005. Flower Yiyi

He Jin looked carefully and realized that most characters on the top ten list are listed as ‘Heavenly Being’, except for Fire Ruthless, and one other, the 9th rank called Flower Yiyi, who was a level 95 Demon.

He turned around and asked Hou Dongyan behind him: “Monkey, I want to ask, what is the current level setting of Demon God? I remember the previous top level was titled as ‘Immortal’, what is it now?”

“It has changed a long time ago, now the most powerful are titled as Demon God and Divine God.” Hou Dongyan glanced at He Jin’s screen and said: “Don’t look at this chart ah, the game’s leaderboard only shows ranking based on level. If you want to see who is powerful, it is best to go to the official website, there is specific list for everything there … ”

Hearing this, He Jin immediately switched the screen to open his web browser, searched for “Demon God’s Leaderboards,” chose his and fire’s server, and clicked on it before taking a look. He was immediately shocked when he saw the dozen categories lists on the homepage –

〖Over All List〗: ① 「Fire Ruthless」

〖Personal Level List〗: ① 「Fire Ruthless」

〖Equipment rankings〗: ①「Fire Ruthless」

〖Gold wealth list〗: ①「Fire Ruthless」

〖PK record list〗: ①「Fire Ruthless」

[T/N: PK = Player Killing, a term used in games when one player killed another. The record is counted by the number of PK done in Arena, where you can fight other player 1 vs 1]

***

Fire Ruthless name occupied many number one positions on the lists, and in some others, even though he did not ranked as first place, he was also still in the top five. Only in three lists were his name not listed: one was the “Heavenly Being List”, another was “Demon God’s Spell List “, and the last “Demon God’s Spiritual Pet List ” (← What is this?)…

Looking at these lists, He Jin was completely floored.

Hou Dongyan said from behind him, “Now the game’s most powerful player seems to be someone called Ruthless-something. I have seen his PK video before, and really… these Gods ah, so amazing! ”

He Jin: “…..”

If you told Hou Dongyan, that right now he was talking to a guy who was just asked to ‘ride together’ by this Fire Ruthless, who was also his husband… how would he react?

( ~, ~) The corner of He Jin’s mouth twitched, he then quickly closed the page.

Meanwhile, Qin Yu took Xiao Xian-Jin and left the mountain path. On the road, his friend column began flashing. Qin Yu had planned to ignore it, but when saw that the sender was Flower Yiyi, he changed his mind and clicked lazily on it.

Flower Yiyi: “Master, are you in the world?” It seemed she also had seen the information in the world channel.

Fire Ruthless: “Yes.”

Flower Yiyi: “Why go there? Don’t you have live session today?”

Fire Ruthless: “My wife is here ^ ^”, Qin Yu was in a good mood, so he also added a smiley face at the end of the sentence.

Fall Yiyi: “……”

After Fire Ruthless became a God Level player, the pursuit of his female fans had not dismissed in the slightest. Although his personal status showed that he was “married”, but because his “wife” had never appeared before, no one really took it seriously. Everyone thought that it was just a disguise that Fire Rruthless did in order to avoid trouble.

Therefore, the pursuit of those unscrupulous people were still as much as autumn wheat: cut one and even more would grow.

Qin Yu had seen all kind of strange ways of pursuit before. There were some who changed their in-game name to “Ruthless Wife” or “Fire Ruthless の Love”, or anything of the likes. There were also those who sent a bunch of hundred-Yuan-worth roses to him. All day, he would always get confessions in the game, as well as PK Love Challenges .

However, there was a reason he was more known as “Ruthless” rather than”Fire” in the game: it was precisely because he had never accepted the pursuit of those female players.

He was Ruthless and Heartless, just like his name.

Qin Yu also understood very well that people come and go in the game, and the enthusiasm of those girls would not last long. Not to mention, most of those suitors had too-large-difference of strength with him, so it was simply impossible for them to play together.

There was only one exception to this, and that person was Flower Yiyi.

About three years ago, Flower Yiyi appeared for the first time in front of Qin Yu. She wasn’t called as ‘Flower Yiyi’ then; she only started using this name after she reached level 50-ish.

Qin Yu remembered her because at that time, someone he often played with, Nine Hall His Highness, was always chasing after her.

The experts in ‘Demon God’ had a private chat group, almost allpeople on the the top 50 were joined inside. One day, Nine Hall posted photos of a beautiful girl there, causing an uproar in the group: “Nine Hall, which beauty is this!”

Nine Hall His Highness: “Haha, beautiful right? This girl is playing in the game, called Yiyi. I just took her pictures from the forum. This Highness intends to chase her!”

In the game, even a slightly pretty girl would get good treatment from other players, let alone girls like Flower Yiyi who had such a beautiful look.

The strength of Nine Hall His Highness in the game was also the top on the list, and that, coupled with his usual popularity, smooth talking ability, and willingness to spend generous amount of money in the game, made him very popular among female players. So, this level-50 girl, all of them thought that she would be an easy win for NIne Hall.

The group of friends showed some support for him: “I pray for Nine Highness to bring back the flag of victory!”

Feeling confident, Nine Hall His Highness then started a crazy pursuit of Yiyi, which became a sensationalized matter in the game.

Unexpectedly, the result all of them were expecting did not happen – Yiyi actually rejected Nine Hall His Highness.

At the beginning, Nine Hall His Royal Highness thought that this girl refused him because she would likethem to get to know each other first. But later, she suddenly changed her name to “Flower Yiyi”, killing off all of his hopes with it.

He ran out to the group chat and scolded Qin Yu: “Ruthless, you go to hell!”

[T/N: 落花依依 also means ‘Falling Flower Yiyi’, explanation of her name can be found below this chapter.]

Qin Yu was confused: “What does that got to do with me?”

Dead Water on the side gloated: “Gee, it’s another girl who has ‘deliberately fallen on the Heartless’ stream ah!”

Dead Water was also a celebrity on the list.

Qin Yu irritatedly sent a sentence to him: “Water is you, right? I am a Fire.”

[T/N: 流水 can mean either water or stream]

Nine Hall His Highness: “… the two of you, enough!”

***

After the whole Nine Hall fiasco, the players then thought that this woman would surely give a confession to either Fire Ruthless or the Dead Water soon, but unexpectedly she was never heard of anymore. Until one year later, they saw her name appeared at the end of the top player list, with her title had changed from “Immortal” to “Nine Days Mysterious God.”

Everyone was shocked: “Damn, this sister is very good ah …”

After its revision, Demon God later paid more attention to the operating skill of the players, so there were not many female players on the list, let alone a beauty like this Flower Yiyi.

Precisely because she was beautiful, everyone was concerned about her movements. Her name often showed up on the group, most of it were filled with praises of her good technique. The crowd watched as her crawled from the bottom of the list little by little, until she entered the top thirty. She was then invited into the expert group, and slowly began mingling with everyone there, even the had-been-rejected-by-her Nine Hall His Highness later became in-game “siblings” with her…

At first, Qin Yu never took part in this Flower Yiyi groupies, but one day, she suddenly sent a friend request to him. He accepted, however the first sentence she said to him unexpectedly was: “Ruthless, can I recognize you as my Master?”

Qin Yu was stunned, before, when a girl had the opportunity to have a face to face chatting with him, most of them would say things like “you are my idol,” “I admire you”, “I like you”, and the likes. It was the first time for him to be asked to accept someone as his apprentice.

“Demon God” had a master and apprentice system, but the game limited the apprentice level to only those of level 50 and below. Back then, Flower Yiyi was almost at level 90, so it was clear to see that she was not asking for a formal master-apprentice relationship with him, but merely a verbal agreement. She mostly just wanted Qin Yu to take her when he was playing.

Qin Yu thought it was inappropriate: “You played a Heavenly Being character, while I am a Demon, I can’t take you.”

Flower Yiyi: “I remember that you used to play as Heavenly Being before.”

What she said was true. When “Spirit Faity” was revised to “Demon God”, the game also opened a third race, “Soul”, for those who wanted to cultivate in the demonic path. Meanwhile, the old players who had been practicing as mortals and spirits to the “Immortal” level were only able to continue their cultivation to reach the Divine God level. As a result, many curious old players were dissatisfied by this.

Thus, the game company then set a special rule: For players who were in process of cultivating to Divine God level, there was a chance for them to fall into the demonic path.

However, this rule was very abnormal. First of all, only the players who had attained “God Emperor” title (equivalent to 90) could do the task of falling into the demonic path. Secondly, after falling into demonic path, their title would change to “Nine Days Mysterious Demon “(equivalent to level 80).

As we all knew, in almost all games, the higher the level, the harder it was to upgrade. It was especially true in “Demon God” game, from level 80 to rose to level 90, even if someone were to play religiously everyday, they would still have to spend at least six months. In addition, many players also had wasted a lot of real money on buying skill points before, so they were reluctant to do so.

Some people calculated that the financial resources needed to fall into the demonic path were almost the same as creating a new “soul” character.

Therefore, no one would choose this route unless their brains were injured by a rice cooker.

Of course, Fire Ruthless was an exception, he did not hesitate to “degenerate”.

Beside him, there were some other players who had also done so, but he was the only one able to still hang on the top player list even after falling, causing him to be criticized by some players, and admired by some others.

Hearing that Flower Yiyi wanted to recognize him as a master, of course, the first thing Qin Yu wanted to confirm was: “You want to take the road of falling into demonic path?”

Flowers Yiyi: “Yes.”

Qin Yong then advised her: “This road is not easy to walk on. ”

However, Yiyi insisted: “I have wanted to do this from the very beginning I started playing this game!”

At this moment, Nine Hall His Highness also privately sent a chat to Qin Yu: “Ruthless brother, Yiyi wants to recognize you as her Master, please consider it.”

Qin Yu hesitated for a moment, although he had announced that he would not find a wife, but he never said that he wouldn’t accept disciples. Finally, Qin Yu reluctantly agreed, because he thought of his good relationship with Nine Hall His Highness. However, for the sake of preventing future problems, he told Flower Yiyi first:”I accept, but I do not want to be mentally burdened later. The downfall is irreversible, so you have to think about it well. ”

After a long time, Flower Yiyi said: “Master, you really are ‘heartless’ ah ~”

The word ‘Master ‘ was used, so it seemed that the other player was determined.

After that, Flower Yiyi became Fire Ruthless’s sole disciple.

Qin Yu successfully brought her on the path of demon cultivation. He would often help her with things, answered her questions, and later, after they had become more familiar with each other, they even met in reality.

Two years after that, Yiyi had emerged to be one of the most powerful Demon Clan player in the game, along with Fire Ruthless. It also could be considered as the achievement of her “famous teacher”, Qin Yu.

However, Qin Yu underestimated the gossip power of the general public. Because of the correspondence between the two names “Fallen Flowers” and “Heartless Fire”, as well as the verbal agreement of apprentice-master relationship, regardless of whether they were true or not, in the eyes of the majority of players , their relationship was viewed as ambiguous. Flower Yiyi had completely taken the identity as “the only woman around Fire Ruthless”.

It was impossible for Qin Yu not to know their thoughts, he also had stated his feeling about this, that he felt disturbed and annoyed by it. However, he did not actually hate spending time with this girl, because her EQ was very good. He just feared that she would one day turn foolish and fall deeper for him.

So, when he told her “My wife is here”, Qin Yu was honestly relieved, he felt very relaxed.

Flower Yiyi did not respond, Qin Yu also ignored her, giving her time to digest this information.

And the same time, He Jin who still had lingering excited feeling from seeing the ranking board returned his focus to the game interface. He saw that Fire Ruthless had taken him to a golden wheat field, the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder looking at the wheat fields with a ‘loving’ expression, no one spoke.

***

The author has something to say:

※ Demon God game’s little knowledge ※ (two)

○ After the game revision, the top level is no longer level 50 Immortal. It has changed to level 100 Divine God and Demon God-

Immortal (50-59) → Emperor (60-69) → True God (70-79) → Nine Days Mysterious God (80-89) → God Emperor (90-99) →Divine God (100)

○ In addition, the new “soul” race has an independent demonic cultivation path –

Soul → Appetent → Monster → Chief → Magic Soldiers → Demons → True Demon → Nine Days Mysterious Demon → Demon Emperor → Demon God ( level 100)

○ God Emperor level player fall to the demonic path-

God Emperor (90-99) → “Fallen task” → downgrade to “Nine Days Mysterious Demon” (80-89) → Demon Emperor (90-99) → Demon God (100)

T/N:

So, someone in my discord group pointed this out to me:

Flower Yiyi’s name actually comes from this famous phrase: 落花有意, 流水无情 which means: The waterside flower sheds petals for love, while the heartless brook babbles on.Therefore, the reason she changed her name might be related to this phrase, in order to match her name with Fire’s = 落花(fallen flower)+无情(heartless).

Thank you @baozi!