On the Way to the Strategy

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Shen Yi lost his appetite and hastily packed up his meal box before sitting down again to look at the basic information of his second potential dating target.

Name: Jian Leyi

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Charm: 78

Cup Size: C

Marital Status: Single

Number of Dates: 169

Number of Partners: 0

Personality Traits: Materialistic, Irritable (details need to be unlocked with strategy points)

Overall Rating: 81

"Hmm... she plays the field quite a bit. Her high charm score doesn't translate to a higher overall rating, perhaps because of her numerous dating experiences?"

Even though Yang Nan's looks couldn't compare to Jian Leyi's, the gap in their overall ratings was surprisingly small. There must be some hidden scoring mechanism at work.

But Shen Yi didn't dwell on it for long. This was essentially a dating simulation game, and the overall rating equated to the difficulty level of pursuing someone.

Setting aside these system-generated character traits, common sense would suggest that someone more open would be easier to pursue than someone conservative.

Shen Yi clicked on the personality traits section, and a prompt immediately appeared:

"Dating Assistant Reminder: Personality traits are comprehensive assessments of the dating target, including likes, dislikes, tendencies, personality, and various internal and external factors."

"Please note that traits are fixed while preferences are dynamic. The more points you spend, the more detailed descriptions you'll unlock."

"Each dating target initially displays two random attributes, with the rest requiring strategy points to unlock. Making good use of strategy points will help you gain more information and speed up your progress."

"Strategy points refresh at a rate of one per calendar day, with an additional point awarded for each successful first date."

"Keep up the good work!"

Shen Yi nodded in understanding. As a veteran player, he was familiar with such progress-limiting mechanics present in almost every game, and he accepted it without concern.

Clicking 'Next,' the interface changed.

A chat program popped up with "Messages" at the top, and both girls' avatars appeared in the list, each with three heart gauges below them.

Shen Yi casually clicked on Yang Nan's name, and a chat window appeared. When his finger touched the dialogue box, he was surprised to find that instead of fixed dialogue options, he actually had to type his own messages.

Finding this fresh and interesting, Shen Yi held his phone and experimentally typed "hi."

Yang Nan's avatar bounced, instantly replying with a "hello."

Nodding with satisfaction, Shen Yi wasn't particularly surprised. Given how advanced AI had become, with its complete logic systems, basic conversation frameworks were guaranteed to work.

As long as you weren't deliberately trying to be difficult, there were few nonsensical responses.

Excluding work-related communications, chatting with girls was actually something Shen Yi had little experience with, and he wasn't sure where to begin the conversation.

However, when he approached this as a puzzle game, his thoughts suddenly became clear. Remembering the girl's noted interests in literature and pets, he decided to start there.

Although he knew he was talking to an AI, the whole process, along with the serious descriptions and high-definition real photos, successfully drew him in.

The game flow was straightforward, and Shen Yi naturally skipped the small talk about himself, instead focusing on his clear objective of asking the girl out. He started typing away.

"Hello, nice to meet you."

"I heard you like literature, what kind of books do you usually read?"

After sending the message, it didn't take long before the avatar bounced, and sure enough, Yang Nan quickly replied with a long message:

"How did you know?"

"I've been re-reading Stendhal's 'The Red and the Black' lately, do you like it too?"

"I love Mademoiselle de la Mole in it, she's passionate yet pure, persistent in personality yet full of rebellion..."

Shen Yi watched the long paragraph in the chat box, as if there was really a young woman enthusiastically sharing her thoughts on the screen.

Even if he wasn't the brightest, he knew what to reply now. This was the conversation topic, and with this lead-in, they could keep the conversation going back and forth.

Shen Yi quickly stood up, typing his reply with one hand while pulling his laptop out of his bag with the other.

"Perhaps it's a meeting of minds."

"Yes, I also admire this French writer, and I've naturally read his masterpiece."

While continuing to reply, Shen Yi hurriedly opened his computer to search for information about "The Red and the Black."

He knew this classic and had read a bit of it in college, but he'd basically forgotten everything except for the character Julien. To give a meaningful response, he'd need to cheat a little.

'Damn these game designers, why make it so obscure? It would've been better if she liked Lu Xun's works...'

While internally grumbling, Shen Yi casually selected some key points from a short review and copied them into his reply.

As expected, after sending the message, the other side became even more responsive.

Yang Nan's avatar kept bouncing as she sent several long messages.

At this point, however, Shen Yi didn't want to drag on the conversation with the AI. After a few perfunctory exchanges, he went straight to the point.

"Are you free now? Why don't we meet up?"

Following the standard dating game invitation process, Shen Yi clicked send.

After the message was sent, the other side seemed to freeze at the sudden invitation, taking a while before responding:

"Huh? Right now? But it's quite late."

Shen Yi's eyes lit up, noting that the rejection wasn't firm. He quickly pressed on:

"I prefer talking face to face rather than through a screen, to discuss more about literature with you."

These words were direct, almost crude, something Shen Yi would never say in real life, but he sent them without hesitation now.

Yang Nan's avatar stopped bouncing for a long time, as if hesitating...

Three minutes passed, and just as Shen Yi was getting impatient, Yang Nan finally replied:

"We still don't know each other well enough, maybe next time."

"It's late, I need to rest..."

After all that back and forth, she still refused. Suddenly, Shen Yi's phone vibrated, and the screen lit up with pink light around the edges. A heart appeared in the center and burst with a pop.

One of the three hearts below Yang Nan's avatar emptied, leaving only two still lit.

Then her avatar grayed out, stopping Shen Yi who was about to type a response.

'Looks like each character only gets three invitation attempts, is this some kind of guarantee mechanism?'

This failure didn't particularly affect Shen Yi, as it was just an experiment anyway. Although their chat was pleasant, it was very brief.

Based on typical game hidden affection mechanics, this invitation was unlikely to succeed.

Shen Yi had originally planned to proceed if successful, and if not, to slowly build up 'affection' through chat, but he didn't expect the game to break from convention by preventing continued 'harassment' after rejection.

Looking at the time, it was already 12:30 AM without him noticing. Shen Yi went to the bathroom to get ready for bed, planning to continue playing while lying down.

This game is quite interesting, he thought.