Cen Zhen didn’t respond immediately, so Lian Yu hummed in a low voice. As he turned his head inadvertently, he suddenly found that Cen Zhen’s earlobes were like a shy mimosa because they became blood red in a few seconds. Lian Yu was stunned and hurriedly looked at Cen Zhen’s face.
To his disappointment, there was no change in Cen Zhen’s expression. However, the unexpected surprise of Cen Zhen’s ears turning red still made Lian Yu overjoyed, and he reached out to touch his earlobe.
Cen Zhen knocked down Lian Yu’s hand impatiently, “If you try to touch me again, I will tie you up.”
“Wow… I didn’t expect you to be so naughty on the inside when you act so rightfully on the outside,” Lian Yu lowered his voice, then leaned close to the tip of Cen Zhen’s nose and whispered ambiguously: “Are you going to tie me up with a rough rope with your own hands? Lifting my legs high, made me bend them, so I could only endure tossing and flipping on the cold ground that you forced on me. Then, are you gonna use the rough rope to deliberately rub against my delicate, white, and pink…”
“Brain.”
“Tsk.” Lian Yu gave a look that said you are really boring. The heat on the tips of Cen Zhen’s earlobes had faded. He opened the lunch box expressionlessly and poked the meatballs as if he is poking Lian Yu’s eyeballs. “Are you planning to stay at my place permanently?”
“That’s right.” Lian Yu said with confidence, “I will move all my stuff here after you go to class tomorrow.”
“Is this an inquiry or a notification? Will you listen if I say no?”
“I won’t.”
“Can the Tower rules stop you?”
Lian Yu’s face was full of confusion: “I won’t even listen to your words, why would I listen to the Tower rules?”
It seems to make sense? Cen Zhen stopped talking. He quickly finished eating his lunch. When he was cleaning up the trash, Lian Yu happened to finish his tasteless-looking lunch also.
Cen Zhen had never entered the star network under the holographic simulation mode, so he let Lian Yu handle the terminal’s setup interface. After he came back from going out to call for the cleaning robot, he saw Lian Yu already had the headset on his forehead and was waving for him to come quickly.
“After you put on the headset, the screen will go black for about a minute. This is for logging into the training hall. The system is scanning and recording your physical information. Just relax. Once you enter, stand still and don’t move. I will come to find you.” After Lian Yu finished speaking, he put on his headset and leaned back in the chair. He also put a pillow behind his waist, as he was very good at practicing regimen.
Following his example, Cen Zhen found a comfortable position to sit in, put on his headset, and entered the training hall.
After a minute of black screen, Cen Zhen stood in a square full of people coming and going. There were loud voices in his ears, but his whole body was stiff from the neck down, and he could not move. A row of red letters kept popping up in front of his eyes: Your nickname is against the rules, please change your nickname now! All available functions will be blocked during the violation period!
Cen Zhen looked at the top of his head in confusion, and saw seven bright green characters: Xiao-Zhen loves petting big bro’s X (1).
Cen Zhen: “……”
For a moment, he didn’t even know who was more problematic, the cannon fodder ‘Cen Zhen’ or the villain Lian Yu. The only difference was that ‘Cen Zhen’ was indiscriminately kitsch, while Lian Yu only ‘attacked’ him.
Cen Zhen opened the adjusted nickname column with a livid face because he knew he had become somewhat famous across both the Tower and the White Tower. After thinking about it, he clicked on the bar and changed the name to Ling Yi (2).
Thinking of Lian Yu calling him Zhen Zhen on the tower-wide broadcast, for his nickname this time, he didn’t even add a single character that can be tied back to “Cen Zhen”.
This normal-looking name successfully unlocked all available functions. Cen Zhen looked at the various interfaces in front of him and found it quite interesting. However, the next moment he heard a shout behind him: “Zhen Zhen!”
A certain long-haired Sentinel with the nickname [Sweet Dream Comes True] on his head skipped his way in front of Cen Zhen. Lian Yu smiled and said, “What a stupid name you have. I’ll buy you a name change card. I’ve already thought of a couple pet nicknames for us. You should use the name [Meeting You in a Sweet Dream].” (3)
“Get serious.” Cen Zhen stopped him from continuing to mess around with frustration. Lian Yu made a tsk sound and led Cen Zhen to the edge of the square. Finally, he stood in front of a male NPC wearing a white military uniform. There was an eagle with piercing eyes standing on one of his hands wearing a white glove. Lian Yu introduced: “The S-class Sentinel master, the undefeated legend in the world of single-soldier air combat in the whole universe. Unfortunately, he died young and didn’t even have a chance to find a Guide. So the star network created such a guiding NPC to commemorate him.”
Cen Zhen found Lian Yu introducing the life of an NPC to him in such detail very suddenly. He thought there must be something more behind his words. He frowned and asked: “…Is he really dead?”
“Not dead.” Seeing that Cen Zhen understood him so well, Lian Yu whispered happily: “The battleship crashed and his leg was broken. He ended up at a desert star and got picked up by a Wing Clan member. That Wing Clan member took him into his nest and sheltered him. You know Wing Clan, right? People outside called them the bird people, and their IQs are still at the level of primitive tribes.”
“About… more than three years ago, he got in touch with the Special Planet’s extraterrestrial team and was finally able to return home. There was a great deal of commotion. After that, I met him. His Wing Clan partner… tsk,”
Cen Zhen thought that Lian Yu had some great input, such as he had a fierce spirit or looked like an elegant swallow, or was a giant whose wings could cover the sky or someone with beautiful snow-white tail feathers, but he saw Lian Yu using his hands to demonstrate a length and said in a serious voice: “Was this big.”
“…” He had zero interest in knowing what exactly was that big. Cen Zhen closed his eyes and emphasized again: “GET SERIOUS!”
“Okay, okay, let’s get down to business.” Lian Yu said dotingly. He took a step forward, and the NPC immediately sensed him and asked, “How can I help you?” “A two-person battleship, random model, competition mode at random, the winning criteria is achieving annihilation, the difficulty…intermediate level.” Lian Yu turned around and asked: “Cen Zhen, is the intermediate level OK?”
Cen Zhen had never conducted a simulated air battle. In fact, he had never entered the cockpit of a battleship. Third-year Guide’s driving lessons were still at the theoretical and button recognition stage, and Cen Zhen himself had not even begun to read the theory. He asked: ” How difficult is the intermediate level?”
“Put a piece of meat in the cockpit, even my spiritual body can pass the level perfectly.”
“…Then let’s do the intermediate level.” Cen Zhen felt that no matter how new he was, he wouldn’t be worse than a lion.
The NPC handed Lian Yu a key. It had a crystal-clear appearance and looked delicate. It opened up the way to the road behind him. At the end, there stood a futuristic door quietly waiting for someone to open it. Lian Yu held the key and walked towards the door. Gently inserting the key and with a slight twist, the door opened inward. In the blink of an eye, Cen Zhen followed Lian Yu into the cockpit of the battleship.
“The sense of ceremony is quite strong.” Cen Zhen commented. Fortunately, they are in a virtual world, so the community didn’t mind making it a bit exaggerated.
As if he had done it countless times before, Lian Yu skillfully and naturally opened the driver’s seat, sat it, and fastened his seat belt. Then started a series of checks on fuel, ammunition reserves, button sensitivity, etc. He smiled and said: “Of course, without this sense of ceremony, how come those Sentinels with exploding amounts of pheromones always come to train all day every day? Sit down quickly, I will take over all the work of the main and deputy positions in the first round and demonstrate. Next, you can try to attack in the second round. Then you can sit in the main seat for the third round. After that, we can do special exercises based on your weak points.”
Cen Zhen met Lian Yu’s gaze and curled his lips: “The teaching is quite professional.”
“That’s right.” Lian Yu grasped the joystick, “If Yao Jin and Pan these two idiots can rank tenth, why should we compete for ninth place? Since we are villains, we must have the consciousness of villains. We have to fulfill our obligations as villains. We don’t have to sign up for the other three divisions, but the protagonists’ ranking in the aerial combat division must be prevented.”
Cen Zhen buckled his seat belt, and the three straps tightened, tightly binding him to the passenger seat. “The protagonists all have auras, be careful not to get backfired.”
“Hmph.” Lian Yu raised the corners of his lips proudly and shouted: “Ready.” Then a bright red countdown lit up on the windshield of the cockpit: 3, 2, 1!
In response to the sound, the battleship ejected like an arrow from the bow——
Ten minutes later, in the dormitory, Cen Zhen suddenly took off his headset. He stood up from the chair, covered his mouth in a panic, knocked away the snow leopard playing with the ball on the carpet, and rushed into the bathroom and retched.
Lian Yu took off his headset in confusion and stared at the two big cats in the room. After a long while, he followed Cen Zhen into the bathroom and patted Cen Zhen’s back, who was hunched over in front of the sink. His voice was unexpectedly gentle, Lian Yu asked with concern: “Are you okay…do you have stress disorder? Why didn’t you tell me in advance?”
“No…” Cen Zhen rinsed his mouth with warm water and simply washed his face. His wet bangs were in front of his forehead. He pursed his lips and answered truthfully: “You drove too fast, I got airsick.”
“……”
Cen Zhen took the towel prepared by the smart butler robot, “If you want to laugh, just laugh…”
Before he finished speaking, Lian Yu rushed out of the door with a roar, fell on Cen Zhen’s bed, covered his stomach, and laughed as he rolled around. The lion and snow leopard were startled and hid in the corner. One bit his own tail to suppress the shock, and the other bit the snow leopard’s tail to help calm down.
Cen Zhen put down his towel and walked out with a dark face. Lian Yu’s smile was so shockingly loud that he finally couldn’t help but defend his embarrassment: “Today is my first time on a battleship. You dived directly at 90 degrees and ducked in midair dodging the missiles using 720 degrees turns to show off your skills.”
“Hahahahaha…”
“I haven’t received professional pilot training…forget it…” Cen Zhen gritted his teeth and sat down with his back to him and stopped talking. Lian Yu finally laughed enough and walked up behind Cen Zhen. He caught him off guard and bent down to kiss his forehead, “Okay, I was negligent, let’s take it slow, I’ll open a novice difficulty level…Pfft…”
Cen Zhen grabbed the collar of this annoying guy and bite him viciously on the chin. The hot temperature and slight pain made Lian Yu tremble inexplicably, and his original laughter stopped abruptly.
Lian Yu touched the tooth marks on his chin that was still a little wet and was stunned.
Cen Zhen was satisfied to have the dorm returning to quiet. He put the headset on Lian Yu’s face and pushed him onto the seat. Then he put his headset back on and released the seat belt in the cockpit in the pause status. He then said to Lian Yu: “Change seats. I will drive, you can guide me in the passenger seat.”
Original Author’s Note:
[Meeting You in a Sweet Dream] is online
[Meeting You in a Sweet Dream] looked at their nickname and showed a headache expression.
[Meeting You in a Sweet Dream]: Can I change my name to ‘It’s such a misfortune to have met you’? (4)
[Sweet Dreams Come True]: sob sob
Translator’s Note:
- X represents a male’s private part
- 岑禛/岭衣: Cen Zhen made the nickname Ling Yi by reassembling the radicals in his name.
- 梦里相遇/梦里相御 : Meng Li Xiang Yu
- The last character of this phrase has the same pinyin as Lian Yu’s name, so Lian Yu switched it out and made the nickname 梦里相御 to match his nickname 美梦成禛/美梦成真: Mei Meng Cheng Zhen (Sweet Dreams Come True) where the last character is replaced with the character in Cen Zhen’s name.
- 遇见你我是造了什么孽/御见你我是造了什么孽, Cen Zhen also replaced the correct character 遇 with Lian Yu’s name 御, and wanted to express that he must have done something horribly wrong to have meeting Lian Yu as the punishment.
