Chapter 1 Lou Jia's Recent Bad Luck

Lou Jia felt like he'd been having a bit of bad luck lately.

He lost the student council president election by a single vote, his order for an S-class mecha was delayed due to material issues, and to top it all off, he became the laughingstock of the third-year mecha department at the Second Military Academy of the Empire because he got possessed and went offline at the beginning of a game.

"Don't blame us, okay? Who told that player to get possessed right at the start? And then a female ghost killed him! The scene was so bloody! You guys were lucky the livestream got shut down. Let me tell you, the rest of us players there, we all puked!"

"You want to know what happened after that? Hahahaha, let me tell you, I went on a rampage! But the scene was still pretty gory. I've never been good at remembering those kinds of things, so I won't bore you with the details. I even gained a little fan who's been bringing me snacks every day~"

"Don't think I'm bragging. This is the real deal! Everyone else who was there besides that one player who died early can vouch for me!"

Great. That "early-death player" was currently fuming.

Lou Jia stared at the livestream on his optical computer, his face dark. That Lu Xiaoyao, who hadn't stopped talking since the stream began, was the one!

She was a streamer!

He was famous because of her game livestream!

Two days ago, he'd filed a complaint about a military academy student streaming during training, but the response he got from the Central Military Academy was that it was a "personal matter."

They wouldn't intervene as long as no major intelligence was being leaked.

Even his own school was considering doing the same thing, saying it would help students focus and be more serious during training.

It would prevent students from slacking off after realizing it wasn't fun.

They wouldn't let you slack off; you'd have to figure out how to get through it, or else—what else could you do?

His school was even planning to ask the game company for footage of his embarrassing death to make a compilation of student mistakes, failures, and deaths to show to the school's internal students for reflection and contemplation.

(╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻ What the heck!

Ruthless!

They were even planning to get the footage of how he went offline!

The reputation of a top student in his third year was about to be ruined!

The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. Looking at the streamer on his optical computer, Lou Jia decided that from now on, he would become Lu Xiaoyao's number one hater!

"Oh? Isn't that the girl who played the game with you? What, are you interested in her?" His roommate, who had just come out of the bathroom, hadn't seen Lou Jia's expression. He glanced at the livestream on the optical computer and chuckled. "Not bad, kid. If you can win her over, you'll be set for life."

"What?"

Lou Jia, who had just been seething with anger, heard his roommate's words.

"Hey, didn't you notice her surname? That's not a common one in the entire Empire."

"Isn't that a stage name...?" Lou Jia paused when he was about to say it was a stage name. If it wasn't a stage name, then Lu Xiaoyao's identity would be significant.

Lou Jia looked at his roommate's sly expression. He remembered that his roommate's family was in the military, so he probably knew something.

"Ah, don't tell me you're just after her background?" His roommate clicked his tongue in amazement and asked Lou Jia incredulously, "No way, are you really in love at first sight?"

"Get out!" Lou Jia finally realized what his roommate was getting at and his face darkened as he tried to throw him out.

"Hey, hey, hey! Getting angry, are we? Don't pull at my towel! You son of a—Lou Jia! You dare leave me naked in the hallway! You just wait!"

…

Meanwhile, on the other side, Lu Xiaoyao was naturally spending her long-awaited monthly day off chatting with her fans online. She sneezed a few times as she talked.

"Uh, I'm not sick. My nose is just itchy. The global temperature control system here on Central Star is always stable, so don't worry..."

Lu Xiaoyao rubbed her nose with a tissue and glanced at the comments, answering the fans' questions. "Ah, you're asking why I didn't go home for my vacation? There's no one home anyway. They're all busy. We agreed to go back together when we all have time to rest..."

Lu Xiaoyao's eyes flickered as she spoke, clearly not happy to talk about the topic. Meanwhile, next door, Mingmei was also watching Lu Xiaoyao's livestream while dealing with the things she hadn't done while on vacation the past two days.

Both of her uncles were suddenly working overtime. They'd said they would take a break to stay home with her during her vacation, but then something suddenly came up.

Uncle Yan Hui suggested that she could go out and have fun during her vacation and that she could use the credit card he gave her and her mom would reimburse him at the end of the year.

The emphasis was on her mom reimbursing him.

Her uncle was reminding her to be careful with her spending.

After all, her mom was a miser. She would definitely give the money in the end, but Mingmei didn't want to go through the process in between 3」∠)_

Therefore, she'd rather stay at school during the holidays. Wasn't it great to eat and drink for free?

Just as Mingmei was being distracted by her uncle's message, she heard Lu Xiaoyao say on her livestream, "You guys are dreaming! My friend's beauty is not something you can see! Hmph~ I won't show you!"

Mingmei watched as the fans in the comments once again brought up the mysterious merchant lady in the game, and whether she was as good-looking as the friend she knew in real life.

"I'm telling you, just use Mu Chen as a reference. Think about his looks, and then think about Boss Zhang's looks. I'm telling you, my friend is like that! She's several levels above the merchant lady!"

Mingmei had once worried that she might be recognized when she went out after the game became popular, but now…

"I'm a dog if I'm lying! Wouldn't being chosen by the game company as a model prove my friend's beauty?!"

Watching Lu Xiaoyao try so hard to "dispel the rumors," dispelling two at once, Mingmei felt very relieved.

Feeling satisfied with having watched the livestream for a long time, Mingmei closed the livestream and picked up a textbook titled *Imperial Youth Physics*.

"Guigui, connect me to the holographic course. I need to go to class."

[Okay~]

During this month, Mingmei had taken five great lectures on mecha. To be honest, the class wasn't boring, but Mingmei found that she slept quite well.

She really couldn't understand QAQ

In five classes, Mingmei was called on by the teacher three times, and she couldn't answer each time. She was more of a slacker than a scholar. Even Ms. Cheshire talked to her a few times.

This homeroom teacher almost became her second sister-in-law.

The other party didn't seem to actively mention her "missing" second brother, nor did she make things difficult for her. She just gently suggested that Mingmei needed to find a way to make up for her lack of knowledge in mecha.

How was she supposed to make up for it?

Mingmei asked Guigui, and Guigui found her a bunch of books on the Star Network.

Starting with the most basic elementary school material.

Mingmei: …

Sure enough, this back-door university was not for her 3」∠)_