Chapter 8

The next day, the entire Class 1 rushed en masse to the TRER Data Pavilion.

They had just done this check a month ago, so this time everyone handled it much more smoothly. Only the physical fitness test consumed a huge amount of energy; by the time the morning was over, everyone looked drained and pale.

As class monitor, Chu Yunmiao couldn’t lie sprawled on the floor like everyone else, gasping with her tongue out. She steadied herself, organized the group, and only after confirming everything was in order did she dismiss them on the spot.

Yu Changning had been inside the data pavilion the whole time, just not appearing in person. She silently watched Chu Yunmiao lead the team with such order and precision; one part of her felt proud, while another part ached with pity.

Five years ago, when the two of them had parted, the Imperial Crown Princess had clearly not been like this. Who knew how much hardship the Crown Princess had gone through in those five years.

Yu Changning quietly clenched her fist, adjusted her emotions, and walked up to Chu Yunmiao.

“Yunmiao,” Yu Changning called her. “Are you all done?”

Chu Yunmiao nodded, wearing a flawless, official expression. “Report to the instructor; all inspection items for Class 1 have been completed.”

Yu Changning rubbed her knuckles and nodded. “Mm. Well done.”

Then she brought up something else. “By the way, do you have my Instructor Card?”

A crack finally appeared in Chu Yunmiao’s expression; she answered a little guiltily, “...Yes.”

She explained, “It’s in my dormitory. I forgot to bring it.” Seeing that Yu Changning didn’t immediately respond, Chu Yunmiao pressed a hand to her stomach and took the initiative. “I’ll go back to the dorm and get it for you now.”

She had just finished training; wisps of hair at her forehead were still damp with sweat, and her lips were slightly pale. Her condition clearly wasn’t good.

As expected, Yu Changning shook her head. “It’s fine. No need to rush.”

She said, “Go to the cafeteria first. Bring the Instructor Card to class this afternoon.”

Chu Yunmiao lowered her head, hiding her expression. “Understood, Instructor.”

Yu Changning knew her too well, but Chu Yunmiao wasn’t entirely without ways to counter her. Though she had never verified it, a vague idea had always existed in Chu Yunmiao’s mind: as long as she showed signs of physical discomfort, Yu Changning would be more likely to indulge her.

Of course, that rule had once failed during those five years, so she hadn’t been completely certain. But judging from the result now, Yu Changning still fell for it.

Why was that?

Was this her way of asking to make up?

At that thought, Chu Yunmiao shook her head, clearing those thoughts away.

If they wanted to cut ties, then cut ties. If they wanted to make up, then make up. She, the dignified Imperial Crown Princess, was not some toy Yu Changning could summon and dismiss at will.

Make up?

Heh. She absolutely did not want to become good friends with Yu Changning again!

Chu Yunmiao left the Training Gym, but she didn’t head to the cafeteria. On the way, she casually dealt with a nutrition gel packet, letting the burning sensation in her stomach ease for the moment. Soon, she stopped beneath a silver building brimming with a strong technological feel.

She took the brand-new Instructor Card out of her pocket, drew a deep breath, and swiped her way in.

At this hour, most staff had gone to the cafeteria for lunch, and only a few midday duty personnel remained in the huge building. With the Instructor Card in hand, all the mechanical checkpoint systems let her through without question, and none of the staff on site would dare interrogate the illustrious Imperial Crown Princess. The Omega receptionist at the front desk rather liked her; after learning why she was there, the girl even personally led her to the first-year data integration office.

“Thank you.” Chu Yunmiao suppressed her nervousness and did her best to remain perfectly polite.

The Omega receptionist smiled shyly. “You’re welcome.

“If I can help you, it’s my honor.”

Chu Yunmiao smiled and nodded at her.

Then the receptionist left, and she entered the office alone.

As expected, the office was completely empty; all the staff had gone to lunch break. Of course, the surveillance cameras and infrared sensors were still running, but that wasn’t a big problem. As Class 1’s monitor, she had more than enough reason to enter this place.

Soon, she found a shared computer, quietly adjusted the angle, and inserted a data modifier the size of a fingernail into the port where the cameras couldn’t see.

In the Space Age, efficiency was extremely high; the inspection data entered that morning had already been transmitted to the office. If nothing went wrong, once the staff returned after lunch, they would conduct a careful analysis, and the results would probably come out in two or three hours. Chu Yunmiao had to use that time gap well and modify the data before it was called up.

She didn’t care about the other inspection items at all. As soon as she opened the computer, she went straight to search for the raw data from her own hormone levels. The progress bar reached the end, and a complex table appeared before her eyes.

Chu Yunmiao locked onto two numbers at once.

Alpha hormone concentration and Omega hormone concentration.

Normally, for a healthy Alpha, Alpha hormone concentration had to remain stable above 5.00, while Omega hormone concentration had to stay below 0.15. The stronger the Alpha, the higher the Alpha hormone concentration.

But in Chu Yunmiao’s data, Alpha hormone concentration was only 0.74, while Omega hormone concentration was a full 6.71!

At times like this, the Imperial Crown Princess was profoundly grateful for the country’s privacy system. Whether hormone levels were too high or too low counted as a disease and fell under first-level citizen privacy. Even if the machine detected something wrong, it couldn’t issue a warning; it would simply pass the data into the next program and wait for human handling.

As for why her hormone levels had produced such absurd numbers, the reason was an even more absurd story.

Chu Yunmiao pressed her lips together and focused, beginning to attack the database system. She needed to seize the time and change these two values as quickly as possible.

The modifier started working. Because safety had to come first, the speed was a little slow; the screen showed that it would take ten minutes to complete the modification.

So far, everything was going smoothly. Chu Yunmiao let out a little breath and quietly waited for time to pass.

But today, it seemed her luck wasn’t very good.

Just as the progress bar passed the halfway point, a middle-aged woman walked into the office. She didn’t seem surprised to see Chu Yunmiao; presumably, she had already been told at the front desk that someone had come by. “Student Chu, good afternoon.”

Chu Yunmiao’s back straightened; she put on a polite smile. “Teacher Huang, good afternoon.”

“Here to submit data again?” Teacher Huang asked. “Need any help?”

Chu Yunmiao gave the excuse she had already prepared. “No need.

“The class data I submitted before had some errors, so I’m here to correct it. Um... I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

Teacher Huang was very kind. “Not at all. Go ahead; if you have any problems, ask me.”

She returned to her workstation and seemed to begin handling her own work.

Chu Yunmiao secretly relaxed and opened the class database, which had a lower confidentiality level, to keep up appearances.

Three minutes later.

“Beep beep beep—System intrusion detected. System intrusion detected.”

Chu Yunmiao’s pupils contracted in shock.

She turned to look at the other person in the office. “Teacher Huang... what’s wrong?”

Teacher Huang was also startled, but her hands were fast; after operating the keyboard twice, the alarm sound was directly shut off.

Then she looked at Chu Yunmiao. “...The database recently had a new security system installed; it’s still under testing. What did you do?”

Chu Yunmiao played innocent. “...Nothing. Just normal operations.”

Teacher Huang was puzzled and lowered her head to make a call.

Chu Yunmiao took that time to glance at the progress bar.

It seemed the new security system was still in its testing phase; although it sounded an alarm, the modification process wasn’t interrupted. She secretly let out a breath, held on until the progress bar finished, and immediately and quietly pulled out the modifier, hiding it inside a secret compartment in her sleeve.

Not long after she finished, several staff members in security uniforms stormed into the office.

Teacher Huang briefly explained the situation to them. Looking at Chu Yunmiao sitting in front of the computer, the group didn’t quite know what to do for a moment.

If it were an ordinary student, they would have controlled her first without hesitation... but the person sitting there was the Imperial Crown Princess.

No one believed that the Imperial Crown Princess would do something like invade the school database.

Chu Yunmiao took the initiative, putting on a cooperative front. “Did something happen?”

Teacher Huang waved a hand. “I checked just now and didn’t find any problems. It might be a fault with this new system.

“But... when the alarm went off, you were the only unaffiliated person in the office, so we have to follow procedure.”

Chu Yunmiao nodded. “Mm, I’m willing to fully cooperate with the investigation.”

“It’s not that serious.” Teacher Huang softened.

She asked the security team leader, “Can we just have her instructor come over? If there’s no issue, I remember the instructor only needs to sign and vouch for her.”

The security team leader nodded. “Mm, that works.”

Teacher Huang looked through her contacts. “All right, I’ll find Yu Hui’s contact...”

Chu Yunmiao pressed her lips together and reminded her at the right moment, “Teacher Huang, we changed instructors yesterday.”

“Oh, right!” Teacher Huang slapped her forehead. “I did receive a notice, but I forgot.”

She looked at Chu Yunmiao. “It’s that famous figure from our school, Yu Changning, right? I’ll contact her now.”

Chu Yunmiao stiffened her neck and nodded awkwardly.

About twenty minutes later, Yu Changning arrived.

The security team leader took the two of them to the duty room and asked a few routine questions.

“Instructor Yu, you were aware of all of Chu Yunmiao’s movements today at the data pavilion, correct?”

Yu Changning raised an eyebrow.

Chu Yunmiao’s heartbeat quickened; her teeth were clamped tightly together.

She began to think about the worst-case scenario and considered every possible way out afterward. But no matter what she came up with, none of it seemed able to let her walk away cleanly.

[The Empire’s glorious Imperial Crown Princess, the top-tier Alpha Chu Yunmiao, is actually an Omega. She concealed it from the public and even slipped past the detection system to enter Huaqi University’s Alpha class.]

If this were exposed, all of her life plans would be ruined!

Up to now, only four people knew about this.

Aside from herself, there were her two younger sisters and their mother; the Emperor, Chu Yu.

Because she feared affecting other people’s emotions, she had even hidden it from her dearest mommy and grandmother!

Chu Yu did have the ability to suppress everything, but from the very beginning she hadn’t really approved of Chu Yunmiao’s actions.

The mother and daughter had made a promise; Chu Yu would turn a blind eye and pretend not to know, but she absolutely would not help Chu Yunmiao. If Chu Yunmiao couldn’t handle it herself, then she should obediently go back and be a beloved Omega princess.

Chu Yunmiao had agreed without hesitation.

After all, entering her current class while concealing her true sex had been to prove that she wasn’t inferior to any Alpha. If she couldn’t even hide her identity properly, there was no need to talk about anything else.

But she never expected that barely one month after the semester began, she seemed to have stepped right to the edge of exposure.

“Yes.” Yu Changning nodded. “I was aware of all of Chu Yunmiao’s movements today.”

Chu Yunmiao froze and turned to look at her.

Yu Changning’s expression didn’t change at all, as though everything she had said was the truth.

The security team leader nodded. “Second question: are you willing to take responsibility for any related consequences caused by this matter?”

Yu Changning lifted her chin slightly.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll take responsibility for her.”

Chu Yunmiao withdrew her gaze and lowered her head, looking at her tightly clasped hands.

The security team leader breathed a sigh of relief. “All right, the conversation just now has been recorded. Lastly, please sign here.

“If there’s nothing else, once you’ve signed, you can take Student Chu away.”

Yu Changning took the electronic pen and signed her name with swift, practiced strokes.

Five minutes later, the two of them left the data office and returned to the campus path.

“You... I actually...” Chu Yunmiao had been building up the words she wanted to say for a long time, but when she saw Yu Changning walking beside her with both hands in her pockets, she couldn’t get a single sentence out.

Under the clear early-autumn sun, a breeze was blowing. Yu Changning wore a windbreaker; she stood tall and graceful, like fine timber beside a lake.

Suddenly, Chu Yunmiao had no desire to explain herself at all. She swallowed every excuse and waited for Yu Changning to interrogate her.

The next moment, she felt a warm hand cover the back of her neck.

“Come on.” Yu Changning gave her a little push.

Chu Yunmiao asked instinctively, “...Where to?”

Yu Changning: “The cafeteria.”

Chu Yunmiao reacted after two seconds. “The cafeteria?”

Yu Changning let out a soft sigh.

Chu Yunmiao’s expression was aggrieved, with a trace of confusion mixed in. Yu Changning really couldn’t help herself; she reached out and ruffled the top of her hair.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Chu Yunmiao’s cheeks heated slightly. “Is this the time to be thinking about that?”

Yu Changning nodded. “Of course.”

She looked at her with a smile and asked in return, “Is there anything more important than making sure the little princess doesn’t go hungry?”