Chapter 81: Mom, I Miss You

After returning to the classroom, the next period was political science.

Political science was even simpler; to put it bluntly, it relied solely on memorization. Yang Haoran’s current state was like having a cheat code. After class began, he ignored what the teacher was lecturing and engrossed himself in reading the political science textbook on his own.

That mysterious potion had not only granted him an incredibly fast neural processing speed but also extraordinary eyesight. Combined, these allowed him to flip through the history textbook at an astonishing rate—averaging about eight or nine seconds per page.

Shortly after the political science class ended, Yang Haoran felt the icy-cool sensation in his mind gradually fading. His thinking and eyesight seemed shrouded in a white haze, slowing down as if gears were grinding to a halt, layer upon layer of obstacles emerging, crawling at a snail’s pace.

Having experienced that cheat-code-like feeling, returning to a normal state was hard for him to accept. The immense psychological落差drove him to unconsciously take out the small box.

Yang Haoran looked at the flat, cosmetics-case-like box in his palm and was about to open it when he hesitated. The effects of this mysterious potion were far too powerful. He didn’t know where his mother had obtained it, but he imagined it must have been hard to come by.

After pondering for a long time, Yang Haoran came to a realization.

No matter how miraculous, effective, or rare this potion was, his mother’s original intention in giving it to him was for him to use it for studying. Now was the perfect time.

Yang Haoran drank the second bottle of the learning potion. That icy sensation once again spread through his brain, and the familiar feeling returned.

Math, history, Chinese, chemistry, physics, political science, geography… Regardless of whose class it was, he no longer wasted break time and silently studied. It was as if he had plunged into an ocean of knowledge, transforming into a parched sponge, greedily absorbing every bit of information.

Among all the subjects, English troubled Yang Haoran the most because simply reading it wasn’t enough to learn it. He could memorize the entire English textbook, but if he couldn’t pronounce the words, it was all futile.

After realizing this, he skipped English for the time being.

This day was the most serious Yang Haoran had been about studying since starting school, and it was also his most rewarding day.

As time passed, Yang Haoran used up three bottles of the learning potion. He had essentially mastered the content for this semester in every subject except for the tough nut that was English.

After school ended in the afternoon, Yang Haoran declined Wei Ming’s invitation to go to the internet café for a gaming session and hurried home impatiently. His mind was filled with doubts, confusion, and intense curiosity.

All of this was brought by that fairy-like woman.

After arriving home, Yang Haoran searched around but didn’t see any sign of his mother.

He took out his phone, went to the contacts page, and dialed the number saved under “Mom.”

After a few rings, the call connected.

“Hey, Mother dear, where are you? Your son misses you,” Yang Haoran blurted out eagerly before the other side could speak.

Hearing her son’s playful words, the other side fell silent for a moment before responding冷淡ly, “Whatever it is, wait until I get home.”

Then, she hung up. From her son’s excited tone, Liu Ruoxi knew exactly why he was calling—undoubtedly to ask about the potion.

Regarding this, she hadn’t quite figured out how to explain it yet. If she told the truth, it would expose the existence of the Fallen Angel game. Currently, she wasn’t psychologically prepared for that.

Seeing that his mother had hung up, Yang Haoran had no choice but to suppress his stirring curiosity.

The wait was long and agonizing. His younger sister Yaoyao returned home, and his father arrived with his briefcase, yet the mother he yearned for was nowhere to be seen.

Yang Haoran was so anxious he considered calling to hurry her along.

It wasn’t until the sun set in the west, painting the sky with brilliant peach-red clouds, that the familiar click-clack of footsteps sounded outside the villa.

Hearing the sound, Yang Haoran opened the main door, and his mother’s figure came into view. Her exquisitely cold and stunningly flawless face, long and elegantly curved eyelashes, slender and bright phoenix eyes with an inner hook and outer uplift, willow-leaf-shaped eyebrows, bright eyes containing a sharp light—deep and penetrating—a tall and refined nose, and rosewood-colored lips paired with her exposed, fair swan-like neck. At first glance, under the setting sun’s afterglow, his mother seemed to be strolling through the rosy clouds, with the sunset as her backdrop and the glow as her adornment, making her appear like a goddess descending to earth.

This breathtakingly beautiful scene left him stunned, unable to snap out of it for a long time.

It wasn’t until his mother walked up to him, blocking the sunset’s light with her figure, that Yang Haoran finally snapped back to reality.

“Mom, you’re back.”

Yang Haoran grinned and said, “You looked so beautiful just now when you were walking over.”

“Hmm.”

Liu Ruoxi glanced sideways at her son and responded with an indifferent “hmm,” acknowledging his words.

She was already used to her son’s various flattering and ingratiating remarks and paid them no mind.

Yang Haoran, however, was undeterred by his mother’s reaction and excitedly continued on his own, “Mom, that thing you gave me this morning was way too effective. It’s like something out of sci-fi.”

Besides his deep confusion, he had also vaguely begun to connect it to last night’s dream—the talking silver sphere that called itself Barbatos, the intelligent lifeform of the Controller’s Ring, an extraterrestrial object, and the Illusion Space, which was supposedly a feature of that so-called Fallen Angel game.

On the surface, the two seemed unrelated, but they shared a commonality: both were tinged with surreal, mysterious qualities.

So, he secretly wondered: if it was a game, there must be players or something similar. Could his mother, who produced that mysterious potion, be a player of the Fallen Angel game?

Or was last night’s dream just a dream, or did it actually happen?

Truthfully, he didn’t know much about the game itself. The silver sphere had only briefly mentioned its origins while explaining the rules of the Illusion Space.

After speaking, he intently watched his mother’s expression.

Faced with her son’s questioning, Liu Ruoxi felt a tightness in her heart. What was coming had finally arrived. She forced herself to remain calm, her red lips parting slightly as she replied冷淡ly, “A friend of mine bought it back from abroad. They said it’s a supplement—drinking a bottle while studying helps refresh and focus the mind. From the look of you, it seems quite effective, huh?”

Yang Haoran observed his mother’s expression and felt somewhat disappointed. The way she looked at him seemed to carry a trace of curiosity, as if she, too, was unclear about the potion’s specific effects.

In truth, Liu Ruoxi had never used the learning potion herself. Relying solely on the brief description in the system shop, she had underestimated the potion’s actual effects and significance.

When she completed the system task of forming a teammate and explained it to Shen Qing, her words were merely an excuse.

Had she known the actual effects, she might have regretted what she said to her son last night: “If you want these things, use your grades to negotiate.”