Chapter 404: Going to the World

"Heheh!" Having successfully lured her eldest brother and his two guards onto the black train, Jiang Xiaoyue was practically bursting with smug satisfaction. Glancing back at Jiang Xuan, who was now utterly engrossed in his game, she even began to hum a little tune as she skipped along, "No more school for me, no more school..."

"Yikes!" As she passed by Boss Fang, she suddenly let out a sharp cry of surprise.

"Boss, why are you grabbing my collar?!" She spun around, glaring at him with a face full of indignation.

"Did this boss ever say you didn't have to go to school?" Boss Fang inquired, his tone remarkably solemn.

"Huh?!" Jiang Xiaoyue stared at Fang Qi, her face a perfect picture of absolute bewilderment.

"What do you mean, 'huh'?!" Boss Fang sat on the sofa, adopting a rare, completely serious posture.

"This princess is perfectly happy staying right here, so why on earth should I go to some school?" Jiang Xiaoyue scoffed delicately. "What's so great about school anyway? You can't learn half as much there as you can here."

"Of course school doesn't teach as much as my shop," Boss Fang agreed. "So, do you really intend to mind the counter for this boss forever?"

"If that's truly the case..." Boss Fang continued, "then whenever this boss goes out to have fun, you can just stay right here and keep watching the shop."

"No way!" Jiang Xiaoyue instantly protested, raising her voice. "I want to go out and play too!"

A seed of suspicion finally bloomed in Jiang Xiaoyue's mind. She began pacing around Boss Fang, circling him repeatedly before suddenly crying out in delighted surprise, "Boss, are you planning to go out and have fun?! I want to go too!"

Though going out meant she wouldn't be able to feast on delicious snacks, sitting at the counter every day playing games and handling the register did occasionally make her long for a change of scenery.

But...

"What does that have to do with going to school?!" Jiang Xiaoyue demanded. "Besides, that Haotian Academy is so far away. If I go, I won't be able to come back!"

To travel from the Haotian Academy to the border, then utilize a special teleportation array to reach the Desolate Sea Realm, and finally cross the vast ocean to arrive at the Dajin Kingdom... by then, even making a single trip would likely prove incredibly difficult.

If it were merely a matter of going back, it might be fine, but if she had to attend school, wouldn't that mean...

Wouldn't she be saddled with tedious homework every single day? When would she ever find the time to come back?!

"I don't want to..." The young girl pouted her lips, tugging at Boss Fang's hand as she began to coax and act cute.

Boss Fang remained entirely unmoved. "When this boss was your age, I was a Triple-A student every single year."

"Hmph! What even is a Triple-A student?! Aren't you just an elementary schooler?!" Jiang Xiaoyue stamped her foot fiercely, then ran over to hide behind Jiang Xuan.

Deep in his game, Jiang Xuan noticed Jiang Xiaoyue's tearful, dejected face and instantly grew furious. "Little sister, did someone bully you? Do not fear, your eldest brother will teach him a lesson for you!"

"It's that wretched, awful boss!" Jiang Xiaoyue cried, stamping her little feet.

"The boss...?" Jiang Xuan looked utterly perplexed. Weren't the two of you just standing united in a common front a moment ago, completely abandoning your own brother?!

"The boss is making me go to school! Waaah...!" Jiang Xiaoyue was practically on the verge of tears. She had fought so hard to stop her brother from taking her back to school, and now the boss had actually defected to the enemy side?!

It was absolutely infuriating.

"Hahaha!" Jiang Xuan instantly burst into delighted laughter. "Though I admired Brother Fang's profound cultivation and his wondrous techniques and martial arts, I ultimately thought him too unreasonable. But now it seems I completely misjudged him."

"Boss Fang is truly a man of broad mind and grand spirit, a true hero among men!" He offered a wave of mutual praise first.

Only then did he speak up: "Eldest brother just tried playing this 'Devil May Cry 3', and it is indeed extraordinary. However... you are still young after all, and there are many things that simply cannot be learned from a game (ranging from basic human etiquette and social interaction to actual societal experience). Furthermore, the elders of Haotian Academy teach students according to their natural talents, and they can guide you thoroughly through various fields of knowledge. Take the Quicksilver style's blue flame from 'Devil May Cry 3' for instance—how much of it does my little sister actually comprehend?"

Jiang Xiaoyue scratched her head in embarrassment. "I use it rather mindlessly; it works perfectly fine inside the game, but once I step out, I don't understand it at all."

"Exactly so," Jiang Xuan said solemnly. "A tower of ten thousand feet rises from the ground; fully mastering a high-tier law is not something that can be achieved overnight."

"Moreover, our Jiang family's cultivation techniques were forged through countless years and the painstaking lifeblood of generations of ancestors. It is the method most suited to our Jiang family bloodline, and it is the very root of who we are. It is absolutely not something we, the younger generation, can simply cast aside at a whim."

Jiang Xiaoyue only half-understood, but she simply did not want to go to school, and she was on the verge of throwing a full tantrum.

Right at that moment, she suddenly caught the savory aroma of spicy gluten sticks.

She looked over to see Boss Fang holding out a box of spicy sticks. "Eat a spicy stick to calm your nerves."

"Hmph!" She turned her little face away.

So Boss Fang began to munch away loudly. "Mmm... this spicy, fragrant flavor, blended with the uniquely chewy texture of the gluten, and the crisp aroma of the sesame seeds all mingling together—it is simply... too delicious!"

As a massive foodie, Jiang Xiaoyue could no longer endure it. "...I want to eat! I want to eat!"

She felt a desperate urge to snatch the spicy sticks right out of Boss Fang's hands and devour them all by herself!

"But..." chewing on a spicy stick, her little face fell back into a grimace, "if I go to school, I won't be able to eat such delicious spicy sticks anymore!"

"This boss has already made up his mind." Right then, Boss Fang spoke with grand, sweeping ambition, "This boss's internet cafe is going to expand beyond the Desolate Sea Realm and go global!"

"!!!" Jiang Xiaoyue gasped. "Boss, what did you say?!"

"This boss said, I plan to open this internet cafe outside the Desolate Sea Realm and take it to the world!" Boss Fang announced.

"Ah—!" Jiang Xiaoyue cried out in amazement. "Does that mean I'll still be able to play games and eat snacks after school in the future?!"

"Practice your sword control technique well," Boss Fang advised. "This boss feels... there shouldn't be any problem."

"Well, alright then!" Jiang Xiaoyue finally relented. "This princess will reluctantly agree to go to school!"

Jiang Xuan wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, finally breathing a sigh of relief.

Stealthily, he gave Boss Fang a quiet thumbs-up.

They had finally managed to trick this girl into going to school!

At the same time, having caught a crucial piece of information from Boss Fang's words, he quickly asked, "Boss, you're planning to open a shop outside?"

"Of course." If an internet cafe doesn't have a network connecting it to the world, how can it be worthy of the name?

At this moment, Boss Fang was already envisioning the future scenario when every corner of the world would be connected to the network.

Only then could massive multiplayer online games truly live up to their name.

Though looking at it now, there was still a long and arduous road ahead.

"Then Boss... when are we going out to open the branch shop?" At the mention of this, Jiang Xiaoyue was clearly growing impatient.

Boss Fang countered, "Then when are you going to attend that whatever-it's-called kindergarten?"

"Kinder... garten?!" Jiang Xiaoyue huffed. "What on earth is that? This princess is clearly going to the Haotian Academy!"

"Uh... Haotian Kindergarten?" Boss Fang scratched his head.

Jiang Xiaoyue: "..."

"Next spring," Jiang Xuan answered. "Next spring is exactly when the Haotian Academy begins its term."

"Then this boss will make some preparations and head out a bit early before spring arrives."

.