Chapter 34

Yu Tianming adjusted his glasses. He had already recognized the woman not far away and the team behind her.

Wu Shu, the only female captain among the ten advancing teams in the third stage. Though the captain's gender was special, the team she led from the middle district academy was not very noticeable.

Over the years, the middle district had always been a foil for upper district teams—responsible for padding the bottom for upper district academy teams. As for the lower district, it usually did not even qualify to be a foil. This year was the exception.

Yu Tianming was accustomed to grasping all information. Even people he looked down on—as long as they existed in this game—they could bring variables to the situation.

Therefore, after Wu Shu approached them and showed surprise, Yu Tianming hooked a friendly smile and greeted first. "Captain Wu from the middle district?"

Wu Shu was tall with a refreshing aura. After the surprise, she nodded and showed a generous smile. She first looked at the imposing Crown Prince and slightly bowed. "Greetings, Your Highness the Crown Prince."

Then she looked at the bespectacled boy with mild temperament and responded: "I've long heard of senior Yu's great name. Truly fortunate—we can compete on the same field as the Royal Academy experts."

Compared to the generous and neat Wu Shu, her teammates behind her seemed much more awkward. Some practically had "unlucky" written on their faces.

Encountering the Royal Academy team in an aberrant realm basically meant their trip was wasted. Except for Wu Shu, they all could not help hanging their heads dejectedly. Ye Zheng lingered outside the team, quietly observing this new character.

Wu Shu's appearance leaned sharp—eyes upturned at the corners. When not smiling, she gave a distant, gorgeous cold feeling. But when she smiled, it diluted that coldness. Combined with her measured and graceful speech and demeanor, she instead gave an impression of being easy to get along with.

"This must be the saintess. I've always heard legends about you. The Church saintess is the role model for all girls in the Sacred Citadel Empire."

The girl in a white dress had pure temperament and calm expression. In this dry hot withered environment, she was like an orchid soothing the heart—one look made people feel refreshed.

Wu Shu looked at the girl, her smile becoming a few degrees more genuine.

Ye Zheng lightly shook her head humbly. "Miss Wu is too polite. Compared to me, your experiences make girls admire even more."

"I've always heard people around me say there's a powerful captain at South City Academy in the middle district who led the best results in ten years. Seeing you today, indeed well-deserved."

Wu Shu was dumbfounded and laughed. Her eye corners lifted more. "People around you... like your family's butlers, maids, that sort? I didn't expect you'd care about these. In front of the Royal Academy, such words are overpraise."

What the saintess in front of her said was correct. She did have some fame in the middle district. But in this competition—with the overwhelmingly strong Royal Academy above and the once-in-a-century dark horse Cloud Soarers below—someone like her, a team this ordinary—besides middle district people paying attention, only scheming foxes like Yu Tianming would remember.

"Truly well-deserved is you, saintess."

If the lower district was the empire's shield and upper district's sweat factory, the middle district was the upper district's back garden—providing premium services to the upper district. Servants, butlers, lovers... usually came from the middle district. The especially outstanding might fish a small position in the upper district.

Even Yu Tianming, who greeted first just now—Wu Shu could see arrogance in his eyes. People served by the middle district all day—how could they look up to them?

This Ye Zheng... was she a pure immaculate unicorn, or a fox better at disguising than the prime minister's son?

"By the way, Captain Wu, coming from that direction—any discoveries?"

The increasingly hot weather made Yu Tianming unable to resist interrupting the two girls' conversation. There was no time now for girls' useless chit-chat. He did not want to be baked to death here.

Wu Shu withdrew her gaze from the girl and shook her head at Yu Tianming. "Only lots of disgusting bugs over there. I was thinking of checking this direction, but now it seems unnecessary."

A trace of disappointment crossed Yu Tianming's face. This Wu Shu—besides an especially good figure—seemed to have nothing special.

"But." Wu Shu paused. She pointed southwest. "Just now we encountered the Cloud Soarers. They were hurrying anxiously in this direction—perhaps they discovered something."

Sykes, silent for long, finally lifted his eyelids. His extremely gloomy expression from the heat eased a few degrees. He thoughtfully looked in the direction Wu Shu pointed.

"Cloud Soarers, ha. They always have some lucky encounters."

Seeing Sykes's murderous gloomy expression finally ease a bit, Yu Tianming also breathed relief. After getting the desired result, he was about to dismiss the team in front when the other side very tactfully spoke first.

"Wishing you success in taking this realm's points. We'll take our leave first. This competition isn't suitable for our team to continue striving."

Wu Shu sighed, seeming to have assessed the situation and finally given up struggling. Yu Tianming pushed up his glasses unsurprised. Any normal person knew they had no chance.

Sykes was already impatient. He strode southwest without sideways glance. The others immediately followed upon seeing. Only Ye Zheng lagged a few steps. In the moment passing Wu Shu, she softly asked: "The aberrant realm isn't destroyed—you can't leave either. Really giving up?"

Ye Zheng seemed not to need an answer. After leaving a faint, almost inaudible light laugh by Wu Shu's ear, she caught up with the team and left.

Wu Shu turned to watch that gradually distant white figure. Her face held no smile—her temperament even turned cold and heavy.

"C-Captain, where do we go wait next?"

Wu Shu sneered. "You guys find anywhere to wait."

As for her—with her ability, when two tigers fight, perhaps she could be the monkey that ultimately profits?

In this ability competition, everyone had forgotten the middle district. And she would bring final glory to her hometown.

✧✧✧✧✧

"System, I kind of feel it. Wu Shu really is different from the female characters appearing so far."

Ye Zheng pinched her fingers. "She seems to have more depth."

Among the female characters appearing so far—her own tag was gentle healing saintess, Lu Qi was lively girl-next-door, Bai Muqing was aloof superior nun. These were tags they carried from debut.

But Wu Shu was full of contradictions. Ye Zheng found it hard to describe her with one tag. She absolutely was not the straightforward enthusiastic woman she showed on the surface—

Though Wu Shu was about her age, in appearance Ye Zheng could not associate her with "young"—youth or woman fit better.

『She's the standard big sis type in male-frequency novels. Appearance-wise definitely more mature than your pure goddess type.』

Ye Zheng recalled and said tactfully: "Her figure is a bit... I feel embarrassed looking too much."

『This manga is already drawn conservatively. Some mangas are more exaggerated, Some not even human woman proportions!』

The system exclaimed exaggeratedly—sounding like it had been poisoned by those mangas plenty.

"Setting aside the mature appearance, her character attributes—probably not particularly upright, right?"

Just from the flawless greetings at first meeting, Ye Zheng could confirm Wu Shu was far more ambitious than she showed. Later proactively revealing the Cloud Soarers' position to them further confirmed Wu Shu was different from her and Lu Qi—she had her own calculations.

This surprised Ye Zheng a bit. So the manga author wasn't only good at making female characters devote to his son—there was also this type who secretly stabbed the male lead. Ye Zheng inexplicably felt some comfort.

She just wasn't sure—based on her recent research into reader tastes—would female villains also be relatively popular? The system said Wu Shu was once the most popular female character in this manga. Though Ye Zheng guessed female characters' overall popularity was far below males, Wu Shu definitely had outstanding qualities readers liked.

"System, if I crazily target Pei Xi and them now in the Crown Prince's team, would my popularity be relatively high too?"

Ye Zheng tilted her head, imagining possibilities of targeting the protagonist group. The system immediately interrupted her fantasy.

『What are you even thinking? As the female lead targeting author’s and readers’ precious ‘good son’—be careful, or the day after the comic updates, the super-topic and the public feed will tear you to shreds, with especially vicious insults...』

『Wu Shu was cursed horribly early on too. Forget Sykes treatment—she was far below even Ryan's—until later—ah oops.』

The system paused mid-sentence. Ye Zheng furrowed her brows but softened her tone, trying to coax more plot. "System, since my goal is higher popularity value, isn't Wu Shu this excellent case very worth learning from? Quietly tell me."

Anyway, its little black room lockups never lasted long—Ye Zheng thought ruthlessly. The system was silent a while, finally stammering.

『Wu Shu this excellent case... the author already borrowed it for your original plot...』

Ye Zheng blinked. Her pupils slightly widened. Hesitantly: "Original plot... it wouldn't be the one where I die for Pei Xi, right?"

The system went silent.

Ye Zheng got the answer she wanted, yet her face showed no pleasure.

『Anyway, you get it right? Villain route etc. is hard to walk without the right face and gender. The little angel helpful to protagonist route is safer—won't go wrong.』

『Wu Shu's popularity comes from this kind of before-and-after contrast. Who could refuse a bad woman who ultimately dies for you? All the previous scolding would turn into guilt and heartache, so the author was also trying to arrange the same for you, whose popularity has been struggling...』

"So in the original plot, Wu Shu died."

Ye Zheng thought that this kind of popularity and heartache meant nothing to Wu Shu. All her ambitions and aspirations dissolved with her death. She paused in her steps and looked back toward the vast wilderness. The figure of the girl in the black dress was already gone.

"Is there really no super-popular female villain?"

『There are explosively popular female villains, but the conditions are extremely harsh. They have to be crushing-level existences in appearance, scheming, and strength. Even so, a villain is still a villain, and their ending is always tragic.』

Ye Zheng listened and let out a soft "hm."