Early the next morning, terminal notifications chimed incessantly. Xie Guanning buried his head deep under the covers, but the barrage of calls didn’t cease for a moment.
He reached out an arm, fumbled around the bedside table, and spoke in a cold, unfriendly tone, “Wen Li, you better have something life-threatening to tell me.”
The voice on the other end was bright and cheerful, brimming with excitement. “Guanning! Guanning! Did you see the group chat?”
Xie Guanning closed his eyes, his voice raspy with sleep. “I don’t think there’s anything in that group chat important enough to wake me up for.”
“Oh, just go look!” Wen Li persisted. “Everyone’s saying you shut Zhou Hengyuan’s mom down so hard she couldn’t say a word at the banquet. Is it true?”
“Fake.” Xie Guanning hung up. He tried to go back to sleep, but Wen Li’s messages began to flood in one after another.
OnePear: What time do you think it is? Wake up! OnePear: Check the chat! Apparently, after most guests left last night, Zhou Hengyuan and his mom had a massive fight! OnePear: So satisfying! OnePear: Wait, what is Lin Ziyan saying? Who is he being sarcastic toward now? OnePear: I don’t get why he’s always targeting you. Just because he can’t handle Zhou Hengyuan, he takes it out on you?
His sleepiness finally faded. Xie Guanning lazily opened his terminal to find hundreds of messages in the class group. Scrolling up, he learned that before the guests had even fully departed, Zhou Hengyuan had clashed with his mother. Mrs. Zhou had supposedly been reduced to tears, accusing him of being unfilial.
Xie Guanning had little interest in family drama, but his eyes narrowed when he saw a post from Lin Ziyan.
Lin Ziyan: Mrs. Zhou is still an elder. What’s there to be happy about when someone is rude to her at her own banquet? Lin Ziyan: Their family business is none of our concern. I thought our classmates came from respectable families, but it seems some are just as ‘low-class’ as those who can’t be shown in public.
Lin Ziyan was notoriously arrogant, and his words sparked immediate outrage. Wen Li fired back first.
OnePear: We’re just ordinary people, certainly not on Young Master Lin’s level. After all, not everyone has the stamina to be a persistent ‘simp’ for years despite being rejected repeatedly.
Xie Guanning blinked. Some things that had previously puzzled him were becoming clear. He recalled that Lin Ziyan always looked at him with hostility. Xie Guanning had been too busy to care about a “child’s” thoughts, but it turned out there was a backstory.
Wait.
Xie Guanning frowned and messaged Wen Li: X: If I remember correctly, was Lin Ziyan at our graduation dinner? OnePear: Of course, the whole class was there. X: Was he sitting next to Zhou Hengyuan? OnePear: I think so, why?
Xie Guanning fell silent. That night, the atmosphere had been wild. Zhou Hengyuan had sat next to him and handed him a glass of wine. Xie Guanning hadn’t thought much of it and drank it. Soon after, he felt increasingly unwell. He thought it was just the alcohol content—until Zhou Hengyuan used the moment to confess.
Flustered and burning up, Xie Guanning had made an excuse to leave the booth. He realized too late that the wine had been spiked. In his delirious state, he had grabbed someone… and woke up the next morning to a room in shambles.
He had gone to the Zhou banquet partly to ask Zhou Hengyuan about that drink. But seeing the boy’s reaction last night, it was clear he was oblivious. So… who had tampered with the glass?
The bar they had used was high-end and strictly managed. Only classmates were in the booth. Outsiders wouldn’t have dared. He looked at Lin Ziyan’s name on the screen. He needed to find an opportunity to test him.
By 10:00 AM, the Xie villa was quiet. Mrs. Xie and her daughter were likely out. Xie Guanning dressed in his usual “uniform”—black clothes, a mask, and a baseball cap—and headed out.
The commute to the border of Districts 6 and 7 took over an hour. This was an old civilian area where the “Underground Arena” was hidden. Xie Guanning rented a small place here to save money and stay away from the Xie family.
After a large bowl of noodles at a street stall—mecha repair was heavy labor, after all—he headed to his shop.
The Underground Arena was a secret location; one needed a guide to find it. He took a hidden elevator in a nondescript building. As the doors opened, the distant roar of the combat zone hit him.
Xie Guanning opened his shop, coughing as he inhaled a lungful of dust. He kicked the clutter aside to make a path and sat behind the counter. He immediately immersed himself in mecha repair simulations.
As he worked, the June heat began to seep in. Though it was cooler underground, his continuous movement soon soaked his black shirt, making it cling to his lean back and the curve of his waist. He pulled his mask down to his chin, sweat dripping from his forehead.
After assembling the last component, he stood up, feeling a brief wave of dizziness. He drank a large gulp of water and fumbled in a drawer for a lollipop to combat his low blood sugar.
Hours passed as he toggled between his notebook and the light-computer. By the time he finished repairing several mechas, it was nearly 10:00 PM. His legs felt like lead, and he collapsed into his chair.
Mecha repair was tiring, but it was his lifeline. While he dreamed of piloting mechas, he knew the reality: he was an Omega, and mechas were incredibly expensive. He had pivoted to Mecha Design so that one day, he could build a custom machine perfectly suited for himself.
As the night crowd roared outside, Xie Guanning huddled in his chair, the dim shop light casting a soft glow over him. He checked his savings account. Seeing the number grow and the debt to the Xie family decrease, his exhaustion seemed to vanish.
Soon, he thought. Just a little longer.