Parallel Earth, Day Two.
The event was finally about to begin.
Mu Yang had long been itching to see the players get wrecked.
"Did anyone really think I was here to do charity?"
"Let the Earth players taste suffering!"
The moment Guinaifen opened her livestream, the chat was already cheering.
[Easiest event ever, I could play it with my feet]
[Mu Yang is such a philanthropist, this event is way too easy, cleared it in one go]
[So boring, was hoping to see Little Gui rage, what a letdown]
[I already exchanged all three characters first thing in the morning, what about you guys?]
"Folks, you're being way too obvious—I don't buy it at all now."
Guinaifen was waiting for the game to log in.
She still remembered the preview mentioning that this challenge mode would be extremely difficult.
To that end, it required Travelers to team up for the challenge.
In other words, this was a co-op event.
[It's true, why would we lie to you?]
[I carried three randoms in co-op, cleared it effortlessly]
Half-convinced but unable to resist the peer pressure, Guinaifen didn't even check the enemy info and clicked "Start Event" right away.
After all four accepted, they entered the character selection screen.
Seeing all trial characters available, Guinaifen praised the generosity.
"This event even lets you trial every character? This is seriously the most newbie-friendly version yet."
"Hmm... Event restrictions: The team must include a Pyro character, and the team must have three characters of different elements."
"Just these two requirements?"
Watching her teammates lock in their picks, she still needed a Pyro character.
Guinaifen chose Diluc, who she was more comfortable with.
Once the countdown ended, the four were teleported to the docks of Liyue Harbor.
An invisible wall blocked their path, forcing them to ascend the stairs.
"Folks, this kinda feels like a raid, doesn't it?"
The four climbed the stairs, arriving at the platform where Lumine had challenged Xingqiu in the story.
After a brief dialogue, the battle began.
Though Guinaifen didn't fully believe the chat's claims of it being "super easy," she played relatively relaxed.
After all, story-mode battles were usually simple—just a casual fight would do.
But after a while, Guinaifen finally noticed something was off.
"Why is my damage on Xingqiu so low? My Diluc is well-built!"
[Maybe because Xingqiu has damage reduction?]
Guinaifen hovered her cursor over Xingqiu's status bar.
["The Rain-Soaked Blossoms Remain, Though the Dragon is Slain"]: Xingqiu permanently wields 5 "Rain Swords," each granting him 10% damage reduction.
"Wait, 50% damage reduction is insane! I can't even dent him with constant Vaporize!"
While Guinaifen was still furiously swinging Wolf's Gravestone at Xingqiu, a teammate's Barbara icon grayed out.
"Wait, how did a teammate just die?"
[Got targeted and failed to dodge]
Mu Yang sent a paid message to explain to Guinaifen:
Xingqiu will randomly target one of the four characters.
The targeted character must dodge five consecutive "Rain Swords"—each dealing 1/3 of their max HP as fixed True Damage.
"Hold up, isn't this fixed True Damage a bit too broken?"
Mu Yang grinned. If you guys don't wipe, how can I have fun?
This was just the first boss, and only Phase One at that.
Little Gui went all out while Xingqiu's "Rain Swords" were down, but her teammates were even worse—Venti fell next...
The third to be targeted was Guinaifen's Diluc.
Five swords later, Diluc was down.
"The defeated... need no excuses..."
[LMAO, this is golden—Diluc's death line even blocked Little Gui's path]
[PFFFT, Diluc's a legend, already predicted the noob streamer's fate]
[I'm dying, knew the streamer wouldn't even clear Phase One]
[The whole chat was just gaslighting earlier, huh? What happened to "playing with feet"?]
[I couldn't clear it with my feet OR hands, so what? (Proudly hands on hips)]
The last surviving teammate, seeing three dead, just gave up to restart.
The screen showed two remaining challenge attempts.
This Zhongli teammate was relatively skilled.
He briefly explained the mechanics to Guinaifen and the others while rallying them.
"Don't panic, I'll tell you how to dodge."
"Once you're targeted, immediately run to the farthest corner from Xingqiu, then dodge left-right in rhythm."
[LOL, this guy's overestimating Little Gui's hand-eye coordination]
[You can tell he really wants to clear this]
[Sniff, me too—any carries here?]
With Zhongli's guidance, the three no longer got instantly wiped.
They pushed Xingqiu into Phase Two.
Phase Two Xingqiu's swords increased to seven, meaning 70% damage reduction.
And now you had to dodge seven times...
But that wasn't even the worst part.
This phase granted Xingqiu "Vigilant Yaksha's Aid."
His "Rain Swords" now carried Anemo, moving faster, and Xingqiu's attack speed increased.
His double-kick had a massive AoE and triggered Swirl.
Guinaifen's team wiped twice in a row and got kicked out...
Guinaifen stared blankly. "Who am I? Where am I? What just happened?"
Meanwhile, the chat was spamming "LOL"—they'd all been through the same thing.
After several more matchmaking attempts, Guinaifen still couldn't reach the second boss, Keqing.
Mu Yang felt this wasn't entertaining enough.
Watching just Little Gui mald was too boring.
He needed two skilled streamers and two meme streamers to team up—see which side cracked first.
So, Mu Yang showered Silver Wolf, Kafka, Sparkle, and Guinaifen's streams with gifts.
Then, he had all four of them team up for co-op suffering.
Faced with their mysterious top donor, none of them dared to refuse.
They added each other and began their co-op prison sentence!