The Cannon Fodder Real Young Master is a Slime?! - Chapter 12

Shi Yunmu took the phone from its owner’s hand, patted the dust off his knees, shook his head, and said, “It’s fine.”

With that, he raised his eyes to size up the person who had bumped into him.

It turned out to be a young and handsome man.

His hair was a light golden color, slightly long, and tied into a small bun at the back of his head. His grey-blue eyes held a faint, curved smile, resembling undulating ocean waves. Possessing mixed-race features, he truly stood out like a crane among chickens in the crowd.

Shi Yunmu felt a sense of familiarity, but he just couldn’t recall where he had seen him before.

Could it have been at a Shi family banquet? Unlikely.

As he stared intently at the man, perhaps misunderstanding his gaze, the man smiled and spoke first: “Your eyes are very beautiful.”

Not expecting the man to say this, Shi Yunmu tilted his head slightly to express his confusion.

But the other party seemed genuinely convinced that this pair of green eyes was beautiful, continuing: “Like emeralds.”

Shi Yunmu: “Th-thank you?”

“Senior Zhou!”

Shi Yubai, who had witnessed this entire exchange, felt his heart suddenly tighten for some reason. He walked quickly up the steps, adopting an apologetic demeanor: “My brother, he…”

Just as he was about to shift the entire blame of the collision onto Shi Yunmu, the man Shi Yubai called “Senior Zhou” shoved one hand into his pocket and said with a beaming smile: “It was my fault, no harm done.”

He easily blocked all the words Shi Yubai had intended to say right back into his throat.

The blue-eyed man glanced at Shi Yunmu and smiled: “My apologies. Next time when you’re free, I’ll treat you to a meal to make up for it.”

“No need.” Disinterested in such formalities, Shi Yunmu wanted to decline.

“I insist.” Surprisingly, the man’s attitude was very firm.

Shi Yunmu felt a headache coming on. He forced his brain to work, racking his mind for words to refuse.

Fortunately, someone unwittingly broke the impasse: “Monitor!”

It was a classmate who had reserved seats for them, shouting and waving to point out their location.

“Let’s talk about it next time.” Changing his tune, Shi Yunmu walked past the monitor toward the seats higher up.

Only Shi Yubai and “Senior Zhou” were left on the steps. Shi Yubai lowered his gaze and called out softly: “Senior…”

The man, who was still looking at Shi Yunmu’s retreating back, retracted his gaze, maintaining that same gentle, refined smile: “What’s wrong, Yubai?”

His tone was patient and warm.

This tone put Shi Yubai at ease. The other party was probably just being friendly to Shi Yunmu out of politeness, not for any other reason.

He was likely overthinking it.

“Let’s go down,” the man said cheerfully. “After all, Manager Zhang is waiting down there.”

After speaking, he gentlemanly waited for Shi Yubai to walk down together.

Shi Yubai let out a sigh of relief, thinking that this scene was the only thing that would clog his chest, completely unprepared for what else was to come.

He turned back to take one last look in Shi Yunmu’s direction, only to spot an extremely conspicuous mop of reddish-brown hair right next to him.

The owner of that reddish-brown hair went without saying who else could it be but Ming He!

Shi Yubai’s pupils couldn’t help but shrink in shock, finding it utterly unbelievable: Why was Ming He chasing after Shi Yunmu, even following him all the way to the university?!

Was he really that attentive?

Naturally completely unaware of Shi Yubai’s thoughts, Shi Yunmu sat down next to the monitor, finding it entirely unexpected to see a panting Ming He arrive.

Raising an eyebrow in slight surprise, Shi Yunmu asked, “Why are you here?”

Ming He thought to himself: Do you think I wanted to come? If Brother Lu hadn’t assigned this mission, I definitely wouldn’t be here.

But on the surface, the young man put on a aggrieved expression: “Sister-in-law, didn’t you check your phone? I sent you so many messages and even called you.”

Really?

Shi Yunmu pulled out his phone to take a look, then put it down rather sheepishly: “…Sorry, I wasn’t looking at my phone just now.”

Ming He took the opportunity to sit down next to him and started babbling: “Ah, sister-in-law, you don’t know. I just happened to come back to school today to see my advisor. Didn’t I hear from Brother Lu that you were at C University? So I dropped by to see you since it was on the way.”

He looked at the dumbfounded classmates next to Shi Yunmu and immediately grinned, flashing a standard, bright smile: “Hello everyone, hello! You’re all sister-in-law’s classmates, right? I’m his friend!”

The classmates, who didn’t know the inside story, blankly returned the greeting. One by one, their excited, gossiping eyes darted toward Shi Yunmu, not daring to make it too obvious especially since the school hunk was still glaring at them resentfully from over there.

The monitor, who did know the inside story, remained perfectly composed and even shook hands with Ming He: “Hello, I’m the monitor of Shi Yunmu’s class.”

Ming He was incredibly familiar with people, and before long, he had become fast friends with these classmates across Shi Yunmu.

Shi Yunmu coughed, pulling the enthusiastic Ming He away, and tilted his chin toward the position of the young man who had bumped into him. “I want to ask, do you know him?”

He really wanted to figure out who this man was.

Ming He looked over and shook his head in confusion: “Don’t know him.”

“I know him.” The monitor, hearing their conversation, chimed in.

Two pairs of eyes turned toward the monitor simultaneously, speaking in unison: “You know him?”

The monitor said quizzically, “Most students at C University should know him. He’s a pretty famous senior named Zhou Shuyan.”

“His GPA is exceptionally high, ranked a lonely first in his year. Plus, he was directly admitted to graduate school, interned at Hera twice, and served as the student union president… In short, he has a lot of honors. I heard his family is also very rich. He’s practically the textbook definition of a winner in life.”

Zhou Shuyan? Zhou Shuyan!

Hiding on Shi Yunmu’s left shoulder, Xiao Wei sensed the youth’s surprise and asked in a tiny voice: “Master, you know him?”

More than just knowing him, Shi Yunmu had actually read the story of his romance with Shi Yubai! Wasn’t this precisely one of the three men intertwined in a web of love, hatred, and deep emotions with Shi Yubai in that melodramatic novel?

If Shi Yunmu remembered correctly, Zhou Shuyan should be the main love interest of the book, the one who ultimately won the beauty’s heart. It was evident from the descriptions how much favoritism the author showed toward Zhou Shuyan: while the other two men pursued Shi Yubai relentlessly and stubbornly just to get a single glance, only Zhou Shuyan was someone Shi Yubai actively approached.

Cupping his face in his hands, Shi Yunmu scanned Zhou Shuyan up and down.

His aura and his reputation both perfectly matched the status of a main love interest.

Zhou Shuyan was lowering his head and smiling as he talked with Shi Yubai, looking quite harmonious.

Given that he hadn’t provoked him yet, Shi Yunmu generously placed Zhou Shuyan into the “pending observation” category.

After the presentation ended, the audience slowly poured out like a tide.

Not daring to lose track of Shi Yunmu, Ming He seized the time in the crowd to ask, “Sister-in-law, are you going back now? I can drive you.”

To his surprise, Shi Yunmu shook his head: “You go back first, I don’t plan on going back.”

“Then where are you going, sister-in-law?” Ming He was bewildered.

Shi Yunmu said, “I’ll stay in the dorm.”

He hadn’t checked out of the dorm yet anyway. He might as well stay there for a while to annoy the original owner’s roommates first.

Ming He agreed verbally: “Oh oh, okay!” Turning around, he instantly reported this news to Lu Que.

Soon, on his way back to the dorm, Shi Yunmu received a message from Lu Que.

L: [Not coming back?]

Discovering the blind spot, Xiao Wei immediately began tattling: “Hey, Master, that brat Ming He snitched on you!”

Shi Yunmu also agreed with Xiao Wei’s assessment: “How mischievous.”

Just as he was about to type something to give him a piece of his mind, another message popped up from the other side: What a pity, I was planning to cook for you tonight.

The groceries are already bought.

Shi Yunmu: “…”

He would endure this!

His fingers flying, the youth quickly typed: Hubby, I’m just staying for a week and then I’ll come back

Jellocloud: Will there still be food then?

L: ……

L: Yes.

Jellocloud: Love you, hubby! (′‵)

It just so happened that formal classes for the academy would begin in two or three days. Looking at the morning classes scheduled from Monday to Friday, Shi Yunmu shook his head: Fortunately, I decided to stay in the dorm for a week to get used to a human university.

But having no communication with his roommates was undoubtedly a fatal blow to a slime who actually quite liked to talk.

However, he also had solutions: first, bullying Xiao Wei, and second, harassing Lu Que.

Looking at his chat window with Lu Que, it was densely packed with “hubby.”

From being a bit resistant at the beginning, Lu Que could now calmly ignore it.

If it weren’t for Shi Yunmu’s classes increasing, he probably would have continued to harass Lu Que for a while longer.

The bed curtains blocked out the bright daylight. Shi Yunmu wrapped himself inside his bed, transformed into his original form, and used a tentacle to fiddle with his phone, logging into the Monster Forum app.

Xiao Wei was sleeping next to him.

Ever since he saw such an app on Zhou Shuyan’s phone, Shi Yunmu had taken it to heart. It took some effort before he managed to find it…it was filled with discussions about monsters, practically acting as a miniature monster research society.

Interestingly, unlike the monsters who knew each other’s species names, humans didn’t seem to understand the names of most monsters. Therefore, they ranked them by levels from highest to lowest using S, A, B, C, D, E, F for discussion.

“I wonder what role Zhou Shuyan plays in here,” Shi Yunmu pondered secretly while browsing through the forum posts.

He had set up a visitor account inside with a string of code as his username, blending perfectly into the forum.

As he was scrolling, the sound of a door opening came from below the bed. It was his roommates returning from their elective class. They were chatting, completely unaware that a ball of slime was shrunk behind the bed curtains.

“Have you guys heard about that new urban legend at our school?” a roommate said, putting his backpack on the chair with great excitement.

Another roommate replied, “No, what legend? Tell me.”

“Sigh, they say that if you stay in the snack street until midnight, when all those shops have closed up, you’ll encounter a pack of night hunters!”

“Hunters? Do you have to be so chuunibyou?”

“You don’t understand! Those giant monster birds are terrifying! I saw someone on Xiaohongshu say this bird has three legs and is a crow messenger sent by the devil; others say the bird has no eyes and its eye sockets are filled with mycelium; some even say the bird’s beak is covered in mushrooms… And furthermore, some people say that after seeing these birds, bizarre things will happen! Like seeing people who died long ago, or seeing wandering demons. Tsk tsk, it’s giving me goosebumps just talking about it.”

The roommate who answered him clearly didn’t believe it: “You guys have read too many novels, where would giant monster birds come from.”

The roommate telling the story firmly believed it was true: “What I’m saying is all true! If you don’t believe me, let’s go check it out at midnight!”

“You go ahead, I’m not interested.”

“…You’re just chicken!”

“Bullshit! Your daddy here has the biggest guts, I’m always the one walking in front during escape rooms!”

Gradually, the roommates’ topic drifted toward “are you my dad or am I your dad” and “who exactly has bigger guts.” The slime listened with great relish, and the moving tentacle just happened to scroll to a certain post.

“Help… Has any netizen seen this type of monster before? [Image]”

Gaining a bit of interest, Shi Yunmu clicked inside, met head-on by a high-definition close-up photo: a monster stood on a tree branch; though it retained the basic form of a crow, most of its feathers had fallen off, exposing skin covered in coarse, bark-like dark fungal scabs. Mycelium covered its eyes to form an ocular membrane, and a cluster of pale little mushrooms continuously scattering glowing spores grew around its beak base and eye sockets; its claws were exceptionally thick, sharp, and covered in a layer of dark, crystallized keratin.

Shi Yunmu rubbed his non-existent chin in his slime form: Isn’t this just a Shroom Crow!

He immediately left a comment: It’s a Shroom Crow. It’s afraid of fire, tastes delicious, and smells very fragrant when roasted!

After commenting, Shi Yunmu enlarged the image to look for other clues in the photo. Even though the uploader had intentionally blurred the environment, Shi Yunmu still possessed fiery eyes and crystal-clear vision, discovering a pixelated storefront sign in the bottom left corner: it seemed to be the number one must-eat place on the snack street recommended by the monitor a few days ago.

The slime’s eyes couldn’t help but light up: Could it be that the Shroom Crows are the hunters in the snack street urban legend?

Say no more! He was going straight there for an all-you-can-eat snack buffet!

Solving the Shroom Crows was a responsibility the slime gladly accepted!

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