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Chapter 118 Work is Playing Games with Girlfriend

When Ling Mo returned, Xia Xinyan was sprawled on the sofa watching TV.

“I’m back.” Seeing her figure, a smile naturally crept onto his face.

Speaking of which, it seemed he rarely saw Xia Xinyan go to class.

But even if she didn’t attend classes, she wouldn’t have to worry at all in the future.

Ling Mo thought again about that game.

Perhaps… it was no longer necessary?

This overly fanciful guess left him with a strange expression.

Xia Xinyan tilted her head and glanced at him, then sat up on the sofa and assessed him up and down for a while. Suddenly, she asked seriously, “Mo Mo, did someone add you as a friend today?”

Although it was only noon and half the day had passed, Ling Mo had gone early in the morning, so time should have been enough, right?

Hearing her question, Ling Mo was taken aback: “What? Who wanted to add me?”

Xia Xinyan smiled slightly: “A girl, right? No one?”

With his handsome performance in the basketball match earlier, there had to be a bunch of girls wanting to add him as a friend, right?

Still playing dumb? Was he worried she would be unhappy if she found out?

Thinking of this, Xia Xinyan added, “You don’t have to worry about how I feel; I won’t interfere with your freedom to make friends. If a girl wants to add you, there’s no need to reject just to consider me.”

Ling Mo: “???”

The issue was, he really hadn’t been added by anyone.

Plenty of guys had been hinting if he could teach them basketball, though.

But he had refused because he didn’t have the time.

“Ahem… nobody wanted to add me as a friend,” he said as he sat down beside Xia Xinyan, smiling, “What’s wrong?”

Xia Xinyan paused.

Nobody wanted to add him as a friend?

That shouldn’t be the case.

Wasn’t he cool enough at that time?

Even she was almost swooning over him.

And there had been quite a few girls in the audience, too; she had checked the campus forum where the discussion was quite lively.

How could it be that no girls had noticed him?

Noticing her slightly strange expression, Ling Mo pondered for a few seconds and guessed part of her thoughts: “By the way, quite a few friends have been praising how amazing you were during the match. If they had time, they would want to ask us to teach them basketball.”

Xia Xinyan: “…”

Did she steal his thunder?

That shouldn’t be, she barely did anything during the finals, right?

She simply couldn’t figure out what the problem was.

However, it seemed Ling Mo wasn’t planning to elaborate on this matter and instead brought up something else: “I finished handling the credits this morning, so there probably won’t be much left to do in the future.”

Xia Xinyan tilted her head slightly and looked at him: “Are you looking for an internship?”

“Yeah, if I can find one, after providing the internship certificate, I can leave school and start working.” Ling Mo nodded.

Xia Xinyan thought for a moment and suddenly said, “Why don’t you come to my dad’s company? I’ll have them set up an internship position for you.”

Ling Mo paused: “…Can that work?”

Isn’t this just using a backdoor?

“Yeah,” Xia Xinyan explained her initial thought, “Getting an internship certificate isn’t a problem. At that time, you wouldn’t even need to go to work; just stay here and play games with me.”

Ling Mo went silent.

He felt this wasn’t just using a backdoor.

It felt like being kept.

So, could his job round down to playing games with his girlfriend?

—To be honest, if it were just an ordinary game, he might refuse.

He was a man, with his own principles; even if Xia Xinyan was his girlfriend, he wouldn’t choose to live off her.

He knew he didn’t match her qualifications, but he would work hard in his own way to earn a place beside her.

Even if he might never achieve it in this lifetime.

But “Realm of Divine Presence” wasn’t an ordinary game.

If his overly fanciful guess turned out to be true, he might have found a way to make himself worthy of Xia Xinyan in this lifetime.

No matter what, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

So, he agreed: “Okay.”

Seeing his quick agreement, Xia Xinyan was taken aback for a moment.

She knew Ling Mo had his own set of principles about men and self-respect, and because she was still like that now, when she thought of this method, she prepared many arguments to persuade Ling Mo to give up that silly stubbornness.

Yet, she didn’t use a single one.

Now, she began to doubt if this Ling Mo had been possessed.

Otherwise, why wasn’t he following the usual script?

Was he really just enamored by the idea of being supported by a rich girlfriend?

She couldn’t figure this out.

But Tianji understood.

Now, these two originally the same variable had diverged completely.

Ling Mo had never stopped growing, just like the initial Xia Xinyan.

But Xia Xinyan seemed to have gotten used to gauging Ling Mo’s thoughts based on her initial state—at the beginning, this way of gauging was quite accurate, but now, a significant change had occurred.

Unfortunately, she seemed not to have realized this problem.

Maybe it stemmed from the “future self” looking down on the “past self,” and it might take until one day when Ling Mo counterattacked Xia Xinyan for her to realize that her past self had long since become another future self.

But what did that have to do with Tianji?

Having a good relationship with the host and the host’s original self was a good thing for it.

“I heard they had a big update for the game yesterday.” Ling Mo smiled as he got up and walked toward the kitchen, “After lunch, do you want to go check it out together?”

Xia Xinyan stared at his back for a few seconds, then got up and followed: “Sure.”

If he was this enthusiastic, she was certainly willing.

“Realm of Divine Presence” was still presented as a game, so it had some game-like features, such as updates—essentially, just a way to boil frogs in warm water.

This update introduced the leaderboard and made minor tweaks to the dungeons, starting the first step of boiling frogs, igniting the fire.

There were also many miscellaneous content updates, mostly optimizations for the player community, which didn’t significantly affect the main gaming experience, so Xia Xinyan didn’t care much.

What she cared about was the leaderboard.

Only one leaderboard per country, a total of one hundred slots, ranked according to players’ overall strength comparison, which didn’t require players to battle against one another; instead, the game system simulated combat based on players’ strengths to determine rankings. Those who were dissatisfied with the result could challenge the ranking, and the winner would swap places with the loser.

All players who had ever been on the leaderboard would receive a permanent honor medal, also known as the “Show-Off Medal.” In the early stages when player tiers hadn’t stabilized, there was a great opportunity to make a splash and snag a medal, but as the rankings solidified later, it would just be the same hundred or so people rotating in and out.

Players on the leaderboard inevitably became the focus of attention. Although the effect wasn’t very obvious in the early stages due to various ranking rushes, they still needed to start preparing.

They were entering the next phase…