Chapter 1

My world had just ended.

I’d somehow wound up dating my mortal enemy online.

I stared at that last message, a chill creeping up my back, and quickly ducked behind the wall.

The Asylum Hunt. An SSS-ranked instance.

Players took the role of psychiatric patients and had to evade the medical staff hunting them.

The director, the instance boss, was notorious for his brutality. His instance had the lowest clear rate on the entire server.

I cautiously peeked around the corner at Ji Lingchuan, who had just stepped out of the director’s office.

Beneath his white coat, a lead-gray suit hugged his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Gold-rimmed glasses rested on the prominent bridge of his nose.

He looked like a gentleman with a vicious streak, and he certainly never held back when he threw scalpels at me.

His head was lowered, his pale fingers flying across his screen.

Messages kept popping up.

[Baby, I don’t understand.]

[You sent me my picture and said you’d fallen for me, so why are you breaking up with me? Have I done something to upset you?]

[Where are you? Can we talk in person?]

[I don’t want to break up.]

[Please.]

His expression never thawed, but each message sounded more desperate than the last.

My brain was about to overheat.

Who could have guessed that the nemesis who tried to kill me every time we met had this side to him in private?

This was scarier than the horror game.

Ji Lingchuan suddenly stopped typing.

As though he’d sensed something, he tilted his head toward my hiding place.

I immediately sent him a message to distract him.

[I was kidding.]

[It’s actually a new way of confessing your feelings that I picked up. Don’t you think it’s funny?]

As Ji Lingchuan read his screen, a flicker of startled delight crossed his eyes.

[So you were telling me you loved me?]

An idea struck me. For now, I’d keep him calm.

After all, I was still inside his instance. If I made him furious and we beat each other half to death, wouldn’t I just be making things harder for myself?

[Of course. I had no idea you were this hot in person. And that uniform! The second I saw you, I already knew what positions we could try for a little hospital-room role-play.]

Sending that made even me shudder. Goosebumps rose all over my body.

Ji Lingchuan, however, ate it right up. His throat worked, and his gaze grew dark and heated.

He typed back: [Then why won’t you come out and meet me, baby?]

Meet him? Absolutely not. Not in this lifetime.

I hurriedly invoked the instance rules.

[Where’s the fun in that?]

[Aren’t we playing hide-and-seek?]

[If you can pick me out of all these players and catch me, then you’ll have proved you’re good enough for me.]

Once I’d sent that, I felt completely secure.

The Asylum Hunt was a large multiplayer instance, with twenty or thirty players taking part.

Finding an online boyfriend he’d never met among them would be impossible.

Especially when that boyfriend was the nemesis he hated most.

Ji Lingchuan could rack his brains all day and never suspect me.