The Great Thief

Players could nominate OTPs (One True Pairings), and then everyone could vote for their favourite. These people were generally celebrities in the gaming circle. Some of these people were actually close in real life, but others were just friends. Not only were these people paired together, but whole fan fictions were written about them. These stories were highly sought after in the official forum’s gossip section.

Lu Li had never paid any attention to these kinds of things. The only reason he knew anything about it was because Lu Xin really loved these stories and was fascinated by them. Lu Li suspected that she had probably participated in the writing of some of these stories, but he didn’t have any evidence yet.

Once, Lu Xin had read a post and had come to ask him about it. She was very curious as to whether Immortal was really in love with Elevenless. She had asked Lu Li because he might be familiar with them. After all, he was in the professional gaming circle.

Of course, Lu Li didn’t know any of these secrets. As per his character, even if there was a secret, he wouldn’t have paid attention. However, now that he had skimmed through the forums, he saw it was filled with gossip.

Of course, Lu Li saw posts about him and Water Fairy. Not only were they saying that Lu Li and Water Fairy were in a secret relationship, but they were also one of the OTPs. The gossip section had a variety of news about him and Water Fairy, in addition to a number of other OTPs. Lu Li started reading some of the fan fiction, but quickly stopped. At first it seemed normal, but it soon started getting perverted. When these posts first started, he noticed that Water Fairy was a bit uncomfortable, but he couldn’t quite work out why.

“Yes, I’ve seen them before,” Lu Li admitted.

“Since you have seen it, this will be much easier,” Customer Service sighed. “This is my intention. We hope that after the Couple System appears next Monday, the two of you can participate in the event and form the first couple in the game.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” Lu Li immediately refused. He didn’t even hesitate before rejecting.

“Mr Lu, please don’t refuse this so rashly. This is an easy way to make you very popular, much easier than playing the game.”

Customer Service 316 was becoming a little anxious. This kind of thing usually boosted the respect and popularity of the player, so he couldn’t think of why Lu Li would refuse. Before he came, their project team had even met up to discuss how they would persuade Lu Li.

There were some who thought Lu Li and Water Fairy were not completely indifferent to one another like some of the other OTPs. They had drawn some rather embarrassing conclusions about their relationship. They thought it was likely that Lu Li wanted Water Fairy but couldn’t get her because of their gap in status.

If Lu Li agreed to this and allowed for the both of them to be listed officially as a couple, then Lu Li would have far fewer troubles pursuing Water Fairy.

“Sorry, I’m not interested in popularity,” Lu Li still shook his head and refused. “And in any case, I don’t want to make my life too public, whether in game or in reality. Marriage is a serious affair, and not something to be taken lightly.”

“How stubborn!” Customer Service had thought this was going to be a piece of cake. He didn’t expect the situation to play out like this. “I think you are mistaken Mr. Lu. There are two types of statuses in the Couple System. The first is for love, which just describes the relationship status between a man and a woman. The other is marriage, which is the advanced version of love. Our marketing will be mainly to promote the relationship, which isn’t directly connected with marriage.”

After such a long explanation, Lu Li just looked at him with a smile. He still wasn’t interested. As someone who had experienced Rebirth, Lu Li knew how the Couple System would work. The Love status would be symbolic for their actual relationship. When the two parties played together and reached a certain level of intimacy, an option to transition into marriage would become available.

Relationships could only be formed between a man and a woman, but this would be changed in the future due to the demands of the player base. It wouldn’t just be limited to a relationship between a man and a woman; even two women could obtain a relationship status.

Customer Service 316 went back to the company’s conference room, where seven to eight people were waiting for the results of their meeting. Customer Service 315, who was responsible for communicating with Water Fairy, was already here. The faces of both Customer Service players and the atmosphere in the room were a bit dull.

The supervisor first asked Liu Xing, who had used the ID of Customer Service 315. His face seemed to have a little hope in it.

“Xiao Liu, how about you go first?”

“I contacted Miss Shen when I entered the game. We had communicated before (as Water Fairy is the ambassador of the Night Elf race), and Miss Shen was very polite. However, when I mentioned that she and Lu Li should form a game couple, she immediately refused,” Liu reported in frustration.

“How about you?” the supervisor asked the other staff.

Customer Service 316 sighed, “It was basically the same for me; he just isn’t interested in improving his popularity.”

“I thought Lu Li was pursuing Water Fairy. Why would he reject an opportunity to become closer to her? It seems like your intel was not entirely accurate,” the supervisor frowned at the disappointing reports.

“Ahem, I only heard that it was just a rumour,” the employee who had made that claim quickly added.

“I heard that you will be on the next list of employees laid off,” the director joked coolly.

Although the supervisor was kidding, the employee that heard this couldn’t help but tense up. Since Dawn had appeared, a number of other game companies had started to decline. There had been mass layoffs and closures in the industry. There was a growing pool of talent outside of Dawn, and there were some that were worried that Dawn would lay them off to make room for these unemployed workers.

“What now? Should we consider other OTPs?” someone asked.

“The popularity gap between these two and the rest is too large. If you look at the post, the number of votes for these two is five times that of the OTP in second place. Our research also tells us that the second OTP might not even be real,” someone else immediately rejected the suggestion.

If the difference in popularity wasn’t that large, then the officials could have figured out a new plan. The key was that Lu Li and Water Fairy were currently the centre of attention of the forums and the game. Either they collaborate with them for the promotion of this system, or they didn’t collaborate with anyone at all. Otherwise, they would be a laughing stock. None of the players would care about the new system.

“Let me see how the interactions happened,” the supervisor said.

Normally, when a Customer Service player entered, there was a live feed recorded so that every move could be subject to investigation. The two Customer Service players easily pulled up the video feed that was recorded.