After Today, Let's Never Meet Again

Unfortunately, Director Fu ultimately failed to shoot that little bastard as he had wished.

In any case, after questioning him repeatedly, Director Fu spared Huai Shi for the Astronomical Society's sake. But before leaving, he warned him again and again, "Remember, stay away from my daughter."

"Sure, sure."

Huai Shi nodded frantically, forcing a stiff smile as he watched Director Fu leave.

The opening ceremony had barely ended when the girl blocked Huai Shi at the classroom door, dragged him aside, and reached into his pocket for his phone. "Bro, hurry up and carry me... I'm almost down to Bronze. My whole shut-in goddess persona is about to collapse."

"Miss Fu, don't be like this—"

Huai Shi weakly pushed her hand away, his face flushing. "I've turned over a new leaf."

"Don't worry. If I'm not paying you, it doesn't count as prostitution."

Gone was the sweet innocence she displayed around her father. With the little white rabbit mask off, veteran driver Fu Yi was back in full gear, smoothly steering the conversation into filth. "Get me back to Diamond, and I'll handle your attendance for the next two weeks. The student council's been cracking down hard lately. You don't want to get publicly called out, do you?"

Huai Shi rolled his eyes.

Although he was an arts student, the school still had attendance requirements. Without Fu Yi's help, Huai Shi really would have had trouble dealing with them.

But when he remembered Director Fu's expression before leaving, Huai Shi couldn't help but shrink back.

If your dad finds out you secretly livestream mobile games in the arts room during evening study hall, and that I'm your accomplice, will he send out the Ascender suppression squads to wipe me out?

Besides, which of your fans didn't know you sucked? Every time you switched to me, the chat was flooded with comments welcoming the boosting bro online, okay?

"Fine, I'll talk to you later. Don't run off..."

Seeing the homeroom teacher coming upstairs to hold a class meeting, Fu Yi hurried back into the classroom. Before leaving, she pressed her palms together in pleading, blinked, and stuck out her little tongue.

Normally, she had already cringed herself silly in private, but when she maliciously acted cute, she was smoother at it than anyone.

Huai Shi rolled his eyes. His heart remained utterly still. In fact, he even wanted to run.

How could he not run?

If he didn't, Director Fu would send him straight to the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium!

He might even have to buy himself an urn while he was at it!

So, halfway through the class meeting, Huai Shi seized the moment when the homeroom teacher got distracted and decisively slipped away.

Yet the instant he stepped outside, he heard Class Monitor Fu slam the desk in fury from inside the classroom. "Teacher, that bastard Huai Shi ran off again!"

Fine, both you father and daughter are leaders. I can't afford to offend either of you...

Then he ran even faster.

In Huai Shi's memory, the school had always been very lax in its management of arts students.

Perhaps it was also because its college admission rate had never been particularly impressive. Aside from recruiting a large number of repeat students every year, the school gave plenty of preferential treatment to arts students, who had a much easier time getting into college.

As long as the numbers on the banner hung outside the school after the annual college entrance exam results came out looked good enough, nothing else really mattered.

Moreover, Huai Shi had always performed fairly well. He never caused trouble, his cello grades were excellent, and after he promised to work hard on his academic subjects next semester, the academic affairs office readily issued him a certificate, granting him the privileges of an arts student—wandering around during class, loafing about whenever he had nothing to do, and immediately vanishing whenever classroom duty or anything similar came up...

To students studying so hard for the college entrance exams that they were practically coughing blood, such an obnoxious creature was basically a campus stray dog...

Even Huai Shi had not expected getting the certificate to be so easy.

Everyone else needed an art studio or music room teacher to guarantee and sign for them before they could leave. Why did it seem as though they could not wait to stuff the certificate into his hands?

What he did not know was that a middle-aged man staring at him through the surveillance cameras desperately wanted him to get the hell out of the classroom and stay as far away from his precious daughter as possible.

All that could be said was that middle-aged uncles ready to call in sniper warnings at any time were truly terrifying.

Having understood at least some of it, Huai Shi shook his head and sighed. He felt that his privacy had been violated, but when he looked at the cameras on the walls swiveling one hundred and eighty degrees to track him, and thought of all those big guys with their guns and cannons... he decided to let it go.

It was not as if being watched would cost him a piece of flesh.

Anyway, from now on, he would skip class whenever he had something to do, and when he did not, he would basically stay in the music room. Thanks to Huai Shi's consistently excellent cello grades and certificates from all sorts of competitions, the school had opened a small back door for him in this regard.

For instance, he had a private compartment in the music room that was not particularly cramped, so he did not need to queue up for time like everyone else.

After all, he was the only cello player in the school.

After entering and cleaning up the dust that had piled up over the summer break, Huai Shi opened his cello case and skillfully... started slacking off.

Practicing in the music room?

No way!

Right above his compartment was the teachers' office, where the Wi-Fi was ridiculously fast. Videos never lagged, unlike the broadband Crow had secretly installed, which was sometimes slow and always made him nervous to use.

He first habitually browsed the local news. It was mostly promotional articles like "All Sparrow Feast Takes New Sea by Storm, Business Booming, Tables Impossible to Book," with the occasional unfortunate report about grave robbers appearing in the city and digging up public cemeteries.

He closed it after reading for a few minutes.

Wanting to kill time, he simply opened the Silent Crown client. He had not logged in for a long time, and after downloading a sizable update package, a pop-up appeared.

Limited-Time Event: Dark World · Dragon's Maze City!

Through the exploration of the pioneering team, a bizarre tip of the iceberg had emerged from Yamatai, the mysterious kingdom hidden deep within the Dark World.

What mysteries lay hidden within a nation dead for a thousand years? What treasures were buried beneath ruins occupied by calamities?

Heaven and Earth's Great Power · Divine Ability Unbound—Calamity · White Emperor Child (SSR) had joined the limited-time gacha pool...

Another sudden major update: hundreds of thousands of words of original story content, plus enough currency for three ten-pulls. Looking at the drop list, there were also quite a few precious items that could be obtained easily... Was the development team insane to be this generous?

Unfortunately, the SSR drop rate in this game was simply heartbreaking. Huai Shi had terrible luck and could not bear to spend money. By now, the official release had included more than thirty SSRs, yet he only had one: Yan Qingge, the clone hero automatically given to him by the developers after he earned the African Medal. Her title sounded impressive enough—"Or Self-Fortifying Body · The Cloud's Color Is Me"—but unfortunately, she was a support. Her damage output was atrocious, and in high-rank matches, she could only feed.

Still, the newly released girl was fucking gorgeous. Her character setting seemed to be that of an airheaded athletic girl, and her fully upgraded art was amazing enough to make Huai Shi want to spend money.

Clinging to a sliver of hope, he did a ten-pull, only to see a sky full of blue and white... Great. Another hundred stones donated to that scammer Charles.

Before he could even close the game, there was a bang as the door was kicked open. A petite figure walked in and casually sat down on the little sofa opposite Huai Shi.

"Quick, I'll carry you up the ranks!"

It was Fu Yi.

This place had practically become her base. Even the little sofa had been moved here from the student council office, and in the corner was a large power strip plugged into a whole pile of her handheld consoles for convenient charging.

If moving a television had not been so inconvenient, she probably would have brought over two home consoles as well.

Huai Shi rolled his eyes. "Skipping class again?"

"When you skip class, it's called skipping class. When I, the student council secretary, skip class, does that count as skipping class?"

Fu Yi gave him a sidelong glance. "Besides, I'm going to the art studio for closed training next week. Leaving early doesn't matter. Isn't ranking up more worthwhile than wasting time?"

As she spoke, she opened the game without waiting for Huai Shi to react, pulled him into her party, and started a duo queue.

After the popularity of the battle royale-style King of the Dark Zone mode declined, the shitty Silent Crown game had recently added a MOBA-style Conflict mode and begun another cheerful round of selling skins to fleece players.

Fu Yi's skill was actually not bad. After all, she was a moderately popular amateur streamer. Aside from relying on her looks, her controls were at least passable. But she was too reckless, loved flashy plays, and insisted on playing ADC. Nine games out of ten, she was a disaster. By sheer coincidence, it made for excellent entertainment, and she had somehow scammed quite a few rockets from viewers.

The moment they entered the match, she instantly locked in Hand of God, and their teammates went insane.

This sort of acrobatic late-game character was unmatched once she got rolling, but in the early game, she was utterly useless. More than once, players had complained that the developers had designed the hero badly. She was too easy to counter, and surviving until the late game depended entirely on luck.

"You're already throwing?"

Huai Shi sighed and could only choose Moon Chant as support. "Fine. Who told your daddy he loves you?"

Then, as expected, they lost five games in a row.

Not only did Fu Yi successfully fall below Bronze, but Huai Shi's rank got dragged down with her. Huai Shi had declined too badly. After not playing for over a month, he had barely been able to carry her before, but now he could only become one half of a double disaster alongside her.

After several ranked matches, Huai Shi rejected her invitation for another round and turned off his phone.

Like it was some post-coital routine, Fu Yi skillfully dug one out from where Huai Shi had hidden ■ in his cello case. After ■ one for herself, she tossed one to Huai Shi.

With her legs crossed as she ■, she had all the swagger of a bully. There was not the slightest trace of the snow-white little bunny she had been at school that morning. If Director Fu knew, he would probably order Huai Shi shot on the spot.

Heaven knew that Huai Shi had learned to ■ from Fu Yi herself.

What couldn't this veteran driver do?

Huai Shi hesitated, then finally waved his hand weakly. Gazing sadly at the sunlight outside the window, he looked like an abandoned mistress as he said in a resentful tone:

"After today, let's never meet again."

"What are you afraid of?"

Fu Yi grinned in delight at his misfortune. "Afraid he'll break your legs?"

Huai Shi froze.

"Has he actually done that before?"

"He has."

With ■ between her lips, Fu Yi used her freed hands to sweep her long hair behind her ears and tie it back into a ponytail. "The last time he found a love letter in my bag, he broke the legs of the guy who confessed to me.

I hadn't even gotten to enjoy the feeling of being pursued before none of the boys in class dared to speak to me anymore."

Huai Shi stared at her in shock. "What happened afterward?"

Fu Yi shrugged. "Afterward, my mom divorced him. Domestic violence. I went with my mom, so he can't control me anymore."

"..."

Huai Shi was stunned for a long time before sighing helplessly. "Sorry."

Curiosity killed the cat.

Huai Shi had never been interested in other people's circumstances. He had gotten curious just this once, and he had stepped on a landmine.

"It's fine." Though Fu Yi did not continue, she did not seem to mind either. She merely waved her hand. "I'd only tell you because you were the one asking."

"Then I guess I'm unlucky."

Huai Shi shook his head, leaned his face closer, and crooked a finger at Fu Yi. Fu Yi rolled her eyes at him, handed over the lighter, and flicked it on with a click.

The flame, turned up to its highest setting, nearly set Huai Shi's hair on fire.

Seeing Huai Shi's bedraggled appearance, she smugly slapped her knee and burst into laughter.

Only in places without anyone else around would she reveal this side of herself beyond the image of a proper young lady. Otherwise, she was always well-behaved and serious, keeping her distance from every boy and every harmful thing.

She was exactly like the good daughter in every parent's heart, the student council secretary in every teacher's heart, and the class monitor in every student's heart.

Every family had its own hard truths, after all.

Huai Shi sighed, brushed aside a singed lock of hair from his forehead, and said nothing more.

If people really needed to show one another respect, then there was no better way than keeping their distance. Life was already awful enough. There was no need to stand above someone else's life and point fingers.

Among so many classmates, if she wanted to make friends, she would always have choices better than him. Wasn't the reason this imperfect friendship had survived until now precisely because of the distance they tacitly maintained?

Among all those classmates, she was the only one Huai Shi had never envied.

Fu Yi had told him as much during the school anniversary rehearsal.

"Because I realized that you're nice to everyone, and you can talk to anyone, but I don't think you actually want to be well-liked. You must not like anyone."

She said, "Because I'm the same."

So having a corner like this, where the two of them could be miserable together, was not so bad.

Birds of a feather flocked together. To some extent, aside from gathering on the same forum to take fake medicine, sick people would surely also have places like support groups for fellow patients.

Huai Shi could not possibly drive her away just because she had an intimidating father.

The edits are done. Don't ask me what ■ is, because I don't know either. Just assume Huai Shi and Fu Yi were under too much pre-exam pressure and were burning incense for Buddha!

Only one update today for now. I'm a bit stuck on the writing.