Inside the Xinghai Academy gymnasium, sunlight pierced through the glass dome and landed on the grass directly below. The seats ringing the outer perimeter of the playground were packed with a bustling crowd.
Sitting in the middle tier along with Lu Jing, Zhang Zhou looked around as the opening ceremony was about to begin, but he could not spot a familiar figure.
Amidst the noisy gymnasium, Zhang Zhou had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard. “Lu Jing, did your teacher not come?”
Lu Jing rubbed his ears irritably. “He said he wasn’t feeling well and asked for a day off.”
Zhang Zhou shouted back, “Holy crap, does that mean we won’t get to see the Admiral? What a huge pity!”
To have such a rare opportunity to see the Admiral with one’s own eyes, only to miss it due to illness—if it were him, Zhang Zhou would be furious enough to crawl all the way there. But remembering that Lin Qiansheng was not in good health to begin with, he shook his head and called it a real shame.
Before the opening ceremony even started, the gymnasium was already packed to the brim. Not far from the two of them, reporters who had sneaked in with small cameras were flashing lights continuously.
Meanwhile, on Xingwang, the live broadcast room for the school anniversary was flooded with barrage comments, and its popularity soared past a million right after starting.
Zhang Zhou craned his neck past the railing in front to look outside. “Say, it’s already this time, why haven’t we seen the Admiral?”
“Maybe he’s in the VIP room upstairs.” Someone had given Lu Jing a VIP room pass a few days ago, but he didn’t go.
“!” Zhang Zhou hurriedly raised his head, but he could only make out a few dark silhouettes inside the high-level VIP room, unable to see anything clearly. Just as he was about to let out a cry of disappointment, his gaze accidentally caught the leaders’ seating area below.
Even at quite a distance, he could still see the black-haired, golden-eyed man sitting upright. His spine was as straight as a long spear piercing the sky, and his entire demeanor was chillingly stern. Those unusual, gorgeous, honey-gold eyes were cold and ruthless; just looking at them made people tremble all over and want to kneel in submission. He was a natural ruler.
He stood out brilliantly and dazzlingly among the middle-aged leaders with beer bellies.
“…Holy crap… Holy crap…”
Zhang Zhou widened his eyes, so excited he was practically speechless, repeating only those two words.
Then, thinking of something, he tremblingly took out his terminal, wanting to take a picture. The moment Zhang Zhou raised his device, his superior psychic perception sensed a faint, casual glance sweeping over from the VIP seats.
Stunned, he pressed the shutter, then rubbed his eyes and muttered to himself, “It must be my imagination.”
How could the Admiral possibly look in his direction?
Yet, in his excessive excitement, Zhang Zhou failed to notice that the black-haired, green-eyed boy beside him was looking away somewhat awkwardly.
“Oh, right!” Zhang Zhou cracked a smile, sent the photo to Lin Qiansheng, and added a message: Teacher, get well soon!
Just as he finished sending it, he thought about forwarding the photo to his online friends’ group chat. But realizing that would reveal to his friends that he was a student at Xinghai Academy, he ultimately gave up protecting his privacy.
Actually, he wasn’t too worried about his own privacy since there were so many students. The main thing was that he used to constantly complain in his live streams about how terrible a certain teacher at his school was, wondering why he was even allowed to stay in the Mecha Academy, and how annoying and frustrating it all was.
However, ever since his online friends riled him up last time, his attitude toward “that teacher at school” in his live streams had drastically changed—he stopped mentioning him altogether. This only made his viewers increasingly curious, with everyone wanting to get the social media account of “this teacher” to take a peek.
Lin Qiansheng was extremely famous at the school; if his viewers found out he was studying at Xinghai Academy, it probably wouldn’t take long for them to guess who he was talking about.
His viewers also knew he was a loyal fan of Lu Xingcheng. When people were discussing the Admiral coming to Xinghai Academy, some would even tag him, asking if he was lurking in the Xinghai Academy live stream. Zhang Zhou chuckled smugly to himself—he wasn’t in the live stream, he was right here at the venue!
Just as he turned his terminal around to close it and continue gazing up at their Empire’s Admiral, Zhang Zhou received a private message.
Tangtang: Little brother Zhou, who is that extra person your alternate account follows? Can you give me their contact info?
Although Tangtang didn’t frequently appear in his live streams, she was one of his earliest fans and one of the few people who knew about his alternate account.
The most important thing was that, through occasional hints in her conversations, Tangtang faintly revealed that she was an internal staff member of a virtual game company, and not in a low position either.
Zhang Zhou was puzzled: Why do you want someone else’s contact info?
Tangtang: You wouldn’t understand. Anyway, it’s very important.
Virtual life games focused heavily on realism. Although PVP players made up the majority, PVE players were not few either.
Most of the exploreable planets in the game were drawn from the real starry sky, including location coordinates. With continuous updates over the years, planets that were too ordinary failed to catch players’ eyes, and many novel, eye-catching planets remained unexplored; going there to gather reference material would be extremely dangerous.
In short… the material wasn’t enough; it wasn’t fresh or exciting anymore.
Tangtang’s real name was Tang Tang. She was a scene designer for virtual life games and held herself to extremely high standards, striving to improve with every project.
Recently, she had lost a handful of hair trying to come up with new conceptual designs and references. When feeling frustrated, she liked to surf the web, which led her to check out Zhang Zhou’s page—only to discover that this guy’s alternate account followed one more person.
Curious about what kind of person Zhang Zhou would use an alternate account to follow, Tang Tang clicked into the homepage of that newly followed account.
The owner of the account clearly didn’t use it often; the latest post was over a month ago, and scrolling down, all the posts contained no text—only photos.
The latest photo was quite ordinary, showing the night sky. With nothing better to do, Tang Tang scrolled down further, her hand suddenly stopping as she immediately clicked to enlarge another post.
The person who took the photo lacked professional knowledge; the picture showed only extreme shades of red and blue, yet it was shockingly stunning. Above a slowly flowing scarlet ocean made of blood hung a heavy, deep blue pressing skyward.
Directing her gaze further toward the ocean, one could even spot bone spurs resembling the decaying remains of some massive marine creature protruding from the bloody depths.
Zooming in further on the photo, ruins of what seemed to be dilapidated buildings could be seen at the edge of the horizon.
Gazing for a long time at this extreme red and blue, one realized only upon snapping out of it that they were finding it hard to breathe.
It was a scene resembling the end of the world.
With Tang Tang’s professional eye, she could tell at a glance that this was not some screenshot from a movie or television show, but a scene that genuinely and truly existed on some planet, captured on a terminal with a snap.
She blinked, and after shrinking the image, she didn’t even realize her breathing had grown tight as she eagerly clicked on the next picture.
This photo was even more fantastical. The shot was angled somewhat upward, with occasional flashes of light inside thunderclouds, as if a thunderstorm was about to strike.
Yet, right in the center of the gloomy thunderous storm, a whirlpool-shaped opening had torn open. Boundless golden light poured out from the opening, and a transparent staircase spiraling upward to the sky was illuminated into pure gold by the light.
The murky thunderstorm and the central golden light formed a sharp contrast between light and dark.
All afternoon, Tang Tang continuously scrolled through the photos, finally leaning back numbly against her chair to support her body.
If these were just conceptual drawings, that would be one thing; however, she could confirm that all these bizarre photos were entirely real!
They definitely existed on some unexplored planets!
And whoever took the photos must have used some method to venture alone into these unknown planets and make it back safely after snapping the pictures.
Tang Tang believed that the account owner surely knew the coordinates of these planets and the methods to reach them. In order to smoothly gather reference material, after a night of thought and discussion during the next day’s meeting, they decided to hire external help.
Once the meeting decided on the plan, Tang Tang sent a private message to the account.
Yet days passed, and the account owner had yet to come online; the private message remained unread.
Single-mindedly set on contacting the account owner, Tang Tang couldn’t sleep at night, and when she finally managed to doze off, her dreams were filled with those grand, magnificent scenery photos.
That account didn’t have many followers, and Zhang Zhou had even used an alternate account to follow it—he might actually know the person. Unable to endure it any longer after several sleepless days worrying about this, Tang Tang messaged Zhang Zhou today.
Zhang Zhou hadn’t expected Tangtang to be interested in Lin Qiansheng’s account. Tangtang was older than him, so he usually treated her like an older sister. But when it concerned Lin Qiansheng, he couldn’t be careless.
He gritted his teeth and replied stiffly: If you don’t tell me your purpose, even if I know them, I wouldn’t dare tell you. What if you’re up to no good?
Tangtang: What are you thinking? What bad could I possibly be up to?
Tangtang: Forget it, I’ll just spell it out. If you really know the owner of the account, help me ask if he has any interest in joining our project team. As for the salary, it definitely won’t be low.
Zhang Zhou blinked, his mind going blank.
In the interstellar era, Virtual Life was a phenomenal game. Countless top-tier students fought tooth and nail trying to join the project. Even if they couldn’t get hired, just getting an interview was a glorious page on anyone’s resume.
The salary would be vastly higher than being a teacher at their school!
So many people wanted to go but couldn’t!
So what happened?? Why did Tangtang suddenly want Lin Qiansheng to join their project team? Stunned for half a minute, Zhang Zhou replied dryly: Got it.
Just at that moment, the opening ceremony began, and people one after another spotted the young Admiral in the leaders’ seating area, instantly bursting into waves of screams and flashing cameras even more frequently.
Yet, perhaps due to the sudden news, although Zhang Zhou’s heart still fluttered when he saw the Admiral, he wasn’t as wildly excited as before. His mind was entirely filled with the mystery of how Teacher Lin had gotten mixed up with people from the Virtual Life project team.
Seeming as though something had happened, right as the opening ceremony concluded and before the next event could begin, the young Lord Admiral used the excuse of taking advantage of the moment before everyone could react to slip away from the school through a little-known side gate.
In an instant, all the remaining programs—especially the grand finale show—felt dull and uninteresting.
The viewership of the academy’s anniversary live stream also plummeted quite a bit following the Admiral’s departure.
Lin Qiansheng was woken up by the fluffy weight pressing against his chest. The moment he opened his eyes, he caught the scent of cool-toned cedar—a fragrance he used to be very, very familiar with.
Along the way, he had already felt that the route was a bit off, not heading toward the hospital.
By now, seeing the living room dominated by black and white—minimalist yet generous, though slightly desolate—along with the sweet, delicate Blue Bicolor Ragdoll cat press affectionately against him, he could finally confirm that the old man hadn’t headed toward the hospital at all.
Instead, he had driven him straight to Lu Xingcheng’s home.