A full five minutes.
Su Yu, forcing himself to endure Su's stare — the kind that could dissect a living person like a pathology slide — laid out the whole story from start to finish.
When Su finished listening, the expression on his face was impossible to describe.
He glanced at Kevin standing to the side, utterly speechless, then at Kiana, who was still trying to roll up a banner and stuff it into her backpack, and finally let his gaze settle back on Su Yu's face — which, from any angle, looked like it needed a good punch.
"That brain of yours..." Su Yu rubbed his temples. "How many times did you get your head slammed in a door to conjure up a story where Kevin went and got a sex change, just from one text message?"
Before Su could respond, Kevin let out a cold laugh.
"It's not just that he imagined it — he mentally drafted a five-thousand-word surgical risk assessment for me. The moment I got back, the way he was looking at me, I'm pretty sure he genuinely thought I was no longer... functional."
Su Yu waved his hands quickly, the picture of innocence.
"I'm not taking the blame for that."
"'Su Yu' here usually seems so composed — how does he pull off a rookie mistake like this at the worst possible time?"
"It's barely been a few days since Siegfried was bawling his eyes out on the street over this girl, yelling 'How did my good son turn into a daughter!' Kevin, would you call this history repeating itself?"
Su shot him a look, unamused. "That's what you get for pulling so many shady stunts on a regular basis. Whatever comes out of your mouth, I've learned to discount by half and then assume the worst."
"Have a little conscience!" Su Yu's eyes went wide. "No matter how shady I am, I wouldn't trick Kevin into a sex change! What am I, sick in the head?"
Su sighed. "Do you need me to remind you what you did back in high school? That time at the maid café — who was it that took Kevin's clothes..."
"Ahem, ahem, ahem!"
Su Yu burst into a fit of coughing, eyes darting up to the ceiling, unable to focus on anything in particular.
"Ah, this airport ceiling is quite artistic today. Look at how the steel pipes are routed — incredible."
Kevin shot him a flat look.
He turned to look at Kiana.
"Funny thing is, I always feel like the moment anything involves Kiana, it turns into a mess."
Su Yu nodded in perfect agreement.
"Exactly right. It's the Kaslana family's own special intelligence-lowering aura. With two Kaslanas standing here today, it's only natural Su got hit with it too — perfectly reasonable."
Kiana, who had been focused on wrestling with the banner that refused to roll up properly, paused at that.
She looked up and shot back, unimpressed: "You're the idiot. Your whole family's idiots."
Su stood off to the side, watching Kevin roll his eyes, then noticed the same little gesture from Kiana a moment ago, and his brow furrowed slightly.
In his rush to get worked up earlier, he hadn't even figured out who this girl was.
"No one's introduced her to me yet. Who is this?"
"Kevin's little sister," Su Yu blurted out before anyone else could.
Su froze for a second.
He'd known Kevin for years — they'd shared a dorm room in college, practically inseparable — but he'd never once heard about Kevin having a sister.
Su Yu looked at Su's baffled face, sighed, and put on his most earnest expression.
"It's a long story. If you want an official explanation, I can sum it up in four words."
"Which four words?"
"Otto did it."
A muscle twitched at the corner of Su's eye.
Otto did it?
His mentor did love bizarre research projects, but surely he wouldn't have used Kevin's genes to clone a daughter for Siegfried and Cecilia?
That wasn't even science anymore — that was an ethical disaster.
"All right, don't listen to his nonsense."
Kevin cut off Su Yu's runaway train of nonsense.
He stepped forward and took the impossibly heavy black bag out of Su's hands.
"Europe must have worn you out. Let's get you back to Golden Courtyard to rest first."
Su reached out to stop him, insisting he could carry it himself, but Su Yu had already swiftly snatched up his metal travel case as well.
"You hardly ever come back," Su Yu said, patting the case. "Good son, today you're going to feel a father's love as vast as a mountain."
Su watched the two of them, each carrying one of his bags, and swallowed the retort forming in his head.
He just shook his head and followed.
The four of them walked through the corridor toward the underground parking lot.
In Section B, Su Yu pulled out his car key and pressed the button.
Not far off, a rugged jeep with sleek lines, its body gleaming faintly under the lights, flashed its headlights twice.
Su recognized the car.
Even someone like him, who didn't know much about cars, could tell at a glance that it was a brand no ordinary salaried worker could afford.
Su's footsteps stopped three paces from the front of the car.
He looked at the car, then at Su Yu, who was opening the door to load the luggage inside.
Something Otto had said in the office earlier suddenly collided with his thoughts.
"That Su Yu of yours has become quite famous lately..."
And then he recalled Su Yu's old college catchphrase, repeated daily: 'find a sugar mommy and coast through life.'
Su's expression turned deeply complicated.
It was a subtle blend of heartbreak and 'so you really went and sold yourself.'
"You..."
Su pointed at the jeep, his voice unsteady.
"Did you actually land yourself a sugar mommy?"
Su Yu shoved the suitcase to the back of the trunk and slammed the hatch shut with a bang.
He turned around, brushed the dust off his hands, looking utterly matter-of-fact.
"Of course."
He walked around to the driver's seat and pulled the door open.
"You know my life's biggest dream has always been to mooch off a rich partner in style. How's this car? Those lines are incredible, right?"
Su stared at his smug, self-satisfied face and said nothing for a full ten seconds.
Finally, he let out a long sigh.
He stepped forward and unzipped the small pouch that had been hanging from his wrist the whole time.
From inside, he pulled out two exquisitely packaged boxes covered in dizzying foreign text.
"Buddy."
Su solemnly pressed the two boxes into Su Yu's hands.
"The car's nice, but your health matters more."
"I made a special trip to a few pharmacies in Europe with internal connections to get these for you. Top-tier supplements — for strengthening the roots and nourishing the essence, boosting kidney health."
"You... keep it up."
Kevin, who had just opened the passenger door and was about to climb in, stumbled at that.
He looked at Su's grave, sorrowful expression, utterly speechless.
"You actually believed that? This car was a birthday gift from Sister Eden."
"I knew it," Su said, relieved. "You spend every day holed up at home gaming and ordering takeout, never even stepping outside. Where would you meet women that stuck-up rich?"
He opened the back door and got in.
"Or should we swing by your place first? I brought Chongchong a few little toys too."
Su Yu put the key in the ignition and turned it.
The engine gave a deep, powerful roar, and the whole car remained perfectly steady, without a hint of vibration.
"No need. Chongchong's being looked after at the Company right now. You should head back to the Courtyard and get some sleep first — once you're rested tonight, I'll take you by the Company for a look."
In the back seat, Su had just buckled his seatbelt, but at those words, his fingers froze on the clasp.
"What did you just say?"
He looked up, his usually narrowed eyes now wide as saucers.
"The Company?"
His voice even trembled slightly.
"Don't tell me — you, this ultimate life form who's spent every day since graduation gaming, mooching, and yelling about wanting to be kept... actually went and got a job?"
This wasn't a transformation — it was a medical miracle!!
Even Ah Hua knew Su Yu was an 'ultimate life form' — which said a lot about how shocking Su Yu had been back in school.
Su Yu turned the wheel and pulled the car out of the parking spot.
He glanced at Su in the rearview mirror, thoroughly displeased.
"That's a little hurtful, don't you think? Playing games and streaming — how is that not a legitimate profession?"
Su completely ignored his protest and leaned forward.
"So you really did get a job? What company? How long's the probation period? What's your monthly salary? Are they paying your full social insurance and housing fund? Is there a proper labor contract?"
Su Yu rolled his eyes at the barrage of questions.
"Is this a Household Registration check or a background investigation? You really are the world's most worried mother hen."
The car pulled out of the underground garage, and midday sunlight splashed across the windshield.
hit the gas, merging the car into Arc City's traffic.
"And seriously, man, have you been doing research so long your brain researched itself away?"
Su Yu said without turning around.
"I'm not working for someone — I started my own company."
Just as Su opened his mouth, Su Yu dropped another bombshell.
"Been running it for months already, you know."
"These days your foster father here gets called out on every major forum in rotation, they've dug up eight generations of my ancestors to curse — I'm trending higher than celebrities who pay for it."
"Don't tell me you never even heard of miHoYo over there, never heard of Honkai Impact 3rd?"
In the back seat.
Su went completely still.
He was genuinely stunned.
During those months in Europe, the undersea lab's security clearance had been absurdly high — not even radio waves could get in.
There was no way he'd have had a chance to browse the internet for gaming gossip.
"I was on an extremely classified research project," Su explained. "I really haven't kept up with outside news."
Kevin, in the passenger seat, chose that moment to twist the knife.
"Then you really need to catch up."
Kevin said, watching the streets slide past outside, his tone even.
"What this brat's been up to lately can't even be called human anymore. Just open any social app and search his name — the whole screen fills up with people cursing him."
Su listened, not fully convinced at first.
But he took out his phone anyway.
The signal was at full bars now.
He opened a video app he occasionally used to check the news.
Before he could even type a keyword into the search bar, a video title taking up half the screen slammed into view on the homepage feed.
"Su Yu the Old Thief: Healthy, Wholesome, and Positive?"
No matter how you looked at it, the title reeked of sarcasm.
Su tapped the video open.
The footage showed a press conference.
Su Yu wore a well-tailored bespoke suit, his hair neatly styled — he genuinely looked the part.
He held a microphone, standing under the spotlight, with several massive holographic screens behind him.
Most jarring of all was the smile on his face — bright enough to be blinding.
"Rest assured, players."
"Our Honkai Impact 3rd is absolutely a healthy, wholesome, and positive game. Our goal is to bring a smile to everyone."
The Su Yu in the video spoke with total conviction.
The danmaku flooding the video was a solid wall of red — 'Geneva, refund,' 'Old thief, you have no heart,' 'Give me back my tears.'
Su watched, dumbstruck.
He closed the video, fingers flying across the screen.
He started searching for 'Honkai Impact 3rd.'
The search results made his heart — trained over the years into perfect Still Water — clench violently, again and again.
Official Arc City media praising it by name.
In-depth analyses from major influencers and review outlets.
There were even forum posts dissecting the massive 'holographic sky projection' that had appeared over Arc City not long ago, all of them gushing over miHoYo's wealth and technical prowess.
He scrolled further down.
He reached a chart ranking the game's revenue figures.
Seeing that dizzying string of zeros — not even labeled with a unit — Su's hand actually trembled.
He leaned back against the seat.
His entire worldview was visibly crumbling apart.
Who was Su Yu?
A guy who could even burn instant noodles in the dorm, whose only real skill was making his opponents smash their keyboards in online games.
He was someone with nine out of ten openings of wisdom unblocked — and the last one hopelessly clogged.
How had he possibly created a game with technology that broke the sky ceiling, a story that wrecked players emotionally, and — most absurd of all — made this astronomical amount of money?
What Su found most baffling of all was this.
Why were these players cursing Su Yu to hell online while simultaneously lining up to pour money into his pockets?
Had the logic of this entire world collectively broken down?
In the driver's seat.
Su Yu kept both hands on the wheel.
But he wasn't really watching the road — his attention was entirely fixed on the System prompt boxes flashing wildly at the edge of his vision.
[Target's Emotion Points are surging!]
[Sense of Absurdity +2000!]
[Shock Value +3000!]
Su Yu watched the numbers, the corner of his mouth twitching.
He'd figured he and Kevin would need to keep up the routine a while longer.
He hadn't expected this guy to blow up his own Emotion Points with just ten minutes of phone searching.
But then again, it made sense.
Put yourself in his shoes — if he came back after six months offline to find his instant-noodle-eating buddy had turned into a billion-dollar gaming tycoon overnight, his own reaction probably wouldn't be much better than Su's.
"Um..."
Su's voice came from the back seat.
"Su Yu."
"Hm?"
"That game of yours." Su stared at the phone screen, at a poster showing the gacha banner. "Is this a so-called... free-to-play mobile gacha game?"
"Yeah."
"A business model that exploits human greed and gambling psychology to the absolute limit..."
Su looked up, his usually half-closed eyes now fully open.
"You actually came up with this yourself?"
Su Yu met his eyes in the rearview mirror, his expression completely unbothered.
"Just tell me — does it make money or not?"
Su had nothing left to say.
He locked his phone, tossed it onto the empty seat beside him, and buried his face in his hands.
"I'm starting to think..." He took a deep breath of the car's air. "I need to go back to the pharmacy for some blood pressure medication."
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