My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 3

Once the surrounding darkness completely dissipated, Ren Chenxi realized she was no longer in her small, cozy bedroom. Looking around, the environment felt faintly familiar yet utterly wrong. Combined with the familiar game voice she had just heard, she guessed she had entered the game world again. However, the cluttered and dilapidated surroundings made her wonder: when had she ever seen such a ruined building in the game?

Since she couldn’t tell exactly where she was, Chenxi didn’t overthink it. If she really was back in that brain-dead dating sim, she would find her location soon enough.

Call Map.

With just a thought, the familiar game panel appeared before her eyes. However, when she saw the label for the ruined room she was currently standing in, she was completely stunned.

Y Province, XX City, XX County, XX Mobile Phone Store!!!

This was the exact place where she had bought a phone right before escaping the game last time. But the surroundings…

Chenxi scanned the area again. Finally, among the shattered glass, splinters of wood, and stone debris, she spotted several mobile phones. She wasn’t sure if the one she had just purchased back then was among them. Beyond the scattered phones, she noticed something even more unsettling: dried, black stains on the floor.

What was this game doing? She had only been gone for three months what had happened to this store? Wait, her bed had been shaking violently earlier. had there been a massive earthquake here? What was the current in-game date? Where were the shop assistants who had been here before?

As her mind raced with questions, she noticed a notification icon flashing in the bottom right corner of the map panel.

Navigating the interface with ease, Chenxi opened the mailbox and found a system message. In the past, these emails usually contained player rewards, compensation, or patch notes.

This particular email informed her that because of a “data corruption error,” the sweet campus romance game had been forced to update. It was now a post-apocalyptic survival game overrun by zombies. Even the title had officially changed to—“Thump-Thump, Pit-a-Pat, Heart-Racing Dark Doomsday”~

“…”

After reading the email, Chenxi desperately wanted to scream every profanity she knew, but she was afraid the game would censor her into a string of “bleeps,” so she forced herself to swallow her rage.

How badly did the data have to be corrupted to turn a romance sim into a survival horror? And it’s the literal end of the world—what’s with the cutesy tilde at the end of the title?!

Compared to a terrifying zombie apocalypse, Chenxi would much rather go back to grinding affection points with that wooden-faced goddess! Wait, the goddess’s affection was already at 100%… but so was her blackening value. Recalling the nightmare she’d had in the real world, Chenxi couldn’t help but shiver.

This “survival game” just got a whole lot scarier.

Since it was a survival game, there were bound to be zombies or other horrors. To her surprise, when she looked through the shattered glass toward the street that used to be bustling with people, it was empty. Was everyone nearby dead? Had the zombies wandered off to other towns to find fresh meat? Whatever, why did it matter? She had zero intention of trying to survive in this broken update.

She had fought so hard to escape three months ago. Only she knew how much she—someone who hated crying had sobbed in her room for an entire night out of sheer relief. Why was she being dragged back? To make matters worse, that damn bug was back too; the moment she opened the menu, she realized the “Log Out” option was missing again.

Had all those tears been for nothing? And the game wasn’t even a silly dating sim anymore! A terrifying apocalypse plus a maxed-out Yandere goddess, how was she supposed to play this? How?!

Chenxi refused to play. She replied directly to the system email, sending a furious protest:

 I wasn’t even wearing a VR helmet! By what right did you pull me back in?!

Since the system mail had just arrived, she refused to believe the person on the other end whether a game designer or a programmer—wouldn’t see her message.

In fact, the other party did receive it and replied quickly: “Detected that player data is already bound to the user. A helmet is no longer required. Following the update, entry is mandatory. Please achieve the game goal as soon as possible to leave. Main Quest: Survive from the year 2×22 to 2×32. Warning: If the player dies in-game, they will be permanently unable to leave the game world!!!”

That reply left Chenxi drenched in a cold sweat.

When she thought about it, being dragged into a game without a helmet was already beyond the capabilities of any programmer or normal human being. And if she died, she’d be trapped forever.  was she dealing with something supernatural? Was she being haunted?!

Thinking back to her first experience, was this her second time being targeted by a ghost? No wonder her brother could use “Save/Load” to cheat while she didn’t even have an exit button. To leave, she’d have to complete the quest just like last time. But she had spent two years pursuing the Woodhead Goddess until she was nearly depressed, now they wanted her to survive a decade in the apocalypse? Like hell she could do that!

Suppressing her inner terror, she stubbornly sent another email to whatever entity was on the other side: The player data is wrong! My name is Ren Chenxi, not Ren Muhui. I am female, not male!

Back when she first played her brother’s game, she noticed the character profile used his name and listed the gender as male. The NPCs addressed her by his name and treated her like a guy. During her first stint, she had lived in the game using her own face and body but under her brother’s identity.

To keep the NPCs from noticing anything weird, she had chopped off her long hair back then. Since it was just a game, it hadn’t affected her hair in the real world. When she returned home, her long hair was perfectly intact. But now, having been snatched away while in her pajamas, she was standing there with messy long hair and the unmistakable appearance of a girl.

This time, the reply wasn’t as instant. Chenxi waited with bated breath, only to receive: “Player information has been corrected.” She watched as the name changed from Ren Muhui to Ren Chenxi, and the gender flipped from male to female.

The fact that this entity could drag her in and then “correct” her identity based on her real self… Chenxi broke into another cold sweat.

She was definitely being haunted. Or maybe it was some kind of “Game God” entity? Either way, she wanted out even more now!

She sent several more protest emails, but the entity be it ghost, god or monster—simply replied by sending her a “Game Update Gift Pack” and then went silent. Watching her messages vanish into the void, the last spark of hope in Chenxi’s heart finally flickered out.

Damn it. She really was trapped again. And looking at that impossible survival quest, she might be stuck here forever.

Fine. Whatever. She’d just give up. With her soft, pampered body from the era of peace, how was she supposed to survive a survival game? She’d probably be zombie food by the end of day one!

With red eyes, Chenxi pulled her knees to her chest and crouched in the dim, ruined store. She wallowed in self-pity, thinking she might as well let the first zombie that walked in bite her so she could become a mindless monster too. Being an oblivious zombie had to be easier than living through this.

But the moment she noticed a red dot on the mini-map in the top right corner crawling toward her position, her survival instinct kicked in. Terrified, she scrambled to her feet and took two steps back.

Before the update, she could see the map, but it was just for navigation. There were no red warnings back then. As an experienced gamer, she knew exactly what that red dot meant: an enemy.

An enemy in the apocalypse? That meant a zombie! A zombie was actually coming!

No! Even if she didn’t want to play, she definitely didn’t want to be chewed on by a disgusting monster!

As the red dot drew closer, Chenxi crouched low and started creeping toward the back counter of the store. But as she moved carefully, a sharp pain suddenly shot through her foot.

“Sss—!”

She let out a tiny gasp and realized she was completely barefoot.

Damn it! If she had known, she would have slipped on her slippers when the bed started shaking. It was all because of her bad habit of walking around the house barefoot. If she ever got the chance to go back, she promised she’d always wear slippers!

But… she didn’t know if she’d ever get that chance.

Chenxi bit her lip hard, enduring the stinging pain in her foot as she continued to limp toward the counter. However, perhaps because the zombie had caught the scent of blood, the red dot on the map suddenly sped up, heading straight for the ruined phone shop!

Oh no! Had it found her? Was her first day in the apocalypse going to be her last?

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