Dating Games in the Cultivation World Are So Hard

BG: A story about a gamer girl who thinks she’s an easygoing, no-drama sort of person, yet unwittingly drives a charming, quick-witted fox of a man to despair and turns him into a resentful husband. The Misty Rain Pavilion is the top intelligence network in the cultivation world. Its pavilion master is a consummate charmer who can read the world and calculate its every move while chatting and laughing. His schemes are unfathomably deep. Any cultivator who tries to get the better of him ends up stamping their feet and cursing him as a cunning old fox. But Ling Li, a low-ranking disciple of the Misty Rain Pavilion, merely whistles at the sight of him and gives him a thumbs-up. “Super handsome!” Ling Li transmigrated here, and for some inexplicable reason, she also got a dating-game System that lets her see the affection ratings above people’s heads. She never planned to use it to turn the cultivation world upside down. She found herself a spot in the Misty Rain Pavilion, lounged in the sun, and slacked off. Life couldn’t have been more pleasant. That is, until one day she went fishing in a forbidden area and reeled in the injured pavilion master. Thanks to the System, Chu Yanqiu looked to her like a rare NPC with a beautifully rendered character portrait. The player praised him. The player fell in love at first sight. The player was itching to make a move. But Chu Yanqiu was not only handsome; his temperament was also impossible to read. After a game of cat and mouse with the pavilion master, Ling Li finally maxed out his affection rating. Even so, whenever she teased him, he always parried with ease, keeping her at arm’s length. Her love meter remained at zero, while the pavilion master continued smiling and chatting among the crowd, entirely unaffected. Damn it, even the most laid-back player had her limits! With a cold laugh, she used a System item to force his love meter to the max. For a while, the two of them were blissfully wrapped up in their fake love. But Chu Yanqiu soon realized that something was wrong with him. His love meter stayed twistedly, impossibly full, while his affection rating dropped day by day. After their cloying kisses, Chu Yanqiu would sometimes mutter, “I hate you.” He would tighten a strand of hair around both their necks, almost imperceptibly. He would gag and call her disgusting, then reach out to take her hand. He would smile and ask Ling Li if she enjoyed playing with him. Ling Li actually thought it was pretty fun. Until one day, on a day just like any other, she touched Chu Yanqiu’s face and a thought suddenly came to her. She was starting to get bored. Chu Yanqiu had no idea what she was thinking. He only gazed at Ling Li with smiling eyes and demanded to know when this farce would end. Ling Li glanced at the affection rating above his head, which was about to turn negative, and seemed to come to her senses. Had his affection dropped so much because she really had gone too far? So Ling Li scratched her head, thought for a moment, then gave an awkward little laugh. Looking slightly embarrassed, she said to Chu Yanqiu, “...Then let’s end it now.” She said it as casually as if she were deciding what to eat, light as a joke. Even long afterward, Chu Yanqiu still felt that day had been like some bizarre nightmare. Ling Li fed Chu Yanqiu another System item, restoring his fake love meter to its former level. As though nothing had ever happened between them, she stretched with relief and left. She didn’t know the item wouldn’t erase his memories. Perhaps even if she had known, she wouldn’t have cared. Players didn’t care about such things. But Chu Yanqiu, caught between this false love and his real memories, felt as if he were going insane. He didn’t even know what had happened that day. His resentment, his anger, and even that utterly absurd love, every confused, blurred emotion Ling Li had awakened in him, had all been forcibly brought to an abrupt end that day. To Chu Yanqiu, every relationship in this world came down to calculation. Everything followed the same few rules, and yet he had never encountered anyone like Ling Li. She shouldn’t be allowed to do this... The main couple are each other’s only partners. Not a strong female lead or a girlboss story. The romance takes up a large part of the book. At heart, this is a self-indulgent story about a couple who will fall in love. If you dislike either lead’s personality, this may not be for you. Theme: Learning to grow