Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating

Lu Hang quickly finished his breakfast before hurrying online. Both of them had gotten up late this morning and rushed to their classes after taking just two bites of their breakfast, so he had been starving for more than an hour.

He logged into his YY and searched for Regardless of Lovesickness to ask her for a yellow icon, then entered their team's small room.

"Why is it just the two of you?" He asked, "Where are our other teammates?"

Xiang Huaizhi, "Don't know."

Only then did Lu Hang realise that their other two teammates were in other people's rooms.

He left behind the words "I'll go ask" before jumping straight to the other room. As the instance hadn't started yet, there were a lot of people in this room, and it seemed pretty lively.

"Chichi, Don't Ask, both of you are in our team, why did you guys run over to this room?" Lu Hang interrupted their chat.

The voice channel fell silent for an instant before he heard Love is For You to Eat whisper, "I don't dare go in."

Lu Hang was stunned. "Ah? Why?"

Love is For You to Eat stated, "I'm afraid of hearing something I shouldn't."

Then get kicked out of the channel by Yearning For and gifted with a 7-day ban as part of the package.

Lu Hang, "…"

Actually, it wasn't just the melon-eating audience, even Jing Huan himself was pretty surprised.

He didn't really know how to use YY, and although he had used it when he played NCH before, he only knew how to use the function of "F2 to chat". He wasn't even accustomed to kicking people out. He had wanted to kick Immortal Mengmeng out for the second time when the system had informed him that "This visitor is no longer in the channel."

Yearning For had kicked the person out before he did, and had even banned her ID.

At that moment, Jing Huan was in a particularly complicated mood.

His first thought was that this damn slag man was starting to attack him again.

Then he sighed ruefully — no wonder he's a slag guy. He had at least "loved" Immortal Mengmeng before, yet he just kicked her out like that in front of more than a hundred people without the slightest scrap of sentiment.

"Gege." He called out.

Xiang Huaizhi's tone didn't change. "Un."

"Did she change her name just now to scold me?" Jing Huan lowered his voice on purpose, "She threatened me before so I instinctively…kicked her. Will she come hunt me down again? I'm a little scared…"

Scared?

Xiang Huaizhi thought about it. He always felt like he had never sensed the feeling of "fear" from Xiao Tianjing before.

"She won't." He said, "She can't kill you."

Jing Huan wanted to delve deeper into this topic when he saw three more people appear in the room — Lu Hang had called their teammates over.

His lips were slightly parted, but he didn't continue talking in the end.

They did the five-man instance first since the twenty-man instance would only be released at 3pm in the afternoon.

The five people in the party were him, Yearning For, Long Road Ahead, Love is For You to Eat, and Don't Ask When I'll Return.

They often did instances together, but only Don't Ask When I'll Return was temporarily allocated to them.

In the eyes of the other guild members, Don't Ask When I'll Return, who had been stuffed into the midst of the other four, was like a small pitiful person, and they felt as if they could sense his helplessness even through their screens.

Don't Ask When I'll Return was indeed quite helpless. Setting aside the mistake he made when Yearning For and the rest of his group had just joined the guild, what made him feel most awkward about everything was that he had hunted Xiao Tianjing before.

Yes, he was the mage in the regular pursuit party.

Xiao Tianjing had even tried to negotiate with him before — one time at the city gate, Xiao Tianjing had asked him if he could let her go out to do a daily.

What did he say again?

Oh, he sent out a kitchen knife expression.

As he thought of that, Don’t Ask When I’ll Return felt even more like there was nothing worth living for anymore.

“Mage, display your attributes on the public screen.” Yearning For’s mic lit up.

Don’t Ask When I’ll Return didn’t dare delay and quickly sent it out.

"Wah~ 2000 magic damage, that's so amazing." Xiao Tianjing suddenly spoke up. She exclaimed, "No wonder it hurt so much when you hit me before. With that magic damage of yours, you should be on the expert ranking list ba?"

Don't Ask When I'll Return, "…"

"If I remember correctly, Re should be one of the top 5 mages right? Why, did you guys meet in the arena?" Lu Hang asked.

"Nopeee." Jing Huan played it down, "Just got hunted down by him before."

Xiang Huaizhi, "…"

"PFFTT-" Lu Hang couldn't hold it back and laughed out loud. "So that's it…"

Don't Ask When I'll Return, "… is it too late for me to apologise?"

"Ah? It's okay ah, it's just a misunderstanding ma." Jing Huan was all smiles as he said, "You just kept watch on me for 71 hours and 13 minutes, I don't bear grudges oh~"

Don't Ask When I'll Return, "…"

Xiang Huaizhi chuckled and dragged the party to the main city NPC. "Gather first. We still have more than an hour to go, so let's do an instance first. Come to the main city storage."

A moment later, Don't Ask When I'll Return joined the party.

[Party] Xiao Tianjing: Welcome [kitchen knife]

[Party] Don't Ask When I'll Return: …

[Party] Xiao Tianjing: Ah oh! I sent the wrong expression. Welcome~ [cute]

A few seconds later, Don't Ask When I'll Return faced the little fairy fox in his party and used the kneeling and kowtowing action.

Jing Huan was satisfied now. He controlled his little fairy fox to nod at him.

With one more DPS in their party, they were much faster at doing instances now. They cleared two instances in a little over an hour.

At 11:40, Regardless of Lovesickness made a guild announcement and asked everyone to get ready at the instance NPC.

Xiang Huaizhi leisurely pulled his party to the NPC. The guild instance NPC was a clam spirit, a new character — there was a girl lying in the shell who was blowing bubbles.

People were packed like sardines near the NPC. All two hundred people in the guild had gathered here.

[Current] Youth Chasing the Wind: Who stepped on my foot! [anger]

[Current] Peachy Fate: [rolls eyes] can you not be so old fashioned.

[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Taking advantage of the chaos to touch Gege's little hands *\^0^/*~~

[Current] Peachy Fate: …

[Current] Chunxiao: …

[Current] Regardless of Lovesickness: …

Everyone stood together, and no one could tell who was saying what.

Except for Xiao Tianjing.

She was always the most identifiable speaker in the crowd.

[Current] Long Road Ahead: Taking advantage of the chaos to hit Yearning For's head *\^0^/*

[Current] Long Road Ahead: …

[Current] Long Road Ahead: Daddy I was wrong, please let me return to the party QAQ

Xiang Huaizhi calmly pulled Lu Hang back into the party. "See if all your equipment is right, and get ready to go in."

"It's almost time, yet the official site still hasn't released the strategy for the instance. It must be really difficult." Lu Hang sat up straight and glanced at the little fairy fox beside him. "Xiao Jingjing, don't feel nervous, just focus on playing well 'kay?"

Jing Huan, who sat with his legs crossed as he chewed on some gum, said in a frightened tone, "…okay, I'll do my best, even my hands are trembling wuwuwu."

Scared his ass.

In his old server, he was always in the thick of the vanguard on the frontlines, and his ID was still lying in the Vanguard Players list of his old server. People in Jianghu called him the "Vanguard Prince".

A few minutes later, the instance officially began.

However for some reason, the teams present were still standing in the same spot. After ten or so seconds passed, not one party had entered the instance interface.

Lu Hang asked, "Daddy, what are you doing? The instance has started!"

Xiang Huaizhi looked at the dialog box in front of him and frowned. "Can't get in."

Only to see the words appear in the NPC dialog box: "All right. I, the princess, have received your application."

The rest of the guild clearly couldn't get in either, and quite a lot of players began fretting.

[Current] Regardless of Lovesickness: Why can't we get in?

[Current] Peachy Fate: Don't tell me it's a BUG? Only our server has a BUG? And I was wondering if our guild would be able to get the first server-wide clear…

[Current] Cat Network: Fuck, what kind of damn server is this?! If it can't work properly, then just shut down ASAP OK?

[Current] Love is For You to Eat: We can't get in either…

"Oh well, it's over." Lu Hang sighed.

Jing Huan said, "Not necessarily."

Lu Hang, "We can't even get into the instance right now, what do you mean not necessarily? And we don't know how long they'll take to fix it either."

"Maybe the instance has already started?" Jing Huan looked at the NPC. "Didn't you notice that the NPC has changed?"

Xiang Huaizhi had noticed it too. The young lady in the shell had changed her posture; she held a pearl in her hand and was carefully admiring it right now.

Lu Hang glanced at her and realised that Xiao Tianjing was right. She had just been blocked by all the players' characters, so it wasn't easy to see.

He was about to continue asking when he saw the NPC in the shell suddenly yawn-

[Current] Clam Spirit Princess (NPC): Un~ who should I eat today?

[Current] Clam Spirit Princess (NPC): I'll choose you ba, player "Chunxiao", "Xiao Tianjing", "Peachy Fate"…

After seeing his own name, Jing Huan didn't even have the time to react before he saw the scene before his eyes change abruptly, and he was yanked into some unknown scene.

It was a sea.

There was nothing in the surroundings, and even the game keys had disappeared. Only the "instance' channel remained of all the chat channels. He sat in the middle of the sea alone, as if he had sunk into some kind of BUG in the game.

【[Instance Announcement] Clam Spirit Princess (NPC): Wrap "Xiao Tianjing" in fish roe sauce, mix in some fish eyes, and deep fry them until they're golden and crisp before fishing them out. Father and I love eating fried things, and our neighbouring Dragon King is craving it so much he's crying! But her human scent is truly too stinky, marinate her in the sea for nine days first ba! [disgusted]】

Jing Huan, "…"

If you find me disgusting then don't eat me ah!!! You damn shell!!!

Meanwhile, a new quest appeared in the upper right corner of Xiang Huaizhi's screen.

【Instance Quest: Overcome the hurdles to rescue your teammate Xiao Tianjing! You have 540 minutes remaining for this quest.】

"Gege…" The voice in his mic sounded both frightened and helpless, "I've been locked in the sea."

Xiang Huaizhi uttered an "un". "Got it."

Lu Hang consoled her, "It's okay, isn't it relaxing? You can just lie down as you clear the instance."

But this instance was obviously not that simple. Xiang Huaizhi tried clicking on the NPC, but no battles were triggered.

【Shrimp Soldier: You can't bully people with your numbers! (Overcoming hurdles, single person quest)】

The four of them all tried and finally figured out this instance's setting — one of the five players would be chosen at random to enter the water prison while the other four players performed the Overcoming Hurdles quests. What was interesting about it was that these overcoming hurdles quests weren't done in parties, but instead each player would enter alone to overcome the hurdles. If said player failed to overcome the hurdle, another player would take their place until all 9 hurdles were cleared.

"That means to say that if one player clears all 9 hurdles at one go, the instance will end?" Lu Hang was baffled. "Then why make it a group instance? Can't they just set it up as an individual instance?"

Xiang Huaizhi pursed his lips. "It's not that simple."

Right after he spoke, they saw Qiufeng enter their YY room.

"You there?" Qiufeng said, "Pick your players carefully to clear the hurdles. Our DPS had just entered the first hurdle when he got killed by the BOSS in the third round."

"What the hell?!" Lu Hang said, "Third round? Isn't your party's DPS pretty strong?!"

"Un, but the BOSS in this instance's first round is immune to physical damage." Qiufeng said expressionlessly.

Everyone in the YY fell silent.

Before the strategy guide came out, no one would know what kind of damn settings the BOSSes in these 9 hurdles would have, so all they could do was just brave it through.

"It's okay, if you fail in clearing the hurdles, you guys can just quit the instance and reform the party." Jing Huan broke the silence, "This damn instance can only lock me up for 9 hours at most, and it'll be over after I watch a few movies."

Getting the first clear or not really wasn't that important to him.

"Don't say something so disheartening ah." Lu Hang rubbed his palms and fists together. "Let's try it first, what if we clear it? The first BOSS is immune to physical damage, is it? That's okay, Don't Ask When I'll Return will go in first."

Don't Ask When I'll Return didn't bother saying any nonsense, "OK."

"All right," Qiufeng said, "We'll continue breaking through the hurdles on our side. We'll send you guys the BOSSes' attributes later as we go. If you guys get to the second hurdle first, remember to let us know."

Jing Huan sat in the sea and was like an outsider as he listened to them chat.

Soon, a system announcement popped up — Don't Ask When I'll Return has cleared the first hurdle.

Everyone didn't even have the time to be excited before Don't Ask When I'll Return failed the second hurdle ten minutes later.

Love Is For You to Eat followed close behind and fell at the second hurdle as well. This instance truly wasn't friendly to healers.

Love is For You to Eat, "… sorry, I was really close."

"It's okay." Lu Hang was in high spirits, "I, your Grandfather, will break the deadlock."

Although he wasn't from a DPS sect, as the number one warlock, Lu Hang was indeed quite capable. He broke straight through to the fourth hurdle in one shot before he was killed by a BOSS that was resistant to seals.

"It's okay, vanguards have never been able to clear on their first try anyway." Seeing as how people were pretty dispirited in the YY, Jing Huan pondered for a bit before turning on his mic. "We'll definitely clear it next time."

"There's no next time." Xiang Huaizhi said.

This instance was too troublesome. After getting the first clear, he definitely wouldn't play it a second time.

Jing Huan was stunned. "Un?"

"Go and watch a movie." Xiang Huaizhi changed the sword in his hand to a sabre, then controlled his in game character to cut off one of the huge pincers of a crab general.

"You'll be out after you're done watching."

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Juurensha: So reliable, God of War Gege!

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More fanart from @faa on discord~