My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 2

Ren Chenxi was staring suspiciously at the gaming helmet her brother, Ren Muhui, had tossed onto a chair. Meanwhile, Muhui was still relentlessly hunting for evidence that his sister had sneaked into his game.

“Ren Chenxi, it was definitely you! You played my game and spent my money, didn’t you? I’m not blind; I noticed that huge expenditure! I have no idea what you did, you spendthrift, but how could you possibly blow that much…”

“I told you, I didn’t spend it!” Chenxi denied firmly, refusing to confess. That broken game had traumatized her so much that she didn’t even want to admit she had touched it. “Didn’t you say your goddess’s affection meter was already maxed out? Maybe you were sleepwalking and threw a bunch of money at her yourself? Generous guys are more likely to win a goddess’s heart, after all~”

However, Ren Muhui didn’t believe a single word of her explanation.

“Are you kidding me? Goddess Mu is richer than I am. Even if I won the lottery ten times over, I wouldn’t dare flash my cash in front of her!”

Upon hearing this, Chenxi suddenly remembered the game’s lore: the “Woodhead Goddess” was actually the daughter of a massive conglomerate. The young lady was just very low-key on campus, which had caused Chenxi to completely overlook her family background. No wonder! She had spent every day sincerely trying to win her over, yet never made a dent. It turned out the goddess was so wealthy she didn’t care for Chenxi’s handmade “little gifts” at all.

Tsk. Thinking about how that rich lady might have secretly trashed the gifts she had poured her heart into made Chenxi feel a surge of annoyance.

“Since you know how to use the ‘Save/Load’ trick, why didn’t you just win the lottery a few hundred more times? You could have made yourself richer than her and played out some Overbearing CEO falls for the Woodhead… uh, I mean, the Aloof Campus Belle’ drama.

As soon as Chenxi finished speaking, Ren Muhui let out a heavy sigh.

“You think I haven’t thought of that? But this is a VR game designed for the most ‘realistic experience’ possible! In my last game, I abused the SL trick, but after winning the lottery five times, I was hauled off for a ‘chat’ with the authorities and it was Game Over…”

If they wanted a realistic experience, they shouldn’t have included a save/load function in the first place! Wait… the world Chenxi had experienced felt incredibly real, and there certainly hadn’t been any saving or loading. Did this dog-crap game target players differently? Maybe because her data didn’t match, the game had glitched out on her?

Before Chenxi could think it through, Muhui started pestering her again. Driven to a corner, she blurted out, “You’re always complaining about how hard she is to chase. If a ‘love expert’ like you can’t get her, how could a girl like me conquer her in a single day? So, Brother… are you admitting that when it comes to girls, you’re inferior to your little sister who has never even been in a relationship?”

Muhui froze. He looked his sister up and down with disbelief. They shared about eighty percent of the same facial features, but because she was a girl, her features were more delicate and refined. They were twins, yet back in school, it seemed… his sister had always been more popular with the girls than he was.

Muhui felt a sting of bitterness. His manly pride wouldn’t let him admit that his sister was more charming or more likely to win the goddess’s favor.

“Fine, fine! Let’s just say I conquered her in my sleep…” Muhui waved her away with one hand while clicking his mouse to close the game interface. “Anyway, you brat, don’t you dare touch my save files again!”

Hmph, I wouldn’t touch your stupid game anyway. Who knows what other weird bugs I’d find!

Chenxi rolled her eyes secretly. However, as the computer screen went dark, she asked curiously, “Brother, you finally won her over. Aren’t you going to go back in and actually date her?” She was genuinely curious to see how the icy “Woodhead Goddess” would change once she fell in love.

“Absolutely not!” Muhui refused instantly. “Didn’t you see that terrifying blackening Yandere value? You want me to date that? Please, I only enjoy the process of the chase. I have no interest in dating a psychotic goddess with a maxed-out blackening meter! What if I make one mistake and she cuts my head off to plant it in her flowerpot?”

Just what kind of insane games had her brother played before to be this terrified of a high blackening value?

Since her brother refused to log in, Chenxi couldn’t observe the goddess’s change in attitude through the screen. She felt a mix of regret and lingering attachment to those 100 points of affection.

The game wasn’t actually as stingy as Chenxi remembered. Through her relentless efforts, the goddess’s affection would rise. But for some reason, whenever it crossed 50%, it would immediately plummet back down.

It was that endless cycle of never breaking 50% that had driven Chenxi to despair, eventually leading her to “flee” on a vacation within the game. However, by obsessing over those points, she had discovered another use for them.

The Woodhead Goddess’s affection points could be exchanged for player skill points!

Normally, since they were so hard to get, Chenxi should have cherished them. But she knew that no matter what she did, she couldn’t truly move that “woodhead.” Since the points were going to drop anyway, she learned to be smart. Whenever the points hit 50, she would quickly exchange them for skill points before the automatic drop occurred.

In this dating sim, skills usually involved things like cooking, crafting, or music—things used to please the target. There were also “life” skills like academics, sports, and socialising. These could be leveled up through points or through repeated practice.

Back then, Chenxi was always in a rush to dump the points before they vanished. She would level up a few useful things and then just click randomly on others. Now that she was back in the real world, she couldn’t even remember which skills she had maxed out.

Even though she couldn’t level them up anymore, the habit stayed with her. Seeing that full 100-point bar on her brother’s screen had made her fingers itch to spend them.

Fortunately, she was back in reality. After three months of being a shut-in and taking freelance jobs online, the trauma of being trapped in the game began to fade. Curiously, it felt as though some of those skills had followed her. Her cooking was as good as it was in the game, her vision seemed sharper, and whenever she worked on a design for a client, her inspiration was limitless. Her efficiency was through the roof  and her clients were always thrilled.

Only occasionally, in the middle of the night, would she wake up from a dream. Most of these dreams were about that broken dating game—vivid reminders of the time she spent trapped inside.

Tonight, Chenxi woke up gasping again. In this dream, she had seen her conquest target. To others, she was an unreachable ice queen; to Chenxi, she was a soulless woodhead.

In the dream, the usually expressionless goddess was smiling and it was horrifying. A smile on that face was scary enough, but the goddess looked like a water ghost. She was soaking wet, her usually neat hair plastered in damp clumps against her pale face. In her right hand, she gripped a long, thorn-covered vine. She lashed it against the ground as she walked toward Chenxi, step by step.

“Where did you go?” she murmured spookily. “I searched so hard for you. You’re so heartless… you finally won my heart, only to throw it away. In that case, I’ll just have to dig your heart out so it can be with mine forever…”

Holy crap! Her brother was right to be scared! Chenxi didn’t doubt for a second that if her brother went back into the game, that Yandere goddess would carve him up and turn his head into a potted plant!

Just as Chenxi was clutching her chest and admiring her brother’s intuition, her bed began to shake violently.

An earthquake? Why is it shaking so much? Chenxi scrambled to get out of bed, but the moment her bare feet touched the floor, the room began to blur. Darkness surged toward her, swallowing her whole.

Right before she lost consciousness, she heard that long-lost, dreaded system voice:

“Welcome back, Player, to ‘Thump-Thump, Pit-a-Pat, Heart-Racing Pink Campus’~”

Dammit!

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