Little Pink Starfish

The next day, Pei Sen went to work as usual, only to find two maids standing nervously outside the door. The moment they saw him, it was like seeing a savior.

He walked over. “The young master is throwing a tantrum again?”

One of the maids nodded desperately, while the other pursed her lips, still looking shaken.

At times like this, others could find ways to avoid it, but not Pei Sen. In fact, every personal butler before him had this job—serving as Young Master Iger’s direct emotional punching bag—and none of them lasted long.

“I hope Mr. Pei Sen can stay longer,” one maid said regretfully. “It’d be a shame for someone so good-looking to leave.”

The other maid was more optimistic. “Compared to the ones before, the young master seems to treat Pei Sen a little better.”

“You sure?”

Since when did Iger treat anyone well? Yeah, right.

When Pei Sen entered, Iger was standing by the window with a cold expression, his entire presence giving off a stifling pressure.

Come to think of it, this young master was only fourteen. What was a normal fourteen-year-old like? Pei Sen thought about it—under modern circumstances, there were plenty of teenagers deep in their rebellious phase. So, maybe Iger’s bad temper wasn’t that hard to understand.

Just as he was thinking that, Iger looked up. “Get out.”

Pei Sen tried his best to smile gently. “Feeling upset? I’ll go get some breakfast from the kitchen. Eating something might lift your mood. Would you like some fruit today? Or maybe I could ask Lady Mary if you’d like a walk in the garden?”

Iger’s emerald green eyes seemed frozen over. “Not hungry.” Then he sneered, “Get out? Seems like I can’t go out at all lately. Otherwise, I might just drop dead and please certain people!”

As he spoke, he grabbed a bone china teacup and hurled it at Pei Sen!

It struck Pei Sen on the shoulder. He frowned, resisting the urge to rub the aching spot. Forcing himself to smile, he replied softly, “Staying in is fine too. You could play with Pecks, or maybe read a book—”

Another teacup flew at him. This time, Pei Sen couldn’t help but dodge. That one would’ve hit him square on the forehead!

Iger was furious. “You dared to dodge?!”

Pei Sen: “…”

This job was really hard to keep. “Bad temper” didn’t even begin to cover it.

Iger shouting “you dared to dodge” normally meant you shouldn’t move—but Pei Sen calmly avoided the rest anyway. Aside from the first teacup, the ones that followed all missed.

After dodging them, Pei Sen felt a little proud. His reflexes weren’t bad at all.

When he looked up again, Iger’s eyes were tinged red from anger, making his already stunning face look even more dazzling and beautiful.

As expected, even an angry beauty is still… a beauty.

“Young Master, that teacup is heavy. It really hurts when it hits someone,” Pei Sen said calmly, picking up the fallen teacups one by one. Then he walked over to Iger and half-kneeled in front of him, gently fixing the loosened laces of Iger’s ornate shirt.

Iger glared at the bold man kneeling before him, watching those slender, deft fingers fix the laces on his shirt.

Pei Sen wasn’t actually afraid of Iger. Sure, he was a brat, but still just a kid. He didn’t carry any deadly weapons—limited ability to cause real harm.

And besides, like with the teacups—he could just dodge, right?

Iger looked down, his gem-like green eyes locking onto Pei Sen’s. With icy fingers, he tilted Pei Sen’s chin up. “Getting hit by a teacup hurts? But if the teacup misses, I’m unhappy!”

Pei Sen smiled up at him. “Young Master, throwing teacups isn’t exactly something to be happy about. How about I accompany you in doing other things that are fun instead?”

“In that case, starting tomorrow, you must be here before I wake up. You can’t leave until I’ve fallen asleep,” Iger said with a sneer. “That way, you’ll have plenty of time to do fun things with me.”

Pei Sen: “…”

What a misstep. Pissing off a brat really was a bad idea. Pei Sen’s heart sank—his work schedule was about to double the intensity of a 996 job. Absolutely terrifying!

Pei Sen planned to wait a bit before revealing he’d mastered some spells. Picking up basic spells overnight was way too shocking to admit. And now, he definitely didn’t want to provoke Iger again—he’d only be the one to suffer.

So, around Iger, he became exceptionally well-behaved, gentle, and diligent. Even Pecks the fat cat, who used to ignore him completely, started giving him a little face.

Looking at the now-sleeping Iger—annoying when awake, but peaceful and angelic when asleep.

Pei Sen tiptoed out. Finally, a chance to rest.

He greeted the night maid outside the door before returning to his room.

Just then, Lady Mary appeared in the dim hallway. The night maid respectfully opened the door for her.

Iger, who’d seemingly been asleep on the bed, opened his eyes. Dressed in white silk pajamas, he leaned against the headboard and looked at Lady Mary.

“Did you find out anything?”

“No,” Lady Mary sighed. “I suspect he’s from Balst, but when I brought it up in front of Kexor, his reaction made me think maybe not.”

“Forget it,” Iger said dully. “No need to keep looking. He doesn’t seem to pose any threat or have any hidden agenda.”

Lady Mary nodded. “That’s what Atwell said too. Even if we don’t know his background, he’s still safer than the people those other factions sent. But it’s still risky to have a commoner of unknown origin around you. The capital might send someone to make trouble.”

“As long as I hold my ground, they can’t do anything,” Iger yawned. “Pei Sen… is not bad.”

Lady Mary was genuinely surprised. Iger had driven out countless personal butlers, and this was the first he’d called “not bad.”

But his background was still a problem. She was considering whether she should ask Pei Sen directly.

“Don’t ask him,” Iger said, pouting. “I was the one who said our Golden Rose Manor doesn’t question people’s backgrounds when hiring. Since I said it, I’ll stick to it. If he stays here long enough, he’ll reveal his habits eventually, and we’ll figure out where he came from. Besides, maybe he’ll tell me himself someday.”

Lady Mary sighed. “Alright. But remember—you must not let that medal leave your person.”

“I know,” Iger said casually.

After she left, Iger lay alone in bed, finally falling asleep after a long while.

Pei Sen always thought Iger slept well—but that wasn’t the case.

Iger could never fall asleep in front of others. The slightest sound would wake him.

If Pei Sen didn’t leave, Iger couldn’t truly fall asleep.

Pei Sen didn’t know any of this. If he had, he’d probably complain: “Why torment yourself just to torment me? Wouldn’t it be easier to sleep earlier?”

At this moment, Pei Sen didn’t have the energy to think about Iger. He hadn’t checked the internal forum in days. That announcement had been sitting there like a dead page, unchanged for ages.

But today, when he casually opened it—he realized everything had changed.

The original perfunctory text was gone, and the forum had been revamped into a proper interface, the kind people were familiar with. And instead of being dead quiet, the forum was unexpectedly on fire.

Pei Sen read the new pinned announcement and immediately understood the reason behind the activity.

“The first batch of internal testers for ‘Bix Magic Cube’ has been announced. Beta codes have been sent to emails. Please confirm and provide your addresses ASAP—our company will ship the game capsules for free.”
“The second round of beta access will be released on August 9.”

Pei Sen narrowed his eyes. These beta players were lucky—they were getting free game capsules. He remembered buying his own capsule back in the day, and they weren’t cheap! The base model was ¥9,999, mid-tier ¥15,999, and high-end ones exceeded ¥20,000—even on discount, they were still ¥21,000.

Still, compared to international prices, the domestic ones were a bargain. Overseas, the pricing was several times higher.

While marveling at the capsule prices, Pei Sen scanned the forum, which was flooded with posts—half of them starting with “WTF.”

“I thought it was a joke, but it’s real??”
“Who’d believe a sketchy-looking site would actually be legit…”
“Is it too late to apply for beta?”
“I only found this through a friend’s link. What kind of genius dev team makes a full-dive VR game and doesn’t advertise?”
“Please sell me a beta code. Price is negotiable.”
“Buying beta code. DM me offers.”

Pei Sen skimmed the front page. Several threads were already Hot, each with a thousand or two replies. The news about the game was spreading like wildfire—organic hype was already gaining serious momentum.

And this was nothing compared to what was coming.

People were right—Bix Magic Cube had never done real marketing. No ads, no promos, not even a news article.

They simply opened a basic announcement page… and a forum.

Now the most popular thread on the entire forum had over ten thousand replies, spanning more than a hundred pages.

Its content? One of the lucky beta testers had posted a single photo.

A sleek, silver-white, elegantly designed full-dive game capsule.

“Real full-immersion capsule. Just arrived tonight. Pretty sure the game company is in my city.”

No words could rival the impact of an image.

That one simple photo proved everything. No more doubts.

“July 9… what day is that?” Pei Sen muttered, realizing just how drastically the world was about to change when the players poured in.

And from the looks of it—it was happening soon.