A half an hour into a lecture that no one paid attention to, Azuki was visibly bored, her eyes darting restlessly around the hall as if she were searching for something, anything, to relieve the monotony.
Chen Mo was the only one in the lecture capable of maintaining focus. He paid attention to the lecturer ahead and even made notes to ease future study. However, he also recognized the redundancy of his actions, and when Azuki spoke, he would break his concentration without hesitation.
"Is Roxanne not here again today?" Azuki questioned, a subtle frown forming on her face.
Chen Mo took a brief glance around the hall before replying, "No."
"Arghhh... where the hell is my Roxanne..." Azuki stretched her back as she vented, her voice laced with frustration. "Tomorrow's going to be a holiday too, which means the chances of seeing her then are straight-up zero."
"You could just ask her out," Chen Mo calmly suggested, logically evaluating the situation.
"No, idiot, I can't." Azuki made a dramatic cross with her forearms. "If she says no, that'd ruin our current friendship."
Then she sighed loudly, clearly expressing her dissatisfaction. "I haven't seen her at all for five days, and that's way too long for me to handle, Mo Mo."
Chen Mo didn't know what she wanted him to say, though he did know what he wanted to say. "Maybe you should switch targets. Roxanne is too popular; she might already be taken, and we wouldn't even know."
Roxanne Lindsay was widely known across the entire campus as the most beautiful girl studying at the university. She wasn't just popular with straight guys, but also with gay gals, like Azuki herself.
"Tsk, why are you so negative all the time?" Azuki's expression turned exasperated again. "It... it doesn't work like that. I can't just switch targets. You should know. You only like one person, and that person hasn't been in contact with you for three years!"
Chen Mo was found guilty. "Sorry."
The apology insinuated that Chen Mo was still clinging to her, even after three years.
It was faint, almost imperceptible, but Azuki's violet eyes lowered slightly, glimmering with quiet disappointment.
...
After the lecture, the two friends parted ways. Azuki had to prepare with her groupmates for her presentation later, while Chen Mo, on the other hand, went to meet Jason Noir Quinn at the cafeteria for lunch.
With food laid out on the table, Jason immediately started to narrate his story. "So the guy, like... stole all the work, then took dumps all over it, completely screwing up everyone's day for no reason at all..."
All while describing a situation Chen Mo couldn't care less about, Jason was also stuffing noodles into his mouth. "And like... me and this other guy were thinking..."
"Don't you have a girlfriend now?" Chen Mo interrupted, wondering why Jason was still having lunch with him; he had assumed these lunches would be over after the successful confession.
"Trace? Yeah, we're official, but uh... apparently she will never, NEVER, be free from ten to two in the afternoon," Jason explained.
Chen Mo raised a curious brow, about to break the bad news to Jason before the latter waved it off.
"No, no, it's nothing shady, my guy," Jason denied an accusation that hadn't even been voiced yet. "She's just an avid gamer, and ten to two is her daily gaming session. She said it helps with her video game addiction if she just, like, gets rid of all her urges to play in one go."
"Four hours still isn't healthy," Chen Mo remarked coldly.
"Eh... uh... well, whatever, man. Enough about my Tracy." Jason's expression shifted from concern to smugness in an instant. "What about you? Still not gonna make it official with Azuki?"
"We're just friends. She likes Roxanne," Chen Mo stated calmly, all while politely and elegantly eating his plate of pasta.
"You can't be dense enough to believe that." Jason jabbed his fork toward Chen Mo, splashing a few droplets of sauce onto the table. "Liking Roxanne is just the most convenient lie; everyone likes Roxanne. If Roxanne asks me out, I'll dump Tracy right there on the spot!
"Ugh, don't tell Trace that.
"Anyways, it's a strategy, Chen Mo. Azuki actually wants you. Hell, I don't even believe she's bisexual, that's probably part of the strategy too."
"I don't think so," Chen Mo replied, still shaking his head.
"Dude." Jason rolled his eyes. "Every time you've got something even mildly important, and I mean very mildly, she still shows up. You ask her, she'll deny why she's there, but she'll insist that she wants you to do the same.
"Also, how many times have you gone over to her apartment to 'hang out'?"
Jason curled his fingers into air quotes for emphasis.
"I don't keep track," Chen Mo replied plainly.
"Well, at least once a week," Jason countered, apparently keeping records for him.
"None this week," Chen Mo attempted to argue, but it was only Tuesday, the second day of the week.
"She's waiting for you to make a move, my guy," Jason commented. "Women are like that. They're very indirect. Trust me, I'd know; it's always a guessing game with Trace."
"It's illogical," Chen Mo retorted. "Why would she pretend to have a crush? That would only convince me that she's not interested, thus eliminating any possibility that I make the first move."
"Like I said, it's a strategy. Alright, listen." Jason leaned forward, cleared his throat, then explained, "She pretends she likes someone else. That someone else probably knows she's pretending and is just playing along with it.
"Throughout this whole fake-crush phase, she keeps you close as a... a sort of romance advisor. That way, the two of you are literally discussing relationships, which conveniently strengthens your romantic bond.
"Then one day, she pretends to confess to her fake crush, and pretends to get her heart broken. See? Wouldn't that give you the perfect reason to make the first move?"
"No," Chen Mo answered without hesitation.
"Urghh..." Jason rolled his eyes again. "By the way, you know what's happening here?"
Jason was referring to the back of his left palm, which he raised for Chen Mo to see. The veins, unnaturally abundant, protruding, and green, were far more severe now than they had been in the morning.
Jason was entering the game. Chen Mo had almost no doubt about it. "Not sure. If it doesn't recover by tomorrow, see a doctor."
"Yeah, that's the plan," Jason nodded.
It was the seventh day of the month, so the game was still recruiting players. If Jason did get recruited, Chen Mo imagined it would be similar to his own invitation.
And if it was similar, Jason would most likely enter the game at night. Chen Mo planned to do the same. He had promised Amelia that he would earn enough tonight to get her a better place to stay, after all. Beyond that, he also wanted to begin grinding for the power necessary to rebel against the system itself, needless to say it was best to start early.
Thus, just like Tracy, Chen Mo now had his own daily gaming session, one that would take place every single night.
...
After lunch, Jason went off to join his friend group that didn't include Chen Mo. Jason had invited him multiple times, but Chen Mo had declined every single invitation, preferring to remain inconspicuous and unnoticed.
Instead, Chen Mo wandered around the campus, lost in thought.
Glass Queen... top three guild... downvoted my stream... donation system...
I should be worried, Chen Mo concluded.
He didn't have a destination in mind, but he still checked the shuttle bus schedule for the University of Caciress. Conveniently, one was arriving in five minutes, so Chen Mo made his way to the station.
When the bus arrived, Chen Mo lined up with the other students and boarded. It wasn't until he was already seated inside that he realized his destination. Ah... the mall. That could work.
The bus was nearly empty, with only a handful of passengers. Most students instinctively chose the closest seats, which were the ones at the front, but Chen Mo had a different approach.
He walked past the crowd, all the way to the final row of blue cushioned seats, and took the corner seat by the window.
Chen Mo had chosen this seat not only to ensure that nothing was behind him, but also to guarantee that every passenger remained within his field of vision.
He had deduced that there was a possibility, however slim, that he was being followed.
For a top player like the Glass Queen to downvote a newbie, he couldn't think of any reason other than to kill that newbie by severing their line of donations. Sapphires were incredibly important for the survival of average players, but not for Chen Mo, as he had already proven during the School of Apparitions.
He had barely spent any Sapphires at all. He didn't need donations. So the Glass Queen's attempt to downvote him, ruin his reputation and ultimately kill him had been ineffective.
If that was the case, then for someone of her status to simply give up would be unrealistic. Instead, she would find another method. Since the Glass Queen had downvoted his stream before he put on his goth girl disguise, there was a very high chance that his identity was already known.
And if his identity was known, then there was also a very real chance that he was being actively hunted right now, maybe by someone working for the Glass Queen, or someone hired by her, with intentions to finish the job.
He scanned the passengers carefully, searching for anyone who seemed even slightly out of place. However, he found nothing. Every passenger looked like a student, or at most, a professor, in university attire.
Besides, boarding the shuttle bus required an ID.
More likely than not, if anyone was tracking Chen Mo at this moment, they would be following him by car.