Blue Lulu was instantly enraged after being rejected for the 103rd time.
“Just let you touch me, meow!”
Her fur stood on end like a ball of yarn hit by static electricity, ears flattening horizontally. Sharp tiger fangs glinted under the moonlight.
Seeing that she was about to transform into a tigress and pounce, Lin Zhen quickly raised his hand to block her.
“Sorry, I’m allergic to cat hair.”
“Huh? Allergic to cat hair, meow… Huh… Does that mean we can never be together, meow?”
Blue Lulu froze mid-motion, her fiery aura vanishing in an instant.
***
The next second, her whole body melted into a gray-white blob of slime, collapsing onto the ground and oozing toward the sewer grate with a dead look in her eyes.
“No way… I don’t want this…”
As everyone knows, cats are basically liquid.
So as the princess of the Lulu Race, Blue Lulu could naturally turn into a puddle of cat.
Liquid cat, appear!
She was utterly dead.
“Blue Lulu is so cute.”
Derek watched her flow downhill with the terrain, then walked over to Lin Zhen and patted him on the shoulder, admiration written all over his face.
“As expected of you, Lin Yun. Coming up with an excuse like that on the spot. But even someone as smart as Blue Lulu will probably figure out it’s just a lie soon enough. Star energy users can’t have allergies.”
“As long as it buys me some time.” Lin Zhen said indifferently.
“Oh?” Derek’s eyes lit up, and he grinned with an “I told you so” expression. “So the tournament spot is yours?”
“Yeah.” Lin Zhen nodded. “But I turned it down.”
“What? You turned it down? Cough, cough!”
Derek’s smug expression instantly crumbled. He choked on his own spit, barely recovered, and grabbed Lin Zhen by both arms, shaking him vigorously.
“Old Lin! What were you thinking? You’re one of the most competitive trainees in the entire universe on the ‘Path’ right now! If you can just break into the top thousand in the tournament, you’ll have graduate school recommendations, military headquarters special recruitment, and every cross-galactic conglomerate fighting over you!”
‘Here we go again…’
Lin Zhen sighed inwardly. He knew how insane giving up the Academy Tournament must seem to others.
After all, if he hadn’t suddenly gotten news about “Chatosi,” he would have originally planned to make a name for himself in the tournament and gain a direct audience with the Empire’s high-ranking officials or the academy’s leadership.
Lin Zhen pulled Derek’s hands off his shoulders and explained helplessly:
“I have something more important to do.”
“What could be more important than the Academy Tournament?” Derek’s expression gradually turned serious.
From the day he first met Lin Yun, he knew his good friend was different—carrying something heavy.
Not simple hatred, but something deeper, more bone-deep, a desperate obsession.
“I’m going to find someone.” Lin Zhen said solemnly.
They say you shouldn’t share too much too soon.
But Derek was his best friend at this academy, so he had to roughly explain why he was giving up the tournament.
Otherwise, the rising star of the tournament—the one everyone was talking about—would draw criticism for quitting without reason.
“Is it somewhere far?” Derek said thoughtfully.
“The tournament starts in less than a month. If you were just looking for someone in a nearby star system, you wouldn’t have rejected directly. After all, Instructor Ximu is counting on your results.”
“Yeah.” Lin Zhen didn’t deny it. “The round trip alone will take nearly two months.”
“I see.” Derek raised his head suddenly. “Then take me with you!”
“Huh?” Lin Zhen sounded confused.
“Did you forget who I am?” Derek chuckled and clapped his hands.
“Who are you?” Lin Zhen thought, ‘Does this guy have some hidden identity I don’t know about?’
“Third Place in the Fold Competition!” Derek said proudly.
The campus spaceship non-point fold competition—a contest started in the academy after basic fold engines were phased out from the military to the civilian sector, to encourage installation rates.
You could roughly think of it as the interstellar version of F1.
All contestants used standardized fold engines, tuning and driving themselves. Relying only on fold engines and curvature engines, they had to reach the destination in the shortest time.
This competition was extremely difficult and dangerous.
Not only did each contestant need to be an expert on fold engine principles, able to repair and adjust them alone, but they also had to have a sharp eye for finding jump nodes and maximizing fold distance.
Leaving the cosmic membrane’s limit—now or next second?
In non-point fold jumps, a single-second difference could mean hundreds of light-years between two ships, or even shipwreck.
Lin Zhen had also participated in the non-point fold competition held in his sophomore year, but his rank hovered around three thousand. He probably never saw his friend’s taillights the whole race, except at the start.
So letting him pilot the ship seemed like a good idea.
With him, the round trip might be shortened to about half a month.
But… Lin Zhen shook his head again, refusing.
“No, I don’t want to mess up your schedule.”
He didn’t want to drag innocent people unrelated to the Saints’ Hand Society into this matter.
Seeing Lin Zhen’s firm attitude, Derek didn’t press further. He just patted his shoulder and smiled:
“We’re brothers. I don’t have a tournament spot anyway. If you need me, contact me. I’ll be the fastest to arrive.”
With that, he turned and left.
Just then, Blue Lulu had sorted out the loophole in Lin Zhen’s words and successfully recovered from her “cat pancake” state.
Having vaguely heard that Lin Zhen wasn’t participating in the tournament and was going elsewhere, she pounced with claws bared.
“Lin Yun, I’m coming with you too, meow!”
Swipe!
Derek timely grabbed the ribbon on Blue Lulu’s clothes, yanking her back to keep her about half a meter away from Lin Zhen, who was standing by the door.
Blue Lulu leaned forward, her hands reaching and scratching, but she just couldn’t touch him.
“Stop it, Blue Lulu. You already signed the invitation—you can’t drop out halfway.”
Blue Lulu was also among the better senior trainees, naturally recommended by her instructor for the Academy Tournament.