Chapter 1: Go Study Civil Engineering

Inside a room in Building 11, Unit 4 of the Hope Flower Community, the phone by the pillow buzzed relentlessly.

Chang Hansui turned over, brows furrowing slightly. 

Assuming it was the alarm urging him up, he forced his eyes open a sliver.

It turned out someone on social media was gleefully forwarding those abstract Shi Ban TV videos to him again, and he’d forgotten to mute his phone before sleeping.

These days, even spreading trash was convenient. 

Someone collected the garbage and just forwarded it to <Shi Ban TV>, done deal. 

Qin Shi Huang and all that nonsense.

You had to admit, once you started watching, it got kinda addictive.

It was ten o’clock on Saturday morning.

“Forget it, time to get up.”

Chang Hansui ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair and crawled out of bed at a snail’s pace.

Slippers scraped across the floor as he flopped down at his computer desk. 

He clicked open a few weird little videos, letting the background noise play while his still-booting brain slowly buffered.

Ever since his senior year last year, when he’d interned at a construction site and spent months slaving away at slag ash, only to have three months of wages withheld—the contractor who’d sworn “we’ll settle up by year’s end” vanished into thin air after the New Year.

Facing reality, Chang Hansui sighed and quit cleanly. 

He decided he’d never do slag ash again, preferring to become a shut-in.

‘Slag ash? Screw that.’

As he scrolled aimlessly through his feed, a familiar livestream abruptly jumped into his homepage recommendations. 

On screen, that volunteer application consultant was spitting foam.

“Connect the line, connect the line. No money, no connection, got it?”

Somehow, looking at that face, Chang Hansui’s mind suddenly flashed back to those days of baking twelve hours a day on the construction site, even spending lunch breaks with cement bags.

Rage welled up out of nowhere.

Back then, that 18,999 went down the drain. 

All that talk about the future, about making money the same way—he’d bamboozled his old man completely.

“Go study civil engineering!”

And what happened?

He scanned 30 yuan to the backend assistant and connected the line.

After the dial tone, the call connected. 

The attitude on the other end was still that condescending arrogance. 

After rambling about this and that, he even started trashing the civil engineering major on stream.

“Hahahaha, who told you to pick that major? (sneering) Where were you four years ago?”

Chang Hansui looked at the man on screen, even more furious.

“My father paid 18,999 for your major recommendation. You recommended civil engineering. And now you’re mocking civil engineering on your stream?”

The laughter on the other end cut off abruptly. 

His expression shifted for a second before his volume shot up.

“You can talk trash about food, but you can’t talk trash about people! I’ve never recommended any major on the internet!”

“I still have the payment record from back then.”

“Looking for a fight, huh? If you’re deliberately provoking, then don’t connect. Mod, kick them! I do volunteer consulting. I don’t entertain scam artists! (disconnect)”

Chang Hansui stared at the chat. 

‘Well, well.’

‘I talk ≠ I recommend.’

So he twists it into being a traffic dog who picked a major just because he watched a streamer talk about it, huh?

Chang Hansui watched the chat flood in an instant. 

Yep, the screen was full of “traffic dog” and “can’t blame the streamer when you didn’t work hard.”

His family had paid real, hard cash back then.

That 18,999 might as well have been tossed into water. 

Better to have bought a Rtx 5090 for gaming—at least you could see and touch it, and use it as a space heater in winter.

Now? 

All of it, feeding the dogs and this time, another 30 yuan down the drain for the connection fee.

Great, feeding the dogs again.

He propped his chin on one hand, idly tapping his fingertips against the desk.

Forget it, time to surf the web and wash his eyes out.

He typed a bookmark URL into the browser with practiced ease. 

The warm, soft pink-blue UI of the largest magical girl forum in the country—”firemaru”—instantly filled the screen.

Why did an unemployed civil engineering guy hold admin rights to the largest magical girl forum on the internet?

There was once a friend who played games with him every day, obsessed with the longsword. 

One ordinary afternoon, they suddenly messaged him saying they were getting married.

From then on, they quit gaming and returned to a normie life. 

This forum was the “inheritance” that friend had packaged up and dumped on him before leaving.

Chang Hansui still didn’t know what “firemaru” meant. 

But the name didn’t matter. 

What mattered was that the person who’d stay up all night fighting monsters with him was forever stuck in the past.

But whatever it meant didn’t affect anything—this forum was already the biggest magical girl forum.

Not only did it have comprehensive discussion boards for all kinds of magical girls, but it even had officially verified magical girls themselves posting.

Chang Hansui quietly maintained the backend alone, occasionally taking harmless ad deals to cover server fees, and the rest naturally became his allowance.

That counted as a respectable job, didn’t it?

He scrolled the mouse, his gaze landing on a hot post highlighted at the top of the homepage.

“Magical Girl Mizuki Hana”

Chang Hansui raised an eyebrow slightly. 

As the most talked-about magical girl lately, she was a regular here. 

He took a sip of the warm water beside him, clicked into her dedicated board, and decided to do his routine check of fans’ posts.

[Wow, Mizuki Hana-nee is so pretty, so cool.]

[Mizuki Hana-nee is so elegant. The sword she uses really matches her vibe.]

[If I could become nee-sama’s little sister, I’d be so happy.]

[(image) Nee-sama posted new daily content. She looks so beautiful having afternoon tea, so elegant. Maybe Mizuki Hana-nee is some young lady from a rich family.]

The corner of Chang Hansui’s eye twitched. 

Under the cold glow of the screen, his expression turned somewhat strange.

‘No way?’ 

In his stereotype, magical girl fans should be obsessive male otaku.

But in Mizuki Hana’s board, looking around, it was overwhelmingly female fans.

That level of fanaticism was practically melting the screen.

His fingers tapped lightly across the keyboard as he quickly used the admin backdoor to register a new account.

To avoid looking like a freshly-made bot, he casually used his permissions to backdate the registration to three years ago and max out the level.

As for the name, his gaze swept over the Shi Ban TV videos, and he casually typed in [Jia Xin].

Under the [Jia Xin] alias, Chang Hansui typed a line in that hot post discussing the “elegant young lady”

[But, I heard… the more noble and elegant nee-sama looks on the surface, the wilder she actually is behind closed doors.]

Click. 

Sent.

He’d even prepared himself to get keyboard-warriored ten floors deep by these fanatical female fans. 

Within seconds of posting, the notification sound in the corner started ringing nonstop.

Chang Hansui leaned back in his chair, coldly watching those instant-reply notification pop-ups.

But—

[Isn’t that even better? I want to be nee-sama’s dog! Woof woof woof!]

[Nee-sama, step on me! The wilder, the more I love it!]