Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating Vol. 1

Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating #1

by Jiang Zi Bei, juurensha (Translator), Divetus (Editor)

When Jing Huan’s cousin is left heartbroken and cyberbullied out of the MMO game Nine Heroes due to her online romance with top player Yearning For, Jing Huan swears revenge.

He may not be strong enough to directly kill Yearning For in-game, but leave him heartbroken and broke? With the help of a top-notch voice changer and a female Spirit Fox Den character, he should be all set!

Unfortunately, Yearning For is a stoic man who seems impervious to his flirting and cute stickers.

Such an annoying scumbag, not at all like the kind, quiet senior Xiang Huaizhi who saved Jing Huan’s life, even if they seem to share the same voice…

Genres: Romance, Fiction

350 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2025

About the author

Associated Names:
* Jiang Zi Bei (English)
* 酱子贝 / 醬子貝 (Chinese)
* เจี้ยงจื่อเป้ย (Thai)

Reviews

[Cyndi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up for the metallic edges and stayed for the drama. As a non-gamer, I had no idea just how reality TV gaming is. Scammers, scumbags, catfishers, cheaters, marriages, divorces, doxxing, guild rivalries and so much jealousy. I'm glad I've never gotten into it because I would probably make it my whole personality and end up single and in debt up to my eyeballs.

This volume didn't get very far relationship-wise, but it was a good set up for what's to come. I lived for the in person run-ins between Jing Huan and Xiang Huaishi. If they end up at the same place on vacation, I might just expire. The abrupt ending wasn't my favorite, but volume 2 is in the mail so it's all good.

[V~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.4/5 🌟

Emojis, witty characters, zero angst, and overall the endless flirting, and in game drama with jealous exes! Lmao

This novel is just right after an angsty books that had you flooding the Nile River itself. *cough cough*2HA Vol 9.

I knew this was a gaming novel, and I wasn't expecting the amount of gaming scenes there were. I love the non game scenes and how an absolute gay Xiang Huaizhi is. (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧I saw you my friend.

Jing Huan is such a funny character!
A boy buying a scammer's character, pretending to be a girly girl to get revenge for his cousin, yet his WeChat user is Kobe819 something. Scamming an innocent guy because innocent guy bought a scammer's character.
╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

Little did Jing Huan the revenge scammer know that the innocent guy he's scamming is a cute guy he ran into at his dorm that saved him. What could ever go wrong?

Can't wait to see how eventually they find out who they are!! Oh man! The drama!

I needed more of them in person!!!!!
Ughhhhhsksmdndn

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.6/5

🎮Possible spoiler warning🎮

This review is about the story itself, not the translation or the publisher.

This volume has a lot of gaming terminology and many in-game scenes! Fortunately, the glossary explains what all the terms mean.

Jing Huan says goodbye to his cousin after she gets bullied and heartbroken. She fell in love with a complete scumbag of an in-game character, and Jing Huan wants to get revenge for her. He decides to pretend to be a female character, only to find out that the character he bought is a scammer!

While running from other characters trying to "boot him" from the game, he finally runs into the scumbag himself, Yearning For.
The amount of flirting Jing Huan does to get Yearning For's attention is hilarious! I feel like he wants to facepalm from trying to act so girly. He tries so hard, but Yearning For isn't falling for it and isn't acting like the scumbag Jing Huan thought he would be. At some moments, Jing Huan even feels guilty. Still laughing at the ending of volume one! Poor Jing Huan😂😂

This volume was a pretty easy read when you're in the mood for it! It's funny, flirty ans fluffy, but also dramatic and chaotic. Please, if you can, focus on the story and not the translation. These authors need our support more than ever!
Happy reading!🥰

[Cassiereads · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

This is honestly so fun! 🤣

Jing Huan's cousin is bullied out of a game called Nine Heroes for her romance with the top player 'Yearning For'. So, he takes it upon himself to try and get revenge by catfishing Yearning For to make him fall for him and leave him heartbroken, but it turns out not to be the easy task he imagined.

If you like something with endless flirting and witty characters, I'd recommend this one 🤣 the banter is hilarious and just plain silly at times. I can't wait for the next volume!

Huge thank you to haitang books for gifting this beautiful edition!

[Queens Love Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Dislike me all you want now, but there will come a time when you’ll be crazy in love with me but can’t have me.”



Sweet Little Jing and Yearning For make a pretty charming duo, even if their relationship starts out as a bit of a game. There’s an easy, teasing rhythm between them that makes their scenes shine. It’s not full-blown romance yet, but the flirty tension keeps things interesting. The story leans on the “pretend affection” trope, but there are clear signs it’s heading somewhere deeper. Their dynamic is the best part of the book—light, sweet, and just messy enough to feel real.

The story’s built around online gaming, casual flirting, and a bit of drama on the side. It’s fun, for sure, and never too heavy, but the pacing can be choppy. Some scenes feel tossed in more for amusement than plot, and the transitions between them don’t always land. The tone is breezy, which works for a quick read, but the structure could use more polish. There were moments where I had to stop and reread just to make sure I caught the meaning right—possibly a mix of translation quirks and abrupt scene shifts. It doesn’t derail the story, but it can pull you out of the moment.

The book ends a bit suddenly—less like a closing and more like someone cut the tape mid-episode. It feels more like a slice of a longer serial than a standalone volume. Some of the gaming references are explained through footnotes, which helps, but a few more would’ve been welcome for readers unfamiliar with the genre. Despite those bumps, there’s enough personality and humor to keep it enjoyable. Not quite a knockout, but not a waste of time either. If you’re in the mood for a playful, low-pressure read with a hint of romance, this scratches the itch.

Date Read: 2025.08.21

[Missha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume one did a great job convincing me to actually order volume two, because I already know it will bring me joy.

Jing Huan (Sweet Little Jing) is a man who seems like he could start a war because of spite and revenge alone, but once he has started this specific act of karma, might get a little lost on the way. Xiang Hauizhi (Yearning for) is a bit of a mystery but you slowly get to know him through the novel, and I am growing a soft spot for him.

The whole reason for why this is even happening might not be my fave but I am enjoying the way the plot is developping and I am expecting certain things to happen in the future and I can't wait to watch the chaos unfold.

The side characters aren't flat but rather have a clear place in the main characters lifes, have distinct personalities and create fun!

I do think that one of the future volumes might be filled with lots of angst but until then, I'm going to enjoy the somewhat peaceful way everything is developping. This story isn't sugary sweet and there is no instalove, rather I think this volume created the perfect set up for a bit of a faster pace in future volumes.

I am aware of the recent Haitang Books drama regarding this series but I do want to support smaller publishers in this translation world AND I didn't want to let it ruin this very entertaining series for me, which I'm glad for. As said, I will be ordering book two.
----------------------
OG thought:
does anyone remember the publishing date of volume 2? bc im afraid I'm in dire need of it. RTC

[Fny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gahhhh what did I do before I picked this one up… hell if I remember… I hope I’ll find vol 2 soon because I can’t leave this story hanging now when I’m this invested!
-
This was so funny! I haven’t laughed this hard reading a book in ages. Gosh 🫣🤣

[Acordul Fin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The incessant game talk bored me to death. The translation was painful.

[Sophokles · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

funnier than expected, in-game and rl content have a good balance & good slow burn 🤭 excited for more ✨️

[Breanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The secondhand embarrassment?? Having to walk away in disappointment at yourself because you played the role too hard and looking back wondering if you were possessed?? It’s SO funny and I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing how they will figure out the truth and recover from it. Can’t wait to read the rest!

[gabs · Rating 5 out of 5]

i LOVED this book!! their banter is so silly and this game that they’re playing sounds so interesting that i wish i could play it too :D

[Kathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so much fun and reminded me of my active WoW times, just with way less drama for sure!
Can't wait until either of them finds out who's really behind the game character

[Katie Morriss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so cute and funny. 4.25, they crack me up.

[tatterpunk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soooooooo... Jiang Zi Bei is my new favorite.

I stumbled across this title a while back, looked at the premise and thought: this is a little too silly and simple, if possibly sweet, to appeal to me. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that the right author can make me invest in almost anything. I was genuinely stunned by how much I enjoyed Limerence, so I figured I owed it to Jiang Zi Bei another chance to wow me.

And they absolutely did.

Guide on How To Fail at Online Dating is definitive proof to me that I am not actually deadened and black inside my heart; I can do sweetness! I can do light! It just needs to not be boring.

So this is how you don't make shit boring: you establish sweet, believable characters and relatable motivations: Jing Huan would literally die for his cousin, and after reading why, I would die for her, too. After she's tricked and humiliated by a male player in the popular MMORPG Nine Heroes, Jing Huan is inspired by his own friend and roommate's humiliation at the hands of a male-playing-female catfish to go for revenge by playing the same trick on the scumbag who hurt his cousin. He gets a voice-changer and creates the kind of cringe-worthy, syrupy-sweet and childish character those types of scumbags go for, and sets off to hunt his prey.

Basic premise established, you then place a perfectly-cocked Chekov's gun on the table: the scumbag in question, username Yearning For, is a god-level player in the game... who was played for the last few months by a "professional grinder" while the original owner recovered in the hospital, in order not to lose experience or status points. The character has since been returned to its original player -- who is, unbeknownst to Jing Huan, a classmate at his university.

And we're off!

Now, it also helps that I kind of love stories that blend "realities" between the real world and online gaming. I don't play MMORPGs, or many games at all, but I've watched both The Guild and The King's Avatar uuuuuuh an embarrassing amount of times, and actually, Guide hits a kind of sweet spot between their extremes of humor and drama. And has a similar romance/identity porn/college campus vibe as Love O2O, which I've also watched more times than is respectable... huh. Okay, so I might be more into this subgenre that I was previously admitting to myself. But it's a fairly standard set-up in a lot of Chinese novels: the idea of online gaming as a popular kind of third space, even outside the professional world of esports, where the immersion and social aspect mean interactions there have real-world impact and weight. If you're unfamiliar with this kind of community, that can mean a lot of catch-up in the technical jargon not just of gaming, but in how the Chinese online gaming world works: different servers, "channels" vs direct messages, written vs voice chat, etc and so on. I'm so used to it at this point, but Guide really throws you into the deep end. There's a glossary at the end, but it still might be a little much for the uninitiated.

If you're into it, though, Jiang Zi Bei is truly tops at recreating believable and engaging interactions within this world: the scandals and gossip, the kinds of people who scheme and those who rise to the top on skill, plus the weird quirks of the community. One of the earliest, and best, curveballs thrown at Jing Huan is the discovery that his character, bought pre-stocked for cheap so he didn't have to waste too much time getting onto Yearning For's server, actually belonged to a notorious scammer, and now he's a server-wide target for camping and spawn kills. He's actually familiar with Nine Heroes and a decent player, although unfamiliar with this pre-bought characters class/sect, and the combination of trying to be stealth and unkillable with the absolute spine-cramping cutesy act he puts on (I can almost hear "刚满十八岁..." echoing down the channel) is incredibly funny.

Oh yeah, did I mention this book made me laugh out loud while reading it in public?

Jiang Zi Bei, I knew you were ace at character-driven slowburn romances (the plot synopsis to Guide makes it sound a lot more fast-paced than it is with the "saved his life" thing; basically they (very literally) bump into each other every now and again on campus) but I did not know you were GODDAMN HILARIOUS. I'm not going to spoil everything that made me lose it, but one of my favorite running gags has to be how Jing Huan's catfish cutsey act is a dead giveaway to all the female players ("no actual girl talks like that") and his target, Xiang Huaizhi (who is pretty obviously gay as the day is long), although most everyone plays along for politeness... everyone that is, except the hetero male players, who are absolutely GAGA for the "cute widdle meimei o(>ω<)o gimme headpats pweeeaaase" shit and are falling over themselves to get Jing Huan's attention.

The first volume doesn't do too much beyond carefully and organically construct this setup and characters, as well as work hard to make some of the fundamental misunderstandings that drive the plot forward more believable. Again, one of my favorite things about Jiang Zi Bei's style is how much they refuse to rush things -- but there are still some hints of complexity and hitherto-unrevealed developments on the horizon, like Xiang Huaizhi's past disappointments in his guild and Jing Huan's growing appreciation of Yearning For AS PLAYED BY Xiang Huaizhi, instead of the pro grinder. Plus there are LESBIANS in this!! There's a lesbian couple running the guild they join by the end of this volume, and I am SO EXCITED by the prospect I'll see more of them!. All that, combined with the awesome side characters of roommates and the friends they're making in-game (shout out to Love Is Sharing Noms, you are my favorite and AGAIN I love when danmei authors prove they don't actually hate women), and I'm so into this.

I'm SO into this. Bring on the rest.

[Momo · Rating 4 out of 5]

omfg this book was so fun!! the premise of it was kinda similar to netkama punch (one of my fav manhwas) in the way that the MC pretends to be a girl to seduce the guy he wants to get revenge on. it was pretty lighthearted throughout the book so dont read it if youre looking for a masterpiece but more so if you wanna have a good time. it was also pretty funny and included many anime references like the "all according to keikaku" meme and a couple anime reaction pics.

this physical book was also full of Easter eggs and included three illustrations inside. there was a progress bar at the top which might be like xiang huaizhi taking damage from sweet little jing's seduction. additionally, there are little chibis at the top that changed depending on their mood each page which I looked forward to seeing every page.

all in all, this was a good time and I highly enjoyed reading it!

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fun, light-hearted read! if you're into gaming, this would definitely interest you but even if you have basic knowledge, it's pretty easy to understand.

i can't wait for jing huan's identity to be revealed hehe i'll probably buy the next vol if i see it...? (imagine my surprise finding this at kinokuniya like ?! another publisher besides seven seas on the shelf? :o ngl they got me with the sprayed edges + freebies)

hai tang books is tripping tho because the translation was pretty good? there's always going to be a few errors but overall i think the translator did a good job at conveying the humor & gamer lingo!!

[Makayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is so silly lol but it was a good read! Jing huan has the right intention but my gosh is he stuck doing the catfishing thing. Also I loved the art within this book and I wished there was more there was only like 3-5 pages :(. I’m not actually a gamer so it took some time getting used to terms and how the game Nine Hero’s actually is. Once I get paid I’ll have to try and find the 2nd volume

[Ririn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need a comedy folder because this is hilarious! One of my fave read his year for sure! 😀 God Xiang is stupidly hot (?) while Jing Huan is so adorb and gives you the right amount of secondhand embarrasment. The interior art is kinda juvenile for college students but it matches the tone of the story. 🫢

[Caeden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.5 ⭐️

There was a fair amount of typos and errors, but not so much that I couldn't overlook them. Especially considering this is Hai Tang books debut. Overall, the story was very cute and light. I look forward to vol 2!

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super fun but I need the shoes to start dropping FAST. I've really been enjoying gaming danmei recently so this was another fun one to jump into! And the shiny blue edges were a fun touch to make this feel a little more special. I was so engaged I finished this in less than a day

[nela · Rating 4 out of 5]

truly such a fun novel !! re-reading it really reminded me why i fell into the gaming danmei rabbit hole ><
despite the unpleasant situation with the publisher i couldn't help but enjoy it... jzb is truly such a good writer

[Lazu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was so incredibly mid. The conversations read so unnaturally to me as an MMO player too (as in, they were translated but not made to sound natural to an English speaker).
I want to know how it continues but not enough to jump through hoops to get my hands on Haitang books again.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cute read!!

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was so fucking entertaining, i need vol 2 rn

[♑ Daniela Pepes ♑ · Rating 5 out of 5]

COMPLETAMENTE OBCECADA POR ESSES DOIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tazou · Rating 5 out of 5]

peak revenge catfish sur la mauvaise personne merci pour tout 🙏🙏🙏

[Sittie Anjillah Macaraya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cutesy kinda book. Full of fluff. Its a nice reprieve from the high fantasy I was reading. Can't wait to read Vol 2. 🫶🏻