Morning sunlight poured through the Director's Office's massive floor-to-ceiling windows, spilling across the carpet in loose golden sheets that gilded the cold-toned room with a soft warmth.
The beta test of Ordinal Scale had already drawn to a close, but for miHoYo Studio, the far more massive work of data settlement and open-beta preparation had only just begun.
Su Yu sat at his desk, watching streams of data refresh across his monitor at a dizzying pace.
It was sentiment analysis on millions of posts about "Jiahao" from across the entire network, along with hatred-value monitoring pulled from every major forum.
He was calculating the citywide hatred threshold among players, running the final data projections for the endgame illusion he'd dubbed "Empty City Evacuation."
Just then, the office door creaked softly open.
Kiana walked in carrying a steaming breakfast tray.
Golden-fried toast, bacon still sizzling with grease, and a cup of hot milk giving off a rich, comforting aroma.
She crept up to the desk, her gaze inevitably drawn to the massive secondary monitor beside Su Yu.
Pinned to the top of the forum's front page, a thread glared out at her, impossible to miss:
[Written in blood, one man's plea: if you see that freak Jiahao in open beta, every server kills him on sight! No mercy!]
Beneath it stretched over a hundred thousand replies of agreement, packed with vitriol ugly enough to make the skin crawl — someone had even doctored a black-and-white "memorial photo" of "Jiahao."
Watching that glaring malice practically spill out through the screen, Kiana felt her heart sink.
Rationally, she understood this better than almost anyone.
She knew this was a scheme Su Yu had engineered himself, a sacrifice he'd made for the sake of this world, for this city.
But emotionally — watching with her own eyes as the man who'd exhausted himself trying to save millions of lives got spat on and cursed by the very people he was protecting —
That indescribable ache and unfairness of it still left something sour twisting in her chest.
Crack!
Right at that moment.
A sharp sound snapped Su Yu out of his thoughts.
Kiana said nothing consoling. She just reached out and, without ceremony, slammed the monitor shut.
The glaring data and the abuse vanished instantly into the dark screen.
"What's wrong, Kiana?"
Su Yu gave a helpless little laugh, glancing at the breakfast on the desk.
"The beta wrapped up fine. Just hand the data off to Bronie, no?"
Kiana planted both hands firmly on the desk.
She stared straight into his eyes, her heterochromatic eyes — usually so full of life — now full of dissatisfaction.
"I'm requisitioning you for the day. You're coming out with me. No computer, no phone, no thinking about work!"
Su Yu opened his mouth, as if about to protest.
Kiana gave him no chance to argue. "That's an order, not a discussion. Now eat your breakfast!"
He looked at the girl's eyes, stubborn enough to spark flame, and fell silent for a moment.
Finally he raised both hands in surrender, sighing like every father who's ever caved to a spoiled daughter.
"Fine. Today, Miss Kiana's word is law." Su Yu stood, picked up the hot milk on the desk, and took a sip. "So, where's our first stop?"
—————————
The day's itinerary was entirely Kiana's call.
She stopped at the entrance of an underground arcade, turned back to jut her chin at Su Yu, her eyes burning with fighting spirit.
"Hmph. Today, I'm going to show you exactly what the Kaslana family's absolute dynamic vision looks like!"
Kiana exchanged for a big handful of game tokens and dragged Su Yu into an immersive holographic racing simulator.
As a genuine Herrscher vessel, Kiana's nerve reflex speed and dynamic vision had long surpassed the bounds of human perception.
Even the blistering afterimages the high-refresh screen threw up looked, to her, as clear as slow motion.
She gripped the wheel with confidence, ready to give this "public enemy of the internet" a good lesson in this race.
"Three, two, one — GO!"
The moment the countdown ended, the two virtual supercars shot up the mountain track like arrows loosed from a bow.
From the start, Kiana's terrifying Herrscher-level reaction speed let her carve through a string of brutally difficult hairpin turns with masterful precision.
No matter how twisted the track got, she always managed to wrench the wheel back a fraction of a second before slamming into the wall, driving with a wild, brutal aggression.
But when she turned, smug, to enjoy the sight of Su Yu floundering, she froze.
One hand resting lazily on the wheel, Su Yu sat with an air of total, unhurried command over the situation.
Kiana's reflexes really were lightning-fast, but Su Yu wasn't just running his second-stage Genetic Lock — his mind still held the [Racing God's Technique] the System had once granted him.
To Su Yu, racing had never been some brute contest of Reaction Speed.
He calculated tire grip, weight transfer, engine RPM, and the flow of air resistance, all with precision.
Right before the turn, he downshifted, tapped the brake, and countersteered in one artfully timed motion —
Whoosh—!
Su Yu's car drifted along the inside line at its absolute limit, slicing past the side of Kiana's car like a phantom.
Every move he made was flawless, textbook-perfect, without a shred of wasted momentum.
In the end, with a perfect slipstream overtake right before the finish line, Su Yu locked down first place with rock-solid control.
"Game Over!"
The results screen popped up.
"I'm done, I'm done with this!" Kiana glared, cheeks puffed out in frustration. "How the hell did you even train that skill? This is more ridiculous than Bronya!"
Su Yu chuckled. "Want to know a secret? I was cheating."
"Ha. Ha."
Kiana rolled her eyes and let it drop — after all, a Kaslana never gives up, and losing one small contest wasn't going to decide anything.
The two wandered through the arcade until Kiana's steps finally stopped in front of a row of claw machines, all decorated in shades of frilly pink.
Her gaze locked onto a white fox plush wearing a little red scarf, sitting behind the glass.
"That one. That's the one!"
Kiana rolled up her sleeves, dropped in a token, and began operating the claw with fierce concentration.
Ten minutes later, though—
Clank—
With the last two tokens spent, the loose, flimsy claw wobbled its way down one more time.
It barely managed to snag the white fox plush by the ear, but the moment it lifted into the air, the claw gave a suspiciously convenient little "twitch," and the plush dropped mercilessly back into place.
"Argh! This stupid machine is doing it on purpose! That claw has zero grip strength!"
Kiana was so furious she nearly punched straight through the glass.
A proper Kaslana — repeatedly defeated by a machine built to swindle children!
Standing beside her, Su Yu watched her adorable little tantrum, the corner of his mouth curling up despite himself.
Just as he opened his mouth to offer some comfort, he noticed Kiana had turned and was staring at him with an oddly subtle look.
Kiana bit her lower lip, her thoughts drifting, unbidden, to a piece of gossip she'd once heard from someone else.
Well — okay, not "someone else." It was from the man himself.
Back in university, Su Yu had once gone to great lengths worrying over his good buddy Kevin's love life.
Supposedly, one time, Su Yu tagged along as a wingman when Kevin took Dr. Mei to an arcade date.
Partway through, once he saw the two of them hitting it off and the atmosphere warming up nicely, Su Yu — his job as a third wheel complete — got bored and decided to slip away back to the dorm to play games.
But right there in the arcade, Su Yu ran into a girl with long pink hair, beautiful as an elf out of a fairy tale — Durandal.
That was the first time the two of them had ever met.
Back then, Durandal had been standing exactly where Kiana was standing now, in front of a claw machine, frustrated over a plush she just couldn't grab.
Su Yu, passing by, hadn't been able to stand watching and had helped her win the prize.
As "payment," the fairy-like pink-haired girl had all but dragged Su Yu around the arcade, and they'd spent the whole day playing games together.
It was a first meeting full of pink-tinted memories, belonging only to Su Yu and Durandal.
Thinking of this, an inexplicable sourness rose up in Kiana's chest.
The reason she'd skipped all the more exciting places in the city today and dragged Su Yu specifically to this noisy arcade —
the reason she'd walked straight up to this exact row of claw machines —
was, to some small degree, tinged with a bit of "jealousy."
She wanted to overwrite the traces left by that pink fairy girl with a memory that belonged to her alone.
"Hey."
Kiana suddenly stepped back, crossed her arms over her chest, and lifted her chin.
"I can't get it. You get it for me."
"You really want that plush that badly?"
"It's not about the plush — this is about Kaslana pride!"
"And Kaslana pride means calling in outside help?"
"Are you going to get it or not! Just answer!"
Su Yu couldn't help laughing. Seeing Kiana's puffed-up, pouty expression, he finally stepped up to the machine, more than willing to play along.
"As you command, my lady. Which one do you want?"
Su Yu rolled up his sleeves and set his fingers on the joystick.
"That white fox with the red scarf!"
Kiana stood behind him, eyes locked tightly on his every movement.
Su Yu leaned forward slightly.
The Eye of Deconstruction quietly activated, and the claw machine before him rapidly broke apart into a set of precise data points in his vision.
His wrist snapped, and the joystick jerked rapidly left and right in a burst of motion too fast to follow.
"Swing-claw technique?" Kiana blinked, faintly surprised.
Even though she wasn't skilled at this game, she recognized it as an advanced claw-machine trick — using the swinging momentum to alter where the claw dropped and at what angle it gripped.
At the peak of the claw's swing, Su Yu slammed down the grab button.
The claw dropped diagonally with fierce centrifugal force — not aiming for the plush's body at all, but pinning down the red scarf around the fox's neck instead.
Click.
As the claw rose, the grip was so tightly wedged that even the weak clamping strength couldn't shake the plush loose.
At the top, when the claw automatically released, the plush arced through the air and dropped straight into the prize chute.
Thump.
The white fox plush rolled out.
Su Yu bent down to retrieve it, turned around, brushed a bit of dust off its head, and held it out to Kiana with both hands.
"Mission accomplished," Su Yu said, looking at her. "Miss Kiana."
Kiana stared blankly at the man in front of her for a beat, then snatched the soft white fox plush and hugged it to her chest.
That sour twist of jealousy evaporated in that instant.
A satisfaction she'd never quite felt before tugged at the corners of her mouth.
Her heart felt sweet.
She rested her chin on top of the plush's fuzzy head, hiding her faintly warming cheeks.
But her eyes, curved into crescent moons, gave away exactly how good her mood was.
"Hmph. Not bad. I suppose you know your place."
Kiana raised her eyebrows in a tsundere little flourish, hugging the plush as she turned around, though the cheer in her voice was impossible to disguise.
"Come on! Today I'll be merciful and treat you to the most expensive skewers on the snack street!"
Su Yu watched the girl's light, bouncy back as she walked ahead, shook his head with a smile, tucked his hands into his pockets, and followed after her.
After they'd had their fill at the snack street.
The two of them walked to a quiet bench in a nearby plaza and sat down to rest.
Sunlight fell across the side of Su Yu's face; he squinted slightly, watching the white pigeons playing in a fountain in the distance.
Kiana sat beside him, sipping iced milk tea through a straw, her gaze drifting, unbidden, to the side of his face.
The crowd around them bustled, noise never quite dying down.
On the street behind them, a few young passersby were still hotly debating the just-finished Ordinal Scale beta, occasionally cursing out that arrogant villain "Jiahao."
But right now, Su Yu seemed completely deaf to those voices.
He simply sat there quietly, as if entirely cut off from the world's malice.
Watching this gentle, unguarded version of Su Yu, Kiana's thoughts began to drift, old memories rising unbidden in her mind like a revolving lantern.
She thought back to the days right after she'd first crossed through time and space, arriving in this unfamiliar world.
Back then, still sunk in grief over Teacher Himeko's death, with no family left to lean on, she'd come alone to this strange, unfamiliar Arc City.
She'd been wary of this world, afraid of it, yet bound tightly — for reasons that defied all logic — within a one-meter radius of Su Yu.
Those awkward old memories still made Kiana's cheeks flush faintly even now — she still hadn't figured out why this guy had insisted on reciting the Chu Shi Biao outside the bathroom door.
So much had happened since then. So very much.
It was Su Yu who had taken her in, given her a foothold in this world, made her a legitimate citizen here.
It was because of him that she'd been able to pick up the courage and hope to fight again, to battle against her own cruel fate.
Because he'd told her once — no matter where she was, he'd always support her.
Through everything they'd been through, no matter how hard the road, no matter what storm lay ahead, Su Yu had always been the figure standing at the very front, shielding everyone else.
He'd always found the gentlest way to indulge her stubbornness, to protect this home called "miHoYo," and now even more —
to save the millions of ordinary people in this city who didn't even know his name, he was willing to turn himself into the internet's public enemy, to shoulder every last bit of the filthiest slander imaginable.
What a giant idiot.
…
Before either of them noticed, the sun had already sunk completely below the horizon.
Dusk faded, and night fell.
Arc City's signature sea of dazzling neon lights slowly flickered on.
Su Yu and Kiana avoided the noisy central district and made their way to a quiet hilltop park at the edge of Arc City.
From here, they could look down over half the city's stunning night view.
The evening wind drifted by; all around them was quiet enough to hear only the rustle of leaves.
"What are you looking at, so lost in thought?"
Noticing Kiana's strange silence, Su Yu turned his head and asked quietly.
From the mountain road in the distance came the occasional roar of young men riding by on motorcycles: "Jiahao, you little bastard! Don't let me catch you in open beta!"
In the empty night, those shouts sounded unusually harsh.
At some point, the smile on Kiana's face had vanished completely.
She lowered her head, gripping the hem of her clothes tightly with both hands, her shoulders beginning to tremble slightly, beyond her control.
"What's wrong?"
The smile on Su Yu's face faded as well.
"Su Yu."
"Hm?"
"Do you think I'm really stupid?"
"Why ask that all of a sudden?"
"Because you never told me — that the price of pulling off the plan you talked about would be this."
Kiana raised her head, her eyes rimmed faintly red.
She really was a bit of an idiot.
But even an idiot could tell, from the shifting mood these past few days, that something wasn't right.
The man in front of her had, without anyone quite noticing, become a target everyone wanted to see punished.
If anyone ever exposed his real identity, there would be people desperate to hunt Su Yu down in person and settle the score.
Just looking at those vicious words online was enough to leave Kiana feeling suffocated.
And after the suffocation came a helplessness.
She'd thought she could get through today happily, that she could hold back her tears in front of this man.
But seeing that same gentle smile of his —
her heart twisted with a sharp ache.
Just like always.
In front of her, he was always like this — mouthy, saying ridiculous things, but the way he looked at her always carried that indulgent, doting warmth of an adult toward a child.
You always call me the idiot.
But the one who always tries to shield me from every dark, cruel thing, who always stays like this in front of me — you're the biggest idiot of all.
"I know it's all part of the plan…"
Kiana's voice was thick with tears and an unmistakable grievance.
"I know Bronie and the others all understand this is what you're doing to save the people of this city…"
"But… but I just feel so awful about it…"
"Everything you're doing is to protect these people… how dare they curse you like this? They don't even know who you are, don't know what you've done — one look at a few clipped videos and they've branded you some unforgivable devil!"
"Why should they get to say such vile things about you? Why should they get to pin every bit of blame on you?"
"You're a real, living person too! Why should you be the only one who has to carry every bit of the filth, every sin, every misunderstanding?"
The evening wind whistled between them.
Looking at the girl trembling before him, aching for his sake.
He laughed softly, reached up to wipe the corner of her eye, and teased her. "Crying like this, you look like a little tabby cat. If anyone saw our Little Junior Sister looking like this, I'd probably get slapped with another charge."
"I'm not crying!" Kiana turned her face away stubbornly.
Su Yu didn't call her bluff.
He turned as well, standing shoulder to shoulder with her, looking out at the sea of lights that outlined the city.
A moment of silence passed.
"Kiana."
Su Yu asked a question, quietly, as if it were nothing in particular.
"If one day… you were told, with absolute certainty, the exact date of your death — and there was no way, no matter what, to change it — what would you do?"
Kiana blinked, staring blankly at Su Yu, clearly caught off guard by the sudden leap in the conversation.
"I…"
Kiana thought about it seriously for a moment.
"If that day really came, I definitely wouldn't just sit around waiting to die!"
"Even if I knew I'd be dead by tomorrow, today I'd go beat every last bastard who dared to hurt my companions into the ground! I'd fight until the very last second — I'm not bowing my head to fate, not for anything!"
Hearing the exact answer he'd expected, Su Yu's mouth curved into a brilliant smile.
"That's exactly the kind of answer I'd expect from you. And you know what — I love it."
Su Yu looked into her eyes.
"Even if one day some cruel god really did put a blade to my throat, I'd still stand up straight, flip it off, and curse out eighteen generations of its ancestors — don't you think that's exactly the kind of style befitting the number one grand villain of the whole server, 'Jiahao'?"
Listening to Su Yu's utterly unhinged nonsense, Kiana blinked in surprise for a beat, then burst out laughing.
"What is wrong with you, seriously — are you actually addicted to playing the villain now?"
"How do you know it's an act? Maybe it's just my true nature showing — maybe I've always secretly been the kind of guy who loves showing off and wants everyone's attention."
"Yeah, right. If you actually wanted to be a show-off supervillain for real, this world would've ended a long time ago."
"Well, that's only because I've got the righteous Miss Kaslana here to keep me in check. Of course I wouldn't dare."
Both of them ended up laughing at how childish the whole exchange had gotten.
After a while, once the laughter died down, Su Yu turned back to look into Kiana's eyes.
"If we're not even afraid of death, why would a few million people's keyboard crusade matter at all?"
Su Yu continued, half-joking.
"Compared to life and death, this abuse doesn't even qualify as a tickle. At most, it's just the background music to this little magic trick of mine."
"As for you, Ms. Kiana — wipe those tears and save your energy for the open beta ahead. Haven't you ever heard the saying? When the hero walks by, someone's got to be there to cheer."
"If I've put on such a perfect performance and there's no one in the audience, wouldn't that be a total waste of my show?"
Kiana rolled her eyes hugely at him. "Oh, please, now you're patting yourself on the back. So full of yourself!"
But then she paused, looking at the man before her.
He stood amid a sea of scattered lights, the neon-lit skyline of Arc City rising behind him.
"Well, since you're begging so sincerely, I suppose I'll be merciful and watch from the sidelines to see how you finish out this act."
"You'd better perform it well right to the very end, you hear me!"
Kiana clasped her hands behind her back, smiling brilliantly at Su Yu — a smile as warm as sunlight in the dead of winter.
And then —
"I'm hungry. Let's go back."
The mountain wind gusted between them.
Whatever mood had been building instantly collapsed at the word "hungry," and even Su Yu couldn't help pressing a hand to his forehead with a wry laugh.
"Didn't we just eat those skewers not long ago?"
"Well, duh — girls have two stomachs. You didn't know that?"
"Fine, fine. What do you want to eat?"
"Let me think…"
The two of them walked side by side along the path, heading toward the bustling districts of Arc City.
At some point, the night wind had turned sharper, the temperature dropping at an unreasonably fast rate.
Suddenly, something cold and light landed on the tip of Kiana's nose.
She stopped in surprise, tilting her head back.
Under the warm glow of the streetlamps lining the path, delicate white flecks were spiraling down endlessly from the vast night sky.
"It's snowing…"
Kiana murmured softly.
This was Arc City's first snowfall of the year.
The drifting snowflakes quickly laid a thin layer of silver over the branches and the ground.
In the quiet hush of falling snow, Kiana turned her head to glance at the side of Su Yu's face.
Slowly, she reached out and took hold of his hand, hanging loose at his side.
Su Yu turned his wrist and closed his fingers around her slightly cold palm.
Winter had arrived. The blood-red countdown kept shrinking, and the time left for this world grew shorter by the day.
But even if tomorrow were doomsday, there would still be people who'd ask that same simple question —
"Su Yu, what are we going to eat later?"
"Yeah… what should we eat?"
____
Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 40 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉