Pro Gamer, Part-Time Online Lover [Full-Dive]

[Complete / All bonus chapters are gifts / Bonus chapters being uploaded / The final chapter has been heavily revised, so please reread it!] [Next book: I Act Every Day After Being Selected / Thank you, everyone] After winning the esports Grand Slam, Ye Qiubai retired due to a hand injury. He woke up inside a full-dive novel, where he had the misfortune of taking over the identity of a cross-dressing online dating scammer who owed tens of millions. Unable to stomach the original owner's scams, he logged on that very night to break up with the victim and try to make amends. Instead, the other person sent him a “?” [Special Follow]: You're overthinking it. Nobody's dating you. Then a contract arrived: a three-month online relationship, by agreement. The whole thing was about money, not feelings. It turned out he'd entered the novel too early. The original owner hadn't had a chance to scam anyone yet. Looking at the debt-ridden account, Ye Qiubai decided to work for his boss. Gu Che was arrogant and flamboyant, and cared about nothing but being number one in his career. To unlock the hidden ending of a co-op dungeon, he hired a pretty vase partner with an S+ looks rating, as required by the hidden conditions. On the first day of their contractual online relationship, Gu Che laid down the rules: “Money only, no feelings. Don't make the relationship public, and don't bother me unless you have to.” Later, he discovered that his partner's gameplay rating was nowhere near the D- listed on his initial profile. That was fine. He could pay extra for better skills. The real problem was... he was hooked. Gu Che: ...Every day, I'm waiting for this stupid contract to expire. * In the full-dive era, the virtual exploration game Divine Relic took the Star Network by storm. A new map was about to launch, and the clues and rewards released ahead of time had the two major factions fighting tooth and nail. The big shots on both sides were trying to clear the hidden ending of the co-op dungeon. One entered a fake marriage, the other kept his marriage secret. Rumor had it the secret-marriage big shot's partner had an S+ looks rating, but he never brought him out in public. Even in large-scale team dungeons, he made his partner wear a mask so nobody could get a good look. Possessiveness off the charts. What a tyrant. -- Later, as the two factions battled fiercely for supremacy, first clear of the new map was snatched away by a talented player who'd only recently joined the game. That genius player had a special hidden class. He appeared in public wearing a black-and-white mask that showed only the lower half of his face and his beautifully shaped lips, leaving everyone wondering what he looked like. Everyone was curious: between the genius player and the secret-marriage big shot's partner, both of whom wore masks, who was better-looking? The topic stayed at the top of the game's forums. The genius player's fans campaigned for him with astonishing fervor. On the day the forum erupted into a battle, nobody expected the secret-marriage big shot himself to jump in: [All Night]: Get lost. [All Night]: The one who got first clear on the new map is my wife. Premise: 1. Beautiful and skilled / good-tempered and quiet / conscientious carry-for-hire (wife) bottom x flamboyant and arrogant / ranked number one / image-conscious / falls hard top. 2. The game draws on online games and plenty of my own headcanon, with both Western fantasy and Chinese-inspired styles. (I couldn't choose, so I'm having both.) 3. The bottom switches between female and male avatars in the game. 4. My style gives the plot and romance equal weight. They'll pursue their careers as they fall in love. The feelings are mutual, and neither loves the other any less. Readers who are particular about which character they support should proceed with caution. 5. Please enjoy the story civilly. Personal attacks and fighting in the comments are not allowed. The next book, now available to pre-save: I Act Every Day After Being Selected [Infinite]. Visit my author page to add it to your collection! [Preview blurb:] Chu Ming is an NPC in an Infinite game, employed in a special card-drawing pool. To let himself slack off indefinitely, Chu Ming introduced a few bugs: 1. An insanely, insanely, insanely low probability Hell card, with a character whose starting stats are crippled. 2. Forced nesting: a card inside a card inside a card, with the prerequisite that players first draw his other exclusive cards. Looking at his impenetrable card-drawing firewall, Chu Ming went to bed satisfied. But then a flash of black light streaked across the sky, and he was unexpectedly drawn out of the card pool! The player had drawn the whole set, so he got every card exclusive to Chu Ming. Chu Ming: ...Let me say, thank you. * Top Ten leaderboard powerhouse Chi Ye cleared an extremely difficult hidden stage and livestreamed his reward draw for the whole internet. In full view of everyone, he pulled an intense black light from a card pool with a 99% rarity rate. Chi Ye: What a laugh. The online crowd started betting: Was Brother Chi going to kill this trash NPC card outright? Its negative stats seemed to go on forever. But Chi Ye approached the card pool and said lazily, “Never raised a piece of trash before. Can you walk? Want me to carry you out of the pool?” Inside the card pool, the shabby boy covered in debuffs looked up and reached out to him. “I do.” The online crowd: Holy crap! This is mutual pining, a sweet romance! * There are two ways for a card-pool NPC to return to the pool: die and respawn there, or be sent back voluntarily by the cardholder. Chu Ming absolutely refused to find out what dying felt like, so he decided to fight fire with fire and keep acting like a piece of trash, hoping Chi Ye would give up and send him home as soon as possible. But his slacker plan didn't even last through one dungeon before he got separated from Chi Ye by accident. Surrounded by monsters, the players with him wanted to throw him to the creatures to buy themselves time. Chu Ming threw off the covers himself: So you love interrupting people's sleep? You love being a pain? Good. That mutt Chi isn't here, so I'm done pretending. I've held it in since we entered this stage. Now I can finally kill you all! Afterward, Chi Ye hurried over. Chu Ming immediately made an Oscar-worthy dramatic fall and pretended to be dead among the monsters' corpses. “Looks like I got here too late.” -“Yeah. One moment later and I'd have died back into the card pool.” “Should I carry you out this time, too?” -“Of course, my dear big brother.” Premise: 1. Pretends to be a worthless slacker waiting to be fed, but is really an excellent actor with a surprising other side. Anyone who disturbs his peaceful life dies, with one exception / unconventional beautiful, strong, tragic bottom x laid-back, composed, secretly ruthless, masterful, caretaker top. 2. My take on Infinite, with both romance and plot. From two-sided acting to mutual devotion. Theme: Stay true to your original aspirations, and the world will remember your kindness.