At around seven o'clock, a faint sliver of twilight still hung in the September sky, and students had begun to trickle onto the lawn of the sports field. They weren't just from their platoon—there were also passersby from other groups. From their tanned, weathered skin, it was easy to tell that a handful of those wandering by were upperclassmen.
By the time everyone had gathered, the sky had gone completely dark. The stadium lights flickered on, and the air smelled of fresh grass—no, there was also the scent of food drifting through it.
Xiang Xin had already set up her soda and snack stall, and customers had started stopping by within moments. Before she even opened for business, she had gotten a lightweight, foldable fabric camp stool ready for Mu Yue. She herself didn't think sitting on the grass was all that prickly, but one glance at Mu Yue's legs made her feel the grass blades must be awfully coarse, sharp enough to hurt her. She absolutely had to get Mu Yue something to sit on—looking after her boss properly was all part of the job, after all.
It wasn't just the small camp stool either. In the blink of an eye, Mu Yue's side was piled high with bottles of water and all kinds of snacks.
Mu Yue sat down happily, twisted open a bottle of water, and took a slow sip. The other students, seeing her turn up with nothing in her hands and end up with everything she needed, were green with envy. Xiang Xin was quick to speak up, telling them there was no need to be jealous—she had more camp stools for just three or five yuan, simple, lightweight, and easy to carry anywhere. Whatever snacks they wanted, she had them all in her stall.
Mu Yue watched the whole scene and couldn't help but laugh. Xiaoya, on the other hand, looked at Xiang Xin with nothing but admiration. "Xiang Xin is so clever," she said. "Where did she even find the time to get all this stuff ready? With that kind of drive, she'd be a success no matter what she does."
Mu Yue nodded in agreement.
As for where she found the time? She'd squeezed every spare second out of it. Most likely, she'd rushed off to take care of all this right after dropping off a meal for Mu Yue, and hadn't even had time to stop at the cafeteria in between—probably just grabbed a couple of slices of bread to munch on quickly. But there wasn't a trace of exhaustion on her face, nothing but bright, unbridled joy from making money.
When the drill instructor arrived and the evening activities officially kicked off, and a few bold, outgoing students started going up to perform their talents, Xiang Xin somehow magically pulled out a rose. She snuck up behind two girls and quietly asked if they wanted to buy the flower to use as a prop for their performance.
The two girls thought it was a great idea immediately, and paid her five yuan for the rose. When the pair danced their duet later, Xiang Xin gave them all the emotional support they could have asked for, clapping so loud her palms were practically stinging.
The atmosphere was wonderful that night. Mu Yue hummed along with the rest of the crowd, until halfway through the next round of songs, someone suddenly called out her name. "Mu Yue! Why don't you come up and give us a performance too?"
"Yeah, come on!" Once one person started the cheer, a whole chorus of voices joined in.
All eyes, some friendly, some curious, some less than kind, turned to land on her.
Mu Yue met everyone's gaze, flicked a fleck of grass off the toe of her shoe, and stood up. "Sure."
A roar of excitement went up from the crowd. Mu Yue lifted a hand to gesture for them to quiet down. "Does anyone have a basketball? Or even a brick I could borrow?"
The cheering died away instantly.
What? A basketball was normal enough, but a brick? What on earth was that about?
Even though her request for props was very strange, the students all started craning their necks to look around. No one in their group had brought a basketball, but a few upperclassmen who had just finished playing were walking past the field—maybe they could borrow one from them.
Since it was Mu Yue who needed it, she didn't ask anyone else to go in her place. She walked over to the group of boys herself, and explained upfront that there was a chance the basketball might get ruined, and that she would pay them three times its price to compensate. If they didn't want to lend it to her, she could just find something else to use instead.
The upperclassmen had already agreed the second Mu Yue opened her mouth, before she even finished mentioning the three-times compensation. Part of it was because the new freshman girl was stunningly pretty, but mostly they were just curious what on earth she planned to do with a basketball as a performance.
It didn't take long for them to find out.
Mu Yue walked back to the circle the other students had formed for her, set the basketball on the ground, steadied her breath, found the right point of force, and punched down hard.
There was a dull, heavy thud.
The basketball burst clean open. The patch of grass under it even caved in slightly from the impact.
No one had expected that move in a million years. The entire crowd was frozen in shock. The few upperclassmen who had followed her over were gawking with their jaws hanging open, and every single onlooker was left gaping. After a split second of eerie, dead silence, the whole field erupted into a chorus of shocked exclamations.
"Holy crap! What kind of super-strong girl is this?"
"Whoa, holy whoa!"
"That's so cool! That's absolutely badass!"
Mu Yue smiled, picked up the tattered remains of the basketball, and asked its owner to pull up his payment QR code so she could transfer him the money. The upperclassman was so dazed and bewildered he drifted through the whole process, and didn't even snap back to his senses until the notification pinged on his phone and he saw the money arrive. Under the teasing, shoving glances of his friends, he remembered to ask if he could get Mu Yue's WeChat contact.
Mu Yue just smiled politely at him. "If three times the price isn't enough, can I pay you double that, senior?"
It was a clear, gentle rejection. The senior looked down at the broken basketball in his arms, thought about his own physique, and decided three times the price was more than fair.
Mu Yue's performance was over, but none of the students felt like they'd gotten to see enough. The punch she'd thrown had drawn the attention of plenty of other people wandering around the sports field, and now they'd all crowded around to join the onlookers, cheering for Mu Yue to do another trick.
She couldn't very well go and break another basketball, after all. And there weren't any more to borrow right then anyway.
Mu Yue thought for a second, not wanting to spoil everyone's fun. She asked Xiaoya to pick up a thin branch for her, and proceeded to swing through a set of basic sword forms—something she'd just recently bought from the points mall.
She still lacked the experience to use it in a real fight against another person, but she had no problem at all performing the full routine on her own.
Little by little, the chatter around her died away. The only sound left was the click of phone cameras. People who were just passing by saw the big crowd, stopped to join in, and pulled out their phones too.
Wen Yuanting was walking past with his friend, who insisted on dragging him over to see what all the commotion was about. The second they looked over, both of them froze in their tracks.
"Whoa! That's so fluid! It's exactly like the stuff you do, Tingzi! Can you tell what school of martial arts that's from?" His friend gushed in awe at the girl's swordplay, then whacked Wen Yuanting hard on the arm. "Wait a second, I know her! That's the freshman girl, Miss Mu! The one who made a huge splash on move-in day!"
"What Miss Mu?" Wen Yuanting was just in time to see Mu Yue finish her final closing sword stance, and he was already getting ready to leave.
"Of course you wouldn't pay attention to that stuff! She's been the most famous, top-ranked new student this year in no time at all."
Wen Yuanting scoffed. "How old are you, still going on about that silly 'popularity ranking' stuff?"
He turned to walk away, but after only two steps, he suddenly felt something was off. He glanced back over his shoulder at Mu Yue, and their eyes met for a split second. Both of them paused for a moment, then looked away.
The one surnamed Mu? A freshman who made a huge splash on move-in day? The most popular new student? That didn't make any sense. He'd never heard of anyone like her in this year's incoming class. Where had she even come from?
A variable that didn't exist in the original script.
Wen Yuanting's heart started beating faster. He turned and walked quickly out of the sports field, long strides carrying him away.
"Who was that guy?" Mu Yue asked her system in her head. The system said it didn't have any information on him. So he wasn't an important character that showed up in any of the novels in this world.
He was really good-looking, though. Mu Yue had thought someone that handsome must be a key character from some novel, but it turned out he was just a random passerby?
Forget it. Mu Yue didn't take it to heart at all. After the evening event wrapped up, she ended up with a flood of friend requests from the girls, not a single one from the guys. She'd overheard them quietly calling her "husband" when she was performing her sword dance.
The next morning brought fantastic news: a sudden torrential downpour. The rain was perfectly timed, starting right before everyone was supposed to gather. Dorm buildings erupted in wave after wave of cheers, as everyone eagerly hoped the rain would keep pouring so they could laze around a little longer.
All three of Mu Yue's roommates rolled over and went back to sleep, but Mu Yue was used to her regular schedule and couldn't fall back asleep. With nothing else to do, she started going through her supplies again.
Her points now added up to 4000, a big jump ever since the points from buying her house came through. The basic swordsmanship skill she bought was super cheap, only 150 points. Mu Yue planned to master it completely before moving on to more advanced techniques.
The installment plan required her to pay off the first three months before she could settle the rest in one go, so Mu Yue decided to hold onto her points for now. There wasn't anything she urgently wanted to buy anyway. Among her base stats, the Appearance stat was the only one not maxed out, but thanks to the "Fated Glance" she got from the lucky spin, even though the love-at-first-sight effect had worn off, her eyes had genuinely become more beautiful, granting her a straight +5 boost that brought her Appearance to 90 points.
To be honest, that number was already pretty absurd. If she maxed it out, she was worried she'd have to keep her Low Presence aura on every single day just to get by.
As for her money, she still had around 40 million left over after buying the house. Her God of Wealth rank was level 2, and leveling up to level 3 would take 500 million in experience points. The experience points from buying the house had spilled over from the previous level, so after subtracting that overflow, Mu Yue still needed to spend 300 million more to hit God of Wealth rank 3.
Even though she was already making a million a day, which was more than enough for any of her spending, who would ever say no to more money? This little system cat of hers didn't have any mandatory spending penalty quests, so having piles of cash was never going to be a burden for her.
Counting up her assets, Mu Yue put on her headphones and binged a bit more of Wen Xue's variety show. Before she knew it, the heavy rain had dragged on much longer than expected, and it still hadn't stopped almost by lunchtime.
But the downpour only bought them a short break. As soon as lunch hour ended, the sun blazed high in the sky that afternoon, leaving the whole cohort of students kicking themselves, wishing they'd never gotten that lazy break in the morning.
Military training passed by in a blur of exhaustion but also fulfillment over three whole weeks.
After military training ended, they got two days off. Mu Yue didn't plan to stick around campus. She was heading back to her huge fancy house to soak in a nice bath and properly treat herself.
On her way to the parking lot, Mu Yue ran into Jiang Yuan again. Jiang Yuan looked all sweet and giddy, arm in arm with her best friend, chattering nonstop about a certain guy. It looked like she'd successfully started a relationship with the military training instructor.
Mu Yue didn't feel like talking to them, and didn't even want to share the same sidewalk as them, so she just crossed the street over to the opposite sidewalk.
Jiang Yuan and her friend spotted her, and Jiang Yuan's best friend immediately curled her lip in disdain. Good thing Jiang Yuan never trusted Mu Yue, otherwise that rich young lady would have totally ruined her whole plan.
It took Mu Yue a little while to drive her car out of the campus, first because she wasn't super familiar with the roads yet, and second because there were way too many students out and about, so she had to drive slowly.
As soon as she got back to her residential complex, Mu Yue received an invitation from the property manager. This manager wasn't a character card of hers, but someone assigned by the property management. She'd spent so much money on her house, so of course she got to enjoy all the supporting services. The manager handled all kinds of consultation requests, and Mu Yue could reach out to them for anything she needed.
Today the manager sent over an invitation to a charity auction event that all the complex's homeowners were invited to. Mu Yue got home, sank into her bathtub, and flipped through the auction catalog. The items up for bid ranged from abstract pieces to more normal stuff, but most of them were pretty unremarkable, nothing that really caught her eye. The only thing she thought looked nice was a set of porcelain: a pair of matching enamel vases, not antiques, but with gorgeous colors and patterns that Mu Yue really took a liking to.
Since she had nothing better to do, Mu Yue decided to drop by and check it out. She never expected that this random trip to the auction would lead her right to the overbearing male lead's white moonlight stand-in herself — the female lead, Wen Xue.
Every invited guest had a beautifully crafted name card made by the organizers, and every seat was pre-assigned. Mu Yue had just sat down in her own spot when she saw a waiter take the name card that said "Wen Xue" from a table up near the front, and move it all the way to a table in the far corner.
Not far away, a small group of women were huddled together, staring unsubtly at Wen Xue's now-empty original seat, looking like they were just waiting for her to arrive so they could start causing trouble.
Whoa ho! Looks like I'm about to get front row seats to some drama!
