Annan and Xitan Pulan logged off last night at two in the morning.
It was time to sleep, yet they felt wide awake...
As if they had just taken a nap at noon.
And that was indeed the case.
They hadn’t been playing the game for long—aside from Annan, the others had logged on after dinner.
By the time they logged off, it had been just about seven or eight hours.
"You don’t need to prepare to sleep now, you’ve already slept enough... Sleeping more would give you a headache."
Lin Yiyi answered languidly, "The foggy continent can completely replace sleep."
She stretched lazily and then collapsed back on the bed without any grace.
She spread her body in all directions on the bed and murmured while looking at the ceiling, "Ah, I’m a little hungry... I want some meat..."
"Kiddo, if you want to eat, eat, would two pounds be enough?"
Jiu’er instantly replied, "If it’s not enough, add more!"
"Then I’d get fat and die!"
Lin Yiyi immediately became bashfully angry, jumped up from the bed, ran over and grabbed Jiu’er who couldn’t escape in time, and started groping wildly under her clothes, "I’ll tickle you to death..."
Watching his sister and Fu Luoli playfully tussling and tumbling into a bundle, Annan remained calm and composed, pushing his glasses up and politely averting his gaze.
Xitan Pulan walked over to him, chuckling, "You’re making that face, almost no change at all."
Wen Xue, the real name of Xitan Pulan, dressed starkly different from Jiu’er—Jiu’er, even at home, was always well-dressed. She was the youngest of the three girls, yet she was the only one who wore light makeup.
That perfectly fitting milk-white turtleneck sweater, with sleeves that reached all the way to the back of the hands, only leaving the fingertips exposed. White clothing usually makes one’s skin appear a bit yellowish, but it made Jiu’er’s skin seem to glow.
As for Xitan Pulan, she wore a simple white women’s shirt that was clearly a bit tight around the chest. She wore ordinary black casual pants, and her feet on the fluffy carpet were warm even without socks.
Among the three ladies in the room, Xitan Pulan’s model-like figure held an absolute commanding presence.
Annan even felt she might not be much shorter than himself...
She must be around one meter seventy, right?
Xitan Pulan habitually picked up a box of cigarettes from the table, flicked one out with her fingers, and placed it in her mouth.
She offered the cigarette box towards Annan, "Jinling Twelve Hairpins, menthol flavored... Want one?"
"No, no, I don’t smoke..."
Annan hastily declined.
Xitan Pulan nodded in approval, "Mhm, not smoking is a good habit."
She was about to light up but then seemed to remember something.
So she put the lighter down and took the cigarette out again, holding it between her fingers.
"You’re Lin Yiyi’s real brother?"
She asked with curiosity, "Is everyone in your family a streamer?"
Xitan Pulan’s voice, with a touch of huskiness from smoking, was slightly rough but all the more magnetic.
Annan quickly explained, "No, my sister makes videos. She doesn’t do live streaming, so she’s not really a streamer..."
"It’s almost the same thing."
Xitan Pulan nodded, "Anyway, you’re professionals. I’m not that good at games... I’ll follow your lead."
She said with a slight smile, extending her right hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette towards Annan, "Please guide me."
Differently from the captivating opposite-sex aura she exuded, Xitan Pulan’s hand was unexpectedly strong and steady, even a bit calloused. It made Annan wonder... whether she was a psychiatrist or a surgeon.
Annan smiled happily.
Upon learning that this game itself could replace sleep, Four Dark Decks’s first reaction was—no more worries about insomnia.
A one-click sleep solution.
And the sleep quality is super high.
The problem is, eight hours of sleep may not be nearly enough...
"Since this game can completely replace sleep... essentially, it’s impossible to quit. So I suggest, let’s set some online times."
Four Dark Decks calculated carefully, "Right now, I finish my live stream around ten thirty. I have classes in the morning and need to get up by seven at the latest... I can push the live stream half an hour earlier, and then head straight into the game after it ends without playing with my phone.
"That way, from Monday to Friday, I can play for about nine hours... and on weekends, I’ll need an additional full day."
"As for me, I’m a bit busier. But if I squeeze it in, I can still have eight or nine hours a day."
Xitan Pulan smiled, "I might have even more time than you... I don’t have night shifts to deal with, whereas you still have to stream in the evenings."
"It won’t be by many hours," Four Dark Decks’s eyes lit up, "and besides, whether it’s a Rogue or a Half-Dead Maiden... both our classes are the kind that has an advantage at night over during the day."
Xitan Pulan felt a bit curious, "Does that mean we are... teammates now?"
As if sensing something, Lin Yiyi put down Jiu’er, whom she had been fussing over for ages, and came over with interest, "Are you two forming a fixed team? But isn’t two people not enough?"
"But both of us have things to do during the day, unlike you guys who have so much free time..."
Four Dark Decks said helplessly, "Even if we add more people, at least our timelines have to match up. Otherwise, what’s the point of a fixed team that can’t log on together?"
"Speaking of which, you can actually stream now, two in the morning isn’t too late."
Lin Yiyi casually said, "Perfect, since you haven’t streamed tonight. How about we grab something to eat, I will make a video after you stream? Then we can play the game after eight hours—oh right, I forgot to say. Every day your ’game character’ also needs to sleep for eight hours, so that’s like a prevention against addiction... You can use those eight hours to eat and drink, do some activities."
"...What if I wanted to sneak in an hour of play during the day?"
Four Dark Decks pressed on, "Like, say, if I wanted to play for a bit and earn some money during my noon nap?"
"In theory, that’s possible. We initially thought that you had to wait eight hours after logging off... but that’s not necessarily the case."
Lin Yiyi explained carefully to her brother, "But, if you log off at seven in the morning, you won’t have reached eight hours by noon. Of course, if it has been eight hours, then as long as it’s within twelve hours of the end of your last sleep, you can log off.
"For example, if you log off at seven in the morning, your next log-on time will be three in the afternoon. Then, if you log off before three in the morning, you can reconnect at any time."
Actually, this was something Annan realized—the rule of "you must wait eight hours before logging in" was not very flexible. So, he added the "reconnection mechanism" as an extra feature.
As for why it’s twelve hours instead of sixteen... Annan took into account that not everyone’s wake-up time is the same every day. Sometimes it’s late, sometimes it’s early, which is quite normal.
"Speaking of which," Lin Yiyi mentioned offhand, "you two don’t have anything on for tomorrow, right? If not, log on early.
"Head to the city hall... You can get a house, a three-bedroom, two-living room one."
Four Dark Decks was completely astonished, "The place I slept in today... each person gets one? The benefits are too good, aren’t they?"
He saw three bedrooms and thought it was shared among three people...
Now it seems he really underestimated how generous the planner was.
"The planner is awesome!"
Four Dark Decks praised loudly.
"You should say, Annan is awesome."
Lin Yiyi corrected, "It’s little Annan who sent you the house!"
Hearing this, Four Dark Decks’s expression turned slightly strange, and Xitan Pulan seemed to realize something as well.
"...Sis, you’re not planning to rob the cradle, are you?"
"I’m robbing your sister!"
Lin Yiyi immediately turned red with anger and kicked Four Dark Decks, who didn’t know how to watch his words, to the ground.
Could that even be called robbing the cradle?
That’s called having a youthful heart!