"I am now invincible. Please, grant me your guidance."
Lu Xun sat upright in the classroom, eyes closed as he rested his mind. He felt as if he were merging with the gentle breeze, appearing as though he had entered a perfect flow state, a peerlessly confident smile gracing his face.
Cheats in hand, the world is mine!
A mere measurement and control exam would be an easy victory!
It felt wonderful to have everything under control, as if nature itself was becoming one with him, as if he were the god of this world.
Just as he was gradually immersing himself in the feeling, a sudden call dragged him from his fantasies back to reality.
"Classmate, this is my seat."
He opened his eyes and saw a somewhat cute, dorky-looking girl wearing glasses standing by his desk. She held a book in her arms and spoke with a look of utter sincerity.
Lu Xun's lips curled into a smirk, and he let out a cold snort, "How bold! Is that any way to speak to Xun Shen?"
The girl froze for a moment, stepping back with a strange expression. Her eyes looked as if she were staring at a mental patient who had escaped from an asylum.
Lu Xun snapped back to his senses immediately and reflexively slapped his own mouth.
Damn it, my big mouth!
I've been playing that game too much lately; I'm subconsciously roleplaying as the character.
I really need to cut back on that game for a while.
He gave an awkward smile and stood up apologetically. "Sorry, classmate. I was just... possessed for a second. I must have misread the seat number, haha."
He let out a casual laugh to ease the tension, but his gaze instinctively drifted downward, staring intently at the book on the girl's chest.
Corporate Finance?
Isn't that a textbook for finance majors? Wasn't today's exam for mechanical measurement and control?
He looked around and saw that the students nearby were completely unfamiliar. He had never seen them before, and even his three 'dear sons' were nowhere to be found.
His face turned pale as he realized something was wrong, and he immediately bolted for the door.
"Classmate, your pen!" the girl with glasses shouted after him, but Lu Xun was already beyond the point of hearing anything.
He sprinted all the way back to his dorm, despite not having been there for two months.
He shoved the door open with a bang, the loud sound of the door hitting the wall drawing the eyes of the three people inside.
Their gazes met, and the atmosphere became incredibly awkward.
Lin Huai raised a hand. "Good... good morning?"
Lu Xun's face was dark. He ignored Lin Huai's greeting, merely staring at the three of them with a gaze cold enough to kill.
None of the three, including Lin Huai, dared to meet his eyes.
"I've discovered a very serious problem," Lu Xun said. "Did I... miss the measurement and control exam?"
Lin Huai's eyes shifted nervously. He hesitated for a moment before saying, "To be precise, you didn't just show up late. You missed the exam entirely!"
"Why didn't anyone remind me!"
"We tried calling you all yesterday morning! You didn't pick up, so there wasn't much we could do."
"You freaking told me yesterday that nothing was going on!"
"I was joking... I didn't think you'd just hang up! Didn't you see the call logs?"
Fuming with rage, Lu Xun lunged forward in three steps and yanked Lin Huai up from his chair by the collar.
"Next time, just tell me the damn business! If you start talking nonsense with me again, believe me, I'll kill you!"
Undoubtedly, Lu Xun was explosive with anger. If he could, he really wanted to draw a sword and stab this guy!
Anger aside, Lu Xun couldn't actually do anything to Lin Huai. After all, the fault was mostly his own. He had remembered the exam time incorrectly, so he couldn't push all the blame onto Lin Huai.
With the gang of four reunited and Lu Xun calmed down, they decided to go out for a meal together.
In such cold weather, the four of them reached a unanimous decision: hot pot.
Shen Zhixu dipped a piece of blanched tripe into his bowl. The steam from the boiling pot blurred his face, hiding his expression.
"Grand Commander, stop being angry. Go talk to the professor when you get back. Maybe you can still get a chance to take a make-up exam."
"Exactly. A mere make-up exam? How could that stump our Great Literary Giant?" Zhou Xiang chimed in from the side.
Because Lu Xun's name sounded the same as both Lu Xun the general and Lu Xun the writer, Shen Zhixu liked to call him Grand Commander, while Zhou Xiang preferred calling him Great Literary Giant.
"Make-up exams don't count toward the semester's participation grade. You might as well just kill me," Lu Xun wailed toward the ceiling.
"You don't seriously think skipping class all the time would've given you a participation grade anyway, do you?" Lin Huai suddenly remarked while picking up a slice of fatty beef with his chopsticks.
Lu Xun fell silent.
Lin Huai had a point.
"Grand Commander, how's your streaming going lately? I heard from Lin Huai that you've been making quite a bit?" Shen Zhixu chewed the crisp tripe, which was mixed with garlic and chili-infused sesame oil, revealing an expression of pure bliss.
"I haven't been streaming much lately. I'm doing internal testing for a game client. The bonus is actually quite decent," Lu Xun said.
"What game? Is it fun?"
Shen Zhixu and Zhou Xiang's curiosity was instantly piqued, and they leaned toward Lu Xun without even realizing it.
"I can't say the name, but it is definitely fun." Lu Xun thought for a moment before continuing, "The genre is like those open-world anime games, but with much higher freedom and a massive map. The combat part is more like a soul-like game, similar to Sekiro."
"This is attack, this is defense, and this is Ashina Genichiro," Shen Zhixu added, quoting a famous meme from the soul-like community.
Lin Huai's face changed, and he shouted indignantly, "Dammit! Don't even mention that Ashina Genichiro to me, it makes me furious! I spent three days fighting that guy, nearly twenty hours in total. I finally beat him, only to find out he has a second life! Crap, I'm never playing that garbage game again!"
The other three looked at him with strange expressions, not knowing what to say.
Zhou Xiang whispered a reminder, "Actually, Ashina Genichiro has three lives in total."
Lin Huai froze, staring at him blankly. His expression seemed to say: 'You've got to be joking!'
Shen Zhixu ignored the clownish Lin Huai. He was more curious about the game Lu Xun mentioned. From what he could tell, Lu Xun's evaluation of the game was quite high.
"Are the characters in the game good-looking?" he asked.
"Ver-y good!" A look of absolute certainty appeared on Lu Xun's face as he uttered the English words with a terrible accent.
He continued, "The characters in that game are so beautiful they make your head spin. It's a pity you're in first-person view when you first start; there aren't many chances to really appreciate them."
"Does it rely on a gacha system to get characters?"
"Yes." Lu Xun nodded. He thought for a bit and said, "The gacha is way more generous than Three Kingdoms Kill."
"There aren't many games worse than Three Kingdoms Kill anyway," Shen Zhixu roasted before asking curiously, "So, how many characters do you have now?"
Lu Xun held up two fingers. "Two. The new one I pulled is a Gold card, but unfortunately, it's a guy. I don't really want to play him."
"If the characters are that beautiful, won't you just fall in love with every new one you see?" Shen Zhixu teased with a smile.
"Loving the new and forgetting the old is a human instinct," Lu Xun didn't deny it, but he paused and added, "However, humans also instinctively favor the first character they ever met."
"What would you call that? A white moonlight?" Shen Zhixu raised an eyebrow.
"That's the eldest legitimate son! What do you mean, white moonlight!" Lu Xun snorted in disdain.
Rate on N.U.
