Late-Night Snacks Are the Ultimate Salvation

"I'm telling you, someone's going to beat you up sooner or later."

Sigelica lay sprawled across the table, the blank sheet for her self-criticism untouched in front of her.

Dania sat curled up on the bed, hugging her knees, her head nodding lower and lower.

Linnai sat cross-legged on the floor, playing on a handheld console. Aimis had claimed Sigelica's chair, her long legs propped up on the edge of the table as she scrolled through the academy forum with her thumb.

"Wow, Zhou Yu, you're famous."

Aimis held up the screen. The headline was in bold.

[Breaking! The Logistics Department's new heartthrob takes on the cafeteria's evil forces head-on. Why did Auntie Li add extra portions with tears in her eyes?]

There were over a hundred replies underneath.

"When he pulled out that portable scale, I wanted to marry him on the spot!"

"Calm down, sis. Apparently, he's a new teacher who also supervises the cafeteria."

"Boo-hoo, Mom, I've made it! I got sweet-and-sour ribs at Flamebearers' Academy without the server shaking half the portion off the ladle!"

Zhou Yu crouched in the corner, fiddling with an induction cooker he had swiped from the storeroom. He didn't even turn around.

"Keep it low-key. Just routine stuff. Don't @ me."

He set a small stainless-steel pot on the cooker, filled it halfway with water, and pressed the switch.

Hummm.

The induction cooker's fan started spinning.

Linnai sniffed.

"What's that smell?"

"Instant noodles."

He pulled five packets of classic braised beef noodles from a plastic bag and lined them up on the floor.

Dania's eyes snapped open.

Dania: (o´ω`o)

"I want some too."

"There's enough for everyone. Don't rush."

"Where did you get the money for instant noodles?"

Sigelica looked up and tapped her pen cap twice against the table.

"A salary advance."

Zhou Yu's expression didn't change.

"I dealt with a major long-standing problem in the dining department on my first day. Would Principal Lupa really have the nerve to turn down such a small employee benefit?"

"If she finds out you claimed the expense in her name, you'll be the first thing she turns down."

"Relax. A working stiff's financial instincts are sharper than an auditor's."

He unwrapped the noodle cakes and arranged them on the pot lid, then fished two ham sausages out from the bottom of the bag.

"Besides, it's just five packets of instant noodles. They cost less than the paper for your six-thousand-word self-criticism."

Sigelica: (ㅍ_ㅍ)

Her nails dug into the edge of the paper.

In the principal's office at Flamebearers' Academy, the lighting was soft, and the black tea was still steaming.

Lupa stood before the floor-to-ceiling window as encrypted messages scrolled rapidly across a virtual screen.

[Codename Beacon has been confirmed on the Flamebearers' Academy intranet. Coordinates locked onto Building A of the preparatory student dormitories.]

[The Fractsidus bounty rank has been raised to S-rank. Multiple mercenary groups have accepted the mission.]

[Warning: unidentified high-frequency resonance fluctuations detected in the academy's central energy network. A close match to Aleph One's frequency band.]

The office lights flickered.

Lupa set down her teacup and tapped the screen lightly with a fingertip.

"Activate the Lullaby Defense Protocol. Level three alert."

"Understood."

The system responded in an electronic voice.

At the same time, a distribution box beneath the preparatory student dormitory building let out a sizzle.

Blue arcs danced across a relay, and the lights along the entire hallway flickered wildly.

In the dorm room, Aimis's handheld console screen went black.

"Huh? Did the power go out?"

"The water hasn't even boiled yet!"

Linnai wailed.

Dania hugged her knees tighter in the darkness and spoke softly.

"I just finished digesting the ribs. We can't lose the instant noodles."

Zhou Yu was already on his feet and heading for the door.

"Stay put. Half a minute."

He followed the burnt smell to the distribution box at the end of the hallway and pried open its sheet-metal cover.

The main relay was sparking wildly, blue arcs darting back and forth. Two more seconds of burning and the whole building's circuit breaker would trip.

"Tch. Old wiring."

He reached into his pocket and rummaged around, pulling out something wrapped in wax paper.

Half a roasted sweet potato left over from earlier.

He gave it a look of distaste, tore off the driest piece of skin, folded it twice, and pinched it between his fingertips before stuffing it into a gap in the relay.

Sizzle, pop.

The arcs went out.

The relay, its contacts wedged apart by the sweet potato skin, trembled twice and fell completely still.

The hallway lights flickered twice, then held steady.

Zhou Yu brushed the dust off his hands and closed the cover.

When he pushed the door open and came back in, Linnai craned her neck to look down the hallway.

"How did you fix it?"

"Gave it a smack."

"One smack fixed it?"

"Old trick. No explanation."

He crouched back down in front of the induction cooker, grumbling.

"They don't even inspect the wiring in the middle of the night. Do they still want that outstanding work unit award or not? I'll have to email the head of logistics later. The monthly KPI has to be tied to electrical safety."

In the principal's office, Lupa was just about to issue her second order.

The red alert on the screen signaling a resonance disaster had just lit up when, with a pop, it turned green.

[Warning cleared. High-frequency resonance fluctuations have disappeared.]

[Cause of malfunction: physical failure of the relay in distribution box No. 3, dormitory Building A. Automatically repaired.]

Lupa's hand stopped with her teacup at her lips.

Physical failure.

Automatically repaired.

She stared at the two entries for five seconds, then set her teacup back on its saucer with a crisp clink.

It was the second time today.

"Pull up the surveillance footage from Building A's hallway."

"Principal, the hallway surveillance in Building A experienced a 0.3-second data gap during the malfunction. The footage from that interval cannot be reconstructed."

Lupa traced half a circle around the edge of her saucer with her finger.

"What else does he have in his toolbox?"

No one answered her.

Back in the dorm room, the water had come to a boil again.

Bubble, bubble.

Zhou Yu tossed all five noodle cakes into the pot, cut the ham sausages into octopus shapes and threw them in, then calmly cracked in five eggs to poach.

The aroma swept through the entire room.

Linnai: (✧﹃✧)

"Eggs! And the yolks are still runny!"

Linnai sprang up from the floor.

Aimis had already dug out five bowls and set them in place.

The smell of fat and carbs reached Sigelica, and her stomach growled.

She flipped the paper for her six-thousand-word self-criticism over and laid it face down on the corner of the table.

Screw the self-criticism.

"Food's ready."

Zhou Yu carried the whole pot of noodles to the middle of the table.

Chopsticks flew in every direction.

"My egg! Linnai, don't steal my egg!"

"Whoever grabs it gets it! Go on, stop me with your chopsticks!"

Dania picked up a huge chopstickful of noodles, blew on them twice, and stuffed them into her mouth. She stamped her feet from the heat, puffing out air, but still refused to spit them out.

"Sss, hot, hot!"

"And you still stuffed them in your mouth."