Chapter 615: Chapter 634: Her Success, Nothing But Opportunism
The incident wasn’t a huge deal, nor was it a laughing matter, but it was incredibly grating.
Meng Chun and Liu Tingting went to the cafeteria closest to the simulator room. Since their class ended around the same time, they rode the same Hovercar as the other students from class A1.
In the cafeteria, they all ended up sitting near each other.
It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but once they started eating, a few people at the next table started making sarcastic, backhanded comments.
"Backhanded comments about me?" Jiang Qiuqiu looked up, her eyes questioning.
Liu Tingting hummed in affirmation. "They actually said you didn’t deserve to win today."
Not that she shouldn’t have won, but that she didn’t *deserve* to win.
Just hearing those two words, "didn’t deserve," was enough to make anyone furious.
"What gives them the right to say that?" Liu Tingting pressed her lips together. "Teacher Mao clearly stated that the difficulty of the maneuvers was the same for everyone!"
Those guys at the bottom of the ranking were almost thirty seconds behind Qiuqiu. Was that a tiny gap? You could fit another person’s turn in that time!
"Besides, talking about people behind their backs is just trashy." Liu Tingting fumed. "If they felt it was unfair because of the different gravity settings, why couldn’t they have said something to Teacher Mao during class?"
If they’d spoken up in class, you would at least have to respect them for having some guts.
But to just whine and complain next to her roommate during a meal, and with such a contemptuous tone... that was just the lowest of the low.
The more she spoke, the angrier she became. Jiang Qiuqiu looked at her and said, "Tingting, don’t be angry. It’s not worth getting worked up over people like that."
"...What do you mean, not worth it? Cursing them out a bit more will make me happy!" She huffed, then stomped over to her bed.
The matter seemed to die down as Jiang Qiuqiu calmly ate her meal. But just after nightfall, Liu Tingting, who had just showered and was lying on her bed, shot bolt upright.
As a pro-level internet surfer, she was scrolling through the Federation University’s Mecha community forums when she came across the tag #StreamerJiangQiuqiu. The moment she saw it, her heart sank. ’This can’t be good.’
Sure enough, she clicked on it and saw more false, negative news.
Those guys who came in last in class today had actually posted about the afternoon’s lesson on the forums. They conveniently omitted the fact that the maneuvers were identical for everyone, cherry-picking details that made them look good.
Things like—
[A famous female streamer gets into the Federation University Mecha Single Soldier System. During a standardized training exercise, we all had to pilot R3-level Mechas while she alone got an A3. How is that a fair competition!?]
[And it’s a competition for credits. I’m losing one credit a day. Heh.]
[So small competitions don’t have to be fair? I’m gonna puke. Or is it just because she has a huge fanbase?]
[I don’t even get how a natural person was admitted into Class A. I asked around, and her spiritual power is *only* A-level. Tee hee.]
Fairness was an eternal topic of debate at the university.
Their brief comments were filled with insinuation. When people heard "famous female streamer," the first thing they thought of was a pretty face. An A-level Mecha Soldier piloting an A3 Mecha... wasn’t that the definition of all show and no substance? And pitting an A3 against an R3...
Replies quickly started popping up, asking which class the original poster was in and who their teacher was.
They probably knew that Teacher Mao was a treasure at the university, a high-level Mecha Soldier who couldn’t be trifled with, so they quickly absolved him of any blame: [Our teacher is totally upright, famous for it. This is all on the streamer.]
Because so many different factors were involved, the thread quickly started attracting more and more people.
Class A had a lot of students, and the post gave plenty of details, so by the time the thread reached thirty or forty replies, everyone had figured out they were talking about Jiang Qiuqiu.
Her name was one that inspired envy; after all, she had earned the title of "Outstanding Soldier" during military training, an honor given to only ten cadets.
But it was also a name that easily bred resentment—
