THE NEXT MORNING, Xue Meng arrived at Chief Jiang's office and listened to his whole spiel. Realization slowly dawned on him—this time, he'd been given the responsibility of being a pimp.
Xue Meng was deeply displeased. "Why am I either reviewing sperm donation applications or trying to increase the birth rate? Shouldn't you be delegating this to Tinder or Hinge—what the hell does it have to do with me?!"
Chief Jiang had just put another whole steamed bun in his mouth. Though he had impeccable table manners, the breakneck speed at which he ate was terrifying to behold. "For the last time," he said, "you're not a 'pimp.' You're contributing to the cultivation research group's genetic engineering project." He swallowed the last steamed bun and dabbed delicately at his mouth with a handkerchief.
"Listen up," he said, pinning Xue Meng with a stare. "The demon tribes have become more and more active over the past few hundred years. Another war between mortals and demons will likely break out within the next two centuries—we need enhanced military capabilities."
Xue Meng rolled his eyes. "You mean you need offspring from special-phenotype Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts."
Jiang Xi didn't deny it. "Yes, exactly."
"But there haven't been any special-phenotype Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts for a long time. The only lead we have is this guy named Mo Ran."
"Right."
"You need that guy to have kids."
"Precisely."
Xue Meng's lip curled in a sneer. "But he's gay."
"Super gay," clarified Jiang Xi.
Xue Meng gnashed his teeth. "So you guys spent over a decade developing a dating sim called Destiny Pervertations—"
"Destiny Permutations," corrected Jiang Xi. There was no expression on his face. "Strictly speaking, it's not a dating sim."
"Who cares if it's pervertations or permutations!" Xue Meng's voice rose. "You want me to use it to run simulations until I find a way to correct Mo Ran's sexual orientation, and go down different routes to match him up with some busty long-legged girls to have babies with—"
Mister Chief Jiang Xi waggled a finger at him. "They don't have to be busty or long-legged as long as they've got child-bearing hips."
A shriek of concentrated rage echoed down the hallway outside the chief's office. "That's just pimping with extra steps!"
"Calm down. Destiny Permutations runs simulations. It's for research purposes only." Jiang Xi took a sip of tea. "The bureau will collect data from your results and use it to create a finalized implementation plan."
"I refuse."
"Relax, kid." Chief Jiang said. "Just pretend you're a beta player for a dating sim."
"I said I refuse! Do you need to go get your hearing checked by a specialist, Captain Jiang?"
Unfortunately, the captain was not swayed. Xue Meng had no choice but to accept this mission. Chief Jiang wasn't completely heartless. He very kindly gave Xue Meng a companion: a talking paper dragon.
"Assistant, counselor, guide, toy, in-game companion, court jester, whatever you want to call it." Jiang Xi picked up a Ru ware teacup and said in languid tones, "It's yours now. It'll go into the simulation with you and help you come up with ideas." He waved a hand, ignoring the fit Xue Meng was throwing. "Get started, rookie."
"What did you just call me?"
But Chief Jiang paid him no mind. He gestured, and the new grad was ushered away by a few smiling young ladies, provided with the necessary equipment, and set up to begin the game.
The world spun around him. Xue Meng found himself transported to the first scenario. He'd heard of youths being banned from video games, but never youths forced to play them—yet what was he supposed to do? Jiang Xi said this was his first mission. The faster he got it over with, the better.
Feeling claws digging into his shoulder, Xue Meng turned with a scowl to discover a little paper dragon crouched there. Its foreclaws were clutching a mission guide pamphlet. As it flipped through the pages, it exclaimed, "Ooooo, ooooooooooh, ooooh!"
"Shut up," snapped Xue Meng. "Are you a pigeon?"
"How dare you! I'm the all-powerful, all-knowing Dragon of the Candle!" The paper dragon smacked Xue Meng in the face with its tail. "That way."
Xue Meng looked in the direction it pointed—a dark and suspicious little alley, its dank walls plastered with peeling advertisements. The ground was wet with a mix of unidentifiable fluids that resembled trash bag leakage combined with the contents of spit cups.
Xue Meng spun on his heel and headed determinedly in the other direction.
"Eek, where are you going?"
"Somewhere more hygienic."
"You think I want to go over there?" The paper dragon flexed its little claws in anger and thwapped its mission pamphlet on Xue Meng's nose. "Use your eyes! It's telling you to walk six hundred feet into the alley and find a noodle shop—that's where you'll see primary-school-age Mo Ran!"
Xue Meng took the mission guide and skimmed it skeptically. The paper dragon was right. He handed it back with a scowl and strode into the darkness, holding his breath.
Maybe he was suffering a fit of insanity. He walked through the alley just as the report asked him. After taking a left turn partway down, the pathway widened and became cleaner.
"Yes! Right there! The noodle shop called Back Again?—do you see it?" The dragon turned a few excited loops; it was so embarrassing Xue Meng couldn't help being glad no one in the simulation world could see them.
He soon found the student Mo Ran among the noodle shop's customers. He had to admit his target was, at the very least, readily identifiable. He wore a tattered backpack and shuffled around in sneakers with peeling soles; his greasy black hair flopped limply over his brow, looking like it'd gone several days without a wash. Though Xue Meng was still a distance away, he could tell Mo Ran stank—the other customers gave him a wide berth.
"A malnourished little mutt," commented Xue Meng, hand on his chin.
"He gets super hot once he grows up," the little dragon reminded him.
"So why are we looking for Mo Ran while he's in primary school? Can't we look for the hot older version and shove some aphrodisiacs down his throat? Then we just grab a girl and lock them up in a room together—wouldn't we be done?"
The dragon side-eyed him. "Kid, we're from the Bureau, not a brothel."
Xue Meng stared right back.
"Also, the CWPB prohibits unlawful drugging. You have to make Mo Ran willingly fall in love with a girl he'll marry and have kids with. Obviously, giving him a childhood sweetheart is the easiest route," said the dragon. It reread the mission overview in search of something to back it up its assertion. Unfortunately it was successful. "Ha! I told you I was the all-knowing, all-powerful Dragon of the Candle! Look, there's a list of recommended partners right here!"
"Are you sure Jiang Xi didn't give you a cheat code?" Xue Meng disdainfully snatched up the papers again. He smoothed out the wrinkles left by the little dragon's claws and peered at the text beneath the grimy streetlights.
Damn it all. It really did have ten possible female targets listed for Mo Ran.
"Candidate 1. Jane Doe. Meet-cute strategy: Cast a spell to make the noodle shop's dog Max suddenly go rabid and bite Mo Ran while he's eating noodles. A Volkswagen Santana will drive by right at the same time, and the car's driver will kindly offer to take Mo Ran to the hospital for the shot. Jane Doe is the driver's daughter, one year younger than Mo Ran—in third grade. They'll get to know each other in the car and become childhood sweethearts."
Xue Meng read the next name with a look that very clearly communicated Are you fucking kidding me?
"Candidate 2. Jane Roe. Meet-cute strategy: Cast a spell to make the noodle shop's dog Max have a heart attack—"
"Nope." Xue Meng, after spending far too much time rubber-stamping proposals for pig and chicken farms, had a lot of sympathy for animals. His conscience instantly vetoed the idea, but curiosity made him read on. "After Max dies, the noodle shop owner's daughter will come weep over its body. Her crying will draw the attention of her friend Jane Roe, and Mo Ran will meet both girls."
"Why can't we just work on the noodle shop owner's daughter?" mumbled Xue Meng.
The dragon smacked Xue Meng in the face with its tail, then jabbed it at the girl in question—she was three times Mo Ran's size, her eyes small and squinted. She was crouched in front of the storefront in garish red and green pajamas, picking at her feet and chewing on garlic.
"I see," said Xue Meng after a pause. If they chose the noodle shop owner's daughter, Mo Ran would probably tumble deeper into the abyss of homosexuality.
Well, even if he hated his job, he was duty bound to do his best. Comrade Xue considered himself a responsible Daoist and upstanding cultivator. Despite his grumbling, he carefully read through the dossier on the ten prospective female partners. Whoever wrote the thing had to have been a jobless incel—they had listed the heights, weights, and interests of each lady beside each two-inch profile picture.
Xue Meng, with the typical taste of a straight male, picked out a girl named Jane Toe.
"Um," said the paper dragon. "That name doesn't sound promising."
"What do you know? She's cute; I bet she'll grow up to be a stunner." Xue Meng said with confidence. "There's no way Mo Ran will go gay if we choose this one."
"Don't say I didn't warn you."
Man and dragon skimmed down to the route walkthrough.
"To trigger Jane Toe's route," the candle dragon read aloud, "wait for Mo Ran to finish his noodles and walk two blocks away before summoning rain. Mo Ran will run beneath the nearest eaves using his backpack as an umbrella. He'll hear the sound of a little girl crying from the next street over—"
"This sounds like a horror story."
"Dumbass, it's obviously a damsel in distress," scoffed the dragon. "Look—it says Mo Ran's going to go looking for the source of the crying. He'll find our little Jane Toe being bullied by a group of girls who call themselves the Big Bosom Besties. Our little Mo Ran is going to charge in and fight for her in the name of justice. That's how they'll meet."
There was no time to waste. The dragon summoned a heavy rainstorm while Xue Meng went off to make sure Little Miss Jane Toe was surrounded by the schoolyard gang. Everything went just as planned, until the girl who breasted the most boobily picked up a brick and slammed it down on Mo Ran's head. The little knight in shining armor collapsed in the rain, face-first.
Xue Meng and the candle dragon both blinked.
"Isn't he supposed to be a special-phenotype Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast?" blurted Xue Meng. "They demolished him! Are you kidding me?"
"Maybe he's too young?" the dragon suggested.
Lightning crackled overhead as Mo Ran lay in the puddle with blood gushing from his head. The ringleader exclaimed, "Run, y'all, he's dead!" She and her lackeys scattered like birds, sprinting into the rain.
But they were quickly outdone by Little Miss Jane Toe, who went white as a ghost when she saw Mo Ran sprawled out in the rain. With a shrill scream, she abandoned her savior and ran off. The speed of her disappearance left Xue Meng flabbergasted—how had the Big Bosom gang caught her in the first place? A frightened rabbit couldn't even run that fast.
Xue Meng and the dragon crouched beside the unconscious Mo Ran and exchanged a look. "What do we do now? Wake him up?"
"We can't directly affect the people in the simulation…"
Xue Meng went pale. "So he's going to bleed out on the pavement?"
"Aiya, it's just a simulation after all, not a transmigration. It doesn't matter if he dies." said the dragon coarsely. "Press X to respawn. GG."
He wasn't wrong—but that didn't make Xue Meng any less enraged. He picked up the mission booklet, fury radiating from every eyelash and every blue blood vessel. "Is this book lying?! We followed the walkthrough perfectly, so how did we fail?"
The dragon hesitated, then stretched a claw out and tapped the last line on the back cover.
Disclaimer: The instructions provided in this book are from Big Fraud Fortunetelling and may not be 100% accurate. Use at your own risk.
After a moment of stunned silence, Xue Meng turned his face up to the sky and shrieked, "Jiang Xi, you motherfucker!"
Unfortunately, despite the advanced technology behind Destiny Permutations, it was not programmed for any kind of mother fucking, let alone by Jiang Xi.
Destiny Permutations was a detailed simulation of the real world. They had to collect more data on unique phenomena before they could continue. Thus, their first priority was to prevent Mo Ran from bleeding out from his little noggin.
The best thing to do would be to draw some Good Samaritan's attention to this shadowy alley, where a little boy was in need of 911's tender loving care. They knocked over garbage cans to block the way of passersby and cast spells so stray cats would bite the hems of their pants, but all they got was people cursing out the garbage cans and crazy cats. It was already late in the afternoon; everyone was rushing home. Nobody would look down an out-of-the-way alley like this one.
"Wanning, wait here."
A mother and son turned the corner. The woman was young and beautiful, wearing a camel cashmere coat. Her son, whose head came only up to her hip, was holding a white umbrella with a big cat printed on it. The rain had dyed his long, inky lashes even darker. The wind rose, and the child tucked his pale, delicate face deeper into his cashmere scarf until only his bright eyes were visible.
"Mommy's going across the street to deal with some work things. Stay here and don't move. I'll be back in a minute."
The boy nodded obediently. The beanie on his head slid down a little, covering one eye.
"Yesss! This little guy! Make another stray cat bite his pants!" cried the little dragon.
Xue Meng didn't need to be told twice. Things went much more smoothly this time; the little boy immediately noticed the dark alley and followed the cat over. He stared in shock at Mo Ran, prone on the ground. "Hey, are you okay?"
Watching invisibly over his shoulder, Xue Meng and the little dragon let out long sighs of relief.
"Hallelujah."
"Goodness still exists in the world."
They mopped at the sweat on their faces. Xue Meng watched the boy run across the street in search of his mother, then dug out that accursed guide once more. "Well now I'm dying to know how the Jane Toe route turns out."
As if in answer, the pages of the booklet flipped of their own accord and came to a stop on a later page. The booklet glowed gold. Their surroundings warped and changed; by the time they could see again, they'd traveled twenty years into the future.
"Waaaaugh! What are you doing?" wailed the candle dragon.
"I wasn't serious." Xue Meng was equally confused. "I didn't think the book would send us twenty years into the future to see the results!"
The candle dragon stared at him.
"But," said Xue Meng slowly, "that means our actions did impact Mo Ran's future. Otherwise, the guide wouldn't have brought us here."
The dragon huffed and puffed in impotent fury, then sighed. "You're right. We should have set him on Jane Toe's route. Let's go see what happened."
They walked until they found themselves on the same street, twenty years later. It looked much the same, save that the nearby buildings had grown shabbier. Every storefront had the words For Demolition scrawled over it in huge red letters. There was hardly another soul anywhere on the street. Things seemed rather bleak.
"The whole block's getting bulldozed next month." Xue Meng heard a low voice coming from a corner to his left. Even without seeing him, he could tell the speaker was smiling. "I'll almost miss it."
"I feel the same." It was another male voice, cool and crisp. "After all, this was our old haunt."
"Ha ha. More importantly, this is where we first met, isn't it?"
The cooler voice laughed too. "You were lying in the mud when I met you. Aren't you embarrassed to bring it up?"
The first man's reply was too low to make out—and then all they could hear from the dark corner were the wet sounds of kissing and the rough breathing of two men.
Xue Meng and the little candle dragon stared in slack-jawed astonishment at the two tall and handsome men making out, their hands all over each other. Although twenty years had passed, they recognized the pair instantly.
"So…" the dragon began.
"Mo Ran still became…" Xue Meng continued with difficulty.
"Goddamn gay!" Man and dragon finished in unison. They turned to look at each other, almost on the verge of tears, and wailed, "And we're the ones who did it!"
The dragon hissed. "It's your fault! Who told you to make the stray cat lead this 'Wanning' kid over?"
Xue Meng hadn't expected the dragon to push the blame onto him. "My fault?!" he raged. "Who was it that made such a big storm Mo Ran couldn't see clearly while he was fighting? You're the reason he got a brick to the head!"
"It's your fault! You're the one who picked the Jane Toe route! Great decision that was!"
"No, it's your fault! You didn't show me the disclaimer on the back of the book until it was too late! Selfish, shitty little dragon!"
"Are you blind? It's your fault!"
"It's your fault! You're so annoying!"
"Your fault! Your fault! Your fault—!"
While the two employees of the CWPB were yelling at each other, Mo Ran and Chu Wanning stepped out of the shadows hand in hand. They strolled down the old street that would soon be demolished, reminiscing about the twenty years they'd spent together.
Watching their retreating silhouettes, Xue Meng pinned the little dragon's head down and howled hysterically. "It's! All! Your! Fault!"
Regardless, the mission needed to go on. If one strategy failed, they'd have to try another. There were so many girls in the world. There was sure to be one they could introduce to Mo Ran so he would get married and have kids. Fight on! they told themselves. There's no way a dating sim would only have one ending!
Anger and ambition burning in their hearts, these two employees selected a new route in Destiny Permutations.
"We're not in that gross alley anymore," said Xue Meng as he regained his balance and looked around. "I think we've been sent to a school gymnasium."