In the morning rush hour, not only the streets were filled but so were the buses. Ye Mei felt out of place among the throng of people, and sometimes even let her temper out.
She made sure to always avoid Li Mo, keeping him as far as possible.
At the school gate, Li Mo got off but not Ye Mei. Li Mo thought she didn’t notice. As a result, she saw her coming five minutes later from the next station.
When Ye Mei came, Li Mo was still outside the gate. He was buying a fruit pancake from a stall nearby.
Ye Mei lowered her head and rushed inside the schoolyard.
“Hey, did you hear? Ye Mei’s family went broke.”
“They say Ye Mei’s car was sold and they’ll have to sell their house too.”
“No way! The rich are rich regardless of how much they lose. Even if her parents are out of money, they should be in a much better situation than us! Her mom is a star.”
“After her dad suffered a loss buying antiques, her mom divorced him. Now Ye Mei is in her father’s custody, while her mom couldn’t care less about her…”
“Why doesn’t her mother care for her?”
“Who knows.”
Walking through the school gate, gossips about Ye Mei entered his ears.
Ye Yunfei? Li Mo recalled how the man lost terribly at the Priceless Auction betting on the jade king.
Instead of going to his class, he went to the museum.
“You want to drop out? No. You can cut classes, can skip days, and not even give an excuse, but you must stay a student.”
Li Mo came to tell Huang Lixing who was now adamant against it.
“I don’t care what you do after, but you can’t drop out. When you enter society, others will point at you and say you quit school. I know that you don’t care about others’ judgment, but they will always look down on you. They will taunt and mock you.
“This is one thing you cannot do. If there is something you have to do, then go. If you plan on failing your exams, then do it until graduation.”
Huang Lixing had rarely stood against Li Mo’s opinion. This blunt teacher and Li Mo spent most of their time when meeting on researching ‘antiques’.
But this time was different.
Li Mo walked to his classroom.
After half a month’s absence, Li Mo found that today, almost everyone was present.
This may have been strange half a month ago. His class’ attendance had never been stellar. With 20% of the students skipping regularly. Sometimes it went as far as 50%.
“Bro Mo, here.” Du Fei waived Li Mo over.
‘Almost everyone is here today it seems.’
Su Haoyang was here, showing Li Mo only disdain.
Yang Chong, Ma Yu, Ye Mei, Huang Yao, were also here. The only two missing were An Yuxin and Lin Qingrou.
An Yuxin was looking after her father in the hospital, and Lin Qingrou missing even the whole year would be taken as normal.
Du Fei whispered, “Do you know why there’s so many today?”
“We have a new homeroom teacher.”
“A beauty?”
“No, a pretty boy.”
“Pretty boy?”
Li Mo was stunned. This never happened in his past life.
“And you know him also.”
“Real name You Ye, alias Ao Jiuxiao(T/N: lit. ninth heaven’s pride) in the gaming industry. He is higher ranked than even Lin Qingrou, ranked first in the word and nationally!”
“Oh, him.” Li Mo was stupefied.
Ao Jiuxiao was the number one gamer in the world. In the world championship, he defeated Lin Qingrou three times and became the first nationally also.
Thunderstruck Enterprise declared that in the first in-house testing of Starscape, that Ao Jiuxiao would be the first to join. And his performance was also impressive, making him the only one who participated six times in the in-house testing.
Ao Jiuxiao was very famous. In the gaming industry, not only the first in the world, but even the top hundred were equivalent to stars in the entertainment business. He had fans all over the globe. He was as popular as an emperor.
Li Mo was indifferent about this man because he didn’t know him. However, in the Three Kingdoms instance, he took Cao Cao’s Heaven-reliant Sword.
Tacking was tacking, depending on his skills alone. Li Mo needed it dearly, but had no intention of stealing it.
And when it came to the past, Li Mo didn’t have any impression of him. He was not seen when the universe’s races invaded, nor in the Great Galactic Era period.
Before the Great Galactic Era, many remarkable talents had met their demise. But after the Great Galactic Era started, among the countless geniuses, few were those that were able to shine.
Li Mo was one of them.
Actually, letting gamers into the Starscape in-house tasting was a gross mistake from the start.
Thunderstruck Enterprise wrongly assumed Starscape as a game left behind by a highly intelligent life form. So they recruited batches of gamers to test it.
And the stark truth? Starscape was no game and these professional gamers could not display their brilliant skills in the time-space ruptures. Thinking about it, not even Ao Jiuxiao, one of the so called four test kings, and the rest, were nowhere to be seen after the Great Galactic Era started.
“Teacher Ao arrived!” Huang Yao stood up.
“He’s here!” The girls cheered.
Ao Jiuxiao opened the door and walked in.
The girls shrieked.
Ao Jiuxiao’s looks didn’t lack in the least to get all the girls to shriek. He was handsome, confident and standing there was the same as shining like the sun. Oh, and he also had an enchanting smile.
The boys always hated such people. But to the girls, they were deadly.
“Greetings Teacher Ao!” Besides Ye Mei, the other girls all greeted him.
“No need to be so polite everyone. Please sit.” Ao Jiuxiao smiled with incredible warmth.
Ao Jiuxiao saw Li Mo and smiled at him also, confusing him.
“We seem to have new faces today. So I will introduce myself. My name is You Ye, with Ao Jiuxiao being my gaming alias. Not many know me for You Ye, so please call me by Ao Jiuxiao.”
“Understood, Teacher Ao.”
Ao Jiuxiao gestured at Li Mo, “New student, please introduce yourself.”
“Li Mo.”
Ao Jiuxiao asked, “You have a gaming alias?”
Du Fei butted in, “Emo_MasterLeng!”(T/N: leng means cold)
The class was silent as the grave.
Li Mo’s face was unnatural, “Can you not mention it again?”
The past him was too young and chose this ‘cool’ name. It was one shame he never wanted to speak of, but this chubby went ahead and declared it.
Ao Jiuxiao nodded and started the lesson.
