A Peaceful, Prosperous Age Swept Into Being

Zhou Yu's yellow utility repair vest bobbed through several experimental fields in the early morning mist, his work boots squelching in the wet mud.

Behind Auditorium No. 1 stood a row of abandoned storage rooms, their red brick walls covered in vines.

The iron door to the room in the farthest corner stood slightly ajar. No light showed through the gap, but the hum of an electric current seeped out.

Zhou Yu stopped and rummaged in his vest pocket, pulling out a pair of white cotton work gloves.

He took his time putting them on, then bent down and grabbed a bamboo broom from the corner. Its bristles were split and bound haphazardly with wire.

He pushed the door open.

The hinges creaked, the sound especially piercing in the empty storage room.

Three men in black combat suits turned their heads at once.

Five metal discs flashing red were arranged on the floor in a special formation, with a complex web of wiring connecting them to a portable high-frequency resonance core.

The leader had a scar across his face, and his eyes were full of murderous intent.

Scarface: Σ(っ°Д°;)っ

"Who are you?" the tall, skinny man barked, reaching for the short blade at his waist.

Zhou Yu didn't look at them.

He glanced down at the dust covering the floor, then at the metal discs positioned with millimeter precision, and frowned.

Zhou Yu: (￣-￣)

"What are you doing? Don't you want to win the cleanliness evaluation?"

All three faces twisted at once.

"This is a key fire prevention area. With things set up like this, what if a leader comes by for an inspection and trips?"

He raised the broom handle and tapped the doorframe.

"Did all that training in workplace safety regulations go in one ear and out the other?"

"...What did you say?" Scarface's killing intent stalled.

"I said the three of you are occupying public space to store personal belongings, in violation of Chapter Seven, Article Thirty-Two of the academy regulations." Zhou Yu pointed the broom handle at the metal discs on the floor. "You have three minutes to clear them away yourselves, or I'll report you to the logistics department and have points deducted from your year-end evaluations."

"Kill him!" Scarface snapped back to his senses and launched himself forward.

Zhou Yu had already started sweeping.

The battered bamboo broom swung out, its bristles scraping across the concrete floor with a swish.

[Campus environmental sanitation cleanup mechanism forcibly activating...]

[Cleaning area: Building A storage room behind Auditorium No. 1.]

[Cleaning targets: all non-fixed-asset trash, including but not limited to dust, cobwebs, discarded materials, and all negative energy affecting campus civility and harmony.]

An invisible gust spread from the tip of the broom.

Scarface was halfway through his leap when the resonance energy around his fist vanished completely. He veered off course and plunged headfirst toward the wall, then pressed his palm against it and began scrubbing a fingernail-sized stain.

"I... what's wrong with my hand?!"

"Wipe it evenly. Don't leave watermarks." Zhou Yu didn't even look up.

The tall, skinny man's short blade clattered to the floor. He pressed both hands against the greasy window and frantically scrubbed the glass with his combat suit sleeves.

"No... I'm here to carry out a sacred mission..."

"Your sacred mission now is to polish that window until you can use it as a mirror."

The last assassin, the technical specialist, had it even worse. His deft hands, capable of assembling a sophisticated bomb in sixty seconds, were taking apart the wiring on the floor one piece at a time, sorting it by type, and even tying it into bows.

"Let... let go of my fingers..."

"That bow's crooked. Do it again."

Assassins A, B, and C: ( TДT)

The five high-frequency resonance bombs, powerful enough to flatten half the academy, lost their metallic sheen and shrank into scrap parts. The wind stirred up by the broom swept them into a corner and stacked them neatly.

Zhou Yu straightened up and leaned against the doorframe, unscrewing his thermos and blowing on the goji berries inside.

Scarface wept as he wiped cobwebs off the ceiling.

"I came here to be a martyr... not to do janitorial work..."

"Young people shouldn't spend all your time thinking about vague, unattainable things. Keep your feet on the ground and create value through labor."

Zhou Yu took a sip of tea, sounding just like a neighborhood committee member trying to talk someone out of a pyramid scheme.

"Look, once you've cleaned this place up, won't you feel more comfortable staying here yourself?"

"Over there, you missed the corners of the window." He pointed at the tall, skinny man. "I'm docking your performance pay for this month."

"I don't get performance pay!" the tall, skinny man cried, his voice breaking.

"You do now."

"And you, those knots in the wiring don't meet safety standards." Zhou Yu glanced at the technical assassin. "Untie them and do them again. I'll inspect them when I get back."

"Reform through labor is the best way to calm your mind. I hope you'll reflect on yourselves and turn over a new leaf."

Zhou Yu dumped the pile of scrap metal in the corner into a sack, slung it over his shoulder, and left with the broom in hand.

The three purified souls remained in the spotless storage room. The one wiping windows was still wiping, and the one tying knots was still tying.

Flamebearers' Academy's scrap recycling station.

"Boss, take a look. How much for this lot?"

He tossed the sack onto the scale.

The one-eyed old man rummaged through the parts and scanned them with an instrument.

"High-density alloy, and traces of rare elements too. Where did you take these apart?"

"Equipment department castoffs. Internal disposal."

"All right." The one-eyed old man lit a cigarette. "Thirty star coins. Not a penny more."

"Deal."

Zhou Yu held the crisp new bill up to the sunlight for a look, then tucked it into his pocket.

Trading a god's scheme for lunch money wasn't a bad deal.

Noon, Cafeteria No. 3.

Dania had long since taken a seat by the window, her chin propped in both hands as she stared unblinkingly at serving window No. 1.

Dania: (o^▽^o)

"Here he comes!" Linnai rose onto her tiptoes.

Zhou Yu walked over with a tray piled high with sweet-and-sour spare ribs, drenched in sauce. Their aroma reached them from three tables away.

The tray landed steadily in front of Dania.

He pulled a glass bottle from his pocket, cold droplets clinging to its sides. He popped the cap with a bottle opener, and bubbles rushed to the top.

"The scrap sold for thirty. Just enough for one bottle."

Dania looked at the mountain of ribs, then at the bubbling soda, and finally up at Zhou Yu.

She picked up a rib and bit into it hard. Sweet-and-sour sauce spread through her mouth, and the cartilage crunched.

Then she picked up the soda and tipped her head back for a swig. The icy sweetness of orange slid down her throat, making her squint and burp.

"Burp~"

"Is it good?" Zhou Yu pulled out a chair and sat down.

Dania nodded vigorously, her cheeks bulging with half a rib still in her mouth.

"Then do you know what this bottle of soda used to be?"

Dania shook her head.

"Five bombs that could have blown the auditorium sky-high."

Dania stopped chewing her rib for a moment, looked down at the bottle, then back at Zhou Yu.

"You're kidding."

"It's true. I just swept them up this morning." Zhou Yu picked up a rib with his chopsticks. "But now they're thirty star coins' worth of scrap and that bottle of soda in your hand."

"Five bombs were only worth thirty?"

"That's the going rate at the scrap station."

Dania took another sip of soda. Orange-flavored bubbles burst on her tongue as she counted on her fingers.

"Then my bottle of soda is worth more than a bomb."

"How do you figure?"

"Five bombs were only thirty, so one was six, but my bottle was thirty all by itself." Dania's tone was utterly serious. "One bottle is worth five bombs."

Zhou Yu paused for a moment, then laughed.

"All right, as long as you're happy."

Sigelica came over with her meal just in time to hear that exchange, and her chopsticks nearly fell to the floor.

Sigelica: (ㅍ_ㅍ)

"Wait, did you just say bombs?"

"They've been dealt with." Zhou Yu chewed on a rib. "They're scrap now."

"You went to disarm bombs first thing this morning?" Sigelica's voice cracked.

"I didn't disarm them. I swept the floor and sorted some trash while I was at it."

"You call bombs trash?"

"They were in a storage room, they weren't fixed assets, and they weren't in the equipment register. Of course they were trash."

Sigelica opened and closed her mouth, then opened it again, before finally squeezing out a sentence.

"You told me this morning you were going to check the accounts!"

"I wasn't lying. Thirty for the scrap-isn't that an account?"

"Zhou Yu!"

"Calm down and eat your salad."

Dania took another bite of a rib. Sauce ran down between her fingers, and she licked it off with the tip of her tongue before speaking earnestly.

"Zhou Yu, could you sell a few more bombs next time?"

"What for?"

"To get another bottle of soda. I want to treat Sigelica."

This time, Sigelica really did drop her chopsticks.

"Who'd want to drink soda traded for bombs?!"

"It's orange-flavored. It's really good." Dania pushed the bottle toward her.

Zhou Yu leaned back in his chair, watching Dania, her mouth shiny with grease, as she rubbed her toes back and forth against a chair leg.

He had traded a scheme that could have destroyed the academy for a bottle of orange soda that could make Dania happy.

What a bargain.

Zhou Yu: (¬ω¬)