Chapter 9: Love at First Sight

Shui Hua made do with a night on the floor of Yu Wenwen’s cramped living room.

The next morning, upon waking, he sensed his body—his magic power had mostly recovered.

Yu Wenwen was still sleeping soundly in the bedroom, and Shui Hua didn’t want to wake her, so he quietly folded his blanket and slipped out.

He found a rooftop close to the school to land on, made sure no one was around, then dispelled his transformation.

Afterward, he went downstairs and bought a serving of soy milk and pancake at the school gate, meandering leisurely back to the dormitory area.

Whether by coincidence or something else, Yu Hua ran straight into Lin Ling on the tree-lined path leading to the Dormitory Building.

Lin Ling looked terrible, likely due to his serious injuries from yesterday—he didn’t even notice Yu Hua until he was almost in front of him.

“Hey, Lin-ge, are you alright?”

Yu Hua pretended to have only heard about it from the news, stepping up to pat him on the shoulder.

“I saw on the news that you were badly hurt yesterday?”

Lin Ling jumped in surprise, snapped back to his senses, and only relaxed when he saw it was Yu Hua.

“Oh, Yu Hua… I’m fine, just a little tired. I recover pretty quickly, so I managed to come back.”

“Tsk tsk, even someone at your level got hurt that badly. Seems like the enemy wasn’t simple.”

Lin Ling immediately looked around warily.

Luckily, it was early on a weekend morning, and there was hardly anyone on campus.

Only then did he lower his voice and explain, “I didn’t expect the Anomalous Entity to have a Self-Destruction Ability… Still, it’s good I was the one who took it. If it had been anyone else, it could have been dangerous.”

The two of them walked into the Dormitory Building side by side, tacitly dropping the sensitive topic.

Pushing open the dorm room door, Yu Hua had expected the other two to still be asleep, but to his surprise, Wang Zeqi and Liu Shixing were already awake.

The moment the two entered, all eyes locked onto them in unison.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Yu Hua acted casual, ignoring their strange stares as he sat nonchalantly in his seat.

Lin Ling quickly followed and silently sat down in his chair.

“Be honest,” Liu Shixing adjusted his glasses, “you two disappeared together yesterday afternoon and then showed up together again this morning. What were you up to?”

Wang Zeqi immediately chimed in, “You guys weren’t secretly off dating each other, were you?”

Yu Hua had thought maybe his Magical Girl identity had been exposed, but didn’t expect their focus to be on something like this.

“You don’t know me by now? I don’t even have time to go out with all the girls lining up to date me, and you think I’d be dating a guy?”

“Then what exactly did you do yesterday?”

Wang Zeqi pressed on.

“Of course, I went to my sister’s place for dinner. We haven’t seen each other in a while, so I dropped by for a meal and to catch up.”

Whenever Yu Hua lied, he always mixed in a bit of truth—that way, he could always produce some evidence if needed.

Lin Ling also backed himself up, “I went to the Hospital yesterday. I’ve even got the receipts for the medicine I bought, so if you don’t believe me, check.”

“Alright… guess we were overthinking things.”

Liu Shixing’s tone softened, though his curiosity hadn’t faded.

“It’s just that you two always sneak out together. What are you up to all the time?”

Of course Yu Hua couldn’t say he was out working as a Magical Girl. Faced with this kind of questioning, he went on the offensive instead, casting a disdainful glance at the two of them.

“Out having fun, obviously. Unlike you two, I don’t stay holed up in the dorm all day playing otaku.”

Lin Ling also added, “Sometimes the dorm isn’t the best environment for studying. I usually go to the Library.”

“Ah, that’s what being a normie is like.”

Wang Zeqi and Liu Shixing exchanged a look and sighed.

Thanks to Yu Hua’s teasing, the topic in the dorm quickly shifted to a roast of all things normie.

***

When lunchtime came, all four set out for the cafeteria together.

Shuicheng University of Technology might be a no-name school, but the cafeteria was surprisingly good and, being right next to the Dormitory Building, much more convenient than food deliveries, which only made it to the school gate.

Because of his extra income as a Magical Girl, Yu Hua was the “rich guy” of the dorm—he felt cheated if he didn’t have at least two meat dishes per meal.

But the real secret rich guy was actually Lin Ling, who ordered a serving of Pork Trotter Rice without fail every single day.

The four of them carried their trays and sat at a table together, about to find a topic for lunchtime banter, when the usually silent Lin Ling surprisingly spoke up first.

“Brothers, I want to ask you guys something.”

“What’s up? Why so serious?”

Yu Hua set down the duck leg he’d just picked up and casually responded.

“It’s… about romance.”

“Then you’ve come to the right person.”

Yu Hua perked up, thumping his chest.

“When it comes to this, I’m an expert. They call me Shui Cheng’s number one love guru—there’s a line of girls wanting to go out with me every day.”

“Yeah right, aren’t all of us single since birth? You keep talking about going out with girls, but how come I’ve never seen a single photo?”

Liu Shixing stabbed in from the side.

“Have to respect people’s privacy, you know. Can’t just snap photos.”

Yu Hua obviously couldn’t just show them pictures of Magical Girls.

Lin Ling ignored their banter and continued earnestly, “There’s a girl I… had First Love at First Sight with. I wanted to ask, how do I pursue her?”

“Just talk to her more,” Liu Shixing answered right away, pushing his glasses and speaking with utmost seriousness, “then options will pop up. Pick the right one and her affection will naturally rise. Once the affection’s maxed out, you’ll get the CG and everything else in no time.”

Yu Hua put on the air of a seasoned player, raised three fingers, and explained in detail, “There are really only three mainstream strategies to chasing girls.”

“First, there’s what Xiao Liu said, the affection route. Chat more, engineer some chance encounters, give gifts at key moments… This strategy worked in the last Version, but these days it’s kind of a Version Trap—easy to end up as a simp.”

“A pro like me uses the second method—the charm route. Many girls don’t care what you do for them, but rather what they gain by being with you—emotional value, face, sense of security, and so on. Grasp that, and you’ve just entered the game. But this one’s probably too complicated for bookworms like you.”

“Of course, the simplest, dumbest, and also the Current Version Answer is the pay-to-win route,” Yu Hua shot Lin Ling a meaningful look, “just use money, plain and simple, fast results.”

The subtext was obvious:

You’re basically a hidden millionaire, do you really need to ask us about this?

But Lin Ling shook his head, looking serious.

“I don’t think… she’s the kind of girl who cares about money.”

“Then try combining routes one and three—build up affection while appropriately showing off your ‘strength.’ Hit it from both sides.”

“Good idea. Thanks, Yu Hua-ge, for the guidance.”

Lin Ling nodded earnestly, genuinely considering the feasibility of this “combo move.”

“No problem, man, who else would I teach if not you?”

Yu Hua waved his hand with the air of a veteran mentor, then asked offhandedly, “By the way, when did you meet this girl? Never heard you mention her before.”

“It was just yesterday,” Lin Ling lowered his head in embarrassment, poking at the rice in his bowl with his chopsticks, his voice dropping a few notches.

“Otherwise… I wouldn’t call it First Love at First Sight.”

“Just yesterday? Don’t tell me it was…”

Yu Hua’s smile froze, and a cold sweat instantly broke out on his back.