Looking at that brand-new “new”, Wen Fengyu was still hesitating over whether to delete the contact. Before he could make up his mind, the door of the luxurious grand hall was knocked three times, with a one-second pause after each knock.
This was the unique knocking rhythm used only when Lu Xincheng came looking for him.
With no other choice, Wen Fengyu quickly put down his terminal, straightened his slightly messy military uniform, and opened the door.
Standing outside was a messenger soldier. The soldier crisp and neatly gave a military salute and asked, “Excuse me, which room is General in?”
Oh boy, Wen Fengyu lazily let out a yawn, thinking to himself why Lu Xincheng hadn’t gone back yet, coming all the way to his house to find someone.
He sighed and simply said, “Follow me.”
With that, he led the messenger soldier together to the guest room on the third floor of the Wen family’s villa.
After the messenger soldier entered the parlor, Wen Fengyu originally wanted to go back to sleep, but unexpectedly, the man’s cold voice came from inside: “You come in too.”
Locking the door and turning around, the first thing he saw was the man with a cold aura standing in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window inside the parlor.
Lu Xincheng sat against the light, the sunlight pouring in wantonly from the large window, making it hard to see his expression.
Wen Fengyu walked up to the desk, glanced at the report on it, raised his eyes, curved his lips, and showed a smile: “My good General, is it really okay for a useless celebrity like me to hear this kind of classified intelligence?”
Lu Xincheng just gave him a faint glance, turned to the messenger soldier, and said, “Continue.”
“Yes!” The messenger soldier resumed his report.
Wen Fengyu found himself lacking any amusement. He pouted and ran over to the sofa on the side to lie down again.
Although the Wen Best Actor was famous nowadays, compared to the Wen family’s status in the empire, it was still not enough. He was the kind of person others talked about—someone who would have to go home and inherit a multi-billion-dollar fortune if he didn’t work as a celebrity. Of course, a multi-billion might be an exaggeration. In reality, his father had forced him into the military ever since he was a child.
That was a place countless people in the empire dreamed of joining.
It was just a pity that the Wen Best Actor was always rebellious. He refused to go when told, angering Old Master Wen to no end and almost declaring that he would be cast out of the family.
Cast him out then, Wen Fengyu didn’t care at all. Without another word, he packed his bags and entered the entertainment industry, never expecting that in just five years, he would actually carve out a name for himself. Although later, under Lu Xincheng’s mediation, his relationship with Old Master Wen eased up a bit, they were still in a state of mutual non-interference. It was fine when they didn’t meet, but once they did, those two would get so angry their faces turned red.
As for Lu Xincheng, Wen Fengyu knew that Lu Xincheng actually wanted him to join the military too, but it was a pity he was used to freedom—at least during these prime years of his youth, it was absolutely impossible.
Thinking and thinking, Wen Fengyu yawned and grew sleepy again. Even though he didn’t really want to listen, a few words still drifted into his ears from time to time.
Like “Source Stone”.
The history of mecha development was long, but it had long failed to conquer the core energy problem—until a century ago, when an explorer accidentally discovered a special “ore” on several small planets.
This special ore was called source stone, and it could be said to be the core of the mecha power system.
Up to now, no scientist had been able to explain why this ore could provide a steady stream of power for mechas.
Mechas, as weapons with huge destructive power in space warfare today, their importance was unquestionable, and therefore the source stone acting as their core was of paramount importance.
However, this special ore only existed on a few planets, most of which were controlled by the empire, and the empire’s power was vast today. For the enemy, unable to face it head-on, they would naturally try every possible means to capture the source stone planets.
It seemed the front lines were not peaceful during this period.
Thinking carelessly, by the time he snapped out of it, the messenger soldier had already left.
Wen Fengyu blinked his eyes. Based on his understanding of Lu Xincheng, this guy definitely still had something to say by making him stay: “What is it?”
Lu Xincheng stood up, his back turned to Wen Fengyu, his gaze falling on the direction of the imperial palace outside the floor-to-ceiling window: “The palace banquet held by His Majesty four days from now—you will attend in my place.”
The reason Lu Xincheng came back to the empire and ran to his house wasn’t because he didn’t have a house, but because he was being nagged into marriage by their emperor, the kind of nagging that chased people all the way to their homes.
If he had to say, this palace banquet was also an arranged blind date party hosted by their emperor so that Lu Xincheng could find a suitable candidate…
The core figure of the banquet was Lu Xincheng, and he was supposed to go instead? Seriously? He had to know that those aristocratic families in the empire were very conservative, and what they looked down on the most were people from the entertainment industry.
He believed that when the noble ladies at the banquet saw the person changed, they would surely draw knives and hack him to pieces.
What was a bad friend? This was it!!
Wen Fengyu glared at Lu Xincheng vigilantly, “You have nothing to do that day, I won’t go in your place.”
“Four days from now is the anniversary of the Xinghai Mecha Academy.” The stern-faced man turned his head carelessly, the sunlight cutting a cold and hard boundary of light and shadow on his face, “I will go to Xinghai Academy that day.”
At this very moment, Wen Fengyu finally understood why Lu Xincheng didn’t directly reject the invitation yesterday. He turned out to be doing it to avoid the blind date!
Stalemated for a moment, Wen Fengyu gritted his teeth, “Do you think His Majesty will let you go to school?”
“The Fifth Prince is studying at Xinghai Academy.”
Their emperor originally doted on the Fifth Prince, plus Lu Jing had been willful since childhood, stubbornly hiding his identity and refusing all guards to accompany him as he went out to study by himself. Moreover, he had only returned to the imperial palace a few times in the past two years.
However, although Lu Jing was willful, he still listened to Lu Xincheng relatively well. Giving the reason to stop by and check on Lu Jing, their emperor probably wouldn’t have time to urge him to marry, and would only tell Lu Xincheng to have a good talk with Lu Jing, at least returning home a few more times a year.
Wen Fengyu had nothing to say, and he could see that Lu Xincheng’s mind was made up. Finally, he wiped his face and gave a thumbs up: “You’re ruthless.”
Afterward, Wen Fengyu got busy attending the banquet in Lu Xincheng’s place. It wasn’t until he had time to catch his breath that he remembered the friend request in the game that he had accidentally agreed to for Lu Xincheng.
Thinking again that it had been several days since they added each other, wouldn’t it be a bit bad to delete him? Wen Fengyu hesitated for a long time and chose to avoid it, not daring to log into Lu Xincheng’s account.
However, he didn’t know that during this time, Lin Xiansheng hadn’t logged into the game either. Nearing the final exams and the upcoming anniversary, he was also quite busy.
I wonder if it was because he didn’t care much about games before, as the game Virtual Life was limited to things he had only heard of.
And now, just walking down the school avenue, Lin Xiansheng could hear a line of students discussing several major events that had recently happened in the game.
For example—that lowercase small account that dropped out of nowhere to third place on the leaderboard.
“What do you guys think? What kind of person is the owner of that account in real life?”
“The account owner didn’t turn on the playback so we can’t see the operations. That small account’s configuration is even worse than mine, and the technique must be extremely awesome.
I guess it’s someone from the military or that group of people from our mecha academies who can enter the military.”
“Who knows, maybe it’s a small account opened by a wanted S-class criminal. But to be able to rush to third place, if they really were a criminal, just thinking about the danger is terrifying.”
“Hahaha, anyway we definitely don’t know them.”
“That’s true.”
Lin Xiansheng calmly passed by the students and then returned to the office.
A swaying incandescent lamp hung in the exact center of the ceiling. Originally, this office had four teachers. After evaluations, two were temporarily assigned elsewhere. The remaining teacher didn’t talk much with Lin Xiansheng on usual days either. Now that only the two of them were left, it suddenly appeared a bit awkward for a moment.
After sitting for a while, without even needing to raise his head, Lin Xiansheng could feel a gaze land on him.
The owner of the gaze racked their brain and finally found a topic to break the silence in the office: “I heard the school seems to be inviting the General for this anniversary?”
The young man’s fingers, which held a fountain pen with clear joints, paused slightly. He nodded politely and smiled: “Mm, I heard so.”
Whether or not someone leaked that the school invited the General to attend the anniversary, what should have been a heavily studious final exam atmosphere became a bit restless.
“Do you think the General will come? Haha, there are still students on the school forum betting on whether he’ll come or not. Right now, the votes for thinking he will come and thinking he won’t seem to be fifty-fifty.”
“Voting.” Lin Xiansheng pondered for a moment and rarely opened the school forum, immediately seeing the voting post with red text floating on the homepage.
Currently, the votes thinking he could come were 2,598, and those thinking it was daydreaming were 2,601. Furthermore, the votes kept increasing, occasionally overtaking each other, and the battle was extremely fierce.
Lin Xiansheng even saw students from his own class in the latest replies.
It seemed to still be class time right now.
Not knowing what he was thinking, the young man lowered his head, his silver hair drooping down and concealing his pupils.
The fountain pen made a rustling sound as it wrote on the paper. Looking at the name written in black ink on the white paper, the young man, firmly believing that the General couldn’t possibly return to attend the anniversary, voted for the daydreaming side.
Because it was nearing the final exams, Zhang Zhou hadn’t contacted him much during this time. Occasionally running into Lu Jing at home, the boy also rarely didn’t snap at him, concentrating instead on reviewing.
A few peaceful days passed. On the evening of the day right after exams ended on the eve of the anniversary, the college forum was exceptionally lively, with discussions about both grades and the anniversary.
It was also on this night, finally escaping from the sea of bitterness, that Zhang Zhou hurriedly sent the voting post link to Lin Xiansheng.
And when Zhang Zhou sent him the message, the votes thinking it was impossible for him to come had already far exceeded those thinking he would.
[Teacher Lin, if you haven’t voted yet, remember to vote for the side that says he’ll come!]
Lin Xiansheng’s eyelids twitched, [Why?]
[That’s a good question.]
[Teacher, I feel like I might have to hand-copy the school’s “awesome” rules ten thousand times.]
[Ahahaha!]
[Right, Teacher, didn’t you receive the message? I heard it from my friend; the school should have sent an internal notice?]
[General Lu seems like he’s coming!!!]
It seemed he really hadn’t received a notice.
Looking at Zhang Zhou’s excited message, the young man, completely unable to empathize, silently sent a tactful message to his friend Li Cheng: [Is there anything special about this anniversary?]
After a few minutes, Li Cheng replied with some astonishment: [Eh, didn’t I tell you? Never mind, no big deal. It’s probably spreading around the school by now, right?
It’s just that this school invited General Lu Xincheng. Who would have thought such a busy big figure agreed! I still can’t believe it to this day! It’s a pity I’m still out on a business trip. I also really want to go back and see the General!]
Lin Xiansheng took a deep breath and immediately dialed the school’s leave management phone number. Changing his usual slow speaking pace, he asked in one breath without pausing:
“I’m feeling a bit unwell these past two days. May I take a day off tomorrow?”