Although there were less than seven days left before the network-wide release of Honkai Impact 3rd's debut PV, the group chat of the entire miHoYo studio should by rights have been a scene of fervent, fired-up overtime.
But at this moment, the group chat was deathly silent.
Because everyone knew that today, for their boss Su Yu, there loomed a life-and-death ordeal even more perilous than the game's launch.
The evening heat had yet to fully dissipate; outside the window, the air-conditioning units of the old residential complex gave off a dull rumble. Su Yu sat on the sofa, the faint glow of his phone screen lighting up his somewhat helpless face.
On the screen, the rabbit icon representing Bronie was flashing madly, lines of text leaping out one after another from the encrypted comms channel.
"Boss, something's not right." Bronie's words carried a rare seriousness. "The Tiger Claw Gang—the one the white-haired idiot and I had been squeezing into the Old District with sheepdog tactics—suddenly made a big move today."
"Almost all of their skilled hands turned out in full force, and on the periphery they were backed up by a few suited thugs wearing sunglasses. These hooligans seem to have struck a deal with some formidable power—from the looks of it, they're getting ready to go after someone over at Arc City Airport."
Bronie paused, then sent another message: "This is highly unusual. Is some big shot coming to Arc City recently?"
Su Yu thought it over.
A big shot.
He glanced down at a certain keyword in that string of messages from Himeko—"My dad's arrived."
"...There really does seem to be one."
On Kiana's end, she too had received Bronie's transmission; she looked up and shot Su Yu a glance.
The two of them didn't speak—after all, they were still in the stage of "you hide it from me, and I hide it from you."
"Keep watching." Su Yu replied to Bronie with two words.
Kiana also sent off a message: "Tell me the moment anything stirs."
Having finished replying, Su Yu leaned back into the sofa and let out a long breath.
Who knew that the haunting, never-departing red light-screen would pop up directly onto his retina.
[System Notice: Ding! Detected that the Host has triggered a high-risk daily mission: The Father-in-Law's Death Glare (Pseudo)!]
[Warning: High-energy reaction ahead! The target individual possesses an extremely strong desire for control, and bears a natural hostility toward penniless entrepreneurs.]
[System Note: Struggle hard, Host. The consequence of having your lies exposed may be either getting your corpse sunk to the bottom of a river, or being stuffed into a sack and tossed into the sewers of Arc City. Careful not to get hit with a cleaver~]
[PS: When 'high-risk' and 'daily' are put side by side, could it possibly be any easy job?]
"Shut your mouth." Su Yu cursed inwardly, and casually swiped the light-screen away.
His phone buzzed again—this time it was a WeChat from Himeko, a barrage of voice messages and text strafing over like machine-gun fire.
"Su Yu! I've picked up the old man! We're driving toward Happiness Home right now! Estimated arrival at the battlefield in ten minutes!"
"Remember your character setting! You're a young, accomplished, down-to-earth, and—most importantly—single-mindedly-devoted-to-me fine young entrepreneur!"
"As for Kiana, she's just your distant cousin who came from the countryside to stay in the city! Whatever you do, don't let it slip!"
Su Yu looked at the words "distant cousin" and couldn't help but sigh, replying:
"Sister Himeko, isn't this setting of yours a bit too sloppy? A startup boss like me, living in a run-down old complex like this—would a shrewd old fox like your dad really buy it?"
"That's where you don't get it!" Himeko fired back in a flash. "This building in Happiness Home was bought by the old man back when he was a poor teaching hack at Arc City University! He has deep feelings for this place—he only gave it to me as a gift after he made it big later on! This is called sentiment, get it?"
"Just say that even though you're running a startup, you bought your house back in your hometown, and you came over here to save money so you rented my place! And don't go fabricating some love-at-first-sight-at-a-high-end-gala story for how the two of us got together—the old man moves in those circles, he'd see through it at a glance! Go with something down-to-earth—a landlord and tenant gradually developing feelings over time! The more clichéd, the more real!"
Looking at this airtight, logically rigorous spiel, Su Yu had to admit that, when it came to dealing with her father, Himeko had indeed put in a fair bit of hard work.
"Understood." Su Yu sent one last message.
He tossed his phone aside and turned his head to look at Kiana, who was sitting at the other end of the sofa.
This former Void Drifter was at this moment wearing a loose T-shirt printed with a "Homu" design, with a pair of denim shorts washed to a slight fade on her lower half.
She sat cross-legged, clutching an extra-large bag of potato chips, crunching them loudly in a "turning grief and indignation into appetite" sort of pose.
"So..." Kiana forcefully swallowed the chips in her mouth, "this young lady's identity right now is a country bumpkin who, because her family's poor, has no choice but to come seek refuge with her cousin?"
"It's what the plot requires." Su Yu spread his hands. "Besides, didn't Sister Himeko give you two top-tier seafood buffet vouchers as hush money?"
At the words "seafood buffet," the protesting expression Kiana had been about to put on instantly froze for a moment.
She pursed her lips and muttered: "Take someone's gifts and your hands are tied, eat someone's food and your mouth goes soft... If it weren't for Sister Himeko's sake, I wouldn't act in this kind of boring soap opera at all."
As she spoke, she scooted a bit closer to Su Yu.
"Here." Kiana shoved the chip bag, with its last few crumbs left, right up to Su Yu's mouth, her tone stiff and blunt. "I can't eat any more, you deal with it—wasting food is shameful."
Su Yu looked at the few crumbs at the bottom of the bag, finding it rather amusing.
Just as he was about to reach out and take it, Kiana suddenly seemed to remember something—she pulled her fingers back, pinched out the largest chip from the bag, stuffed it straight into her own mouth, and then poured all the rest into Su Yu's palm.
"The biggest one's mine!" she declared her sovereignty, words muffled.
Su Yu patted the crumbs off his hand, just about to quip something about "the food-guarding trait of a country cousin."
"Beep—beep——!"
A short, sharp honk came from downstairs in the complex.
A business van.
Black, its paintwork so glossy you could use it as a mirror.
Su Yu stood on the balcony and glanced down—the car door opened, and the first to step out was Himeko, followed by a middle-aged man in a dark-gray bespoke suit.
His back ramrod-straight, his steps steady, a Patek Philippe on his left wrist glinting in the afternoon sun.
Gold wire-rimmed glasses.
Even from three stories up, one could still feel the powerful aura emanating from him.
Su Yu silently drew in a breath.
"He's here."
Kiana too leaned over to the edge of the balcony for a peek, then promptly drew her head back.
"What a big shot's airs." she muttered.
The moment the security door was pushed open, the living room—cool until then thanks to the air-conditioning—saw its atmospheric pressure plunge straight to freezing.
The first thing to step in was a pair of spotlessly polished, high-end custom leather shoes.
Right after, the face of Murata Ryusuke—a face that frequently appeared on the covers of financial magazines and academic journals—came into Su Yu and Kiana's view.
He wore a crisp dark-gray suit, the gold wire-rimmed glasses perched steadily on the bridge of his nose.
He didn't look at his daughter Himeko, who was frantically shooting him glances from the side, nor at Kiana, who was huddled in the corner of the sofa—instead, he nailed his gaze straight onto Su Yu.
The air went silent for a full three seconds.
"Decent enough looks." Ryosuke finally spoke.
Just as Su Yu was about to hang up a professional fake smile and exchange a few pleasantries, this towering academic authority cum venture-capital tycoon's rapid-fire volley came crashing down, his speech so fast it was like the questioning at a thesis defense.
"Where's your highest degree from? Ivy League, or the domestic Top 2?"
"What's your current core business? What annual profit margin can you achieve?"
"Where's your hometown? What do your parents do? How many mortgage-free properties do you own in Arc City?"
Every single sentence stepped with precision on the pride and sore spots of an ordinary young entrepreneur.
If the one standing here had been an ordinary poor kid, he probably wouldn't even be able to string his words together properly by now.
But Su Yu merely sighed silently in his heart.
Here it comes—the classic rich-family father-in-law's three-hit Household Registration interrogation.
With this kind of oppressive presence, it'd be a genuine waste of talent for him not to work in an interrogation room.
Before Su Yu could even weave together that "down-to-earth fine young entrepreneur" script, a teeth-grating sound of plastic friction suddenly came from the other end of the sofa.
"Creak—"
The chip bag in Kiana's hand, already more than half empty, was forcibly crushed by her into a wad of scrap.
She glared fixedly at the back of Ryosuke's head, her back molars grinding audibly.
Who is this old man?! What gives him the right to look at Su Yu with that take-out-the-trash gaze?! So what about his degree? So what if he has no house? Su Yu is someone this young lady has approved of—is it your place to be pointing fingers around here?!
Kiana's body leaned slightly forward, her muscles already subconsciously tensing.
As long as Su Yu gave a single nod, she swore she could hurl this arrogant old man out the third-floor window within one second.
Just as Kiana was on the verge of being unable to hold back, wanting to march up and give Ryosuke a sound beating, a fiery-red figure abruptly thrust itself between the two of them.
"Dad! That's enough!"
Himeko, like an old hen protecting her chick, spread her arms wide and shielded the space in front of Su Yu.
Her face, usually always carrying a whiff of alcohol, was now full of irritation as she fiercely glared at her own father.
"I asked you to come meet my boyfriend, not to hold a hearing! If you keep treating Su Yu with this prisoner-interrogation attitude, then you can get right back to your university this instant!"
Seeing this scene, Kiana, who had been on the brink of erupting, froze.
She blinked, her gaze shifting between Himeko's broad back and Su Yu's helpless profile.
The impulse to hit someone that had been boiling just moments ago, like a punctured balloon, leaked out clean with a pfft.
Kiana loosened her grip on the now-crumpled packaging in her hand, the corner of her mouth twitching imperceptibly.
Hmph... Seems Sister Himeko has a bit of a conscience after all, knowing to protect Su Yu. I'll count you as having some sense.
No matter how unreliable this guy Su Yu is, only I get to rib him for it—anyone else who wants to bully him can forget it.
Murata Ryusuke looked at his daughter blocking the way before him, his brows furrowing into a deep, three-bar frown.
Just as he was about to keep applying pressure, he heard Himeko add, in a low, eerie tone:
"Push him any further, and tonight I'll call Mom and tell her all about how you've been secretly squirreling away private savings behind her back to invest in that aircraft company."
The moment the trump card came out, the effect was immediate.
Ryosuke's eye twitched, and his previously sharp aura visibly reined itself in a few notches.
He tactically pushed up the gold wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat.
"I'm merely conducting a necessary risk assessment."
Ryosuke gave a cold snort, his gaze passing over Himeko's shoulder to land once more on Su Yu.
"I hear from Himeko that you recently set up some kind of... game studio?"
Ryosuke bit down hard on the word "game," the deep-rooted technological condescension in his tone practically overflowing.
"Let's go—take me to have a look."
From the bottom of his heart, he looked down on this sort of unserious, no-good line of work.
Going to the studio was merely a pretext to seize the chance to flaunt, before this young man who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth, what real capital and technological barriers looked like—to make him back off in the face of the odds and hurry up and get out of his daughter's world.
Su Yu looked at Ryosuke's confident, self-assured manner, putting on an awkward-yet-polite smile on the surface, while his right hand, tucked behind his back, swiftly made a gesture toward Kiana on the sofa.
Kiana immediately caught his meaning.
Using the motion of tossing the chip bag into the trash can, she rose to her feet, and in the instant she brushed past Su Yu, her fingers very swiftly tapped twice on the back of his hand to signal that she'd received the message.
She rapidly pulled out her phone and opened WeChat, her fingers nearly leaving afterimages on the screen as she relayed every detail of the "father-in-law's surprise inspection" crisis here—without missing a single word—to Kevin.
[The old man's charging over! Get ready to receive the guest! Whatever you do, don't let anything slip! Especially don't let him find out that building was a gift from Sister Eden!]
A few seconds later, Kevin's reply popped up.
[...Received. I need five minutes to clean up the scene—stall him.]
Five minutes.
Kiana glanced at her phone screen, mulling over how to buy time, when Himeko, very on-the-ball, had already picked up the thread of conversation.
"What are you staring at—what time is it already?" Himeko shot Ryosuke a sullen, sidelong glare. "I went to pick you up the moment my class let out, didn't even get a sip of water, my stomach's been flat with hunger for ages. Let's go eat first! Save all your rotten business for after the meal!"
Under his daughter's forceful demand, Murata Ryusuke could ultimately only nod with a stiff face.
Ryosuke didn't say where they'd go, heading straight for the stairwell.
Himeko turned back and mouthed "keep up" at Su Yu.
Just as Su Yu was about to step forward, Fenghuang's voice suddenly rang out in his mind.
"Su Yu."
Her tone was calm, but carried an uncommon gravity.
"This man, in that world... was no good sort. Although the Ryosuke of this world may be different, I advise you to be careful."
Su Yu nodded inwardly.
The Murata Ryusuke of the original work.
A planet-traitor who colluded with the People of the Sky and sold out human civilization.
Although that was the Ryosuke of the current civilization, who knew whether Counterparts might share something in common.
From the looks of it, this one across from him was, in all likelihood, just an elite father-in-law (pseudo) who looked down on him—and judging from his arrogant-to-the-bone manner—
Today was not going to be an easy day.
Kiana stood at the doorway, watching the three of them head downstairs.
She'd originally wanted to tag along too.
But the "distant cousin" setting was simply far too easy to blow at a formal dinner.
Her hostility toward Ryosuke was basically written all over her face—if she actually sat down at the same table, in all likelihood it wouldn't be Su Yu who blew his cover first, but rather she herself who'd lose it and slam Ryosuke's plate over his head.
"I've got a study session arranged with a classmate, so I won't be going with you."
Kiana shouted toward the stairwell.
Ryosuke didn't even turn his head, merely tilting his face slightly to the side.
This girl actually has a bit of perceptiveness.
He gave Kiana a passing grade in his heart, then continued walking forward.
Downstairs, the business van's door shut, the engine gave a low rumble, and the black vehicle slid out of the complex's gate and turned onto the main road.
Kiana leaned on the balcony railing, watching that car disappear around the street corner.
She stuck out her tongue and pulled a face in the direction of the car's rear.
"Tch, who'd even want to eat with that dead-fish-eyed old man."
She had to rush to the studio without a moment's delay.
Su Yu was up front holding off the firepower; she, as the CTO, had to give him plenty of face during the "inspection" segment to come.
At this thought, the picky, critical gaze Ryosuke had just given Su Yu, along with Himeko's food-guarding manner, suddenly surfaced in Kiana's mind.
Serves him right.
That's what you get for agreeing to play someone's fake boyfriend.
Kiana thought to herself, gloating.
Although in reality, it was a certain someone who'd "sold" Su Yu out.
"Judging by that old man's manner, Su Yu's definitely going to find this meal today harder to swallow than gulping down sand."
"He'll probably get grilled so hard he can't even lift his head, let alone get any chance to be all lovey-dovey with Sister Himeko."
At the mere thought of Su Yu possibly sitting at the dinner table soon, facing the "father-in-law's" death glare, the corners of Kiana's mouth couldn't help but curl up wildly.
But as she laughed and laughed, she felt a stuffiness welling up in her chest again, an indescribable feeling she couldn't quite put into words.
She patted her own cheeks and took a deep breath.
"Forget it, never mind him! Let's go to the studio first and set the formation up! Today I absolutely have to show that old man that this young lady's man is not someone you can just bully as you please!"
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