The jeep screeched across the underground garage beneath Arc City Tower, its tires dragging two long black streaks across the epoxy floor.
Before the vehicle had even come to a full stop, the passenger door was already shoved open.
Su Yu climbed out, reaching back to drag along Kiana, who was still sitting there in a daze.
The two of them practically jogged the whole way to the dedicated elevator that led straight to the top-floor studio, with Welt following behind, pushing up his glasses and marveling at just how much energy young people had.
The moment the elevator doors opened onto the top-floor corridor, the tension that always came with a game company right before a major announcement came flooding through the gap.
The hallway was full of staff hurrying back and forth with data tablets in their arms.
Su Yu could even spot Nuwa sporting two enormous dark circles under her eyes, half a piece of toast hanging from her mouth, bellowing something about lighting and rendering parameters at a modeling programmer.
Su Yu didn't dare linger in the corridor.
He pulled Kiana along, heading straight for the room at the far end marked "Exclusive Makeup Room — Preview Livestream."
The door had barely opened a crack.
"Oh, so you finally decided to show up!"
A rolled-up printed script.
Landed squarely on Su Yu's shoulder.
He didn't even need to look at her face.
Just from that voice — sweet yet unmistakably petulant, with that familiar upward lilt at the end — he knew exactly who it was.
Su Yu rubbed his shoulder and pushed the door fully open.
Elysia was standing in front of the makeup room's mirror.
She was wearing a custom-made pink gradient off-shoulder gown made specifically for today's livestream.
The fabric cinched tight at her waist, a few crossing strands of silver ribbon tracing out a waistline small enough to fit in one hand.
That stark visual contrast, paired with her chest rising and falling slightly with anger, radiated a lethal allure under the bright makeup room lights — the kind that made even breathing feel indulgent.
Miss Pink Elf stood there with both hands on her hips.
Those eyes, like they were brimming with spring water, were now full of accusation.
"Su Yu!"
The script in Elysia's hand waved through the air once more.
"Take a good look at the clock on the wall. Do you know what time it is right now?"
She took a step forward, her heels striking the carpet with a dull thud.
"Do you honestly think that as long as you come up with some fresh new excuse each time — the kind of nonsense that's obviously meant to fool little girls — you can just talk your way out of being late as the game director at a moment this critical?"
Elysia lifted her chin slightly, her eyes fixed squarely on Su Yu.
"Go on then. Miss Pink Elf is all ears right now! Let's hear what kind of fanciful excuse you're going to spin up to fool me this time!"
The makeup artists and assistants in the room had already sensed trouble brewing and slipped out the door with their water cups, pretending to get some air.
None of them dared cross the studio's top publicity director at a moment like this.
Su Yu stood in the doorway.
His expression instantly turned deadly serious.
The look on his face was the kind you'd expect from someone who had just gone off to save an entire galaxy — and failed.
He didn't answer Elysia's question directly.
Instead, he stepped to the side, pulling Kiana — who had been trailing behind him this whole time — right to the front.
"Ellie, hear me out first."
Su Yu slowed his speech, sounding utterly solemn.
"This one, honestly, I really can't take the blame for."
He held up two fingers and gave Kiana's back two light pokes.
"Isn't today the version preview livestream? Kiana's supposed to be up on stage with everyone else later."
Su Yu sighed, his tone dripping with the weariness of someone who'd been through a lot.
"This girl was so nervous last night about facing the entire player base today that she tossed and turned in bed like a pancake on a griddle, and didn't get a wink of sleep until way past midnight."
Su Yu spread both hands, his expression so innocent it could've won him an Oscar.
"And the result was that this morning she just passed out cold. No matter how I tried, I couldn't wake her up."
"So to let her rest a little longer and get her energy back, I had no choice but to brace myself for the scolding I knew was coming, and wait until she woke up on her own before dragging her over here."
He looked at Elysia, even managing to squeeze a bit of genuine-looking innocence into his eyes.
"That's the whole truth of it — if you want to blame someone, blame me for being too softhearted, sigh~"
Elysia, who had originally stood there with hands on hips, fired up and ready for battle.
After hearing Su Yu's flawless, utterly blame-shifting piece of sophistry —
Her expression went blank for a full second.
Then —
Those watery eyes turned toward Kiana, who was still standing there looking baffled.
The confrontational energy that had been building up in Elysia deflated all at once, like a popped balloon.
"Oh no..."
Elysia's tone did a complete one-eighty.
She walked straight past Su Yu, over to Kiana, and took hold of Kiana's still-stiff arm with both slender, pale hands.
"So it's because our adorable female lead got too nervous."
Elysia looked at Kiana, her eyes overflowing with a tenderness sweet enough to drown someone in.
"Well then, that's completely understandable! Getting nervous in front of that many people is only natural, and those dark circles definitely shouldn't be on camera."
She turned her head and shot Su Yu a sidelong glare.
"Fine! Since it was all for the sake of taking care of our Kiana, Miss Pink Elf will reluctantly forgive you, you unreliable producer, just this once."
Su Yu stood off to the side, watching Elysia pull off this god-tier lightning-fast mood swing.
He pressed his palms together and raised them above his head.
"My thanks to the merciful Miss Pink Elf. Your grace in sparing my life shall never be forgotten."
He lowered his hands, turned his head, and gave Kiana a thumbs-up.
The meaning was unmistakable: how's that for a slick way to dodge the blame, huh?
Kiana stared blankly at the thumb hovering in front of her face.
The corners of her mouth turned down.
Without a shred of mercy, right in front of Elysia, she rolled her eyes at Su Yu.
Nervous and unable to sleep, huh? Tossing and turning like a pancake, huh?
What did he mean, she barely slept!
Kiana scoffed inwardly.
As she saw it —
It was probably some smooth-talking liar who barely slept last night because he was busy with a certain black-hearted woman who liked wearing a black-and-white maid outfit.
The smell she'd caught on the collar of Su Yu's rumpled jacket in the hallway that morning was absolutely not laundry detergent residue!
That kind of scent only lingers when two people have been tangled up together for a long time, pressed close.
What exactly had this guy gone off and done last night? Could it be —
Kiana crossed her arms and retreated to the corner of the makeup room where a few potted plants sat.
Her gaze passed over Elysia, who was busy checking eyeshadow colors with the makeup artist, and landed on the back of the man now holding a paper cup, going to fetch coffee.
Her expression grew complicated. It wasn't as if this hadn't happened before — back then, she'd assumed Su Yu was only forced into certain "social obligations" for the sake of their studio.
But based on how Su Yu had been acting lately, Kiana quickly arrived at a conclusion — he'd absolutely gone off last night behind her back to do something dangerous with Rita.
Maybe he'd waited until she was fast asleep and then sneaked off to the training grounds for extra practice, or maybe he'd secretly taken some dangerous concoction again — and Rita definitely knew about it, and had probably been right there beside him!
Otherwise, why would he be carrying that scent — the kind that only clings to you after spending a long time in an enclosed space with someone — belonging to another woman?
He was absolutely capable of doing something like that. He'd always been like this. He was like this before, and he'd probably keep being like this.
Kiana turned her head away, refusing to look at that idiot's back any longer.
When they'd first met, he used to tell her whenever he went off to do anything.
But now, as the people they knew multiplied and their operation grew bigger and bigger, the secrets in his heart kept piling up too.
A bittersweet, hard-to-place ache spread through her chest.
Kiana walked over to the chair in front of the makeup mirror and sat down, arms crossed over her chest.
Setting aside those feelings she didn't even want to examine too closely herself —
Purely in terms of their bond, weren't she and Su Yu the best partners there could possibly be?
Weren't they the only female lead and producer in this whole world bound to each other?
But that idiot.
He always instinctively wrapped up the most dangerous, most life-threatening things and sealed them tight, never letting a single word slip.
Kiana clenched her teeth and sat there in silence, listening as Elysia directed the makeup artist to touch up her makeup beside her.
She knew that idiot was protecting her in his own way.
He didn't want her carrying the weight that was his to bear.
But still —
Being treated like something fragile, kept in the dark about everything, still made her feel awful.
"Squad Monitor."
Kiana closed her eyes and called out over the Spiritual Link's communication channel, her voice pitched so only Fenghuang could hear.
"Hm?" Fenghuang's voice quickly rose in her mind, calm and steady.
"That guy Su Yu." Kiana's voice sounded a little muffled. "He's no different with you either."
She continued speaking in her head.
"That guy is definitely hiding a lot of things from me. A whole lot."
Kiana paused.
"And I'm guessing a lot of those things, you already know. But you're not going to tell me, are you?"
Fenghuang was silent for a long moment.
"At least from what I can see right now," Fenghuang's voice rose again in Kiana's mind, "Su Yu isn't hiding much from you."
"Maybe," she added, "there are things he has that even I don't know about. But you already know — I can't just force my way into his memories without his permission."
Inside the makeup room —
Kiana, letting the makeup artist work on her face, snapped her closed eyes half open.
She'd caught the loophole in what Fenghuang had just said.
"'Not much,'" Kiana pressed inwardly. "So there IS something?"
"Uh..."
Fenghuang's voice hesitated — a rare occurrence.
She hadn't expected the always straightforward Kiana to have learned how to fish for information between the lines.
"Never mind."
Kiana didn't press further. She closed her eyes again.
"You and that idiot obviously have some kind of agreement you can't tell me about."
Her voice over the Spiritual Link sounded a little downcast.
"Fine, I don't want to put you in a tough spot, so I won't ask anymore."
She took a deep breath.
"But..."
There was something almost pleading in Kiana's voice.
"If that idiot ever runs into a problem he really can't solve on his own, or if he's about to go face something deadly and dangerous all by himself again —"
"You have to tell me. Promise me."
Fenghuang didn't answer.
The Spiritual Link fell into dead silence.
She hadn't agreed.
But she hadn't refused either.
Because this wasn't a question that could be answered with a simple yes or no.
Just as Rita had said the night before, in that sealed dormitory room, when she'd called out Su Yu's true intentions to his face.
Neither Rita nor Fenghuang, deep in the consciousness space, knew exactly what burden Su Yu carried, or what he was really planning.
But —
As Valkyries who had come from that cruel world,
they knew that feeling all too well.
The feeling of cutting off every possible retreat, settling every last affair, and then walking alone, sword in hand, into the Abyss.
His mind was indeed, little by little, tilting toward the direction of a resolve to die.
Exactly like those comrades of Fenghuang's who had once fought shoulder to shoulder with her, only to eventually fall on the battlefields of the Honkai.
For the sake of that grand cause called saving the world, for the sake of protecting the people they cared about, they burned themselves to ash without a moment's hesitation.
Fenghuang sighed.
In truth, this dangerous inclination had already taken root in Su Yu long, long ago.
Ever since he'd saved Kiana, Fenghuang had recognized it — something was wrong with him.
Badly wrong.
It was the kind of sickness that didn't interfere with his daily life — he was still that same producer who always joked around, cracked pointless jokes, and got chased around the room by an infuriated Kiana.
But whenever he was pushed to the very edge, that madness hidden beneath the surface would rise up.
The world isn't simply black and white, and neither are people — everyone has their own white, their own black, and that gray zone they aren't even aware of themselves.
Fenghuang closed her eyes.
Su Yu's transformation hadn't come out of nowhere.
This tendency had truly spiraled out of control, had grown steadily worse, ever since that incident at the abandoned factory — since he'd encountered Kevin inside the Spatial Rift.
Could it be that during that stretch of time when she herself had been rendered inaccessible, her consciousness thrown into turmoil by depleted energy —
something had happened to Su Yu that even she didn't know about?
Fenghuang badly wanted to know what exactly had happened to him.
But at this point —
she had to admit a simple fact: even to her, a companion who nearly shared consciousness with him, the current Su Yu wasn't a hundred percent "transparent."
She'd told Kiana just now that she didn't read Su Yu's memories.
That was partly out of respect for his privacy.
But more importantly, there was another reason — one she herself was reluctant to admit.
The current Yu Ducheng, severely weakened and depleted of energy,
stood no chance of forcing her way past the defenses of Su Yu's spiritual power — now grown to Tier 3, vast and deep as the ocean itself — to read the memories he had deliberately buried at the very bottom.
It was simply an impossible task now.
If Su Yu had made up his mind to hide something from her, then even Fenghuang, who had lived for fifty thousand years, wouldn't find a single trace of it.
Time slipped by little by little.
A chime sounded from the front, the director signaling the countdown was approaching.
Inside the makeup room —
The chaotic scene from moments ago had finally settled down.
Su Yu and Elysia sat together on the sofa in the corner, going over the final script rundown.
"You're planning to make everyone cry again, aren't you?"
Elysia looked at the few lines describing the next chapter's plot on the script, her brow furrowing.
She held the stack of papers, glaring indignantly at the man sitting across from her.
"You wicked, sadistic producer!"
Su Yu, holding a bottle of mineral water, twisted the cap off and took a sip.
He looked at Elysia's righteously furious expression without a hint of guilt on his face.
"How is this deceiving anyone?" Su Yu retorted with utter seriousness, his voice steady, without a single ripple. "This is called openly and rightfully stealing the show."
He set the water bottle down and leaned back against the sofa.
"Oh, that's rich!"
Elysia slammed the script down hard onto the coffee table.
"So now you won't even bother pretending to feel guilty!"
She pointed at him, her voice trembling slightly from agitation.
"When Chapter 8 updated last time, you turned me into your accomplice!"
"Do you know how I stood there, in front of millions of livestream viewers, solemnly promising them that Teacher Himeko would absolutely be fine?"
There was even a glint of tears in Elysia's eyes.
"And what happened?"
"You turned right around and stabbed us all with that Final Lesson short film!"
Just remembering the wailing and cursing that filled the livestream chat that night made her feel suffocated all over again.
"Do you know how hard I cried, sitting in front of my screen watching that animated short?"
Elysia took a deep breath, glaring at him through gritted teeth.
"Su Yu, you absolute villain, you don't have a heart at all!"
Su Yu didn't look away from her gaze.
He listened quietly until she finished.
Once her emotions had settled a bit, he finally spoke, slowly.
"Ellie."
Su Yu's voice grew deep.
"A classic hero's journey."
"A mentor-like figure, at the final crucial moment, chooses to burn themselves out to awaken the protagonist who's lost their way. And then passes their will down to them, without holding anything back."
Su Yu's tone stayed calm, as if he were simply stating an obvious truth.
"Isn't that a perfectly normal plot development?"
He leaned toward her slightly.
"After all, didn't I say clearly, from the very first day this project was greenlit?"
"This is a story about growth, and about legacy."
Su Yu looked into Elysia's eyes.
"You tell me — all those classic manga and novels you love reading, don't they all play out exactly like this?"
The air in the makeup room seemed to freeze for a moment.
Elysia was stunned speechless by his airtight little theory.
"Uh..."
She opened her mouth.
Running rapidly through the plots of all those classic anime in her head, she found that — yeah, that actually did check out.
But she quickly caught herself.
"You're trying to twist my logic again, aren't you!"
Elysia sprang up from the sofa, pointing right at Su Yu's nose.
"You scheming, wicked man! Nice sleight of hand with the concepts there!"
"What I'm talking to you about right now isn't whether some classic hero-journey plot makes sense or not!"
"What I'm talking about is you deliberately inviting Teacher Himeko to make a cameo on the livestream, and swearing up and down to me that the rest of the story was definitely heading toward a happy ending!"
Su Yu looked at Miss Pink Elf, who was standing in front of him, stomping her feet in fury.
He reached up and rubbed his temples, letting out a long sigh.
"Ellie."
Su Yu raised his head, his gaze looking utterly sincere.
"You know what?"
He said it slowly, word by word.
"A happy ending in the afterlife is still a happy ending!"
The makeup room fell into dead silence.
Two seconds later.
A scream loud enough to nearly blow the roof off erupted from Elysia's throat.
"Su Yuuuuu—!!!"
The sheer fury packed into that scream made even Kiana, sitting nearby getting her final touch-ups done, flinch and shrink her neck down.
Sitting quietly in the corner of the makeup room this whole time, holding his thermos, Welt watched the whole scene unfold. He pushed up the glasses on his nose and shook his head helplessly.
He watched the man now being chased around by an enraged Elysia.
And the girl who, despite the cursing coming out of her mouth, had not a trace of real malice in her eyes.
Young people really did have boundless energy.
Welt lowered his head, looking at the wisps of steam rising from his cup of goji berry tea, and let out a very quiet sigh.
There was nothing to be done about it.
He understood better than anyone what lay hidden behind this seemingly carefree chaos.
All of this was the price Su Yu had to pay for a world doomed to face an apocalypse.
Only by resorting to methods this close to ruthless — harvesting the Emotion Points of unsuspecting players — could he exchange them for the equipment and technology capable of saving the world.
Only that way could he ultimately buy this wretched world one slim, fragile chance at survival.
So Su Yu must be doing this reluctantly, right?
He surely wasn't doing something this universally reviled just because he personally enjoyed dishing out heartbreak, right?
Surely that was the case.
It had to be...
Welt watched Su Yu, arms over his head as he fled from Elysia's pursuit, still stubbornly arguing back the whole way.
Right? Right...?
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