Li Qingge is a useless beauty NPC in an unlimited escape game. She strictly follows an eight-hour workday, and her daily job is to play a beautiful but useless quest-giving NPC in each instance.
One day at work, just as it was almost time to clock out, the big shots threw a wrench into the main System's balancing task, leaving the player death count below the requirement. She was temporarily ordered to handle things, and gave one of the big shots in the instance a terrible trap. Little did she know this would be the start of her tragic downfall...
In the instance where she encounters the big shot again, he uses an item to bind her completely, then forcibly takes her out of the instance and into a supposedly most dangerous, brand-new instance beyond the main System's control.
To make matters worse, she's completely cut off from the main System, and every attempt to escape fails...
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Qi Mubai is the real young master, deliberately swapped at birth. After being found again, he's sent into instances to complete missions and obtain resources for his family, in place of the fake young master, who is actually the illegitimate son. But he doesn't care. Once he has the power, he destroys the entire world.
With everything he could want already in hand, the only way he can get the slightest thrill is by repeatedly running instances, until he sets his sights on a female NPC in one of them.
She's beautiful and delicate, wearing a traditional Chinese bridal gown in a folk-horror instance. She looks just like the beautiful woman in an ancient painting Qi Mubai once saw in his family's museum.
For the first time, he feels a desire to possess someone. But what can he do? She's only an NPC, and he has no reason to take her.
He keeps entering instances just to see her a few more times. Finally, she makes a move against him in one of them.
Qi Mubai (smiling): Great, now I have a reason to take her away.
Reading notes:
1. Same setting as I Became a Hit Across the Internet Through Livestreaming an Escape Game. The heroine is a well-connected NPC, and the instances are mildly scary.
2. This is not a female-led power fantasy. The heroine is a stunning beauty who perfectly fits traditional Chinese aesthetics, and the male lead is a genuine madman.
3. Includes imprisonment, as the author was under too much pressure and let loose, but it's a sweet romance.
Theme: Love can save everything.
