Cursing Her Out!
Ding Yumian had to admit she was genuinely impressed by Mo Fan.
As a Pearl Academy student — inner campus or outer, it made no difference — the man had spent nearly two years at this school. Somehow, he had managed to get lost inside its own grounds.
What impressed her even more: while everyone else was practically performing ritual purification rites before today's nomination matches, Mo Fan had been completely, blissfully unaware there was a match at all.
She dragged the human compass to the right arena just as the match was nearing its end.
"Your team only had three people — you just got here, so the resentment must be through the roof," Ding Yumian said as she led Mo Fan inside.
Then she actually looked at the arena, and her words died in her throat.
Four people.
There were clearly four people on the field. The full roster, not one missing.
But Mo Fan was standing right beside her — so who on earth was that up in the arena?
Mo Fan's face had gone dark. He stared at Ai Tutu fighting away below, a flood of profanities surging through his mind.
"She impersonated you?" Ding Yumian found herself a comfortable seat and settled in with visible interest, a playful glimmer dancing in her beautiful, captivating eyes.
Mo Fan's expression was black as thunder, but the match was already in progress. He could hardly jump in and drag Ai Tutu down by the ear — all he could do was sit through the rest in helpless agony, praying she wouldn't make an absolute disaster of things.
*And naturally, the moment I hand anything to this woman, it goes wrong. I've been seriously underestimating just how spectacularly dense Ai Tutu is. When God was putting her together, He must have knocked over the cup of Wisdom and decided to compensate with chest size instead.*
"They're struggling," Ding Yumian said calmly, eyes still on the arena.
"Yeah. Obviously." Mo Fan gave a single nod.
……
……
In the competition arena, Gu Jian's face had darkened to a frightening degree. He was genuinely starting to believe the woman calling herself "Mo Fan" had come out here purely to make him suffer.
Plant Element, supposedly her specialty — and the accuracy of her Demon Vine bindings was catastrophically off. Their opponents could sidestep her vines with ease, not even bothering with Wind Track or Earth Wave to do it.
"Light Radiance — Blindness!!"
Ai Tutu knew her Plant Element magic wasn't holding up, so she stopped trying. When she saw Gu Jian get swarmed, she switched to Light Element — hoping to flash-blind the enemies and buy him room to escape.
The problem was that Light Radiance Blindness was an indiscriminate skill. It blinded enemies and allies alike. Using it properly required precise control over both release distance and angle.
The Lightning Seal's glow flickered at Gu Jian's wrist as he prepared to paralyze one of his opponents, then use his Footwear Enchanted Gear to slip free. Then Ai Tutu's Light Radiance exploded right in his face. The brilliant flash obliterated his vision entirely.
In the second he was blinded, a thick frost chain came crashing down across his body. His eyes still burned, and he had no chance to dodge — the chain slammed into his abdomen and sent him flying across the arena.
His Armor Enchanted Gear took the blow for him. But when he shook his head clear and pushed himself off the ground, the enchanted armor crumbled to pieces around him.
He glanced at his remaining teammates. The instant Gu Jian took the hit, the pressure he'd been exerting collapsed, and the opponents dismantled the others in seconds.
The formation fell apart. Another loss.
"Team 16 — wins!"
The referee's call had barely finished before Team 16's four members broke into grins. Their captain, Bai Yulang, was the most brazen of all — he laughed and directed a stream of exaggerated, mocking sighs at Gu Jian, as though savoring every note of his humiliation.
Gu Jian and Bai Yulang had never gotten along. After a crushing defeat like this, the fire building in Gu Jian's chest finally detonated.
"Are you completely out of your mind?!"
"Did you stop for even one second to think that Light Radiance would blind me too?!"
"How the hell did you get into the Elemental Rankings top twenty — on your back?!"
"Dumb as a pig. Don't let me see your face again."
Gu Jian leveled his finger at Ai Tutu and let it all pour out, absolutely seething, every shred of restraint gone.
Two of the three crucial nomination matches were now losses. His shot at a nomination slot was slipping further away with every round, and it was all because of this useless woman. He'd swallowed it after the first defeat. This second one pushed him past the point of no return. It didn't matter who was watching; it didn't matter that she was a woman. The nomination competition decided everything — a person's entire future — and *how in the hell had his luck turned out this rotten, to end up saddled with some woman who'd clawed her way into the competition on her back.*
*Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.*
Gu Jian's voice rang across the entire arena, every word stripped bare of any filter.
The venue wasn't crowded, but everyone heard every syllable.
Even his own teammates — Ah Li Jie and Liu Xin — stood frozen, staring. They were frustrated too, sure, but neither of them would have turned and screamed all of that in someone's face.
And honestly, Ai Tutu's performance in this second match hadn't been terrible. The Light Radiance misfire was unfortunate — Gu Jian's situation had been genuinely desperate at the time.
Silence settled over the arena in the wake of his outburst.
Then crying shattered it.
Ai Tutu stood motionless for several seconds. Then her hands flew to her face, and she burst into tears.
His words had been vicious beyond measure, aimed straight at her dignity, and the girl who normally sailed through life without a care in the world collapsed completely.
She would admit it — the first time she'd impersonated Mo Fan, she'd done it half out of mischief.
But watching the team's faces turn grim after each loss had drained every bit of playfulness out of her. In this second match, she had been completely, utterly serious. She'd even persuaded her family to spend an enormous sum equipping her with a Slash Enchanted Gear.
The Slash Enchanted Gear had done its job. But their opponents this round were far stronger than the first team, and the gap in overall power had decided things.
They'd lost — she'd half-expected that. But she'd also half-hoped Gu Jian might acknowledge that she'd tried harder today, might say something to soften the blow. Instead, she'd taken a tirade hammered directly into her face, his voice cutting through her, and the tears came in a rush she couldn't hold back.
"Stop your f\*\*\*ing crying. Get out of my sight." Gu Jian's voice cracked like a whip.
From the moment he'd first laid eyes on her, he'd pegged her as dead weight. He hadn't imagined she'd prove this catastrophically useless.
"Gu Jian… just drop it…"
"Come on, there's still a third match. She was genuinely trying to help you out of a corner back there." Ah Li Jie stepped in quickly.
"What third match?" The fury in Gu Jian's voice hadn't moved an inch. "With a woman like this on the team, why even bother?"
……
Ai Tutu couldn't bear to stand there any longer, looking at this man — the one her family had selected for her — screaming abuse in her face. She needed to leave. Now.
Covering her face, she turned and bolted, half-blind with tears — and walked straight into someone's chest.
It wasn't a broad chest, but there was a quiet solidity to it. She tried to step around whoever it was, but before she could move, arms wrapped around her.
She looked up.
Mo Fan.
A jolt ran through Ai Tutu as if she'd touched a live wire.
Gu Jian's words were still ringing in her ears. And now, with Mo Fan standing right there — having watched the whole thing — her stomach dropped. She'd been impersonating him. She'd cost his team two crucial nomination matches. He'd seen everything. The shame was already more than she could bear, and what made her blood run cold was the thought that Mo Fan might look at her exactly the way Gu Jian just had.
Gu Jian was only a man her family had approved of. She could harden her heart and write that off.
But Mo Fan was her friend. Her roommate. The terror of his disappointment hit somewhere entirely different — and it might be worse than everything she'd just endured.
After all, her reckless impersonation had already cost him two major nomination matches.