Chapter Summaries

Zhou Yu investigated a suspicious new transfer student, Yeqi, after Linnai reported that he had come from the Northern Territory and was watching Dania. He discovered Yeqi’s transfer paperwork could not be valid and went to the registrar’s office, while his watch flashed dark red again.

• Zhou Yu noticed his watch flash dark red during lunch, then told Linnai he might have trash to take care of that afternoon.
• Dania felt a brief burst of heat in her fingertips when Yeqi, a new student from the Northern Territory, entered her lecture hall.
• Yeqi told Linnai he had come to Flamebearers' Academy looking for someone and stared toward Dania.
• Linnai warned Zhou Yu that Yeqi’s gaze toward Dania seemed suspicious, and Zhou Yu’s watch flashed dark red again.
• Zhou Yu checked the academy’s transfer rules, concluded Yeqi’s paperwork was invalid because the Northern Territory had no public security committee, and headed to the registrar’s office.

Zhou Yu used academy rules to force Yeqi, a specially approved transfer student and Fractsidus sleeper agent, into a binding work-study assignment cleaning the Building Eight men's restroom. As Yeqi began the job, Principal Lupa watched and considered whether Zhou Yu could interfere with the world's fundamental laws.

• Zhou Yu found that Yeqi lacked the required transfer-out and criminal-record documents, so he suspended Yeqi's enrollment benefits.
• Chisaki and Sigelica questioned Yeqi about his background, while Chisaki confirmed Principal Lupa's approval was genuine.
• Zhou Yu issued Yeqi a binding assignment to clean the Building Eight men's restroom, and the academy rules transformed Yeqi's uniform into a cleaner's uniform.
• Dania brought Zhou Yu braised pork and sesame candy, while Sigelica, Linnai, Chisaki, and Aimis watched Yeqi start cleaning and discussed Zhou Yu's methods.
• Lupa recognized Yeqi as a Fractsidus sleeper agent and examined a file asking whether Zhou Yu could intervene in the world's fundamental laws.
• Zhou Yu repeated that anyone who ruined the two-day weekend deserved a month of toilet-cleaning duty as the assignment form took effect.

Linnai revealed that the sports meet’s winning relay team would receive prize money and an all-inclusive resort trip, prompting Dania to sign up for the 400-meter relay with Linnai and Sigelica. Zhou Yu planned to exploit the rules with modified roller skates, and Sigelica reluctantly joined the effort as the team prepared to compete for first place.

• Linnai announced the relay prize of five hundred star coins and a resort stay, and Dania woke up at the promise of an all-you-can-eat buffet.
• Dania signed herself, Linnai, and Sigelica up for the relay despite Linnai’s and Sigelica’s objections.
• Zhou Yu drafted a proposal to use auxiliary equipment, while Chisaki calculated that modified roller skates could improve their time.
• A broadcast sent Yeqi to clean the men’s restroom in building eight, where he slipped into a bucket of dirty water and blamed Zhou Yu.
• Zhou Yu revealed forty pairs of roller skates, and Sigelica gave in and took a pair as the team set its sights on first place.

Sigelica and her classmates entered the sports meet with a cheerleading formation built around a riot shield, while Zhou Yu prepared class three for the relay. After the race began, Linnai took the lead as the neighboring runner slipped, leaving Zhou Yu’s possible interference under scrutiny.

• Sigelica refused the cheerleading skirt and used a Logistics Department riot shield as her prop, while Chisaki approved its concealment potential.
• Class three entered the field with Sigelica carrying the shield, drawing startled reactions from the stands and Moning.
• Zhou Yu motivated Dania with the promise of seafood pizza and encouraged Linnai and Sigelica with cafeteria data and a scholarship deal.
• As the relay started, Zhou Yu touched a loose ground spike in lane four while the buzz-cut runner stood nearby.
• Linnai nearly fell at the start, recovered on the bend, and surged into first place as the runner in lane four slipped.
• Lupa asked whether the destabilizing element from the Logistics Department was the one leading on the bend.

Zhou Yu helped Preparatory Class Three win the relay by secretly modifying the track conditions and using faulty camera footage to defeat a cheating accusation. As he and Dania headed toward their seaside resort trip, Moning arranged a field investigation there, and Zhou Yu received an ominous invitation on his watch.

• Linnai, Aimis, and Sigelica handed the baton to Dania, who overtook the sports class's runner and won the relay after Zhou Yu altered the air resistance on lane three.
• Zhou Yu used the track maintenance form and a counseling-cost estimate to counter the sports class teacher's cheating accusation, and the head referee confirmed Preparatory Class Three's first-place finish.
• Dania celebrated the win and took Zhou Yu's hand as he promised her a free seafood buffet at the seaside resort.
• Moning told Lupa that the resort's abnormal weather system needed investigating and planned to send Zhou Yu on a field assignment.
• Zhou Yu received a seaside resort invitation on his old digital watch, recognized a familiar sign of compulsory correction, and decided the owner had come to collect the bill.

Zhou Yu joined the academy’s seaside outing, teasing Sigelica and Lu Hesi while doting on Dania. As the group settled in for seafood, he detected a supernatural storm approaching and prepared to compete with a god for the order, with Aimis and Chisaki joining the group.

• Zhou Yu and Dania set off with the academy group, where Sigelica’s awkwardness around Lu Hesi led Zhou Yu to tease them and push Sigelica into the seat beside him.
• On the bus, Zhou Yu fed Dania snacks while Lu Hesi warned everyone about a restricted area near the coast, and Sigelica carefully recorded his instructions.
• At the seaside resort, Zhou Yu left Sigelica to handle the luggage while Lu Hesi helped her carry it, then negotiated down the price of Dania’s lobster.
• Zhou Yu’s watch warned that the regional weather control system had been overwritten as a vast black storm advanced, and he ordered more food before facing the coming danger.
• Aimis and Chisaki arrived after sleeping through the ride, and Zhou Yu noted that their extra help would also mean more competition for seafood.

A booking error left Zhou Yu and Dania with the hotel’s only available room, a couple’s suite, and Zhou Yu improvised a barrier before Dania cuddled up to him. As they fell asleep, Aleph One’s signal was ignored, and a human-shaped mass of black mist appeared on the beach, watching their room.

• Zhou Yu used consumer-protection rules and a logistics contingency plan to secure the suite, while Lu Hesi arranged a staff room for Sigelica.
• Dania refused to share a room with Sigelica, so Zhou Yu took her to the suite and set up a line of bottled water as a boundary across the bed.
• Dania crossed the boundary and clung to Zhou Yu, bargaining for crab roe buns and seafood congee before they settled down to sleep.
• Aleph One’s resonance warning appeared, but Zhou Yu rejected the signal and pulled Dania closer.
• The storm stopped abruptly, and a human-shaped black mist emerged on the beach and fixed its red light on the suite’s window.

Zhou Yu and Dania spent the day at the zoo and night market, where Dania’s jealousy triggered a wave of pressure and Zhou Yu used his Logistics Department skills to protect and indulge her. As they nearly kissed back at the hotel, Zhou Yu’s watch warned that a high-energy intruder had breached the outer defenses, and a black-mist hand appeared against the window.

• Zhou Yu changed the room’s climate controls to disperse the black-mist hand’s condensation, then woke Dania and took her to breakfast.
• At the zoo, an alpaca spat on Zhou Yu, and Dania’s anger forced hundreds of alpacas to kneel until Zhou Yu cleared the pressure with his watch.
• Zhou Yu calmed Dania by getting her two buckets of feed, while Sigelica questioned Lu Hesi about the alpacas’ spitting behavior.
• Dania asked Chisaki to photograph her clinging to Zhou Yu, then showed the picture to Sigelica and Aimis.
• At the night market, Zhou Yu used inspections and purchasing standards to bargain down prices while Dania ate the food.
• Back at the hotel, Zhou Yu and Dania moved close to kissing before his watch warned of a high-energy intruder, and a black-mist hand appeared against the window.

Zhou Yu sent away the black-mist intruder and spent the night with Dania, whose attempt to take a book’s romantic expression literally nearly led to a kiss before Sigelica interrupted them. The old digital watch then warned that an unknown authority had changed the area code and raised the tsunami warning to maximum.

• Zhou Yu posted a paid-leave notice on the window, triggering rule enforcement that returned the black mist to the waiting area.
• Dania told Zhou Yu that her book said people who liked each other would eat each other, and she climbed onto his lap to ask if she tasted bad.
• Zhou Yu and Dania kissed, but Sigelica’s riot shield crashed into the neighboring wall and interrupted them.
• Zhou Yu wrapped Dania in a quilt, told her to wait until she was nineteen, and promised to take her for seafood noodles the next day.
• Zhou Yu’s old digital watch warned that an unknown authority had modified the area code and that the tsunami warning level was maximum.

After Zhou Yu and Dania devoured a seafood buffet, Zhou Yu returned to Flamebearers' Academy and learned that Fractsidus forces were gathering in the Northern Territory to demand Dania. He dismissed Principal Lupa's warning and prepared to put the visitors to work.

• Zhou Yu used his watch to reset Dania's satiety, and the pair ate so much that the buffet owner gave them vouchers to leave.
• On the bus, Lu Hesi exchanged contact information with Sigelica, while Zhou Yu cared for the sleeping Dania.
• At Flamebearers' Academy, NANA informed Zhou Yu that his paid leave had ended and Principal Lupa wanted to see him.
• Moning teased Zhou Yu about his seaside trip and warned him that data on the abnormal weather was on Lupa's desk.
• Lupa questioned Zhou Yu about the rooftop energy reading and Aleph One's severed resonance signal, then told him Fractsidus forces were gathering to demand Dania.
• Zhou Yu showed Lupa an illegal-structure demolition notice and said the Fractsidus could work as temporary dishwashers.

Zhou Yu demanded overtime compensation and greater authority from Lupa after the seaside resort mission, arguing that the academy should respect workers’ rights. Lupa appointed him special security director, and Zhou Yu left with a new contract, a tin of tea, and a promise to protect Dania from whatever the Northern Territory sent next.

• Zhou Yu presented Lupa with a reimbursement claim for overtime, crisis management, caregiving, and damage to his coat.
• Lupa challenged Zhou Yu over making Yeqi, a Northern Territory Fractsidus operative, work as a cleaner under a work-study contract.
• Zhou Yu asked for his reimbursement and a promotion giving him authority over Dania’s safety, a separate budget, and control of personnel and security forces.
• Lupa appointed Zhou Yu special security director, reporting directly to her, and approved his initial budget allocation.
• Zhou Yu took a tin of Huanglong tea as interest on his emotional distress damages and said the Logistics Department could hire more cleaners if the Northern Territory came after Dania again.
• Lupa found Zhou Yu’s request to add another day of sweet-and-sour spare ribs for Dania and chuckled over his priorities.

Zhou Yu returned to the Logistics Department with a new appointment and funding, but Sigelica made him pay most of the money toward his debts. As life settled into a routine with Dania, Zhou Yu planned to extend the department’s paid leave system to the Lahai-Roi Defense Line.

• Dania greeted Zhou Yu, and he gave her the tea he had taken from Principal Lupa’s office.
• Sigelica presented Zhou Yu with a detailed list of debts and an installment repayment plan, while Dania and the others insisted he pay.
• Zhou Yu used Lupa’s funding card to pay most of his debt, then signed an agreement to repay the remaining five-figure balance in twenty-four interest-free installments.
• Zhou Yu and Dania settled into a routine of planning meals together while he repaired a patrol robot and blocked a message containing “Aleph One.”
• Zhou Yu said he wanted to extend the Logistics Department’s paid leave system to everyone at the Lahai-Roi Defense Line.

At the girls’ dorm late-night tea party, Linnai and Aimis questioned Dania about sharing a seaside resort suite with Zhou Yu, and Dania calmly revealed how much she liked him. Sigelica flew into a rage and vowed to confront Zhou Yu the next day.

• Zhou Yu left tea and an insulated cup for Dania, while Sigelica secured the warehouse safe after paying down part of her debt.
• Linnai, Aimis, and Chisaki joined Sigelica and Dania for the Slacking Squad’s late-night pillow talk, and Chisaki gave Dania a brown bear plush from Zhou Yu.
• Linnai and Aimis asked Dania what had happened with Zhou Yu in the resort’s couples’ suite, and Dania said he had held her after she kicked away the bottles marking his boundary.
• Dania revealed that she had asked Zhou Yu about being eaten up by someone who liked her and had called herself his private property.
• Sigelica blamed Zhou Yu for putting dangerous ideas in Dania’s head and vowed to confront him at Flamebearers’ Academy the next day.

Dania recounted mistaking a strawberry-flavored contraceptive for candy, and Linnai explained its real purpose, leaving Dania mortified by what she had said to Zhou Yu. Sigelica received a thoughtful message from Lu Hesi and blushed, drawing Linnai’s attention.

• Linnai pressed Dania to describe what happened after Zhou Yu hugged her, and Dania recalled finding a pink strawberry box by the bed.
• Dania said she had mistaken the box for candy and planned to share it with Zhou Yu, but he snatched it away and claimed it had expired.
• Chisaki identified the box as a contraceptive device, and Linnai explained its purpose to Dania.
• Dania remembered offering to let Zhou Yu eat the strawberry first and hid in the bear’s arms in embarrassment.
• Sigelica received a message from Lu Hesi telling her to come back and rest, then blushed as Linnai watched her.

Sigelica admitted that she and Dr. Lu Hesi had arranged to spend Saturday together at the Central Library, where they planned to discuss research on postwar trauma. Her roommates teased her about the date, while Linnai wondered whether something was wrong with the dorm’s feng shui.

• Linnai caught Sigelica smiling at her terminal and accused her of being lovestruck over Dr. Lu Hesi.
• Chisaki threatened to make Sigelica’s terminal suffer battlefield-grade network lag unless she explained her communications with the doctor.
• Sigelica admitted that she and Dr. Lu Hesi had agreed to meet at the Central Library that weekend.
• Sigelica explained that they planned to discuss papers on postwar traumatic stress disorder and have lunch at a nearby light-meal restaurant.
• Sigelica read Lu Hesi’s message confirming their Saturday morning meeting and blushed as her roommates teased her.
• Linnai compared Sigelica’s library date with Dania’s study plans and wondered if the dorm had bad feng shui.

Dania missed Zhou Yu as his workload kept interrupting their meals and time together, while her friends tried to help her get his attention. Zhou Yu realized she was sulking and began planning more time with her, leaving their relationship poised for a change.

• Linnai, Sigelica, Aimis, and Dania reacted to the upcoming annual physical fitness test, and Dania looked forward to a seafood buffet with Zhou Yu if she did well.
• Zhou Yu repeatedly left Dania waiting at meals because of urgent Logistics Department work, and Dania grew increasingly disappointed.
• Dania lost her appetite and focus at training, so Chisaki concluded that she missed Zhou Yu, while Linnai and Aimis advised her to play hard to get.
• Dania refused to act cold toward Zhou Yu because she could see how tired he was, stopping her friends' plans.
• Zhou Yu found Dania's knotted safety vest and began drafting an emergency plan to increase the time he spent with his girlfriend.

Zhou Yu made up for neglecting Dania with ribs and a month-long dessert schedule, and they reconciled over dinner. The chapter ended when Zhou Yu saw that the upcoming fitness test would simulate the Lahai-Roi Defense Line.

• Dania sat alone on the rooftop, upset that Zhou Yu had missed their meals and left her waiting.
• Zhou Yu arrived with sweet-and-sour ribs, explained his work delays, and gave Dania a signed dessert compensation schedule.
• Dania negotiated extra treats and a seafood buffet, then shared a rib with Zhou Yu before continuing her meal.
• Zhou Yu untied Dania's knotted vest and joked about finding the right method to solve problems, making her laugh.
• Zhou Yu received a notice that the fitness test would include a teamwork-under-pressure exercise at a simulated Lahai-Roi Defense Line and hid the message from Dania.

Zhou Yu discovered that Dania’s physical test would take place in a simulated Lahai-Roi battlefield and prepared to keep her overwhelming strength from destroying it. The night before the test, Dania eagerly accepted disguised power-limiting wrist guards and a promise of an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet.

• Zhou Yu found that the physical test venue would reproduce the Lahai-Roi Defense Line and realized Dania’s strength could cause trouble.
• Dania trained for the test, destroyed a smart punching bag, and left Zhou Yu and Sigelica worried about the cost and the battlefield.
• Zhou Yu asked Chisaki to make disguised guards that would restrict Dania’s power and absorb her kinetic energy.
• After detecting surveillance probes, Zhou Yu arranged a campus-wide overnight power shutdown under the pretext of electrical maintenance.
• Zhou Yu gave Dania the wrist guards and promised a seafood buffet if she passed, motivating her to do her best at the test.

Zhou Yu used regulations and distractions to help Dania, Aimis, Linnai, and Sigelica through the physical tests while Moning watched his actions. Dania's strength test was next, and Zhou Yu considered the real year-end test just beginning.

• Zhou Yu met Dania with breakfast, and they agreed to celebrate her passing the physical test with a seafood buffet.
• Moning discovered that Zhou Yu's Logistics Department area was blocked from surveillance and that Principal Lupa had approved his maintenance request.
• Aimis used a piercing scream to disrupt the timing system briefly, then finished the obstacle course with a passing result.
• Linnai sprinted from last place to first after smelling Zhou Yu's grilled meatballs, while his approved cooking-test paperwork left Moning unable to object.
• Zhou Yu denied Linnai and Aimis the meatballs under department rules, then assigned Sigelica to oversee cleanup and made her recruit the two runners to help.
• Dania waited for her strength test as Zhou Yu prepared for the real year-end test.

Dania passed the strength test after Zhou Yu calibrated the force gauge to show exactly 60, leaving Moning unable to challenge the result. The final team assessment began with the nightmare-level Lahai-Roi Defense Line scenario, the same battlefield where Dania had once prepared to sacrifice herself.

• Dania first hit the force gauge with almost no force, but Zhou Yu encouraged her by prompting her to imagine a serving of red-braised pork.
• Dania struck the gauge with overwhelming strength, and Zhou Yu used a stamped form to calibrate the reading to exactly 60 before the machine broke.
• Moning challenged the result, but Zhou Yu cited the assessment rules, and the referee validated Dania's passing score.
• Dania celebrated with Zhou Yu and asked whether she could win the final event; he told her not to smash the machine.
• The final assessment began, matching the students to a recreated Lahai-Roi Defense Line at nightmare difficulty.