Chapter 25: Personal Network Terminal

Xiaochui and Long Yin returned to their dormitory, only to find that the entire building had been cleared out, leaving just the two of them.

“It’s so quiet!” Xiaochui nodded, satisfied. The violence and threats from the previous night had had an immediate effect.

Long Yin smirked, leaping lightly from Xiaochui’s back. When he reached the bulletin board, he noticed that the contract posted yesterday was gone. Emotion flickered in his eyes, and his smirk deepened. Sensing Xiaochui approach, Long Yin pointed at the now-empty board, a trace of excitement in his voice. “Xiaochui, when do you think I’ll come face to face with that crown prince?”

Xiaochui scratched his head, his paw scraping the board and leaving a deep, chilling gouge. “Incitement won’t work. At the soonest, half a year.”

Long Yin nodded, quite satisfied with how quickly Xiaochui had adapted and begun to reverse-analyze human thinking. “Tell me, why half a year?”

“Humans are arrogant—especially humans like him: proud, overconfident, and dismissive. Yin, in his eyes, you’re nothing but an ant he could crush at any moment. He’s too lazy to react to this incident; even if you caused a huge commotion, it wouldn’t matter to him, because you two have no real conflict of interest.”

Leaning against the bulletin board, Long Yin nodded for Xiaochui to continue.

“When the tree longs for peace, the wind won’t stop. Yin, you’ll force him to face you; this incident is only the prelude! Perhaps half a year is not accurate—I overlooked your determination. Yin, what do you think?”

“Me?” Long Yin shook his head. “I don’t know.” Stretching lazily, he walked toward the dormitory, tossing Xiaochui an uncertain answer over his shoulder. “That’ll depend on his subordinates.”

“Tonight, I’m going to push my limits. Afterward, I’ll probably sleep for three days straight.” Long Yin entered the dorm’s main hall and started pulling out a pile of materials. Glancing at Xiaochui, who had followed him in, he mused, “If someone causes trouble in the next three days, what will you do?”

Xiaochui plopped cross-legged onto the carpet, crossing his two bear paws over his chest with an innocent, guileless expression. “Am I supposed to understand human speech?”

Long Yin burst out laughing, doubled over as he pointed at Xiaochui. “That’s brilliant—they’ll be driven mad by you for sure!”

“Hmph, they’re not even worthy lackeys—dealing with them would be an insult to my intelligence!”

Wiping away tears of laughter, Long Yin took out his card-making tools. “I thought you’d just beat them up!”

Xiaochui paused, scratching his head with a claw, and admitted after a moment, “I can’t rule out losing patience and shutting them up myself.”

Long Yin shrugged. “Do as you like. I trust you to handle it!”

Suddenly, Xiaochui flopped onto the ground and began rolling around, his round body bumping against the furniture. Then he sprawled out, baring two rows of razor-sharp teeth and making a harsh, scraping sound as he ground them together. “Yin, can I string them up and roast them for dinner?”

Long Yin didn’t even pause in grinding his medicinal herbs, nor did he glance up. He replied coolly, “If you don’t mind how bad they’d taste.”

Bear claws started scraping at the carpet, producing an unpleasant, grating noise.

Long Yin sighed. “If you’re bored, help me grind these herbs.” Seeing Xiaochui instantly roll upright, eyes shining with anticipation, Long Yin couldn’t help but smile. He obligingly took out some extra sacred fruits from his spatial storage.

Sacred fruit was an essential—and the most expensive—ingredient for five-star cards. For reasons unknown, even though Xiaochui wasn’t fond of vegetarian fare, he had a particular liking for sacred fruit. Whenever Long Yin started grinding herbs, Xiaochui’s bear paw would always stray toward the sacred fruits, no matter how much Long Yin tried to prevent it. The request for help was really just a mutual understanding between them.

The grating noise disappeared, replaced by the cheerful sound of munching. Shaking his head, Long Yin focused on his alchemy.

The next day, Long Yin put away the fruits of his extreme efforts—sixty-two six-star energy cards—and, plagued by a splitting headache, fell into a deep sleep.

As Long Yin had expected, Xiaochui woke the next morning to face the first wave of troublemakers. With barely any effort, he shooed them away. The second and third waves didn’t even make him lift an eyelid. By the fourth and fifth, Xiaochui finally glanced at them; he merely bared his teeth, and they fled in terror. The sixth, seventh... all the way to the twelfth wave, lasting until dusk, Xiaochui simply shut the door in their faces—these pests had less backbone than moles popping out of the ground.

After seeing all these people, Xiaochui felt that his own Yin was the perfect specimen—one spit could drown these fools. No comparison at all. If that crown prince was just as idiotic, Xiaochui reckoned he could handle the lot single-handedly.

On the second day, Xiaochui simply refused to see anyone.

On the third, a visitor finally caught his attention, but that was all. They fought; the opponent spat some harsh words and ran off. Xiaochui was disdainful—the only regret was not being able to keep the other behind. Still, this encounter made him wary; the third day’s challenger was already a match for him in combat.

“I know you can understand me. Tell your master this—if he dares provoke the crown prince, he’d better be ready for the consequences!”

Xiaochui roared, but his rival was just as strong; once he decided to leave, Xiaochui couldn’t stop him.

On the fourth day, at the break of dawn, Long Yin woke feeling refreshed, took a satisfying shower, woke Xiaochui, and the two left Dexin Hall for a wild spree on the nearby food street. Man and beast waddled out, stomachs round, and luxuriously hired a two-seater cloud car for a tour of the campus.

As Xiaochui pored over the campus map, he enthusiastically served as Long Yin’s guide, even pointing out notable figures and narrating with such passion that Long Yin had to spare some attention for him. “When did you get so familiar with everything?”

“When you were asleep, I memorized it all in fifteen minutes—this is really a fantastic gadget!” Xiaochui waved the device in his hand. Long Yin stared in surprise. “An IntelliBrain?”

“IntelliBrain? That’s what it’s called? It’s really quite good, but it’s so small—my claws hurt from poking at it! Who designs things like this?” Xiaochui grumbled, handing the tiny tablet to Long Yin.

Long Yin took it, imagining Xiaochui fumbling with his claws, and couldn’t help but chuckle. “It really is badly designed—why not allow third-party controls?”

“Exactly!”

Long Yin opened the device, finding it to be a perfectly ordinary IntelliBrain, with only public links and information. “Where did you get this, Xiaochui?”

“I found it in an upstairs room—got bored and brought it down. Turns out you can look up all sorts of things on it... Oh, and this—I’ve messed with it forever but can’t use it!” Xiaochui produced a watch-like device for Long Yin. “Yin, this thing looks like a watch but isn’t—according to the IntelliBrain, it’s called a personal network terminal. What is it?”

With a wry smile, Long Yin patted Xiaochui. “It’s impressive you even know it’s a personal network terminal. Basically, it’s a personal account that connects to the entire Federation’s network. Actually, you’ve reminded me—we should get ourselves the highest-grade terminals and have some fun!”

“I can play too?” Xiaochui pointed at himself, eyes wide.

“Of course!” Long Yin nodded. “We’ll go buy some now. We’ve nearly finished touring the academy anyway. As long as we don’t get lost when the semester starts in two days, we’re good. Let’s go get set up—the terminals have games, courses, competitions, all kinds of people. It’s fun to try now and then!” Long Yin remembered how, in his previous life, he’d been obsessed with card-making and had only worn the network terminal once, barely exploring it before losing interest. Looking back, he had no regrets—if he hadn’t been so fixated, he wouldn’t have this wealth of experience. Fortunately, fate had given him a second chance. This time, he’d make up for everything he missed—and try things others hadn’t even thought of!

“Yin, maybe that crown prince is even trickier than we imagine,” Xiaochui said, laying down the terminal and scratching his head.

“Perhaps,” Long Yin agreed. “But let’s not worry about him for now. Your three days of handling things have earned us some peace. Let’s go buy those terminals!”

Seeing Long Yin so carefree, Xiaochui cast aside his worries and excitedly became Long Yin’s navigator.