After I Stopped Being a Simp, My Husband Fell for Me on His Own - Chapter 25

Yu Yi did not sense the slightest bit of the inner turmoil raging within Ji Xingxiao. His entire mind and soul were consumed by the excitement of finally being able to enter the mecha maneuver grounds for simulation training.

During previous classes, just powering on the machine had taken a long time, leaving no room for exploration. Subsequent lessons had all focused on maintenance and similar topics; Yu Yi had resigned himself to thinking he would not get to try a combat simulation until next semester.

“Thank you!” Yu Yi shouted over his shoulder to Ji Xingxiao. Without even pausing to see the other man’s expression, he sat into the simulation pod.

The hatch closed with a sharp beep.

This time, Yu Yi was not as awkward as he had been before. He opened the simulation pod with practiced ease. The moment he entered the pod, the entire spherical chassis was awakened, emitting a faint, ethereal blue glow.

Watching this series of impatient movements, Ji Xingxiao felt his guard drop slightly. It seemed that he really just wanted to learn.

He had better just want to learn!

The nameless fire in Ji Xingxiao’s chest continued to smolder. He walked to the doorway connecting the bedroom to the training room and emphasized coldly, “I am going to sleep. Do not disturb me.”

“Understood! I promise not to disturb you!” Yu Yi’s cheerful voice drifted out from the simulation pod.

Ji Xingxiao pursed his lips and turned back into his bedroom. He pointedly shut the door tighter than usual. After a moment of hesitation, he still chose not to enable the silent mode.

That day, it should have been on. If it had been, he would not have heard Yu Yi knocking, and that ridiculous incident would not have happened. It was all because this Beta had moved in without a shred of shame!

Ji Xingxiao took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself, and clicked open the pending combat analysis sheets.

Inside the mecha maneuver grounds, Yu Yi was beyond thrilled as he gripped the control sticks. After a cursory glance at the buttons, he dove straight into the combat training mode with high morale.

While waiting for the system to match him, he discovered that the combat training mode in the maneuver grounds was actually linked to Combat Academy credits. Every one hundred wins earned 0.5 credits.

Why did the Defense Academy not have something this good? If the Defense Academy had a way to earn credits like this, Yu Yi would play through two thousand matches if he had to!

As he was wallowing in envy, the space before him brightened, and text appeared on the light screen indicating a teammate had been found.

The system prompt sounded: “Now entering Duo Team Mode. Mission: Clear all Level 2 Pollutants within a three-kilometer radius. Transporting you to the virtual map now.”

In truth, he had no idea what Duo Team Mode actually involved. He only had a rough understanding that the joysticks controlled the mecha’s direction and which buttons deployed weapons before he jumped into the queue. He had been too excited to even pick a name, so the system had assigned him a long string of numbers.

His vision went black for a second. Inside the pod, Yu Yi could clearly feel the vibration of the mecha hitting the ground. When he looked up, the viewport in front of him was pitch black.

The Pollution Zone: right, the Pollution Zone was a land of eternal night.

Realizing this, Yu Yi hurriedly looked down to find the light switch. The more rushed he felt, the more chaotic his movements became. He could not remember the keybindings he had just glanced at. As his hands fumbled blindly across the console, his pinky accidentally hit a round button.

With a heavy clack, the basic combat mecha Yu Yi was piloting slowly raised its right arm. A cold glint flashed before his eyes as the mecha drew a cold weapon nearly half the height of its own body.

Yu Yi was speechless.

“Watch out!” A clear, urgent male voice crackled through the internal communication.

Almost simultaneously, a dull thud echoed, accompanied by the shrill scream of some creature piercing the darkness. A bright light suddenly flared, and the view before Yu Yi became clear. His teammate had turned on the mecha’s night-vision floodlights.

Only then did Yu Yi see a mass of black, unidentified biological matter lying by his mecha’s feet. A flaming metal bolt was embedded in its body, pinning it deep into the ground.

That was impressive; his teammate had hit a Level 2 Pollutant with a single arrow.

While Yu Yi was marveling internally, his teammate’s anxious voice hurried him: “Purify it, fast! Otherwise, it is going to split!”

The creature was not entirely dead yet; it twitched on the ground like a disgusting, festering meat tumor.

Yu Yi did not know what to do. He stared down at the cluster of buttons, trying desperately to remember what purification was. He had no clue; he had never seen it before.

In his moment of hesitation, the black mass on the ground convulsed violently. Its body acted like a rupturing spore, rapidly splitting into three identical individuals that lunged at the two mechas.

“Warning! Right armor damaged! Warning! Cockpit breached by Pollutant! Warning! Warning!”

The status bar representing the mecha’s durability began to plummet. Yu Yi’s mecha was pinned by one of the splits; tentacles extending from its underbelly slapped against his viewport, obscuring most of his vision. Corrosive slime was eating through the outer shell, and it looked ready to crawl into the primary cockpit.

All Yu Yi could do was scream while pressing buttons at random. His mecha wobbled and tilted until the status bar flashed a red warning light.

His teammate was even unluckier; two of the splits had gone for him. He was forced to dodge clumsily while trying to parry with a melee weapon. In the chaos, he roared into the communication channel: “Do you even know what the hell you are doing?”

Yu Yi did not dare speak.

“I saw you pull your weapon immediately and thought you were talented. It turns out you are just an idiot?”

Was he really that aggressive?

“I am not very good yet,” Yu Yi said honestly, lacking any confidence.

“If you do not know how to play, go back and practice with the AI! Do not come here to ruin things for others! You are wasting my time to earn money!”

Before the sentence could finish, the sound of the teammate disconnecting rang through the channel. Silence returned to Yu Yi’s ears. His mecha had been mostly corroded by the Level 2 Pollutant. The mission was a failure.

It was over. The final scene was the terrifying faces of those pollutants and their strange suckers occupying the entire viewport.

Yu Yi’s heart was pounding. He sat in the cockpit to calm down for a moment, and then his lips curled upward. It was fun; this was too much fun.

Yu Yi felt the main issue was his lack of familiarity with the console. It was like going onto a battlefield without knowing what was in his backpack. The priority was to learn the buttons. As for being called “bad” or getting yelled at, he did not care at all. Having thick skin had its advantages.

The buttons on the console were made of metal; the simulation pod mimicked the mecha’s built-in basic controls. Once combat mode was activated, a layer of cursor-like holographic buttons appeared above them. If he switched to defense mode, both the virtual cursors and the physical metal buttons would change. This meant he had to memorize hundreds of keybindings and operate them skillfully.

Yu Yi decided to look for a guide first, then practice while reading. He scrolled through several creators but could not find anything suitable for a total beginner.

Finally, he saw a guide posted by an account named Earth-Render. At first, Yu Yi just thought the name sounded intimidating. But after clicking in, he found that this person’s guide was so detailed it could be called a perfect tutorial. It felt as if it were written specifically for someone like Yu Yi, someone who only started using a simulation pod as an adult. It was perfect for a pure novice.

Yu Yi scrolled further down and found a video of the user making the mecha dance. It was quite funny, and the movements looked casual, yet one could see a sense of lightness and fluidity from this massive hunk of metal. This person’s control over the mecha must have reached a level of perfection.

Yu Yi watched it repeatedly, bookmarked the dancing video, and then, feeling refreshed, queued up again. He wondered if there were still this many people online late at night.

Ji Xingxiao glanced at the time. It was already 2:00 AM, and he finally reached his limit.

He had finished processing all the reports on his desk. This had been the final mission to the Pollution Zone for the semester, and the combat records of all the team members he led had to be evaluated and scored by him. As the youngest commander to enroll and someone who had broken multiple records, his judgment was absolute and indisputable.

Except, though he hated to admit it, Ji Xingxiao kept glancing toward the door. Why was this Beta still in his room so late? Even if there was a door between them, he was still there.

Ji Xingxiao looked away, sent the reports, and stood up. He gave himself an unassailable reason to go out. He was the owner of this dormitory and the master of this room; he had the right, and the necessity, to ask why the person outside had not finished training yet.

Was he putting on a show for him? Or was he intentionally staying up late to wait until he let his guard down?

With that thought, Ji Xingxiao pushed the door open silently, intending to unmask Yu Yi’s fake effort and send him back to bed. A Beta’s stamina and energy were far inferior to Alphas and Omegas. What was this Beta trying to do? Did he not have class tomorrow?

The lights in the training room were off. Only Ji Xingxiao’s natural ability stood within the space like a silky blue ribbon, its reflected light softly brushing over the central simulation pod. The machine was still running. It was impossible to see the condition of the person inside. However, Yu Yi had not hidden his real-time data. The screen on the exterior of the pod recorded his hard work over the past few hours.

His win rate tonight was only 35%, but it was climbing steadily. The data showed he had been engaged in high-intensity training for over six hours.

Ji Xingxiao folded his arms and stood silently at the door, watching the rows of increasingly skillful commands. Though they were still slightly unpolished and clumsy, he felt complicated.

This Beta was actually training.

Ji Xingxiao stayed by the door, quietly observing the real-time data Yu Yi had not hidden. He had to admit, Yu Yi’s rate of improvement exceeded his expectations. Though, compared to Alphas and Omegas, it was still slow.

It was not until the pod’s screen began to warn that Yu Yi’s physical state was declining that Ji Xingxiao stepped forward and hit the hatch release.

Inside, Yu Yi was clearly still immersed in battle. He did not notice Ji Xingxiao had opened the door at all, his mouth still arguing with his opponent: “What? Did I not just help you? Without me, you would have been in the next match ages ago. You are calling me bad? If you are so great, why are you not carrying me?”

Ji Xingxiao was silent.

Once the screen in front of Yu Yi went dark, Ji Xingxiao saw his lingering expression of excitement. Before Yu Yi could queue for another match, Ji Xingxiao reached out and powered down the pod.

“Hey!” Yu Yi did not react immediately. He thought the power had cut out and instinctively slapped the buttons. “Is it out of power?”

Only when the virtual screen completely died did Yu Yi see that expressionless, slightly gloomy face with the birthmark stretching across it.

Support