d end up dumped beneath Naihe Bridge.

So before he felt they could truly confirm their relationship, he didn’t want to do anything that might make Xia Xinyan misunderstand.

Like what was happening right now...

To put it bluntly, this was basically sexual harassment.

“It’s fine.” Xia Xinyan didn’t seem to care much. “The game teleported us here. It’s not your fault.”

“The game gives openings like this too? Putting male and female players on the same bed? Aren’t they afraid something could go wrong?” Ling Mo shifted a little farther away and asked awkwardly.

“It won’t. Don’t worry.” Xia Xinyan shook her head. “The system put us together because we used connected game pods. That lets the system judge that our relationship is close enough, so it’ll try to arrange us together. The game already explained that in its rules.”

“I see...” Ling Mo paused and said nothing more.

He still thought this setting was a little weird.

What if he were just an ordinary friend who happened to come over to Xia Xinyan’s house to play games? Wouldn’t that just be letting him take advantage?

Before he could think that through, the game displayed the information for this instance—

[Warzone: Riot City]

[Difficulty: Low]

[Time Flow: 2x]

[Introduction: You and player “Xia Xinyan” are a couple living in this city, preparing to welcome a new week]

[Current Mission: Go to your workplace together with player “Xia Xinyan”]

[News Flash: Recently, rumors have spread online that some citizens in the city have been acting strangely. Please be mindful of your safety outside]

Ling Mo blanked for a moment.

A couple...

“Heh. Looks like the game actually guessed our relationship right,” Xia Xinyan teased.

Ling Mo let out an embarrassed laugh.

He had no idea what to say.

Xia Xinyan simply stared at him in silence for a while, studying him.

She realized this guy, Ling Mo... was unexpectedly... how should she put it, pure?

Sure, she had praised him before for being bold, but that was mostly in words. The moment it came to physical contact, this guy was genuinely hopelessly timid.

She knew very well how many fantasies her past self had once had about “what I’ll do after I get a girlfriend someday,” from daily life together to what happened in bed. She had practically run through an entire post-girlfriend life in her head.

And now she was practically throwing herself at him, yet he didn’t even dare touch her.

Even though she hadn’t clearly refused him or anything.

Tch.

With this level of cowardice, he still wanted a girlfriend?

Looking at him like this, she suddenly got a little mischievous.

“Say... are you scared of me?”

There was just the right amount of loneliness in her tone, and Ling Mo reacted instantly. “Of course not!”

“Then why are you sitting so far away from me?” Xia Xinyan moved closer and spoke softly. “We’re already a couple right now... so even if we sleep on the same bed, that’s not a problem, right?”

Whether by accident or not, nearly half her body pressed against his chest, showing off her assets without holding anything back.

Ling Mo had absolutely no resistance to this. Panic was written all over his face. “I’m not... don’t...”

Of course he liked this kind of bonus, but he didn’t want her giving him that kind of bonus this way. It made him feel shallow. After all, from the moment they met until now, it had only really been two or three days. If he could accept something like this without any burden already, then how was he any different from people who rushed into shotgun marriages?

Get in the car first, buy the ticket later?

His view of love didn’t allow that.

But his complete lack of experience with women did nothing to help him escape this situation.

So in Xia Xinyan’s eyes, this was honestly pretty amusing.

He looked exactly like some dumb idiot being toyed with in the palm of her hand.

And timid, too.

“Not what?” She pressed down further onto Ling Mo, bracing both hands by his neck, her voice full of intimacy. “What... are you scared of?”

The faint fragrance of a young girl lingered around the tip of his nose. It was as if the whole world had shrunk down to just the two of them. Surrounded by her scent, Ling Mo nearly stopped thinking altogether.

He only knew that the tips of his ears were burning like crazy.

And if he didn’t do something soon, he might really make a huge mistake.

“Xia... Xia Xinyan, I...” He took a deep breath and said in a low voice, “I want us to talk properly. Aren’t we moving too fast? This doesn’t feel like normal dating. Shouldn’t we start by slowly getting to know each other? I don’t want to leave you with any regrets, so... can you give me a little time? Let us understand each other first—”

“Do you like me?” Xia Xinyan suddenly leaned down, almost pressing completely against him. They were so close they could feel each other’s breath. She stared into his eyes and asked softly.

Forced into meeting her gaze, Ling Mo looked back at her.

Her eyes were beautiful, so beautiful it was easy to get lost in them.

That was his only thought in that moment.

“I...”

“Shh, no need to say it.” Xia Xinyan raised a hand and covered his mouth. There was a trace of charm in her expression, and a trace of suggestion. “No one ever said dating has to follow some fixed set of steps, right? If you want to try, then why not just skip the earlier steps? Don’t keep thinking about what’ll happen to me. Think about yourself a little too. Before anything else, everyone has to be responsible for themselves. Sometimes, if you think too much, you’ll miss out on a lot of good things.”