Xuedi and Xuemei1
For five straight minutes, the oil slick poured out, and soon the Mutated Leopard was left so far behind that it vanished from sight. Ren Chenxi watched the Red Dot on her mini-map get farther and farther away until it was completely off the screen. She finally sighed in relief. She had to admit, the Greasy Card and the Flash Card were practically god-tier among N Cards.
With the 4th-Order Mutated Leopard no longer in pursuit, the bus weaved boldly through the jungle. With Ren Chenxi giving directions, they didn’t have to worry about getting lost. The S University students, who had all gotten lost in this jungle before, were in complete awe of her. They admired her sense of direction so much they could have prostrated themselves.
Ren Chenxi noticed that several students in the group had been stealing glances at her. Just as one of the girls looked over again, her eyes met Ren Chenxi’s appraising gaze.
“Xi-jie…”2 Caught peeking, the girl decided to be direct and ask the question that had been puzzling her ever since she got on the bus. “You look a lot like one of our seniors. His name is Ren Muhui. Two years ago, during a summer break, he told his friends he was going on a trip and then… he never came back to school.”
The girl’s question was exactly what Ren Chenxi had expected. As students from S University, they must have seen her back when she was constantly chasing after that wooden Goddess Mu, so it was normal for them to recognize her. But still, she wasn’t Ren Muhui anymore.
“Ren Muhui is my older brother. I’m his twin sister, Ren Chenxi.”
“Oh! So that’s how it is!”
At her words, the group of S University students had a collective epiphany. All seven of them had noticed her. After all, “Ren Muhui” was a wind and cloud person3 at their university; it was hard for any student not to know of him.
“Hey, I always thought Ren-xuezhang4 was really handsome, but the same face on you, Xi-jie, is just beautiful!”
Heh, that’s because you’ve all been boxed in by the system’s ‘Gender: Male’ setting, she thought.
With the topic now on their Ren-xuezhang, the students became much more talkative. Even Chang Ling, who seemed to be focused on driving, was straining her ears to listen in.
“Did you know, Xi-jie? Ren-xuezhang is incredibly devoted. He was really in love with our school’s Iceberg Goddess, Mu-xuejie.5 He pursued her for over two years without giving up!”
No, girl, he was doing it for the mission.
Hearing these xuemei talk about her old Conquest Mission,6 Ren Chenxi became inexplicably irritable. She had been trapped in the game for over two years because of that wooden Goddess’s Favorability Value.7 She had finally managed to escape, only to be dragged right back in. Thankfully, the Conquest Mission was already over.
Since the mission was finished, Ren Chenxi had no desire to listen to them recount her past exploits. Just as she was thinking of a way to subtly change the subject, she heard Yang Xiangrui let out a sudden, disdainful scoff. “Hmph, devoted? What an act!”
“Hey! Yang Xiangrui! You have a problem with Ren-xuezhang? Ha! I get it, you’re just jealous you’re not as handsome as him! After all, he’s our universally acknowledged school grass!”8
Huh? Wait, since when was I the acknowledged school grass? “Isn’t your school grass Fan Juntian?”9 That guy had been her number one most annoying rival when she was trying to win over the Goddess!
“…”
Seeing everyone staring at her in surprise, Ren Chenxi belatedly realized she had accidentally blurted out her thoughts.
“Uh… well…” She scratched her chin awkwardly and quickly tried to recover. “I heard my brother mention it…”
“Oh! I see…”
No one noticed Ren Chenxi’s small slip-up. Instead, they earnestly explained the difference between the nominal school grass and the acknowledged one.
“Fan Juntian’s looks are obviously miles behind Ren-xuezhang’s!”
“Yeah, based on looks alone, I’m still rooting for Ren-xuezhang and Mu-xuejie to get together!”
“Besides, Fan Juntian bought his school grass title! He bribed a huge number of students to vote for him, and he even paid off the programmer for the voting system to change the data for him.”
“Wow! The gap in looks between your school grass and Xi-jie’s brother is pretty big, then! It wasn’t enough to bribe people to vote for him, he had to alter the data too?” Song Xin couldn’t help but join the gossip.
“It is! The gap was so huge that the only school grass we all acknowledge is the gentle and handsome Ren-xuezhang,” the girl who had first confronted Yang Xiangrui gushed, cupping her face with both hands. “He would make ‘Love Bentos’10 for Mu-xuejie, and he would knit scarves for her. Oh, and Ren-xuezhang is super handsome when he plays the guitar, and his singing is amazing…”
“…”
Listening to the girl list off her methods for winning over the Goddess one by one, Ren Chenxi was so embarrassed her toes were about to dig a hole through the floor of the bus. To be honest, aside from her cooking skills, which were half-based on her own Proficiency,11 all her other skills were just leveled up with Skill Points!12 Fortunately, Yang Xiangrui interrupted before the girl could continue her list.
“Hmph! See! This is why little girls like you, Tang Ying, who only look at the surface, are the easiest to deceive by someone like Ren Muhui, whose outside and inside are not the same!”13
“How are they not the same? Yang Xiangrui, someone’s going to sew that broken mouth14 of yours shut one day!” Seeing her idol slandered, Tang Ying puffed out her cheeks and fired back. “You’re a piece of waste material15 who fails every class, has lazy limbs, and a simple brain—a good-for-nothing at everything. You must be jealous of someone as outstanding as Ren-xuezhang!”
“I—I—you… I’m telling you, Tang Ying, I saw it with my own eyes! Your precious Ren-xuezhang once arrogantly boasted to his roommate that with his charm, conquering Mu-xuejie was just a matter of minutes!”
!!!
???
“You’re lying!”
I never said that!
Luckily, Ren Chenxi managed to hold her tongue this time, but her expression was just as shocked as Tang Ying’s as she stared at Yang Xiangrui. It wasn’t just Tang Ying; the other S University students also looked at him in disbelief.
Facing everyone’s doubtful gazes, Yang Xiangrui’s face flushed red as he yelled, “It’s true! And I wasn’t the only one who saw it, Mu-xuejie… Mu-xuejie saw it too! It was—it was on the first day of school, at the welcome party… Ren Muhui was backstage talking to his roommate! A senior student asked me to go backstage to help move props. I got there a step early and happened to overhear them, and then Mu-xuejie, who was getting ready for the next performance, heard it too!”
…The welcome party? When was that? I never said anything like that! And which roommate? To avoid exposing my gender when I took over the game for my brother, I moved out of the dorm on the second day! Could it be! Was it my brother himself, when he was playing the game, who ran his mouth and boasted to the people in the game? Damn it! No wonder I worked my ass off for over two years to raise her Favorability Value, and that wooden Goddess’s score never went past 50%! So she had already seen through your fake affection from the very beginning!
Ren Chenxi leaned back against her seat, completely drained. She cursed her idiot brother a hundred times in her head. After she was done, she suddenly froze.
In that case, if she already knew my affection was fake, how did that wooden Goddess’s Favorability Value suddenly fast-forward to one hundred percent later on?
She couldn’t figure it out. Not at all. Ren Chenxi rubbed her temples, a headache coming on, and then she saw the S University students staring at her with looks of utter disillusionment.
…Why are you looking at me? It’s not like I was the one who said something so scummy! Ren Chenxi’s face was stiff. In the end, she could only wave her hand at them and apologize on behalf of her idiot brother. “S-sorry, my brother… he just likes to brag… He probably was sincere about liking your Iceberg Goddess, but… he always likes boasting a seaport16 before he acts…”
“Is that true?” Her idol’s image had collapsed, and the young Tang Ying looked like she was about to cry. “Then where is Ren-xuezhang now? Did he go to H City too? Mu-xuejie went to H City two years ago to find him. What if—! Mu-xuejie already likes Ren-xuezhang now, he can’t be a scumbag to her…”
Tang Ying rambled on, but Ren Chenxi only caught one key point. “What? Your Mu-xuejie went to H City?”
“Ah? Yes, the senior we’re going to H City to seek refuge with, the one with the dual Water-System and Wood-System Esper ability, that’s Mu-xuejie!”
Water-System… Wood-System… In a daze, Ren Chenxi was reminded of the nightmare she’d had earlier. The image of the wooden Goddess, soaking wet like a water spirit, whipping a thorny vine as she walked toward her step by step, made her vision go dark.
Ah! That’s right. This wooden Goddess’s current Blackening Value17 is still at one hundred percent!
“Xi-jie, Xi-jie, what’s wrong? You look terrible…” Seeing Ren Chenxi suddenly slump into her seat with a look of someone with no will to live,18 Tang Ying grew nervous and glanced back at the shattered rear window. “Did the Mutated Leopard catch up again?”
“No… it didn’t…” Ren Chenxi tried to calm herself, shaking her head and whispering, “I was just thinking about my brother… and it hurts a little…” Brother! How could you throw such a massive pot19 for me to carry!
“Ah? What happened to Ren-xuezhang? Did he… he… Right, why isn’t Ren-xuezhang with you, Xi-jie?”
“He… he’s no longer in this world…” That bastard brother of mine isn’t in this terrifying apocalyptic game world; he’s living it up in the peaceful real world!
But clearly, the others had a different understanding of what she meant by “no longer in this world.”
“S-so it’s true?” another male student said, his voice heavy. “Actually, when Ren-xuezhang hadn’t returned to school two months after the semester started, everyone guessed something might have happened to him. We couldn’t reach his phone either…”
That’s because my phone was stolen…
Ren Chenxi’s face was wooden as she remained silent. Seeing her like this, everyone assumed she was overcome with grief and didn’t dare say anything more. Even Yang Xiangrui, who had been the one to expose Ren Muhui’s hypocrisy, lowered his head and said nothing. Although he really disliked Ren Muhui, the man was gone now, so… the dead are the most important.20
The once-lively bus fell into a dead silence. Only Chang Ling, who had stopped eavesdropping, was left to drive the bus with careful, focused concentration.
The author has something to say:
Ahem, I admire everyone’s brain hole,21 but it was the Mutated Leopard secreting the oil. Not much of it stuck to the bus, and the students weren’t starting any fires on board, so the bus won’t explode. Besides… just shake off the oily leopard. Why blow it up? Its feet are slippery, so it can’t catch up anyway. Forest fire prevention is everyone’s responsibility~22
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