Su finally survived the lecture.
To be precise, he hadn't so much finished it as bulldozed through it on pure diplomatic bluffing skills honed over years.
In the last ten-odd minutes of the lecture, the questions in the tiered classroom had drifted completely away from medicine and academics, turning into a full-scale excavation of 'Senior Su Yu's Dark History.'
The students in the front rows raised their hands with eyes practically sparkling, while the ones in the back kept the heckling rolling wave after wave. The topics slid from 'Did Senior Su Yu make games back in college?' all the way to 'Was he already this much of a psychopath back then, tricking people into crying?'
There were even absurd questions like 'How many girlfriends has he had?' and 'What flavor of razor blade does he like to eat?'
Su stood at the podium, gripping the microphone, his composure nearly retiring on the spot.
And the instigator of all this had long since vanished without a trace.
It took Su a good while, using the line 'Today's topic is serious medicine — gossip, please exit to the left,' to finally force the overly enthusiastic crowd — who looked ready to devour him whole — back into their seats.
Then, in the dean's office, he was dragged into over half an hour of forced small talk by Murata Ryusuke, whose face all but screamed 'hurry up and become my son-in-law.'
When he finally managed to slip away, Su pulled out his phone and found, sitting there with breathtaking shamelessness, a message Su Yu had sent twenty minutes earlier:
"Something came up at the Company, I had to head back first. Come over yourself once you're done — you know the address. No need to sign in, just walk right in."
Su stared at that message for two full seconds, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.
"Fleeing the scene of the crime."
he muttered under his breath.
Su said nothing more. He raised a hand, hailed a car at the school gate, and gave the driver the name Arc City Tower directly.
He genuinely wanted to see this for himself now.
This creature who, just a few months ago, was living in a run-down rental, slurping instant noodles with pickled mustard while chugging Happy Water, loudly announcing in group chats every day that he wanted to "find a sugar mama" — what kind of monstrous studio had he actually cooked up?!
The car drove straight through the busiest business district in Arc City.
The farther they went, the taller the buildings got, the brighter the glass curtain walls, and the shopfronts along the street increasingly looked like places where sitting down for five minutes would cost an average person a week's grocery money.
Su leaned back in the rear seat, quietly watching the skyscrapers and ad screens roll past outside the window, his brow slowly furrowing.
By the time the car pulled up beneath Arc City Tower, Su had gone completely silent.
Arc City Tower.
The most expensive building in the core district of Arc City.
The landmark of the entire business zone — even the doorman's posture downstairs carried a professional air that seemed to say, "If you're not dressed expensively enough, I can't be bothered to look at you."
And miHoYo Studio.
Occupied the top floor of this building.
Su stood at the base of the tower and looked up.
He remembered how Su Yu had once mentioned, in that offhand tone of his, that it was "just an office location" — and he suddenly realized this kid's understanding of the word "just" had drifted noticeably far from that of a normal human being.
He knew, of course, that this place had almost certainly been paid for by Eden.
But that was exactly the problem!
Someone at Eden's level — how could she just casually wave a hand and buy out an entire floor of prime CBD real estate like this, then hand it over to Su Yu to build some game studio with?!
Hey. Hold on.
However you looked at it, this was not normal.
This wasn't simple angel investing anymore — this was closer to bankrupting yourself for charity.
Su stood in the elevator, staring at his own reflection in the mirrored wall, and couldn't stop his thoughts from spiraling.
As the old saying goes, even a rabbit doesn't eat the grass near its own den.
Could it be… that beast Su Yu had actually turned his sinful claws toward Eden herself?! Had he really made a move on her?!
But then again, knowing how deep Su Yu's aversion to hassle ran in his bones, actively pursuing anyone didn't seem like something he'd ever bother doing.
So then, flip it around —
Could it be that Eden had made the first move?
Su's eyelid twitched.
No way.
Sure, he'd known Eden for quite a while now, but he'd never once heard of her being romantically linked to anyone.
If he had to guess who, among that whole crowd at the Golden Courtyard, was most likely to end up dating Su Yu, Su had always figured it would probably be Nuwa.
After all, those two were true kindred spirits in every sense.
They went to conventions together, picked out the most risqué anime merchandise together, ranted fanatically about game design together — they could even talk until dawn, spit flying, arguing over exactly how thick a certain female game character's thigh modeling should be.
But looking at things now.
That theory apparently needed to be torn up and rewritten.
The elevator chimed and came to a stop.
The doors slid open, and what greeted him wasn't the stiff, rigid atmosphere of a typical company — it was a strangely lively buzz of energy.
Someone jogged past clutching a stack of drafts, someone else stood in the hallway editing something on a tablet, and two colleagues stood arguing fiercely over coffee, something about "this storyboard isn't hype enough" and "players are going to curse you out over this cut."
At the front desk sat a young woman, her hair pulled back neatly, typing rapidly at her screen.
The moment she looked up and saw Su, she was on her feet almost instantly.
"Hello, you must be Mr. Su, right?"
Su's steps stopped short.
"You know me?"
The receptionist nodded.
"Director Su Yu told us you'd be coming today. His description was very specific — the man whose eyes are always half-squinted, like he's never once gotten a full night's sleep in his life. The moment you stepped out of the elevator, I knew it was you."
Su:
He stood there and, in his head, slowly typed out a string of question marks.
What kind of character description was that?
Why did it sound so much like the physical description on some kind of psycho-killer wanted poster issued by the Arc City police?
The receptionist clearly had no idea anything was off, and helpfully pointed the way for him.
"Director Su's office is at the very end of the hallway inside."
"Though, the Director also said you're welcome to look around first, take a tour if you like. His exact words were: 'Just have him walk right in when he gets here, we're practically family, tell him not to stand on ceremony — treat it like coming home to his own doghouse.'"
Stand on ceremony?
Coming home to a doghouse?
Su glanced around at the bustling atmosphere on this floor, where everyone seemed too busy to even let their feet touch the ground, then thought back to his own impression of his best friend — still stuck at the "shut-in in a rental apartment" stage — and his feelings grew rather complicated.
He followed the direction the receptionist had pointed and headed inside, deciding not to rush off to confront the culprit just yet. Instead, he'd first put on his doctor's eyes and properly dissect this so-called "den of monsters."
He hadn't gone far before he passed the animation department.
The door was open.
Inside, an enormous storyboard wall was plastered edge to edge with sketches, shot numbers, and every kind of revision mark imaginable.
A dozen or so people were clustered around the workstations, a row of monitors glowing, all showing battle sequences and character motion sketches.
And right in the center of the crowd —
Stood someone Su knew very well.
Nuwa.
Yes, that same Nuwa — the one who used to go to conventions with Su Yu, who could never stop talking about figures, BL doujinshi, and her 2D paper wife, who went wilder than anyone buying limited merch and had even gotten into actual fistfights over it!
And right now —
This veteran otaku had a thick stack of storyboard paper rolled up in her hand, wielding it like a conductor's baton, her whole presence commanding the room.
"This isn't brutal enough, redo it!"
She jabbed a finger at the screen.
"Look at what you've made! This shot pushes in way too slowly, way too gently! When the enemy shows up, the player needs to feel crushing pressure! Pressure, understand?! He's not an old man out doing grocery shopping — he's here to kill people!!!"
Nuwa's roar echoed through the office. "And this part! The explosion's recovery time is way too long! Right when you've got the player's emotions pumped up, you kill it with one long take! Are you a mole sent by a rival game company? Trying to tank miHoYo's reputation?"
The animator she'd called out was drenched in sweat, nodding over and over like a kid who'd just been scolded by a teacher.
"Yes, yes, boss! I'll fix it right now, I'll redo the frame timing this second!"
No one in the entire animation department dared say a word.
Su stood in the doorway, silent for two seconds.
Honestly.
The contrast was so jarring he had to wonder if he was hallucinating from lack of sleep the night before.
How was it that this same otaku, whose head used to be filled with nothing but doujinshi and figures, could switch on this kind of "I will personally snap every one of your storyboards in half and make you redo them" professional fanaticism at work?
And the worst part — everything she said was actually right.
Before Su had fully recovered from the shock of the animation department, a heavy thud rang out from the other end of the hallway.
Like some massive object had slammed hard into a crash mat.
Su frowned instinctively and hurried toward the sound. He pushed open the door marked "Full-Body Motion Capture Room."
The space inside was huge, ringed with sensor arrays and projection equipment, the entire floor covered in a thick layer of padding.
Cheng Lingshuang stood off to the side sipping water, her whole manner suggesting this level of racket wasn't even worth commenting on.
Ma Feima, meanwhile, was in a motion-capture suit, just getting back up off the floor, and the next second let out a wild roar and charged at the thick crash pad like a rampaging bull.
Bang!
Another one.
Su's eyelid twitched, and he charged in on pure professional instinct.
"Stop!"
He rushed over and grabbed Ma Feima's arm.
Ma Feima froze at the grip, looked down, and found a stranger. His face went blank for a moment, then he instinctively scratched his head.
"Uh, who're you? The new action director or something?"
"I'm a doctor. Don't talk yet. Just keep your breathing steady."
Su's words came out fast — he was already checking the state of the man's ribs and shoulder.
"How many times did you just slam into that? Any chest tightness? Any pain when you breathe? Dizziness? Any nausea?"
Ma Feima blinked.
"Huh? No, nothing. I feel great, actually."
Su didn't believe a word of it. Plenty of martial artists ignored pain in the early stages of injury because of an adrenaline surge.
He pressed two fingers to Ma Feima's wrist, meaning to first check his baseline pulse and qi-blood condition.
And then his hand froze.
The pulse was steady.
Not just steady — almost overly vigorous, if anything.
Smooth qi flow, even breathing, and the feedback from muscles and joints so clean it was absurd — nothing like someone who'd just spent several rounds slamming his own body around like a Honkai Beast training dummy.
This pulse was healthy enough to make even Su, a wellness expert himself, feel embarrassed by comparison.
Su looked up, his expression finally shifting.
"You… really are fine?"
"Of course I'm fine!" Ma Feima said, looking utterly baffled that anyone would even ask, then laughed a little bashfully under Su's stare.
"We train like this pretty much every day now. At first, when the qi and blood surge back on you, it does get seriously uncomfortable — chest tight, hard to breathe, felt like dying. But it's gotten a lot better since."
Cheng Lingshuang, leaning nearby, added lazily, "Eh, if it ever really does get bad, like an internal injury, Eldest Senior Brother Su comes by and gives him a couple needles. Right after, he's back to full health, keeps slamming away, doesn't slow down the schedule at all. Pretty efficient."
Su turned to look at Cheng Lingshuang. "A couple of needles?"
Hearing this, Ma Feima perked right up, his tone turning downright fanatical.
"Yeah, yeah! Eldest Senior Brother's amazing! Basically a miracle doctor!"
"Sometimes when we train too hard, our backs are off, our shoulders are off, we can't even get our breath up. He sticks a needle in a few spots, and it's instant blood-flow, pain gone, walking feels light again."
"A few days ago I trained too hard and my back just locked up completely. He got me right here, and here… yeah, and this spot on my side too — right after, I could do a backflip on the spot."
As he talked, he started pointing out several acupuncture points on his own body.
The more Su listened, the higher his eyebrows climbed.
This was nowhere near the kind of thing you could fake by skimming some roadside pamphlet titled "Learn Acupuncture in Three Days"!
This was the real deal — years of experience, feel, and judgment.
Too light a touch on the needle, and it does nothing at all.
Too heavy, and you could directly damage nerves or organs.
And if the point is off by even an inch, you could send everything in the wrong direction entirely and paralyze someone on the spot!
Su stood in the motion capture room, his mind reduced to a single deafening question echoing through his soul:
That ultimate shut-in who used to cut his own finger trying to peel an apple, who'd never done a lick of housework, who was too lazy to boil instant noodles for even two extra minutes, who used to shudder at the sight of a blood-draw needle —
Where in the world had he learned to do acupuncture like this?
This was way past the point of "secretly grinding to outdo his roommates," wasn't it?
Don't tell me he learned this in Hawaii too?
Was this some kind of reincarnated protagonist plotline — Urban Carefree Little Miracle Doctor, is that it??
Su walked out of the motion capture room with a belly full of existential doubt.
He decided he had to see the culprit immediately and personally crack open that guy's skull to find out what was actually inside.
He hadn't gone more than a few steps when the door to the game director's office swung open from the inside.
Fuxi walked out.
She was dressed today in a crisp, sharp-looking business suit, a tablet in hand.
But compared to the image Su had in his head — the manager perpetually on the verge of a breakdown, brow permanently furrowed — she looked visibly, noticeably better today.
As she walked, she raised a hand and rolled her neck loosely, the motion completely relaxed.
Then she looked up and spotted Su standing in the middle of the hallway like a wooden post.
"Oh." Fuxi paused. "Su, you're back? That was fast."
"You're…"
Su looked at her visibly much-more-relaxed state, and had barely started his sentence before Fuxi picked it right up naturally.
"Oh, I just had that guy Su Yu do some physical therapy on my neck."
She raised a hand and pressed at the back of her neck, her expression light.
"I have to say, his skills are ridiculous. That chronic neck problem that kept coming back — finally fixed today. Passed down in the family, probably."
After she finished, she casually added another line.
"I really have to say, his acupuncture and massage skills are outrageously good. That old neck issue that kept recurring — even a specialist at the hospital couldn't fix it — he cleared it right up today. My neck feels ten pounds lighter. He said it's a family technique, so I'll just take his word for it."
She finished, then tossed off one more offhand remark.
"I actually came today with Eden to check the books, make sure Su Yu hasn't wrecked the studio with his nonsense. Turned out we hadn't even finished the audit before I got a free neck fix out of it. Not a bad deal, honestly."
Su stood where he was.
His expression had already started sliding toward "Do I actually not know my own best friend Su Yu at all" and "Am I actually still dreaming in some deep-sea nutrition pod in Europe."
Fuxi finished talking and walked off, nodding politely on her way out.
"Go on in. He's waiting for you."
Before the door had even fully closed, Su was already pushing his way inside.
The office was huge.
The view was excellent.
The floor-to-ceiling windows laid the entire core business district of Arc City out before him, light pouring in bright and clear.
Everything inside was arranged neatly — the desk spotless, documents in their place, equipment in its place, not even a single stray snack wrapper cluttering the little table beside the sofa.
Su stood at the door and took in this near-perfect office at a glance.
Then he looked at the figure sitting in the wide office chair, back turned to him, and slowly spoke.
"I honestly thought your office would be a mess like a dog's den."
"Well, honestly, going by my nature, it really should be a dog's den."
Su Yu was sitting in his office chair, spinning a pen in his hand. The moment he saw Su come in, he tossed the pen aside.
"But there's nothing I can do about it — someone with obsessive-compulsive cleaning tendencies keeps insisting on coming by regularly to tidy up. I've tried to stop her, but I can't. It's honestly quite the burden."
Su didn't sit down. He walked over first, leaned on the desk, and got straight to the point.
"Were you just doing acupuncture therapy on Fuxi?"
Su Yu had been looking pretty relaxed up to that point.
At this question, his expression froze on the spot.
"Damn, I got exposed?"
He clutched his head with both hands, looking thoroughly aggrieved.
"Dammit! Was it that big mouth Ma Feima, or did Fuxi let it slip?"
"I had this whole plan, you know — waiting until you, our resident medical expert, complained about back pain someday, and then casually showing off my skills, hitting you with a proper dose of 'this is what a real miracle-doctor brother looks like' shock therapy! And now… the surprise is just gone, just like that?"
Su watched him wallow in his ruined scheme and sank into even deeper suspicion.
Too natural.
Su Yu's reaction was just too natural.
Natural, as if "knowing acupuncture therapy" was, to him, just some minor, unremarkable life skill.
But there was no way — no ordinary person could learn something requiring this much depth of traditional medical foundation in a mere few months, not even without sleeping!
Unless…
Had Su Yu spent all four years of college, or even longer before that, playing dumb while secretly hiding some monstrous talent?
Was that whole lazy, do-nothing, coast-through-life act just an act all along?
Was he actually some kind of prodigy this whole time?
While Su's mind was still spinning through theories, there came a gentle double-knock at the office door.
Very polite.
"Come in."
Su Yu called out casually.
The door opened.
A figure carrying a tray of black tea walked in, steady and composed.
Su glanced up.
The person who'd entered wore a perfectly standard maid outfit — skirt, apron, cuffs, and collar bow, every detail immaculately arranged.
Her movements were smooth, as if rehearsed countless times.
She set the tray down on the coffee table first, then turned slightly, looking toward Su, her expression polite and proper.
"Hello, Mr. Su." she said. "I'm Rita."
Then she turned her head slightly, looking toward Su Yu, who was sitting there like some kind of lord.
"Master Su Yu, the black tea has arrived. Your black tea, as requested. Please enjoy it with your guest, and once you've finished talking, I'll come back to do a thorough cleaning of the office."
The corner of Su's mouth twitched.
Wait.
Hold on.
This wasn't right, was it?
He knew Su Yu was an old-school otaku.
That fact had been thoroughly proven over four years of college, countless times over.
But he'd genuinely never expected that after making it big, this guy would actually drag "personal maid" out of anime fantasy and into real life.
And on top of that, she called him "Master Su Yu"?
This kid had really made it big, huh!
Once she finished speaking, Rita nodded to Su and turned to leave.
The door closed gently, and the office fell quiet again.
Su Yu picked up his tea, took a sip, and even wore an expression that seemed to say, "See, I suffer too."
"Ugh, I've told her a thousand times, she doesn't need to clean this office, I've got two working hands."
"But no, she keeps insisting that 'keeping the master's space tidy is a maid's proper duty,' repeating it in my ear every single day until my ears are practically calloused."
Su said nothing.
He just sat on the sofa, looking across at Su Yu.
Looking for a long, long time.
So long that even someone as thick-skinned as Su Yu started feeling something was off, a chill creeping up his back.
"Why are you staring at me like that? Do I have flowers growing on my face?"
Only then did Su slowly, deliberately open his eyes wide — those eyes that were normally habitually half-squinted.
Even his pupils contracted slightly from the sheer shock.
That rare sight of "Su with his eyes fully open" made even Su Yu, sitting across from him, feel his stomach drop.
Even Su had his eyes wide open? That meant he must be truly, deeply shaken.
Su stayed silent for a long while, then finally forced out a sentence.
"I feel like…"
He paused, then reorganized his words.
"There's a thick wall standing between us now."
Su Yu: "Huh?"
Su looked at him, his expression enormously complicated.
"Your personal life is really something else, huh."
The air went quiet for a second.
The next moment, Su seemed to finally break, and started tallying up every shock he'd received that day, one by one.
"Someone at Eden's level of wealth, seriously investing a fortune in you."
"The Schicksal Foundation behind Theresa, pouring in massive capital as a stakeholder."
"Dean Murata Ryusuke practically ready to marry you off to Himeko on the spot."
"And now you've even got a maid assigned to you, and clearly not just any ordinary person."
Su took a deep breath at this point.
Then he stared straight at Su Yu and asked the ultimate question that had been circling in his head all day.
"Just be honest with me, Su Yu."
"Exactly whose pockets are you living off of right now?"
"Or, let me put it this way —"
Su paused, and in those rarely-opened eyes of his, the emotions swirled, complicated.
"Are you feeding off several people's pockets at once?"
The office fell silent for two seconds.
"That question of yours…"
Su Yu looked up, staring back at Su, whose face was as serious as if he were conducting a medical ethics inquiry.
"If I told you I haven't actively taken a single bite from anyone, would you believe me?"
Su Yu blinked, the picture of complete innocence.
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