Lu Ma: This Profession is Called Ning Rongrong

"Why didn't you answer my calls?"

"Why would I answer your calls? Besides, I finally did pick up, so what was the meaning of you saying absolutely nothing?"

Evening, Fate Farmhouse Restaurant, a private room for two.

A man and a woman of similar height stood facing each other, both pressing their hands against the small table.

"I called you as soon as I was free! I didn't speak because what I wanted to say couldn't be explained over the phone!"

The woman puffed out her cheeks.

"You were free, but I was playing games, so I wasn't!"

Lu Ma spread his hands, showing no sign of embarrassment whatsoever.

The person opposite him was Sima Xi, Lu Ma's best buddy. When dealing with his best buddy, Lu Ma always spoke his mind.

"You didn't tell me to play a damn game! I really regret recommending that streaming contract to you back then. Plus, your streaming hours are from 6 PM to 10 PM, and your special new game stream finished yesterday afternoon. I've been waiting for days just to play games with you today, and you? You're playing alone without calling me?"

When Sima Xi heard that Lu Ma hadn't answered because he was gaming, she became even more incensed.

"How was I supposed to call you for a single-player game? Are you going to help me test it?"

"Test it?"

Sima Xi's expression shifted rapidly; one second she was furious, the next she was puzzled. She sat down, staring straight at Lu Ma.

"What kind of test? Did you land a commercial contract?"

Lu Ma sat down as well, nodding proudly before grabbing the menu on the table and checking off a few signature dishes.

"You bet. Someone finally recognized my talent."

"Stop bragging. Don't I know what kind of talent you have? If I hadn't pushed that contract for you back then, who knows which factory you'd be working in right now."

Sima Xi rolled her eyes at Lu Ma in annoyance. She took the menu, then paused for a moment.

"Ordering so much? Are you done living? Did you catch some terminal illness and give up on treatment? Tell me, and I'll... I'll push a few more contracts your way."

Sima Xi actually wanted to just give Lu Ma the money, but she knew his temperament; he definitely wouldn't accept a handout. But if she gave it to him indirectly through contracts, he might just take it.

Take that first streaming contract he started with, for example—she was the one who pushed it his way, paying 100 a day for four hours of streaming.

Looking at the checked items on the menu, the total was likely over 500 yuan. This was a farmhouse restaurant, not a golden banquet. Sima Xi was genuinely worried about Lu Ma. They had agreed on WeChat earlier that Lu Ma would be the one treating.

"Huh?" Lu Ma looked blank for a second before realizing what she meant. "I'm not sick. I really just landed a big contract, and now I've got money."

"A big contract?"

Sima Xi frowned.

"Yeah, a mysterious client suddenly approached me, asked me to test a single-player game, and even paid me a 30,000 deposit. I figured since I'm flush with cash, I'd treat my best buddy."

"Mysterious client, single-player, 30,000?" Sima Xi's frown deepened. "What do they want you to do?"

"Just... test the game."

"That's it? What are the specifics? Making guides, finding bugs?"

"Uh... I suppose it's finding things that cause discomfort during gameplay."

"Why you? You don't have a high following, and you only stream commercial games with the Douluo IP. It makes no sense for them to find you..."

"Hey, hey, are you putting me down?"

Lu Ma watched Sima Xi talk herself into a corner and felt a bit dissatisfied.

"No, I didn't mean it like that. Forget it, let's not talk about it. Let's just say you're lucky. Did you sign a non-disclosure agreement or anything like that?"

Lu Ma shook his head. Aside from the game package, the patch, the manual, and the money, that dolphin head hadn't sent him anything else.

A non-disclosure agreement? Naturally, he hadn't signed one.

"Strange." Sima Xi clicked her tongue. She called over a waiter to hand off the menu. She didn't add any new dishes; even the ones Lu Ma had already picked might be too much to finish.

Returning to her seat, she looked at Lu Ma, who was lost in his own fantasies, and decided to speak up:

"So, let's talk about this single-player game. You aren't going to try and brush me off with 'professional ethics' again, are you?"

"No, no." Lu Ma gave an awkward laugh.

"What's the genre?"

"Action RPG. The world-building is based on the Douluo setting, but... it's a bit different. Maybe to fit the theme, they've added things like monsters into the game."

"Douluo, single-player..." Sima Xi reacted exactly the same way Lu Ma had. Clearly, Sima Xi also found it hard to connect those two concepts.

As for what the monsters were, that was a minor detail.

"Fine, let's put that aside for now. What's the gameplay like?"

"Similar to Elden Ring, I guess. Exploration and combat."

Lu Ma thought about his own gaming experience; he had spent the vast majority of his time fighting and searching for treasure chests.

"However, this game has a lot of problems."

"Oh? Tell me about them."

"His tutorial design is terrible, just like the tutorial in Minecraft!"

"Does Minecraft even have a tutorial?"

"In the version I played, it didn't." Lu Ma continued to explain, "The tutorial for this game gives you no idea what the main quest is or how to trigger it. It's not like Dark Souls, where it shoves a boss in your face right at the start; if you can't beat it, you know to run away, gather gear, and come back later."

"So, it lacks an early-game objective? Is that what you mean?"

"Exactly!"

Lu Ma nodded heavily.

"Then how did you solve that problem?"

"By sheer coincidence, I overheard a quest."

"Sheer coincidence?"

"Yes!" Lu Ma thought about it; if he hadn't gone to the main hall back then, he probably wouldn't have received that quest, and he would have been in for a rough time. To prevent her from saying something like 'that wasn't a coincidence,' he added, "And after that quest was completed, there were no new quest prompts. Guess how the game solved that problem?"

"How did it solve it?"

"It sent me a patch, forcing me directly into the Shrek main storyline to fight Zhao Wuji!"

Sending a patch!

When Sima Xi heard those words, she began to wonder if the game company was stupid. Couldn't they have played it themselves first?

"It is a test, after all, so it's understandable. That's one problem, what else?"

Sima Xi gritted her teeth, beginning to look forward to other issues in the game that might shock her.

"The combat is boring. My last few fights all ended in trading blood for blood. It's like putting on heavy armor and turning an action game into a turn-based one."

"Have you tried changing classes? Maybe that's your problem, or perhaps it was designed that way to lower the difficulty in the early stages."

Although Sima Xi didn't have as much playtime as Lu Ma, she had played just as many games as he had and could be considered a veteran player.

"Well, here's the thing: it only has one support class open, and that 'blood for blood' skill was a quest reward. As for the late game, I'm looking forward to it too, but that's still the late game."

"And this support class is?"

"Ning Rongrong."

"Oh, you mean the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda, right? It's true that it's hard to imagine how to solo-clear content with the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda."

"No, it's Ning Rongrong."

"Are you saying you're controlling a specific character, and that character is Ning Rongrong?"

Sima Xi stared blankly for a moment before blurting that out.

"Did you recognize her yourself, or did it explicitly label her for you?"

"Both."