Cheng Feng took screenshots of part of the chat log and sent them to her private group chat.
A social dynamic that could change attitudes this quickly was a little beyond her understanding.
Ye Guicheng: [Image] What are they doing? This used to be my analysis group.
Xiang Yunjian: Because you really did break the record, so everything’s different now.
Ye Guicheng: What do you mean?
Xiang Yunjian: Before you broke the record, you were just a strong competitor. After breaking it, you became the new spokesperson for manual-operated mecha pilots.
Ye Guicheng: [Confused eagle emoji]
A Little More Reckless: It means that if you keep winning, it’ll benefit the entire manual operation specialization.
Because manual-operated mecha had been in decline for years, they rarely even got a chance to appear in high-exposure events like the military university league tournament. Even if the higher-ups wanted to support the field, there was only so much they could do. What the industry had always lacked was a dominant pilot capable of shifting the trend.
Cheng Feng’s appearance was almost too perfectly timed, as though she had been born for this very purpose. The Alliance had clearly been preparing for this for a long time, just waiting for the right moment. They’d probably revised the promotional copy over a dozen times already.
From the unusually quiet buildup on San Yao’s side early on, the group had already vaguely suspected it: the people running operations over at San Yao were bolder than they were. Most likely, they had poured the entire budget into the publicity campaign for after the record was broken.
My Family’s Got a Mine: Now this is what you call a destined star…
Something far weightier than any of the three major MVP trophies. Besides personal strength, you also need to encounter the right era at the right time.
My Family’s Got a Mine: I’m jealous.
Xiang Yunjian: [Sigh]
What’s Good About Summer: [Crying cat emoji]
What’s Good About Summer: Damn it, I patiently spent two whole hours wrangling with San Yao’s operations team and still couldn’t get a word out of them about their promo plans. What’s their deal? Were they afraid I’d get jealous?
My Family’s Got a Mine: Cheng Feng’s one of our own eagles. Why waste energy being jealous?
Cheng Feng sent a little owl emoji pack: the owl spread its wings while lowering its head, its body forming a “V” shape.
Ye Guicheng: [Owl making a peace sign]
Cheng Feng switched back out to glance at the group chat again. Looking at that bunch of people acting as enthusiastically as if they were her blood brothers, she still felt like they’d all suddenly come down with something overnight. She shook her head and returned to the smaller group chat.
Ye Guicheng: Exactly how big are the benefits? They look like they’re about to lose their minds. Aren’t they supposed to be my competitors?
A Little More Reckless: Of course the bigger the player base is, the more room the whole specialization has to grow. That’s how you improve its reach and make it easier to discover new talent. Right now your manual-control field doesn’t really have any especially outstanding or stylistically distinctive piloting methods worth studying – whether it’s burst-style tactics, sneaky-play tactics, or whatever random-transforming-style nonsense.
What’s Good About Summer: And people need to see a promising future before they’ll keep investing money into it. Did you know your manual operation department’s research funding has already been cut for two straight years? If this were the stock market, it’d practically be getting delisted by now.
What’s Good About Summer: Manual-operated mecha is poor okay?! The money you guys used to rent this year’s venue was scraped out of our sensor-specialization budget! Your instructors even took the lead acting like shameless hooligans in the conference room – it was outrageous!
Ye Guicheng: [Crying owl emoji]
Cheng Feng instantly felt a deep sense of empathy. She’d never expected Mr. Kong to be just as broke as she was. Usually he never showed it, pretending to stay strong all the time. Was this what people meant by “the sorrows of adulthood”?
Cheng Feng exited the chat group and casually booked her reservation for the next day. When the system notification for her next match came through, winning was no longer the only thing on her mind. She suddenly felt her responsibilities weighing a little heavier on her shoulders than before.
She had to fight well and earn Mr. Kong some money to spend.
Driven by that intense sense of purpose, Cheng Feng fought this match with overwhelming momentum and ruthless efficiency.
Before the opposing pilot could even properly face her head-on, he was already blasted senseless by her dense barrage of gunfire. It felt as though he’d just walked through a storm of bullets forged from pure killing intent.
Then came the relentless pursuit. Cheng Feng chased him down without letting up, and the terror of being hunted by a predator made his scalp go numb. He genuinely couldn’t understand what kind of blood feud existed between them to make her fight with such merciless brutality.
In fact, in the final second before his mech exploded, the young man gave up resisting altogether and used his last breath to shout his dying words through the loudspeaker:
“What the hell?!”
Cheng Feng’s final act of kindness was waving at the wreckage of his destroyed mech. After doing so, she cleanly exited the arena.
Back in the preparation area, Cheng Feng swiped her fingers through the interface and pulled up the match footage recorded in the backend system. Without bothering to edit it, she prepared to upload it directly onto the San Yao website.
Recently, she really had gotten a little lazy, causing the analysis group’s materials to dry up again, which in turn lowered the level of online discussion.
She needed to reflect on herself.
However, Cheng Feng’s thought only lasted for less than two seconds. The moment the San Yao video page link popped up, she was instantly struck dumb by the animated preview of herself in the transition GIF.
In the GIF, the manual-operated mech rolled sideways to the right. As its unstable center of gravity shifted, it rapidly reconfigured its structure, narrowly avoiding a streak of cannon fire that brushed past it.
The red of flames, the gold of sunlight, and the deep black of the metal chassis intertwined and reflected off each other within just a few seconds.
It was clearly a silent image, yet it constructed a sense of lethal, blade-like tension. The vivid colors only emphasized the chilling coldness beneath.
In the lower-left corner of the frame, Cheng Feng herself was casually typing away at code, her eyes half-lidded with no trace of tension at all.
The contrast between the two was stark. Then, after her ID flashed across the center of the screen, the clip quickly disappeared.
Cheng Feng didn’t even remember which match this was from. In any case – it looked very cool.
She couldn’t help but click out and back in again. But when she did, she found that the GIF had changed. Another two-second freeze-frame of cold, lethal precision – so striking it made one’s knees feel weak just watching it. It was almost a fleeting, breathtaking glimpse.
Truly worthy of a “dream mech” – the kind you’d want to meet night after night.
Cheng Feng happily repeated it more than a dozen times, and only then managed to rein in her thoughts and stop this self-indulgent behavior.
She carefully scanned the interface and checked the feature list, discovering that in the most prominent position on the webpage there was now a pinned advertising banner – an official San Yao special feature page made specifically for Cheng Feng in connection with the league.
The column title read:
“Above the Peak, Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves!”
The match she had just played had already been uploaded and lightly edited. The San Yao staff had selected several smoothly connected clips, separating them into offensive and defensive segments for display.
Cheng Feng clicked in to watch, and had to admit that with the background music added, she was also on the verge of being completely charmed by herself.
“Thanks, very satisfied. San Yao really knows how to handle big things. The video section’s clicks are going to skyrocket today, right? To be honest, I’ve already clicked it over fifty times.”
“Only fifty-something times? Heh. I still haven’t stopped.”
“Manual-operated mech transformations really fulfill a universal childhood dream. I’m in love.”
“I was originally dragged into this circle by a transformation video. Manual control is going to blow up this year.”
Cheng Feng copied the video link and decided to share it on the San Yao forum.
The moment she jumped to the forum page, she found the same advertising column there as well. The front page posts were all discussing related topics.
She casually clicked on a post floating at the top.
#Multiple images, real-life photos of Cheng Feng’s offline advertisements#
“Our city’s commercial center started broadcasting this on the big screens at noon today. I have to say, ads like this are incredibly effective – there are crowds of people stopping to watch in the square.”
“They also bought a trending keyword slot and ran a real-life photo lottery event. The game even sent in-game mail rewards for it.”
“It really sprang up everywhere overnight, like bamboo shoots after rain. San Yao really is something! I misunderstood them before.”
“Big news: I heard there will be a life-size model of Silent Revelation displayed in the central district of the city. It was secured by San Yao thanks to breaking the record. If they hadn’t released Cheng Feng’s past match data during this ad push, I’d almost suspect some conspiracy theory about them artificially manufacturing a ‘god-tier’ player.”
“I checked Cheng Feng’s match schedule and was shocked. At a time like this she’s still doing nine matches a day – shouldn’t she reduce her schedule in case she breaks the record streak?”
“Nine matches a day miracle – how is that still a miracle?! [screaming]”
“Are you kidding? Who is Cheng Feng? If she’s not being unconventional, then she’s not herself.”
Cheng Feng saved the photos from the thread and sent them to her small group chat.
Strangely, Xiang Yunjian and the others still hadn’t replied. Cheng Feng guessed they might be in class right now. Since her next match was about to start, she could only regretfully close all her chat apps.
As expected, happiness really is lonely when experienced alone.
Meanwhile, Jiang Linxia and the others had already formed a new small group chat and temporarily muted Cheng Feng.
If this keeps going, the “dads” are going to have a mental breakdown. Who could possibly handle this?
…
Under San Yao’s comprehensive coverage, every day when netizens opened the website, they could see Cheng Feng’s winning streak steadily ticking upward. It felt as though victory had become nothing more than a number for her.
April 27.
Cheng Feng’s winning streak successfully broke through 110 matches.
Eight of them went relatively smoothly, with the shortest match lasting only 5 minutes and 49 seconds. In the remaining one, Cheng Feng clashed head-on and verbally sparred with a stubborn opponent, narrowly winning with 76% mech damage sustained.
April 28.
Cheng Feng posted an update on her personal account, and at San Yao’s request, broke down and listed the code segments involved in the GIFs.
Netizens tried to follow along.
That night, keyboard sales in the San Yao store surged, and people angrily denounced San Yao as a shameless profiteer with underhanded tactics.
Nine wins.
April 29.
Cheng Feng’s new record climbed to 129 consecutive wins.
In the morning and afternoon, her luck wasn’t great – two matches nearly went into timed resolution. She posted a long stream-of-consciousness rant on her private account, and in the evening she replaced her long-unchanged weapon loadout, adding close-combat melee weapons.
Nine wins.
April 30.
Under the tiered scoring system, Cheng Feng’s personal ranking rose into the top 30% in less than half a month.
Nine wins.
May 1.
Labor Day – Cheng Feng took a day off because the instructors led the entire infantry department out to clear and cultivate forest land.
San Yao followed along with a camera crew to film a documentary episode.
Netizens complained that it felt strange not seeing her win count tick upward every time they opened the page – it felt like a calendar that hadn’t turned. They hoped she would return to matches soon.
May 2.
Cheng Feng took another day off because she had strained her muscles during the land-clearing work. In addition, her history essay had been criticized as sloppy, and the teacher required a resubmission with double the word count.
It was one of the darkest days of Cheng Feng’s life.
Netizens also voiced their protest. They had gone two days without being able to work with full focus. The public also seriously criticized San Yao, saying that Cheng Feng doing her makeup assignments was clearly more important than footage of her labor work. They demanded that next time, key moments not be missed.
The keyword search index for “Cheng Feng” entered the top ten of the day’s rankings, reaching a peak in popularity.
May 3.
Cheng Feng was in a bad mood.
Cheng Feng looked fierce.
Cheng Feng’s methods were ruthless.
Netizens hoped she would keep it up, as it seemed promising for the development of a “Yama-style” fighting style.
By 10 p.m., the record had updated to 147 consecutive wins.
May 4.
Cheng Feng’s new record stopped at 151. It ended with a single announcement from her: “I’m not fighting anymore.”
Netizens wailed in despair and begged her to continue.
That night, San Yao released a commentary video produced with participation from Ji Ban, as well as Cheng Feng’s final interview clip.
