Chapter 18: The Officer Sent a Secret Signal

“Isn’t studying every day in high school enough? Why do we have to do homework even on days off?” Su Yi turned his head away, quietly complaining. Of course, he hadn’t done any homework; in fact, he had intended to do it last night.

But the power had gone out at home because of Lori Xi. Even though his night vision was decent and he could still make out the words on the page without electricity, the conditions were simply unfavorable.

Besides, why was it required for the top ten students in the grade to do homework? A great wasteland hunter doing homework—wouldn’t it be enough just to get good grades? Why fuss over so many rules?

“You… never mind. You can explain it to the teacher yourself later,” Mu Xiaowei’s delicate lashes fluttered slightly. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes; she hadn’t slept well last night and looked exhausted. Even her usually neat high ponytail was askew.

Unusually, she didn’t press the issue and turned back to scribble in her workbook.

Mu Xiaowei seemed to be in poor spirits today… Was it because of what happened the day before yesterday, or did she stay up late studying last night?

He sensed something was off but didn’t dwell on it. It was normal for girls in puberty to be moody, and anyone would feel sleepy upon entering the classroom.

“Ah~ow—” Su Yi stretched lazily. Although he had gone to bed early and felt energized by the surrounding radiation, fatigue still overwhelmed him. Changing classes again and being plagued by rumors weighed heavily on him.

Besides Mu Xiaowei, he didn’t know many classmates well. While others chatted, he picked up a book and flipped through it out of boredom.

Sometimes having a perfect memory was a curse. No matter what he read, he remembered every detail, which drained the joy from it. For example, he could recite exactly which line was on which page of his textbook.

Feeling bored, Su Yi glanced toward where Lori Xi sat.

The girl was curiously surveying her surroundings. Everything in the room fascinated her: the desks, the projector, the blackboard, and the cramped space that somehow squeezed in sixty-eight students—a dangerously unsafe setup where a single bomb could wipe them all out.

What intrigued her most was the book the “Second-in-Command” was reading.

“What kind of knowledge demands even the officer to study?” she wondered.

Since Su Yi forbade her from wandering around, Lori Xi dared not make any sudden movements.

Her pale, soft, and adorable face kept lifting timidly to glance at the desk, but her height wasn’t enough to see clearly, so she would lower her head and tuck it back under the table again.

“Why on earth did I think it was a good idea to bring her to school?” Su Yi bit his pen in frustration. Lori Xi was like a walking contradiction—curious yet timid. The neighbor’s desks were full, and classmates were laughing and playing noisily around them.

In such a noisy atmosphere, studying with a beautiful girl only he could see felt strange—more distracting than fighting on a wasteland battlefield.

“As long as you don’t touch anything, it’s okay to come closer and take a look,” he finally relented, writing in the workbook using wasteland script.

His purpose in bringing Lori Xi to school was to help her understand this world. But after arriving, she just cowered in the corner, unable to look at this or that, only staring blankly at her textbook. It was pitiful.

Talking to air would seem strange, but writing was perfectly normal.

Many in the classroom had their heads bent low, studying.

No one could tell what he was actually learning. Sitting alone at a single desk, even if he secretly wrote online novels during class, no one would notice.

“Hmm!” Lori Xi’s eyes brightened, her tender hands—like newly sprouted bamboo shoots—reached out first. Her silver hair slowly rose as her round chin rested on the desk. She blinked her watery, curious eyes at the composition material Su Yi held.

With the support of a high-intelligence wasteland chip and abundant energy, plus a vast database she could access anytime, the book was simple—more like a collection of extracurricular stories.

Naturally, she couldn’t understand any of it.

No matter how advanced the chip, it couldn’t analyze the writing of another world out of thin air. The font of Blue Star differed greatly from that of the wasteland. To Lori Xi, the book Su Yi read seemed profoundly mysterious.

“No wonder the officer understands so much, effortlessly navigating two worlds at once,” she thought.

Lori Xi didn’t know Su Yi had crossed dimensions twice. She assumed he, like her, came from the wasteland and had quickly adapted to this world through his powerful learning ability, successfully integrating within it.

To grasp a completely foreign world so quickly and learn its language and customs would puzzle even the sharpest mind.

She couldn’t imagine how much effort Su Yi must have put in.

Lori Xi hadn’t forgotten the task Su Yi gave her: to adapt to this world.

But the more she learned, the more she felt her own shortcomings. She wasn’t a genius like the officer and had no idea when she would achieve her goal.

“If you want, I can help you turn the pages,” Su Yi offered, pushing the composition book slightly to his left, silently checking Lori Xi’s keen interest.

He flicked the page gently with his hand on the right side; the page fluttered up and stopped neatly in the middle. With Lori Xi’s help, they smoothed it flat.

This way, outsiders only saw Su Yi flipping pages alone, but Lori Xi felt involved, and her expression relaxed noticeably.

However—

Mu Xiaowei, usually quiet, suddenly turned her head around. Her brows furrowed slightly as she fixed her gaze on him.

“Hm? What now?” Su Yi asked, feeling a bit intimidated and pausing his actions.

Could it be that his “deafening” page-turning noise had broken her concentration? But she had been studying all along, so it shouldn’t be that.

“Why does Su Yi seem less hardworking lately, yet his grades keep improving? How do you do it?” Mu Xiaowei asked.

“Oh, so it’s about study methods,” Su Yi smiled professionally. To avoid exposure, he pressed Lori Xi’s head down toward her seat with one hand.

Then, with a serious face, he asked, “Do you really want to know?”

“Um… I want to understand,” Mu Xiaowei replied, a flicker of confusion in her eyes.

“Well then, I’ll tell you.”

Clearing his throat, under the girl’s watchful gaze, Su Yi spoke slowly and earnestly, word by word: “Because out of ten lotus flowers, I pick nine.”

“What?”

“Pick nine lotus flowers.”

Mu Xiaowei blinked, startled for a moment, but quickly caught on. With a displeased expression, she gave him the middle finger and turned away.

“That’s a code! Is she a swordsman too?” Lori Xi excitedly popped her head up from under the desk and quickly wrote on paper.

When she first met Su Yi, the officer used the same gesture to confirm his identity.

“She’s not.”

“But that’s a code!”

“Coincidence.”

“But codes are only for high-ranking officials…”

“No!”