Chapter 25
[I'm dying laughing. What the hell was that "say thank you, now" hahaha]
[The best part is he actually said it. Doesn't that make him a good little puppy? (not really)]
[Bloodline suppression, suppression?]
[Don't insult the term. These two weren't even born to the same O.]
[Satisfying story of the year √]
[One-person petition signed in blood: seriously, can't you let me go in and act for a couple of episodes? I'm great at slapping people!]
[To everyone kicking him while he's down, hope you all meet a crazy sister like this one (smile)]
[Seriously? Is this little thing worth slapping him ov—oh, it's the plague god. Never mind, that's only natural.]
[The psycho has the nerve to play the victim? Sure enough, only the person who slandered you knows how wronged you are. Big sis is so hot, mwah (pout)(I'm a woman)(did you hear me, big sis? I'm a woman)(the app says I'm a soft O too)(speakerphone on full blast)]
Amid a barrage of comments whose keywords were all "satisfying" and "ha," the hospital room door clicked shut.
He Wenyuan licked the blood inside his mouth. Instead of calling someone in to repair the damaged lining of his mouth with regenerative solution, he used his Optical Brain to take a few selfies.
A few seconds later, He Wenyuan picked the picture that made him look the most pitiful without detracting from his beauty and sent it to Lin Yin with a message: Show him.
He hadn't forgotten that He Muzhi had not only turned back because of his pheromones, but had also intervened fiercely when that simple-minded, brawn-over-brains Anthony tried to take the opportunity to touch him.
That was enough to show that, in He Muzhi's eyes, he was still different from other Omegas.
He also wanted to send it directly to He Wenyuan, but he wasn't friends with He Wenyuan and couldn't hack into He Wenyuan's Optical Brain. He could only use other people's Optical Brains to find out everything about He Wenyuan.
Lailisi... With that explosive temper of hers, he couldn't tell where her boundaries were at all. He was afraid she'd hit him if he crossed them.
He was a delicate Omega now, nowhere near as able to take a beating as he had been as a Beta.
Samuel... He looked incredibly stupid, but beneath that slow-witted exterior and extremely low emotional intelligence, he had unusually good Optical Brain skills. As long as he wasn't angry, things were fine, but when he was, he would quietly dig up the private information of whoever had angered him to find an outlet.
Lin Yin... Apart from treating a few injuries, she couldn't do anything.
Pick the softest persimmon to pinch. Lin Yin was the perfect choice.
She certainly wouldn't show the photo to anyone and make them sympathize with him more, but she wouldn't be able to resist complaining about it to her friends.
Lin Yin, who was attending class at another training ground with Class 2, suddenly received a message on her Optical Brain. She opened it to find a photo... of He Wenyuan sitting on a hospital bed, bright red blood at the corner of his lips, looking pitifully at the camera.
Lin Yin's eyes widened. "...?!"
What kind of "ghost picture" was this?!
After her brief shock, the photo, which had an effect comparable to a horror movie, prompted Lin Yin to delete He Wenyuan, who had somehow quietly appeared on her friends list.
"Lin Yin, what's with that expression?" A classmate saw Lin Yin drawing her neck back and knitting her brows and grew curious.
She didn't look at Lin Yin's Optical Brain screen without her permission.
Her classmate's voice helped Lin Yin recover. She closed the screen and explained with a smile, "Some psycho suddenly sent me a photo of a terrifying bug. It gave me a fright."
Thinking of the Zerg Research Course they had just taken not long ago, the classmate looked disgusted and patted Lin Yin sympathetically on the shoulder. "I understand. That person is awful."
[Baby Yin: Oh my?]
[...Wait, what did our A-Yin ever do to anyone?]
[Yinyin: Feed me peanuts!]
[A-Yin's shoulder-length hair stood on end the second she opened the picture hahaha]
After leaving He Wenyuan's hospital room, Xuan Jingxi easily learned that Qin Su had returned to his dorm after class was called off because of the unexpected incident.
Meeting him in person would show sincerity, but she couldn't go out of her way to invite Qin Su out just so she could "meet him in person."
That would cause Qin Su unnecessary trouble and run counter to the "sincerity" she wanted to convey.
She might as well...
Find another opportunity, without taking up Qin Su's private time.
After thinking it over, Xuan Jingxi decided to postpone meeting Qin Su in person to convey the Xuan Family's apology until the next day.
If she remembered correctly, the next day would be the Class of 26 freshmen's first Weapons and Mecha Fundamentals lesson.
She had studied the subject and could naturally appear before Qin Su under the pretext of "giving the freshmen a demonstration."
Then she could look for an opportunity to apologize to Qin Su on the Xuan Family's behalf.
With class ending early, Qin Su changed out of his disposable training uniform in the locker room and watched it disappear as the processor inside ran, making sure no one could take the clothes he had worn and investigate them, thereby exposing traces of his use of the "diffuser." Only then did he put on his own clothes and return to his dorm.
In his dorm, Qin Su looked at the Life Points countdown in the upper right corner as he recalled every scene from class.
At the same time, he asked the system:
"777, how many Life Points would I need to exchange to get a physique like an Alpha's in the Comic World?"
As he stood upright at a distance, shooting the Alphas and Omegas with suppressants, he had seen everything happening at the scene clearly.
Alphas with high pheromone ranks, represented by the protagonist He Muzhi, seemed to have retained their senses despite the Omega pheromone leak because of their high pheromone ranks. They could join the Betas in stopping the frenzied Alphas and protecting the Omegas who had been lured into passive heat.
The Betas, meanwhile, frowned at the pheromones the out-of-control Alphas were leaking after being induced by the Omegas, their faces showing varying degrees of pain.
But—
Even after the long run earlier had consumed a great deal of their stamina, the frenzied Alphas, whose pheromones had leaked after being lured by the Omegas, seemed to undergo a qualitative leap in both mood and stamina, as though sailors eating strength-giving spinach.
Even an S-rank Alpha like He Muzhi had to put in effort to deal with a group of lower-ranked Alphas who were easily affected by Omega pheromones.
Why didn't He Muzhi rip off the pheromone-blocking patch over his gland and release his pheromones to exert pressure, making everyone with a lower pheromone rank unable to move and solving the problem that way? Was it to avoid making the other Betas there feel even worse?
A moment later, Qin Su remembered how, even though the person involved was the detestable He Wenyuan, when He Wenyuan was about to be in danger, He Muzhi had resolutely set aside his personal feelings for the moment and treated him like the other induced Omegas.
Qin Su: "..."
No wonder he was a man who could be the protagonist. His character really was beyond reproach.
As Qin Su's thoughts wandered this far, he heard the system's answer.
[The Comic World's native residents have their physiques because of changes to their pheromone glands. Host, you have no gland and no pheromones, so no matter how many Life Points you use, you cannot exchange them for a physique like an Alpha's in the Comic World.]
Qin Su: "..."
He still needed a gland.
Only with a gland would he be qualified to stand at the same starting line as the Alphas.
The Optical Brain in front of him responded to Qin Su's thoughts, displaying densely packed bug names on two screens.
Qin Su's gaze swept over the different screens one by one.
For this "Zerg" list, he had used countless data sources, autobiographies, and even novels about the Zerg to divide the bugs' attacks into physical and magical attacks.
Physical attacks were, literally, the bloody, brutal killing of humans through biting, tearing, strangling, and the like.
Magical attacks were attacks similar to those Alphas and Omegas produced using pheromones: "invisible and intangible, but perceptible to others."
Every bug under magical attacks was a subject of Qin Su's particular "investigation."
He couldn't have the natives' glands, so he could only look for a solution among these bugs.
All of this...
Would take a long time.
Before then... he still needed to "put on an act" to maintain this "big shot's" "dignity."
Qin Su closed the two lists, sighed silently to himself, and said to the system, "777, I need detailed data on every weapon and mecha in this world, sorted by difficulty."
It was impossible for him to read through the data on every weapon and mecha in such a short time.
Weapons and mechas, especially large things like mechas, all had designated storage locations.
Since it was for freshmen, the first Weapons and Mecha lesson wouldn't display anything too difficult or have the freshmen operate it.
He only needed to finish reading the easy parts and, if time allowed, read some harder material. That would be enough to get him through tomorrow's class for now.
[Okay!]
Before long, two document folders appeared on Qin Su's Optical Brain.
Qin Su opened them and quickly browsed through them. Based on how fast he could memorize things, he divided the documents the system had given him into another section, then said to the system, "Print out all the documents according to the way I've divided them."
Although education and daily life in this world were paperless most of the time, paper still existed.
There was always time to be found if he squeezed it in. Tomorrow in the real world, he had only one required class and one elective in the afternoon, and even after subtracting his scheduled training time, he would still have four hours to read.
He could use the "space" to take the data to the real world and perhaps read even more than expected in his spare time.
He couldn't take weapons with him for now. Even if he could, given how enormous this world's weapons were, he didn't have enough Life Points to exchange for them.
But he could take the data on the weapons and mechas first.
He had looked at the "price list." Paper wouldn't cost him many Life Points at all.
[Just a moment!]
Not long after 777 responded, many stacks of printed data appeared out of thin air in Qin Su's dorm.
Qin Su set aside the portion he could finish reading now. He sorted the rest into amounts that, each time he appeared in the real world and used the space to take them there, wouldn't draw anyone's attention when they "burst" out into his hands.
He planned to take a portion back each time.
Naturally, Qin Su divided each portion of the paper documents he needed to take back according to the minimum space usage fee, scrimping in every way.
Qin Su: "..."
He was stinginess personified.
He didn't dare waste anything. If he needed to "transport" a large item in the future, the Life Points he would have to spend to land at a designated location when he returned to the real world would only be greater.
He didn't dare "splurge," not at all.
He opened the space and scanned the documents into storage as instructed. The words "please confirm the exchange at a cost of 36 minutes of Life Points" popped up.
The barrage comments and favorability generated by the attention he had gained from everything that happened at the training ground, combined with the comments and favorability he had accumulated intermittently before, brought his Life Points in the upper right corner to minutes and 21 seconds.
168 days.
He had earned countless people's favor by "resolving the chaos" at the training ground. On the battlefield, if he dealt with the "bugs" and ended the war, wouldn't he gain even more life?
Qin Su comforted himself by "borrowing" against the future.
After he confirmed, the paper documents vanished into thin air.
Looking at the document data that had appeared in the space's inventory slots, Qin Su had the illusion... that he was a hamster hoarding supplies.
Shaking off the strange thought, Qin Su forced himself into the world of "weapons and mechas."
At the hospital.
"Are you all right?" Samuel was the first to rush into the room. Seeing He Muzhi sitting there, perfectly fine, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Lin Yin and Lailisi entered one after the other, both still wearing the clothes they had worn to class,
They had heard that something had happened during Classes 6 and 7, but the others didn't know exactly what. After their own class ended, they changed into their clothes and hurried over as fast as they could.
Lailisi and Lin Yin said nothing, but the moment they entered the room, their eyes also swept over He Muzhi from head to toe.
"I'm fine." He Muzhi sounded helpless. "There was just some chaos, and since I was caught up in it, I'm having a routine examination."
"Then..." Lailisi looked around the entire room. It was full of Alphas who appeared uninjured.
Qin Su wasn't among them.
"Where's Qin Su?"
They only knew there had been a disturbance; they hadn't had time to learn the details.
Although their contact with Qin Su... was practically nonexistent.
In their view, Qin Su wasn't the kind of person who would turn a blind eye to something happening in his class. After all... Qin Su had previously acted as a go-between for the Federation, allowing it to obtain Zerg data held by many formerly "hostile" planets.
Reliable and powerful.
Anthony saw Samuel's pink hair and pink eyes, identical to He Wenyuan's. He was already unhappy because he hadn't managed to test whether Qin Su's "strength" was real through his own efforts at the training ground, and now he was even more displeased.
Hearing the question, he didn't care whether Samuel had asked it. He sneered and said sarcastically, "He went back perfectly unscathed, of course. Did you think he'd end up in a place like this with the rest of us?"
If the suppressant fired from Qin Su's gun had entered his gland just one second later, he could have touched He Wenyuan's hand under the perfectly legitimate pretext of having been induced by pheromones.
Although Lailisi didn't understand what had happened, she could still tell his words were full of hostility. She folded her arms and said coldly, "Did anyone ask you?"
The other Alphas in the room had witnessed Qin Su's decisive, ruthless, and effective handling of the disturbance. Hearing Anthony's sarcastic words, they, who all admired strength to some degree, spoke up to refute him.
"Anthony, what's wrong with you?"
"If Qin Su hadn't calmly and quickly stepped in to help resolve everything, who knows whether something worse would have happened afterward?"
"Qin Su stayed away from the crowd and dealt with seventy percent of the rampaging Alphas and Omegas without getting close to the chaotic scene. According to the rules, he didn't need to come to the hospital for an examination at all."
Raymond also looked in disappointment at Anthony, his friend whose head had been turned by He Wenyuan from Class 7. "Anthony, Qin Su isn't here because he doesn't need to be. Understand?"
Anthony: "..."
Everyone in the room except him was on Qin Su's side. Rendered speechless by their retorts, Anthony's expression turned ugly, and he left the room on crutches with a dark look on his face.
As long as physical training classes continued, he would have plenty of opportunities.
While he was in a frenzy, he had fought with Betas and suffered a fracture when He Muzhi kicked him. He walked awkwardly.
Watching Anthony leave without a word, Raymond sighed in disappointment. "Looks like you still don't understand."
He Muzhi watched Anthony leave the room, looking troubled.
"You did that?" Lailisi noticed and ventured a guess.
He Muzhi nodded. "...Yeah."
At the time, Anthony had pounced on a pink-haired Omega like a starving tiger on its prey. He hadn't even seen who the Omega was before kicking Anthony in an emergency.
The next second, Qin Su had shot the suppressant into the back of Anthony's neck.
Does that count as Qin Su and me... working together for the first time?
The thought crossed He Muzhi's mind as he explained the whole sequence of events to his friends.
"Hahaha..." Lailisi burst out laughing and offered her assessment. "What an idiot. Serves him right."
"Wait, Class 7, pink hair?"
Lin Yin looked at Samuel, then thought of the only pink-haired Omega in Class 7 and the picture she had received during training. The corner of her mouth twitched.
So He Wenyuan's pitiful appearance hadn't been makeup. He'd gotten beaten up during the disturbance?
Lin Yin hadn't yet had a chance to tell everyone about the photo she had received from He Wenyuan.
"Yinyin, you're hiding something!" Lailisi leaned in close to Lin Yin, eager for gossip.
Looking at the exquisite face enlarged before her, its expression full of curiosity, Lin Yin thought for a moment, then looked at He Muzhi and nodded. "It's a picture. It's about you."
"Hm?" He Muzhi was puzzled.
Samuel tilted his head without speaking and, like the others, looked at Lin Yin in puzzlement.
Under her friends' gazes, Lin Yin said quietly, "Anyway, see for yourselves."
With that, Lin Yin opened her Optical Brain and showed it to her three friends.
In the chat window on the screen, from before she had been blocked, a familiar photograph came into view.
He Wenyuan looked miserable and pitiful in the photo. If it had been any other Omega, they would have felt sympathy without hesitation.
But it was He Wenyuan.
The lunatic who had once stopped at nothing to sow discord among them.
While they had still been preoccupied with "What should I eat tomorrow?", "What game should I play?", "Damn, this homework is hard," and "If Mom and Dad don't beat me for three days, I'll tear the roof off," He Wenyuan had already been ruthless enough to stab himself with a fork and jump from a tall building, then lie in water covered in blood, all to frame someone else.
The "him" in "show him" clearly referred to He Wenyuan.
The three of them: "..."
After a brief silence, under his friends' scorching gazes, and recalling Lin Yin's earlier expression, He Wenyuan finally caught on. "So... the person I saved was He Wenyuan?!"
The others couldn't see what was on Lin Yin's screen and were dying of curiosity. Hearing this, Raymond was puzzled.
"Huh?" Raymond looked at He Muzhi in confusion.
When the disturbance broke out, besides the sight of Qin Su coldly walking away, the image of He Muzhi, an S-rank Alpha, turning around to stop the crazed Alphas without hesitation had left just as deep an impression on him.
He had also heard Anthony complain several times that He Wenyuan had He Muzhi on his mind all the time.
He had thought the two of them were friends on good terms.
How could friends not know what each other's pheromones smelled like?
Now it sounded as though things weren't the way he had imagined. "You didn't know it was He Wenyuan's pheromones that caused the commotion?"
He Wenyuan: "...No."
He had only known that they were an Omega's pheromones.
Now that he knew, it didn't matter. He didn't regret it. He believed that, whoever it was, anyone would have done the same to prevent serious consequences.
Raymond: "..."
What a strange relationship. His CPU was fried.
Lin Yin: "So... the reason he asked me to show you this photo was that he misunderstood something about you?"
At that, Lailisi and Samuel looked at He Muzhi with obvious sympathy.
He Muzhi went rigid. A chill of revulsion ran through him, and he felt a little sick.
[...Hahahahaha, so that's the truth! So heartless, so well-reasoned, so deranged. I love it!]
[Looking forward to the day @Plague God learns the truth (doge)]
[He Wenyuan: So I'm the one in the wrong?]
[Heaven is a great screenwriter (doge)]
[Let's see who can still ship a cursed CP like the villain and the protagonist now.]
--
The real world.
His vision clear again, Qin Su glanced around the familiar, empty dorm room, then crouched down and picked up the paper documents that had dropped onto the floor when he crossed through space.
The dorm door was shut tight, Jiang Lu's desk and bed were both neat and tidy, and there was no sound from the bathroom. His roommate was clearly out.
There were still two hours until the first class. Before returning, Qin Su had drunk a nutrient solution in advance to avoid wasting time eating. Now he pulled out the chair at his desk and sat down.
He opened the documents and switched straight into workhorse mode, not allowing himself a moment's rest.
At 1:40, Qin Su closed the documents he hadn't finished reading and got out his textbook.
It was time. He had to head out and continue being a "workhorse" somewhere else.
--
The classroom.
Qin Su's classmates hadn't expected him to arrive five minutes earlier than usual today.
There was also a stack of documents on the desk in front of him, thicker than a textbook.
The documents lay open. Qin Su's eyes were lowered, hiding their expression, and the sunlight slanting in through the window cast a fan-shaped shadow from his long lashes onto the side of his high-bridged nose.
What's Qin Su reading? Qin Su, who was always the focus of gossip, easily piqued everyone's curiosity.
As he noticed his classmates' intermittent glances, Qin Su's phone, lying face down on the desk, vibrated.
There were two minutes left before class.
Qin Su looked away from the documents for the moment and picked up his phone. When he saw the message, his previously calm black eyes widened for an instant.
[Cat head]