Chapter Text
When Weiwei got a friend request from the top player on the server that she was on she nearly had a minor stroke. Why would Yixiao Naihe, the number one player on the server, send her a friend request? Sure she was in the top ten leader board for PVP and had a modest following of people on her streaming account. But this was Yixiao Naihe, player extraordinaire, and rumors had been saying that he might just have a hand in creating the new professional league that is going to debut later this year but that had yet to be confirmed. Simply rumors at this point. Just as soon as she clicked on the approval option a chat bubble came up from Yixiao Naihe commenting on the wedding caravan that just passed. She figured that he like most other people might like to gossip and who was she to not fill his need for it. She replied that it was grand. What she did not expect was what she read next.
“Would you like one even grander?” the chat prompt said.
The friend request must not have given her a stroke; it must have killed her and now she was on her journey to the afterlife. This couldn’t be happening. Once she pinched her cheek to make sure that she was still alive she replied by asking if his account had been hacked. He replied that there was a couples championship coming up and that she was the only female within the top ten PVP players. Weiwei toggled to pull up the game’s forum and right there on top was the announcement for the Spring couples’ contest. She took a few moments to glance at the rules and was rather surprised that the only rule was that the couple had to be married in-game. It was odd and she had to wonder if there was something more to the contest and wasn’t being said. Weiwei flipped back to the game and agreed to Yixiao Naihe’s request. She tried to get him to just go to the Marriage Temple right away without the prompt circumstance but her now in-game fiance refused and requested three days so their characters could be wed on an auspicious day. Shaking her head, Weiwei agreed and traded contact information on Wechat before logging off for the night.
The next morning Weiwei took a glance at her Wechat page and noticed that Yixiao Naihe sent her a few messages asking her things like if she played any other classes than Swordsmen. She replied that while she can play all classes but the alchemist, painter, and shadow spirit were her weakest classes. He asked what were her preferred placement within group battles. She replied she preferred to be either the dps or the tank. She admitted she was not great in the support role, preferring to be the one doing the damage versus the one watching people’s health bars. It was as if he was trying to figure out what her style of playing was. She shrugged it off and figured he was asking so he would know how to be a better partner in the couple battles. She was tempted to just give him her streaming handle but figured that he most likely already had it and continued on with her day to day life being a student.
As time went by after their grand wedding caravan Weiwei was almost giddy whenever she was able to play with her online husband.While his gestures were not romantic in ways that people normally thought of like showering her with costly gifts or beating a boss for her; instead he did little things like taking her to areas of the game that had beautiful scenery so she would have something pretty to look at while she was gathering herbs or sitting and playing guzheng while she was crafting potions so she would have pleasant music to listen to as she performed the tedious task of making high level potions. His little gestures truly were touching her heart.
She was shocked with herself when she was heavily debating on sending him voice chats or the possibility of doing a video chat with him. She couldn’t even believe she was contemplating it since she had always been uncomfortable giving too much information about herself online due to people trying to judge her by her looks instead of her merits. Hence the reason why she never gave Zhenshui Wuxiang her picture or met up with him when he asked her, repeatedly. She could only guess between that and the rumor that she was a bio-man was the reason why he wanted a divorce in the first place. The fact that he married again in game so soon after their divorced to the winner of the server’s beauty contest confirmed her original judgment that Zhenshui Wuxiang was shallow. The only reason why they had originally married was because of the guild wars and with the guild pressuring for more married couples so the buffs. But he never wanted to spend too much time on the quests to unlock more of the couple’s skill tree. So unlike Great Master Naihe and him insisting them do every single quest that had the slightest chance to increase either a group buff or a marriage buff.
She was baffled when she sent him an audio file of her reading some lines for the couples’ video contest. This had to be the first time that someone had real proof that Luwei Weiwei was not a guy playing a female character. She wasn’t too sure how she felt about that. By this time Weiwei had also shared her Wechat account with Yixiao Naihe’s group and by the time that she had decided to leave her guild due to her guild mates letting toxic females walk all over them she had learnt that not only were the four men that she had been playing with were college students. They were actually in the same field of study as she was and all roommates to boot. This gave her a new sound board to bounce questions off of since while her roommates were also in the same field of study she spent more time helping them understand the homework instead of the other way around.
Weiwei and Yixiao Naihe blasted through the couples’ challenge and were slated in the finals. The night of the finals Weiwei had logged in first but had a message from Yixiao Naihe that he was on his way home from the meeting. He had never logged in and none of his group were replying to any messages that she was sending via Wechat. It took nearly twenty four hours for her to get a reply back and it was from Yugong Pashan begging for forgiveness that it was because of him that Naihe was in the hospital and had just woken up. She had demanded to know what hospital he was in. She got a voice message in reply. It had to be Naihe and his voice was both scratchy and somewhat familiar. Stating that he didn’t want their first official face to face meeting to be her sitting across from him in a hospital bed.
She later got a message later in the day from Naihe’s account that he would be released by Friday and would like to meet face to face. She admitted that she had a final that day and that she would be done by 11:30 in the morning. She also mentioned that she received a call from the distribution company of the game. They wanted to use the video they created for the couples’ video contest for marketing material for an upcoming event that they didn’t specify. He replied telling her that talking about that could wait until they met up. A time and place was set and Weiwei had dragged her roommates out to go purchase an outfit. She wanted to look pretty but not sexy. She didn’t feel comfortable looking sexy. Her roommates often teased her that she was overly modest and her looks were wasted on someone with her personality; they just could not understand what it was like to be valued just for your beauty.
By the time Weiwei had finished her test she was a bundle of nerves. She wondered if she was over dressed in her crisp white blouse and pale blue patterned skirt. She was after all meeting a fellow gamer and most gamers had a habit of dressing in what her roommates called slob attire. Would Naihe be like a typical gamer? She didn’t want to admit it but she knew that her online husband had already captured a good part of her heart. She could only hope that piece would not get damaged by the time their first meeting ended. As she stood at the planned meeting spot she saw someone waiting under a tree. Her eyes widened when she recognized the person.
Giving a nervous smile she greeted the most elusive senior stating that it was a coincidence meeting up the way they were. At first Xiao Nai didn’t say anything but just smiled at her and started to walk up the hill before pausing to tell her that it wasn’t a coincidence he had been waiting for her. At first Weiwei wasn’t sure she heard him correctly until he said her name. At that point her brain could only understand that Yixiao Naihe was Xiao Nai! Xiao Nai was Yixiao Naihe!
How can it be that the two men that ever fascinated Weiwei were one and the same? Xiao Nai the campus god and Yixiao Naihe the server’s top player, HER online husband!! Weiwei’s brain was having a hard time connecting the facts. It was like her brain had been disconnected and the 404 page not found error kept on flashing through it. She numbly followed him to a quiet restaurant and was on autopilot as she ate. She was finally shocked out of her brain fog when Xiao Nai took her empty bowl she was still scooping out of and refilled it. Then the fog was replaced by embarrassment. Embarrassment she could handle. She would be able to at least be able to somewhat talk with embarrassment, mind you it would be nothing but nervous half formed mumbles but it was better than nothing.
“You are the first person in-game that I’ve actually ever met.” Weiwei uttered, trying to come up with a safe topic. But she was only given a soft smile and a ‘mmn’ as a reply. She tried again. “How did you know it was me when we met up earlier?”
“I’ve known who you are since March.” Xiao Nai said nonchalantly and didn’t elaborate.
“How?” Weiwei asked, baffled by his response.
“Acme Internet Café.” was his reply before his focus shifted to his phone which was ringing.
She tried to not listen to the call but whoever was on the other side was pretty loud. If she had to guess it was one of his roommates. So when Xiao Nai told the person on the phone that he was currently on a date her heart nearly stopped beating. Her blood was ringing in her ears and she had nearly not heard the question if she wanted to go to the final basketball game of the season. She nervously agreed and he left her at the restaurant so he could pick up his bicycle at his home while she was left to mull over her thoughts. What did he mean by Acme Internet Café? The last time she was there was when her laptop had died and she had an appointment for a PVP battle. Was that in March? It felt like it was earlier than that. Heck, at the time she was still married to Zhenshui Wuxiang in-game. But that seemed like a lifetime ago at this point.