I Met My Online Boyfriend—He Was the Horror Instance Boss - Chapter 1

When I was fifteen, I lost my left hand saving Gu Heng.

After the car accident, Gu Heng was racked with guilt. He cried every day.

Afraid I would bottle everything up, he told me that hatred was fine—anything was fine—as long as I told him whenever I felt upset.

One day, his eyes lit up as he told me he’d found a chance to make it up to me.

But after that, his messages grew fewer and his calls shorter.

Sometimes he took days to reply to a single text.

Even when we met, he was often distracted, his mind elsewhere.

Then, on the day my dog died, I went to Gu Heng with my grief.

Instead of comforting me, he snapped,

“Am I your emotional dumping ground? Do you have to tell me every little thing?

“Do you have any idea how boring the things you talk about are?

“Is your life really that dull? Why can’t you go out more and find another hobby?

“You saved me once, so now you think I belong to you?

“I never asked you to save me back then.”

I froze. I could hardly connect the person in front of me with the boy I’d known in the hospital all those years ago.

In the end, Gu Heng only said that he would compensate me eventually.

Until then, I was to stop bothering him.

And so we parted on bad terms.

For a long time, I was miserable. I couldn’t understand why any of it had happened.

That was when a friend request appeared on my phone.

Normally, I would have ignored it.

But the profile picture looked exactly like my dog, who had just passed away.

On impulse, I accepted.

The account sent me photo after photo.

All of them were of a dog.

They looked like selfies.

And the dog looked exactly like the one who had been by my side for years.

I clutched my phone and cried.

Later, the account’s owner explained that his dog had hit the screen by accident and added the wrong person. He would delete me in a moment.

That was how I met Xie Jue.

It took ages of pleading before I convinced him to keep me on his contacts.

Xie Jue never posted anything to his feed.

But there was nothing I wouldn’t do for more pictures of that dog.

Every day, I found a new excuse to chat with him. I comforted him, complimented him, and kept him company.

And then…

[Oh, speaking of which, can I see Cookie?]

One thing led to another, and we started dating.

Once feelings were involved, I knew I shouldn’t hide anything from him.

I told him the truth: I only had one hand. The other was a prosthetic.

He didn’t mind. Instead, he said,

[That’s all right. It’s perfectly normal. I’ve got plenty on my side.]

Perfectly normal?

Plenty of people?

I asked where he was from.

He named a place I’d never heard of: [Gudu.]

It took me exactly zero seconds to figure it out. [So you’re from Jiangsu.]

Who knew which town he meant, exactly.

It couldn’t be the name of a street, could it?

Him: [No.]

I merely nodded to myself.

The internet was right. Nobody from Jiangsu ever called themselves “a person from Jiangsu.”

I asked what he did for a living.

He said he was a boss.

What a poser.

He could have just said he ran a business. But no, he had to call himself a *boss*.

He was even using fancy foreign words with me.