Ke Mingqing and His Fellow Player Accomplice

After arriving at school, Ke Mingqing and Jiang Qingzi parted ways in the teaching building's corridor.

Jiang Qingzi was in the top students' Class Two next door, while he was in Class Three. Ke Mingqing had only just put his backpack into his desk when Hitomi Kuroki entered the classroom as well.

He sat by the window in the second row, with only an aisle separating his seat from Hitomi Kuroki's.

So during class, he would occasionally zone out, prop his chin on his hand, turn his head, and mockingly admire the player ID floating above Hitomi Kuroki's head.

Ke Mingqing thought it looked ridiculously stupid. Fortunately, he would not have one in the future—his exclusive talent, The Disguiser, would hide his player ID.

Sometimes, Hitomi Kuroki would turn her head, blink, and meet his gaze, apparently mistaking it for him looking at her.

As soon as the dismissal bell rang, Ke Mingqing would use the remaining break time to drop to the floor and do a few push-ups. By the afternoon, he had finally fulfilled the requirements for his weekly mission.

[Congratulations, you have completed Weekly Mission 1—"Complete one hundred push-ups in a single day".]

[Mission reward obtained: 1 attribute point.]

Ke Mingqing looked at the prompt, clapped his hands, and got up from the floor.

The students in the classroom gave him strange looks. They all seemed to think he was nursing a grudge and working out so he could take down Rain Crow on the school bus next time.

Ke Mingqing did not care. He simply opened his attribute panel and assigned the newly acquired attribute point with a flick of his finger.

[Congratulations, your attribute "Strength" has increased from Rank E to Rank E+ (↑1 point)]

[Your current attributes are: Strength: Rank E+; Agility: Rank E+; Spirit: Rank E.]

Time passed quietly, and Class Three's final lesson was PE.

With summer vacation approaching, PE classes generally had no real schedule. The students were currently sitting on the grass field, aimlessly basking in the sun. The setting sun outlined their figures with a faint golden glow.

Meanwhile, the classroom was silent, with only Ke Mingqing and Hitomi Kuroki keeping each other company.

Both had taken sick leave. They stood with their backs against the wall, a short distance apart.

Hitomi Kuroki shared one side of her earphones with him. They each wore one earbud and listened to music, an MP3 playing a piano piece.

Hitomi Kuroki said it was her favorite piano piece, called Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

But this parallel world did not have that song, so she had played it on the piano at home the previous night and recorded it herself. Then she saved the recording onto the MP3.

According to her, the composer of the piece had already died.

Ke Mingqing was not interested. He merely listened quietly. The sunset streamed in through the window, orange light washing over their cheeks.

She played beautifully. As expected of someone who had received an elite education from childhood.

Still, being able to indulge in melancholy when she had only half a year left to live was something only a rich young lady could manage.

After a while, Ke Mingqing suddenly took off his earbud and casually asked, "By the way... didn't you say this morning that you had a magical girl at home?"

Hitomi Kuroki removed her earbud and nodded.

"Yes, the magical girl Little Red Riding Hood."

Ke Mingqing recognized the name. This Little Red Riding Hood seemed to be his little sister's teammate.

The company would group new magical girls into teams for trial training.

Teams that performed poorly would be demoted to the idol scene, forced onto the "girl idol route" to make money. Teams that performed well would take the "elite route," slaying demons, eliminating monsters, and fighting criminals.

Ember and Little Red Riding Hood had clearly taken the latter path. The two were often inseparable in news coverage, bound together like conjoined twins... except for these past few days, because Xia Zili had been shelved by the magical girl company.

"She's a maid in my household," Hitomi Kuroki said.

"A maid?" Ke Mingqing was puzzled. "Comrade, this is twenty-first-century China. Could you stop sleepwalking?"

"More accurately, she's a servant. She came over from Japan with us."

"Oh, then it's not strange." Ke Mingqing suddenly understood. The word Japan alone is enough to explain most things that sound absurd.

Hitomi Kuroki clasped her hands behind her back, lowered her head, and leaned against the window as she spoke softly.

"One of her parents was Chinese, and the other was Japanese. After her father died of illness, her mother abandoned her too. Then my family took her in, and she became our servant. I've known her since we were young, and she's very loyal to me."

Ke Mingqing said carelessly, "Isn't that great? You've got an utterly loyal superhuman bodyguard. Maybe when the day comes that you need to kill her, she'll stretch out her own neck for you."

Hitomi Kuroki fell silent.

Ke Mingqing was silent for a while too. He knew Hitomi Kuroki still could not accept the mission to "exterminate superhumans." Rather, anyone who had received a normal emotional upbringing would find it hard to accept such a thing.

"I told you before, the environment I'm in is very complicated. Anyone who knows my identity can have me killed at any time." He paused. "And now, you're the only one who knows I'm a player."

"I won't betray you."

The girl with the beauty mark beneath her eye moved her lips. Her answer was quick and brief.

"You can't betray me anyway," Ke Mingqing warned. "Because if I'm ever caught, they'll definitely force information about the other players out of me. When that happens, you'll be implicated too."

"So... we're accomplices?" After a moment of silence, she asked quietly.

Why do Japanese people love the word "accomplices" so much? Do they think it has some kind of wistful charm? But I'm Chinese. I only do Chinese kung fu. I'm not joining you in being melodramatic.

Yet at that moment, a sudden gust of wind lifted the classroom curtains. The snow-white, nearly transparent fabric covered the face of the girl with the beauty mark as she lowered her eyes and softly asked, "Aren't we?"

Ke Mingqing could not make out Hitomi Kuroki's expression. He merely shrugged and gave a perfunctory reply in a low voice.

"I suppose."

As he spoke, he turned to glance outside. The Ferris wheel in the distance rotated slowly, while the field was empty.

PE class was almost over. Just then, a group of sweaty students suddenly ran into the classroom, breaking the brief tranquility between them.

The tall boy at the front wiped the sweat from his forehead. When he looked up and saw them, his eyebrows shot up as he said, "Oh, so the two of you took sick leave to flirt in the classroom? That explains it."

The others immediately joined in the teasing.

Ke Mingqing merely glanced at them and ignored them, but Hitomi Kuroki beside him then said something startling.

"Yes, we're dating."

The classroom went silent for a moment. Even Ke Mingqing was stunned.

That group quickly ran off amid jeers, apparently intending to spread the news through the entire class at once—no, through the entire grade.

After all, Ke Mingqing was currently the focus of the entire school. With Hitomi Kuroki adding fuel to the fire like this, the school bus incident would soon be retold as a married couple fighting monsters together.

After a while, once the classroom was mostly empty, Ke Mingqing finally turned to look at Hitomi Kuroki.

"Do you think this will serve as cover?" He thought for a moment before asking.

"Yes." Hitomi Kuroki nodded. "Other than at school, we may need to be seen together elsewhere too."

"That works. It'll make it easier for me to explain things to my family. I can just say I'm going out on a date with my girlfriend."

At dusk that day, once the final bell rang, Ke Mingqing immediately slung his backpack over his shoulder and left the classroom, intending to get home as quickly as possible.

After all, he had something planned for that night: he would use the Theater Puppet to meet the magical girl Ember.