Chapter Summaries

Zhou Yu helped Dania win a goldfish by using a procurement certificate to make her paper net waterproof. As they watched the sunset together, he reassured her that he would have found her even without Aleph One and the Lahai-Roi Defense Line.

• Dania repeatedly failed to catch a koi and became upset.
• Zhou Yu used his Material Procurement Inspection Certificate to strengthen Dania's paper net.
• Dania caught the prettiest koi, and Zhou Yu paid the stall owner fifty star coins.
• Zhou Yu and Dania sat together at sunset, where she asked whether they would have met without Aleph One and the Lahai-Roi Defense Line.
• Zhou Yu told Dania he would have found her as long as she was in the world.

At the Ferris wheel’s highest point, Dania confessed that she liked Zhou Yu, and he showed her a meal schedule that revealed his long-standing commitment to her. As they descended, Dania accepted his answer and named her goldfish Zhou Yu No. 2, while Linnai and the others celebrated their successful matchmaking and planned to get Zhou Yu to acknowledge their relationship publicly.

• At the top of the Ferris wheel, Dania told Zhou Yu she liked him and described how she had begun looking forward to each day with him.
• Zhou Yu gave Dania her meal schedule, which began on the day she first appeared in the cafeteria and ended with a permanent S-rank priority.
• When Dania asked about her own schedule, Zhou Yu said his plans with her were built into his meals, outings, and the goldfish he named Zhou Yu No. 2.
• As the gondola descended, Dania wiped her tears, asked Zhou Yu not to surprise her like that again, and accepted his thermos of water.
• At the amusement park entrance, Linnai photographed the pair and announced in the encrypted group chat that the Ferris Wheel Plan had succeeded.
• Sigelica, Aimis, and Chisaki celebrated with Linnai, who declared Dania part of their group and set their next goal as getting Zhou Yu to publicly acknowledge the relationship at the academy.

Zhou Yu’s admirers approached him in Cafeteria No. 3, and Dania made her claim by placing a rib in his bowl. As they left together to collect the roasted sweet potato allowance, Dania asked only for more quiet breakfasts with him.

• Three exchange students from Hyacinth Academy asked Zhou Yu to add them as a contact, and Linnai photographed them for the group chat.
• Dania placed her largest rib in Zhou Yu’s bowl, and he ate it before wiping sauce from the corner of her mouth.
• Zhou Yu took Dania’s hand, and the three girls awkwardly apologized and left.
• Linnai proposed a public announcement, but Dania said she wanted to keep having breakfast with Zhou Yu quietly.
• Zhou Yu took Dania to collect the month’s roasted sweet potato allowance from the back hill.

Zhou Yu and Dania exchanged affectionate nicknames and agreed to reserve every weekend for each other. When Moning attempted to reach Zhou Yu through clinical hypnosis, he secretly prepared a counterattack designed to overwhelm her with workplace jargon and wage-slave advice.

• Dania asked to call Zhou Yu Xiao Yu, and he agreed; she then asked him to call her Yaya, and he did.
• Zhou Yu told Dania to keep every weekend free for the two of them, and she nodded before leaning against him.
• Zhou Yu's watch warned that Moning, Dean of Discipline at Flamebearers' Academy, was using clinical hypnosis to connect to him.
• Zhou Yu secretly programmed a countermeasure that would inject his revised guide to wage-slave self-cultivation into Moning's probe.
• Dania shifted in her sleep, and Zhou Yu wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he waited for the counterattack to trigger.

Zhou Yu took Dania to a movie and an amusement area, where they shared a tender moment and he won her a mountain of stuffed toys. Dania went to bed happy, while her roommate Sigelica lay awake thinking about the unpaid expenses Zhou Yu had added to her debt.

• Zhou Yu made caramel popcorn and watched an old film with Dania, holding her hand in the dark.
• Zhou Yu used glitches in the claw machines to win Dania the teddy bear she wanted and emptied the machines of toys.
• Zhou Yu walked Dania back to her dormitory, and she thanked him for a fun day before falling asleep hugging the bear.
• Sigelica, who had heard Dania come in, checked her terminal and saw that another amusement park bill had been added to Zhou Yu's unpaid compensation debt.

Sigelica struggled with feeling replaced as Dania spent more time with Zhou Yu, leaving Sigelica lonely and resentful. After Dania stayed out all night with Zhou Yu, Sigelica took her medical insurance card and set out for the Resonance Medical Department.

• Sigelica woke to a message saying Dania and Zhou Yu had gone to watch the sunrise, and she angrily rejected the soup dumplings Dania had left for her.
• Professor Moning rejected Sigelica's self-criticism and asked her to rewrite it during theory class.
• At lunch, Sigelica snapped at Dania's offer of cheesy baked rice and left the cafeteria with Linnai and Aimis.
• Sigelica told Linnai and Aimis that she felt replaced, and Chisaki diagnosed her with separation anxiety and early-stage empty nest syndrome.
• Aimis suggested Sigelica visit counselor Lu Hesi at the Resonance Medical Department, but Sigelica refused at first.
• After Dania messaged that she was staying out with Zhou Yu to stargaze, Sigelica took her medical insurance card and left the dorm.

Sigelica went to the academy’s resonance medical center for help coping with Dania being lured away and Zhou Yu’s debts. After NANA referred her to Dr. Lu Hesi, his striking looks left her flustered, and he asked who had rooted up her friend.

• Sigelica visited the resonance medical center, unable to admit at the desk that Dania had been lured away by a salted fish.
• NANA interpreted Sigelica’s complaint about her friend being rooted up by a pig as emotional trauma and sent her to Dr. Lu Hesi.
• Sigelica entered Lu Hesi’s office intending to discuss Dania, Zhou Yu’s bill, and her trouble eating and sleeping, but she was distracted by his appearance.
• Lu Hesi offered Sigelica candy and explained that NANA had told him she was experiencing empty-nest feelings.
• Lu Hesi described her sense of loss and asked who had rooted up her friend.

Sigelica told Lu Hesi how hurt and jealous she felt as Dania grew closer to Zhou Yu, and he helped her realize Dania no longer needed her constant protection. She left the consultation room determined to enjoy her own life and make Zhou Yu repay the six-figure bill.

• Sigelica complained to Lu Hesi that Zhou Yu had disrupted her closeness with Dania and left her responsible for his expenses.
• Lu Hesi explained that Dania had become independent and that Sigelica was experiencing anxiety about no longer being needed as her guardian.
• Sigelica accepted Lu Hesi's advice to focus on her own life and pursue her studies as a Sunspeaker.
• Lu Hesi gave Sigelica a jar of candies to comfort her when she felt lonely.
• Sigelica left the consultation room resolved to enjoy being single and demand that Zhou Yu repay every cent of the bill.

After overcoming her separation anxiety, Sigelica brought popping candy from a doctor to share with her friends and Zhou Yu and Dania. The candy made them belch uncontrollably, while Aimis unexpectedly spoke the opposite of what she intended.

• Sigelica returned to the dorm with a jar of popping candy and shared it with Linnai, Aimis, and Chisaki.
• The candy made Sigelica belch, so she rushed to the Logistics Department warehouse to share it with Zhou Yu and Dania.
• Dania and Sigelica began belching back and forth while Zhou Yu watched.
• Aimis and Linnai felt air stuck in their throats after eating the candy.
• Aimis tried to say she felt terrible, but instead declared that she felt wonderful.

Linnai and Aimis discovered that their words came out with the opposite of what they meant after eating strange candy, while Chisaki’s voice turned babyish. The dorm was left laughing at Chisaki’s lisp as she tried to investigate the problem.

• Linnai accidentally insulted Aimis despite wanting to praise her, and Aimis responded with unintended affection before breaking down in tears.
• Sigelica tried to calm Linnai and Aimis, but their speech continued to come out opposite to what they meant.
• Chisaki explained that their language centers had temporarily reversed their input and output signals, while speaking in a babyish lisp.
• Aimis and Linnai laughed at Chisaki’s transformed voice, and Chisaki solemnly repeated that the problem was a rigorous scientific question.

After a medication caused bizarre voice changes and verbal reversals, Zhou Yu and the others traced the side effects to candy prescribed by Lu Hesi. They prepared a formal medical malpractice complaint and planned to deliver it to the medical department the next morning.

• Dania's hiccups stopped when Zhou Yu spoke in a SpongeBob-like voice, and Chisaki arrived with the same babyish speech after noticing a system fluctuation.
• Chisaki tested a saliva sample and identified traces of a temporary receptor blocker, while Zhou Yu concluded that the symptoms came from a drug side effect.
• Linnai and Aimis also displayed altered speech, and Sigelica's hiccups stopped after Zhou Yu explained that the effects should wear off soon.
• Chisaki found that Lu Hesi's prescription records linked the candy to temporary vocal abnormalities, so Zhou Yu drafted a medical malpractice assessment using the test results and voice data.
• Sigelica, Linnai, Aimis, Dania, and Chisaki agreed to take the complaint to the medical department the next morning and confront Lu Hesi.

Lupa and Moning discussed Zhou Yu’s ability to bend the academy’s rules and planned a controlled emergency to observe him. Zhou Yu anticipated the overtime opportunity, while his companions debated whether the pay would go toward his debts.

• Moning showed Lupa reports linking Zhou Yu’s actions to rule overrides, including a Fractsidus beacon that had begun drawing in signal residue like a vacuum cleaner.
• Lupa and Moning decided to stage a controlled pipeline overpressure emergency in warehouse three the next day, with the Logistics Department director required to respond.
• Lupa planned to visit Zhou Yu at lunch and try his sweet-and-sour spare ribs.
• Zhou Yu noticed a monitoring anomaly, calculated the overtime pay and meal allowance for the coming emergency, and prepared to collect them.
• Sigelica asked whether she could claim a share of Zhou Yu’s overtime pay, and Chisaki calculated that it would cover only a small fraction of his debt.

Zhou Yu and the Slacking Squad confronted Lu Hesi after his mislabeled anxiety-relief candy caused their voices and speech to change, and they secured compensation and an improved formula. As they left, Zhou Yu received an urgent hazardous-chemicals alarm at Warehouse No. 3, while Sigelica learned Lu Hesi had given her a private contact channel.

• Zhou Yu presented Lu Hesi with a medical malpractice report and Chisaki demonstrated that the candy’s ingredients and the archive’s labeling did not match.
• Lu Hesi examined Chisaki, and the squad’s altered speech and Aimis’s involuntary compliments and slaps exposed the candy’s side effects.
• Chisaki showed that the filing number listed the candy as a vitamin supplement, and Lu Hesi blamed a database migration mismatch.
• Zhou Yu submitted a compensation claim, and Lu Hesi offered a check and an improved candy formula with the side effects removed.
• Moning’s encrypted channel warned Zhou Yu that Warehouse No. 3’s hazardous-chemicals pipeline had reached ninety-seven percent of its safety threshold, so Zhou Yu and Dania headed there.
• Chisaki’s message revealed that Lu Hesi had left Sigelica a private emergency contact channel, and Sigelica ran to catch up with the group.

Zhou Yu turned a staged hazardous-materials alarm into a paid overtime barbecue and made Director Moning approve the crew’s wages and his compensation claim. Moning retaliated by scheduling the preparatory class midterms for Friday, leaving Linnai panicking while Zhou Yu calmly promised Dania hot pot afterward.

• Zhou Yu stopped the warehouse alarm by posting a maintenance shutdown notice, then used the emergency response to stage a barbecue with Dania and the others.
• Chisaki and Linnai traced the false alarm to the Academic Affairs Section, and Zhou Yu insisted the overtime still deserved pay.
• Zhou Yu brought Moning an overtime form and a clinical-probe compensation claim; Moning signed the overtime approval, wrote him a check, and accepted his sweet-and-sour ribs.
• After Zhou Yu left, Moning ate the ribs and scheduled the preparatory class midterms for the following Friday.
• Linnai panicked over the exams, while Zhou Yu offered Dania hot pot afterward and joked that Linnai could charge retake fees to Sigelica’s scholarship.

With seventy-two hours left before the midterms, Zhou Yu turned Sigelica’s dorm into a study camp and devised questionable study tactics for the Slacking Squad. The girls entered the exam room, while Zhou Yu stayed outside and drafted a hot pot reimbursement request charging Sigelica.

• Zhou Yu requisitioned Sigelica’s dorm as an exam prep command center and predicted which empathy theory chapters would appear on the test.
• Zhou Yu used candy and the promise of shoulder naps to motivate Dania, while Chisaki tried a metronome and Aimis taught Linnai history through rap.
• Sigelica studied combat theory amid the chaos and worried that her scholarship would suffer.
• After seventy-two hours of cramming, the girls arrived at the exam room exhausted, though Dania was cheerful and Linnai recited off-key rhymes.
• Zhou Yu stayed outside the exam room, wished the girls luck, and drafted a hot pot budget reimbursement with Sigelica listed as payer.

After exams, Dania realized she wanted Zhou Yu to eat her up, and her friends decided to arrange a stargazing date to advance their relationship. Dania invited Zhou Yu to the back mountain, and he agreed, while their friends secretly watched and recorded the moment.

• After the exams, Zhou Yu met Dania and offered her warm water, while Linnai, Aimis, and Sigelica complained about their exam performances.
• In the Logistics Department warehouse, Dania blushed while watching Zhou Yu repair a communicator and admitted to herself that she wanted him to eat her up.
• In the dormitory, Dania told Linnai, Aimis, and Sigelica what she had felt, and Linnai organized a back-mountain stargazing date with help from Aimis and Chisaki.
• The next day, Dania asked Zhou Yu to go stargazing with her on the back mountain that weekend, and Zhou Yu accepted while asking who had taught her to invite him.
• Linnai, Aimis, Chisaki, and Sigelica secretly watched Dania and Zhou Yu from outside the Logistics Department.

Zhou Yu and Dania went on a romantic nighttime outing, but their almost-kiss was interrupted by an urgent warning about a broken-down patrol robot. Zhou Yu left to charge it after promising to return in ten minutes, while their friends watched from the bushes.

• Zhou Yu met Dania outside her dorm and took her hand as they walked toward the abandoned observatory.
• Linnai, Aimis, Chisaki, and Sigelica secretly followed them under camouflage netting and monitored their reactions.
• Zhou Yu spread out snacks at the observatory, and Dania pressed close to him and requested cuddles.
• Zhou Yu pulled Dania into his arms and leaned in to kiss her, but his watch warned that patrol robot no. 07 had run out of power.
• Zhou Yu left to charge the robot and told Dania to wait ten minutes, while Linnai fainted and Aimis blamed the robot.

Dania and Zhou Yu nearly kissed at the observatory, but Aimis, Linnai, Chisaki, and Sigelica fell out of their camouflage net and interrupted them. Zhou Yu covered the mortified Dania with his coat, then confronted the four eavesdroppers and threatened them with the Logistics Department’s winter artificial snowfall project.

• Zhou Yu returned to the observatory with a dew-covered white flower after the robot charger connector failed, and tucked the flower into Dania’s hair.
• Dania leaned against Zhou Yu, and he drew her into his embrace as they prepared to kiss.
• Aimis, Linnai, Chisaki, and Sigelica tumbled out of the bushes tangled in their camouflage net and landed in front of Zhou Yu and Dania.
• Dania screamed and hid in Zhou Yu’s embrace while the four eavesdroppers made excuses for spying.
• Zhou Yu covered Dania with his coat and warned the four girls that he could give them an early taste of the Logistics Department’s winter artificial snowfall project.
• Sigelica surrendered and offered to pay for the camouflage net.

After Sigelica and the others left, Zhou Yu comforted Dania and kissed her on the rooftop. They parted outside her dormitory, and Zhou Yu returned to the Logistics Department warehouse, planning to take her to the seaside next time.

• Zhou Yu reassured Dania that the others had gone and continued comforting her on the rooftop.
• Zhou Yu gently kissed Dania, and she told him it felt sweet.
• Zhou Yu and Dania agreed they wanted a next time and joked about having a date over sweet-and-sour ribs the next day.
• Dania kissed Zhou Yu's cheek before running into her dormitory, then messaged him that she wanted another tasty treat.
• Zhou Yu went to the warehouse to repair the patrol robot and decided to take Dania to the seaside next time.

Zhou Yu accepted Linnai, Aimis, Chisaki, and Sigelica’s apologies for spying, but fined them and ordered them to clean the warehouses. After he offered them roasted sweet potatoes, the four set to work, motivated by the promise of lunch.

• Linnai presented Zhou Yu with an apology letter, and Chisaki submitted a report documenting the group’s spying.
• Zhou Yu charged each of the four fifty star coins in labor and canceled their free breakfasts and lunch sponsorship for a week.
• Zhou Yu canceled Aimis’s concert seat, then agreed to save her a ticket if its price came out of her pay.
• Zhou Yu gave the four roasted sweet potatoes and told them they could eat after finishing their work.
• Linnai rallied the others to clear the cockroaches from warehouse three, while Sigelica complained about her debt and Chisaki calculated their expected cleaning rate.