Chapter 10: The First Call
The message sat in my inbox like a grenade with the pin already pulled.
[Cleansing Mist: Is this you?]
I'd been staring at it for—I checked the clock in my peripheral vision—four minutes now. Four minutes of reading three words over and over, as if they might rearrange themselves into something less terrifying.
Su Mucheng.
The person who knew Ye Xiu better than anyone.
The person I absolutely cannot fool.
The café was silent around me. Station three's monitor cast pale blue light across my hands—these borrowed hands that had just set a server record but still couldn't execute a six-hit combo without praying to the probability gods. Outside, the sky was starting to lighten with dawn. December 8th. Five days into my new life.
Five days of avoiding this exact conversation.
I opened the reply field and typed: Who's asking?
The response came in under three seconds.
[Cleansing Mist: Senior. That corridor 5 shortcut. No one else knows it exists.]
My stomach dropped.
Of course she recognized it.
In the source material, Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng had developed that shortcut together—hours of testing, mapping, optimizing. It was their private discovery, never shared publicly, never used in tournaments because it was too risky for professional play.
I'd used it because I knew it worked. I hadn't considered that using it would be the equivalent of signing my name in neon lights.
Think.
What would Ye Xiu say?
What would Ye Xiu know that only Ye Xiu would know?
The photo in my pocket pressed against my thigh. Two teenagers at an internet café. The dead friend whose weapon design I carried on a USB drive.
I typed: Su Muqiu's first Glory character was named "Autumn Tree." You were there when he created it. The café was called "Internet Garden" and it smelled like cigarette smoke and MSG.
Three seconds passed. Then five. Then ten.
[Cleansing Mist: ...]
[Cleansing Mist: It's really you.]
[Cleansing Mist: I've been looking since the retirement announcement. I thought maybe you'd just... given up.]
Given up.
The real Ye Xiu would never give up. That was the whole point of his character—the man who loved Glory so purely that corporate politics, public opinion, and physical decline couldn't stop him. He'd walked away from a championship team with nothing but a cardboard box and started over from zero.
I was wearing his face and pretending to be that man.
And she believes me.
[Lord Grim: The night shift pays poorly. Had to find other entertainment.]
[Cleansing Mist: You're at that café? The one on the address in your box?]
She knows about the box.
Of course she does. She probably helped him pack it.
[Lord Grim: Happy Internet Café. The coffee's free and the owner doesn't ask questions.]
[Cleansing Mist: I'll find a way to visit. I have three months left on my contract but I can get a few days off if I push.]
Three months. In the source material, Su Mucheng's contract expired at the end of the current season, freeing her to join Team Happy. I had foreknowledge of her timeline, her decision, her eventual partnership with Lord Grim.
What I didn't have was a way to be the person she expected.
[Lord Grim: How's Excellent Era treating you?]
The pause before her response was longer this time.
The intelligence came in fragments, each piece confirming or expanding my meta-knowledge.
Sun Xiang was struggling with One Autumn Leaf. The account's signature weapon—the Evil Annihilation battle spear—required a specific playstyle that the young prodigy couldn't replicate. He was forcing his own aggressive approach onto a character built for precision, and the results were showing in scrimmage performance.
Tao Xuan had been aggressive about the post-retirement narrative. The official story was "mutual agreement to part ways," but someone inside the organization was leaking details about the forced signing, and Tao Xuan's PR team was working overtime to contain it.
And the parting words I'd delivered—"Keep the account. We'll see who it serves better."—had apparently rattled the CEO more than expected. Su Mucheng described increased security on internal communications, sudden audits of player contracts, and a general atmosphere of paranoia that hadn't existed before my final day.
[Cleansing Mist: Whatever you said to him, it hit something. He's been on edge for a week.]
I stared at the message.
In the source material, Ye Xiu had left silently. No parting shots, no threats, just the dignity of walking away without comment. My deviation from that script—born from instinct, from the frustration of inheriting someone else's forced retirement—had apparently changed something.
Butterfly effect.
The first one I've noticed.
How many more are waiting?
[Lord Grim: I didn't say anything special. Just reminded him that accounts don't play themselves.]
[Cleansing Mist: That's... very you, actually.]
The words hit harder than they should have.
Very you.
Except I'm not you.
I'm just good at pretending.
The conversation shifted to logistics.
Su Mucheng established an encrypted side-channel—a private messaging protocol that bypassed Glory's standard systems. She'd been using it for years to coordinate with Ye Xiu during matches without enemy teams intercepting their communications.
I accepted the channel and watched her message frequency drop to almost nothing. The public conversation was for show; the real intelligence would flow through encrypted text from now on.
[ENCRYPTED: I have dungeon data from Excellent Era's internal testing. Shortcuts, boss mechanics, record routes. I can send whatever you need.]
The offer was exactly what I needed—professional-grade intelligence that would accelerate my record attempts across every dungeon. It was also exactly the kind of help that only someone who trusted completely would provide.
[ENCRYPTED: Send me everything on Boneyard. I'm scouting tomorrow.]
[ENCRYPTED: Already compiled. The boss's second phase has a timing window that most guilds miss—there's a 0.3 second gap where its damage reduction drops. I'll mark it in the data.]
She's been preparing this.
She's been waiting for me to show up so she could help.
She's been loyal to a memory for five days, and that memory is wearing someone else's face now.
[ENCRYPTED: Thank you. For everything.]
[ENCRYPTED: Just like always, right? You find the path. I provide cover fire.]
The phrase triggered something in my chest—a tightness that had nothing to do with Desync or fatigue. "Just like always." As if we'd done this a hundred times before. As if I had any right to the partnership she was offering.
[Cleansing Mist: I need to log off. Morning training in three hours. But Senior—I'm glad you're still playing. I was starting to think the retirement was real.]
I typed: It was real. This is something new.
Then I deleted it.
I typed: I needed time to figure out the next move.
Sent.
[Cleansing Mist: And now you have? A move, I mean?]
[Lord Grim: I'm working on it. The Umbrella needs materials. The team needs bodies. Everything takes time.]
[Cleansing Mist: I'll help with whatever I can. Three months isn't long. I'll be there soon.]
She signed off before I could respond.
The café hummed around me in the pre-dawn quiet.
I closed the game interface and sat in the darkness, the encrypted channel saved, Su Mucheng's intelligence compiled in the PRD's database alongside everything else. Frost Forest routing. Tang Rou's combat patterns. Player profiles and mob spawn timers and the thousand small data points that would eventually become a foundation for something larger.
[Social interaction logged. Emotional variance detected in host physiological response.]
The SOE notification blinked once and faded.
Emotional variance.
Is that what we're calling guilt now?
The cardboard box sat on the shelf behind me—Ye Xiu's box, with the USB drive and the phone and the photo I hadn't looked at since the second night. I reached for it without thinking, pulled out the photograph of two teenagers at a different café.
Su Muqiu's grin. Ye Xiu's faint smile. The gaming magazine held up like a trophy.
"Glory launch day. We're going to change the world."
I turned the photo face-down and put it back in the box.
I can't look at him.
I'm pretending to be his best friend while his sister calls me "Senior."
I'm using his weapon design and his relationships and his reputation.
And the worst part is that it's working.
The encrypted channel icon pulsed faintly in my peripheral vision. Su Mucheng's intelligence. Excellent Era's internal data. A pipeline of information that would make every record attempt easier, every guild negotiation smoother, every step of the comeback faster.
All I had to do was keep lying.
I turned off the monitor and sat in the back room with the café's hum around me, the weight of Ye Xiu's most important relationship settling on shoulders that hadn't earned it.
Outside, the sun was rising.
To supporting Me in Pateron.
with exclusive access to more chapters (based on tiers more chapters for each tiers) on my Patreon, you get more chapters if you ask for more (in few days), plus new fanfic every week! Your support starting at just $6/month helps me keep crafting the stories you love across epic universes.
By joining, you're not just getting more chapters—you're helping me bring new worlds, twists, and adventures to life. Every pledge makes a huge difference!
Join now at patreon.com/TheFinex5 and start reading today!