Chapter 36
"All done, Shiyu sis."
Yan Huan lifted the exquisitely finished fabric pouch from the table and handed it to Ye Shiyu for inspection.
She took it, examined it for a mont, then gave a small nod.
Because she didn't speak, Yan Huan kept looking at her, so after a pause she opened her mouth and offered,
"It looks good."
Only then did Yan Huan look away, casually asking,
"Aren't you going to write your na on it, Shiyu sis?"
"."
At the question, Ye Shiyu didn't glance at the little pouch; instead she studied the side of Yan Huan's face, her gaze tracing the line of his neck and the hollow at his throat, as though searching for empty space.
When he turned back to her, she looked away and shook her head.
"No. We made it together."
"Then is it okay if you keep it for us?"
"Mm."
In a while they'd have to hand the pouch to the teacher for grading. Yan Huan glanced around the craft room; everyone else's work was, to put it kindly, a disaster.
In this class Ye Shiyu was a one-woman massacre—her crafting skills were no joke. After finishing the required pouch, she'd even had ti to make a yellow pet scarf at Yan Huan's request.
He was basically riding her coattails; snagging an A at the end of term was all but guaranteed. For Yan Huan, core subjects that relied on exams were a breeze; the real headaches were the quirky electives with their chaotic grading rubrics.
"All right, class is almost over. No matter how your projects turned out, please stop where you are. I'll co around to check, then you're free to leave."
"Okaaay~"
Yan Huan sat down, took out his phone, and snapped a photo of the pouch.
Just then a ssage arrived:
"I've got sothing tonight, so the bar's closed—enjoy your day off."
—Tong Yingying.
Yan Huan sent back a sticker that simply read "Got it."
He almost opened the mahjong club group chat, thought better of it, and returned to Tong sis's text instead.
"Sis Tong, what's up? Your folks nagging you about marriage again?"
The other party was typing...
"Adults have adult business; kids shouldn't ask. Be good~"
Figures. He'd known that would be the answer and still asked.
Tong Yingying was an enigma—she often vanished and shut the bar whenever she "had things to do." Yan Huan suspected she simply didn't feel like getting out of bed.
All he knew was that she'd co to Linn from Longguo years ago for university and had been a top student. Now she seed to be in full horizontal mode—smoking, drinking, sleeping, and fielding long-distance parental pressure to get married.
Yet she was loaded. The bar sat on a pri street-front lot in South District; in land-scarce Linn that was serious money. She hadn't leased it—she'd bought it. She paid generous wages and even handed out holiday bonuses. She claid the cash ca from stock-market plays back in the day. Yan Huan had no idea how a "legendary idea king" like her had outsmarted the retail-investor bloodbath.
Whatever. Ti to head ho and study. He'd unlocked Learning Conqueror and hadn't really tested it yet; he had an idea he wanted to try.
"Mm, this pair did well."
The teacher stopped by, scrutinized their work, and offered praise—credit belonged almost entirely to Ye Shiyu.
"By the way, Shiyu sis, are you in any clubs?"
Yan Huan packed up, saw Ye Shiyu doing the sa, and asked out of curiosity.
Without expression she shook her head.
"What's the point of joining a club?"
"It's not super useful, I guess. On a personal level, you get to hang out with like-minded classmates."
He folded the yellow pet scarf Ye Shiyu had sewn while explaining.
"More practically, once you join you'll have a faction for the Club Wars. If your club places, there are rewards."
"Rewards?"
Ye Shiyu's gaze lifted; images of Longguo competitions flashed through her mind.
Rewards for placing?
A certificate.
That was it.
Interest dimd in her eyes, but since Yan Huan was still talking, she kept listening.
"First place gets the right to petition the Board for a wish, second place wins a huge club budget plus the authority to host all school club events, third place gets the budget only."
A wish, huh.
Ye Shiyu considered. A spark of curiosity flared; she asked abruptly,
"Does the student council answer to the Board?"
"Ah—strictly speaking, no. We're highly autonomous. Club Wars, sports ets, most activities are run entirely by us."
At that, Ye Shiyu's gaze slid away, interest in Club Wars apparently snuffed out.
Still, she didn't dampen his enthusiasm. "I'll look into it later."
"Okay, Shiyu sis."
Yan Huan finished packing. Learning she'd take the car ho, he parted ways and boarded the school bus to South District.
The bus was neither crowded nor empty; he found a quiet seat in the last row where no one paid attention.
"ow-chan."
"ow~"
At the soft call, a plump black cat leapt from nowhere and landed beside him, sitting primly.
Yan Huan produced the yellow cloth scarf Ye Shiyu had sewn.
"Look, ow-chan, I got you a scarf."
The fat cat tilted its head, patted the fabric with a pink paw, and asked,
"Ugh, what's the point, ow?"
"You're all black; at night you're basically invisible. A yellow scarf makes you stand out—and look cuter."
"ow?"
ow-chan watched speechlessly as Yan Huan draped the scarf around its neck and tied a neat bow on one side.
Oddly, once fastened, the scarf blurred into translucence—visible only if ow-chan willed it.
Nice touch, kitty.
Yan Huan cradled ow-chan and stared out the window as the engine rumbled to life.
"Oh yeah, Yan Huan, I found sothing in the bar last night."
Halfway through the ride, ow-chan rembered and looked back at him.
Yan Huan leaned in curiously—then the cat hunched over and began to retch.
"Blaaargh."
Like a cat coughing up a hairball.
"What the—?"
Afraid of getting sothing unspeakable on his clothes, Yan Huan tried to set ow-chan on the adjacent seat.
But the next second, a milk-white, translucent scale plopped out.
The scale was completely ethereal—his hand passed through it.
"What is—"
"A fragnt from the Modifier, ow. Sa kind that fell from Ye Shiyu's Modifier before."
"Huh?"
Yan Huan stared. He reached for the scale; his fingers slid straight through.
"I told you, ow—I can't interact with the world. If I can handle these fragnts, then you definitely can't."
"...So that's how it is."
Yan Huan blinked, rubbed his chin, and fell into thought.
"Wait a second—could this be the fragnt Bai Yi's Modifier dropped yesterday? I did give her the approval she wanted, but the fallout shouldn't have been this intense, right?"
"I dunno, ow. This shard is way bigger than the last one I scarfed down. Looks like the Modifier took a serious beating."
ow-chan circled the shard, then tilted her head up at Yan Huan with big doe eyes that scread, *As expected of you.*
No, no, no.
Mainly because he had zero mory of doing anything spectacular.
Yan Huan honestly didn't think his ergency patch-up on Bai Yi had been that effective—barely a stopgap, nowhere near the level of control he'd exerted on Ye Shiyu. Yet here lay a chunk the size of a poker chip. That didn't line up with his own handiwork at all.
"This thing looks like an animal scale—lizard, snake, sothing like that. Was Ye Shiyu's fragnt the sa shape?"
"Scales?"
ow-chan tilted her head, puzzled, then brightened.
"Ah, right! The Modifier is essentially the power of a foreign god. You humans can't perceive its true form, so it morphs into whatever your mind can parse."
She made a retching motion and coughed up a wisp of gossar-like filants.
"See? This is the shard Ye Shiyu dropped. Looks completely different, yeah?"
"Mm. To this one's like cobwebs, and that one's like snake scales."
Yan Huan stared, the pieces clicking into place.
"Hold on—if the Modifier can't be sensed, right?"
"Correct, ow."
"Then is it possible soone else, under that sa limitation, still managed to do sothing to the host or the Modifier itself, forcing it to shed this fragnt?"
"In theory, yes. But to pull that off while knowing nothing? Whoever it is would have to be—"
Yan Huan hissed.
No cap, a real pro.
Problem was, when Bai Yi had left the bar last night, she'd still looked like a ss. This shard didn't feel like hers either. That ant a fourth, or maybe a still-unseen fifth, Modifier had shown up at the bar.
Who could it be?
Tong sis?
He shuddered at the thought. If Tong Yingying ever got her hands on a Modifier, with her reputation as the queen of hare-brained sches, life would beco—
utterly unlivable.
He whipped out Plane and fired off a ssage.
"Tong sis, you there?"
A cat sticker stared back.
Her status stayed frozen; no reply ca.
Ugh.
Plane, like WeChat in his last life, didn't show read receipts. Probably for the best—especially when your boss texts at midnight asking if you're asleep.
Yan Huan set his phone down and rubbed his temples, trying to sort his thoughts.
Stay calm.
Three Modifiers were confird so far.
Spencer's Plunder System—insanely strong, could rewrite minds and create creepy pocket dinsions. Only downside: the host was an idiot.
Ye Shiyu's Hypnosis App—also brutal, that sudden hard CC was almost impossible to dodge. But after his intervention, her possessiveness seed... under control? (Question mark.)
Then Bai Yi's Indifference—felt weakest, plenty of room to maneuver, and he already understood the host. Call it *potential unlocked*.
That left two wildcards.
One: the noon ambush whose user could manipulate pleasure.
Two: the possible snake-scale droppper tied to Tong Yingying.
Tong sis, please answer. I miss you—strictly platonic, nothing to do with Modifiers.
"Forget it."
She never replied, and the call went straight to voicemail. Probably asleep.
Yan Huan sighed and turned to ow-chan.
"So this shard can still power up my Modifier, yeah?"
ow-chan nodded eagerly.
"And it's twice the size of the last one—bigger boost incoming! You'll see this weekend. I'll keep it safe."
"Good. Honestly, I barely used Learning Conqueror last ti. Just felt... clear-headed after twenty minutes of study. Since I've got the afternoon free, I want to see how crazy the max-level version is."
"ow~"
He scratched ow-chan's head, then reached for his phone to scroll videos. The bus lurched to a stop.
"Beep beep!"
Not just the school bus—every car ahead had stopped. Horns blared behind them.
"What's going on?"
"Looks like a roadblock up front."
Yan Huan peered out the window. The bus idled before a cordoned-off intersection. Traffic cops waved vehicles down alternate routes.
"Ergency traffic control. The road ahead is closed. Please detour. Thank you!"
He pressed his forehead to the glass. On the left, flas licked out of a mid-floor office. Fire engines, ambulances, and detectives sward the building.
One stretcher after another erged, bodies streaked with blood, so still clutching knives.
"Gang turf war?" Yan Huan muttered.
South Linn had once been thick with triads. Poverty wasn't the cause—history and geography were. Coastal, early influx of illegal immigrants, dozens of cultures forming rival cliques. For decades the district had been a free-for-all, much like pre-handover Hong Kong.
The city cracked down hard once Linn prospered. Execution squads culled the gangs; even the eggs in gang dens were scrambled. Nowadays only scattered thugs remained—hence his warning to Bai Yi about dark alleys.
Yet here they were, a full-blown shootout.
The hair salon near Tong sis's bar was about to lose a lot of walk-in traffic.
Yan Huan shook his head as the bus detoured, arriving ho twenty minutes late. Skipped cooking, grabbed fried rice downstairs, and watched the news with earbuds in.
"Linn Breaking: At 15:23 today, a fire broke out on the third floor of Sterling Tower, Longyang Road, South District. Witnesses report violence preceding the blaze. Sources link the incident to the Yu Gang, a South-District outfit composed of Longguo immigrants. Police have launched a special task force..."
He didn't wait for the rest. Paid the bill, bought juice, cat treats, and canned food, then headed upstairs.
At his computer he flexed his fingers and opened the desktop version of Plane. He typed in the keyword "side hustle—Zhangsun Studio (ghostwriting)." A chat window popped up.
"Sup?"
Cat emoji.
A mont later: *typing...*
"Yo."
Then:
"But we're dry. All the cushy gen-ed papers you used to do? AI's got 'em now."
Yan Huan sipped his juice and replied,
"Nah, not looking for work. Got any university math textbooks or slide decks? Send the files."
"K. Scored so top-tier calc, linear algebra, and stats decks from big-na unis. Textbooks too, but they're all over the map—hardly any Linn editions. Make do."
"Thanks."
He sent back a cat nodding gratefully.
A few monts later, the other side sent over a flood of courseware and digital textbooks.
He followed it with a grinning-emoji sticker.
"Man, you're savage. Between your part-ti jobs, you're already swamped."
"It's okay, not too bad."
"Cool. Let know when you've finished. Math orders are piling up. Our clients in Vulture Country want the full package—exams, howork, quizzes; they just dump everything on us. You know what we clear in a single sester?"
"They even outsource exams?"
"Where there's demand, there's supply. Especially with all these online classes and proctored tests. They want the easy degree; we skim a little off these rich kids' allowances. Who cares about academic integrity anyway?"
It had been ages since he'd last chatted with Yan Huan, so the ghost-writing studio's boss was in full flow.
"Knowledge is power, darling. When you're done, ping and I'll start assigning you jobs. Soon you'll be rolling in cash."
"Mm-hmm. I'll take a look first."
"No rush. I'll set you a quick assessnt later, just to confirm your level."
"OK."
Yan Huan gave a noncommittal reply and downloaded the files one by one, sorting them into tidy folders.
He took a sip of juice. The glow of the PPT slides cast a cold light on his handso face.
Lines of text, symbols, and equations shimred in his eyes.
Invisibly, a mysterious force activated, plunging him into total absorption; his keen mind humd like a high-performance engine.
Ability: Learning Conqueror—activated!
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