What Li Ming hadn't expected was that following Raiden Ryoma around with Yae was little more than sightseeing. Raiden Ryoma even bought tickets for some attractions, covering their food and lodging along the way and letting them play wherever they liked. The only issue was that Yae was still young and not very familiar with Shenzhou language, so Li Ming usually translated for her.
Even so, Li Ming felt like he was an extra child Raiden Ryoma had brought along. Still, he didn't feel guilty about it. He would remember the favor, and if anything happened, he wouldn't back down in the slightest.
But Li Ming hadn't actually been loafing around every day these past few days. He had been practicing the excellent sewing skills he had learned from Mama Aponia in the Elysian Realm.
Given Mama Aponia's status, with so many children in the orphanage, damaged clothes couldn't always be replaced with new ones. Mending and patching were common occurrences, even though Aponia herself ran the orphanage.
Over the past few days, Li Ming had also taken on two missions. One was helping Mobius look after an experimental subject for a day, raising Mobius's affection by 10. The other was helping Sakura take care of her younger sister, raising Sakura's affection by 10.
Li Ming had originally wanted to ask Mobius how to solve the problem of Honkai corruption. Then Mobius proposed three solutions based on the topics of Honkai corruption and Honkai disease, along with several case studies. She even suggested different formulas for different solutions. By the end, Li Ming's head was spinning.
Mobius also said that if he wanted to deal with the Honkai Energy in his body, she would need to discuss a specific solution with Su.
But Li Ming had to find all the materials himself. Faced with that huge pile of required materials, Li Ming merely had Mobius leave him a list before fleeing in defeat.
And when he saw Rin, honestly, he couldn't understand how Sakura had brought her younger sister in. In the normal Elysian Realm, Sakura had died the earliest. Judging from the plot, Sakura's cause of death meant that her younger sister should never have had the chance to enter the Elysian Realm either.
After thinking for a long time without figuring it out, Li Ming could only assume his Elysian Realm had bugged out. After all, he had clearly loaded a Honkai Impact 3rd system, yet he had never seen any story missions or other missions—not even beginner missions. Otherwise, he would definitely have shown Ai Yi how a hopelessly unlucky player had to hit pity just to pull Herrschers.
Still, despite completing missions, Li Ming truly felt as if he had returned home whenever he entered the Elysian Realm. It was as though he had not arrived in the Elysian Realm at all, but in Golden Courtyard.
Come to think of it, he still hadn't met the superstar Eden after arriving in the Elysian Realm, had he?
Shaking his head, Li Ming looked at the Signet of Infinity in his left hand and the Signet of Setsuna in his right. The signets did not normally appear; they only glowed faintly after Li Ming activated them.
Chaotic Hundred Flowers [Plum]: After an Ultimate Evasion, attack speed and movement speed increase by 40% for eight seconds.
Dark-Eyed T: Summoned creatures' energy recovery speed increases by 75%.
The Signet of Infinity was somewhat useless, because he still had no idea what counted as a summoned creature. Forget summoned creatures—he had not even seen a puppet before.
But the Signet of Setsuna was quite useful. Li Ming often practiced swordsmanship with Yae when he had free time. Yae inherited Hokushin Itto-ryu and excelled at cutting down attacks. She was also exceptionally gifted, receiving her Menkyo Kaiden at a young age. Though the current Yae had not yet obtained it, her technique was already superb.
During these days of sparring with Yae, Li Ming had no particular thoughts beyond one thing: getting hit on the hand by a cut-down attack really hurt. To avoid being struck on the hand, Li Ming had diligently trained his Ultimate Evasion. It was now very difficult for Yae to hit him.
An eighteen-year-old bullying a girl not even six years old—he really had no shame.
But that did not affect Li Ming's smug satisfaction. Sparring with Yae had even allowed him to occasionally dodge one or two moves when facing Sakura in practice.
That made Sakura think more highly of him. Hua, meanwhile, intensified his training considerably, because she discovered that after not seeing Li Ming for several days, not only had his physical fitness improved rapidly, but his mastery of the Inch Punch Fist Style had also gradually become more proficient.
Thus, Hua developed a desire to nurture talent and nearly taught him everything she knew. The price was that after entering the Elysian Realm, Li Ming had nowhere to hide except Aponia's place, where he could get some peace and quiet.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Li Ming looked at the somewhat damaged doll in his hands, now fully mended, and felt a deep sense of accomplishment.
Aponia also glanced at the doll in Li Ming's hands. A faint smile appeared on her face as she softly said, "Nicely sewn."
Li Ming smiled happily as well, but then Hua's voice suddenly came from outside the door. His face instantly went pale. "Sister Aponia, I'm leaving first. If Hua asks, just tell her you don't know."
Aponia's narrowed eyes brimmed with amusement as she nodded at Li Ming.
"Aponia, have you seen Ming?"
"No. He did just say not to tell you, though." Aponia smiled faintly, then suddenly seemed to remember something. "Hua, I have something I'd like to ask your help with. Do you have time in a few days?"
Li Ming had never expected the gentle big sister Aponia to betray him so directly.
But Li Ming had already left the Elysian Realm by then, so Hua could not catch him even if she came.
After coming out, Li Ming collected himself. When he entered the Elysian Realm, the time ratio between it and reality was 1:1440, measured in minutes. He had spent seven days in the Elysian Realm, which meant only seven minutes had passed outside. But when he was outside, the flow of time in the Elysian Realm was less certain. Sometimes several days passed, and sometimes only a few minutes.
Over these six days, he had accumulated 144 stamina bottles. Adding the nine bottles from the first day, subtracting the 45 bottles spent on three missions and the 90 bottles spent over a month, he had 18 bottles left. That should leave him enough time when Kitten's mission came around.
But thinking about Kitten's unfinished mission made him feel gloomy. Although missions would not activate before he came into contact with the relevant person, recruiting Mobius back then had required him to search through more than half the Elysian Realm.
Even so, Li Ming had completed the mission. It was just that he always felt there had been something off about the way Mobius looked at him then.
Still, Li Ming had learned quite a lot from Mobius, such as the formula for Fluid Alloy.
That counted as an unexpected gain.
Li Ming gathered his thoughts and looked at the doll in his hand. This was the result of studying with Aponia for a month. At a glance, the purple doll looked remarkably like Yae.
Li Ming had been sewing this doll for quite a while. Only after learning the necessary skills from Aponia had he thought of gradually improving it. He stitched a little every night and only finished the final seams today.
Looking at the Yae doll in his hand, he felt it was a little ugly, but it was not too far off. He was a guy, after all. Being able to sew underwear was already impressive enough. If people found out he could sew cloth dolls too, they would probably call him the king of competitive overachievers.
Of course, Li Ming only wanted to tease Yae a little and make her happy because she was cute. Otherwise, even his girlfriend would not get this treatment. (You're overthinking it. You don't have a girlfriend.)
The next day, Li Ming got up early at five-thirty, even earlier than a normal eight o'clock class.
Since they were staying in a hotel and had booked a presidential suite, Yae had a separate room to herself while Li Ming slept in the bodyguard's room.
Li Ming's original body had always been accustomed to getting up early. Now that those memories had been poured into his mind, he felt strange. His mind still wanted to sleep, but his body was shouting for him to get up.
Li Ming went out to the balcony and began practicing his fists. Yae usually did not wake until eight or nine, while Raiden Ryoma rose earlier and would occasionally see him practicing.
But unlike Su Qizhe, Raiden Ryoma was not particularly curious about martial arts. Though he clearly had the foundation of regular training, it was more like a systematic exercise regimen.
He did not find much interest in watching Li Ming practice martial arts and boxing.
However, he often discussed academic matters with Li Ming while Li Ming rested.
Li Ming's original body had studied engineering, and Li Ming's own major had also been engineering.
So while he could not wield certain knowledge as easily as his own limbs, he could at least recite it from textbooks.
But Raiden Ryoma's knowledge was clearly far greater than Li Ming's. Many things gave Li Ming the feeling that they were impressive despite him not understanding them. He would make note of them and ask Mobius later.
After getting answers from Mobius, Li Ming would quietly memorize them. When Raiden Ryoma asked again, he could offer a response. This made Raiden Ryoma feel that Li Ming was quite talented. Although his knowledge base was lacking, he was very diligent.
"So, Xiao Ming, what do you think can be done regarding the design and optimization of this core?"
"Uncle Ryoma, you're making things difficult for me. But I think we could consider improving the casing material, as well as adjusting the angle of rotation and pressure angle in the design. That should improve the kinetic energy conversion efficiency."
"You have some ideas, but you're still a little short. All right, let's eat. Li Ming, go call her."
Naturally, he was not asking Li Ming to wake Yae. He was asking Li Ming to order breakfast. For a daughter-con like Raiden Ryoma, he had to handle that sort of thing himself.
Raiden Ryoma and Yae's tastes were usually light, likely because of the customs on the Eastern Isles.
Still, they had somewhat adapted to local customs and had no real dietary restrictions. They could eat heavily seasoned food too, and occasionally even down two big bottles with Li Ming.
Li Ming's unpretentious personality was also something Raiden Ryoma liked very much.
Even so, Raiden Ryoma guarded against Li Ming as though he were protecting his own cabbage from being rooted up by a pig. It left Li Ming rather helpless whenever he took Yae out to play. This company president seemed oddly childish instead.
Li Ming used the room phone to have a waiter order breakfast, then saw Raiden Ryoma carrying out a still sleepy-eyed Yae and coaxing her to go wash up.
Li Ming hurried back to his own bedroom and took out the Yae doll he had sewn, hiding it behind his back.
After Yae came out from washing up, Li Ming smiled at her. Raiden Ryoma immediately felt that this boy was looking at his daughter with ill intent.
"Hehe, Yae, look what this is."
Yae rubbed her sleepy eyes and looked at Li Ming with confusion. Then the object before her came into focus, and she said in astonishment, "Brother Li Ming, is this for Yae? It looks so much like Yae!"
"This is a surprise Brother prepared for Yae. Do you like it?"
Her purple eyes sparkled. "Thank you, Brother Li Ming!"
Seeing Yae's eyes practically turn into stars, Li Ming felt his heart melt.
But Raiden Ryoma's expression was quite subtle. He had a smile on his face, but there was an indescribable meaning in his eyes.
Were Shenzhou men all this competitive? He had thought he was already doing quite well, but he had not expected someone to use the move of making a doll by hand?
Competitive. Way too competitive.
At that moment, Raiden Ryoma looked at Li Ming as though he were a lifelong rival.
Not long afterward, breakfast arrived, and the three sat around the dining table.
After getting the doll, Yae could not put it down. Her eyes never left it, and she fiddled with it from time to time even while eating.
As a result, Li Ming was unusually scolded by Raiden Ryoma a couple of times. But Li Ming felt that Raiden Ryoma was simply taking revenge through official channels.
Yet Raiden Ryoma merely kept his usual faint smile, giving nothing away. He was only a little strange whenever he spoke to Li Ming.
For example:
"The ice cream is here."
"I also wanted to try avocado and strawberry flavors."
"The owner said there's no avocado flavor. This is strawberry."
"Thanks for the effort, Xiao Ming. But I think Yae wants some too, so sorry for the trouble, but could you make another trip?"
"Okay..."
Things like that.
Li Ming was completely numb, but thankfully there was no grudge carried overnight. Otherwise, he felt he would have to show Raiden Ryoma what modern college student rebellion looked like.
Without credits and internship certificates holding me back, who in this world could stand against me?
A mere company president? With my dual-wielded Moon God's Protection, I could cut down Ryoma beneath his horse.
But he was only joking and did not take it seriously.
A week passed quickly. Sometimes, when they arrived in a new city and Raiden Ryoma was too busy to take them out, he would simply give Li Ming a card and have him take Yae out to play.
Was he worried? What a joke. After Raiden Ryoma saw Li Ming's record on file, he was incredibly reassured. Honestly, if it were not inconvenient, Raiden Ryoma would have wanted to outfit Li Ming with armor.
But after seeing that Li Ming had some insight into and interest in materials and machinery, he felt he could give Li Ming a platform and more opportunities to gain experience and study.
Though if he knew Su Qizhe had the same idea, Raiden Ryoma might not have felt the same.
Looking over Li Ming's records and then at the scene outside the window of Li Ming sparring with Yae, he felt utterly reassured inside.
Before you continue