A Heartwarming Story Behind the Scenes

Inside Chen Xu's rental apartment, he was finishing off a pack of instant noodles he'd just soaked, with an egg added in.

No choice—lately, this was all he could eat, because he was seriously short on cash.

He owed money on his Credit Card, JieBei on ZhiFuBa, and JieJie on JingGou.

On top of that, he hadn't paid Ruan Ningxue her wages or illustration fees yet, and had even borrowed another 1,000 yuan from her. Most of his funds had been sunk into the game.

He didn't even have money for food now.

Of course, the main reason was that he'd specifically set aside 20,000 yuan from all his capital.

And that 20,000 was the foundation for making the "Magic Mirror" take off.

Chen Xu had confidence in the quality of the "Magic Mirror."

Especially after getting a deep look at some of the gentleman's games in this world, including indescribable doujin works.

All Chen Xu could say about those was that they were incredibly shoddy.

Weren't gentleman's games still games?

It was outrageous!

But as the old saying goes, good wine needs no bush—yet even good wine can be lost in a deep alley.

If you thought a 18R game would automatically take off just by tossing it onto a platform after making it, you'd be thinking way too much.

Even dropping masterpieces like "Minecraft" or "The Binding of Isaac" onto a platform without care, if luck was bad in the Early Game, they might not even make a splash.

So for any game, promotion was a must.

Even for an 18R game!

Of course, the method would need some special tricks.

In a certain university dormitory.

Yawning, Jiang Ping climbed down from the top bunk ladder and opened the laptop on his desk.

"There haven't been any new doujins to read lately," he muttered.

Mumbling to himself, Jiang Ping opened a well-known overseas forum.

Of course, when he said doujins, he didn't just mean the purely lewd ones—that also included some fan works.

For example, some manga plots were really frustrating—like when a popular female side character died, or when the heroine of a hot-blooded manga died, becoming the catalyst for the male lead's power-up.

That felt as awful as eating crap, but if the manga itself was high quality, it was even more annoying.

That's where doujins came in handy. Occasionally, he'd also take a critical look at those indescribable doujins—that happened often too.

But these doujins were usually small-time stuff, since copyright was a concern.

There were also original doujins, but those tended to be the indescribable kind.

Jiang Ping was now browsing a famous overseas doujin forum, hoping to find something new.

After all, most of the artists drawing these doujins did it out of interest.

Working sporadically was normal—forget about serialized volumes; sometimes getting one chapter a week was already a blessing.

Even some original doujins made for profit weren't guaranteed to have a steady release.

But today, when he entered the forum, Jiang Ping noticed something unusual.

The posts on the homepage were a bit baffling.

"In the dead of night, a roommate's bed keeps shaking—is it a distortion of human nature, or a collapse of morality?"

"This is the best match-3 game I've ever played!"

"A seemingly simple match-3 game, but the truth hidden behind it is heartwarming."

"What kind of game is this? It's harmful! I wanted to buy my little brother a match-3 game, but now he's completely listless!"

"Brave bull, fear no hardship, brothers charge!"

??????

What the hell?

Staring at the string of post titles, Jiang Ping was completely dumbfounded.

After clicking into one of the posts and reading for a while, he finally figured it out.

"The truth behind it is heartwarming," "roommate's bed keeps shaking in the middle of the night."

These guys had floored the accelerator—turns out all this was about the gentleman's games that LSPs loved most!

But if it was a gentleman's game, what were these comments about?

"Thoughts after half an hour of gameplay: Like the game's name, we are all people peering into the mirror. After putting down the Magic Mirror, what faces us is the pain and torment of reality. The more beautiful things we've seen, the more confidence we gain in life. When we're battered and bruised, it's good to rest and quietly recall this simple, pure, yet slightly bittersweet emotion."

"The dark side of humanity revealed here nearly surpasses my understanding—redemption and depravity, a profound moral interrogation that cuts to the bone. Even after closing the game, my thoughts remain trapped inside it. Highly recommended!"

"A game brimming with depth. Beneath its wild and unrestrained exterior, it conveys a desolate sorrow that spans the ages, sung like a headless fly through the streets, yet its expression surpasses half a scroll of scripture in the temple. The stories within each have their own color, and when strung together, they shine brilliantly—like a miniature world. Of course, this game has many disadvantages, but its storytelling is top-tier: simple, powerful, and soul-shaking."

"'Magic Mirror' gives me a faint sense of Dream of the Red Chamber. Through the mirror, the fates of the women unfold before your eyes. They each have their own encounters against different backdrops of time, yet they are also governed by all sorts of forces—desire, love, fear... As for what thoughts linger in the onlooker's heart, they can only dissolve into a sigh after closing the game, or perhaps a careless indifference."

"A great literary master once said: There are always those who add color where color shouldn't be, but there are also always those who explore philosophy where color belongs. To explore life, morality—clearly, 'Magic Mirror' is exactly that kind of game: cloaked in debauchery, yet profound in meaning."

"When a gentleman's game moved me to tears, I knew that whether to go or not to go no longer mattered."

"The moment I clicked open this game, within a mere ten minutes, my heart was struck by an unparalleled impact. I can hardly describe it in words—like a guiding lamp appearing in the pitch-black night. I have a premonition that because of this game, the world of gentleman's games will undergo a revolution!"

What the hell!?

What are you people even talking about!?

Reading through it all, Jiang Ping felt his entire body go numb, and at the same time, a fierce curiosity was born.

After looking through the posts and comments in the forum, he confirmed the game's name was "Magic Mirror."

Jiang Ping opened the Official Game Platform and searched for it.

On the game's cover, a strikingly prominent elf, along with a label marked 18R.

Mm!

This is definitely a gentleman's game, no question.

But all these comments of yours—are you sure you didn't review the wrong game?

Already quite interested in gentleman's games, Jiang Ping was now even more intrigued.

What kind of game is this, really?

The price was 10 bucks, not too expensive.

Just the cost of a breakfast.

Without thinking much, Jiang Ping added the game to his cart, then scanned the code to pay.

Now, he was going to take a look and see what was so special about this beautiful-girl match-three game.

New book period: 2 chapters daily. Need votes if you have them—very important. (Muah! [Cute face])