Chapter Ninety-Six: You're Blocking My View

Chapter 96

Xuan Guo stood before Ai Zhe with a confident smile. She knew that confidence was the most beautiful thing a girl could wear, and she believed her own future could one day stand before everyone with that same poise—especially before Wanqi Xuanxuan.
She remained before him for a while, yet Ai Zhe still gave no sign.
Even Teacher Wu Haoqiang on the stage frowned slightly, and only then did Xuan Guo feel a little awkward.
The students around them began to whisper.
Ai Zhe suddenly said without lifting his head, “You’re blocking my view.”

There was a soft snort from Xuanxuan; Ai Zhe was still the same ill-tempered boy. Xuan Guo’s complexion shifted from pale pink to green in an instant.
When Ai Zhe finally looked up at the sound of Xuanxuan’s laugh, there was a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes.
At that look, Xuan Guo’s face became even more unpleasant. If he had ignored everyone, she could have tolerated it. But to ignore her, then make a face as if she were beneath him, and still give Wanqi Xuanxuan the faintest smile—how could she bear it?
Taking a deep breath, Xuan Guo nodded at Ai Zhe and said, “Sorry.”
Ai Zhe still did not react, and she tightened her hands, forcing every gaze to rest on her.
She turned back and sat once again in front of him. It was a good seat: front row, close to Ai Zhe, and near the Wanqi side.
Ai Zhe frowned a little, but said nothing.

Xuanxuan watched Xuan Guo’s figure with faint amusement. She already knew her mother had borne the surname Xuan, but, because of Wanqi Lianhao’s connection, she had long ago passed away, and this Xuan Guo was likely a relative of her mother.
Besides, her father had compensated the Xuan clan handsomely when he sought to make amends for her mother, and when Xuanxuan was small, he brought Xuan Guo to their old little planet. Yet a heart is never truly enough.
The Xuan family belonged to her. So did Xuan Guo.

Xuanxuan did not know everything, but she had learned enough. Back there, at that school, it had likely been Xuan Guo who incited those children to attack her. Most important, Xuan Guo had also dealt a dirty blow from the side under the pretense of a protector.
Xuanxuan suspected her father only knew Xuan Guo had stirred up trouble, not that Xuan Guo herself was the one who had truly hurt her. Otherwise, Xuan Guo would not still be standing before her now.
Still, that made things more interesting.
She tugged at the corner of her lips and bent her eyes back to the textbook in front of her.

As Wanqi Yi had predicted, in less than a week everyone in Xuanxuan’s school already knew she was truly a wreck. They knew everything about her “situation” on that remote planet:
she could not train martial arts, had no spiritual power at all, now relied on the Wanqi brothers for nearly all her assignments, and had a habit of spacing out.
So many in the school treated Xuanxuan as a failure; by virtue of her identity and the stature of the Wanqi family, nearly every major clan came to know it as well.

After all, many people were already doubting the ties between the Wanqi, Zhan, and Kuang families. Some even suspected the Wanqi might be using Xuanxuan for a marriage alliance with the Kuang or Zhan houses. But if she was a complete failure, only six years old at the time, why would she be the one chosen for an alliance?
It was obvious: this was not about liking Wanqi Xuanxuan, but about valuing her status.
More and more people came to suspect this was just a pretext, and the real matter was a three-house alliance. With two major military blocs plus the First Group involved, what could the Wanqi, Kuang, and Zhan families possibly be planning?
To everyone, Xuanxuan had clearly already become a decoy, a brand, a sacrificial piece—a useless one in a great house.

Just as Wanqi Yi had foreseen, she faded from view.
Even if someone remembered her, no one truly paid attention.
That was precisely what they had wanted.
As for Xuan Guo, she was never within their calculations.
No matter how many people probed and guessed, the cooperation among the three houses continued steadily onward.

How long is ten years?
For a Federation citizen, not very long at all. From the era of three-hundred-year lifespans, thirty-six is adulthood. A decade is only a blink, a tiny instant slipping past.
Now that lifespans keep stretching, ten years might only be a vacation, or the time needed for an interstellar trip.
Yet for the Kuang family, the Zhan family, and the Wanqi family, those ten years burned fiercely.

In those ten years, the first batch trained through Xuanxuan had already taught a second batch in reality, and the elixirs had begun circulating within the three houses.
During that decade the Insect Clan likely advanced considerably. Backed by Kuang wealth and Zhan and Wanqi military strength, Federation forces probed planets around those occupied by the Insect Clan. A few small planets were reclaimed, yet the reports worsened: the energy stones on those worlds had vanished.
The probes to the Insect concentration zones were repeated, yet not once could they break into the interior.
That silence from all three houses spoke clearly—something the Insect Clan was strong, and it had used that strength wisely.

Xuanxuan did not know how much her elixirs mattered to the Federation, but the Wanqi trio knew. Because of them, giving even one bottle each of Mana Elixir and Volcanic Elixir could make one person fight like two, and even beyond that.
Many elixirs were long-term formulations, acting directly on power itself, and some even accelerated the user’s development:
they could speed martial-body training, increase spiritual force, strengthen anomalous abilities, and even enable a direct break through one’s current level.
In martial arts, Xuanxuan had no influence. In spiritual force and anomalous ability, however, she had at least raised the three houses by more than double.
In peak-tier strength alone, only Wanqi Yi, Kuang Hongyi, and Zhan Shaohua had already reached the Federation’s very summit—far beyond ordinary imagination.

The three houses had become more and more restrained, showing themselves less in public.
Only the next generation of the three houses shone with sharp brilliance, as if to show that the previous generation had stepped back.
Whether that was truly what people saw from afar, no one could be sure.

How long is ten years?
For Xuanxuan inside the Star Network, time seemed to stand still; outside it, in reality, she had transformed like magic. From a half-round little bundle of a child, she had become an upright, graceful girl. A little baby fat still clung, and the daydreamy look remained, but to those around her she had changed beyond recognition.

Since she started learning mech suits with Kuang Hongyi, she had also begun learning the Wanqi inner-cultivation martial arts with Wanqi Lianhao. Her body’s needs quickly reshaped her, thinning her from a chubby little one into a young woman.
Kuang Hongyi grew increasingly burdened teaching her, and Xuanxuan’s questions became harder for him to answer. Whenever he reached that point, he would pat himself off, claim he still had things to finish, and return only when he had done enough. If a question was truly unanswerable, he would disappear until Xuanxuan forgot it happened.

In these ten years, Zhan Yu also moved from youth into adulthood and became a soldier. Alongside Kuang Shao, he joined investigations involving the Insect Clan. Although Xuanxuan met him less and less, whenever she logged in she still found traces of him on Baicao Star: newly made food, fresh gadgets, or some newly found material for her.
Kuang Shao was still the same flamboyant figure. Even in a green military uniform, he could not hide his brilliant showiness.
Now and then he would still parade in front of Xuanxuan with a fresh batch of elixirs for her to test, or he would be roughed up once by Kuang Hongyi.

Five years of middle school and five years of upper school changed everyone around Xuanxuan: even Wanqi Weihao, Wanqi Weihan, and Ai Zhe had each changed.
As federation tensions worsened, Ai Zhe also grew increasingly silent. Before Xuanxuan, he had fewer and fewer words, only glancing at her profile in secret when no one was watching.

The two Wanqi brothers grew apart in spirit. Wanqi Weihao became more and more like his father, Wanqi Lianjun, while Wanqi Weihan resembled their second uncle, Wanqi Lianshen.
How odd—two brothers, raised together, with the same face, yet entirely different natures.
Yet one thing remained unchanged: their guardianship of Xuanxuan.

Ten years felt ample to Xuanxuan. Sometimes she thought the original Mata Continent might have been only a dream—one in which her teacher was the only warm and comforting place, with nowhere else in that dream to cling to.
But when she woke, she lived in the Wanqi household, under the Kuang family’s protection as well.
Xuanxuan felt she ought to give up everything she had known, and yet she could not let go of some things in the Star Network.

Sometimes she wondered: if that “her” in the Star Network disappeared, would Zhan Yu look for her? Would Kuang Shao lose his cheer for a few days? Would that still-lovely illusion fox stop eating for a few days, unable to bear it?
Would stubborn Master Ji stand guard at Pearl-and-Imperial Tower day after day? Would Wanqi Wu, who counted on her, be terribly worried?
She gave a faint smile. In truth, wasn’t that “her” simply herself—the self she became after coming to the Federation?

It was just that Xuanxuan was troubled each time her father brought her into the Star Network: she had to drink a bottle of Illusory-Form Elixir, or she would be exposed there.
If she appeared there with her “teacher,” her little illusion fox vanished, transforming into her real-world form.
Xuanxuan found this too dangerous, especially now that her father’s strength kept rising—who knew when his spiritual force would be enough to see through the fox disguise?

P.S. The chapter scheduled for the morning came out a little late. Please forgive me.