Chapter 89: Salted Fish Lying Flat, Chapter Eighty-Nine

It had actually been a long time since Zhu Rong played Virtual Mecha.

She spent the vast majority of her time immersed in the 80% Mecha Combat game recommended by Lu Yuan… including now.

However, she hadn’t logged in to play games this time.

Now was not the time for gaming. She had just finished discussing future arrangements with Geshu Ming, confirming their next destination and obtaining her new identity. Her life was about to undergo a massive change, which required some preparation and a bit of closure.

The StarNet account Zhu Rong was currently using for the game had been provided by Ying Xun. This account actually belonged to the Star Pirate Syndicate and wasn’t bound to her personal identity.

Once she obtained her own identity, she would inevitably receive a new StarNet account bound to her personal DNA. This meant she would have to switch to a new account to log into the game.

Zhu Rong didn’t mind starting from scratch. However, it would be a real waste to simply discard everything she had accumulated in the game during this period.

Actually, she and Siming had considered whether they should just bind her current account to her new identity. But doing so would make it easier for loopholes to appear, potentially leading someone to discover that their new identities were fake. Although the possibility was slim, it really wasn’t worth being exposed for the sake of some trivial items in a game.

Therefore, Zhu Rong planned to give her belongings away – to the guild she was currently in.

However, giving things away was also a bit of a hassle.

The game didn’t have an online trading system. To give items to others, one had to hand them over face-to-face or leave them in a specific location for the other person to pick up.

Since Zhu Rong wanted to give everything to the guild, she naturally had to choose the latter method.

Right now, she was pulling everything out of her storage button and stuffing it into the guild’s storage room.

Storage buttons were bound to account information; no one could open another player’s storage button.

This was a strategy the game used to reduce infighting among players. Being unable to open someone else’s storage button meant you couldn’t steal their things. Under these circumstances, fighting with others became much less meaningful.

Of course, that didn’t mean there was no conflict. People fought for reasons beyond just profit – there was competition, hatred… and even simple hobby.

But that had little to do with Zhu Rong. For the time being, she wasn’t considering switching to being a PvP player. Hunting wild monsters was quite fun, and cooperating with others to take down monsters was also very enjoyable.

Back to the point, because no one could open another person’s storage button, Zhu Rong couldn’t just leave the button itself in the guild’s locker. If she did, no one would be able to access the items inside.

This made the task of sharing her belongings much more complicated.

It was also quite time-consuming.

Although she hadn’t been playing here for very long, her harvest was actually quite substantial.

It took her a long time to categorize and store her items properly. When Zhu Rong finally emerged from the storage room, only a single Mecha remained in her storage button.

Mechas and storage buttons were bound to the character and could not be given away.

Just outside the storage room was the guild lounge, where two people were resting. Both were members of the Firefly guild – Zhu Rong had joined Firefly long ago at Xiao Lu’s invitation.

Seeing Zhu Rong come out, both of them greeted her.

They were familiar faces. When Zhu Rong first entered the game, she had encountered several people. One of the people sitting here now was someone she had met back then.

He had yellow hair and came from the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud. His name was Jeremy… he seemed to be a fan of Lu Yuan and knew many of Lu Yuan’s exploits in the game like the back of his hand.

Precisely because he seemed to know so much about Lu Yuan, Zhu Rong had chatted with him a couple of times after joining Firefly and had even cooperated with him to hunt monsters.

Seeing Zhu Rong emerge, Jeremy looked up with a grin. “What took you so long? Putting away a lot of stuff?”

“Mhm.” Zhu Rong nodded, then thought for a moment and explained, “I won’t be coming back anymore.”

Jeremy was stunned. He pushed back his chair and stood up, looking concerned. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“It’s nothing.” Zhu Rong shook her head. “I’m starting middle school.”

“…Is middle school in your Galactic Empire that competitive? You can’t even play games?” Jeremy asked in disbelief.

“It’s not about being competitive,” Zhu Rong said. “Our middle school offers many professions for us to experience. The game is fun, but I want to try other things too. We’ll see; I’ll still come play if I have time.”

She wasn’t lying, exactly. However, starting junior high had no actual causal relationship with leaving the game.

But since she couldn’t reveal the true reason, she could only use this as an excuse.

Jeremy and the others were a bit reluctant to see her go. Although they hadn’t known Zhu Rong for long and her personality was somewhat cold, meaning they weren’t particularly close, they still liked her. She had a good temperament, was an excellent mecha pilot, and despite her silence and young age, she was incredibly reliable.

Furthermore, there weren’t many people in this game to begin with. Every departure was a loss.

But since Zhu Rong insisted on leaving, there was nothing they could do. After a few words of parting and a final meal together at a restaurant in the safe zone, they said their goodbyes.

By the time Zhu Rong logged out of the game, Siming had already completed the other preparations. He was simply waiting for Geshu Ming’s arrangements to depart for Planet Muse.

Geshu Ming had already coordinated with members of the Geshu Family to prepare two sets of fake identities for them.

The Geshu Family had the right connections, so finding two domestic fake identities wasn’t difficult. The slightly tricky part was that since the two of them would be traveling together, their identities needed to have a familial relationship. On the other hand, the ages of these identities had to be comparable to their actual ages.

The identities Geshu Ming chose for them were a pair of siblings. The older brother was thirty-one, and the younger sister was eleven. The age gap was a bit large, but it was just barely within a reasonable range-at least it was better than a father-daughter dynamic, as one almost never saw anyone under twenty having children in the Galactic Empire nowadays.

The siblings grew up on Chenze Star, a planet within the Capital Star system famous for its swamps and wetlands.

Due to the lush aquatic vegetation, many rare birds lived there. The most famous among them was the Rosy-Feathered Luan, which possessed long, gorgeous feathers that transitioned from a pale pink at the root to a deep crimson at the tip, with gold-tinted edges. When a large flock of Rosy-Feathered Luans spread their wings and swept through the sky, it looked like a drifting sunset cloud.

The new identities were siblings living on the edge of a wetland.

The brother was an obscure writer. He loved writing and made a living from it. Although his household registration was on Chenze Star, he didn’t live there often, frequently traveling to gather inspiration. As for where exactly he went for his research, no one knew.

The sister wasn’t the brother’s biological sibling. He had found her and raised her. Her health was poor, and since her brother was often away, she frequently took leaves of absence and rarely spent time at school. Fortunately, she was very bright and passed all her courses with high marks. Chenze Star was a small place with lax school management, so no one paid it much mind.

Such a background ensured that these two identities had a minimal social circle. Not many people knew or remembered them, so the possibility of their identities being compromised was very low.

Additionally, the persona of a writer who frequently traveled for research ensured that no matter what profession Siming engaged in, it wouldn’t seem out of place. He could simply use the excuse of experiencing life to gather material. If he wanted to change careers, he could just say he fell in love with the profession while researching it.

The reason for the pair moving was also ready-made: the educational conditions on Chenze Star were mediocre, and since the sister had reached the age for junior high, they were leaving Chenze Star so she could attend school elsewhere.

Furthermore, when the Geshu Family created these identities, they added a hidden detail-

The brother was actually a scion of a branch of the Geshu Family. The reason he lived under a pseudonym on Chenze Star was that his family didn’t support his novel writing.

This was because the brother’s identity was thirty-one years old. While it was normal for someone to live alone for a decade and not know many people, it would be strange for someone to live for over thirty years without any friends or relatives.

With this added layer of identity, if someone were to investigate deeply, the “true identity” they discovered would only lead back to the Geshu Family. At that point, the Geshu Family could naturally intervene and stop the investigation, preventing their actual identities from being exposed.

All in all, Siming was very satisfied after seeing the details of these two identities.

In fact, Geshu Ming had indeed done her best to select the most suitable identities. After all, she harbored a glimmer of hope, suspecting that Siming and his companion might be related to Lu Yuan. As long as it didn’t endanger her, she wanted to provide them with the best possible conditions.

The only issue was that Siming had to change his name.

Zhu Rong, however, didn’t need to.

This was because in the two fake identities, the “brother” happened to have the surname Zhu. According to the backstory, after the “sister” was found, the brother had considered that her parents might come looking for her one day, so he hadn’t given her his surname and only gave her a nickname.

A decade had passed with no one coming for her, and the brother had gradually given up hope. As the sister grew older and more sensible, she was willing to take her brother’s surname. Therefore, taking the opportunity of the move and the re-registration of their household records to change the sister’s name was perfectly logical.

When Geshu Ming handed the identification over to Siming, she had already finalized the arrangements and procedures for the name change. Once they reached Planet Muse, Siming would be able to change the girl’s name back to “Zhu Rong.”

Siming himself had no real reason to change his name again. He didn’t mind the situation and planned to simply use the name on the fake ID: Zhu Xiuming.

Geshu Ming had already collected their DNA. Members of the Geshu Family would be responsible for updating the gene bank, replacing the DNA sequences associated with the two fake identities with their actual genetic data.

At the same time, Geshu Ming booked tickets for a starship traveling from Chenze Star to Planet Muse. Two people were already aboard that ship, traveling under the names “Zhu Xiuming” and “Zhu Rong.” The starship was scheduled to make a stop near the Sea Eagle Nebula, where those two individuals would disembark to “rest,” allowing Siming and Zhu Rong to take their places.

This process had been confirmed with Siming beforehand. He had no objections at all; on the contrary, he was extremely satisfied.

As for Geshu Qing, he had no need for a fake identity.

As a young master of the Geshu Family and Geshu Ming’s younger brother, he would return to the Capital Star with the Geshu Family fleet to officially take his place as a member of the family.