Chen Xi looked up at the stars in the night sky, feeling that this night, she hadn’t been wild enough.

The two of them fell silent again for a while, then Qin Lie casually asked, “How’s the tenth character design coming along?”

Chen Xi looked at Qin Lie, “I have a rough draft. Want to see it?”

Qin Lie made an acknowledging sound.

Chen Xi pulled out her phone, found the photo of the line drawing, and handed it to Qin Lie.

Qin Lie looked down at the character in the photo and remained silent for a long time.

Chen Xi: “How is it?”

Qin Lie handed the phone back to Chen Xi and said in a deep voice, “It won’t work.”

Chen Xi was stunned. She had expected Qin Lie might have objections, but she hadn’t expected such a blunt rejection.

Chen Xi opened her mouth to explain, but Qin Lie spoke first.

“Male players won’t like it.”

Chen Xi: “You haven’t even heard my ideas yet.”

Qin Lie: “Whether I hear them or not doesn’t matter—male players won’t like it.”

Chen Xi was unconvinced, “I know what you mean, but do all female characters, regardless of personality, have to have big breasts and round butts?”

She muttered dismissively under her breath, “Aren’t they tired of the same aesthetic?”

Qin Lie: “Remember the XP I mentioned to you? Men love breasts and butts, women are drawn to strength and tragedy. In the gaming world, this is an iron law.”

Chen Xi: “But in that PV of yours, the number one martial artist is a woman.”

Qin Lie emphasized: “A woman with a smoking hot body.”

Chen Xi: “But her presence is stronger than the male protagonist’s.”

Qin Lie: “That’s because I’m consciously catering to female players’ psychology.”

Chen Xi: “Then why can’t my character cater to female players?”

Qin Lie: “You can cater to them, but you can’t lose existing players.”

“The largest player base for female characters is still male. Your design is equivalent to suicide.”

Chen Xi still didn’t understand and said quietly, “How do you know without trying?”

Qin Lie: “The cost of trial and error is too high. The entire team isn’t here to play around with you.”

Chen Xi was silent for a moment, still unable to be convinced.

She looked at Qin Lie and said seriously, “I know what men like, but this character has unique charm.”

Qin Lie rejected her unequivocally, “Men’s XP—do you understand it better, or do I?”

Chen Xi fell silent, looking toward the rolling dunes under the moonlight.

Qin Lie lit a cigarette and hopped onto the car hood, also falling silent.

After a while, Chen Xi suddenly broke their silence.

“Qin Lie, how do you know it definitely won’t work?”

Qin Lie exhaled smoke and looked at Chen Xi, “Intuition and experience.”

Chen Xi looked puzzled, her brow slightly furrowed as she gazed at Qin Lie.

Qin Lie explained: “Experience is patterns summarized from countless successful cases. Intuition is market inertia.”

Chen Xi: “I don’t have as much experience as you. Qin Zhan told me Tunnel was your creation, but if you’re going to rely on intuition, you could consider this character.”

Qin Lie, cigarette between his fingers, looked silently into the distance, recalling the line drawing Chen Xi had just shown him.

A slender woman with beautiful curves, but not overwhelming ones.

Her clothing wasn’t in the saturated colors commonly used on the Silk Road.

Her features were more Eastern, not the kind that were three-dimensional and deep.

No weapons, just what looked like a traveling doctor’s satchel on her shoulder.

If you wanted to talk about being different, this character truly achieved that.

Among all the combinations of intense features plus impressive figures, plus flashy weapons, she was as ordinary as a breath of fresh air.

After long consideration, Qin Lie still shook his head.

“Chen Xi, it’s too risky. Domestic game players care more about traditional models than innovation.”

Chen Xi listened quietly and said nothing.

In the moonlight, her delicate face showed a trace of confusion and dejection.

Qin Lie watched her silently for a while, then suddenly asked, “Why do you think this character is good? Or rather, what about her could attract male players?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt a hint of surprise himself.

He was stunned for a moment, unable to remember the last time he had spoken to someone with such patience and gentleness.

Chen Xi thought for a moment, then slowly explained: “I don’t know whether appearance or character backstory is more important when you design a character.”

“In my design, this character is a healer who doesn’t know martial arts and moves freely between righteous and evil factions.”

“She has a free-spirited personality, never afraid of anything, never trying to please anyone, living very much for herself.”

Chen Xi paused, as if struggling to organize her thoughts.

“Her sexual tension comes from directness—she’s enjoying herself, not trying to please men.”

Qin Lie listened quietly to Chen Xi’s words, his mind running through countless characters from hit games both domestic and international.

After a long while, he said nothing.

Qin Lie didn’t understand—what was the appeal of the woman Chen Xi described?

What exactly was her attraction to men?

He silently finished the remaining half of his cigarette, glanced at the time, and said quietly, “Let’s call it a night. Let’s go back.”

Chen Xi nodded.

Qin Lie crushed out his cigarette butt and walked toward his car.

Chen Xi walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side.

She pulled open the car door, and moonlight poured down from overhead, fine silver light washing over the car body and her.

Chen Xi looked down and saw her shadow overlapping the car.

Mystery in the darkness, danger in the mystery, and hidden in the danger was a forbidden sexual allure!

She suddenly understood what the tenth female character’s charm was.

Chen Xi suddenly stopped in front of the car and slammed the door shut.

She looked toward Qin Lie’s tall, sturdy silhouette, who had already reached his car and was pulling open the door to get in.

Without hesitation, Chen Xi strode quickly toward Qin Lie, knocked him down onto the seat without a word, and leaned down to kiss him.

Qin Lie’s scalp exploded as his jaw was pried open by Chen Xi, his tongue roughly sucked and wildly stirred by hers.

The veins on Qin Lie’s forehead jumped, and he suddenly wrapped his arms around Chen Xi’s waist, one hand gripping the back of her head as he kissed back fiercely.

Chen Xi wasn’t submissive—however fierce his kiss, her response was equally fierce.

Their breath was burning, their lips and tongues rough.

The faint taste of tobacco and alcohol in Chen Xi’s mouth intertwined and tangled with Qin Lie’s, carving blazing streaks of lightning across his cerebral cortex.

It was a wildness he had never experienced.

Qin Lie responded with even rougher, more frenzied kisses.

In the silent desert, the sound of their lips and teeth fiercely entwined was amplified endlessly.

Chen Xi gradually felt dizzy but couldn’t stop.

The surging hormones in Qin Lie’s body had her addicted in this moment—she didn’t want to stop, couldn’t stop.

The space inside the car was too cramped. As the two of them kissed frantically while tearing at each other, they unknowingly entangled their way to the front of the car.

Chen Xi was pressed against the car hood, kissing in a daze, when she felt the cold metal shell beneath her.

She suddenly came to her senses and saw his exposed chest muscles in the moonlight.

Every bulge, every hollow, exploded with maddening hormones.

Chen Xi saw clothes scattered on the ground. She suddenly pushed him away, and they both gasped as they looked at each other.

Suddenly, Chen Xi wrapped her arms around Qin Lie’s hard-lined neck and pressed her nearly burning body against his.

She closed her eyes, feeling the wild longing in every pore.

This man—his scent, his voice, his rough fingertips, his cold gaze, his hard muscles.

Every part of him made her feel an uncontrollable trembling.

She wanted more, wanted to throw caution to the wind.

Chen Xi let out a low hum from her throat, humming out all the desire from the deepest part of her heart.

Qin Lie said nothing, responding with action.

Rough, direct.

A moan with a changed flavor spilled from Chen Xi’s throat.

She didn’t know what was wrong with her, how she could look so wanton, lying disheveled across the car hood, being manipulated into such a position.

There was nothing but yellow sand around them, not a shred of cover.

But a secret thrill hooked her into not caring, wanting more.

She swayed, groping for Qin Lie’s hand and placing it on her lower back.

Forgetting modesty, her mind filled only with instinctive desire.

Qin Lie’s brain exploded with a roar as he instantly understood Chen Xi’s meaning.

He suddenly stopped and flipped Chen Xi over to face away from him.

Qin Lie caressed Chen Xi’s lower back, his hands gripping the beautiful hollows at her waist.

Chen Xi’s body suddenly began to tremble lightly, her slender neck arching back, her expression unbearable.

Qin Lie wordlessly satisfied her.

Chen Xi could no longer hold back. A moan from the deepest, most instinctive part of her body rang out in the vast, quiet desert.

Thousands of threads drilled into Qin Lie’s burning body.

The precarious string in his mind suddenly snapped, and he went wild without restraint.

A wind suddenly rose in the desert.

The fierce wind raged through the yellow sand.

Twisting, coiling, impossible to separate.

Crushing the sand and lifting it to the clouds, then dragging it down to hell.

The sand longed to melt into the fierce wind, every dancing grain of sand surging and sinking in the sea of desire.

In the silent wasteland, they went wild without restraint.

The car rocked wildly, as if it couldn’t bear the load and was about to fall apart.

Every time Chen Xi swayed, her soul trembled with her.

The irresistible force behind her nearly crushed her.

Only now did she discover that this kind of thing could truly make someone tremble to their very soul.

Suddenly, Chen Xi’s hands began to frantically grab backward as a surging tide was about to reach shore.

Chen Xi had never felt anything so intense. She groped to grasp his sweat-dampened neck.

In the turbulent waves, a dazzling brightness suddenly expanded in her mind.

Like an atomic bomb explosion, in an instant, her entire mind was left with only blinding white light.

Chen Xi’s whole body convulsed as she let out a cry from the depths of her soul.

That sound resonated powerfully with every cell in her body, every strand of nerve, throwing her into the deep night sky.

For a moment, Chen Xi almost panicked, clinging tightly to Qin Lie’s damp neck like grasping a lifeline in a torrent.

She had never experienced such an intense climax.

The tide that exploded from within her body in that instant was like an apocalyptic tsunami, nearly tearing her apart.

After an unknown amount of time, as the sky grew faintly bright, the car finally ended its heavy burden for the night.

Chen Xi hugged her long, bare legs, Qin Lie’s jacket draped over her body, her elbow propped on the open car window as she exhaled smoke outside.

Her hair was disheveled over her shoulders, her face showing a trace of weariness, looking beautiful in an almost broken way.

Qin Lie sat in the driver’s seat, smoking silently with her.

After a while, he suddenly asked her, “Are you doing this to convince me that your character is right?”

Chen Xi looked out the window, gently exhaling smoke.

The moon had grown very pale, hanging in the light-colored night sky, with a few scattered stars still twinkling.

Chen Xi: “It was just a moment’s impulse. Why think so much about it?”

They silently finished their cigarettes, then went their separate ways.

Back at the campsite, the bonfire had died out, and several tents stood quietly in the dim dawn light.

Chen Xi bent down to crawl into her tent when her arm was suddenly grabbed by Qin Lie.

She turned to look at him, her eyebrow slightly raised, her gaze questioning.

Qin Lie looked at her, silent for a moment, then suddenly said, “I understand you now.”