You're Strong But Now You're Mine

These past few days, Ming Shuiyun has been living comfortably.

Every day after class, she would go with her girlfriends to the 'Unmatched Assassination Research Club' to study and design Battle Cards.

Following Qin Leyin's guidance, she proposed three basic cards—'Kill', 'Dodge', 'Potion'—along with various strategic advisor cards, and personally designed two abilities for the Grand Ancestor: "Dawn: During your play phase, you can give any number of cards to other characters, and when you hand over your second card during this phase, you regain 1 point of health," and "King: Ruler skill, other national heroes from the Radiant faction can use or play [Kill] on your behalf when needed." This earned unanimous praise from everyone.

With the mature ideas proposed by Ming Shuiyun, the club has produced many national hero cards over these days, even being able to play normal five-player games. Once released, they became all the rage within the club, with reports of their games appearing on the Imperial Academy's bulletin board, drawing crowds.

The whole academy eagerly anticipates the official launch of 'Unmatched Assassination', naturally boosting the club's motivation. Almost every day, they introduce over ten national hero cards, then discard most, leaving a select few for trial versions in the game to evaluate combat effectiveness through practical play.

Most of the ordinary members who lent money to Ming Shuiyun do not actually participate in designing the national hero cards—they want to, but the cards they create tend to disrupt the environment and lack competitiveness—so they are basically responsible for testing, and their daily task is playing cards.

It's equivalent to gaining closed beta gameplay rights.

Due to this reason, Ming Shuiyun has again earned a large sum of money these days. The card players in the Imperial Academy have long been eager to play 'Unmatched Assassination'; they were willing to 'lend' 10 gold coins to Ming Shuiyun just to play early.

Although most of the money is operated by the Qin Family for investment, Ming Shuiyun is still able to control a small portion, mainly to reward valuable designers.

One must admit that even though it's just a small club, with an insignificant amount of money, it has brought about a transformation from ugly duckling to Snow White for Ming Shuiyun.

If Ming Shuiyun's eloquence in class was her stubborn counterattack from desperation, then the confidence now emanating from her bones is her cultivated grace.

A man with money is a man indeed, a man without money is in distress. In fact, this applies to anyone: money, power, success are always the three fastest paths to cultivating confidence. As long as you can use money to control others, instruct them to do things for you, and achieve universally acclaimed success, it's hard not to be confident.

Ming Shuiyun also believes she has transformed!

She's no longer that startled little girl but a calm, mature, reliable adult!

"Teacher Qin has become the acting principal of the evening academy!"

During the break before the second class in the morning, a piece of news shocked the whole academy. When a gossiper ran into the classroom to announce the news, the students immediately looked at Ming Shuiyun sitting mid to back row, Ming Shuiyun was momentarily stunned and asked, "Really?"

"Really!" The student nodded repeatedly: "It's a notice on the bulletin board! There's the principal and academy's seal, it can't be fake!"

"I see." Ming Shuiyun withdrew her gaze, looked down at her book: "I got it."

Everyone suddenly realized—of course, Shuiyun Palace and Qin Leyin have a master and follower relationship, such important news, Shuiyun Palace must have known long ago. How could they be surprised?

Many observing Ming Shuiyun secretly couldn't help but nod quietly. Compared to the young girl just entering the academy, Shuiyun Palace indeed has improved a lot, even considered to have 'an aura of a wise ruler'.

"Even the principal is paving the way for Shuiyun Palace..."

"Now that Teacher Qin has become the acting principal, his power is greater, so there's absolutely no suspense in the points competition..."

"Let me clarify, I actually did not lend money to Shuiyun Palace to please them, I simply wanted to play 'Unmatched Assassination'..."

"A friend asked me to lend money to Shuiyun Palace..."

Immediately, many people searched for the preferential merchant Qin Yueshi, either wanting to lend money to Shuiyun Palace or add more 'loans' to lend more money to Shuiyun Palace.

Hearing the noisy surroundings, Ming Shuiyun frowned slightly, pulling Li Ying along and said, "Let's go to the restroom."

"Okay."

Everyone swiftly made way for Ming Shuiyun, watching her and Li Ying leave the classroom with respect. Li Ying was about to head towards the restroom, but Ming Shuiyun pulled her into an empty corner, pinning her against the wall.

Li Ying: "Hmm!?"

Before Li Ying could say 'I can', Ming Shuiyun clenched her fists excitedly, speaking in a suppressed voice: "He actually became the acting principal quietly!"

"He didn't even tell me!"

"Without others telling me, I wouldn't even know!"

"Acting principal, acting principal, acting principal... Damn, how is he so capable!"

Li Ying quietly waited beside her, until Ming Shuiyun finished this seemingly nonsensical hand-waving and foot-stomping rant before calmly saying: "He may be powerful, but isn't he your follower?"

"Yes!" Ming Shuiyun clenched her fist.

"He didn't personally tell you this news, he's really too arrogant!"

"Yes!"

"You must punish him severely!"

"Yes!"

"Make him find ways for us to pass all our courses this semester with full marks!"

Ming Shuiyun tilted her head and looked at Li Ying: "I think learning should be honest, the knowledge gained is one's own, not learning for the teacher's sake."

Li Ying clicked her tongue, saying irritably: "Cooled down yet? Can we go to the restroom? I really need to pee."

"Calmed down." Ming Shuiyun hooked arms with Li Ying, apologetically saying: "I got a bit too excited..."

"Why were you so excited?" Li Ying asked.

"Because he became the acting principal! And he didn't even tell me..."

"So you're happy because he became the acting principal? Angry because he didn't share this joy with you?"

"Yes, that's it." Ming Shuiyun nodded repeatedly.

Li Ying looked at Ming Shuiyun, shaking her head and said: "Shuiyun, you're a good girl."

"Huh?" Ming Shuiyun was somewhat puzzled.

When they came out of the restroom, they saw Qian Yuya waiting for them on the road.

"Li Ying, you head back to the classroom first." Qian Yuya said: "I need to talk to Shuiyun about something."

"Classes will start soon, hurry up." Li Ying shrugged, striding away.

Qian Yuya led Ming Shuiyun to a deserted corner, bluntly saying: "Hongle's brother is in danger as acting principal."

"What?" Ming Shuiyun's eyes widened.

"Because you're gaining too much momentum lately, outsiders can't sit still. They can't suppress your momentum or strike directly at you, so they plan to assassinate Hongle's brother to shake you." Qian Yuya summarized smoothly: "Hongle's brother must have taken on the role of acting principal to counter the assassination."

"Wait!" Ming Shuiyun asked: "Why can't they strike against me?"

"Probably because the Sword Holder is protecting you; they don't dare offend the Sword Holder?" Qian Yuya, lacking full information, guessed quite accurately: "But the Sword Holder isn't protecting the scabbard, so they focus on Hongle's brother..."

"I understand your meaning, Yuya." Ming Shuiyun said.

"Good that you understand." Qian Yuya nodded.

After observing these days, she found Qin Leyin not only rarely communicates with Ming Shuiyun, but hasn't even boasted once; Qin Leyin never claims how much he has done for Ming Shuiyun, let alone how much sweat and blood he's shed.

Even without any special relationship with Qin Leyin, she couldn't just watch quietly—so she specifically came to tell Ming Shuiyun, letting her know that Qin Leyin took the acting principal role to face the assassination alone, that she should recognize Qin Leyin's contributions and remember his kindness.

"Now it's my turn to protect him!" Ming Shuiyun declared firmly, clenching her fists.

"Yes, you're absolutely right... huh?"