The manager led the servers away, and the cafeteria gradually returned to normal.

Fu Miaoxue scooted up to Bai Youwei, curious. “Since when did your temper get so good? I thought you’d tear into them.”

“They didn’t really say anything—why would I bother?” Bai Youwei ate at a leisurely pace and gave her a sideways glance. “Are you very bored? What are you doing here stirring things up?”

Fu Miaoxue was a doll—she had no need to eat.

“I came to keep my boyfriend company~” Fu Miaoxue hooked her arm through Du Lai’s and asked Bai Youwei, “Where’s your boyfriend? How come he’s not keeping you company?”

Bai Youwei was quiet for a moment, then answered, “He’s in the medical area.”

Fu Miaoxue’s eyes went wide. “Your boyfriend got hurt?! Wow… he’s so capable—I can’t believe even he’d get injured.”

“He’s not injured. Our teammates are.” Bai Youwei furrowed her brow in irritation.

She thought of the white gloves again.

The bamboo spikes and steel rods had injured Tan Xiao. The duplicated marionettes had injured Ashalina. The human balloon had injured A’Long and Yu Chaohui…

If they hadn’t prepared the mud in advance, this battle would have likely cost both Tan Xiao and Ashalina their lives.

Bai Youwei looked up at Fu Miaoxue and Du Lai. “What about you two? Did your battle go smoothly?”

“Perfectly smooth!” Fu Miaoxue said smugly. “We didn’t even enter the game—the other side surrendered! Haha~ I won just like that!”

“Surrendered…” Bai Youwei thought it over. “Could be that the other side had no interest in the maze wars. Could also be they couldn’t scrape together enough players.”

“Exactly.” Fu Miaoxue nodded. “They only had two people on the other side—with that few, there’s no game to play. And since I was short-handed, they’re all my subjects now!”

Bai Youwei smiled. “Do they know your true identity? Did they get scared?”

Not everyone could accept a doll as their king.

Fu Miaoxue thought it over seriously and said to Bai Youwei, “The big one didn’t seem to care much. But the little girl—she’s sharp as a tack. She seems to have figured it out…”

“A little girl?” Bai Youwei blinked. “Look, even if you’re not exactly a person anymore, you don’t have to be quite so shameless about it—was there any need to bring a little girl into the game?”

“You don’t know the half of it! She may be young but she’s extremely shrewd!” Fu Miaoxue bristled in indignation. “And besides, what do you mean I’m not a person anymore?! Which part of me doesn’t look like a person? Hmm?”

Bai Youwei’s gaze drifted past her shoulder—and she saw two figures, one tall and one small, approaching from behind.

She paused slightly. The smaller figure looked strangely familiar.

Wasn’t that the student she had met back in Yangzhou—the one who had been with Tu Dan? What was her name again?

“Did you find anyone to go into the maze with us?” the girl asked, walking up with the larger figure. Seeing Bai Youwei behind the table, she froze too.

Fu Miaoxue was jogged from her distraction by the reminder, and only then remembered she had been so busy chatting with Bai Youwei that she hadn’t brought up any of the actual business.

“This is Chen Hui, and this is Leonid. We suspect the third battle will see a large jump in difficulty, so we want to run a maze, but we’re short on people.” Fu Miaoxue smiled sweetly at Bai Youwei. “Besides, your teammates are all bedridden anyway—why not come with us~”

Chen Hui recognized Bai Youwei and covered her mouth in astonishment, clearly moved. “Do you… do you remember me? In Maze No. 2—you were the one who led us out of the maze!”

Fu Miaoxue was baffled, glancing back and forth between Bai Youwei and Chen Hui. “What’s this? You two know each other?”

Bai Youwei nodded. Since there was a connection between them, her smile naturally held a little more warmth, and she asked Chen Hui, “Last time you said you were going to look for Teacher Tu’s son. Where did you end up going? How did you end up participating in the maze wars?”

—