Chen Mu nodded in understanding. Lei Zi had dreamed of this since childhood; no one knew that better than he did.
"Why don't we go together?" Lei Zi asked tentatively.
Chen Mu shook his head. "I'm still planning to stay home. There are a lot of things I haven't figured out yet."
There was little Lei Zi could do about a fanatic like Chen Mu. All he could do was say, brimming with contempt, "You soulless blockhead!"
Lei Zi went out to enjoy himself. With no Card Films to make, Chen Mu devoted himself to studying the contents of the mysterious card.
During this time, the craze for Encounter among the female students of East Guard Academy grew ever more intense. Whoever had a copy of the Card Film immediately had countless people asking to borrow it. Before she could return it to its original owner, another friend would borrow it from her.
The heroine's repeated encounters with the hero tugged at countless hearts, and countless girls shed hot tears over the story's twists and tender passions.
Just as Encounter became the most sought-after item at East Guard Academy, the female students discovered, to their astonishment, that they could no longer buy it. The shopkeepers selling Card Films were even more frantic. All that splendid business was right before their eyes, yet the young man with the two enormous dangling earrings was nowhere to be found. The shopkeepers were burning with anxiety, but there was nothing they could do.
When the female students found that they truly could not buy it, they had no choice but to take a roundabout route to their goal.
East Guard Academy had no shortage of expert card makers, and they had already received requests from many beautiful female students to help them reproduce Encounter. In a school awash with youthful hormones, a single word from a pretty girl carried more weight than a teacher's. These expert card makers, who normally felt cut off from society, were beside themselves with excitement. They practically wanted to throw back their heads and howl their triumph to the heavens: Our time has finally come!
Several girls even generously contributed their genuine copies of the Card Film.
These days, piracy was a highly technical business. They could only work things out from the structural patterns on the cards. Before long, however, every one of East Guard Academy's expert card makers was dumbfounded. Judging by their structural patterns, these cards were merely One-Star Illusion Cards. In theory, cards of such a low level should have posed no difficulty for East Guard Academy's expert card makers. Some of them could even make Three-Star Illusion Cards.
Strangely, though the structural patterns on these cards did not look complicated, every attempt to copy them failed. Once or twice would have been nothing, but when the failures reached seventy or eighty, there was something worth pondering.
Bizarre, utterly bizarre!
The young card makers looked at one another in blank dismay. Were they really going to fail the very first time the army of beauties asked for their help?
The student leading the card-making department group gritted his teeth. "Brothers, we're taking this thing on! If we don't crack it, we'll never be able to hold our heads up again!" Before him, pair after pair of bloodshot eyes blazed with refusal to accept defeat. The lechers could not help throwing back their heads and howling at the tops of their lungs.
Every eye on campus was fixed on them. They could not afford to lose face. The finest students from every year and every class in the card-making department were gathered together. They would launch the most formidable assault ever organized by East Guard Academy's students on their own initiative.
The east wind blew, the war drums thundered; until they cracked Encounter, they would have no face to show the beauties.
Following the standard research-project model, the strongest student lineup would use East Guard Academy's most advanced equipment to undertake the most comprehensive cracking of Encounter.
Naturally, Chen Mu had no idea that the Card Film he had made had stirred up such a storm at East Guard Academy. It would never have occurred to him that anyone would willingly pour such precious time and energy into something so pointless.
He had spent these past days immersed in study. Having money to spare also gave him the means to practice making cards. He was now learning to make Two-Star Energy Cards. A Two-Star Energy Card could supply one thousand Odi of energy, and cost only about eight hundred Odi to make, yet sold for twelve hundred Odi. Only now did Chen Mu discover that the higher a card's level, the greater its profit margin!
The knowledge about Planning Cards within the mysterious card was neither extensive nor particularly complicated. It could hardly withstand Chen Mu's feverish pace of study.
With so much practice during this period, Chen Mu progressed rapidly in card making. He was now a completely different person from a few months earlier. Besides his advances in card-making studies, his body was also far healthier than before. His persistent practice of the Body-Strengthening Exercise had produced remarkable results. Where was there even a trace of the scrawny boy he had once been?
His physique was well proportioned, and whenever he took off his clothes, the faint outlines of his muscles became visible. His hands could now easily lift three times the weight they once could. What he found most unbelievable was that his body's flexibility had reached an astonishing degree.
He should already have been past the age for developing flexibility. No matter how much he thought about it, he could not make sense of that.
Of the eighteen movements in the complete Body-Strengthening Exercise, his favorites were the ones that trained his hands. His fingers in particular, since finger dexterity was extremely important in card making.
Chen Mu was thoroughly satisfied with his life. He did not have to worry about money in the short term, he had knowledge to study and materials with which to practice making cards, and his body was growing healthier and healthier. What more could he want?
Making Two-Star Energy Cards proved to be no problem at all. He had expected to need several practice attempts, but to his surprise, his very first attempt was a complete success.
Hong Tao ran into Zuo Tingyi and Wang Ze on campus. He nodded to Wang Ze in greeting, then turned his gaze back to Zuo Tingyi and could not help laughing. "You didn't join that cracking campaign?" The cracking campaign was in full swing at East Guard Academy and had long since become the hottest topic on campus. Since Zuo Tingyi studied card making, Hong Tao had reason to ask, though his words carried an even stronger note of teasing.
Zuo Tingyi remained expressionless. "I'm very busy."
He really was busy. His main task during this period was to handle communication with the students from Star Academy, which meant that these past days, he had spent almost all his time on Wang Ze. Of course, his fearsome reputation was so well established that no one dared approach him anyway.
Beside him, Wang Ze chuckled. "I've heard about this cracking campaign too. I wonder how it's progressing." Unfortunately, every exchange student this time was a Card Adept. Otherwise, he would certainly have had the students from the card-making department join the activity as well. What could bring them closer to East Guard Academy's students than an activity like this?
(End of chapter)