The Young man in Online Romance (2): 

Gu Juntian entered the game lying down.

Although the original owner was still young, he stayed up late every day playing games and was in poor physical condition. If he could lie down, he would never sit.

When Gu Juntian transmigrated over, the original owner had been lying down, and he didn’t bother getting up either.

The game the original owner played was a full-immersion title called Cultivating Immortality, set in a world of cultivation.

Once players entered the game, they began leveling up, fighting monsters, and striving to become immortals.

It wasn’t truly full-immersion — players, wearing the helmet, still needed to press buttons or swipe on a virtual screen in front of them to operate the game.

But it was still more engaging than traditional online games. Players could use voice chat and even talk with NPCs.

Those NPCs were backed by AI, and it was said that some high school seniors had even brought exam questions they couldn’t solve into the game, asking the supposedly all-knowing NPCs for help — and actually getting the answers.

As for making friends or falling in love in this game, that was even more common.

After all, here you could “see” the other person, talk face-to-face, then go kill monsters, run dungeons, and do events together… feelings naturally developed easily.

The original owner’s in-game character was handsome and powerful, so many people liked him.

At first, he didn’t understand romance, but after falling for the streamer known as “Little Lamb,” he became infatuated, falling headfirst into the trap and unable to get out.

Later, for the sake of money, he approached “Blue Sky White Sun” and began a secret romance with him, purely to scam him.

Flitting between the two, the original owner didn’t have time to develop feelings for anyone else, which at least kept him from owing too many “emotional debts.”

That was fine — Gu Juntian had no interest in romance at all. He just wanted to get rich.

After logging into the game, Gu Juntian glanced at his friends list. Seeing that Blue Sky White Sun wasn’t online, he logged out again.

He actually had other ways to contact Blue Sky White Sun, since the original owner didn’t ask him for money in-game.

But since he couldn’t repay yet, he didn’t want to contact him.

Forget it — he’d wait until he had the money.

He logged out and removed the helmet.

The moment he took it off, his scalp itched and a nauseating smell hit his nose.

The original owner had poor hygiene, sometimes going an entire month without bathing, so of course his hair was greasy.

The inside of his helmet was filthy.

And the house was even worse.

The original owner’s parents had died two years ago. When it first happened, their friends and relatives had come to help.

They arranged the funeral and took care of other affairs for him.

After that, the original owner never went out again.

He bought all his food and daily necessities online or through delivery.

He didn’t even take out the trash.

The bedroom was filled with garbage, the living room just as bad — nowhere to step, and the air was filled with a foul stench.

This place was unlivable.

Gu Juntian took a deep breath and headed to the bathroom for a shower.

There were no clean clothes in the original owner’s wardrobe, but fortunately, the bedroom of his deceased parents had been left untouched.

From his father’s wardrobe, he found a loose tracksuit. After putting it on, he suddenly felt his heart pounding heavily.

Remembering how the original owner had only slept five hours a day for a long time, Gu Juntian decided not to ruin this body any further. Even though it was still early, he lay down in his parents’ room to sleep.

He didn’t sleep deeply, but he slept for a long time. In the morning, he took pictures of the living room and sent them to a housekeeping company, asking them to send people to clean.

He still had some of the money Blue Sky White Sun had recently transferred to him, so hiring help wasn’t a problem.

Since he owed much more than this, a little extra expense wouldn’t matter.

He told the company there was a lot to throw out — including the bed and sofa — and to send more people and a truck.

They readily agreed; this was a big job, after all.

There was indeed a lot to toss out. The living room sofa and the original owner’s bed both smelled awful from years of unwashed use. Better to throw them away.

His clothes too — cheap, worn to the point of stinking — no reason to keep them.

Plenty of miscellaneous junk would also go. He even considered throwing out the helmet.

In the end, he didn’t.

When the cleaners arrived, he asked for cleaning supplies and scrubbed the helmet himself, then got tools and dismantled it.

He was interested in the device, and while taking it apart, he researched information online, gaining a basic understanding.

He decided his future business might focus on full-immersion games and helmets.

He suspected he was from the future.

Seeing this so-called most advanced domestic full-immersion game, he felt it wasn’t advanced at all — there was much to improve.

A true full-immersion game shouldn’t be like this.

The cleaning crew was efficient.

He contacted them at 8 a.m., they arrived at 10, and by 3 p.m., all the trash and unwanted items were gone.

The place was still dirty, so a few stayed behind to deep-clean.

His parents’ apartment was spacious — nearly 200 square meters — but with several cleaners working together, it was spotless by nightfall.

After paying them, he finally relaxed.

He had helped them throughout the day, and now he was exhausted.

All of the original owner’s high-sugar, high-fat snacks were gone; dinner was a light takeout meal.

After eating a little, he collapsed into sleep.

The original owner’s body was so weak that even helping with cleaning was too much.

Tomorrow, he would start exercising.

Soon, he was asleep — and so didn’t see the flood of messages on his phone from Little Lamb and Blue Sky White Sun.

The phone was on silent; the original owner had disliked answering calls.

Meanwhile, in the game, people were talking about him.

“The Emperor didn’t log in last night, fine, but today too? What’s going on?”

“Maybe he’s busy with work?”

“He’s always on for at least a bit in the evenings, and his paid proxy players are usually online during the day and late at night. Now it’s been two whole days…”

“Let Little Lamb check.”

…

The original owner’s in-game name was “Heavenly Emperor,” but everyone called him “The Emperor.”

He had always been active in the game, so his sudden absence worried people.

In the game, he and Blue Sky White Sun appeared as master and disciple; their relationship was private because he didn’t want Little Lamb to misunderstand.

Thus, everyone thought Little Lamb knew him best and was the only one with his real-life contact, so they asked him to check.

Little Lamb agreed and sent a few perfunctory messages, but didn’t take it seriously.

For all he knew, the Emperor might have dropped dead. If so, all the better — what good was a fat shut-in like that being alive?

Glancing across at Blue Sky White Sun, Little Lamb smirked.

Blue Sky White Sun had probably been scammed out of a lot of money. If the Emperor was gone, that money was lost.

And if the truth came out, this young master of the Zhou family would lose all face.

Served him right — in their previous life, Zhou had bullied him constantly.

Yes, Little Lamb had been reborn.

A year ago, just after receiving several million in gifts from the Emperor and planning to date him, he was reborn.

He immediately gave up the idea of dating him, focusing solely on draining him of money. When the Emperor was broke, he even encouraged him to scam Blue Sky White Sun.

He did this because of his past life.

Back then, he was just a small streamer who cross-dressed for attention, barely making a living. So when the Emperor lavished him with gifts, he was overjoyed and began dating him.

During the relationship, he noticed that Blue Sky White Sun seemed to like the Emperor, so he targeted him and drove him out of their guild.

He and the Emperor had a brief sweet period, but the Emperor refused to meet in person, which frustrated him.

He wanted to be the Emperor’s real-life boyfriend and completely control this “rich heir.”

But before he could act, he noticed the Emperor spending less and less.

Soon after, people on the game forum exposed him for borrowing money under various excuses.

The Emperor wasn’t rich at all, let alone a successful businessman.

What kind of “successful businessman” borrows money?

The internet began digging into his background. Some even posted past chat logs, revealing that he didn’t know the first thing about running a company.

His entire persona was fake.

And then, through bits of information he had let slip, people discovered he was a junior-high dropout and a shut-in.

Once that was exposed, the Emperor vanished from the internet, becoming a laughingstock.

Many believed Little Lamb’s demands for money had pushed him into scamming others.

He had been high-profile in his relationship with the Emperor, often bullying others, and now he was the one being torn apart online.

His streaming career collapsed.

Later, after much effort to make a comeback, he ran into Zhou Qinghao — young master of the Zhou family.

Thinking of what happened afterward, Little Lamb ground his teeth in hatred at Zhou Qinghao.