The troubleshooting time is set to five minutes.
Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds have passed, and there’s still no movement from the other end.
As long as the time limit is reached and the opponent hasn’t cleared the bug, it’s considered a loss.
Only sixty seconds left… just enough for her to fetch a glass of water.
Jiang Fuyue stood up.
On the other end, Xie Dingyuan’s breathing becomes ragged.
The girl leaves her seat, her face unseen but her entire figure exposed to the camera.
She’s wearing a nightgown, not too daring in style but certainly not conservative.
A slightly open neckline reveals delicate collarbones, leading up to a snow-white, slender neck. Her long hair drapes behind her, showcasing her graceful figure.
The hem of her skirt exposes slender and translucent calves.
The water dispenser is right in front of the camera, and as she bends down to pick up the glass, her neckline opens up naturally…
Xie Dingyuan awkwardly shifts his gaze away, his breath slightly labored.
And the finger that was about to hit the enter key also withdraws. It would have taken just a second to press it and clear all bugs or viruses.
With three attempts to set obstacles used up, the tide has turned, and the sniper failed.
He remains the one who consistently holds first place, maintaining a record of 0 defeats and 0 sniping incidents—Xie!
But at that moment, Xie Dingyuan’s mind is in chaos.
He thought, if this is a beauty trap, then she succeeded.
Because—
Time’s up!
Jiang Fuyue happily placed down the glass of water and sat back in front of her computer.
Success?
Checking the snipe record, the result of the third attempt showed the opponent’s “trial run of bug not cleared.”
At the same time, on the Topcoder leaderboard, the stalwart Xie, who always held the first place, with “0 sniping incidents” under his ID, suddenly changed to “1 sniping incident”!
Then the Topcoder forum exploded.
Post: Who sniped Xie?
It’s well-known that ever since Topcoder’s inception, Xie has consistently held the top spot on the leaderboard, never faltering, with 0 defeats and 0 sniping incidents—a godsend for perfectionists.
Boom! Here’s the kicker: just five minutes ago, Xie’s sniping incidents changed from 0 to 1.
2nd floor: Wow! Unbelievable!
3rd floor: Who could have done it?
4th floor: Honestly, I can’t believe it.
5th floor: Just logged in and already witnessing history. Exciting! Waiting for updates.
…
199th floor: I don’t think Xie would lose that easily.
200th floor: I have a bold idea.
201st floor: Me too.
…
369th floor: Maybe Xie suddenly had a stomach ache and needed to use the restroom.
370th floor: Maybe the baby cried, so he had to feed them.
371st floor: Maybe his wife is nagging him, and he had to placate her.
372nd floor: How do you know he wasn’t called to kneel and scrub the washboard?
…
400th floor: Can we stop joking around? You’re ruining Xie’s reputation.
401st floor: What’s the point of speculating? Just message him directly!
402nd floor: The person above must be new; they don’t even know Xie doesn’t accept private messages.
…
Andre likes to browse the forums when he’s free, so he saw the post immediately after it was posted.
His heart skipped a beat—can it be true?
He quickly popped up a chat box to “Yue,” sending five messages in a row—
“Don’t tell me it’s you?”
“Is it really you?”
“Why aren’t you answering?”
“Is Xie good at sniping?”
“Hello? Are you there?”
Unfortunately, there was no response at all.
At this moment, it was Jiang Fuyue’s turn to be sniped.
She’s prepared for the other party to make things difficult for her, after all, what goes around comes around.
She had just tripped someone else, and now it’s her turn to pay the price.
But reality is—
For the first obstacle, the opponent only gave a normal number, trial run for 0.5 seconds, showing success.
For the second obstacle, the opponent used alphabetical parameters, trial run for one second, and she succeeded again.
For the third obstacle, the opponent switched to the formula r=a(1-sinθ).
Jiang Fuyue paused, Cartesian heart-shaped function?
Is the opponent trying to be funny?
Xie Dingyuan certainly wasn’t joking. After inexplicably sending out that formula, he regretted it deeply yet also carried a faint hope.
He opened his private message function, hoping to receive a message from the ID “Yue.”
Even just one message.
Unfortunately, there was none from Jiang Fuyue, only from others he didn’t know.
He was too lazy to read them all, clicking “ignore all.”
Meanwhile, Jiang Fuyue had successfully cleared the bug for the third trial run.
Next, everyone witnessed another miraculous scene—
Xie’s data column “Sniping Rate: 100%” changes to “Sniping Rate: 99.9%”!
The forum—
1026th floor: It changed again! Xie’s sniping failed! [screenshot]
1027th floor: Heaven! Has Xie really been reduced to scrubbing the washboard and lost his mind?
1028th floor: The undefeated Xie, who’s the little devil that captivated your soul?
1029th floor: Tsk tsk, witnessing history.
1030th floor: Witnessing history +1
…
The forum was bustling, while the suite was quiet.
Xie Dingyuan stared at the private chat box, still waiting for a single word from Jiang Fuyue.
Maybe… she doesn’t know r=a(1−sinθ)r = a(1 – \sin\theta)?
Or perhaps… she didn’t notice?
Yes! That must be it.
In that case, should he… take the initiative again?
He opened the “Add Friend” page, sent a request, and the verification message auto-generated as: “I am [Xie]…”
It felt too plain and insincere. He thought for a moment, then deleted it.
Changed it to: “Hi, want to be friends?”
Seemed a bit frivolous, not formal enough. Deleted again.
Revised it to: “You’re impressive. Shall we compete?”
Too provocative, not friendly enough. Deleted once more.
“I’m a good person, no ill intentions. Can I add you as a friend?”
Looked too plain, lacking elegance.
Xie Dingyuan shook his head, deleting it yet again.
Why was this harder than writing a research paper?
It was enough to make someone want to pull their hair out.
….
After the match, Jiang Fuyue returned to the main interface.
On the leaderboard, [Xie] still held the unshakable top spot. However, the stats below his name showed changes in kill ratio and times killed.
She glanced at her own ranking—it had risen from seventh to fourth, with a kill ratio of 100% and zero times killed.
A slight smile curved her lips.
She responded to André:
[It was me.]
[Got a problem?]
Wild and confident.
André immediately spammed the chat:
[Yue, I’m officially declaring you my goddess from now on.]
[The one and only.]
[How did you manage to snipe Xie? Do you have a recording? This monumental moment must be remembered.]
[Ah! If you were to join IOI, you’d definitely win first place.]
Jiang Fuyue caught a keyword in his message—also?
[Are you in Kos?]
André: [Oh my God! Are you spying on me?!]
[I’m at the Soviki Hotel.]
André: [Huh? You’re here too?]
[For IOI.]
There was a two-second pause before André processed it. Then, inevitably, another spam of excited messages followed.
Jiang Fuyue’s lips twitched. She scrolled the chat away with a flick of the mouse, brushing off the barrage of “Ahhhhhh”s.
André enthusiastically suggested meeting up.
Jiang Fuyue agreed.
They arranged to meet the following evening at the hotel’s third restaurant.
André: [Let me tell you, the steak here is amazing!]
After ending the conversation, Jiang Fuyue was about to log off when she suddenly received a friend request.
The requester was… [Xie]?
Her expression turned strange. Could it be that he lost the match and was seeking revenge?
She clicked “Ignore” directly, but somehow misclicked. The friend request popped back onto the screen, and the attached verification message appeared in full view:
“Meeting you for the first time feels like a reunion with an old friend.”
Jiang Fuyue’s first reaction: Is this guy out of his mind?
Second reaction: But he’s the top player on the Tp leaderboard. If he’s crazy, wouldn’t that be an insult to me?
But if he’s not crazy, why would he write such a cringey poem?
It was so cheesy her teeth practically hurt.
…..
Meanwhile, Xie Dingyuan stared intently at the message screen. Despite his initial nerves, his impatience was gradually building.
Why hasn’t she replied yet?
Did the system eat the message? Did it not go through?
Or did she not see it? But her avatar’s lit up, which means she’s online…
After much internal struggle, he decided to send another request.
But the verification message was giving him a headache again.
It couldn’t be the same as the last one, right?
It still needed to be polite, a little poetic, but not frivolous or unserious.
Where could he find another fitting line of poetry?
……
As Jiang Fuyue silently ridiculed him, she received a second verification message:
“Hello, may I add you as a friend?”
Xie Dingyuan thought that by changing “you” to the more formal “you,” it would now sound respectful enough.
Jiang Fuyue: “?”
You? Do I look that old?
What kind of person is this? No sense of judgment at all.
Reject! Absolute rejection!
Just then, her device’s defense system suddenly issued a red warning, alerting her that the CPU had been infected by a Trojan virus.
Jiang Fuyue’s eyes turned sharp. She immediately covered her webcam with a napkin.
Then, she started cleaning out the virus. During the process, she found the culprit…
Sister Yue: This guy is doomed.
Somewhere else, the clueless and awkward Xie99 was crying internally.
This is really gonna be tough w/ these two.