Wenjian Sect, Huiyuan Gate.
Deep within the disciples' quarters, tucked inside a tranquil and elegantly appointed courtyard, a very different scene was unfolding.
Several stalks of emerald bamboo grew in the yard. When the breeze passed through, the leaves rustled with a soft, crisp sound — like fragments of jade clinking together.
A young man sat upright before a bronze mirror. His sword-sharp brows swept dashingly into his temples, his eyes were bright as stars, his nose was high and straight, and his lips were cleanly defined. He was, by any measure, strikingly handsome. His ink-black hair had been gathered up with a wooden pin into a standard Daoist topknot.
That style of topknot was one only worn by men after they had undergone the coming-of-age ceremony at twenty — a mark that one had reached adulthood.
Yet at this moment, the face of this fully grown adult man held not a single trace of youthful vigor. Nothing remained but a dense, suffocating cloud of gloom.
He raised a hand to his forehead and let out a long sigh.
And with that sigh, a panel materialized in the air before him.
[Name: Gu Chengming]
[Sect: Wenjian Sect · Huiyuan Gate]
[Realm: First Realm, Third Layer]
[Techniques: Huiyuan Sword Art (Novice), Qingxin Formula (Novice)]
[Attributes: Strength 8, Agility 7, Constitution 2, Spirit 12, Charm 25]
[Status: Decaying Spiritual Roots (stacking negative BUFF, ongoing)
Blood Essence Deficiency (current HP cap permanently reduced by 30%, continuing to decline daily — estimated remaining lifespan: 87 days)]
Gu Chengming stared at the Status row, at the bright red text — and especially at that gut-punch countdown at the end. The room seemed to tilt.
After the initial blank stupor had passed, Gu Chengming finally forced himself to accept the reality.
— He had transmigrated into the game.
Immortal Gate was nothing short of a miracle of the virtual world. It boasted near-infinite freedom; every single NPC — even the sweeping janitor by the roadside — came with hundreds of thousands of words of backstory and their own independent behavioral logic.
Players could explore this boundless cultivation world however they pleased: join a sect and grind toward immortality through bitter cultivation, roam the land as a free spirit living by the sword, or even forge deep bonds with any character in the game — sworn brothers, cultivation partners, whatever they wanted.
There were elemental reactions, too, and a battle system of genuine depth.
But none of that was why Gu Chengming had picked up the game.
The truth was, he was a hardcore galge addict.
As a dyed-in-the-wool visual novel enthusiast, how was he supposed to resist when he heard that every single character was romanceable and each NPC had hundreds of thousands of words of background text?
The day the game launched, Gu Chengming bought it immediately.
Not only that — he put his programming skills to work and stayed up all night building a suite of QoL mods: "Affection Meter Visible," "Key Dialogue Option Hints," and "Unlock Special CG Gallery Mode."
Fully armed and ready, he booted up the game with deep satisfaction.
Then came the classic sequence: create a character, pick a sect, breeze through the tutorial, and immediately zero in on a character whose splash art absolutely hit different — and begin his conquest.
And then… there was no "and then."
Somewhere in the middle of his late-night playthrough, everything went black. When he opened his eyes, he was already lying on a plain wooden bed — as Gu Chengming himself.
"Haah…"
He heaved a sigh. Gu Chengming's gaze drifted back to the [Status: Blood Essence Deficiency] line on the panel, and a throbbing ache started up in his jaw.
How had he ended up with this lethal status condition?
The reason was embarrassingly simple. When he'd been allocating attribute points during character creation — chasing maximum romance efficiency — he had siphoned almost all his Constitution points straight into Charm.
The logic was airtight, as far as galge were concerned: high Charm meant affection climbed fast, and that was ironclad law.
In the game, there was nothing wrong with doing it that way. Rock-bottom Constitution just meant you couldn't train certain advanced techniques — no big deal.
Gu Chengming had even mapped out his entire route: once he'd romanced a specific character in the late game, he'd pivot to the Harmonious Joy Sect's techniques. Once those cultivation methods were up and running, Constitution became essentially irrelevant — so keeping it low in the early game was fine.
In-game logic: blunt and straightforward.
But once the game became reality, and the world began operating by its own fundamental rules, everything had been "rationalized."
The attribute flaw of "excessively low Constitution" was corrected by the world's rules and given physical form as the lethal debuff: Blood Essence Deficiency.
His HP cap was dropping every day, with a death countdown ticking down. Who could live with that?
Even worse — because he'd never planned on doing any serious leveling in the first place, he'd barely invested in the cultivation talent options during character creation either. That was exactly what had given rise to the whole Decaying Spiritual Roots situation.
Was he supposed to just… cultivate his way through it? Break free from these shackles by grinding up his realm on his own?
Gu Chengming estimated that he'd probably drop dead before he'd successfully guided spiritual energy into his body more than a few times.
Truly, no light at the end of the tunnel. Just darkness in every direction.
Just as Gu Chengming was sinking into total despair, his gaze drifted idly across the system panel — and a thought struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Hold on!
If the game system came through with me when I transmigrated… does that mean the mods I installed came through too?
His heart lurched.
To maximize the galge experience, he had once written a core mod with a simple, brutal function: every time he successfully romanced a character and affection reached a new milestone, the system would reward a large haul of free attribute points and special items.
After all, plenty of the game's standoffish high-realm characters wouldn't even give you the time of day if your own realm wasn't high enough to meet them.
Gu Chengming had been too lazy to grind levels, so he'd simply resorted to this workaround — romance the low-level targets first to accumulate capital, then challenge the higher-tier goals.
Wasn't that exactly the lifeline he needed right now?!
As if in answer to his thought, the blue panel before him suddenly flickered — and a new panel, utterly different in style, popped into existence. This one was pink, edged with lace frills, and emblazoned across its center in an extravagantly ornate font were the following words:
[Immortal Cultivation LOVELOVE System]
"Holy sh—!"
Gu Chengming nearly launched himself off his chair:
"It actually came through with me?!"
Never mind the naming taste Gu Chengming had shown when he built that mod.
This sudden reversal of fortune had him nearly bursting with joy.
His attention locked onto the panel with laser focus. The text on the panel began scrolling and shifting like a ticker tape, cycling at blinding speed.
Here it comes! According to standard game flow, what should appear next is the "List of Available Romance Targets in Current Area."
Gu Chengming straightened up, spine tall, eyes bright.
In an instant, the faces of dozens of female disciples within Wenjian Sect flashed through his mind — from lively and adorable junior sisters, to cool and aloof senior sisters, to graceful and experienced sect stewards…
With more than ten years of expertise dominating the galge world, plus a Charm stat sitting at 25 — winning them over would be child's play, wouldn't it?
Romance just one or two of them, claim the attribute points, dump them into Constitution — and this death spiral would be completely turned around.
He'd already started calculating which target to approach first for the easiest opening.
Just as he was reveling in his beautiful vision of the future, the scrolling text on the panel finally slowed… and stopped. It settled into place, sharp and clear.
[Current Available Romance Target: Huiyuan Sword Art]
[Current Available Romance Target: Qingxin Formula]
The smile on Gu Chengming's face froze solid.
He blinked. He was sure he'd misread it.
He reached out and poked at the pink panel. The panel didn't react at all — but the text on it remained perfectly, unmistakably clear.
"?"
An enormous question mark rose from the depths of Gu Chengming's soul, nearly materializing into something physical, threatening to fill the entire room.
Then, at the bottom of the panel, another line of small text appeared.
[Please select your romance target.]
[Hint: When affection reaches a new milestone, the system will award free attribute points and may unlock special effects.]
"??"
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