What?! The Gamemaster And The Top Player Are Dating?!

Zhihao clicked on the play button and the screen turned dark with two sets of numbers on either side of the black background. On one side, the numbers were white in color while the numbers on the right side were red. 

Zhihao immediately looked at the 'bet' option that was displayed underneath both the numbers and knew what these numbers were. 

[Please wait for the next ten seconds. This is the period of voting]

Unlike the last time he played, instead of the red numbers, the white side seemed to be steadily increasing more. There were a lot of positive betters this time.  It seemed that all the people who had initially planned on eliminating the competition by using the negative gambling bar had learned their lesson. There was no way, Mastermo was going to lose because of them so they might as well place a positive bet and get their T-points doubled. 

Their mindset had certainly changed after wasting their precious T-points on trying to eliminate the competitors, but it seemed that Zhihao also had something in mind. 

Instead of pressing the positive bet button as everyone had expected, Zhihao's eyes were glued at the red-colored tempting negative bet button.. 

When the Ten seconds given for betting was over, The screen displayed the final number of people who had placed bets. 

[Positive bets: 2631]

[Negative bets: 1270]

One of those 1270 players was no other than Zhihao himself, who had placed a negative bet on himself. Li Ling had placed a positive bet on their team so it didn't matter if they won or not, depending on the number of T-points they bet, they would be getting something in return in both cases. 

This seemed to be a smart move that was masked behind a facade of being a foolish move. 

Who would ever want to place a negative bet on themselves? Everyone wanted to win, didn't they? 

But most people who would ever come to hear this would think that Mastermo was being extra intelligent by making such a decision. These weren't the elimination rounds so it really didn't matter if they won or lost. If he had placed a negative bet on himself with 10,000 T-points, would he not purposefully lose and double his 10,000 T-points into 20,000? 

He was trying to trick the system and take the easy road out! 

But in reality, this wasn't what Zhihao was after. 

Although the thought did cross his mind, he was still not looking to simply collect T-points for work he didn't do. If it wasn't earned through his hard work, he didn't want it. He was placing a negative bet on himself because he wanted to see how this negative gambling bar worked. This move was even more intelligent than trying to double your earnings without working. 

[Welcome to the G-ranked level 2353: Save the vampire]

This was it! 

Zhihao had always wondered what the difference between the gambling bar for positive betters and negative betters was. As soon as the level began, he found that there was a new feature tab that was visible to him at the side of the screen. 

He knew the negative betting bar wasn't something that easy. There had to be something behind it and now, it seemed that its secrets had been revealed.

On the bottom right-hand side of his screen, there was a live chat box that was filled with negative betters going on rampant with all their comments. Above this chat box was the picture of a blue-colored Alvi who seemed a bit different than the Alvi, Zhihao had grown accustomed to seeing. This Alvi looked older, maybe around the age of sixteen or seventeen, and compared to the ten-year-old Alvi, this one seemed even more familiar. 

It took a whole minute for Zhihao to realize that this Alvi looked a lot like Li Ying. The similarity in appearance was so noticeable that for a second, Zhihao wondered if the original model for this bot was Li Ying but as soon as he imagined this scenario, he threw it out of his mind since there was no way such a thing would be the case and Li Ling won't tell him...? If Li Ling's sister was the original inspiration for Alvi, he would definitely let Zhihao know, or at least that was what Zhihao believed. 

Maybe the character designer of this bot was a fan of Li Ling's sister. That was a possibility since his sister was a cosplayer. Didn't cosplayers also have a lot of fans who'd take them as an inspiration for their creations? Zhihao had heard something like that happening before where this scientist used his ex-girlfriend's picture as an inspiration for his robot. 

<Auction is live people> 

<Let's see how high we can go today> 

The sixteen-year-old Alvi didn't have any innocence left in her cute face that looked a bit evil as she held up a board that read "starting bet: 1000 T-points" 

The comment section suddenly started going faster than Li Ling driving/testing Zhihao's sports car. Everyone was throwing away their T-points. 

1000 T-points!

2600 T-points!

6099 T-points!

8999 T-points! 

10001 T-points! 

Zhihao couldn't help but be astonished at the number of T-points players were throwing away. 

Zhihao was the richest player in this game and he didn't even have enough T-points to offer such an auction so where were these rich players coming from. 

It wasn't like they could buy T-points with real money and cheat their way up so what was happening. 

Zhihao typed his own reply to all the raging comments however, his reply was drowned within seconds but it seemed that Alvi was useful at such moments since she was a bot who could see all the comments. 

[Well well]

[Who do we have here?]

[Mastermo...?]

[What are you doing here? Are you lost?]

"No."

The sixteen-year-old Alvi laughed as she looked straight at Zhihao and asked with an amused expression. 

[This is the first time I'm seeing someone so... smart]

[So you're gonna join the auction or not?]

"How does this thing work?" Zhihao asked with a frown on his face. 

[How does it work?]

[Well, that's simple]

[You join the auction, the one who wins, gets to give me ideas that would soon be implemented]

Zhihao shook his head. It wasn't the answer he was looking for so he tried rephrasing his question and asking again, "Where are the T-points coming from?"

By this time around, the raging comment section had come to a stop as they all realized that the player they were all betting against was among them. 

[Your pocket, of course.]

"I don't have enough T-points." 

[You don't?]

[Then I'll lend you some.]

Zhihao could somehow sense that this was a lot tricker than he had actually thought. Lending T-points? What type of bullsh*t was this?

[I give you T-points now and you pay me back later.]

"A-Zhi, don't fall for it." Li Ling spoke up suddenly and reminded Zhihao that they were in a level that wasn't going to play itself. 

Zhihao glared at Alvi as he responded, "No thank you." 

Zhihao clicked on the 'x' button on top of the gambling bar and closed it before looking at Li Ling and asking, "Did you know?" 

"I heard about it from a friend," Li Ling replied, "If you don't have enough T-points, she'll lend you some but... You probably don't wanna know what happens if you don't pay her back." 

"I'm guessing it's not something good...?" 

Li Ling sighed as he spoke, "It's evil." 

"Now that we are on the topic, would you date me?" 

"..." Li Ling was once again taken back to hear the question. No matter how many times he heard it, it would still manage to affect him just the same. His heart felt as if it was ready to beat out of his chest and his soul felt as if it was ready to float away from his body due to the mere happiness and embarrassment this one question had brought to him. 

"Ask again later," Li Ling muttered after having controlled his heart and mind. 

"Okay." Zhihao nodded as he spoke, "Where are we?" 

It was only now that Zhihao had taken a good look around. They seemed to be standing inside an old shed or something. The walls were made out of wood and so were the floors but the wood wasn't polished which gave it a feeling of some handmade wooden shed that used to exist more than five decades back. 

Zhihao walked around the small shed and tried to analyze as much as he could. 

"We'll have to wait for Alvi to give us the information," Li Ling spoke as he followed Zhihao around the room like a lost puppy, "There is something that's bothering me though." 

"What?" Zhihao asked as he looked back at Li Ling. 

"The name of this level." 

"What's weird about that?" 

"I wouldn't say weird," Li Ling tilted his head, "But it's not normal." 

"What was the name?"

"Save the vampire." 

"Vampire?" Zhihao seemed to be a bit confused and a bit excited as he asked, "We have vampires in this level?" 

Li Ling nodded his head as his eyes trailed up and down Zhihao's body. 

"Why are you checking me out?" Zhihao asked with a proud smirk. 

"Hmm... You don't look like a vampire."