Volume 3: High School Arc - Mirror Game
Day and night passed in rotation, and several days flashed by in an instant.
Ever since that group dinner, both Lu Haochen and I treated it as if it had never happened, and because of my performance that day, I had gained a bit of prestige in the class.
I had to admit, this drinking culture among our people truly had deep historical roots, and had even become an unspoken rule in many people’s hearts.
Because of this unspoken rule, I had gained a certain status in the class.
But the alcohol from that day left me a bit puzzled.
Normally speaking, although there was no legal drinking age restriction in our country, it was prohibited to sell alcohol to minors.
I hadn’t thought of this at the time, but the next day it came to mind.
However… after Shao He gave me a document, I immediately understood the reason behind it.
The owner of that five-star hotel had the surname Huang.
That’s right, that hotel was run by none other than Huang Lishan’s father.
That very same chubby guy who followed around Lu Haochen.
And that wasn’t all—Shao He’s document mentioned another thing.
Huang Dingtian—this man… turned out to be one of the heads of several major gangs in Province L.
Even though he had washed his hands of the underworld and turned legit almost ten years ago, he still held considerable influence in the criminal world.
What surprised me even more was that this guy had a decent relationship with Liu Wanqian.
One was a real estate tycoon, and the other was both a hotel owner and a gang boss.
Just thinking about what those two could cook up together gave me chills.
But maybe I was overthinking it.
After all, real estate was an industry that could interact with both the black and white sides of society.
And for the sake of harmonious networking, it was also normal for Liu Wanqian and Huang Dingtian to be somewhat connected.
By the way, I really had to complain—did Huang Dingtian’s father just lazily name him after a certain “Dingtian” without any thought?
Wasn’t that a bit too perfunctory?
Unfortunately, I’d never get an answer to that question, since Huang Lishan’s grandfather had been dead for many years.
These days, although I had been attending classes as usual, my mind was still entangled with this task.
A team mission wasn’t as simple as the others.
If a task was made to be tackled by multiple players together, then it definitely wouldn’t be easy.
So up until now, I still felt conflicted.
But right now, I really didn’t have much chance to go check things out.
The rules stated that on Friday night, players could gather once at the Mirror Factory.
Still, I felt… I should go there in advance.
Because in the past few days, the shadow in the mirror had become increasingly clear, and its presence lasted longer.
Where before it would appear for only a fleeting moment, now the shadow sometimes even appeared in normal glass reflections, and could linger for several seconds at a time.
This made me feel more and more uneasy inside.
“Yunyan, do you have any plans for tonight?”
Right after the second class in the afternoon ended, Bai Juanjuan turned around and looked at me, her big eyes sparkling.
With a face full of “I’m so excited,” it was obvious…
It must have been because I said yesterday, “If you’re free, you can come hang out at my place,” that this girl got all hyped up.
Well, it was fine…
After all, this was a second life—I couldn’t go without any friends.
“Of course not. Did you tell your family?”
“Yup! I told Grandpa.”
Bai Juanjuan immediately broke into a radiant smile.
Her little legs swung back and forth on the chair.
Seeing how excited she was, even her cheeks flushed red, I could only smile in response.
“Then let’s go. I’ll let my family know. By the way… you can’t eat spicy food, right? I’ll have them prepare a mushroom soup hotpot. We’ll have hotpot at home.”
“Okay!!”
Seeing her respond so cheerfully, I didn’t know whether it was her innocent smile that infected me, but… it lightened my mood just a bit.
Today was Thursday, and tomorrow night was the time for the players’ gathering.
The game had set a gathering time for us players, which already indicated how troublesome this mission would be.
But what kind of trouble, I’d have to wait and see.
What worried me more than the game was whether conflict would arise between players once they gathered.
If conflict broke out at a time like that, it’d be quite troublesome.
While I was talking, Lu Haochen, who sat next to me, didn’t look over directly, but I noticed that he kept glancing at me, either intentionally or not.
Of course… I didn’t think this was some creepy behavior.
To me… it looked like he was observing me.
I didn’t know why he was doing it, but for now, I was observing him too.
So I figured we were even.
In this kind of school, cleaning was handled by hired staff.
Students weren’t required to do it.
After all, to these rich kids, cleaning was just a waste of time and wouldn’t help them in life.
So once school ended, we all left right away.
Naturally, I called Shao He in advance, and also notified the new maid—Agatsuma Reina.
Yes… she was specially hired from Japan.
Though calling it “hired”… didn’t seem quite right.
Because her father had racked up a huge gambling debt—about two hundred million yen—and then disappeared.
Her mother committed suicide over it.
Originally, she would have been sold off by the Yakuza, and after that, had her organs harvested.
They’d use whatever they could to pay off the debt.
But maybe because I once said to Liu Wanqian, “Japanese maids are great,”
That message got passed along to Gong Lianyu somehow?
As a result, Gong Lianyu used two hundred million yen to redeem this girl.
To her, it was basically equivalent to selling herself.
Of course, human trafficking was illegal in this era, so the contract was labeled as a lifelong labor agreement.
But for the girl, it made no difference from selling her body.
Maybe it was because of my coma that time,
The couple thought I might not have much time left, or… that I could die at any moment.
So they always tried to fulfill my wishes as much as possible.
And since I had mentioned it a few times, they got me an authentic Japanese maid.
Agatsuma Reina was just eighteen years old and truly had a pitiful background.
Although this kind of situation seemed unrealistic, in Japan, it actually wasn’t all that uncommon.
It was just that public security in our country was too good, so to the average person, this kind of thing felt improbable.
Still… for various reasons, she wasn’t very fluent in Chinese yet, so she couldn’t help with grocery shopping or anything like that.
Most of the time, she just cleaned the house and looked after the small animals.
It wasn’t heavy labor, and after she worked for a few years, I planned to let her go.
When she first arrived, even though there was a hint of stubbornness on her face, she was very fearful.
After all, she didn’t know what kind of terrible things might await her.
But after a few days, she had gradually started to get used to it.
I picked up the phone and called her directly.
“Moushi moushi~ Reina?” The call connected quickly, and I switched right into fluent Japanese.
I couldn’t help it…
Not only did I possess the experience and knowledge of hundreds of people, but I also had years of anime-watching under my belt.
Now, not just conversation—even reading and writing posed no problem for me.
“Milady?”
“It’s me. A guest will be coming over soon. For special reasons, please lock up Little Grey and Jiaoza, disinfect the rooms, and if possible, thoroughly clean the living room and my bedroom again…”
Though I knew Reina cleaned diligently every day, Juanjuan’s body really wasn’t suitable for dusty environments.
And since we had birds at home, asthma could be triggered quite easily.
So, despite the trouble, I had to emphasize it.
“Yes, I understand. Milady… is there anything else you would like me to do?”
“Hmm… nothing else. But one more thing, Reina—I’ve told you before, haven’t I? You don’t have to be so formal. I know your situation. You don’t have to speak to me like that…”
“Milady…”
“Just take your time getting used to it. That’s all. I’m hanging up.”
After saying that, I ended the call, then called Shao He again to ask her to buy some hotpot base.
“All set?”
A look of anticipation appeared on Bai Juanjuan’s face.
For this innocent little girl, I had no choice but to respond with a wry smile.
“Yeah, don’t worry. We’ll eat in the courtyard later. It’s just a pity… we won’t see any fish for now.”
“Why not, Yunyan? Didn’t you say your place had a pond? I was really looking forward to that!”
Because of her health, Bai Juanjuan had basically been prohibited from interacting with animals since childhood.
But as she grew older, and with medical advancements, she was now slowly allowed to begin interacting with them.
After a few days of getting to know her, I found out…
She had never actually attended school.
All six years of elementary and three years of middle school were spent in the hospital, learning from private tutors.
“The pond is still in the water conditioning stage. It’ll take at least another week before we can add fish. It’s fine—there’ll be plenty of chances later. Today, just get familiar with the place first.”
Watching Bai Juanjuan pout, looking dissatisfied, I chuckled again.
This girl always had ways to make me laugh.
Everything went smoothly afterward.
After school, we took Shao He’s car and returned home.
Right before school ended, something unusual happened—Lu Haochen actually said something strange to me.
“You don’t look too good.”
It left me completely dumbfounded.
Of course, I ignored him.
When we got home, we had hotpot in the courtyard.
Thanks to money magic, the courtyard renovation had been completed in just one day, and everything was done to the highest standard.
Honestly, when I had no money, I was still motivated, thinking about how I’d work hard tomorrow.
But now…
Just like what Liu Wanqian angrily said that day:
“If I only give you 100,000 a month, let’s see how you survive!”
Hearing that, I could only feel helpless, inwardly cursing,
“Damn rich people.”
But still, I reached out my disobedient hand and took the fixed 500,000 monthly pocket money from Liu Wanqian.
Couldn’t be helped.
They really gave too much. *(:з」∠)*