Chapter 76 - 28: Idle Hands (Part 3)

Su Xiaocai and Feng Wansha had just registered when Hu Ping came to pick them up.

Their dorm was on the second floor. As soon as they stepped on the stairs, they ran into Wu Feiyang.

Su Xiaocai greeted him with a nod and continued upstairs.

As they brushed past each other, Wu Feiyang’s roommate watched in awe as Wu Feiyang spun 540 degrees on one foot, "Hey, Caicai, what brings you to the boys’ dorm?"

Su Xiaocai turned back with a smile, "Hello, Senior Wu, I’m here to see a classmate about something, I’m in a hurry, so I’ll be off."

"I also need to grab something from the dorm." Wu Feiyang caught up with Su Xiaocai, tightly clenching his fist to hide his excitement.

Feeling pleased with himself, he thought: We must be destined.

The abandoned roommate: Traitor Wu, forgetting everything for a pretty face—did he forget about training?

Hu Ping was observing the lovestruck Wu Feiyang all the way, thinking to himself: Is surnamed Wu a pervert? Acting like a horny goat, so ugly!

They soon reached their destination, and Wu Feiyang wanted to follow Hu Ping into the dorm, but Hu Ping stopped him with one hand, "Wu Dog, I remember Ji Heng said the special training team is busy today. Why aren’t you there, and what’re you doing here?"

Wu Feiyang’s eyes were full of Su Xiaocai, a bit annoyed at Hu Ping for blocking the way, but he was thick-skinned enough.

"Ahem, Ji Heng is your best buddy, and I’m Ji Heng’s friend, so by approximation, we’re brothers. Can’t you do your brother a favor?"

Students from the Mecha Department all knew Wu Feiyang had a sharp tongue; unexpectedly, his flawed logic was also quite sensible.

On regular days, they hadn’t seen him talking about brotherly love.

Between Su Xiaocai and Wu Feiyang, only Wu Feiyang was into it, and their lack of familiarity was obvious to the naked eye.

There was no way Hu Ping would let him get close and be a nuisance, "Can you handle the instructor’s punishment?"

"Come on, it’s not the time yet, there’ll be plenty of time later." Wu Feiyang’s roommate came helplessly to drag him away. One short junior, no matter how pretty, still looked like a kid.

There were girls in the class who liked him. Why bother with a junior?

The roommates didn’t understand and couldn’t comprehend his taste.

But Wu Feiyang trusted his instincts; he felt that Su Xiaocai had a strong aura that attracted him, which he believed was love at first sight.

Still, the instructor’s lectures were genuinely intimidating.

He reluctantly bid farewell to Su Xiaocai, "Caicai, let’s hang out during the holiday!"

After he left, Su Xiaocai smiled faintly and said, "I’m afraid he won’t get the chance."

Hu Ping strode in, "What chance is he missing?"

"I’m also going to participate in the outer space practice."

"You’re going too? As part of the logistics?" Hu Ping said. "Aren’t you from the Agricultural Research Institute? Why bother going into space with the Mecha Department? The training is demanding."

"I’m different from you guys; you’ll understand when the time comes." She was going up as actual logistics personnel, not part of the student team.

"Is that even allowed?" Hu Ping touched his chin, dropping the topic because obviously someone had managed to pull some strings.

It seemed that Su Xiaocai had strong backing.

Relying solely on her capabilities, Su Xiaocai wasn’t afraid of Hu Ping’s misunderstanding. She held the "Zhi Hui 02" and scanned the boys’ dorm environment.

The boys’ dorm was the same size as the girls’, but it felt much more spacious.

They had no furniture, just four broken stools and a paint-stripped large wooden table, looking like an undecorated room.

"Your dorm renovation is very..." Su Xiaocai struggled to find the right word.

"Old, worn-out, and tiny." Liu Xun was circling the simulation pod and solved Su Xiaocai’s puzzle when he saw her coming, "This place was empty before. I scavenged those stools from the furniture store’s dump, and the table is a gift from a senior. Quite pathetic."

Feng Wansha: "Indeed, a bit pathetic."

"Two simulation pods in the hall, and it’s called poor?" Su Xiaocai started installing the game while chatting, "Why do you guys have no furniture, is it like this in other dorms too?"

"Boys are clumsy, and the furniture gets broken. So the school decided not to give us any furniture."

Suddenly the sympathy shifted away, and it’s the principal who seemed pitiful.

The boys had squandered a large sum.

Feng Wansha pulled out a few papers to have them sign a confidentiality agreement.

Su Xiaocai: "Right now, it’s the testing phase. There’s a realistic mode you can’t access. I’ve restricted it unless you pass the nightmare difficulty in novice mode. Your version is just a demo, with only two maps per difficulty. If you can pass, I’ll load the complete game for you."

"Currently among the boys, only the three of you can play. If your other roommate wants to play too, he needs to sign a more comprehensive confidentiality agreement with me." Games are made to be played with, and free beta testers shouldn’t be wasted.

Moreover, games aren’t developed overnight; it was generated by "Zhi Hui 02." Without "Zhi Hui 02," even if others replicated the game, its authenticity would be greatly reduced.

"OK, we’ll play right away. After today, we’ll let you know if there are any bugs." Mecha piloting games typically have bugs; if monster spawning is randomized, sometimes they get stuck on trees, in rock crevices, or even mid-air.

The game Su Xiaocai played before the semester started was like that. Even the randomized ones had predictable patterns.

Someone had tried suppressing Su Xiaocai’s scores by buying the best mecha data at the time and grinding thousands of times to reach the top.

Once someone managed it, others followed, second, third ones came.

Because of that, no one took "Qingqing Zaiwu’s" records too seriously. Admiration passed, they worked hard, succeeded, and felt the previous record breaker wasn’t that remarkable.

Half an hour swiftly passed. Once Su Xiaocai finished explaining the precautions, she left.

In the boys’ dorm, it was time to decide who would play the game first. Hu Ping and the three of them exchanged looks for a long while.

Pan Mingjie opted out first. He was used to being non-competitive and disliked contesting with friends.

Liu Xun: "Senior Brother Hu, you must protect the seedlings."

Hu Ping sneered, "Junior, respect the elder."

Both widened their eyes, their gazes shooting metaphorical curses, buzzing with "zzz" electricity. The battle seemed intensely fierce.

I’ll stare, I’ll stare, I’ll keep staring again and again.

Liu Xun’s eyes watered uncontrollably, and as he blinked, his eyelids closed.

"You blinked, you lost." Hu Ping swayed his waist and swung his hips, performing a cheeky victory dance.

Liu Xun pounded the floor, "Darn it, those squinty eyes have the advantage."

"Pah, keep practicing." Hu Ping’s eyes were typical water-bright almond eyes, which wouldn’t look out of place on a girl’s face. Liu Xun’s so-called squinty eyes only appeared so when he squinted during the contest, unrelated to his eyes normally.

The damned competitiveness among boys was so childish.

Pan Mingjie had predicted an unserious competition was coming and chose to back out first.

Hu Ping won. He gleefully crawled into the simulation pod, entering the game.

Once the game began, he was instantly drawn to the ominous-looking realistic mode, his fingers itching to touch it. But the system prompted, "You currently do not have access to this mode; please fully explore the novice world first."

Hu Ping was quite displeased, "Tch."

His finger could only hover between novice mode and friendly novice mode. Hu Ping had a certain confidence in his gaming skills.

Lazily, he chose the novice mode and, like all confident players, jumped straight into a higher difficulty, opting for hard mode.

The nightmare difficulty clearly intended for a challenge, and he merely wanted to test the depth of the junior’s game prowess.

As it loaded, the system presented a prelude: he would lead a hundred-man team deep into an outer space mining zone to investigate the cause of its communication failure.

The system handed him a roster, over a hundred names, impossible to memorize quickly, but the key positions were highlighted, along with the main characters’ personality traits.

Hu Ping raised an eyebrow, somewhat intrigued. With so much data, the calculations would be complex; the game world couldn’t merely be a simple 2D model, right?

Entering the game world, Hu Ping realized he was entirely mistaken.

Right now, he was sitting at the command seat of a small cosmic battleship, a star map displayed on the front screen, flanked by assistants on either side.