After Spending Money on In-Game Purchases, I Discovered my Girlfriend was a Real Person - Chapter 2

The city’s neon lights streaked past the window of the high-speed maglev train, transforming into flowing ribbons of color that blurred the world outside.

Sui Zhenxing leaned against the cool glass and watched her reflection, which appeared slightly distorted in the vibration of the train. The well-behaved facade she so carefully maintained finally relaxed in her solitude, leaving behind nothing but exhaustion.

The train glided silently forward. Upon reaching her station, Sui Zhenxing followed the sparse crowd out, her path guided by the faint glow of the luminescent walkway beneath her feet.

The neighborhood was quiet, featuring green belts filled with nocturnal plants that adjusted their brightness based on the intensity of the moonlight, casting a hazy, ethereal aura over the surroundings. Her home was a sleek, three-story building with sharp lines and an exterior made of self-cleaning material that shimmered with a pristine luster in the dark.

As Sui Zhenxing approached the door, the retinal scan and the soft click of the lock coincided almost perfectly.

“Xingxing is back!” Sui Yuebai’s voice drifted out immediately, carrying an unmistakable note of joy.

She came scurrying to the foyer in her plush slippers, wearing an apron printed with a distorted cartoon cat. Her long, curly hair was loosely pinned back in a messy bun, and her face was lit with an unreserved, warm smile.

“Perfect timing, the ribs just came off the stove. Do they smell good or what?”

“They smell amazing.” Sui Zhenxing’s eyes crinkled as she expertly donned her obedient smile and bent over to change her shoes. “I could smell them from downstairs. I’m starving.”

“Of course you could, that’s your mother’s handiwork,” Sui Yuebai said with a proud tilt of her chin. “I let these ribs simmer for an extra twenty minutes today so they’d be melt-in-your-mouth tender.”

Shen Yan emerged from the open kitchen carrying two dishes. Dressed in deep gray loungewear, she stood tall with her shoulder-length hair perfectly in place. The usual coolness in her gaze thawed slightly when her eyes landed on Sui Zhenxing.

“Go wash your hands.”

“I’m going, Mom~” Sui Zhenxing answered softly before slipping away into the bathroom.

By the time she finished, the dining table was fully set. It was a spread of enticing sweet and sour ribs, stir-fried seasonal vegetables, a pot of milky-white fish soup, and the cold side dishes Sui Yuebai had been talking about making for days.

Sui Yuebai chatted away while piling food into Sui Zhenxing’s bowl, mentioning that Xu Mian had sent a message earlier praising Xingxing’s recent state of mind. She noted that while Xingxing hadn’t picked up a pen yet, at least she was clocking in at the studio every day, which was a vast improvement over moping at home.

Sui Zhenxing chewed on a rib, her cheeks bulging. “Mian really said that? She told me today that I looked like a wilting ivy plant.”

Sui Yuebai let out a chuckle. “Well, that just means you’re a rare breed of ivy that knows how to punch a time card.”

Shen Yan picked up a piece of green vegetable and asked with feigned casualness, “How was the studio today?” Her questions were always like that—direct, cutting to the core, and devoid of unnecessary flourish.

“Just… the usual. Sister Mian and the others are rushing to meet the deadline for the new project, so I just read some books and looked for inspiration. Sister Yushi is on the verge of a breakdown writing scripts, and Sister Yao is losing her mind over color grading because the client wants the protagonist’s hair changed from a ‘gentle chestnut brown’ to an ‘intellectual chestnut brown.’”

She omitted the part where she had sat paralyzed for three hours while doom-scrolling through comments. Sharing those things served no purpose other than making her mothers worry.

“Chestnut brown is just chestnut brown. Since when did it have a personality? That client’s request is absurd.”

“That’s exactly what Sister Yao said,” Sui Zhenxing added, taking a sip of soup. “But she’s still sitting there dutifully adjusting the sliders while cursing under her breath.”

The corner of Shen Yan’s mouth twitched into a faint smile, though she remained silent.

Sui Yuebai added more food to Sui Zhenxing’s bowl. “What about you? Did you make any progress today?”

Sui Zhenxing paused for a heartbeat before returning to her ribs. “Mhm… it was alright. I looked through some reference materials and flipped through my old works to try and find the right feel.”

A flash of worry crossed Sui Yuebai’s face, but she kept her tone light. “No rush, no rush. Our Xingxing’s inspiration is a treasure that needs to be unearthed slowly. Oh, eat more! Look at you, you’ve gotten thinner lately. It must be all that mental energy you’re spending on the plot.”

Shen Yan glanced at Sui Yuebai but said nothing, silently pushing the fish soup closer to Sui Zhenxing.

This sort of careful, tender protection felt like being wrapped in soft cotton, yet it also gave Sui Zhenxing a subtle sense of suffocation. They were too good to her—so good that her inability to draw and her dark, stagnant thoughts felt incredibly selfish and melodramatic.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, lowering her head to stir the soup in her bowl. “Thanks, Mom.”

Sui Yuebai tried to liven up the atmosphere by changing the subject. “By the way, I saw an AI-generated manga a few days ago with a pretty interesting premise. It was about a bartender who can use magic.”

“And then?” Sui Zhenxing asked, playing along.

“And then the art style was a total mess. The credits mentioned they used databases from seven different artists, so it looked completely inconsistent. It would jump from a realistic style to those massive shoujo manga eyes from one panel to the next.”

“Did they actually credit those seven people?”

“They did, but what’s the point?” Sui Yuebai picked up a side dish. “The list of software names at the bottom was longer than the actual story.”

In this era, AI creation was highly advanced, but the regulations surrounding it were extremely strict. Any work generated by AI for profit had to include a clear “ingredient list” detailing every human artist whose work fed the algorithm, as well as the core software used. This served both as a protection for human copyright and a sort of disclaimer.

Because of this, while AI could produce content efficiently, top-tier manga with a “soul” and a unique style remained the exclusive domain of human artists. This was the only reason studios like Sui Yuebai’s and creators like Sui Zhenxing could continue to survive.

“It’s nothing more than a shortcut,” Shen Yan evaluated coldly. As a designer, she had an obsessive devotion to stylistic unity and originality. “Anything without a core is just an empty shell, no matter how much it tries to show off.”

“You’re right,” Sui Zhenxing echoed, though she felt a sudden, inexplicable pang of guilt. Was her own Ghost Bride not also starting to feel like an empty shell that had lost its soul?

After dinner, Sui Zhenxing took the initiative to clear the table and load the dishes into the automatic cleaning and disinfection cabinet. In the living room, Sui Yuebai and Shen Yan were watching an old movie together and conversing in hushed tones. She could hear Sui Yuebai laughing, while Shen Yan would occasionally offer a low response that was too quiet to distinguish.

Using the excuse of returning to her room to continue brainstorming, Sui Zhenxing slipped upstairs.

Her room was spacious, with one wall dominated by a bookshelf overflowing with manga, art albums, and novels. On the opposite side was her dedicated workspace, where a top-tier digital display stood silent and imposing like a gravestone. Sensing her entrance, the room’s smart system automatically adjusted the lighting to a warm, relaxing mode.

Instead of turning on her workstation, she threw herself into the massive beanbag chair by the window. The soft material swallowed her instantly, offering a fleeting sense of artificial security.

She pulled out her personal terminal and expanded the pale blue light screen into the air.

By habit, she tapped open the manga app once more. She stared at the glaring “Hiatus” tag and the comment count that was still slowly ticking upward. There were a few more demands for updates today, alongside some new arrivals mocking her for being a “washed-up talent.” She scrolled past them expressionlessly, but her finger faltered for a second.

One comment stood out: “Wait as long as it takes. We’ll be here when you get back.”

She stared at that line for a few seconds before closing the app entirely.

Her fingers slid aimlessly across the virtual screen before finally tapping into a large-scale VR game store. A dazzling array of game posters and promotional videos rolled across the light screen, most of them advertising extreme adventures, blood-pumping battles, or romantic escapades.

She browsed with little interest until an icon with an incredibly minimalist, almost pure black background caught her eye.

The title read Empty Moon. Was this the same advertisement she had seen earlier?

The promotional image was strikingly simple, accompanied by only a brief textual introduction:

All possibilities exist here.

NPCs possess autonomous consciousness based on an advanced emotional simulation core.

Absolute freedom is yours, but please be prepared to bear the consequences of that freedom.

The introduction exuded a sense of cold, detached arrogance.

Sui Zhenxing raised an eyebrow and tapped into the review section. While the number of reviews wasn’t explosive, the opinions were intensely polarized.

The top review was a thousand-word passionate praise. The user claimed to have met the love of her life there—an NPC who completely transcended her initial settings. The depth of the character’s thoughts and the nuance of her emotions had made the player forget it was a virtual world on several occasions.

Many voices chimed in beneath it, expressing amazement at the human-like qualities of the NPCs and the realism of the world.

However, as she scrolled further down, the tone shifted dramatically.

“WARNING! ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK! This game is a trap!” wrote one highly upvoted reviewer. “I was just playing my role as a playboy and said ‘Give me a smile, baby’ to my noble lady NPC. That fits the character, right? The next second, my screen went black. The system notified me that I was permanently banned and all my data was wiped because of ‘severely offending a core NPC, causing extreme consciousness rejection.’ The only response I got from customer service was a cold reminder that the game holds all rights of interpretation! Ridiculous!”

Hundreds of replies followed this comment, some offering sympathy and others mocking him for getting what he deserved, though many more shared similar horror stories.

“+1. I just wanted to see if I could steal a kiss from my shy librarian, and… well, goodbye to three weeks of hard-earned gear and affection points.”

“The NPCs in this game are practically spirits! They have their own likes and dislikes, and they are extremely sensitive! Those ‘unrecommended behaviors’ in the player manual aren’t suggestions—they’re survival guides!”

“The official stance is incredibly rigid. If the NPC ‘dislikes’ you, you’re kicked out. There’s no appeal process; you have to change your biometric info and register all over again from scratch.”

“But I have to admit, that’s exactly why the interactions that actually work feel so real and precious… it’s just that the price is a bit high.”

“Absolute freedom? My ass! It’s the NPCs who have absolute freedom!”

Sui Zhenxing read through these comments slowly. The stagnant water of her heart began to ripple ever so slightly.

NPCs with a high degree of autonomous consciousness? Characters who could develop genuine likes and dislikes based on a player’s words and actions, potentially leading to a ban?

It sounded like a hassle—an enormous hassle.

But it also sounded… quite interesting.

Compared to those capture targets who followed a fixed script and would eventually fall in love with you no matter how you treated them, this unpredictability felt different. This relationship, which required careful observation and sincere interaction to maintain, possessed a strangely magnetic, almost morbid attraction.

It was like walking along the edge of a cliff. One knew that a single misstep would lead to total ruin, yet the view from that edge was likely the only one of its kind.

“Autonomous consciousness based on an advanced emotional simulation core…” she whispered the words from the intro.

Had modern AI reached such a level? Could it simulate genuine emotional responses or even possess dignity and personal preferences?

She thought of the characters under her own pen—the Ghost Bride and the Empress. They had once been vivid and alive in her heart, possessing their own loves and hatreds. But now, they were frozen, turned into puppets she could no longer move.

If… if she could enter a world where the characters were truly “alive,” possessing a will she couldn’t simply manipulate at her whim?

The thought poked its head out with a hint of dangerous temptation.

She wasn’t looking for inspiration—at least, not entirely. She was simply too tired. She was tired of facing the blank canvas, tired of handling external expectations and doubts, and tired of being lost in a story she had built but could no longer control.

Perhaps she just needed a sanctuary that was absolutely safe yet allowed her to be absolutely out of control. A place where she could temporarily forget the identity of “Sui Zhenxing the Manga Artist.”

The purchase button on the light screen shimmered faintly.

The price was steep, but for her, it was negligible.

Without any further hesitation, she extended her index finger and tapped the virtual button for “Confirm Purchase and Download.”

“Verifying biometric information…”

“Payment successful.”

“The Empty Moon client is beginning to download and install to your private immersion pod. Estimated time to completion: 15 minutes.”

Sui Zhenxing turned off her terminal, and the room fell into a deeper twilight. She lay in her beanbag chair, listening to the steady sound of her own breathing and the faint strains of the movie soundtrack drifting from downstairs.

Her heart seemed to be beating just a little faster than usual.

She didn’t know where this decision would take her. Perhaps it was just another form of escapism.

But at this moment, she was willing to surrender to the unknown.

Sui Yuebai’s laughter echoed from downstairs followed by Shen Yan’s low murmur; the movie must have reached an amusing part.

Sui Zhenxing listened for a while before standing up and pulling open her door.

“Mom!” she called out toward the ground floor.

Sui Yuebai looked up. “What is it, Xingxing?”

“Nothing much. I just wanted to let you know I bought a new game.”

“Oh? What kind of game?” Sui Yuebai asked curiously.

“A virtual game that’s pretty popular lately. They say the NPCs are incredibly realistic and have their own thoughts.”

Shen Yan glanced her way. “That’s fine, but don’t stay up too late playing it.”

“I know,” Sui Zhenxing said with a small smile. “I’ll only play for a little while.”

She closed the door and returned to her chair, waiting for the download to finish.

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