I've Still Got Your Back!

Meng Qi: You're claiming family ties out of nowhere. How could someone as handsome as the Great Emperor be your Big Shot?

Yan Chixia: ???

Bibi Dong: ???

Zhang Sanfeng: Little Meng, blink if you've been kidnapped.

Daigu Madoka: Little Meng, is someone holding a knife to your throat and making you say that?

Yao Chen: Good grief, the sun must have risen in the west.

Zhang Sanfeng: Did Old Yao secretly pick up that line from Xiao Yan? Good grief, this is something else.

Meng Qi gave a disdainful smile as he watched the group members, who still hadn't grasped how serious things were.

No one's holding a knife to my throat now, but if the Great Emperor can visit Lu Mingfei's world, he's probably mastered travel between worlds. That means he can visit the other group members' worlds too. If I don't butter him up now, am I supposed to wait until there really is a knife at my throat? Fools!

Everyone else is drunk, but I alone am sober. Being bald really does help you think!

Meng Qi felt smug, certain he was ten steps ahead. He had no idea that, of everyone in the group, he was the only one who constantly jumped around making a spectacle of himself. In the future, even after all this flattery, he would be the only one with a knife at his throat. The others had no reason to worry at all.

So "they're all watching me" just means you're livestreaming again! Meng. Streamer. Chuan!

Lu Mingfei had mixed feelings. After those expressions he'd made and the things he'd said, he knew he would probably become the group's second most-used reaction image.

As for who held first place...

The Great Emperor. A god, now and forever!

“B-big shot, what are you doing here?” Lu Mingfei decided to see this through to the bitter end. Calling him “Big Shot” was better than calling him “Great Emperor.” Gaining a relative was better than enduring dozens of looks that said he had a bad case of chuunibyou, not to mention becoming the subject of a legend about some chuunibyou upperclassman passed down through countless classes at Shilan High School.

"The situation is critical. Little Meng doesn't have much time left. Everyone's waiting for you." Meng Chuan's face was grave. His words and expression made it seem as though the sky was about to fall and only Lu Mingfei could hold it up.

Lu Mingfei froze. So did everyone in the screening room. They looked from him to Meng Chuan and back again. They heard the weight in Meng Chuan's words and sensed his authority, along with an air that made people instinctively want to submit. Their imaginations went to work. Some thought Lu Mingfei might belong to a secret organization.

When they recalled how much Lu Mingfei had changed over the past two months, that absurd guess began to seem a little more believable.

"W-what happened to Little Meng?" Facing Meng Chuan, Lu Mingfei thought of several terrible possibilities. His expression changed, and his question came out in a stammer.

This Little Meng must be incredibly important to Lu Mingfei! Maybe he's the one who brought him into that mysterious organization!

He was important, all right. After all, they were two wild horses running neck and neck...

Seeing Lu Mingfei's uneasy expression, his classmates let their imaginations run wild.

Meng Chuan ignored Lu Mingfei and turned his gaze to the classmates around him.

"Everyone, our S-rank has something to attend to tonight. Would you mind letting him leave the party early?" It was phrased as a question, but everyone heard the unspoken warning: say no, and you would destroy the world's last chance at salvation.

They all nodded without thinking, afraid that if they refused, the man before them would pull a blade from behind his back, cut off their heads, and say coldly:

"Are you the one who wants to destroy the world's hope?"

"S-rank?" someone asked quietly. It was Zhao Menghua. He worried he might offend the man, but he couldn't understand how Lu Mingfei had suddenly changed so much. First he'd become a top student, then he'd gotten eight-pack abs, and now he belonged to a mysterious organization?

"Lu Mingfei's rank. A rank that belongs to him alone."

What Zhao Menghua feared—that the man would give him a cold look and say, "Classified organization business. No comment!"—didn't happen.

The man had actually explained it to him. For a moment, Zhao Menghua even thought Meng Chuan was a good person.

"Then you should go, Lu Mingfei. What you're doing is more important." Sitting beside Lu Mingfei, Su Xiaoqiang stole a glance at Meng Chuan, quickly looked away, and spoke in a low voice.

"Okay, okay." Lu Mingfei nodded and took a few steps toward Meng Chuan, then turned back and bowed to his classmates.

"Sorry, everyone. I have to leave early today. Have fun!"

The two moved quickly and soon reached the cinema entrance. A car was parked outside: a Ferrari as red as flame.

"Great Emperor, what happened? What's wrong with Little Meng? Why is everyone waiting for me?" Lu Mingfei looked around and, finding no one nearby, asked in a low voice.

It was clear that Lu Mingfei had fully settled into the role of an undercover agent.

Meng Chuan's face remained stern. As he looked at Lu Mingfei, Lu Mingfei began to fear something terrible had happened. Maybe the Chat Group was on the verge of breaking apart.

What if "they're all watching me" didn't mean a livestream, but...

Perhaps the Great Emperor had come to tell him to divide up the luggage and go back to Gao Village.

Lu Mingfei saw nothing wrong with the thought of himself going back to Gao Village.

"I came to your world at the request of every group member. There's something very important I need to tell you," Meng Chuan said, looking at him.

Lu Mingfei grew even more certain of his guess.

"Everyone asked me to tell you..."

"Tell me..."

"What happened, Great Emperor? Whatever it is, I can take it!" Lu Mingfei somehow managed to look ready to face death without flinching.

"Happy graduation, Lu Mingfei!" Meng Chuan suddenly broke into a toothy grin.

"I'll live and die with the Chat Group!" Lu Mingfei roared the moment Meng Chuan finished speaking.

Meng Chuan: ???

Meng Chuan went blank. What was going on? How had "happy graduation" turned into "live and die with the Chat Group"?

Lu Mingfei went blank too. He'd reacted so fast that he only processed what Meng Chuan had said after shouting.

"Great Emperor, that's what everyone asked you to tell me?"

Meng Chuan felt Lu Mingfei's forehead to check for a fever. His temperature was normal. Meng Chuan looked him up and down, then said, "What else? Did you expect me to say, 'Mingfei, your Chat Group is dead'?"

Lu Mingfei opened the Chat Group. Message after message wished him a happy graduation, with a few disgruntled protests from a certain Little Baldy mixed in.

Lu Mingfei suddenly thumped Meng Chuan on the chest. He raised his head, his voice a little muffled.

"I thought..."

"I thought something really had happened to the Chat Group."

Seeing him like that, Meng Chuan hooked an arm around Lu Mingfei's neck and pulled him off balance.

"Everyone's doing fine. What could possibly go wrong?"

"I can even come here and help you show off. What could possibly go wrong?"

"But I'm not the Loser I used to be. I don't need anyone's help—I can show off on my own! And shouldn't you have at least a little dignity as the Great Emperor? Why are you putting me in a headlock?" Lu Mingfei protested. He had evolved!

"You're still a loser. Look, I even went out of my way to get a red Ferrari. Aren't you moved? Don't you feel like I'm your destined one? And as for dignity, mind your own business!"

"Great Emperor, I think I'm going to throw up. Help me to the bathroom." Lu Mingfei made a retching face.

Meng Chuan promptly smacked him on the head, grumbling that Lu Mingfei couldn't appreciate kindness and apparently wouldn't be satisfied until he'd suffered as a hopeless lovesick fool.

Not far away, another fiery-red Ferrari was parked. A girl stood beside it, but the sight of two men with their arms around each other—one of them her target for the night—left her thoroughly bewildered.

After they'd bickered for a while, Meng Chuan raised his head and looked at the stars. His voice was calm.

"Besides, if something really did happen to the Chat Group, wouldn't I still be there to hold things together?"

Thanks to readers 20200206143514155 and Qian Lengfeng for your generous tips, Big Shots! And thanks to all you good-looking folks for your recommendation votes. Please keep the votes coming, and add this to your favorites!