Late at night, driven by Cheng Feng’s ultimate taunting skill, San Yao trembled slightly as a sign of respect.
Comments on Cheng Feng’s page scrolled past like flowing water, while posts tagged with “Cheng Feng” in the forums began taking over the front page.
Netizens once again proved that people’s nightlife is indeed rich and varied – staying up late and sleeping in is the true portrait of modern life.
However, the tone was sharply polarized, showing that people’s joys and sorrows are not the same.
Pure spectators on San Yao cheered passionately in the comment section, celebrating the first carnival of this season’s league.
“She is so cool – I love her!”
“Cheng Feng has gone from being the ‘daughter’ to the ‘daddy,’ while I’m still just a simp. Tears.”
“Startled from my sickbed – I’d still tip and throw coins for Cheng Feng! Oh… it’s not a livestream? What a shame.”
“Kneel here, listen to me. Just bend your knees directly at more than 90 degrees, and with a ‘thud,’ go down. A simple tutorial that even a primary schooler can do – got it?”
“Spring for the manual operation pros!! I’ve said this at least a hundred times, and for the first time it’s not sarcasm! Thank you, Cheng Feng, for letting me be myself!”
“Everyone download and save this video. From now on, if anyone says ‘I could do that too,’ make them take off their dog heads and kneel before Cheng Feng to apologize.”
Meanwhile, the young people bearing the verified identity badges of various military universities – their world was gray.
“…”
“??”
“Let me ask seriously, don’t laugh at me. Is this something a normal person can do? [Scratches head]”
“Great. You’ve officially taught me into total failure.”
“Damn it, can’t sleep now. What kind of bad karma have I racked up day after day?”
“I’m done learning mechs, junior. Why don’t you teach me first how to kill someone from a thousand miles away like you do?”
“My heart is broken! What did I do wrong to have to see something like this?”
The analysis group experienced unprecedented popularity.
The group owner temporarily appointed several moderators to help with membership approvals, while also keeping an eye on the chat history to ensure no rule-breaking content appeared, lest enthusiastic netizens report it and get the group locked.
After all, Cheng Feng’s provocation was essentially giving everyone a middle finger right under their noses – an extremely cruel, domineering, and rude act. At a time of night when all restless energies stir, it was the perfect recipe for generating some truly ugly language.
Several moderators of the analysis group were running around with their hair on fire, dealing with the chaos caused by Cheng Feng’s thoughtlessness. Meanwhile, the instigator herself stared at the member count, quietly took a screenshot, and sent it into the five-person “Xiang Yunjian” group chat to share her milestone of growth with the others.
Ye Guicheng: [Image] The member count has surpassed 800! It’ll probably break 1,000 by tomorrow morning! Time to open a second group!
Ye Guicheng: [Owl snickering]
The four people who were about to go to bed said they really didn’t understand.
A Little More Reckless: ??
What’s Good About Summer: You don’t seriously think of this as a fan group, do you? Wake up – inside are a bunch of people who want you dead. All they’re discussing is how to beat you in the most humiliating way possible. You’re not on the same side!
My Family’s Got a Mine: An analysis group is like lice on your head – the more you have, the itchier it gets.
A Little More Reckless: So you’re basically raising poisonous insects on yourself?
Cheng Feng pretended to be profound as she replied.
Ye Guicheng: I know what I’m doing.
What’s Good About Summer: Then show us what you know – let’s see it.
Ye Guicheng: With so many people analyzing me, surely at least one of them will be really useful and help broaden my thinking.
A Little More Reckless: What kind of naive idea is that? Lay off that “enemies help me grow” toxic inspirational cliché.
A Little More Reckless: All you’ll find is that even the most ridiculous details – like how many centimeters you lift your foot when walking – will be picked apart by the other side. Playing a match will be like playing with all your cards face up.
Ye Guicheng: Studying stuff like that probably won’t do much to me, though – I pilot a manual-operations mech.
The others in the group nearly choked on their words.
Half a minute later, Xiang Yunjian chimed in.
Xiang Yunjian: Let her be. Parents should interfere less in their adult child’s affairs.
What’s Good About Summer: Noted. Whatever happens, it’s Xiang Yunjian’s indulgence that’s to blame.
Cheng Feng had already left the group. In a great mood, she ran back to San Yao and picked out a few highly upvoted comments to reply to.
“How long do I need to practice to reach this level?”
Ye Guicheng: Hard to say – just give it a try based on feel.
“Can eyesight be trained? Were those annotations you wrote really your thoughts and judgments at the time? I can’t see anything without slowing it down to half speed.”
Ye Guicheng: You’ll get used to it. Look at it in relation to the map.
“How come the manual-operation mech rework seems to have no effect on you at all?”
Ye Guicheng: I’m still learning too, so you’ll notice my code is pretty simple and repetitive. Use the moves you’re good at – don’t force yourself to learn things that don’t suit you.
“Ah, what a shame you missed this league season. Otherwise, you’d definitely be this year’s seeded player. Remember to sign up earlier next time, babe!”
Ye Guicheng: I didn’t miss it – I’m still grinding through the qualifiers.
After replying, Cheng Feng went to bed, unaware that her casual parting words would once again stir up an enormous uproar across various circles.
Mr. Kong didn’t see that video until the next morning when he woke up. He glanced at it a couple of times before heading to work and immediately perked up. The fatigue from staying up late for days to revise the code library for his students vanished in an instant, leaving only a complicated, fatherly feeling in his slightly warm chest.
The kid was still so young, yet she was about to graduate from the lesson of “our uni’s style.” Time really did fly. When she first arrived, she had been such an honest, unassuming bot.
A video only three minutes long – Mr. Kong watched it three times in a row. He was still replaying it even after sitting down at the breakfast table, and only under his wife’s repeated urgings did he eat one more bun than usual.
His wife really couldn’t stand his absent-minded, trance-like state. She tossed his light computer over to him and shoved him straight out the door.
The weather had been warm lately, and the air was filled with the unique fragrance of flowers from the transition between spring and summer. The entire path from his front door to the office felt light and sweet.
Mr. Kong took off his jacket, reorganized the key points he would be teaching in today’s class, and hummed a little tune as he walked toward the classroom. Just as he stepped through the doorway, he received an @ mention in the inter-school teaching and research group chat.
There were still fifteen minutes until the official bell rang, and less than a third of the students were seated in the classroom.
With one hand, Mr. Kong pulled over a chair next to the lectern. Not thinking much of it, he casually turned on the voice speaker.
The person on the other end demanded bluntly, without any context: “Mr. Kong, be honest – did you teach Cheng Feng?”
Mr. Kong let out a snorting laugh and replied, “No kidding! Are you just finding this out today? Did you suddenly get amnesia on me?”
The students in the classroom stopped their whispering and looked up at the lectern in unison.
Mr. Kong deliberately turned up the volume.
A cold laugh came through clearly from the optical computer.
“See? I told you – no one else but him would be so shameless as to make a perfectly good kid do something like this!”
Mr. Kong raised his voice and said, “I already know what you’re going to say! Cheng Feng’s fighting style is too rough and unorthodox, right? I’ll definitely give her a serious talking-to – tell her not to post tutorials online that ordinary people can’t possibly learn. Isn’t that just misleading people?”
He picked at his ear, paused for a moment, then let the end of every sentence rise in pitch as he continued in a sarcastic, biting tone. “And she needs to watch her words. Who knows which sentence might stab someone right in the heart? That would be terrible. Interpersonal skills are important too. I’ll be sure to pass along your concerns!”
Cheng Feng and Shen Dan happened to reach the first floor of the teaching building just as that deep, powerful voice pierced through the long, narrow corridor, echoing like some kind of demonic sound through the stairwell a hundred meters away.
Shen Dan listened quietly for a moment, then said sincerely, “That arrogant laugh of Mr. Kong – you can hear it from half a campus away. Impressive.”
Cheng Feng didn’t know how to respond.
Interpersonal skills really were too difficult to learn.
Students filed in one after another, tiptoeing lightly to their seats.
The young men who entered nodded silently to him in greeting. Mr. Kong nodded back, reined himself in a little, and switched the remaining voice messages to text.
“Who’s talking to you about tutorials? Put all that aside – enough’s enough. I’m asking you, are you serious about Cheng Feng still planning to participate in the preliminaries?”
Mr. Kong let out a sound of surprise and doubt.
“Signing up over a month late – was that intentional on your part too? Even if you do have high hopes for Cheng Feng and want to use her as your secret weapon, putting that much pressure on such a young kid – can you really justify that?”
Mr. Kong was about to scold him for talking nonsense, but the other person, quite presciently, uploaded a screenshot – which turned out to be Cheng Feng’s own reply to a netizen from last night.
Some netizen had stayed up late to do the math for Cheng Feng. According to the current tiered scoring formula, and given Cheng Feng’s pace of only nine matches per day, with only half the tournament schedule remaining, she would need at least 150 consecutive wins to have any chance of squeezing into the final qualifiers.
To date, the highest consecutive win streak in the qualifiers stands at 102 matches. That record was set by a renowned alumnus now enshrined in the League Hall of Fame. Back in the day, that record made him a mythical figure, sparking a nationwide frenzy and propelling both him and the student who finally defeated him into the annals of league history as unforgettable icons. No one has repeated such a feat since.
These are all military university students – the cream of the crop. You can be formidable, but you can never be invincible.
No one can guarantee a mistake-free performance. On the battlefield, a single tiny error can cost you the victory. That alumnus himself said many times that while he was indeed strong, luck played a major part in achieving that streak.
Now, with just one short sentence, Cheng Feng was challenging the entire history of the league.
“Uh…”
Mr. Kong hesitated for a moment, a flurry of inner struggles flashing across his tense expression. But in the end, he decided to unconditionally back his student. In a tone of arrogance that perfectly mirrored Cheng Feng’s own, he asked, “So what?”
All the members in the inter-school teaching and research group chat: “…”
So what? Go ahead and get inflated, why don’t you.
