Su Yu and his group arrived at school without a hitch.
Along the way they hadn’t run into Aether or Kamisato Ayato.
Though they were short two people, Lumine and Kamisato Ayaka still occasionally let their gazes interweave, faint sparks flickering between them.
Kamisato Ayaka carried herself like a proper young lady of a distinguished house, refined and well-versed in etiquette, with some knowledge of dance and music as well.
Lumine, by contrast, was adorably dopey, hands on her hips, and sometimes unbearably sassy.
Though neither of them had made her feelings toward Su Yu particularly clear, the moment either saw the other drawing near to Su Yu, she would involuntarily sidle forward, wanting to be that third wheel.
And as for Furina, who, compared to the innate advantage of their neighbor status, had it even easier by being close at hand?
Ha, laughable.
What threat could a Furina who only opens her mouth and waits for little cakes possibly pose?
“I’ll head back to class first then.
See you at the usual place at noon if nothing comes up.” Lumine waved to the few of them.
“Mm, then I should pick up my pace a bit too.
I’m running a little late getting to school today.”
Stepping through the school gates, the group bade each other farewell and parted ways.
Before leaving, Su Yu didn’t forget to secretly slip a small mousse cake into Furina’s hand, making the girl’s starry eyes sparkle without end.
Back in class, Su Yu began mulling over the specifics of the task.
As something with the potential to become his first big haul of gold, the Sanguosha board game cards, he was determined to have it.
Still, eating Raiden Ei’s cooking was a minor problem.
The key was being marked by that rotten fox…
Mm, so the benefits are all spoken for, what’s the downside…
Though Su Yu usually said it was awful to be marked by a bad woman, one thing is one thing.
Once you really are marked, entangled, probably no one would refuse, right?
Of course, if there were no System, that’d be another story~
Thinking of this, the corner of Su Yu’s mouth began to curl upward.
Earn his first pot of gold, then buy out Yae Publishing House, and then…
Wiping away nonexistent drool, Su Yu prepared to raise his head and scout the situation.
If the teacher was focused on lecturing, then he could just go to sleep.
After all, his seat was the second-to-last row by the window, extremely concealed.
With one hand propping up his head and the other gripping a pen while he looked down at a book, he could easily disguise himself.
But unexpectedly, the moment he raised his head, he met Xianyun’s sharp gaze head-on.
The woman on the podium wore red-framed glasses and was tall of stature.
That gaze directly awakened Su Yu’s dormant memories.
“Student Su Yu, what were you laughing at just now?
So happy.
Why don’t you say it and let the teacher be happy too.” Xianyun pushed up her glasses, her gaze gradually shifting from sharp to teasing.
“Ah!
I…
I…”
“Alright, I won’t make things hard for you either.
Just tell me what page and what line I was on just now, and the teacher won’t give you a hard time.
How’s that?”
Seeing the playful look in Xianyun’s eyes before him, Su Yu couldn’t help but cough twice and began sending out distress signals to his good brothers around him.
“Cough cough.”
“Cough cough!”
“Teacher, Su Yu’s throat isn’t well.
He must have caught a cold.
How about I take him to the Academy Hospital?”
The first to respond was Arataki Itto.
As a senior academy in the most authoritative Academy City in the world, naturally any race could enroll, the Oni included, of course.
The sturdy man with a pair of crimson horns atop his head and a head of white hair anxiously raised his hand to signal the teacher.
The Oni naturally wouldn’t be discriminated against or bullied at the academy, unless the other party was craving red beans.
After all, the Oni’s uniformly sturdy physiques were there for all to see.
But Arataki Itto had always been rather simple-minded.
Or rather, he was a big kid.
Few ordinary people could really play along with him, and though Su Yu wouldn’t play with him every day either, he had still pointed out a bright path for him.
He’d helped him find a few friends who didn’t mind that sort of flaw, so in his heart, Su Yu absolutely counted as a bosom friend.
The moment he heard him cough, his head, which had been nodding like he was pounding garlic under Xianyun’s hypnosis, instantly became clear.
“Did you think I wasn’t talking about you?
Su Yu was only spacing out, but you were already asleep, weren’t you?”
“The little tricks you all pull down there.
The teacher can see them perfectly clearly.
So…
Arataki Itto, you go stand at the back too!”
The reason Xianyun hadn’t scolded the long-asleep Arataki Itto from the start was also because, as the class’s king of sleeping, every time she had just opened her mouth, before she’d even finished her first sentence, the boy was already pounding garlic.
If not for his excellent athletic achievements, she’d have thought he might be expelled by the academy.
Perhaps this kid was born for sports, or perhaps the reason he was so sleepy in class was that he trained hard at sports outside of class, so Xianyun understood.
Usually she’d turn a blind eye.
But Su Yu was different.
True, Su Yu slept plenty too, but not often.
She still believed he could be saved.
“Yes, teacher!
Uh, that is…
it’s no problem for me to stand at the back, but my bosom friend’s illness can’t be delayed!”
“Brother Itto, truly worthy of being my good brother.
Sooner or later I’ll introduce Gorou to you and make your celebrity-chasing dream come true!”
Su Yu was moved in his heart, and had already begun plotting about a certain Dog tribe youth.
Watching Arataki Itto’s anxiousness, though Xianyun kept a stern face, she was secretly delighted inside.
The ones in her class really were all good kids.
“Su Yu, tell your classmate Arataki, are you sick or not?”
Seeing Xianyun’s kindly gaze, Su Yu was just about to take the easy way out, but Xianyun’s next words completely snuffed out his plan.
“If you’re sick, then you need treatment.
It just so happens Sigewinne is on duty today, so you go…”
“Teacher, I’m not sick!
Uh, what you were saying just now was…
uh…”
A person’s name casts a shadow.
He knew of Sigewinne’s great reputation.
Even patients genuinely in need of help occasionally fell prey to her little pranks, let alone someone like him who wasn’t even sick.
Su Yu couldn’t care about that much and directly interrupted Xianyun’s suggestion.
“Page two hundred and fifty.”
Just as Su Yu was still wondering what page it was, a faint voice came from beside him.
The deliberately lowered voice was somewhat familiar.
Su Yu had no time to think it over and simply read it out as-is: “Teacher, two-fifty.”
“Hm?
Wha—!
Phew, then what line?”
“Line two hundred and fifty.” The deliberately lowered voice came again.
“Teacher Xianyun, still two-fifty.”
“How dare you!
Su Yu, you’ve got some nerve!
Come to my office after class—we’ll see if I don’t teach you hands-on what it means to respect your teacher and honor the way!”
Looking at Xianyun in front of him, her face flushed crimson as if overheated, Su Yu was briefly stunned, then quickly realized just how ridiculous the two numbers he’d just read out were.
And the source of that voice…
Thinking it over, Su Yu looked directly at Kaeya beside him, and Kaeya was just then glancing at Su Yu out of the corner of his eye, one hand under the cover of the desk giving him a thumbs-up.
Clearly, that deliberately lowered voice just now, both familiar and somewhat unfamiliar, had been cooked up by that fellow Kaeya.
Su Yu wasn’t all that surprised by Kaeya’s dark-hearted maneuver, nor did he feel particularly angry.
After all, he had once hidden the science teacher Alice’s daughter’s Dodoco in his desk, and because of that, Kaeya had been forced by Alice to clean her laboratory for a week.
And his first little pot of savings had started right there.
For Mora, making a brother suffer a bit.
No shame in that.
But this way, the two of them were more or less even.
Su Yu wouldn’t be too resistant to any future tasks involving Diluc and Kaeya that might come up.
He’d note today’s grudge for now.
Once he got his hands on things from Diluc’s side, he’d surely deal a heavy blow to Kaeya’s arrogant bluster!
“Su Yu!
I said come to my office after class.
Did you hear me or not!”
“Uh, I heard you, I heard you.”
“Call me teacher!”
“I heard you, teacher!”
The whole class felt considerably shorter because of Su Yu’s little interlude.
Xianyun had barely gotten through two pages before the dismissal bell rang.
The instant the bell rang, Su Yu’s peripheral vision caught a small figure not far away, who, after casting him a grateful glance, yawned and fell asleep at the speed of light.