HP: ???

After realizing this, Li Xian reached up and wiped the lipstick off his lips, then slipped his hand back into his sleeve.

The man clicked his tongue inscrutably and loosely cupped Li Xian's neck.

A wet, slippery sensation spread across Li Xian's skin.

Li Xian lowered his eyes and saw a stream of water spreading from the man's palm.

The water crept up the side of Li Xian's neck, rubbing back and forth over his face as though it were alive.

Strangely, Li Xian didn't feel the texture of liquid from this stream of water. Instead, it felt more like some substance he couldn't name...

The "water" rubbed over every inch of Li Xian's face, not even sparing his lips. Only after it had covered his entire face did his original features emerge.

The light makeup the system had applied to Li Xian neatly concealed his masculine features, while the red lips lent his face a seductive air. Once all the makeup was wiped away, that painted-on femininity vanished. With his wig already removed as well, Li Xian now looked unmistakably male.

The person on-screen was less breathtaking now, but more fresh-faced and pleasing to look at. For a moment, it was hard to say which look was better.

[Who called the streamer girly just now?! Get out here and take your beating!!]

[I take back what I said. My first love is back.]

[A guy who looks like this... I could be into that...]

[First, let me state that I'm straight. Second, streamer, be my wife. Finally, let me state that I'm straight...]

[But why did the streamer propose? Sure, he's playing the bride, but I didn't see any proposal task?]

[Could it be a skill?]

[Get real. Have you ever seen a newbie start out with a skill? Plenty of veteran players reach the advanced zone without getting one. How could a newbie awaken a skill right off the bat?]

[Then the streamer is just... desperate to get married?]

[That kind of makes sense, but also doesn't...]

Li Xian, who had been single all his life and was now being branded "desperate to get married," tilted his face beneath the man's palm and let out a soft hiss as though it hurt.

After seeing Li Xian's real face, the man rather deliberately turned his gaze aside. But the water suddenly grew gentler, lingering around Li Xian's earlobe for a while before retreating into his palm.

While the man was distracted, Li Xian suddenly produced something in his hand and held it out to him.

The man accepted it instinctively, pressing the fingertips stained with Li Xian's lipstick onto its surface.

The instant he touched the hardback booklet, he seemed to sense something wrong and abruptly let go.

Clack.

The red Marriage Certificate fell open on the floor.

Two bright red fingerprints marked its pages.

And in the red-background photograph that had originally shown only Li Xian, Ji Xie's face appeared in the empty space.

It worked!

Li Xian's obedient expression instantly turned into a sly look of triumph. He bent down and picked up the booklet, its cover boldly emblazoned with the words "Marriage Certificate."

His skill's successful activation proved two things.

First, the man wasn't a villager.

The system had explicitly warned him that he "must not let the villagers discover that the bride is a man." If this man were a villager, Li Xian would probably have been doomed the moment he revealed his real gender.

Second... the man wasn't an "instance character."

Otherwise, he wouldn't have met the conditions for triggering Li Xian's skill.

But if he wasn't an instance character... what else could he be?

Li Xian lowered his eyes and saw the man's name in the booklet.

"Ji Xie..."

At the sound of his name, Ji Xie's mouth twitched, and he pulled the Marriage Certificate out of Li Xian's hand.

A photograph of the two of them was prominently displayed inside, with their information listed beneath it. At first glance, it looked remarkably official.

Li Xian's section read:

[Name: Li Xian]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: 22]

The man's information, meanwhile, read:

[Name: Ji Xie]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: ???]

The other page conspicuously displayed such draconian clauses as "Shared HP..." and "Unable to inflict harm..."

[Where did that booklet come from? What is it?]

[No idea. The cover and everything inside are pixelated...]

Lin Shiming had already returned to his room. His brows furrowed when he saw the censored red booklet.

The livestream only automatically censored items involving important player privacy, such as skill information. Could this newbie called Li Xian really have been assigned a skill by the system?

Lin Shiming opened Li Xian's status panel again, while Li Xian brought up his own updated panel.

Both of them widened their eyes at the same time.

It plainly read:

HP: ???

As though realizing something, Li Xian looked up at Ji Xie, whose expression was unreadable.

The man snapped the Marriage Certificate shut, then smiled.

It was a chilling smile.

It really had been a long time since someone... played me.

He reached toward Li Xian's face, but constrained by the rules-

He flicked him on the forehead.

"Ow-you..." Li Xian clutched his forehead and tried to say something, but Ji Xie cut him off.

Ji Xie's tone settled, losing its earlier casualness as he tapped the red booklet in his hand.

"Looks like I'll have to stay in this instance for a few days."

Unexpectedly, he wasn't annoyed, let alone furious. Instead, he gave Li Xian a faintly pitying look and returned the Marriage Certificate to him.

"You're on your own."

Ji Xie's unknown age and HP made Li Xian somewhat wary of him. Outwardly, however, he merely rubbed his reddened forehead and replied coolly, "No need to concern yourself."

Ji Xie gave a soft snort, seemingly dismissive of Li Xian's confidence.

He looked out the window. The rain had stopped, and a figure in the distance was making its way across the wet dirt toward the dilapidated tiled-roof house.

Who knew what had gotten into the system, assigning a newbie a role like this and giving him some inexplicable skill.

If he hadn't used that skill on me, things would have been simple. At least he could have died quickly. Now that he had a practically infinite health bar, one wrong step...

And all that awaited him was endless hell.

Ji Xie didn't voice any of this. He merely left Li Xian with one indifferent remark.

"Then let's see you get through what's coming first."

The livestream viewers listened in confusion as the two exchanged a few cryptic remarks. Then Ji Xie took several steps back into the room's shadows and vanished under Li Xian's gaze.

[Wait, he knows the streamer is a man. Why didn't he kill him? Is the system bugged?]

[But something the system explicitly warned about shouldn't be wrong, right? Did we miss something?]

["Must not let the villagers discover that the bride is a man..." Wait, villagers?]

[Could that guy called Ji Xie not be a villager?]

[But... haven't all the instance characters in Stone River Village always been villagers?]

[Then who exactly is this Ji Xie guy...?]

Naturally, Li Xian had the same question, but he had too little information to even begin speculating.

And now something more pressing had arisen.

Outside the window, a figure approached from the distance.

Anyone showing up at a time like this was most likely a villager coming to capture him.