CHAPTER 45: 045 ZERO EGG: YOU DON’T MIND IF I EXPOSE A FEW MORE OF YOUR SECRETS, RIGHT? _1

"It’s Wen Jiang," her roommate said, deliberately raising her phone. "Just search online, and you’ll know. The Mount Flower Association just released the competition roster, and Wen Jiang’s photo is on it."

"Guan Xixi, aren’t you good friends with Wen Jiang? How could you not know about something so big?"

Guan Xixi was too shaken to care about her roommate’s sarcasm. Trembling, she took out her phone and, sure enough, saw Wen Jiang’s information in the Mount Flower Association’s latest announcement:

*Wen Jiang: B-Level Spirit Card Master, signed with the Mount Flower Association the day before yesterday, directly participating in the Dongzhou Partition League.*

Guan Xixi’s eyes widened.

No, impossible! Wen Jiang couldn’t possibly be a Spirit Card Master. She knew this better than anyone. If she were a Spirit Card Master, would Wu Fanjia have bullied her so badly before? Even though Wu Fanjia is an A-Level Spirit Card Master, if Wen Jiang had possessed any leverage, Wu Fanjia wouldn’t have targeted her, such an easy mark. Besides, becoming a Spirit Card Master, especially one capable of participating in major tournaments, meant her future prospects would be immense.

Guan Xixi went limp and slumped back into her chair.

How... how could this be possible?!

No wonder she’s changed so much. Is it because she became a Spirit Card Master that she now looks down on ordinary people like us?

Thinking this way seemed to make Guan Xixi feel a little better, allowing her to ignore the fact that she had been the one to treat Wen Jiang with such duplicity first.

Seeing Guan Xixi lower her head, her expression unreadable, the roommates exchanged glances and curled their lips.

She calls herself a good friend, yet she’s upset because Wen Jiang became a Spirit Card Master and didn’t tell her. Can someone like that really be a good friend? Wen Jiang previously said Guan Xixi was scheming behind her back. Could that actually be true?

Suddenly, Guan Xixi lifted her head.

"The Dongzhou Partition League is just so-so. Maybe the association gave her a chance because she’s a newcomer?" she said with a forced smile. "Besides, the Mount Flower Association has never even ranked in the top three in the Dongzhou Partition League. But, I’m happy for her that she has such an opportunity."

As ordinary people who often followed card competitions, they were quite familiar with the level of these events.

The roommates: "..."

After an awkward silence, one of them suddenly snickered. "Guan Xixi, if you’re not happy, just admit it. Besides, how do you know she can’t make the top three? I’ve seen analysts saying that the Mount Flower Association hasn’t been doing well lately. The fact that they’d let a newcomer directly enter the league indicates she must be very strong. What if she actually wins the championship?"

"Impossible!"

Guan Xixi absolutely refused to believe it. "The Mount Flower Association has never made the top three. If she’s that strong, why didn’t she go to another association?"

Realizing she might have lost her composure, Guan Xixi lowered her head, reined in her agitation, and forced herself to quietly resume reading.

But her trembling hands betrayed her inner turmoil.

First Song Yingchen, and now she’s a Spirit Card Master. Wen Jiang, how can your luck be so good? What right do you have to such good fortune?

「The competition was starting in two days.」

From the moment her identity was made public, Wen Jiang knew that Song Yingchen and the others would learn about her. She also anticipated that some people might try to cause trouble.

And, just as she expected, they did.

Once someone becomes a public figure, their information is inevitably dug up. Thus, the news that Wen Jiang had been expelled from Imperial City Noble University spread like wildfire.

The Association’s fans went into an uproar.

The previous day had already seen a commotion about Wen Jiang being a "parachuted-in" competitor, though thankfully, players like Xiang Yi had spoken up, affirming her strength.

But if she was strong, there were naturally those who didn’t want to see her succeed.

So, this piece of gossip was circulated, fraying the fans’ nerves.

In this world, the reverence for Nobility was extremely distorted. If someone was expelled from a Noble University, people wouldn’t assume it was the school’s fault; they would inevitably conclude that the individual must be ’tainted.’

The instigators cleverly concealed the fact that Wen Jiang had been bullied, using only insinuations to ’prove’ her expulsion.

How could a girl expelled from a Noble University suddenly transform into a competitor for the Mount Flower Association?

Moreover, the mud-slinging tactics were the same old ones, especially effective against young women, who were easily linked to unsavory rumors. Soon, ’insiders’ began ’exposing’ Wen Jiang’s supposedly promiscuous private life as the reason for her expulsion from university.

Some people naturally found an outlet for their frustrations.

The whole situation was quite preposterous. Any sensible person knew that a Spirit Card Master’s true abilities would be revealed in the arena, especially since the competition was only two days away.

However, because the Mount Flower Association had a history—four of its players had once ganged up to exclude a star player—even the most outrageous scenarios seemed plausible to the fans. Thus, malicious parties seized upon Wen Jiang’s situation to make a big issue out of it.

Their ultimate goal might not have been to disqualify Wen Jiang, but to subject her to a barrage of public criticism, thereby affecting her performance in the competition.

#

- "No wonder she could just parachute in like that. Turns out she used connections."

- "Mount Flower is really finished. It’s bad enough they’re declining, but now they’re even messing around in lower-tier competitions? Daring to give a participant slot to a newcomer?"

- "So, just because the Dongzhou Partition League isn’t prestigious, they can mess around however they want, right?"

- "I’ve got inside info: this Wen Jiang didn’t go through any selection process; she was directly appointed. That’s outrageous! Do all the solo competitors in their B-Level Group agree? Were their opinions even sought?"

The B-Level Group: *We were asked! We really, really were!!!*

If they hadn’t witnessed Wen Jiang’s capabilities firsthand, they certainly would have been uneasy too. But just as Xiang Yi had frankly admitted to not being up to the task, it made perfect sense to let the stronger Wen Jiang compete; everyone was in agreement.

Mount Flower wasn’t acting recklessly either. Ding Ruijie had already stated that she consulted other coaches before daring to make such a decision.

Ding Ruijie hadn’t expected such a huge controversy to be stirred up right before the competition. She and her colleagues were seasoned veterans and quickly understood the purpose behind it.

Wen Jiang’s identity wasn’t the main issue; what mattered was that she was a rival to other competitors. Stirring up trouble like this before the competition even began was intended to incite fans to attack Wen Jiang and disrupt her mental state.

Wen Jiang had never participated in such a large-scale event before. A newcomer’s mentality is the most vulnerable; if her composure shattered, her performance in the competition would naturally follow.

Truly vile intentions.

Although Xiang Yi’s comment that Wen Jiang was strong had attested to her abilities, it had also inadvertently put others on alert.

Not every competitor would choose an honorable path; some, desperate to win, would resort to any tactic imaginable.

Incidents of news manipulation designed to shatter a competitor’s mindset before a competition weren’t unheard of. The most infamous case involved an S-Level Player from the Yunxia Empire who, during a world-class tournament, was so psychologically targeted that they almost lost control and killed a teammate.

The moment Ding Ruijie received the news, she immediately mobilized the Mount Flower public relations department and also called Wen Jiang.

Her tone was somewhat probing as she asked, "Wen Jiang, you haven’t seen the news online, have you?"

"I’m looking at it now," Wen Jiang replied.

Ding Ruijie: "..."

With Zero Egg around, how could Wen Jiang possibly be unaware of all this?

Zero Egg was cackling internally. Watch me trade insults with these little runts for eight hundred rounds! I’ve already collected dozens of Points from them. I never thought your bad press could be this beneficial! Host, you wouldn’t mind if I dig up a few more of your ’dark secrets,’ would you?

Wen Jiang: "..."