Chapter 78, Chapter Twenty-Five: The Fantasy Mansion
Wen Ting knew that DD was suspicious about the password.
Ultimately, she still has to rely on herself.
Not removing her employee badge earlier might not have been a bad thing. Given her situation, removing it too early would most likely have prevented her from acquiring any skills.
I remember the first time I ate with Gong Baidie in the cafeteria, they also discussed the issue of employee badges.
At that time, he said that "nothing would happen if she took it off."
Wen Ting initially thought it was a comforting remark, but now she realizes that he probably meant, "You won't gain any skills even if you pick it."
Wen Ting does not deny this; she does not have any paintings that she is absolutely passionate about.
Conversely, once you understand the employee ID card system, you can theoretically choose the skills you want.
Wen Ting coaxed Gong Baidie into demonstrating his abilities, and the gray smoke tended towards ashes.
Based on the nature of the gray smoke, she initially believes that it can be countered by wind or ice attribute skills.
In comparison, ice-type skills are more comprehensive and more powerful.
She needs to make herself fall in love with a suitable ice-type character.
Adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine, and oxytocin—love is nothing more than these things.
According to Nicol's theory, writing a person's name many times indicates that one has poured a lot of emotional effort into that person.
If the name is so evocative, then the emotion would be even more intense if it were a painting.
Next, she will be drawing day and night, devoting two-thirds of her life to ice-type characters.
In this way, she can acquire the power she desires.
"You're drawing her again."
Wen Ting, who came to the director's office for dinner, said helplessly, "She's a woman, and she wasn't even a character I designed."
Gong Baidie glanced at the unfinished product on her screen.
The white-haired girl lay sprawled on the ice crystal throne, her breasts nearly bursting out, her high-slit skirt slipping down to reveal her entire thigh and almost expose her buttocks.
If it weren't for the trace of dark red blood at the corner of her lips, no one could tell whether she was dead or selling herself.
Gong Baidie's eyes curved into a smile as she asked in a sharp tone, "Who is she? A prostitute?"
“Princess Feyns Li, the Ice Dragon.” Wen Ting teased, “What’s wrong with you, the director of Green Forest? You don’t even recognize your own company’s star product.”
“Princess…” Gong Baidie looked her over again, “I really have poor eyesight.”
“This is our chief’s precious daughter.” Wen Ting introduced to Gong Baidie while drawing. “Feionis is the last ice dragon—well, anything related to dragons is an asset of the group. Feionis lives in a lifeless, frigid land. Players went there for treasures, and in the process of seizing the treasures, they disturbed the remnant soul of Feionis’ father.”
"After a boss battle, Feyns appeared, dissuaded her father, and became friends with the player."
"Overall, this character is a little princess who appears aloof on the outside but is lonely on the inside."
Gong Baidie asked, "Does her father allow her to dress like this?"
"You're interested in this?" Wen Ting laughed. "It's like this for female characters, and the less clothing male characters wear in otome games, the higher their 'water content'."
As she finished speaking, she suddenly saw Gong Baidie's smiling face reflected on the screen.
He laughed, a laugh that was almost exaggerated and slightly eerie.
This strange expression startled Wen Ting.
Did she say something wrong?
She quickly reviewed what had just happened and suddenly realized that a few of Gong Baidie's erotic cards seemed to have been played after she left.
After the Palace White Butterfly storyline ended, its popularity quickly declined. Those few cards brought it back into the spotlight once, but it was just a futile effort and a temporary surge in popularity.
His expression became increasingly strange.
Wen Ting put down her pen, her back to Gong Baidie, "Xiao Bai, I haven't told you why I left Wanluo yet, have I?"
The phoenix eyes reflected on the screen were sinister and cold, but the voice that brushed past her ear became more and more gentle, "It's alright, my wife, Bai Die knows that you have your reasons."
“It’s not so much a hardship as it is.” Wen Ting stared at the distorted and exaggerated smiling face on the screen. “It’s more like… a difference in philosophy. The boss wants to expand and strengthen the company, but I feel that goes against my principles.”
The eerie smile on the screen paused slightly.
Gong Baidie looked down at the top of Wen Ting's head, listening to her continue.
"He wants to insert more ads, which I think will break the UI;"
He wants more ambiguous lines to attract voice actor fans, but I think that would make the character seem frivolous and greasy.
Of course, he also wanted more exciting and eye-catching card art.
Wen Ting took Gong Baidie's hand.
She turned her head and smiled casually, "I repeatedly argued with my boss, so I got fired."
Gong Baidie raised an eyebrow: "...Expulsion?"
Why tell such a clumsy lie? Her resume and her file clearly state that she resigned voluntarily. He didn't know how many times he had reviewed those documents and certificates, analyzing them word by word.
Her memories before awakening were sparse and fragmented, and Gong Baidie pieced together the reason for her departure time and time again.
He guessed that Green Forest had poached her with a high price, and he also suspected that she had a dispute with Wan Luo.
Regardless of the reason, it is an undeniable fact that Wen Ting left voluntarily.
Now she comes to him and says she was fired—does she think he's an idiot?
“Yes, it’s called leaving the company, but it’s really just being fired.” Wen Ting lowered her eyelids.
"At the time, the boss had the idea of going public, and firing employees would affect the company's listing."
"He didn't directly say he was going to fire me, but after things got ugly, he stopped giving me any work. I was stuck with him for a while, and then he changed his tactics, dumping an impossible workload on me and transferring all the projects I had—including you—to other people."
"I really couldn't stay any longer, so I compromised and resigned."
Wen Ting recalled, "I joined Wanluo in its second year. The labor contract I signed at that time had many loopholes. In order to avoid risks, the boss asked me to sign a supplementary contract when I left."
Her tone and expression were downcast and gloomy, unlike her usual frivolous and flirtatious manner.
Gong Baidie breathes through the screen.
He realized with alarm that Wen Ting was not lying... what she said was very likely the truth!
"What contract?" His voice trembled with barely concealed fear.
“A supplementary confidentiality agreement.” Wen Ting sighed. “He kept delaying the approval of my resignation, and I… well, I ran into some things, I was in a hurry to move, and I needed money urgently, so I finally signed it.”
"He gave me 30,000 yuan in compensation, but demanded that I could no longer use any information related to Wanluo."
"Compensation?" Gong Baidie suddenly questioned sharply, "Isn't that a buyout contract?"
How could it be a confidentiality agreement?
Wasn't it because his income dropped that she sold him?
“That’s essentially how it is.” Wen Ting didn’t expect him to be so agitated. “At the time, nominally the copyrights of you and several other projects were in my hands, but I also consulted a lawyer. Even if the contract you signed when you joined the company was not standardized, you still belong to the company’s assets and trade secrets.”
"In other words, even if I don't sign that contract, I can't take you away, let alone profit from you."
"Without a contract, I can only draw you guys on my private account at most. But in that case, my resume will show me as a fired employee, and I will receive much less severance pay."
Gong Baidie was stunned.
His long-held hatred began to soften. He never imagined that the 30,000 yuan was not his money for selling himself, but Wen Ting's!
Thirty thousand, a mere thirty thousand yuan—it was she who propelled a small workshop in Wanluo to the top of the trending searches, gaining it popularity from then on.
She worked so hard that her eyesight almost failed, her stomach was ruined, and she suffered from hypoglycemia, migraines, and neurasthenia. In just two years, countless parts of her body were damaged.
They confiscated all her work and sent her away with a paltry 30,000 yuan...
"Back then, I was young and impetuous, and I considered myself a veteran and a pillar of the company. When I resigned, I was a little resentful and wanted the boss to regret it and realize that my thinking was right."
“I’m sorry,” Wen Ting said with a guilty smile, “but it was all for nothing. I left, and you were still painted like that.”
No one told Gong Baidie, nor did Gong Baidie directly ask Wen Ting why she left.
Driven by hatred, he no longer cared about the reason, and was even more afraid that the reason was more cruel than he had imagined.
His last vestiges of rationality crumbled when Wen Ting handed him a sketch of Qin Mu, saying, "This is my favorite character, my original aspiration."
Gong Baidie could not accept or imagine that she broke with the company to protect his interests.
No... she is by no means a haughty artist. She doesn't even care about the lives of the people around her, so how could she care about how a character is drawn?
Yes, this must be a lie she made up to please him, just like all those sweet words, it's a lie to deceive him!
Don't waver, don't be fooled!
He had to be absolutely convinced that Wen Ting had betrayed him—
Does he really believe it?
Why is she still safe and sound ten days after the ghost story began?
Why was the first thing he did after gaining power to look through her chat history and turn on his camera to spy on her appearance?
And why did he abandon his appearance and name, but retain the uterus inside his womb?
Perhaps he already knew of Wen Ting's innocence;
Or perhaps, he doesn't care whether she's innocent or not; he simply... loves her.
Wen Ting's mouth was dry from talking, and she wanted to see Gong Baidie's expression, but Gong Baidie suddenly disappeared.
"Xiaobai?" She turned her head and looked around, calling out several times but received no response. She couldn't even open the game app on her phone.
What's this?
Her attitude must have been very sincere, since she certainly wasn't lying.
Back then, Wen Ting, who was as stubborn as a donkey and focused solely on her work, genuinely disapproved of drawing erotic pictures of Gong Baidie, stubbornly believing it would ruin the character's persona.
The boss wanted him to show off his abs, so she wrote a 500-word essay at 3 a.m. explaining why he couldn't. She also warned him that making quick money by selling his body was not advisable, and that he could only make more and longer-lasting money by creating a character with substance and depth.
Recalling that short essay, Wen Ting embarrassedly drank several mouthfuls of water.
It's nothing, Wen Ting drank the whole glass of water.
She was only 21 or 22 back then. Everyone makes silly mistakes when they're young.
...None of her group members sent her this kind of essay.
Gong Baidie did not reappear for a long time.
Her embarrassment that afternoon didn't earn her any favor with him.
This should not be done.
Gong Baidie would never want to be sold for her body. After she expressed that she had broken up with the company to protect his chastity, he should have been somewhat moved.
But Wen Ting did not see him again until the end of the day.
This is not a good sign.
His behavior was contrary to her expectations, and she had to win him back.
What should I do...?
Think about it, your boyfriend suddenly dumped you, always acting hot and cold, unpredictable...
Ah, she should express her concern and confirm his feelings again.
Wen Ting cleared her mind, turned her pen, and created a new canvas.
Only after the new drawing was finished and uploaded to her phone did she pull up Feyns's manuscript and continue working.
When choosing skills, Wen Ting did consider Gong Baidie.
Unfortunately, Gong Baidie is an ordinary human being in a non-fantasy setting, with only some internal energy. Although she is currently covered in strange gray smoke, that is Gong Feibai's skill, not Gong Baidie's.
To be on the safe side, Wen Ting chose Feonse.
In this ghost story, the White Butterfly is everywhere, and Wen Ting needs to consider the feelings of other characters when interacting with them.
Male characters are out of the question, and even the female characters she designs herself will cause dissatisfaction among Gong Baidie.
To avoid suspicion, if she's an ice-type character, she has to be on the daily task character list released by OA, so that she can use OA tasks as an excuse.
All things considered, only Faeons meets the requirements.
It is perfectly reasonable to paint Fei Angsi in front of Gong Baidie.
After the assessment day, everyone realized the importance of the daily tasks. Although she helped four of the top fifteen people resign, she still couldn't guarantee that she would be in the top five.
Now, using the pressure of the assessment day as an excuse, she can draw and love Feyns as she pleases.
At 11:30, Wen Ting sent the completed drawing of Feongsi to OA and glanced at the group messages.
Driven by the dual stimulus of food and disappearance, today's harvest was remarkable, with a total of twenty-three people removing their work badges, sixteen of whom acquired skills.
Wen Ting got up and left through the main entrance on the first floor.
She was led into the lounge and then back to the director's office.
Knocking on the butterfly-shaped cabinet, Wen Ting looked at the names of the people who had removed their work badges in the group chat and picked out rewards for them from the food shelf.
While placing the food, she noticed that several office doors were locked, and several people's drawers were also locked.
This was to prevent others from stealing their rewards, but this also prevented Wen Ting, the person who distributed the rewards, from accessing the app.
After some consideration, Wen Ting decided to leave the food at the entrance of their lounge.
Whether the food on the ground will be stolen, or whether it will lead to the conclusion that the person who placed the food was just an ordinary person who couldn't pick a lock—that's not important.
Food and disappearances are just catalysts; under the pressure of the assessment day, no one would resist the allure of superpowers.
Of the 63 survivors, more than half have had their employee badges removed. Wen Ting estimates that the incentive program can end after two more days of food distribution.
She dismissed most of the people who were the hardest to get their employee badges removed, and predicted that 30 capable individuals could be selected in the second round of assessments.
With Chaochao DD by her side, even without Gong Baidie, she should have no problem surviving the second and third rounds.
But who knows if the rules for the assessment day will change? Only when you have the power in your own hands can you feel at ease.
Wen Ting gave herself two months to adjust her mindset to the shape of Fei Yangsi, ensuring that she could acquire the skills before the fourth round of assessments.
After distributing the food, Wen Ting returned to the break room and lay on the bed, looking through a set of pictures of Feynman that she had copied from a colleague during the day.
The little princess of the Ice Dragon Clan had snow-white hair, and Wen Ting etched her image into her mind.
She turned off her phone, kissed the darkened screen, and murmured to herself, "Little White..."
"Xiaobai, Xiaobai." She savored the name, hugging the blanket and laughing, "Pretty Xiaobai, gentle Xiaobai."
The blanket exudes the warmth of the sun.
Wen Ting murmured to herself, buried in the hair, "I like your long hair, Xiao Bai."
She slept well.
It seems that the day before the first assessment was the dividing line. Before that, Wen Ting had nightmares and was exhausted every day when she woke up. After that, her sleep quality suddenly improved significantly. She always slept soundly through the night without any dreams.
All was silent.
A hand landed on Wen Ting's sleeping face.
Her hand, encased in a black glove, picked up the phone she had kissed before going to sleep.
The moment the screen lit up, Gong Baidie's pupils contracted sharply.
He saw himself.
The lock screen has changed; it's now a half-body image painted with colored pencils.
It's a painting of him.
He was depicted in light colors, wearing the gray-white suit he was wearing today, with the face of Gong Feibai, but with the long hair of Gong Baidie.
Yingying's long hair was tied up and hung down behind her suit.
It was just a casual drawing, not even a fraction of the effort she put into painting Faye Wong, yet a few pink hearts and Wen Ting herself were drawn on the blank background.
The simple drawing of Wen Ting, a tiny hair hanging from the end of her hair, clinging to his hair and refusing to let go, with a string of little hearts appearing beside her.
Gong Baidie put down her phone, looked up, and was shocked to see herself with waist-length hair reflected in the window.
He paused, turned his head to look at his hair that reached the hem of his clothes, but did not see Xiao Wenting hanging from the end of his hair.
The long hair she had since birth now left Gong Baidie somewhat dazed and confused.
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the sleeping Wen Ting.
He hurriedly fled from the office and from her side. During the time he disappeared, Gong Baidie tried to find evidence that Wen Ting had lied to her. He tried to find his memories before he awakened, but those memories were buried deep underground and were as rare as morning stars. He only managed to find two or three of them with great effort.
He dried and washed her clean. The contents were few, but one of them was that he saw her standing in the subway with her laptop bag.
Wen Ting back then was completely different from how she is now. She wore thick glasses, had her hair tied in a simple ponytail, and dressed in clothes that cost no more than three hundred yuan from head to toe. He almost didn't recognize her.
Her face was pale with a bluish tinge, her eyes were closed wearily, and she stood half-conscious, squeezed among the crowd.
In another memory, he saw a sea of green dialog boxes in the darkness.
Green dominated the entire screen, and many words were blurry; Gong Baidie could only make out fragmented sentences.
"I disagree." "That's not how Gong Baidie's character is supposed to be." "You can't completely overturn the character just to grab attention."
"This will raise the bar for players; from now on, all our characters will have to be sexually suggestive for them to buy into our games."
"We can develop new games and commercialize them, but Tabletop Love has been around for two years, so we should stick to our own style..."
She didn't lie to him.
She argued for him, but was kicked out of the house.
What did he do...?
Gong Baidie gave a smile, the butterfly pattern faintly visible beneath her skin.
The resentment that had been building up over the years could not be dispelled in an instant; he was torn apart by the remaining hatred.
It's a fact that she personally caused countless tragic endings for him, yet he can still hate her...
Gong Baidie stroked Wen Ting's face.
The gloves dissolve and vanish the moment their skin touches.
He didn't want to stop hating her; he couldn't let go of that hatred.
That burning hatred, like karmic fire, has sustained him until now. He enjoys the warmth and comfort of that hatred; it makes him feel—
He and she were inextricably linked, inseparable until death.
Gong Baidie disliked her perfunctory three-minute interactions every day, and also disliked hearing her sighs of pity for the dying.
Like a shrew who cries, makes a scene, and threatens suicide, he certainly knows that being unreasonable will annoy his wife.
But the only affection he could get from his wife was annoyance.
He was a piece of junk that the market had rejected.
That hatred brought him vivid and full emotions.
Gong Baidie couldn't bear to abandon her, and he couldn't bear not to hate Wen Ting.
The cold liquid dripped onto Wen Ting's face.
Gong Baidie bent down and licked it off for her, but only made her even wetter.
Her long hair cascaded down her body, spreading out a layer of black silk-like sheen.
As dawn broke, before he could gather his long hair back, Wen Ting woke up.
Her vision was still blurry from just waking up, and she couldn't see Gong Baidie's expression clearly. She only saw him sitting on the edge of the bed with his long hair hanging down behind him.
His tied-up black hair cascaded down from behind his head to the bed, pooling into small pools on her legs through the blanket.
He abandoned a part of Gong Feibai, transformed himself into the form she desired, and returned to her pen.
"Where did you go yesterday?" Wen Ting hugged him tightly, complaining with a sigh of relief, "How can I have a boyfriend like you, leaving me in the office without saying a word?"
“…I’m sorry.” Gong Baidie lowered her head, her voice hoarse like autumn leaves sweeping the ground.
He said, "Wen Ting, I'm sorry."
"Alright, for the sake of your hair." Wen Ting tossed a lock of long hair, as if scooping up a handful of water, letting it coolly slide down her fingertips. "As a long hair enthusiast, I'll forgive you this time."
She was suddenly embraced by Gong Baidie.
He buried his face in her shoulder and held her with unusual strength.
“Wen Ting,” he asked, “do you love…do you like me?”
Wen Ting was taken aback.
She noticed that, just like her hair that had grown overnight, Gong Baidie's attitude was undergoing a dramatic change.
She cautiously put her arm around him. "What's wrong? Why are you suddenly asking that?"
"Don't you always want me to act cute?"
“Oh dear,” Wen Ting laughed, “then I have no choice but to answer you.”
She hugged the back of Gong Baidie's head and pressed close to him: "I like you. Xiaobai, I love you."
With her long, thick eyelashes closed, Gong Baidie dozed off.
After a short pause, he put on a smile that seemed to float on clouds.
"Is that so..." he muttered to himself.
In that instant, Gong Baidie remembered the night four years ago when Wen Ting downloaded him again.
Having just experienced purgatory, he was filled with boundless hatred. Emerging from the darkness of annihilation, the first thing he wanted to do was to slit her throat and tear her flesh, so that she could experience everything he had gone through in the past hundreds of days and nights!
The screen lit up, but the world on her side wasn't very bright either.
She squatted on the Capital Bridge at three in the morning, her tears falling silently onto the screen along with the night rain.
In that instant, Gong Baidie's resentment and hatred vanished.
Wen Ting... she suffered so much injustice, his heart was breaking for her.
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