Probably because of the psychological shadow left from accidentally running into a zombie siege last year, the mont Everly saw Gracie’s flickering gaze and the bright red “stain” at the corner of her mouth, she thought it was blood.
But when she looked more closely—seriously, whose blood is thick like sauce and even has sesa seeds stuck on it? It was obviously just tomato sauce!
Everly felt a bit embarrassed, like one of those overenthusiastic people who mistakenly think soone is about to jump off a building and rush over to drag down soone who’s actually just doing morning exercise on the rooftop. Still, she always kept a cold, indifferent expression in front of others—basically a “I can’t be bothered with you” look—so even if she felt awkward inside, nothing showed on her face.
Compared to her, Misha was a bit confused.
“Ah—oh, sorry, Gracie. Everly and I were just passing by and saw you sitting here alone, your shoulders shaking, so we thought you were crying… Sorry, did we interrupt you?”
Hearing this, Gracie’s face instantly flushed red. Maybe Everly was mistaken, but she seed to catch a hint of embarrassnt mixed with annoyance on the girl’s face.
“I just got hungry after training. I wasn’t crying. Aren’t you overthinking it?” the girl said stiffly.
Noticing the resistance in Gracie’s tone, Misha looked even more uneasy. Fortunately, she had high emotional intelligence and was good at smoothing things over. Even if she felt uncomfortable, she still replied flawlessly, “Then we really are sorry… You’ve been training for so long—you definitely need to refuel. Everly and I won’t disturb you anymore. We’ll be going now.”
With that, she gave a bright, cloudless smile, waved at Gracie, and pulled Everly away from the sports field.
The mont they stepped out of Gracie’s line of sight, Misha’s expression changed completely.
“Not right.”
She stopped walking and, imitating the male lead from a recently popular cri investigation drama, pressed her index and middle finger together as if pushing up a non-existent pair of glasses. Lowering her gaze, she said in a slightly grave tone:
“If she was just eating sothing, Gracie wouldn’t have needed to hide it… Everly, there’s definitely sothing off about this!”
“…But this has nothing to do with us,” Everly complained.
“Of course it does! Everly, didn’t you always say we should pay attention to everything unusual around us, eliminate all potential hidden dangers? I think Gracie’s behavior is—mmph!”
Before she could finish, Misha had her lips pinched shut by Everly, turning her into a flat-mouthed duck on the spot and forcibly muting her.
Horror Movie Survival Rule #6: don’t say things that raise death flags.
Even though Misha, as a survivor of the cockroach disaster in Lemot Town, was unlikely to be the protagonist or supporting character in any horror story, Everly didn’t care. She simply couldn’t stand hearing anything that even remotely sounded like a death flag. It had beco a habit.
“If you want to investigate, go ahead—just be careful,” Everly said casually after letting go of her.
Gracie hadn’t triggered her danger warning, and even Buddy hadn’t given any warning barks. From this, she concluded that Gracie posed no threat.
It was probably just so sensitive little concern unique to an introverted girl. Since Misha was interested, she could go ahead and look into it. College students were just a bunch of cute fools who liked doing weird little things anyway!
“Sir, yes sir!”
Having received her orders, Misha snapped her feet together, stood at attention, and gave Everly a highly committed military salute.
Although Misha said she wanted to investigate, she didn’t go full TV-detective mode—no 24/7 staking out or tailing people. She was actually very busy. From Monday to Friday, besides attending classes, she also read extracurricular books and completed all kinds of assignnts from her teachers, trying not to leave any work for the weekend. When the weekend ca, she had to leave early and return late, working part-ti at a pizza shop to earn her living expenses.
Fortunately, Misha had a lot of friends and was active in countless campus group chats. She’d glance through one group today, chat a bit in another tomorrow. Since Gracie, as a cheerleader, naturally attracted a lot of attention, it didn’t take long for Misha to gather solid information—Gracie had bulimia nervosa.
“Even before Gracie slimd down, she already had this tendency. Whenever she feels anxious or upset, she can’t control herself and ends up eating a huge amount of food. Then she’s overwheld with guilt and uses thods like fasting or inducing vomiting to control her weight and keep from getting fatter,” Misha said one evening, sitting by her bed and scrolling through her phone as she shared what she had found with Everly.
Everly understood. “So when we ran into her that day, it was probably because the pressure from training got to her. Her binge-eating urge kicked in, and she was stuffing herself uncontrollably. She was worried we’d find out, so she hid the food.”
“Yeah… sigh, I guess I was being too narrow-minded that day. Gracie really has it tough too,” Misha lowered her head, looking a bit ashad.
Everly reached out and patted her fluffy hair. “Then next ti, we can show a bit more care toward Gracie.”
“You’re right!”
After being comforted a little, Misha imdiately perked up again.
She checked the ti, took out her tablet, and opened a “Mashed Potato Channel,” propping the device up on the windowsill. “Everly, it’s ti—we should follow along and do the workout.”
Everly nodded and hopped down from the bed.
The two girls stood one behind the other in the dormitory hallway, and after a short wait, the livestream started. The female host, Margaret, enthusiastically greeted everyone in the chat. Soon after, accompanied by energetic music, her daily fitness workout session officially began.
Everly and Misha followed along with the host’s movents—bouncing, stretching, kicking—doing their daily exercise routine.
The 40-minute workout wasn’t sothing many people could fully stick with. Even Everly and Misha would be drenched in sweat afterward, their clothes soaked as if they had just been pulled out of water.
Still, both girls quite enjoyed that slightly exhausted feeling after exercise.
When the session ended, Misha walked up to close the stream, but unexpectedly, the host didn’t log off imdiately as she usually did. Instead, she pulled out a box of weight-loss pills and began formally introducing their effects to the audience.
Coincidentally, that box of pills was none other than the SSU fat-burning capsules Misha had previously explained to Everly!
“I finally understand how popular this weight-loss product is,” Misha said, pressing close to the screen as she watched. “Seriously, it’s Margaret we’re talking about—how did they even get her to do an ad?”
Everly also found it absurd.
Margaret had once been the aerobics host of a nationally popular fitness show and had only recently stepped back from the spotlight. She had 6.7 million followers on YouTube, often shared beauty, fashion, and fitness tips, and even held regular nightly workout livestreams.
The United States had a high obesity rate and strong demand for weight loss, and Margaret’s aerobics routines were said to be effective if followed consistently for a few months. Because of that, her livestreams always attracted a huge audience—the highest had even exceeded 200,000 viewers.
For such an influential internet celebrity, the advertising fee required to hire her would definitely not be cheap.
Of course, what shocked Everly even more was that in just a few short months, the SSU fat-burning capsules had gone from a “black-market” product smuggled from Japan to a fully approved, certified weight-loss drug strongly recomnded by a major influencer!
To protect dostic businesses, the United States had always been quite strict with imported products. For overseas dicines to be sold there, they needed to pass FDA certification and complete NDC registration—a very complicated process. Even slightly serious side effects could get them rejected.
Based on what they had learned earlier, if this drug wasn’t taken strictly according to the instructions, it could easily lead to severe consequences. Logically, it should have been very difficult for a weight-loss drug like this to pass official channels and get approval… unless the pharmaceutical company had relied on sheer financial power.
Although Everly and Misha didn’t need to lose weight, it was obvious that most viewers watching Margaret’s workout livestream were struggling with obesity.
U.S. law strictly regulates advertisents, prohibiting false claims. Drug-related ads, in particular, must be truthful and scientifically grounded, and must not exaggerate their effects. So when the host Margaret personally stated during the livestream that she had used SSU fat-burning capsules herself and had successfully beco slimr, the audience went wild.
[If that weight-loss drug really works the way she says, then honestly, even if it’s expensive, it’s worth it.]
[I’ve been watching Margaret’s workouts since she first beca a host. She really was a bit heavier before she left—this must work.]
[Yeah, this stuff really works. A friend of mine has been taking it, and in just over a month, they lost dozens of kilograms!]
[But according to the instructions, the side effects seem pretty serious…]
[Relax. As long as you follow the instructions, you’ll be fine.]
…
Although Margaret ended the ad and logged off imdiately, her livestream room—now already blacked out—still had many viewers remaining.
They kept chatting back and forth, intensely discussing topics related to the weight-loss drug. By the end of it, with the encouragent of several users—whether they were real people or paid shills—it seed that many of them, driven by curiosity and a try-it attitude, clicked on the shopping link at the bottom of the livestream.
SSU fat-burning capsules were sold separately in three colors: white pills, pink pills, and black pills.
After so ti without paying attention, Rakucho Pharmaceutical had already established a subsidiary in the United States and set up an official U.S. division website. On the site, separate links for the three types of pills were available, each showing real-ti order numbers.
Among them, the white and pink pills saw explosive exponential growth in orders shortly after the livestream ended. In less than an hour, white pills reached 50,000 orders, while the pink pills—being consumable—skyrocketed to an astonishing 450,000 orders!
And that was only the beginning.
Margaret’s ad clip was soon reposted across the internet. As ti passed, more and more people saw it, and even more users began posting testimonials, sharing before-and-after photos to endorse SSU.
At the sa ti, Rakucho Pharmaceutical’s marketing campaign continued. It was unclear how much money they had made during the earlier smuggling phase, but after Margaret, several other celebrities and influencers successively promoted SSU, praising it as the greatest invention of the new century and a blessing for people struggling with weight loss.
When only one or two voices were promoting it, consurs might still remain rational. But when the entire internet was flooded with praise for SSU, Arican consurs’ enthusiasm was finally ignited.
In just one week, Everly noticed that many people around her were taking out water bottles during breaks to swallow pink pills. Walking through campus, she could often hear students discussing SSU fat-burning capsules.
Such nationwide waves of collective frenzy had only appeared twice in her mory.
Once was the strange “teor craze” that erupted for no clear reason shortly before the Lemot cockroach disaster. The second was during middle school, when Seradiya’s death video suddenly surged to the top of the trending charts, triggering waves of copycat s**cides that sparked nationwide debate.
And now, once again, sothing else—this weight-loss drug—was spreading across the country at rocket-like speed.
For so reason, Everly couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling.
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