ABFMV Chapter 22 Part 2

Xu Linlang clapped her hands. “Good answer. But here’s the thing—you probably don’t know this yet. Qi Ye’s genetic testing came back clean, and his scores have been reinstated. So the real number one isn’t you. It’s him.”

The crowd had fresh gossip to chew on.

“Wow, who would’ve thought Yao Mo, who looks all pure and fiery, actually had this kind of scheming side?”

“For real. Every time I praised her for breaking records as a commoner, she acted all surprised. Turns out the record-breaker was someone else entirely.”

“Miss Xu’s got a point this time…”

“…Yeah.”

Under the weight of so many suspicious and probing stares, Yao Mo finally cracked. She hurried out of the hall with her two little followers trailing behind her.

Nothing about this had gone the way she expected.

By all accounts, Xu Linlang was supposed to be a spoiled, brainless princess who loved luxury and idleness.

But after these past two days, Yao Mo could feel it—Xu Linlang’s unrestrained, unapologetic charisma radiating outward for everyone to see.

That kind of Xu Linlang was drawing eyes from every direction.

A sharp sense of danger rose inside Yao Mo. Half of her glowing reputation among the public came from being compared favorably against Xu Linlang.

But what if Xu Linlang stopped being the way she used to be? What if she turned the tables? Then she’d be the one getting stepped on.

The more Yao Mo thought about it, the more unsettled she felt. No—she couldn’t let Xu Linlang rise so easily.

She had to make sure the word useless stuck as everyone’s impression of Xu Linlang.

Fortunately, Xu Linlang’s genetic grade was C, while she herself was an S. Heaven itself was helping her.

…

Qi Ye escorted Xu Linlang all the way to the exam hall.

“Back there—were you standing up for me?”

From the way she spoke, it seemed she really cared about that girl stealing his spot at the top of the rankings.

“No,” Xu Linlang said. “I was standing up for myself. But if you want to think of it that way, I won’t stop you.”

Then she leaned in close to his ear and added, “But from now on, don’t bother with her. She’s a bad woman.”

Qi Ye couldn’t stop the corner of his mouth from lifting at those words—bad woman.

Only children used words like good or bad to describe people.

Grown-ups knew better. In reality, there was no good or bad, no right or wrong. There was only whether someone stood on your side or not.

And the only reason Xu Linlang labeled that girl a “bad woman” was because she had reported him and stolen his rank.

Xu Linlang had stood by him from the very start.

The more Qi Ye thought about it, the hotter his ears burned.

Xu Linlang, oblivious to his spiraling thoughts, simply turned and walked into the exam room.

The testing process was pretty much the same as Chu Luochi had described. If it wasn’t, she thought, she could just sue him for fraud later.

Xu Linlang flexed her fingers, then focused as she began assembling the parts step by step.

To her, this sort of component-assembly test wasn’t boring at all. In fact, it reminded her of putting together Lego bricks back in modern times—fun, methodical, and oddly satisfying.

She sorted all the tiny pieces into neat groups, but instead of following the manual step by step, she relied on instinct, going with the flow.

After all, the joy of Lego came from trial and exploration. If you just followed the instructions, the finished set had no soul. You might as well buy a pre-built one and save yourself the trouble.

Titanium alloy parts spun deftly between her slender fingers before snapping perfectly into place.

Within twenty minutes, she had finished assembling the entire component.

She glanced around. The other students were still drenched in sweat, glued to their manuals, not daring to make the slightest mistake. Most were in full grind mode.

Handing in early would make her stick out like a sore thumb. She didn’t want that spotlight just yet.

The smartest move was to submit in the middle—neither too fast nor too slow. Safest that way.

So Xu Linlang lay her head on her desk, tucked the assembled part under her arm, and decided to take a nap.

The proctor stared at her small frame slumped over the desk, his eyes full of disdain.

Giving up so quickly, sleeping through the test—Marshal Xu’s daughter really was the hopeless waste everyone said she was.

Before the exam, Admiral Peter had told him to secretly slip Xu Linlang’s finished work into the Mecha Engineering admissions box. That way, she’d flunk into the Mecha Maintenance track in the most humiliating way possible.

But watching her sleep now, the proctor thought Peter’s instructions were completely unnecessary.

With this kind of attitude, even if she applied for the maintenance program, she’d still get bumped down into the lowest track—mecha servicing.

And unlike the maintenance program, where the Marshal’s wife might pull strings, the professors in the engineering department were untouchable. If you missed the cut, you missed it. No exceptions.