Genius Chapter 55: That Kid

Chapter 55: That Kid

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

Yu Zhen looked at the person on top of him. The boy’s eyes seemed to shine with light, and although he was clearly apologizing, it gave Yu Zhen an illusion… as if those eyes were filled entirely with him. His heart was lightly scratched by a cat, causing an inexplicable itch.

Yu Zhen didn’t ask what was going on, and the other party didn’t say anything. The eyes of those around them fell on the two, but they were completely unaware.

Su Mo was still immersed in the intense battle they had just fought. Even after returning to the main city, his mind seemed to be continuously replaying the situation until Yu Zhen spoke, bringing him back to the present. His gaze fell into the man’s deep eyes.

“Sorry.” His hand accidentally pressed against the man’s chest, and just as he was about to get up from UnchainedWanderer, a warning box suddenly popped up in his view.

Momo didn’t leave; his hand pressed on Yu Zhen, still sitting on top of him.

Yu Zhen watched the person on top of him maintain their position without any follow-up action, eyes seemingly still on him, and the strange feeling in his heart quickly spread. “You…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the person in front of him turned into a puff of white smoke and disappeared instantly.

— Your friend [Momo] has gone offline.

Yu Zhen suddenly snapped back to reality.

“Brother Wanderer, are you there!!”

“Brother Wanderer, urgent help needed, my brother seems to be trapped by someone in Glacial Ravenlands and I can’t find him now!”

“Wait, no? My brother went offline???”

“Damn, my brother went offline??”

Yu Zhen opened his mail messages and saw a series of voice messages from ScarletFruit. He replied that the person was fine, but his thoughts lingered on another point. Momo was blocked by someone?

***

Su Mo opened his eyes, and the loader was already in Lele’s hands.

A series of angry emoticons flashed across the latter’s display screen, and Lele began to chatter incessantly. Su Mo finally came to his senses, realizing that he had exceeded the logout time he had agreed upon with Lele, and there were only 5 minutes left before the loader’s alarm would go off. He had no concept of this at all; his whole feeling still seemed to be stuck in the game Global.

As he detached from the game Global, a sense of guilt quickly rose.

“I won’t do it next time,” Su Mo apologized honestly.

Lele was very dissatisfied, “You said that last time too.”

Su Mo skillfully started to coax, “Three strikes and I’m out. If I’m late again, you can cut off my loader.”

Lele thought this made sense, but then suddenly realized, “Su Mo, you are an adult; you should be more self-aware!”

Su Mo had to spend some time pacifying the little robot. After calming it down, Lele angrily went to get his medicine.

Given the situation, he couldn’t log back into the game and had to wait until tomorrow to go online again.

The situation in the game was still complicated, and the reason [Zenith Expanse] was blocking him wasn’t clear. It was hard to explain everything to others for the time being.

He had to go to the terminal group to say he was logging off to rest, and then remembered that ScarletFruit seemed to have gone to Glacial Ravenlands to find him. So, he had to send another message asking Wanderer and ClearWind to remind ScarletFruit if they saw him, so he wouldn’t foolishly run into danger.

“What do you want to eat for breakfast tomorrow?”

Su Mo had finished washing up and was back in bed when he heard Lele’s inquiry. He thought for a moment and said, “I want to drink soy milk.”

Lele responded with an “ah,” making new plans, “Then we need to soak the soybeans.” Lele helped Su Mo turn off the light, “Su Mo, good night!”

The room returned to darkness. Su Mo pulled up the quilt, and the drowsiness from the medicine washed over him. The quietness enveloped him, and through the slightly open door, he could faintly hear Lele bustling outside, which made him feel very at ease.

The fatigue in his body was overwhelming. He curled up in the quilt, seemingly back in the game, seeing UnchainedWanderer’s particularly dark eyes. In his drowsiness, he thought, he must have hit him quite hard; tomorrow morning, he should apologize in person…

***

In the team, ScarletFruit and ClearWind were still indignant, wanting to hire someone to exact revenge but not knowing who their enemy was.

ScarletFruit fumed, “If I find out who blocked my brother, I won’t let them off!”

Yu Zhen asked, “How will you take revenge?”

ScarletFruit said, “I’ll blacklist them! I’m also friends with other merchants, and when we meet these people, we’ll attack them and take their money!”

ClearWind said, “Taking advantage of our absence to play dirty tricks, these people are so despicable. Could it be the gods and Eternal Flame again?” He added, “I’ll go to the livestream later to ask around, see if any viewers saw people in Glacial Ravenlands! Wait for me, I’ll call ZenSlasher girl, she’s familiar with these things and might be able to find out who’s behind this.”

“ZenSlasher girl is really resourceful!” ScarletFruit said, “You go ask her quickly.”

While listening to the two planning their revenge in the team chat, Yu Zhen received a message from 25000, finally learning that a lot had happened in the game overnight. First, Momo topped the hunting leaderboard, then there was hot discussion on the StarNet forum, and finally, [Zenith Expanse] sent people to block Momo in the wild.

“Brother Zhen, your little brother is a newbie, huh? Twenty kills, directly overtaking you, pushing BrokenOracle and Midnight Bell behind.” 25000 continued, “The group chat was buzzing, and you knew nothing.”

Yu Zhen frowned slightly, reading the posts on the StarNet forum, “I didn’t know.”

“The [Zenith Expanse] blocking incident didn’t spread; I only found out by asking CloudTraveller. As soon as Momo topped the hunting leaderboard, Midnight Bell asked Sleep to open the Heavenly Eye to check on Momo, and brought Fish Ball and the others to block him.”

Assassin Fish Ball and his brother Taro Ball were both in the top ten of the assassin leaderboard and were well-known in the Eclipse faction, second only to ChatMasterWu. The other marksman was relatively average, while physical swordsman Sleep, ranked fifth on the physical swordsman leaderboard, was Midnight Bell’s regular teammate. Even Sleep went, indicating that Midnight Bell was really interested in Momo.

Bringing only a few people to block him showed that [Zenith Expanse] had deliberately chosen a time when Momo’s teammates weren’t around to block him in the wild.

“But it was particularly funny.” 25000 laughed, “Four against one, one got killed, two drowned in the swamp, and the remaining one, Sleep, barely escaped with his life. It’s so embarrassing, right? Three leaderboard accounts got beaten like that because they underestimated their opponent. Now some are saying Momo only topped the leaderboard because his opponents were too weak and let him score points. If this incident with [Zenith Expanse] gets out, who would dare say his top spot was due to luck? Damn, even if other leaderboard accounts faced two assassins and a physical swordsman, they might not be able to escape, right?”

Yu Zhen asked, “Do they have the Heavenly Eyes?”

25000 responded, “What Heavenly Eyes?”

Yu Zhen said, “The Heavenly Eyes of those four, give me their coordinates.”

25000 exclaimed, “Huh???? They should have it, but I need to ask around.”

After a while, Yu Zhen switched back to the team voice chat and asked ScarletFruit and ClearWind, “Got coordinates, wanna kill?”

Late at night, the game Celestial Horizon entered its peak period, with many players engaging in battles and instances.

Fish Ball and Taro Ball had just left the main city, intending to go to the wild to kill enemy faction players and earn points. The two were stealthily approaching a monster hunting spot, planning to launch a sneak attack on a group of players. At that moment, a Dispel Cloak scroll landed at their feet, followed by a fear array from an array master, and a physical swordsman charged into the crowd…

The night was destined to be restless.

The small light in the living room was on. A man came out of the living room holding a cup of water, with a few documents and a game loader left on the table. He raised his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, drinking water while reading the documents.

Grandma Cheng, who got up in the night, asked, “Xiao Zhen, why haven’t you slept yet?” 

Yu Zhen came back to his senses, “There are a few documents I haven’t finished reading. Why are you up?”

“Just got up.” The elderly lady sat next to Yu Zhen and asked, “When does your vacation end?”

“Still some time left. I’m taking several years’ worth of vacation at once, so it’s a long break.” Yu Zhen put down the documents and got up to pour a glass of warm water for his grandmother. “You stay here without worries. If you need anything, just tell me.”

Grandma Cheng was quite curious about the young man’s affairs, “Did you go to Capital University with Zhang Qi today? How was it?”

“The cafeteria food was pretty good, better than before.” Yu Zhen suddenly remembered someone and added, “I also ran into Su Mo.”

Grandma Cheng liked Su Mo a lot and asked several questions when she heard his name. She learned that the child just went to a meeting and then went home. She couldn’t help but nag, “Why didn’t he hang out with other classmates? Staying home all the time, won’t he get bored?”

“Staying home all the time?” Yu Zhen placed the warm water in front of Grandma Cheng. “I heard from Zhang Qi that he’s not staying in the dorm this semester?”

“I heard from your Grandpa Zhang that Xiao Mo has recently gotten into gaming. Except for class time, he basically stays home all the time.” Grandma Cheng said, “In the past, if Xiao Mo wasn’t doing experiments, he would be at the square playing chess and practicing Tai Chi with your Grandpa Zhang. He’s been doing that less recently. When your Grandpa Zhang asked him about it, Xiao Mo just said he was playing games.”

Yu Zhen was surprised. When he had asked Su Mo before, Su Mo had said he was just playing casually.

“Your Grandpa Zhang is funny. He used to say gaming was good, but now he says it’s bad. He’s just bored and wants someone to play chess with him, but Xiao Mo doesn’t pay him any mind.” Grandma Cheng continued to nag, “I told him that my Xiao Zhen also plays games, and then he stubbornly said you’re doing it for work. He probably heard that from Zhang Qi.”

Listening to his grandmother’s nagging, Yu Zhen suddenly asked, “Does Su Mo have any other friends?”

Su Mo’s social circle seemed to be confined to this neighborhood, with interests like playing chess and Tai Chi—activities not typically associated with young people. Even at school, he would head home right after meetings, as if he had no other classmates or friends to connect with.

Grandma Cheng paused before saying, “He didn’t have many friends in school before, but isn’t university better? I heard from your Grandpa Zhang that Xiao Mo knows many seniors, and a lot of them invite him to hang out.” She added, “Xiao Mo is well-liked, but he became more sensible as he grew up. He’s very polite to us and seems to get along with everyone, but you’ll notice he keeps his feelings deeply hidden.”

Yu Zhen recalled seeing Su Mo at Capital University that afternoon. The boy still had the same humble and polite demeanor, and he was very well-mannered. Yet Yu Zhen sensed a cautiousness in him, as if Su Mo was always living carefully.

Yu Zhen said, “The research institute is working on a new project related to his field. Most of the team members are young, and there aren’t too many risky operations.”

Grandma Cheng was delighted to hear this. “That’s great! If you have the chance, take care of that child.”

Yu Zhen replied, “Then please give me his contact number, and I’ll reach out to him later.”

Grandma Cheng patted her pockets, suddenly remembering, “Oh, I left the terminal in my room.”

Yu Zhen chuckled, planning to let the elderly woman rest first. “You should go to bed. Tomorrow, I’ll check the contact list on the home smart device.”

“I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” Grandma Cheng said. “If it’s not in the contact list, it’s because he doesn’t have a StarNet account. I’ll need to find his terminal number.”

Yu Zhen paused, remembering that F-class patients didn’t have access to log into StarNet or special information flow channels, so they used old terminals for communication. Their connectivity with StarNet was minimal. That kid was only 18, yet he had already been left behind by the times.

***

The next morning, a morning breeze brought the scent of flowers into the house. Su Mo rarely slept in and enjoyed a breakfast of soy milk and delicious steamed buns prepared by Lele. The buns were juicy and satisfying, prompting Su Mo to express a desire to have them again tomorrow.

Lele calculated the nutritional content and stated he could only have them three times a week, with other days relying on nutritional supplements. Su Mo readily agreed, preferring the meat-filled buns to the bland high-nutrition food, and Lele even generously allowed him some coffee.

“Where did I leave the loader?” Su Mo asked.

Lele replied, “Second cabinet in the living room, third drawer.”

Su Mo found the loader and logged in, maintaining his good mood. He logged in a bit late today, around 9 a.m., and there were already quite a few players in the main city. Out of habit, he checked his friends list. UnchainedWanderer wasn’t online, but ReturnToSimplicity was, located in the hunting grounds.

[guild]guild masterScarletFruit14: My big brother is online! 3=1 hurry up!

Su Mo, “…?” What did 3=1 mean? Wasn’t Wanderer still in the hunting grounds?

Puzzled, he opened the guild list and found that, aside from ScarletFruit’s alt accounts, there was a familiar ID, the female assassin ZenSlasher he had met earlier.

Moreover, in the guild enemies list, alongside [Temple of the Gods] and [Eternal Flame], there was a new addition [Zenith Expanse], and it was an active enemy.

[guild]ClearWindIsHere: Brother, come to the northern desert for some passionate wild fighting! Click my avatar to join the team, we’re waiting for you!

Author’s note: 

ClearWind: Passionate wild fighting 3=1!

ScarletFruit: Mess with my brother, mess with my wallet.