Miss Witch, even if we're poor, we can't sell ourselves!

Mi Ye stood in the night wind outside the bar, clutching the thousand Loren tip, until the dark blue sedan completely disappeared around the corner before she turned and pushed open the door.

It was almost midnight, and there were even more people in the bar than before she had seen Meredith out.

Korika was playing board games with a group of customers in a booth by the window, Belle was competing with two witches to see who could drink more at the bar at the other end, and even the usually aloof Sylvie was sitting among the regulars, holding a wine glass with a rare smile on her lips.

The air was filled with the scent of perfume and laughter, and the light from the crystal chandelier danced across everyone's faces.

Miya walked through the crowd back to her corner booth.

The cushion Meredith had used still had faint dents, the blanket was neatly folded and placed on the sofa armrest, the two cocktail glasses on the table were empty, and something was glowing next to the glasses.

A fragment of a star, barely larger than a fingernail, lay quietly on the tablecloth.

It is completely transparent, with a very faint golden halo around the edges; if you don't look closely, you might mistake it for glitter sprinkled on by someone.

Miya reached out and picked it up. The moment her fingertips touched it, a very subtle warm current spread up her fingers.

Are these the star fragments that fell from the Fortune Forger?

Wait a minute—how much did Meredith spend tonight?

Two cocktails, orange cream, and a cake, all for less than three thousand Loren.

Even with 3,000, and a 10% probability, 3,000 Loren would only require three judgments before it would be lost?

Miya looked around to make sure no one was watching, then quickly clenched the shards in her hand.

The wishing well panel deep within my consciousness popped up automatically.

[Star fragments have been collected, all attributes +3].

The numbers on the panel jumped.

Magic Power 1→4 (Slime Level)

Constitution 1→4 (Slime Level)

Agility 1→4 (Slime level)

Intelligence level: 9 → 13 (normal level)

Charm 99 → 102 (One in a million)

Miya clenched her fist, feeling very subtle changes in her body.

"Miya!!"

A hand suddenly grabbed her arm from behind, and before she could react, she was pulled into the storage room behind the bar.

Korika slammed the door shut, shoved the communicator screen in her face, and stared wide-eyed at her with her yellow-green eyes.

"Look at this!"

The screen displays a MikuFans' personal homepage.

The portrait is of a witch wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with the background being the dome mural of the academy library.

Meredith

[Number of followers: 197 million]

[Certification Title]:

[Fellow of the Bellavita Academy of Magic, Chief Theorist of Elemental Magic Theory]

"I thought she looked familiar when I was outside! And it really is her!!"

Korika scrolled through the screen, her voice barely audible, yet barely concealing her overflowing excitement.

"Look at her most viewed video! 'Seven Optimization Schemes for the Structure of the Fireball Spell,' over eight million views!! Eight million!! And there's another one below! 'On the Node Coupling of Complex Magic Arrays,' over six million!! I heard she never smiles while lecturing and is called the 'Iceberg Academician' by her students. There are so many people watching clips of her lectures on the site—"

Mi Ye clicked on one of the videos.

Meredith stood on the podium, her long, dark brown hair neatly coiled behind her head, and with her magic wand in her hand, she drew an extremely complex magic circle structure diagram on the blackboard.

"After performing a topological transformation on the third and seventh nodes, the magic loss can be further reduced by 12%."

Her voice was flat, her expression indifferent; she looked like a completely different person from the Meredith who had fallen asleep with her head on her lap in the bar.

Mi Ye silently turned off the video.

I can't understand it at all.

Seeing this, Zimi Lu wiped her wine glass and casually remarked.

"Our store is going to be a hit!"

……

One o'clock in the morning.

The last table of guests finally got up to pay their bill.

Flores came down from the second floor and clapped her hands.

"Meeting."

Everyone gathered in front of the bar.

Flores opened the ledger, her fingertips tracing the lines of numbers.

"Tonight's total revenue is 40% higher than yesterday's."

She raised her eyes, her gaze passing over the ledger and landing on Miya, who was trying to shrink behind Korika.

"Newcomers accounted for 40% of the business, the highest in the entire event."

Sylvie raised an eyebrow, Belle's mouth formed an "O" shape, and Korika grabbed Miya's arm and shook it frantically.

"Miya!!! You're amazing!! You surpassed all our sales targets on the very first day!!! Are you even human!!!"

"No—I—just—by chance—"

Mi Ye was shaken so badly that she couldn't even form coherent sentences.

Flores ignored their commotion and took out several envelopes from the drawer, handing them over one by one.

"Today's commission."

When it was Miya's turn, the envelope was noticeably thicker.

Miya took the envelope with both hands, her fingertips touching its thickness, her heart pounding wildly.

"There's one more thing."

Flores leaned against the bar, took out her communicator, tapped a few times, and the screen lit up.

MikuFans is trending on social media.

The top trending topic.

#IcebergAcademicianBarKneePillow#.

The second trending topic.

#Meredis, the little maid#.

The fifth trending topic.

#Nightingale's Nest#.

Flores clicked on the first one, and a video popped up.

The resolution wasn't high, and it was clearly taken secretly, but the image was clear enough to reveal Meredith quietly resting her head on Miya's lap in the dim light, covered with a light gray blanket, her expression relaxed as if she were a completely different person.

Mi Ye lowered her head, her fingers gently stroking through the academician's long, dark brown hair, her lips moving slightly as if she were saying something comforting.

The caption is:

[I bumped into the icy academician Meredith at a bar, and she was sleeping on a young maid's lap!]

[She even ordered that little girl a drink that cost 1200 yuan! Is this something I could watch without paying?! Sisters, I'm totally swooning!]

[Shares: 5.2, Comments: 3.8, Likes: 17]

"This is our store?!"

Belle snatched the communicator away.

Zimi Lu leaned closer and stood on tiptoe to look.

"It's trending on social media..."

"Me—me—me—me—"

Miya's face changed from pink to deep red, then to bright red, and steam almost seemed to rise from her head.

She turned and ran, her shoes making a series of rapid thuds on the wooden floor, the hem of her maid outfit billowing up, her headband askew to one side.

Flores called out to her from behind, "Remember to be on time for work tomorrow," but her voice was drowned out by the laughter of Corica and Belle chasing after her.

Miya rushed into the room and slammed the door shut. She slid down onto the door panel with her back pressed against it, her heart pounding as if it were about to jump out of her throat.

She buried her face in her knees, her maid's apron crumpled up, and her ears were so hot they could fry an egg on them.

She's trending on social media.

All the witches in Bellavita are watching the video of her giving Meredith a lap pillow.

50,000 reposts, 170,000 likes.

She found it unbelievable that her Vtuber account gained 9,000 followers in just three days after starting to stream, and now it's directly topping the platform's trending searches.

How could this happen?