The blinking red light on the director's console went dark.
"That's a wrap, everyone. Good work today."
Su Yu unclipped the tiny microphone from his collar and handed it to a nearby staffer.
He let out a long breath, and the shoulders that had been tense for over an hour finally relaxed.
Scattered applause broke out across the studio. A few crew members exchanged greetings and began coiling up the cables strewn across the floor.
Su Yu rubbed the back of his stiff neck and headed down the hallway toward the lounge.
He'd barely reached the doorway when he caught sight of what was happening inside.
Three empty dessert boxes sat on the coffee table in the middle of the lounge.
Kiana was on the sofa, a small silver fork in hand, working her way through her fourth strawberry mousse cake.
She cut off a large, cream-topped piece and popped it into her mouth.
Her cheeks puffed out like a balloon, her chewing never slowing for a second.
Theresa sat right beside her. She had both hands braced on her knees, leaning slightly forward, watching Kiana eat with an expression of overflowing satisfaction.
Su Yu stood in the doorway, taking in the scene, and let out a helpless sigh.
"Theresa," Su Yu said, walking over and pulling out the chair across from them. "Aren't you two spoiling Kiana a little too much? Eating this much high-calorie dessert every single night — you're going to make her fat."
At that, Theresa whipped her head around and shot him a glare.
"She's my niece! I'll spoil her if I want to!"
Theresa planted both hands on her hips, raising her voice with righteous conviction.
"Look how thin this child got! She went through so much hardship out there before. What's wrong with letting her eat a bit more now? It's not going to hurt anything!"
Su Yu turned his gaze to the girl still eating with single-minded focus beside her.
Kiana was dressed in a light, short-cut outfit, and her exposed arms and waistline really did show no extra weight — the lines were so taut you could faintly make out the outline of muscle underneath.
She was slender, sure.
But there was no way that qualified as "skin and bones."
Su Yu tapped his fingers twice on the table.
"Auntie," he said, shaking his head, a teasing edge creeping into his tone, "if you ever have kids of your own, they're absolutely going to end up spoiled rotten."
The air in the lounge went still for half a second.
Theresa's hand, still planted on her hip, froze mid-motion.
Her cheeks turned red at a visible pace, the color spreading from her ears all the way down her neck.
She'd suddenly remembered the arrangement she'd made with Su Yu earlier — that in front of Sirin, they were supposed to pose as a couple.
And worse still, back under that desk, thanks to Sirin's mischief, her first kiss had somehow ended up landing on this very man.
And now, right in front of Kiana, this idiot had suddenly steered the conversation toward "having kids of your own" someday.
Was he implying something?!
"Wh-what are you suddenly talking about!"
Theresa shot up off the sofa.
"Are you trying to take advantage of your own auntie now too?!"
Beside them, Kiana had just swallowed the last bite of her mousse. She looked up.
Fork still in hand, her mismatched eyes flicked back and forth between Theresa's flushed face and Su Yu.
She swallowed the food in her mouth.
Something about the mood between these two felt just a little off.
"Anyway."
Theresa didn't give Su Yu a chance to speak. She grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket.
"Su Yu, come with me right now!"
Dragged up out of his chair, Su Yu stumbled a step before following her out of the lounge.
At the far end of the hallway, near the emergency exit.
Theresa stopped and let go of his sleeve.
She glanced left and right to make sure no one else was around.
"What exactly are you planning to do?"
Theresa tilted her head up to look at him. The flush hadn't fully faded from her cheeks, but her expression had turned serious.
These past few days, Siegfried and Cecilia had officially joined the ranks of instructors at Starfire Furnace.
But as far as Theresa knew, their excuse was that they'd gone off somewhere for urgent work.
So by her current understanding, she had no idea that the couple actually saw Kiana at the base every single night.
"Cecilia and Siegfried are both hopelessly busy people," Theresa said, lowering her voice. "In this whole studio, the only ones who can keep even a bit of an eye on Kiana are me, her aunt, and you."
She fixed her eyes on his.
"Tell me honestly. How has Kiana really been lately? That personality — Sirin — has she shown up again or not?"
The motion-sensor lights in the hallway were dim.
Su Yu looked at the small, worried face of the academy director standing before him.
For a brief moment, his expression turned strange.
On the System panel, the progress bar for the [Nourish the Queen] quest sat unmoving, frozen precisely at sixty percent.
But it wasn't because Sirin was in any life-threatening trouble.
It was purely because —
Su Yu thought back to a few days ago, after he'd returned from the Spatial Rift.
That lofty, high-and-mighty Queen had thoroughly "wrung him dry" inside the consciousness space.
And with his spiritual power having just broken through to the third rank, combined with the continuous release of The Queen's Descent and Final Lesson over the past few days,
the massive, chaotic mass of player Emotion Points the System had drawn in had all mixed together, and Sirin — who'd absorbed the full brunt of that power — had simply overeaten.
To put it plainly.
That once-unstoppable Herrscher of the Void was currently suffering from a serious case of "indigestion."
Most of the time she stayed curled up deep in the consciousness space, half-dozing, too lazy to even poke her head out.
But there was absolutely no way Su Yu could tell Theresa the truth of any of this, nor was there any way to do so honestly even if he wanted to.
He composed his expression slightly.
"Don't worry, Auntie," Su Yu said, looking at her, his tone sounding certain. "Kiana's doing really well right now."
He started building on the misconception Theresa had already been fed.
"She's successfully reunited with her family. She knows now that she has parents who love her, and that she has an excellent, caring aunt watching over her too."
Su Yu paused for a moment, letting his words settle in for more effect.
"In an environment this full of love, her mental state now is far more stable than when she first arrived."
"That Sirin personality, which was born purely out of extreme loneliness and a lack of love — without the soil it needs to grow in, it naturally hasn't shown up much anymore."
The hallway went quiet for two seconds.
Theresa's eyes lit up bit by bit, and the furrow between her brows finally smoothed away completely.
"That's such a relief."
Theresa let out a long breath.
She stepped forward and grabbed one of Su Yu's hands with both of her small ones.
She held it tight.
Her upturned face showed nothing but the purest joy.
It was the exact look of an ordinary person hearing that a critically ill family member had finally pulled through the danger.
"Su Yu, all our effort hasn't been for nothing!"
The crisp click of heels against tile.
It came from around the corner behind the emergency exit.
Growing closer.
"Oh my, what wonderful thing happened here? You two look so happy~"
Elysia's voice drifted over from behind them, catching them off guard.
Su Yu and Theresa both turned around at the same time.
Elysia, dressed in her usual gown, stopped less than three steps away from them.
Her gaze made no attempt to hide itself, landing squarely on their two hands, still tightly clasped together.
In that instant.
The signature sweet smile on Miss Pink Elf's face shifted, just slightly.
An expression brimming with mischief and amusement — like someone who'd just caught something juicy — spread through her eyes.
"Su Yu."
Elysia tilted her head, deliberately drawing out the last syllable.
"I really never would have guessed you had a thing for the small and adorable type, like Sister Theresa here~"
She tapped a finger against her chin.
"Hmm... this is a bit of a surprise, even for Miss Pink Elf."
As if she'd touched a red-hot iron.
Theresa yanked her hands back from Su Yu's instantly.
She stumbled backward a full step, her heel even catching on the baseboard along the wall.
The blush that had just barely started to fade came roaring back across her entire face with even greater intensity.
"Ahem!"
Theresa coughed hard, twice, trying to recover some semblance of dignity as an elder in front of Elysia.
"Elysia, don't say ridiculous things! I just heard some news about the game's huge success, um, and got so happy I couldn't help myself, that's all it was — I just grabbed his hand for a second!"
"Oh, I understand, I completely understand!"
Elysia leaned in a step closer, smiling brightly.
Far from backing off out of tact, she seemed to be enjoying Theresa's flustered state with great interest.
"Relax, Sister Theresa~"
She clasped her hands behind her back, leaning forward slightly.
"Do you two really think I'm the type of person who'd grab a megaphone the second I found out an interesting secret, and go broadcast it all over miHoYo Studio?"
Elysia blinked, putting on an aggrieved expression.
"If that's what you two really think of me deep down, I'd be just a little hurt~"
Su Yu stood off to the side, silently wiping a bead of sweat in his mind.
Aren't you, though?
In this entire building, who else could spread gossip faster than the speed of light?
Su Yu straightened the sleeve Theresa had rumpled up earlier.
He decided it was time to end this dangerous topic, fast.
"Director Elysia, ma'am, may I ask what brings you all the way over here?" Su Yu said, looking at her. "If there's nothing else pressing, I'll go check on the next round of data modeling."
He started to step away as he spoke.
"Hey, you can't just walk off before I finish talking!"
Elysia immediately threw out an arm, blocking Su Yu's path.
She planted both hands on her hips.
"Have you forgotten already, bad Su Yu? I — Miss Pink Elf — am not just the face of Honkai Impact 3rd."
She lifted her chin.
"I'm also the Head of Marketing and Promotion, a position you personally appointed me to!"
Elysia's expression turned a touch more serious, though her tone still carried that barely-contained excitement.
"Hmph! I came to find you two because I have something extremely, extremely important to tell you!"
"This weekend's biggest, hottest, most-watched outdoor reality show in the entire country has officially extended a special guest invitation to the one and only, world-famous Miss Pink Elf — meaning me!"
Elysia held up one finger.
"And I've already talked to the show's coordinator, and the trade-off terms they offered are extremely generous."
"If I agree to appear, they've agreed to insert our miHoYo Studio's exclusive logo into the footage extensively throughout the entire season."
She held up a second finger.
"Not only that! During the transitions between game levels, they'll also feature chibi animated versions of our game's various Valkyries!"
"And even —" Elysia's eyes sparkled, "— they've agreed to run our game's promotional CG directly in the primetime ad slots on their provincial satellite TV channel!"
Su Yu paused.
This really was an extremely tempting offer.
Compared to the entire population of Blue Star, numbering in the billions,
no matter how big Honkai Impact 3rd was within gaming circles, the current player base it reached was still only a small fraction of the whole.
But in this era, with near hundred-percent smartphone penetration and an explosion of information,
a nationally popular hit variety show could reach a sheer, astronomical number of people in the lower-tier markets and the general entertainment audience.
If they could use this most direct channel to pull off a truly perfect breakthrough into the mainstream,
it would mean tens of thousands of people who normally had zero interest in gaming would see those Valkyries on TV, in the online replays of the variety show.
An exponential rise in the player base meant an exponentially larger harvest of Emotion Points.
And the more Emotion Points there were,
the stronger the technology and weapons Su Yu could exchange for in the System Store.
And facing the apocalypse that would inevitably arrive in five months, the greater their city's chances of survival would be.
This was an offer he couldn't possibly refuse.
"This is a solid opportunity," Su Yu said, nodding, giving an objective assessment. "What's the show called?"
"Island Survival Treasure Hunt Showdown!"
Elysia announced the title, which sounded rowdy just from the name alone.
Then.
Her tone shifted.
"So, in order to let the beautiful and powerful Miss Elysia's charm shine in its most perfect form on this island full of unknowns and challenges —"
Her captivating eyes spun in a slow circle.
"Miss Pink Elf urgently needs an equally outstanding man to serve as her supporting cast, to bring out my beauty even more."
Elysia deliberately drew out the words, her gaze locking firmly onto the man standing in the middle of the hallway.
"And who will be the lucky man to receive this great honor? Who could it possibly be?"
Su Yu stood there.
He felt the air around him suddenly turn a bit chilly.
He swept his gaze around the hallway.
It passed over the fire extinguisher on the wall, over the potted plant in the corner.
Finally,
his eyes landed on the small academy director still trying to shrink herself into the wall beside him.
Theresa had been about to slip away while the two of them talked business, when she suddenly felt an intense stare fixed on her.
She stopped in her tracks, startled.
"Why are you looking at me?! Am I a man?!"
Su Yu glanced at Theresa's chest. Well, that part at least was undeniably a bit "masculine" in the flatness department.
Fine.
So then the question became — who else in the hallway was male?
He swallowed and, somewhat unsurely, pointed his right index finger at his own nose.
"Me?"
Su Yu looked at Elysia.
"Am — am I the one going to film that variety show with you?"
Elysia stood there.
She didn't answer right away.
Miss Pink Elf clasped her hands behind her back and leaned toward Su Yu, a mischievous, lively smile spreading across her face.
"Hehe~ what do you think?"
Su Yu, internally: Kids, is there still time for me to switch my gender on the account right now? Can I switch it back after 24 hours?
Just as Su Yu was searching for an excuse — something like being too busy, though it wasn't that he was averse to doing a variety show with Elysia, it was just that right now, improving his own strength mattered more —
right at that moment.
A row of bold, gilded golden text scrolled rapidly across his vision, accompanied by the System's smug, self-satisfied narration.
[Key plot node detected!]
[Congratulations, Host! Elysia's exclusive high-tier Bond Quest has been unlocked: "Heartbeat, Island! Miss Pink Elf's Perfect Weekend!"]
Su Yu stared at the gaudy, flashy title at the very top of the light screen, the muscles around his eyes twitching violently, twice.
The System paid his reaction no mind whatsoever, plowing ahead through the quest details.
[Quest Description: Sunshine! Beach! Waves! What could be more heart-fluttering than fighting side by side with the beautiful Miss Pink Elf on a tropical island?]
[Host, please do everything in your power to help Elysia win the ultimate victory on this new season of the reality show!]
[This quest's reward will be tiered and calculated based on the show's overall reception across the internet and viewer support ratings after it airs!]
Su Yu cursed internally — of course this damn System never had anything good to offer without strings attached.
But the very next line that popped up made the tension that had built up in him suddenly, shamefully loosen.
[Note! This quest is an exclusive high-tier Tarot Bond quest.]
[During the quest period, all Emotion Points collected by the Host will be calculated at double rate! In addition, Elysia's RANK Bond experience will receive a substantial boost!]
Double Emotion Points.
For Su Yu right now, those five words carried more killing power than any top-tier beauty or pile of money ever could.
He knew full well — a nationally popular hit reality show, combined with Elysia's absolute knack for stealing the spotlight, plus site-wide exposure across the internet.
If, on top of all that, the Emotion Point payout got doubled as well —
it had already been an offer impossible to refuse, and now the System had to go and mention this on top of it, practically forcing him to "cut corners" by taking it.
Even if he had to jump into the ocean right now and fight a shark, he'd grit his teeth and dive in! Just kidding — no shark stood a chance against Brother Su these days!
Su Yu swallowed hard in his mind.
But of course, the System's little message wasn't done yet.
At the very bottom of the light screen, a line of small text flashed in glaring red.
[P.S.: Go make yourself some beautiful memories, kid! While you're enjoying your weekend date with your [Lover] Elysia — whatever you do, don't forget —]
The System's smug little voice took a sharp turn in his mind.
[There's someone watching you like a hawk from behind, too~]
[Good luck~ sweetie~ you're gonna need it~]
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