At his desk, Su Yu's fingers rattled across the mechanical keyboard in a rapid, staccato clatter.
Dozens of windows were open on the screen, colorful streams of data cascading downward like waterfalls.
On the server monitoring charts for Honkai Impact 3rd, across every region, the curves representing concurrent online players and discussion heat were already climbing skyward at a nearly vertical angle.
Su Yu quickly switched to another monitor.
It was playing Sparkle's livestream.
The white-haired, twin-tailed "tsundere brat" was shamelessly mocking the players in the danmaku who were wailing for their parents.
He wasn't about to miss an opportunity like this.
With a flick of the mouse, he smoothly switched to his alternate account under the ID "Moonlit Sea's Roaring Fishy Cat." He sent an SC first, then quickly typed into the livestream's danmaku box:
"Am I the only one who thinks this plot is way too cruel? Couldn't they at least give Kiana a good ending? miHoYo has no heart!"
Within three seconds of posting, the comment was buried under a flood of replies.
"Plus one! Boycott the old scoundrel!"
"Bro, is this your first day knowing Su Yu? If he had a heart, the sun over Arc City would rise in the west."
"Weren't you all saying he was generous during the preview stream? Why don't you trust him anymore?"
"Having a conscience and having a heart are two different things!"
Su Yu watched the words scrolling past at breakneck speed, dripping with resentment and indignation, and the smile on his face nearly broke free.
This wave—this wave is me driving my own hype, and you tell me, are you keeping up or not, huh? Keeping up or not!
On the other side of his desk sat a second tablet.
On its screen, Elysia was sitting in her pink-toned streaming room.
She was dressed today in a fuzzy set of loungewear, holding a pink inflatable hammer, the corners of her eyes still faintly reddened.
"So, here's the thing," she said.
She sighed at the camera, absently thumping the inflatable hammer against the desk, letting out a wheezy "phhht-phhht" sound each time.
"After we wrapped Extreme Treasure Hunt, I went to protest to him. I asked, how could you be so cruel to those adorable girls?"
She paused, leaning close to the camera and dropping her voice, as if sharing an intimate secret with several million people.
"Guess what he did? He actually pulled out a planning document full of heartbreak plot points and showed it to me. I couldn't hold back—I grabbed this air hammer and chased him around the office three whole laps. He runs fast, let me tell you, like he was fleeing for his life!"
The danmaku instantly filled with "HAHAHA" and "well done."
"As long as you're beating up old scoundrel Su Yu, we'll be your loyal Aimen for life!"
"Aimen! Please hit harder, maybe switch to an iron hammer!"
"No, no, no, kid, beat him half to death and that's enough—he still needs to come back and make the game!"
"If you actually kill my Brother Su, who's going to give me my Honkai Impact 3rd fix?"
Su Yu watched the screen fill with flying virtual gifts and increasingly fervent calls for justice, and his gaze silently shifted to the translucent light-panel only he could see, deep in his retina.
On the System panel, the progress bar for the Main Mission [MQ.I_Honkai Impact 3rd: Not Playing Isn't Being Skyvault] was ticking upward at a terrifying speed.
Complex emotions contributed by millions of players across the whole network—love, anger, regret, longing all tangled together—were being continuously extracted and refined by the System, transformed into rivers of golden light.
These Emotion Points were not only charging the pocket watch that would bring Kiana back to the Honkai world, they were also flowing into the progress bar of the mission called Saving Private Himeko.
The number jumped past 34%.
It settled steadily at 35.1%.
And it kept climbing at a visible pace, the decimal digits still tumbling forward.
Su Yu leaned back in his swivel chair, staring at the number, his Adam's apple bobbing once.
His face, ordinarily nearly expressionless, now had the muscles on both cheeks pulling upward against his will.
The bloodshot lines in his eyes, earned from days of overtime, were replaced by an almost fanatical glow.
He grinned.
A row of white teeth showed.
It was a textbook, unmistakable "villain's evil smile"—the kind qualified to play the final boss in any anime.
Kekekeke!
"Su Yu."
A muffled voice suddenly came from beside him.
Kiana sat cross-legged on the low cabinet next to him.
She was cradling a paper box holding strawberry daifuku just delivered from the fancy dessert shop downstairs.
Her cheeks were puffed out like a hamster's, a speck of white rice flour still clinging to the corner of her mouth.
Kiana swallowed what was in her mouth, tucked the remaining half of the daifuku back into the box, grabbed a tissue, and wiped her mouth carelessly. She stared at Su Yu for two seconds, then said bluntly.
"I really feel like your smile right now is super evil." She pointed at his face. "That kind of... villain who just snatched a kid's lollipop and stuffed the wrapper down the back of their collar."
Su Yu turned his head. The smile on his face didn't retreat—if anything, it widened a little now that he'd been called out.
"Kiana, you don't get it, you don't get it~ This isn't a villain's smile, this is hope."
He withdrew his hand, propped his elbow on the armrest, leaned forward slightly, and looked into Kiana's eyes.
"Don't you remember why I've been killing myself writing heartbreak scenes, rushing headlong to get flamed by the entire internet?"
Kiana's breath caught instantly.
Of course she knew why Su Yu was doing this.
That name pressed on her heart like a red-hot brand, scorching her nerves every single night.
—Murata Himeko.
The teacher she dreamed of seeing again.
When she heard Su Yu report the number "thirty-five"—
"Thir... thirty-five?"
Kiana's eyes went wide, her face full of disbelief.
"You mean..." she stammered, "another sixty-five percent, and she..."
"And she'll come back." Su Yu finished the sentence for her.
The office fell unusually silent.
Only the faint hum of the computer's cooling fan filled the air.
Kiana stood there, her fingers opening and clenching, as if she needed a moment to settle her feelings.
After a while, Kiana turned around.
Her eyes were badly reddened, but no tears fell.
She sniffled, walked over to the low cabinet where the daifuku had been sitting, picked up the remaining half from the box, stuffed the whole thing into her mouth, and chewed forcefully.
She chewed so hard her jaw ached.
She swallowed it down, took a deep breath, and clapped her hands together with a sharp "crack."
She began working her facial muscles.
One eyebrow arched high, the other low, the corners of her mouth wrenched wide, her eyelids drooping unnaturally, trying to force out an "evil" glare.
But she was simply no good at playing the villain.
That naturally clear-eyed, guileless face, forced into such an expression, looked like a plush kitten cosplaying as a bully—not evil in the slightest, just awkward and hilarious.
The smile wasn't villainous at all. If anything, it was almost unbearably cute.
"What are you doing?"
"For Teacher Himeko, to gather more Emotion Points. I'm going to smile like this from now on too! You shouldn't have to carry this blame alone!"
Su Yu looked at her face, faintly flushed from effort, the muscles around her eyes twitching now and then, and fell silent.
He stayed silent for a full two seconds.
Then, through gritted teeth, he forced out one syllable.
"..."
It was the same face, the same body—when Sirin played the villain, she nailed it perfectly. Well, of course, she was actually a villain.
But on Kiana, even wearing the exact same Herrscher of the Void outfit, it looked like—well—like a clear-eyed, guileless Paramecium.
"Doesn't it look right?"
Kiana rubbed her aching cheeks, still trying to hold the strange expression.
"It looks right," Su Yu nodded. He didn't call out the childishness of it—instead, he suddenly felt an odd sense of ease.
If they were going to play villains, they might as well commit to the mood!
He swiveled his chair around to sit side by side with Kiana.
Then he picked the standard villain's smirk back up.
"Play along," Su Yu said quietly.
Kiana immediately caught on.
She hung that awkward expression back on her face.
The two of them faced the empty boss's desk side by side.
"Kekekeke."
Su Yu let out a textbook third-rate villain's laugh.
"Ke-ke-ke... ke."
Kiana's voice trembled a little, still carrying traces of unswallowed daifuku.
"Kekekekeke!"
"Kekekekeke..."
It reached a level where even the fictional fire-loving connoisseur Xiao Yan would've suggested treating it to some fire lotus hotpot.
That was when the office's wooden door swung open without any warning.
"Su Yu! Kiana—"
Theresa stood in the doorway.
In her hand was a thick hardcover copy of King of Fairy Tales, rolled up into a tube like a weapon.
Her sentence caught dead in her throat.
Her blue eyes went wide, her gaze sweeping back and forth between Su Yu and Kiana.
The two of them sat shoulder to shoulder, staring at a blank white wall, wearing an unnervingly identical smile.
Their mouths were even chanting "kekekeke" in perfect unison.
Theresa's scalp prickled with a jolt.
"Are you two possessed?!"
She shouted, her short legs pumping fast as she charged straight at Su Yu.
"Feel the power of Auntie's physical exorcism! I used to be a nun of the Schicksal Church, you know! Begone, evil spirits! Amen!"
The rolled-up King of Fairy Tales whistled through the air and landed square on Su Yu's forehead.
The blow sent Su Yu rocking backward, spinning his office chair halfway around.
He clutched his forehead, wincing in pain.
"What kind of physical exorcism is this?" Su Yu glared at her irritably. "Are you a berserker nun or something?"
Kiana, startled, immediately dropped the expression from her face and covered her head with both hands, terrified she'd be Theresa's next target.
"Obviously!" Theresa panted. "That laugh you two were doing just now gave me full-body goosebumps! If I hadn't reacted fast enough, this office would have two demons left in it! Wretched demons, get out of Su Yu and Kiana this instant!!"
"We were just playing a game," Su Yu explained.
"A game?" Theresa eyed him suspiciously.
"Yeah, whoever laughs more evilly wins, and the winner gets to decide what we eat tonight," Su Yu improvised.
Theresa froze.
She looked at Su Yu, then at Kiana, who was clearly acting guilty.
"A contest for... the most evil laugh?"
She stepped back, her face full of disdain.
"Are you two little kids? Only a three-year-old would play a game like that, and you were both so into it?"
The moment the words left her mouth, her brain suddenly kicked into overdrive.
Wait.
What kind of person was Su Yu?
Arc City's most talented game designer, the man who single-handedly built the phenomenal IP that was Honkai Impact 3rd, personally named by her own grandfather as his "most outstanding student," and Kiana's primary psychiatrist besides.
Would someone like that really waste his time playing "whoever laughs more evilly" in his own office out of boredom?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible!
There had to be a deeper reason behind this. Su Yu must have had some purpose in mind!
That's it!
Lately, Kiana had been under so much pressure.
Every day she had to do motion capture, deal with all the online chatter about the game—and though her mental state kept improving day by day, it was only treating the symptoms, not the root cause.
And that ridiculous "villain roleplay" Su Yu had just done—that was actually a brilliant form of desensitization therapy!!
Through roleplay, through exaggerated and irrational behavior, he was releasing her pent-up tension.
Using an almost childish method, breaking through the tight defenses around Kiana's frayed nerves.
What a thoughtful plan!
What profound care!
And here she'd just hit him over the head with a book and called him childish for it.
She'd misunderstood his careful intentions all over again!
At the thought, Theresa's eyes reddened, a glint of gratitude and resolve rising in them.
She took a deep breath and made a monumental decision.
Under the baffled stares of Su Yu and Kiana, who had no idea what was happening, Theresa stepped forward.
She reached out her small hand and slapped the desk hard.
"Count me in!" she declared with a solemn expression.
"Huh?" Su Yu thought he'd misheard.
Theresa ignored his surprise.
She turned and stood shoulder to shoulder with Kiana.
She strained to raise her short little chin, mimicking what Kiana had just done, and forced out a stiff, awkward smile.
"Magic Girl Teriri is unbeatable at playing villains too!" she declared loudly.
Then she opened her mouth.
"Kekekeke..."
Now it was Su Yu and Kiana's turn to freeze solid.
But it was a contagious disease.
Watching Theresa try so hard to be evil while still looking like a fluffy white dumpling, Su Yu couldn't help himself and started laughing along again.
Seeing this, Kiana jumped right back into the fray too.
In the office, the "kekekeke" laughter grew to three voices.
Rising and falling in turn, forming a bizarre duet—no, a trio.
Five minutes later.
Nuwa hurried up to Su Yu's office door, clutching a stack of freshly printed art-asset reports.
"Su Yu, about the texture maps for the new Chapter 11 scene—"
As she spoke, she pushed the office door open.
Her voice cut off abruptly.
Nuwa stood frozen in the doorway.
Behind the desk, Su Yu, Kiana, and Theresa stood in a perfectly neat row.
Hearing the door open, all three turned their heads at the same time to look at Nuwa in the doorway.
The light fell across their faces.
On all three faces was a perfectly synchronized "evil villain smile."
Six eyes stared straight at her.
And all three of them, in unison, let out:
"Kekekeke!"
Nuwa's pupils dilated to twice their size.
She felt like the blood in her whole body flowed backward in that instant.
Her mind went blank, her hands and feet went cold.
What kind of bizarre ritual was this!?
"Bang!"
She yanked the door shut violently, the sound thundering through the hallway.
It was loud enough to shake dust loose from the door frame.
Nuwa staggered back three steps, not even bothering to pick up the reports she'd dropped, and turned to sprint away.
"Hey, hey, hey! Fuxi! Fuxi, where are you?!"
"This is bad! This is really bad! The boss has lost it! They've all lost it! Our miHoYo Studio has turned into a den of madness!! Help me! I quit!!!"
The commotion faded further and further down the hallway.
Inside the office, the three of them stayed frozen mid-turn, staring at each other.
Theresa was the first to rub her stiff, aching facial muscles.
"Um, did we scare her?"
Su Yu dropped the smile, looked expressionlessly at the poster scattered on the floor, then turned his gaze back to the progress bar steadily climbing on his computer screen.
"No," he said. "That was the most normal instinctive reaction any competent employee would have when confronted with corporate culture they couldn't possibly comprehend."
Kiana pulled another daifuku out of the box and took a big bite.
"So, what are we eating tonight?" she asked, mouth full.
"Right," Su Yu sighed. "What should we eat?"
Nuwa's screaming drifted far down the hallway outside the office.
"Oh, right, I just remembered I've got something to take care of, so I'll head out now, haha, haha~~"
Without even finishing a proper goodbye, Theresa pulled the office door open and bolted.
Her flustered footsteps could still be heard down the hallway, along with her voice—
"Nuwa, let me explain~"
Seems like Teriri really does care about her idol image.
The spacious office now held only Su Yu and Kiana.
Just as Su Yu was about to make a joke about Auntie's social death, the Bluetooth earpiece resting on the edge of his desk suddenly buzzed.
The red indicator light flashed twice in quick succession—the special frequency of the Anti-Entropy hotline.
Su Yu dropped the lazy expression on his face and picked up the earpiece, putting it on.
"Su Yu, based on the spatial curvature readings, just like you predicted earlier, a Spatial Rift is about to appear again."
Welt's voice came through the earpiece.
There was noise in the background on his end—the rapid clatter of keyboards, and Tesla shouting instructions at people moving equipment.
"We can now almost confirm that the appearance of Spatial Rifts is nearly synchronized with new updates of Honkai Impact 3rd. Your guess was correct."
Su Yu had already vaguely suspected before that the timing of Spatial Rift appearances was likely tied to major events happening with Honkai Impact 3rd.
The previous rifts had all appeared when Honkai Impact 3rd trended and blew up, when players produced a massive surge of Emotion Points.
And now, the anomaly in the spatial curvature had finally confirmed that theory.
A massive surge of emotional willpower was gathering in this peaceful world, which contained no Honkai energy whatsoever, and the violent energy fluctuations had torn through the already-thinning membrane between worlds.
And so the Spatial Rift had appeared.
Someone had once suggested—if that's the case, why not just stop making the game? But the System had mercilessly revealed the truth: even without the game, the Honkai would come regardless.
This world couldn't escape the Honkai's grasp no matter what. Not making the game meant certain death; making the game at least left a fighting chance to resist.
Su Yu was quiet for a moment.
Even though the Honkai energy detector hadn't yet pinpointed the exact location of the rift, preparing in advance was necessary.
"Copy that." Su Yu tapped the microphone.
He stood up, his gaze passing over the wide desk to land on the surveillance screen that took up half the wall.
The screen was split into several feeds.
In Sparkle's livestream, the danmaku had gone completely feral.
"Old hack Su, get out here and face death! Give me back Teacher Himeko!"
"The entire planning team has no heart!"
"Su Yu, RIP!! Su Yu, RIP!! Su Yu, RIP!!"
The screen was blanketed so thick with these "condolences" that they nearly obscured the gameplay footage itself.
Looking at these messages that seemed eager to eat him alive, Su Yu, far from getting angry, felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward uncontrollably.
"Looks like it's time for us to head out, Kiana."
Su Yu grabbed the black trench coat draped over the back of his chair and swept it on with a practiced motion.
"On the surface, the whole internet's most reviled old scoundrel Su Yu—underneath it all, a dark-knight hero secretly protecting the world?"
He tucked both hands into his coat pockets, staring at the furious danmaku scrolling across the screen.
"I like this setup. It's got a real ring to it."
Su Yu walked over to the desk and casually picked up the car keys sitting there.
"For my adorable players to see the sun rise tomorrow, for them to keep typing 'Su Yu, RIP!' on their keyboards—looks like we're pulling overtime again, Kiana."
The room fell unusually quiet.
Su Yu turned his head.
Kiana was looking at him with an indescribable expression.
It was the look you'd give a pervert.
Just as Su Yu was considering whether to haul the girl up off the couch, Kiana finally spoke.
She stayed silent for a while, swallowing hard first.
"Su Yu..." her voice was small, laced with plenty of hesitation and a hint of unmistakable disgust, "getting cursed out and finding it this funny—you don't have some weird kink, do you?"
Su Yu stood where he was, looking at her.
Two seconds later, he strode over and, before Kiana could react, reached out and gave the little tuft of hair sticking up from the back of her head a firm ruffle.
"If you've got that much spare time to worry about my kinks, you'd be better off grabbing your precious twin guns and waiting for me in the parking lot."
He pointed to the black duffel bag in the corner, packed with the high-frequency oscillation weapons Anti-Entropy had just delivered.
"We leave in ten minutes. Be late and I'm docking your midnight snack for today."
Kiana, clutching her head, bounced up off the couch. The moment she heard "docking her snack," she shot toward the duffel bag in the corner like her pants were on fire.
"Capitalist! Ruthless exploiter! Filthy landlord!"
She wound the bag's strap around her shoulder twice while grumbling under her breath.
"Okay, okay, stop, I won't dock it, happy now? At this rate I'll run out of room on my head for all these labels you keep slapping on me!"
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