September 5th, noon. Palace Storm‘s DLC update went live right on schedule, bringing the two-player co-op mode online. Liu-ge reached out to Cute Rabbit first: “Rabbit, want to team up and play together? I trust your intelligence.”

“Haha, thanks for the vote of confidence, Liu-ge. I was actually looking for a partner — it’s decided then!”

And so Blue Fish TV streamer Liu-ge and Spirit Cat TV streamer Cute Rabbit both opened their streams simultaneously, broadcasting their co-op session together.

Both sets of fans were buzzing.

【Wait, Liu-ge actually knows Rabbit?】

【A cross-platform collab!】

【Of all things, my two favorite streamers from two different platforms are playing together】

【Wonder if these two actually have any chemistry?】

【Can’t wait to see what ending they manage to pull off】

【I have a bad feeling about this somehow [doghead]】

“Rabbit and I go way back from when we both first started game streaming,” Liu-ge said. “Today, I’m very honored to have her join me for co-op.”

Cute Rabbit laughed. “It was actually Liu-ge who recommended Underworld Maze to me back in the day — operating on the principle of ‘why suffer alone when you can drag someone else down with you.'”

The comments section flooded with laughter.

Honestly, that was exactly the kind of thing Liu-ge would do.

“Ahem, let’s not dig up old history!” Liu-ge said. “Come on, let’s get into the game — I’ll log in first and send you the access code.”

“Got it!”

A moment later, they’d successfully formed a party, and the character selection screen appeared. Male characters available: Crown Prince, Seventh Prince, Royal Consort, Top Scholar, Fourth Prince, Sixth Prince, Chief Eunuch Gao. Female characters: Court Beauty, Consort De, Princess Qingping, Consort Xian, Consort Hui, Princess Ning’an, Senior Palace Maid.

“Ladies first — you pick, Rabbit.”

Cute Rabbit thought it over. “I want to try one of the new characters. How about I play Consort Xian and you play Fourth Prince? A mother-son combo?”

Liu-ge immediately vetoed this. “There’s no way I can call you ‘Mother’ with a straight face. Pick something else!”

The comments erupted in laughter again. These two together were comedy gold.

Cute Rabbit took a moment. “Alright, then you take Sixth Prince. That way I run the inner palace storyline and you handle the court side of things — we can actually support each other.”

“Works for me. My name has ‘six’ in it, so Sixth Prince is a natural fit!”

Once they’d locked in their choices, both entered the game simultaneously.

Consort Xian was one of the more understated characters in the inner palace. She’d given birth to Fourth Prince and Princess Mingde, but she was getting on in years with no powerful family backing her — the Emperor paid her little attention.

Sixth Prince was equally out of favor. His mother, Consort De, had been framed and was currently confined to the Cold Palace.

The game opened with Sixth Prince heading out for the Spring Hunt.

Everyone knew the hunt storyline well — there would be an assassin lying in wait for one of the princes. Liu-ge carefully navigated around the ambush.

Then, the next moment, Cute Rabbit’s voice came through the connection: “Um. I think I might have just gotten Consort De killed.”

Liu-ge stopped. “What?”

“I was trying to save her, but word must have gotten out somehow. By the time I reached the Cold Palace, she’d already been poisoned.”

Liu-ge didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You killed my mother in the opening five minutes. You’re something else.”

“I had good intentions!”

【Hahaha】

【These two have absolutely zero coordination】

【Could you two maybe talk to each other before taking action??】

【Your partner just killed your mom. What a partnership】

Cute Rabbit was mortified.

She’d never played Consort Xian before. Nothing urgent had come up at the start, so she’d proactively headed to the Cold Palace thinking she’d rescue Consort De — give Liu-ge an extra ally. Instead, she arrived to find Consort De coughing up blood, already poisoned. Noble Consort Xiao swept in moments later, pointing at her and shouting: “How dare Consort Xian commit this crime in the Cold Palace! Seize her!”

Well, that’s that.

Shortly after, the Emperor returned to the palace. Already irritated by the assassination attempt on Sixth Prince, and now confronted with Consort De’s murder, the Emperor flew into a rage and had Consort Xian thrown into the Cold Palace as well.

From inside the Cold Palace, Cute Rabbit sighed. “So. Should we just restart?”

“Yeah, let’s.”

They restarted quickly.

This time, Cute Rabbit kept a low profile — staying in her quarters and doing nothing. Liu-ge focused on dodging the assassin at the hunting grounds. Sixth Prince ended up with only minor injuries. But Consort De died unexpectedly of illness while confined to the Cold Palace.

Cute Rabbit frowned. “Is his mother just… scripted to die at the start no matter what?”

“I remember when I played the Consort De route,” Liu-ge said, “she starts the game starving, freezing, and seriously ill. If she doesn’t get out of the Cold Palace in time, she dies of sickness. Which means — if we don’t actively rescue her, her natural ending is death.”

The “natural ending” — what happened to NPCs when players didn’t intervene in the story.

Consort De was Sixth Prince’s birth mother. Since they’d chosen Sixth Prince this run, keeping her alive was obviously worth the effort.

And so the two of them launched “Operation: Save Consort De.”

As the new run began, Liu-ge suddenly had an idea. “What date does your screen show?”

“The sixth day of the third month.”

Liu-ge’s eyes lit up. “Mine says the third day.”

Cute Rabbit was stunned. “Wait — the co-op mode gives the two players different starting times??”

“I know how to save Consort De now!”

Consort De’s death occurred on the day of the hunt — the same day Liu-ge’s timeline started, which was three days before Cute Rabbit’s. His timeline was running three days earlier.

Liu-ge moved decisively into the palace, found a way to get a message to Consort De, and urged her to find a way to catch the Emperor’s attention and escape the Cold Palace before it was too late.

Consort De was saved.

“Everyone — the in-game timeline matters enormously,” Liu-ge said, suddenly animated. “When you’re playing co-op, always check the system timestamp in the upper right corner!”

The two players were running at different time speeds, and when their timelines were out of sync, they couldn’t meet in person.

Once they’d both completed the hunt storyline, both screens showed the seventh day of the third month — finally synchronized.

Cute Rabbit went to visit Consort De, filled her in on Sixth Prince’s injury, and proposed an alliance. Consort De’s affection meter shot up to 100 points.

Then, immediately after — Cute Rabbit received a system notification:

System: Your teammate has died from infected wounds. Continue as solo player?

Cute Rabbit stared. “How did you die?”

“The arrow was poisoned,” Liu-ge said, deadpan. “I figured I’d take a minor hit at the hunting grounds, look pathetic, get the Emperor to feel sorry for me. Ended up too pathetic. Lost my life instead of gaining sympathy.”

Cute Rabbit: “……Impressive.”

【Hahaha】

【You two just keep dragging each other down, don’t you】

【Compared to Little Sailboat and President Luo, these two have literally no coordination】

【Someone in chat said: maybe stop splitting court and palace, it causes too many issues — just both go the palace route】

Cute Rabbit took the suggestion to heart. “Chat has a point. The court and palace timelines don’t sync up, and princes and consorts can’t meet very often either. How about we both take the inner palace route instead?”

“Fine. Let me restart and pick a different character.”

On the new run, Liu-ge switched to Consort Hui — one of the newly added characters. Consort Hui was Princess Qingping’s mother, with significant family influence behind her, which would be a meaningful advantage.

Cute Rabbit stuck with Consort Xian.

Their goal: eliminate the Empress’s faction and maneuver either Consort Xian’s son the Fourth Prince, or Consort Hui’s daughter Princess Qingping, into a position of power.

With both of them in the inner palace, their time speeds were identical, they could meet regularly, and planning was far more convenient.

One afternoon, Cute Rabbit wandered over to Consort Hui’s quarters with nothing better to do, smiling pleasantly. “Sister, how have you been keeping?”

Liu-ge’s in-game voice automatically shifted to Consort Hui’s gentle tones. “Thank you for asking, sister — all is well. Please, come in and sit. Bring tea.”

The NPC handmaidens dutifully appeared with two cups.

Liu-ge had them dismissed, then dropped the act entirely. “God, all this ‘dear sister’ business is making my teeth hurt.”

The stream audience burst out laughing.

“Anyway. Who do we take out first?”

“Noble Consort Shu,” Cute Rabbit suggested. “She’s done enough damage — let’s keep an eye on her.”

A few days later, to celebrate the Empress’s birthday, the Emperor hosted a family banquet in the Imperial Garden. Midway through, word arrived that Noble Lady Yu had died suddenly in her quarters.

Noble Lady Yu was the Emperor’s newest favorite. Furious, he ordered a full investigation — and traces of a slow-acting poison were found in her daily meals.

The revelation silenced everyone present.

The Emperor’s gaze swept across the assembled consorts, his voice hard. “Where did the poison in her food come from? Does anyone have anything to say?”

His eyes landed on Liu-ge’s Consort Hui. Liu-ge immediately spoke up: “Your Majesty, your concubine did happen to notice that Moon Fragrance — the palace maid in Noble Consort Shu’s service — has been making frequent visits to the Imperial Physician’s hall recently.”

Cute Rabbit followed right on cue: “Your Majesty, your concubine also saw Moon Fragrance leaving the physician’s hall on several occasions carrying medicine pouches. One wonders whether Noble Consort Shu has been unwell?”

Noble Consort Shu’s face drained of color as she dropped to her knees. “This is a terrible injustice, Your Majesty! Your concubine has merely been unwell of late and sent Moon Fragrance for some tonic — she would never dare harm Noble Lady Yu! And why, pray, are these two sisters so intent on framing me?”

At that moment, Noble Consort Xiao materialized seemingly from nowhere. “Funny — I’ve been hearing that Consort Xian and Consort Hui have been spending a great deal of time together lately.”

The Emperor, thoroughly tired of the back-and-forth, ordered the entire inner palace searched.

The search turned up — in both Consort Xian’s and Consort Hui’s quarters — the exact same poison.

The Emperor’s fury was incandescent. “The two of you — conspiring together, poisoning my beloved concubine, and then framing Noble Consort Shu for it! Take Consort Xian and Consort Hui to the Cold Palace. They are never to set foot outside it again!”

System: Congratulations — you have achieved the C-rank ending: “Best Sisters Go to the Cold Palace Together.”

Cute Rabbit: “What the—!”

Liu-ge: “What the—!”

For once, they were perfectly in sync — both swearing at exactly the same moment.

【Hahaha】

【Liu-ge and Cute Rabbit: a masterclass in how NOT to play co-op mode】

【Dragging each other down — you’re genuinely worse together than apart!】

【I’m not afraid of a godlike opponent, I’m afraid of a pig teammate…】

【Pig teammates!! hahaha!】

“These NPCs are absolutely ruthless,” Liu-ge said, baffled.

“I know!” Cute Rabbit agreed. “I visited your quarters once — just once — and they not only noticed, they used it to frame both of us?”

“These AI characters are terrifying!”

The audience reveled in their misfortune.

Best sisters go to the Cold Palace together. What an ending.

The intelligent NPC system filled the game with unpredictable variables — any choice either player made could ripple outward and reshape the fates of both of them. In solo mode, poor decisions only burned one person. In co-op mode, every NPC was watching both players with heightened attention. Staying alive required far more caution and precision.

---

---

As one of Palace Storm‘s more prominent streamers, Xia Kucao didn’t proactively seek out a partner after the DLC dropped — he didn’t really know anyone in the streaming circle well enough. So he used the random matchmaking system instead.

His match turned out to be a newcomer who didn’t recognize him at all. They messaged him directly: “Sorry, can you carry me? I’m pretty new at this.”

“Of course,” Xia Kucao said, his voice easy and unhurried. “Whenever you want to talk to me, remember to open the voice channel and mute your in-game audio — don’t let the NPCs hear what you’re saying. Switch back to NPC dialogue whenever you need to advance the story.”

The guy immediately got it. “Understood!”

With the update, fourteen characters were now playable. Xia Kucao made his recommendation: “The court and inner palace storylines affect each other, so if you’re new, let’s pick something simple. You take Crown Prince, I’ll take Chief Eunuch Gao.”

“Sure!”

【Wait, you’re playing Chief Eunuch Gao?】

【Isn’t Chief Eunuch Gao a eunuch?】

【Bold choice, Kucao】

Xia Kucao had played the Royal Consort in the original version — a role most streamers wouldn’t touch — without a second thought. Chief Eunuch Gao didn’t faze him in the least.

Because he always maintained the same clear-headed perspective: this was a game.

Some viewers, however, seized the opportunity to take jabs at him.

【Face like a pretty boy, going to put on a eunuch’s voice?】

【Chief Eunuch Gao — what kind of grown man plays this?】

Xia Kucao’s high intelligence translated well across every character — he’d been pulling S+ endings consistently, and his subscriber count had been climbing fast enough to put him in range of the top-tier streamers. Naturally, that had attracted some detractors.

Xia Kucao blocked a handful of IDs without breaking stride, then said lightly: “Playing a role-playing game and you’re resorting to personal attacks. Might I suggest going outside and playing in the mud instead — seems more your speed.”

【Haha, love when our streamer claps back】

【Kucao never pulls punches with the trolls~】

With a stream of “666”s scrolling past, Xia Kucao made his selection without hesitation: Chief Eunuch Gao.

Chief Eunuch Gao was a background figure across most of the other story routes — what was his actual potential as a playable character? The audience was intensely curious to see what Xia Kucao would do with him.

Once the game started, Xia Kucao spent the opening phase doing nothing but steadily building the Emperor’s trust. Once that trust was firmly established, he used the Emperor’s own authority to systematically remove threats — Noble Consort Shu, Noble Consort Xiao, one by one — until the Empress’s position in the inner court was secure.

His randomly matched partner hadn’t even fully figured out what he was supposed to be doing yet.

By which point all the serious competition was already dead.

With the most dangerous of the rival princes neutralized in the fallout, Crown Prince’s position became unassailable.

Shortly after, Crown Prince ascended the throne without incident.

System: Congratulations — you have achieved the S+ ending: [Sovereign of All Under Heaven].

System: Congratulations — you have achieved the S+ ending: [Premier Minister of the Realm].

The newcomer: “This game is easy! I’m already emperor and it’s only been a little while!”

The stream audience: “……”

【Kid, you just got carried by a god-tier player】

【His first-ever match and he lands a teammate like this. Every future match is going to traumatize him by comparison】

【I would sell my soul to get matched with a player like that】

【Kucao’s map control is insane — playing Chief Eunuch Gao to elevate Crown Prince, that strategy is genuinely powerful】

“Chief Eunuch Gao is actually a remarkably flexible character,” Xia Kucao said. “Pair him with a prince or princess and the synergy is excellent.”

“He’s at the Emperor’s side at all times — first to know everything that happens, free to move between the inner and outer courts, aware of every consort’s movements. Building an intelligence network comes naturally.”

Xia Kucao’s conclusion: “Currently the strongest support pick in the game.”

The viewers who’d earlier sneered at the “eunuch” role, and the trolls who’d taken the chance to mock him, all went very quiet.

In this ruthless palace world, every character had something to offer — and Xia Kucao was the one who’d truly mastered the game down to its bones.

---

---

One week after the co-op DLC launched, the forums filled with guides.

Someone had recorded Xie Yunfan and Luo Hang’s full co-op run and written a detailed breakdown of the Princess Ning’an and Top Scholar husband-and-wife pairing.

Others had worked out strategies for Consort Xian and Fourth Prince, Consort De and Sixth Prince, Consort Hui and Princess Qingping — the mother-son and mother-daughter combos.

There were also guides for Crown Prince paired with any other prince in a brothers combination, or a princess paired with any prince in a sibling combination, supporting one of them toward the throne.

Once Xia Kucao had established Chief Eunuch Gao as the definitive support pick, the character surged in popularity — players were picking him specifically to cover their partners and help them reach their endings.

The Senior Palace Maid served a similar function. As the most senior attendant in the inner palace with connections throughout the imperial physician’s hall, she was a natural intelligence-gathering unit who could track every consort’s movements and feed information directly to her partner.

The two-player format opened up possibilities far richer than solo play, and the endings players were reaching ran the full spectrum — “Best Sisters Both Become Empress Dowager,” “Brothers Rule the Realm Together,” “Emperor and Empress United,” and on and on.

While the bulk of the player discussion focused on how to clear the game more efficiently, late one night, a thread appeared on the forums that stopped everyone cold:

[Playing this game just ended my friendship]

A title like that could only mean drama. Curious onlookers clicked in immediately.

The poster was a guy. He laid out the whole story in detail.

“I’m new to this game — my buddy introduced me to it. He picked Fourth Prince, I picked Chief Eunuch Gao, and we agreed I’d support him to the throne.

First time playing, I made a lot of mistakes and had to burn through my respawn cards. Eventually I ran out. Around that point, something went wrong in the inner palace — his mother Consort Xian got caught framing another consort by the Emperor. If she got punished, all our early progress would be wasted. So he suggested I take the fall in her place.

And that’s when it all came back to me. When we were kids, he used to get me to take the blame for his mistakes all the time. Like once we were playing and he broke a neighbor’s window — he told them it was me. Or the time he lost his test paper and said he’d lent it to me and I lost it. There was so much of that.

Remembering all of it, I was furious.

So I didn’t do what he said. I reported everything directly to the Emperor, had Consort Xian sent to the Cold Palace, and sure enough, Fourth Prince fell out of favor.

He was pissed. Complained the whole time.

I was more pissed. Why should I keep taking the fall for you in a game when I spent my whole childhood doing it in real life?

Once my respawn cards were gone, he was out of the Emperor’s good graces, and I stopped engaging with him. In the end, I backed a weaker consort, took control of the young prince, and pulled off an S+ ending: “The Eunuch Holds Power.”

Cleared it without him. Felt honestly great.

Pretty sure the friendship is done though.”

The response was immediate and overwhelming.

Reply 1: That kind of “friend” — worth keeping around for what exactly?

Reply 2: Good for you OP. Stop letting people walk all over you.

Reply 3: OP’s move was incredibly satisfying to read~

Reply 4: Someone who always deflects blame onto others isn’t worth your time anyway.

……

Reply 60: Heard a lot of fair-weather friendships and relationships have come out in this game. Turns out it really does reveal who people are.

Reply 61: Nothing in this world is scarier than human nature. This is basically “the game holding up a mirror to real life.”

……

Reply 175: My friend and her boyfriend played together a few days ago. They broke up after. He kept snapping at her impatiently the whole time, and at one point he went and married the Prime Minister’s daughter in-game just to advance his position. Ha.

Reply 176: OP that’s you, isn’t it?

Reply 177: You caught me. I was furious at the time. But honestly — if a game can show you who someone really is, cutting it off early isn’t a loss ^^

……

Reply 207: I played with my best friend and she backstabbed me at the end. Good for her, she got to be Empress. I just felt sick.

Reply 208: That’s a fake friend if I ever heard one.

……

Reply 1105: This thread turned into a gossip hub. Came for one story, leaving with a full banquet.

Reply 1108: Has co-op mode secretly become a relationship stress test? Turns out fake friends and genuine ones look very different once there’s a throne on the line.

Reply 1109: Full holographic immersion means your instincts take over. Some people will throw their partner under the bus without a second thought if it helps them win. Others lose their patience the moment their partner makes a mistake and can’t stop criticizing. You can’t hide that.

Reply 1110: Given how many breakups and falling-outs this game has caused, Little Sailboat definitely didn’t see this coming when he designed it, lol.

……

By the end of the night, the thread had racked up thousands of replies and sat pinned at the top of the forum with a blazing “HOT” tag.

Xie Yunfan checked the forums regularly to keep track of player feedback. When he read through the thread that evening, his feelings were complicated.

It reminded him of a game from his previous life — Overcooked, which required co-op coordination, one player cooking and plating while the other washed ingredients and cleaned up, both working at breakneck speed with zero margin for error. One person falling behind could collapse the whole operation.

That game had earned the nickname “Breakup Kitchen.” Couples played it and ended up in screaming matches.

The thing was, games that required real cooperation genuinely needed patience and compatibility. If you couldn’t be patient with a partner — couldn’t extend understanding or support — in a game, what did that say about how a real relationship with that person would go?

Split up, Xie Yunfan thought. The next one will be better.

If co-op mode was revealing fake friends, incompatible partners, and people who deflected blame the moment things got difficult — well, that was a public service of a different kind.

He assumed the thread would blow over quickly. It didn’t. It kept getting shared, and eventually it climbed onto Weibo’s trending list.

Among players, a phrase started circulating: “Palace Storm is the ultimate relationship test. Want to know if your friends, your partner, your closest people are really who you think they are? Play it together and find out.”

That alone brought an entirely new wave of couples and friend groups rushing in, curious to see how they’d do.

Some couples broke up. Others spent the whole run protecting each other — accepting defeat together rather than abandoning their partner — and came out closer than before.

Some friendships fractured. Others held, fought side by side, won together, and grew stronger for it.

Human nature, in all its variety, played out in full view inside the game.

The forum was never quiet — gossip threads, strategy threads, more gossip threads, more strategy threads.

The Palace Storm forums became, almost overnight, the most active gaming forum around.

Two months after launch, player count was still holding steady.

The character and gameplay combinations were simply inexhaustible.

One pairing not enough? Try another. The NPCs were always ready to outwit you if you let your guard down. There was always something new to find.

……

At the end of September, Yangfan Studio posted an announcement:

“The Palace Storm DLC ‘Governance’ will be launching on October 15th.

Players who have already completed the game may load any ending they’ve achieved and begin the Governance arc from there, or designate any prince or princess as emperor and start directly. Players who have not completed the game may also designate a prince or princess to take the throne.

The Governance arc will feature a wide variety of random events that require timely responses. Come experience what it truly feels like to rule an empire.

See you on October 15th — don’t miss it!”