Chapter 12: In the Darkness

“Ding-dong, Super-powered Sister has leveled up. Points rules are being reset.”
“Ding-dong, you have received all the items currently displayed on the prize wheel.”
“Ding-dong, the prize wheel has been reset. Super-powered Sister’s happiness value now increases your chance of winning, with an initial probability of ten percent. It resets every week.”
“Ding-dong, points required for each spin remain unchanged.”
“Ding-dong, warehouse rental rules remain unchanged.”

This string of notification sounds left Yang Fan completely bewildered, and when he looked at the prize wheel, he felt even more helpless.

Because all ten slots on the prize wheel were blank, save for a single item: a ladies’ hairpin.

Apparently, only by continuously raising Ai Xiaomei’s happiness value would more items gradually appear on the wheel.

With points now harder to earn, the difficulty of the prize wheel had risen as well. Fortunately, before the reset, he had managed to claim the current rewards!

Yet, they seemed rather useless to him—although, to others, those items would still be worth a fortune.

“Are they trying to make this impossible for me? Just the happiness value alone means I have to keep Ai Xiaomei amused.”

Yang Fan was on the verge of collapse...

“Brother, after the Seventh Kid saved White Lady’s son, the little dwarf, what happened next?”

“Let me take a break!” Yang Fan sighed. Right now, he didn’t want to use his brain, and without thinking, he couldn’t come up with the rest of the story.

“Alright, you rest for a bit. I’m going to watch Sister Zihan filming.”

“What’s she filming?”

“A horror movie called ‘Paper Swing’,” Ai Xiaomei replied.

No sooner had she finished speaking than Yang Fan’s phone vibrated several times. Opening it, he saw that Ai Xiaomei had sent him some stills from the set.

It certainly looked terrifying. Yang Fan showed the photos to Zhang Chen and the others, whose eyes were instantly glued to the beautiful young woman in the pictures.

They seemed to wish the man beside her was them.

“That’s the one! I’ll have my idol introduce me.”

Yang Fan rolled his eyes. Falling for every girl they saw—he remembered Zhang Chen and the others had been fixated on a few girls from the neighboring class for quite some time.

“Speaking of which, you guys used to talk about Su Ya from the next class every day.”

“That’s all in the past now.”

Yang Fan snorted softly. As if it ever really happened! Whatever.

Unintentionally glancing up, he caught Bai Tiantian’s eyes filled with deep resentment.

Even more surprising, in the same line of sight, there was another girl watching him—someone from the class next door.

“What on earth is going on? People these days fall in love far too hastily!”

The afternoon slipped by as the group chatted quietly. At dinner in the school cafeteria, Yang Fan couldn’t help but notice that Bai Tiantian sat directly across from him—along with Wang Huai, the rich heir.

Their eyes met once more. Yang Fan was disinclined to play such childish games, though he could tell Wang Huai was looking for trouble.

“Yang Fan, long time no see.”

“Oh, Zhou Mingming! Yes, it really has been a while,” Yang Fan replied with a smile. Zhou Mingming was from another department, but they were in the same year.

Honestly, everyone at this school felt familiar to Yang Fan.

“Is this seat taken?” Zhou Mingming pointed to the empty chair beside Yang Fan’s group.

“No, go ahead and sit down.”

Zhou Mingming, grinning, set his tray down and joined them.

“How’s everyone doing these days?”

“All good. How about you?” Yang Fan asked.

“I’ve been to a few interviews. Only officially started working yesterday. The real world is tough!”

“Tell me about it. At least you have a job. Look at us—a bunch of unemployed drifters!” Xu Tao joked.

“No way!”

The conversation remained easygoing, though Yang Fan suspected Zhou Mingming had sought him out for a reason—after all, he’d come over deliberately, and kept glancing around while they talked.

“Yang Fan, I heard you and Bai Tiantian broke up. Are you seeing anyone now?” Zhou Mingming lowered his voice after some small talk.

Mainly because Bai Tiantian was sitting at a table directly across from them.

“Are you trying to set me up?” Yang Fan couldn’t help but ask.

Zhou Mingming nodded immediately.

“Hey Zhou Mingming, we’re single too—why aren’t you introducing anyone to us?”

“Yeah, you’re really not being fair.”

Zhou Mingming looked helpless. He was really just running an errand today, matchmaking on behalf of a female classmate he’d known since grade school.

“Who’s the girl?”

“Well, she’s in your department too, in Class Three,” Zhou Mingming replied.

Yang Fan was speechless. Love truly did move quickly! It was the same girl who’d been sneaking glances at him in class. After Zhou Mingming left a heart-shaped love letter, he even exchanged secret looks with the table opposite.

Yang Fan had noticed Zhou Mingming’s little scheme. These days, girls rarely wrote love letters—confessions were usually posted on the campus wall.

Yang Fan didn’t open it; the others’ expressions were all over the place...

Once Zhou Mingming left, Zhang Chen and the others tried to snatch the letter, but Yang Fan was quicker and stuffed it into his pocket.

“It’s not for you guys—what are you so excited about?”

“You’re no fun at all!”

“Yeah, what’s the harm in letting us see?”

After eating in the cafeteria, as Yang Fan and his friends got up to leave, Bai Tiantian and Wang Huai also stood up. If this wasn’t a deliberate provocation, Yang Fan wouldn’t have believed it.

Moreover, Bai Tiantian and Wang Huai followed right behind Yang Fan’s group, not missing a step.

“Is this that legendary cat-and-mouse game?” Yang Fan mused, then told Zhang Chen and the others that he needed to call Zhao Jing and asked them to go on ahead to the lecture hall.

His real intention was to lure Wang Huai and Bai Tiantian after him.

Liu Haoyu seemed a little worried, but Yang Fan said nothing. As he watched the others head upstairs, he actually took out his phone.

Sensing that Wang Huai and Bai Tiantian were still tracking him, a faint smile played at the corners of Yang Fan’s mouth as he pretended to talk on the phone. He was counting on them to follow.

“Did you really think I wasn’t prepared?” he thought. “I’m truly curious whether the seed I exchanged for four hundred points from the Treasure Compendium really works as claimed—can it really implant a slave mark?”

Yang Fan had chosen a spot in the school’s park. In the darkness, he paused, slipping his phone into his pocket.

To deal with Wang Huai—the rich kid who would do anything for a girl—Yang Fan had gone all out. Not only did he have the seed for the slave mark, but he’d also run up a massive debt to Ai Xiaomei, renting the Inlay Technique and the Eye of Skynet from the warehouse.

Through the Eye of Skynet, Yang Fan could see in the dark that, off to the side, were those twin sisters!