Chapter 77: An Ordinary Yet Extraordinary Day (Part One)

“Battle Anthem? Let me try downloading it. The comments section seems lively, and the ratings are extremely high.”
“Download complete. Even with 8G Lightning Speed, it took as long as watching three movies to install—unbelievable! After installation, the entire game disk was full, which was rather surprising! The game itself is three thousand terabytes in size.”
“Enter account. Time to pick a name? Fang Wu Tian Di... hmm, that's a good one! Select male for gender, as for the clothing, whatever will do, let's see how the game goes.”
“Three days later, he exited the game and stared at his dismal record, scouring forums and message boards for strategies to grow stronger. Though he mastered every trick, he soon discovered a serious issue: once the default system character is chosen, it comes with various flaws. Weight and height affect mobility and agility—a deliberate challenge created by the developers, perhaps to encourage players to design their own characters? The intention is clear—how thoughtful.”
“He hesitated for a long time before finally deleting Fang Wu Tian Di, then opened the design interface and began drawing himself. According to guides, a height of one meter seventy-five is optimal—some expert on a forum calculated it. Using the data from each adjustment to create a mathematical function, he ran his own calculations, and found that one meter seventy-three was actually best. But he kept that to himself, suspecting the forum expert was being deliberately misleading. A difference of two centimeters would skew the stats, and only a select few knew the true optimal numbers.”
“At last, his drawing was finished—a handsome young man. He entered the game system for an attribute assessment, only to discover subtle differences compared to the expert’s results. He glanced over; their character was a cute girl in a blue short skirt, most notable for the absence of a chest—perhaps a matter of male perception.”
“Comparing with characters in anime, the central feature was the loli. Based on aesthetic analysis, he drew a black-haired loli in a short skirt, rotating the 3D model and finding no flaws. Letting the system assess again, he discovered that male and female data were still different. The difference lay in the ‘weight’ between male characters and flat-chested female characters—the system had a clear bias toward flat-chested lolis.”
“Seeing the disparity, he cursed in frustration—utter nonsense!”
“In the end, driven by perfectionism, he chose the flat-chested female loli, and the system assigned her a loli voice.”
“Character creation. Name? Helplessly, he wanted something with 'Wu' in it. Seeing the beautified character with two red ribbons behind her, red or moon ribbons? Wu Yue Ling sounds more vivid. He changed the ribbons to silver and loaded the character.”
“Ah-choo!” Wu Yue Ling sniffed and woke from her dream, tugging at the quilt—slightly under the weather from wilfully braving wind and snow, boldly claiming to seek plum blossoms in the snow. She glanced at the window beyond the bed curtain, where faint light shone—it was already morning.
Without much complaint, she rose and dressed. At this time, Wan’er or Xiao Chun would usually be waiting at her bedside. Because of the cold, she ordered them to absolutely and definitely stay in bed—after all, now that she was awake, any extra moments lying in bed were a treasure.
Today was a little special; apparently yesterday was too wild, so now she didn’t linger in bed, feeling refreshed. She went to the kitchen in the courtyard to boil water. It had been so long since she’d cooked herself, she’d forgotten how to start a fire. After striking the flint three or four times, the dry kindling finally caught, and flames rose.
The smoke brought tears to her eyes as she boiled water, dispersing the remnants of her dream. She crouched by the fire, warming herself in its bright glow. The plum blossoms had bloomed—heralding the end of winter. It was so cold she couldn’t even say if she liked or hated winter.
Before the kettle could whistle, she found her answer—neither. She disliked winter’s biting chill, yet loved the pristine white world it brought.
She fetched some soapberry powder to wash her face, rummaged around the kitchen, found noodles and eggs—unfortunately, no mushrooms, but it would suffice.

Boiling water, adding salt, cracking eggs, starting the cook; pouring sauce and vinegar into bowls to make a noodle dish.
She remembered Xiao Chun mentioning a type of cold noodle, basically like mixed noodles, with sauce stirred in—much like the mixed rice noodles she often ate.
She plated noodles for Xiao Chun, Xiao Mi, Wan’er, and Chu’er; Wu Yue Ling reversed the master-servant roles, knocking on each of their bedroom doors in turn. Except for Chu’er, all scrambled out in a panic to dress and dash outside.
She hadn’t expected that such a simple act would throw these girls into chaos, making them blame themselves, secretly deciding that if she ever woke up early again, she’d only cook her own noodles, never wake them—let them sleep until evening.
Even Xiao Mi, twenty-six years old, rushed to open the door half-dressed in her red bellyband—a bit speechless, since she was nearly naked. Wu Yue Ling concluded Xiao Mi must sleep nude. Now that everyone was up, she fed the two little ones, then took Little White Tiger and Little Lynx for a stroll to the practice field behind the residence.
Wu Yue Ling suddenly realized she was wandering aimlessly after breakfast, taking advantage of Xiao Chun and the others being unable to find her—exploring this vast mansion alone was rather nice.
Walking deeper inside, Little Lynx asked to be carried, but was too heavy; she could only hoist it. Carrying the round little lynx, Little White Tiger bit her skirt, refusing to let her advance—how dare you favor the other one!
At a loss, she slung the horizontally-loving lynx over her left shoulder, and the tiger—long in any direction—over her right. Both cheeks were occasionally licked by these two.
Letting them lead the way, she found herself in a corridor that seemed familiar. For the two little ones, it was more than familiar—it was their territory. That pillar was yesterday’s spot for marking; this one, chosen days ago for claw sharpening.
The two led their mistress on a tour, and Wu Yue Ling finally recognized the corridor—it led to the kitchen, no wonder they guided her here.
With a clang, the cat and tiger’s heads were smacked and scolded by their mistress.
“Your Highness!” Madam Ye was carrying a wooden basin, and seeing the princess with two beasts slung over her shoulders, was at a loss for words—her grip nearly loosened from shock, wondering why the princess was here.
“Mm, carry on, I’m just wandering,” Wu Yue Ling said, though she hardly believed it herself—wandering with a lynx and a tiger was quite a comical sight.
Seeing Madam Ye’s stunned, stiff smile, Wu Yue Ling raised her brows, adopted a regal air, and blurted out, “Boss, give me a bowl of knife-cut noodles, extra cilantro, somewhere between mildly and moderately spicy.”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Madam Ye responded instantly, carried the basin inside, swiftly woke her two sons, who hopped out like rabbits, paid their respects again, and from downstairs to upstairs called out, “The princess is here! Everyone, up!”
She wasn’t sure Madam Ye understood, but she’d spoken out of habit—likely they’d make the noodles her way. She put down the tiger and lynx, blinked at the children inside, all staring back. Wu Yue Ling searched her mind for words to ease the awkwardness while maintaining her teacherly dignity, but could only stare, before being outdone by the children’s innocent retorts.

“Hello, beautiful teacher!”
“No, brother, it’s ‘Hello, beautiful Teacher Wu!’ The teacher said not to call her ‘teacher’ but ‘Teacher Wu,’ it sounds nicer!”
“Hello, beautiful Teacher Wu!”
Watching the two little ones with hot towels wiping their faces, smearing honey around their mouths, Wu Yue Ling mimicked Madam Ye’s stiff smile, and after a reflexive pause, blurted out, “Good morning!”
After turning away, she politely added, “Goodbye!”
With her pets, she walked down the lively corridor for a dozen steps before looping back, looking at the two children who had just brought out their notebooks.

“Beautiful Teacher Wu is here again!”
“No, it’s ‘Beautiful Teacher Wu!’”
“Mm, did you finish yesterday’s homework?” Wu Yue Ling, hands behind her back and brows knit, looked down warmly at the two little rascals, taking on the teacher’s stance to check homework—finally regaining some dignity, otherwise how could she manage the whole class in the future?
Little Lynx meowed with fake tiger authority, standing round and proud before its mistress—did you finish your homework?
Little White Tiger rubbed the lynx, feigning its own masterly authority, roaring as if to ask—did you finish your homework?
Ye Mang shook his head, Ye Men Jing nodded, speaking in disharmony.

(End of chapter)