Before I could say anything, Wang Mian suddenly changed the topic."Aurora, do you really live alone in your dorm?"
I nodded, a little helpless."Yeah. It's supposed to be a four-person dorm, but so far, not even a ghost has shown up. They say it's a system error, but apparently no one in the academy wants to switch with me."
Wang Mian raised a brow. "Afraid you'll snore too loud in your mech suit at night?""Get lost." I rolled my eyes. "They're just scared of the pressure."
Ethan rested his chin on his hand and smiled, amused. "Sounds perfect to me. Peace and quiet. If it were me, I'd have moved in already."
"Move in?" I narrowed my eyes. "You think too highly of yourself. My room has rent."
Both of them blinked."What do you mean?"
I kept my face serious. "Three thousand a night. Includes utilities, a private balcony, and the best view for late-night wall-jumping."
Wang Mian almost spat out his soup. "Three thousand?! What is this, a dorm or a luxury resort?"
"Rarity has value," I said, shrugging. "Besides..."
I pointed outside the window at the gloomy sky. "You ever notice how Nightmare Academy gets damp, cold, and eerily quiet at night? One person sleeping alone in that? Terrifying."
Ethan pretended to think it over. "So, what, we're supposed to help you ward off ghosts?"
"Of course not." I smirked.
"You'd be there as emotional support. Paid, naturally. A friendship-based companionship service."
Wang Mian collapsed over the table, laughing. "Aurora, you're unbelievable. You'd monetize your own heartbeat if you could."
"Can't help it," I said lazily, biting my straw.
"The next-gen mech parts cost a fortune. That fifty thousand won't last forever. Once the mental sync core starts negotiating prices, even my tuition will have to go toward deposits."
Ethan knocked on the table, grinning. "Alright, I'll rent it. But I need to see if it's worth the price first."
"Deal." I lifted my chin, flashing a crisp smile. "But payment's upfront, no refunds, no exchanges."
Wang Mian sighed. "You're the definition of a merchant turned mech engineer."
I spread my hands. "That's called balance—brains and business."
After lunch, the three of us headed toward the dorms, joking the whole way. Nightmare Academy's dorm buildings looked more like a military base, thick gray alloy walls, white cold lighting, and metal doors that hissed open and shut automatically.
"I'm kind of curious now," Ethan said, hands in his pockets, that usual lazy grin on his face.
"Let's see what kind of five-star suite costs three thousand a night."
"Don't get your hopes up," I muttered.
"If the system hadn't glitched, I'd probably be in a six-person room fighting for hot water."
I swiped my card. The door slid open, releasing a soft blue glow. Wang Mian and Ethan both stopped dead.
It wasn't luxurious, but it was spotless, organized to perfection. Energy conduits ran neatly along the walls, pulsing with steady current. The floor was soundproof composite; even footsteps were swallowed.
By the window sat my workbench, piled with metal scraps, energy chips, and screwdrivers. A half-dismantled mech arm rested beside them, faint light flickering in the grooves along its shell.
"Whoa," Ethan whistled. "This looks more like a lab than a dorm."
"That's my mech bay," I corrected him, pushing open another alloy door. Inside was a compact storage room lined with spare power cores, exoskeleton parts, and a few rare materials I'd borrowed from the underground arena.
Wang Mian reached out to touch one, only for a spark to snap against his fingers. He yelped and jumped back."Damn, did you install a security field?!"
"Of course," I said, grinning. "You never know who might try to steal parts in the night."
Ethan wandered to the window and noticed how it directly faced the outer wall of the academy, with the city lights glittering beyond.He cracked it open, and a gust of wind swept in, carrying the scent of the street outside."No wonder you called it a wall-jumping view."
"Sometimes," I said, leaning on the window frame with a smile, "you have to see the world from the wrong side of the wall to really taste freedom."
Wang Mian raised an eyebrow. "What's that, contraband philosophy?"
"No," I swirled my drink, smirking. "Experience."
We all exchanged a look, then burst out laughing.
Ethan flopped onto my makeshift sofa, stitched together from old shielding fabric—and sighed. "Three thousand a night? Honestly… kind of worth it."
"Of course it is," I said with a half-smile. "This is the only dorm in the academy with a built-in escape hatch."
"Escape hatch?" Wang Mian blinked.I pointed to a narrow alloy seam behind the workbench. "In an emergency, you can slide right out of the wall. Want to try it? Trial run, five hundred."
Wang Mian rubbed his forehead. "Now I understand how you survived that battle royale."
Ethan was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. "She didn't win with strength—she won with broke genius."
"Wrong," I said, smiling faintly. "It's called survival instinct."
The wind carried the city lights into the room, casting three shadows across the floor. For a moment, our laughter echoed through the dorm, carefree, young, and just a little bit sharp.None of us knew then that this so-called "Money-Making Dorm" would soon become the place where fate started to shift.