Wei Hanyan, as someone at the highest level of social engagement, usually updates her Weibo very sporadically—posting once every three days would already count as frequent for her.
But on this day, she broke her usual pattern by posting three times in a row, radiating an unusual excitement that naturally drew public attention.
Starting with an aerial shot of the vacation island she was visiting, followed by a distant photo featuring a floating house as the main theme, she then capped it off with a casually recorded video.
[Wei Hanyan: Hahahahaha, someone is just too adorable! First time playing a mobile game and they’re completely free-to-play, even telling me it’s too time-consuming—hahahaha, I can’t even! This person must be made of pure cuteness!! How could a game where you don’t spend money to get stronger even exist? Let me show you how Master Wei teaches my big cutie to play properly! [Video]]
As someone who thrives on watching wealthy socialites splurge for stress relief, Hua Shuangshuang quickly clicked on the video, which had been posted just ten seconds ago, while leisurely sipping her freshly bought milk tea.
Hmph, let’s see what amusing new antics this damn rich person has for us today!
The video was a full eight minutes long, with no faces shown—just a close-up of a mobile game interface framed by two slender, porcelain-white hands that looked like works of art.
At the start, only Wei Hanyan’s voice could be heard: “Oh, this game? It’s not a 648-yuan top-up, it’s 518. See, you tap here… then here, and then just scan your face for payment!”
The hands holding the phone silently followed Wei Hanyan’s instructions and topped up a batch of Holy○Stones.
“Then go back to the gacha pool—yes, yes, just keep tapping the 10-pull button.”
Tap, tap, tap. Half a minute passed.
Hua Shuangshuang had played this game before. The company behind it had no conscience—the gacha pool was bottomless, with no pity system in place.
The terrifying part? The highest-tier character cards weren’t considered complete with just one pull. To fully upgrade a card’s unique skill, you needed five copies.
And the even more terrifying part? Even after pulling the base card, you’d still have to grind endlessly for upgrade materials.
Sipping her milk tea, Hua Shuangshuang watched as the phone’s owner—a newbie—flopped hard on their first attempt. She smirked inwardly: Newbie, you haven’t even begun to grasp the cruelty of this game! Even if you’re rich, an African can’t just waltz into Europe!
Wei Hanyan’s tone remained breezy: “No luck! No problem, one-two-three-four, let’s go again!”
So the hands topped up another 518 yuan, scanning their face without a hint of hesitation or pain, as if they were spending pocket change.
Hua Shuangshuang suddenly found her milk tea tasting sour.
Another half-minute passed.
The newbie flopped again.
“Hmm… two failed attempts are pretty common,” Wei Hanyan mused. “Here’s the plan—let’s top up ten batches at once. Scare the server into submission before it realizes what’s happening, and we’ll definitely get the drop.”
Hua Shuangshuang silently set down her milk tea: “……” Truly a master move.
Five more minutes passed.
Hua Shuangshuang stared intently at the screen, watching the golden cards flash with every 10-pull, witnessing the newbie whale’s spectacular 12-batch flop.
A full twelve top-ups, plus first-time top-up bonuses, and they hadn’t pulled a single rate-up limited character!
“Impossible!” Wei Hanyan was furious. “Hold on, I’m making a call. I need to ask someone if this game secretly nerfed the rates!”
The video abruptly ended.
With a feeling that was… well, not just a little—extremely sour, mixed with a tiny bit of schadenfreude, Hua Shuangshuang exited and refreshed the comments. Unsurprisingly, everyone was thinking along the same lines.
[Hahahahahaha turns out even rich people can be as unlucky as the rest of us. I feel so much better now.]
[Am I the only one heartbroken over all that money?? 51812=6,216! That’s a month and a half of my salary.]
[My entire monthly salary gone in minutes. Sigh.]
[Those gorgeous hands though… drools]
[Don’t feel too bad—just remember they live in a multi-million-dollar floating mansion, and suddenly your salary won’t matter anymore. [doge]]
[Who did the princess call to complain to? Was it Bilibili? Please drag the devs through the mud!!!!! Signed, one very invested person!!]
[Make that two!!]
[Ten thousand signatures!!!]
[Wait, this is a brilliant idea. Let’s invite unlucky whales—ahem, I mean, wealthy socialites—to play Love○Nikki. After flopping, they’ll just buy out Paper○Games. The dream.]
[No no, try Onmy○ji first!]
[Arkn○ghts deserves a mention too!!]
After scrolling through the passionate comments, Hua Shuangshuang added her own from her personal account: So what happened next? [doge]
She’d only meant to join the fun before diving back into her all-nighter work session. But when she reopened Weibo an hour later, her notifications had exploded with 99+ messages.
For a second, Hua Shuangshuang feared her online alias had been exposed. Heart pounding, she tapped in—only to find that Wei Hanyan had replied to her comment.
[Wei Hanyan: Seventy-two batches for NP5.]
“NP5” was game lingo—in short, the newbie had pulled five copies of that limited card.
African luck. Pure whale power. Just brute-forced it. NP5.
Hua Shuangshuang: “……” Am I seeing things?
She switched apps to her calculator and punched in 51872.
Calculator: 37,296.
Torn between awe and envy, Hua Shuangshuang wiped away her metaphorical drool and typed out her thoughts.
[ShuangShuangShuangShuang: So… for whales, the concept of “bad luck” simply doesn’t exist, huh…]
[Pian Yu: When the princess says “one more try,” she actually means “one hundred million more tries.”]
[World-Class Protected Loser: I’m… a little jealous. Just a little.]
[Veggie Seller: With a heavy heart, I returned to my own game and splurged on the 30+68 yuan monthly card bundle.]
[Alou Still Procrastinating: Is this secretly a marketing stunt by the game company? I’m literally sitting on a mountain of lemons here??]
Despite the time difference—sunny in the video, but late at night domestically—the comments were a chaotic mix of passionate rants about game companies and lemon-fueled envy.
Two factions of rival game fans even started arguing, each claiming the other’s game studio was worse.
Hua Shuangshuang dropped a meme in response: Stop fighting, you’re both equally terrible.jpg
Instant ten likes.
……
While Zhong Ziyan silently waged war against the gacha pool, Wei Hanyan had already made two phone calls.
The first: “Hey? No small talk—just give me that person’s number right now… You saw my Weibo? Even better, send it over.”
Mechanically topping up, Zhong Ziyan finally pulled her first copy of the rate-up limited card. Staring at the golden card, she felt not joy, but emptiness.
Zhong Ziyan: “……” All this… for THIS?!
But the game was like a mysterious black hole, and Zhong Ziyan’s hand moved on its own toward the evil little “+” button—the siren call of another top-up.
Wei Hanyan’s phone rang after a while, and she answered it before switching to speaker mode. "Start from the beginning," she instructed. "Tell me who you are first."
The woman’s voice on the other end was polite. "Hello, Miss Wei. I’m Ms. Xu, the project lead for this game. On behalf of the development team, I’d like to apologize for your friend’s unpleasant gaming experience."
Zhong Ziyan, holding her slightly overheated phone, turned toward the sound with a hint of resentment. "Is this how your game treats every player?"
Ms. Xu hesitated.
The question of luck—whether good or bad—was a tricky one, a blend of probability and sheer mysticism.
Of course, Ms. Xu, who had been dragged out of bed in the dead of night by an urgent call from the company CEO, knew better than to say that out loud.
"To ensure fairness for all players, we’ve publicly disclosed the gacha rates for every banner. You can rest assured that we would never manipulate the probabilities behind the scenes," Ms. Xu said carefully.
Zhong Ziyan narrowed her eyes. "So you’re saying I just have terrible luck?"
Even through the phone, Ms. Xu in her pajamas felt a chill run down her spine. "That’s not what I meant at all—you’ve misunderstood. Ah, by the way, I haven’t asked for your name yet?"
She deftly tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.
Zhong Ziyan glanced at her phone, then closed the game without hesitation. "I’m curious—do your own staff play this game?"
"Some of our colleagues joined the team precisely because they loved the IP."
Zhong Ziyan replied coolly, "Good. Then there’s something I’d like your team to do."
By 4 a.m., the entire game development team had been hauled out of bed, disheveled and groggy, for an emergency video conference.
At 7 a.m., a video was posted on the game’s official Weibo account, rocketing to the top of the trending list.
#XX Game Devs’ Most Self-Destructive Event Ever#
#Karma’s a Bitch, Game Designers#
#Revenge Is Served#
The video showed the entire planning team, plus the project lead, seated at a long table, each with a phone in hand. Their mission: pull until they obtained all five rate-up limited cards from the current banner.
One ten-pull not enough? They had to top up and keep going.
The expressions on the developers’ faces ranged from despair to frustration—some clutched their heads in agony, others pounded the table, and one even faceplanted onto the surface with a loud thud.
The scene bordered on chaos, but for players watching, it was pure satisfaction.
The compiled video was sped up for brevity, but the original unedited versions were linked below.
The two unluckiest members of the team ended up spending even more than Zhong Ziyan—one shelled out over 40,000 yuan, while the ultimate "unlucky supreme" topped up nearly 70,000 before finally succeeding.
By the end, both looked shell-shocked.
Though the official account insisted this was just a fun promotional event, players weren’t fooled.
[IT’S CHRISTMAS!!!!! HOW DOES IT FEEL NOW, HUH??? STICK YOUR FACES IN THE PHONE AND EXPERIENCE SCHRÖDINGER’S 1% DROP RATE!!!]
[Extremely cathartic. I feel like I could jog 13 kilometers to work today.]
[Jiang Jin-style face-slapping template [dog emoji]]
[Thank you, rich queen, for avenging us. Money really does buy happiness.jpg]
[Players watching like: chef’s kiss]
[Kneeling before the rich queen.jpg]
[Offering tea to the queen!]
[Lighting a cigarette for her!]
[Standing ovation for the queen! When are you coming to play the game next door? [dog emoji]]
Meanwhile, Zhong Ziyan lounged on the first-floor balcony of the Ark, sipping a freshly made coconut slushie as she scrolled through the trending tags. A long-dormant sense of petty vindication warmed her chest.
But as for that hollow, soul-sucking game? She was never touching it again!
