The Young man in Online Romance (4): 

In the afternoon, Gu Juntian went to the mall and bought a brand-new VR helmet.

Now, he took the VR helmet out and started downloading various apps and logging in.

The process was a bit slow, so he pulled out his phone and checked the original owner’s chat history.

Both of the original owner’s parents had been only children, so he had no close relatives—just some distant ones.

When his parents passed away, those relatives had helped out and later showed some concern, urging him to go out more and find something to do.

The original owner pretended to be dead and never replied, so eventually, they stopped sending messages.

His parents’ friends had acted the same way—concern at first, but when the original owner ignored them, they left him alone.

On the original owner’s phone, there were only two people he chatted with frequently: Little Sheep and Qingtian Bairi.

Gu Juntian checked and found the chats with Little Sheep were actually fairly normal.

The original owner had worked hard to maintain the persona of a successful man in front of Little Sheep. Although he was essentially Little Sheep’s bootlicker, he kept his messages short and carried himself with a sense of superiority.

In the game, he also spoke to others in the same manner.

Since Little Sheep was just as ignorant about finance as the original owner, they never talked about such topics, so there were no obvious slip-ups in their conversations.

But the chats with Qingtian Bairi… were eye-burning.

The relationship between the original owner and Zhou Qinghao had actually been encouraged by another apprentice he’d taken in the game—“Dark Overlord.”

When the original owner was short on money, Dark Overlord often chatted with him, mentioning that a friend of his had gotten into an online romance in Cultivation and managed to get a lot of money from their partner.

Dark Overlord himself kept shouting about wanting to find a rich woman, and he also told the original owner that Qingtian Bairi liked him.

Hearing it enough times, the original owner was tempted.

He didn’t know how to charm people, so he pursued Zhou Qinghao by following dating guides he found online.

Also, despite having poor character, the original owner had a shred of shame. He knew tricking Zhou Qinghao out of money was wrong, so he tried hard to coax him, collecting piles of cheesy love lines from the internet to send him.

Gu Juntian only had to scroll a little to find a flood of cringe-worthy messages.

When the original owner asked Zhou Qinghao for money, he sent even more of those greasy, nauseating lines.

Gu Juntian got goosebumps all over.

And to make Zhou Qinghao believe he was capable—and willing to invest in his “projects”—the original owner would sometimes claim he was a programmer developing a game like Cultivation, and other times claim he owned a company producing high-tech products.

The number of fake identities he invented was ridiculous.

Gu Juntian’s goosebumps worsened.

The most unbelievable part was… Zhou Qinghao believed it all!

What a naive, rich fool!

Gu Juntian sighed inwardly. Seeing that the game had finished downloading, he logged in.

It was after dinner, the peak time for Cultivation, and Gu Juntian happened to log into the original owner’s guild base—the Tianmo Pavilion.

The original owner had been playing Cultivation since its release, one of the very first players, and had spent a huge amount of money on it.

His parents had left him over ten million in inheritance, and he had also scammed ten million from Zhou Qinghao, giving him more than twenty million in total. Of that, ten million had been spent on Little Sheep over time, and the rest had been poured into Cultivation.

As a result, Tianmo Pavilion’s base was extremely well built, ranking among the top ten player guilds in the game.

The original owner himself was on several leaderboards—top ten in wealth, top ten in combat power, and owner of the eighth-ranked legendary weapon.

The ID “Emperor” was a big name in Cultivation.

For the original owner, this identity was more important than Little Sheep; he would rather kill someone than lose it.

But he had been truly foolish—someone who rarely left home couldn’t possibly commit murder without leaving clues.

Right after killing Zhou Qinghao, the police caught him.

“Emperor!”

“Emperor, why haven’t you been online the past few days?”

“Emperor, you weren’t here, and even your booster didn’t show up!”

…

Seeing Gu Juntian, the Tianmo Pavilion members began asking questions.

Gu Juntian said, “The booster quit. I’ve been too busy with work, so I haven’t logged in.”

Fortunately, the original owner’s usual high-and-mighty tone in chats was similar to his own, so he wouldn’t be exposed.

“I see.”

“Emperor, while you were gone, Little Sheep was worried about you.”

“We asked Little Sheep to contact you—why didn’t you reply?”

…

Indeed, Gu Juntian hadn’t replied to Little Sheep. As for why… he planned to cut ties entirely.

He didn’t like someone who constantly asked the original owner for money. Since that was the case, it was better not to stay in contact.

If possible, he’d like to get back the money the original owner had given Little Sheep—but that was impossible.

Those were platform tips and couldn’t be recovered.

Given that, he might as well cut his losses.

Gu Juntian said, “We don’t have much of a relationship. Don’t keep linking me with him.”

The Emperor had never said such things before, so the members quickly realized something—Little Sheep had fallen out of favor.

The Emperor had treated Little Sheep so well, not only gaming with him during his livestreams but also tipping him over ten million. Yet now, in the blink of an eye, he didn’t even want to be associated with him.

The emotions of rich people really did come and go quickly.

Still, Little Sheep wasn’t at a loss—he had gotten plenty of money out of the Emperor.

They were actually quite envious of him, but without his looks, they couldn’t hook the Emperor.

Otherwise… they wouldn’t even need ten million—give them a hundred thousand, and they’d happily keep the Emperor company for a year!

After all, Little Sheep had just played games with him, and during those games, the Emperor had given him equipment.

Little Sheep’s streaming popularity had soared thanks to the Emperor, since many viewers tuned in just to see the famous rich second-generation player from Cultivation.

Honestly, they wouldn’t even need a hundred thousand—they’d do it for free.

Look at Qingtian Bairi, the apprentice the Emperor had taken in Cultivation—just to play with the Emperor, not only did he not ask for money, he even gave him equipment.

The original owner had a very high status in Cultivation, so when he said he didn’t want to be connected to Little Sheep, everyone dropped the topic and instead asked if he wanted to run a dungeon.

That day, Cultivation had just released a new dungeon.

Gu Juntian recalled it from the original plot.

The dungeon was called “Imprisoned Dragon.” The surface story was that many years ago, an evil dragon appeared and wreaked havoc, eventually being imprisoned by a mighty cultivator.

Now, after many years, the seal had weakened, and warriors from all sides needed to slay the dragon to prevent its escape.

But there was a hidden storyline—the so-called evil dragon had never committed any evil acts. It had been framed by the mighty cultivator, who then gathered experts to imprison it so he could harvest its blood and scales.

In his previous life, Little Sheep had uncovered this hidden plot, gaining more attention for his streams and earning his character the gift of dragon blood from a golden dragon—granting him the dragon race bloodline.

Unlocking the hidden plot was troublesome and could only be done once.

In the original story, everyone initially entered the dungeon to kill the dragon, which still yielded plenty of treasures—and if lucky, players could collect the Dragon Scale Set.

Gu Juntian decided to first take Tianmo Pavilion to kill the dragon and get a Dragon Scale Set for Zhou Qinghao, then unlock the hidden plot so Zhou Qinghao could receive the golden dragon’s gift.

Selling property would take time, so for now, he couldn’t repay Zhou Qinghao’s money—this could serve as compensation.

The Dragon Scale Set was one of the best in Cultivation at the moment!

As for whether killing the dragon despite knowing its tragic fate was cruel… this was just a game—killing a bunch of data didn’t bother him in the least.

In Cultivation, players were always killing each other anyway.

Besides, even after unlocking the hidden plot, the dungeon would remain, and players would still only have the option of killing the dragon.

“When Qingtian Bairi comes online, we’ll run the ‘Imprisoned Dragon’ dungeon together,” Gu Juntian said.

“Okay!” everyone agreed.

The dungeon required a team—at most twenty people, at least twelve.

Gu Juntian saved a spot for Zhou Qinghao, then picked eighteen members from Tianmo Pavilion and had them prepare the necessary items.

Just as he was getting ready, another person appeared in the base.

He didn’t see the face at first, but the equipment told him it was Qingtian Bairi.

“Qingtian Bairi, want to run a dungeon together today?” Gu Juntian asked, and as he spoke, he saw his face clearly.

From the original owner’s memories, he knew Qingtian Bairi’s in-game appearance, and from knowing the future, he had seen what Zhou Qinghao looked like in real life.

There was some difference, but not much—Qingtian Bairi was a young, handsome man.

Even back then, Gu Juntian had thought Qingtian Bairi suited his tastes better than Little Sheep.

And now… Qingtian Bairi’s looks were almost exactly his type in every way.

His heart sped up. He stared at Qingtian Bairi, reluctant to even blink.

Was he really going to break up with him?

After the breakup, would Qingtian Bairi find someone else? Being so naive, would he be scammed dry?

No way—absolutely not!

The thought of Zhou Qinghao having a new boyfriend, possibly being taken advantage of, was unacceptable.

As for the breakup… he had only been toying with the idea before. Why would he seriously do it?