novelraw Chapter 109: The Fall of the Paper Goddess
Chapter 109: The Fall of the Paper Goddess
Today, The atmosphere of the cafeteria at the university was suffocatingly thick with the scent of expensive perfume and the frantic clicking of smartphone cameras. At the center of the largest table sat Lin Mae, surrounded by a troupe of giggling followers who hung onto her every word.
Mo Chou sat at a quiet, shadowed corner table with Li Chen and Huang Chunhua, peacefully eating her food. She could hear Lin Mae’s voice echoing across the hall—a shrill, practiced tone of fake humility that set Mo Chou’s teeth on edge.
"Honestly, it’s just a natural gift," Lin Mae was saying, projecting her voice so that even the students three rows away would hear. "I didn’t realize beating a pro like Bulletz was such a big deal. I play with one hand most of the time anyway. It’s almost boring how easy the competitive tier is."
Nearby, a younger girl wearing a faded gaming club hoodie was quietly focused on a handheld console, her brow furrowed in concentration. Lin Mae’s eyes drifted toward her, and a sharp, cunning glint appeared.
"Oh, look at this," Lin Mae sneered, standing up and sashaying over. She tapped the girl’s screen with a manicured nail, intentionally disrupting her focus.
"Still stuck on the Level 50 boss? How adorable. Maybe you should just give up, sweetie. Not everyone has the ’Mystic’ touch. You’re just cluttering the server for the real players who actually have talent."
The girl flushed a deep, painful red, ducking her head as Lin Mae’s friends erupted into mean-spirited laughter. "I... I just play for fun," the girl whispered, her voice trembling.
"Fun is for losers who can’t win," Lin Mae snapped, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I’m the best gamer this university has ever seen. I’m the only one who matters in this room."
The cafeteria went suddenly, unnervingly silent. The heavy doors swung open with a force that seemed to drop the room’s temperature by ten degrees.
Lu Jinhai walked in, his presence acting like a vacuum that sucked all the oxygen out of the room. He wasn’t looking for a seat or a meal; his eyes were fixed on a specific table in the far corner.
Lin Mae’s eyes lit up like a predator spotting a prize. She saw the most powerful, untouchable bachelor on campus and immediately shifted into "heroine" mode. She stepped directly into his path, flashing a fake, dimpled smile.
"Jinhai! I heard you were finally back," she purred, reaching out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear in a move that was purely for the benefit of the cameras.
"I was just telling everyone about my ’Mystic’ reveal. Perhaps we could celebrate tonight? I know a very exclusive lounge, and I’m sure a man of your status would appreciate a woman with... elite skills."
Lu Jinhai stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t look at her face; he looked at her hand as if it were a particularly repulsive insect crawling toward him. His expression remained as flat and frozen as a glacier.
"Move," he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a lethal aura that made the students nearby instinctively take a step back.
Lin Mae’s smile faltered, but she pushed on, her ego blinded by the crowd. "Oh, don’t be like that! Surely a Gaming Goddess deserves a moment of your—"
"Goddess?" Jinhai cut her off, his eyes finally meeting hers with a disdain so sharp it felt like a physical blow. "You aren’t a goddess, Lin Mae. You’re a noisy distraction. I’ve seen the real ’Mystic’ play, and you don’t even have the coordination to tie your own shoelaces. Don’t speak to me again. It’s an exhausting waste of my time."
He walked past her without a second glance, heading straight for Mo Chou’s table. The cafeteria was deathly quiet. The "Goddess" had been publicly humiliated in under ten seconds.
Lin Mae’s face turned a mottled, ugly purple. Trembling with humiliation, she whirled around and pointed a trembling finger at the only person she felt safe attacking.
"You!" she shrieked at Mo Chou. "You’re sitting there smugly while your ’pet’ insults me? You’re just a pampered, arrogant little girl, Mo Chou! You’ve never worked a day in your life. You should just stay home, hide in your mansion, and enjoy your daddy’s money instead of wasting space in a university where people actually have to earn their place!"
Mo Chou didn’t look up from her salad. It seemed like these episodes of cafeteria drama would never end. First it was Zhou Lili, now it was this other clown. The funniest thing was that she hadn’t even said a word but had gotten attacked anyway.
She took a slow, deliberate bite of a cherry tomato, chewed, and then turned to Li Chen with an expression of mild confusion.
"Did you hear something, Chen-chen?" Mo Chou asked calmly. "I thought I heard a mosquito buzzing, but it’s a bit late in the season for pests."
"I think it was just a draft of wind," Li Chen replied, her eyes dancing with suppressed glee.
Lin Mae let out a strangled sound of fury, but Mo Chou simply stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out of the cafeteria, ignoring Lin Mae’s existence so completely it was more insulting than any words could have been.
That evening, Mo Chou sat in her darkened study, Mo Li had had it specially renovated to her liking. Her calm eyes reflected the lines of rapidly moving code. She had skipped dinner, her mind already deep in the architecture of the game servers.
She logged into BloodXSurge.
The server was in a state of absolute frenzy. Lin Mae had announced a "Challenge Match" with a massive cash prize to prove her legitimacy.
She had spent the last few weeks secretly being coached by mid-tier pros to polish her skills, and she was currently dominating a public arena while a live audience of thousands watched.
Mo Chou clicked a few keys, bypassing the locks and masking her location. She didn’t use a dummy account this time. She entered the lobby using the ’Mystic’ ID.
The world-chat exploded in a violent rush of text.
[System: ’Mystic’ has entered the Arena.]
User1: Wait, what? There are TWO Mystics?
User2: Lin Mae is in the match! The other one must be an imposter trying to chase clout!
User3: Kick the fake! Lin Mae is our Queen!
Lin Mae’s voice crackled over the global audio, high-pitched and arrogant. "So, another fool who wants to play dress-up? Fine. I’ll humiliate you in front of the whole world. I hope you’re ready to delete your account in shame."
The match started. Lin Mae moved with a decent rhythm—her coaching had clearly paid off. But Mo Chou didn’t move like a human; she moved like a storm. She didn’t speak. She didn’t taunt. She simply glided through the digital battlefield, her character a blur of lethal, silent efficiency.
"Speak up, you coward!" Lin Mae screamed into her mic as Mo Chou launched her tenth attack in a row without breaking a sweat. "You won’t turn on your camera or mic because you’re probably some ugly, shut-in loser who’s jealous of my face! You’re pathetic! Show yourself!"
Mo Chou’s fingers danced across the mechanical keyboard, a rhythmic click-clack that sounded like a ticking clock. She backed Lin Mae into a corner of the digital map, executing a 12-hit combo that only a master could execute.
Lin Mae’s health bar vanished in a literal second.
Mo Chou’s character stood over the fallen avatar. For the first time, Mo Chou pressed the push-to-talk key. Her voice was cold, distorted by a modular filter.
"Game over," she said.
She logged off instantly, leaving a stunned silence in the global chat.
Mo Chou leaned back in her chair, a small, satisfied smirk appearing when she saw the notification: [Cash Prize Transferred: $50,000].
"Well," she murmured, her eyes gleaming with a touch of greed. "At least the trouble was worth the payout. That’s enough for a new gift for Mom."
But she wasn’t done. She opened a second terminal and traced the "Donation Link" Lin Mae had been using to scam the student body under the guise of charity.
With a few clicks, Mo Chou initiated a mass-reversal protocol through the payment gateway.
Across the city, thousands of students received the same notification: [Refund Processed: Fraudulent Activity Detected. Source: Lin Mae Gaming.]
By midnight, the internet was a scorched earth.
Bulletz had posted a single, devastating tweet: "I just watched the replay. The one who fought tonight is the same monster who beat me. The other girl was a big-mouthed fraud in a headset. Mystic is back, and he just took out the trash."
The hashtag #FakeGoddess was trending #1 globally. Lin Mae’s social media accounts were being deleted by the minute as the world condemned her for the scam.
Every news outlet was asking the same question: Where did the real Mystic go, and how did he break the world record twice in one night?
In her room, Mo Chou closed her laptop, tucked her feet under her warm blanket, and fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. She had a midterm test to prepare for tomorrow, after all.
( ´∀`)/~~