Dan Chu looked like he was studying diligently, but he was actually browsing the forums again. Even if the teacher happened to notice he wasn't too worried, since there hadn't been anything new for them to learn in the class in days. They were in the repetition phase that was designed to pound the information into an average student's brain.
He had only started playing 'Living Jade Empire' because his older sister had demanded it. He'd even named his character MatchlessMinion and chosen a mousy avatar mostly to annoy her. There was a little bit of truth in the name though, because he took pride in being good at being a minion. It was a form of a man's pride and purpose, in their somewhat traditional family structure.
His father was an excellent example, and had always told him that a man should support his family. Of course, his father didn't describe himself as a minion, but that was still essentially his position in life. He worked in a corporate environment, surrounded by rules and restrictions, and then returned home every evening to assist his family with the household chores as his wife demanded.
Not that Dan Chu's mother was a tyrant or ran the household either. She also worked, although her salary was always far less than her husband's, despite the fact that she seemed to work just as hard every day. She had influenced his pride in accomplishing the many small supportive tasks that a family required just as much as his father had. In fact, that pride had almost been what broke their family apart.
As he browsed the posts, he was pleased to see the very minimal splash that was being created by the identity of the Jade Empress finally hitting the 'Living Jade Empire' forums. Once again, Endless Song's strange notoriety turned out to be a gift, because everyone seemed to be reacting with something along the lines of, 'Oh, is that all?' He was both really glad that the general reaction was surprisingly accepting, because Kit was a really sweet girl even if she was closer to his mom's age than his own, and rather smug.
The discussions about how underpowered her role turned out to be made him chuckle. The way people pointed out how anyone could duplicate her skill set on a character if they wanted to, made him feel weirdly successful, because he had been the one who prompted Logical Heart to add the new skills to the game documents. He had discovered that Kit's skills weren't actually as random and unique as they seemed, by talking to the Traveling Merchant about them, and had hoped that if the information about them was accessible, just using her skills wouldn't give her away.
ZipZing's name caught his eye next, and he read a short post about his guild's Captain with an amusement that she probably wouldn't share. She really had no idea why people cared about what she was up to, or actually enjoyed her lackadaisical leadership. Of course, in the beginning he had only respected the wizard named Dawnstar because his older sister would actually listen to her advice, and even follow her orders. It was difficult to explain how awe inspiring that was to anyone who didn't share the trampled position of a younger sibling to a tyrant.
At first he had thought that ZipZing was very different from her wizard in the old game, but the way she played the little dragon actually turned out to be very consistent with her old patterns. She had still led their party with a minion's style too. Like an elite butler in an old novel, she was always worrying about their comfort and rejoicing in their successes, while mostly letting them do things their own way. She didn't get along well with Justin the Grey because the two of them were surprisingly similar. It was obvious, at least to Dan Chu, why the game kept drawing them into the same story lines.
Even though his sister's enthusiasm for Justin annoyed him, he didn't dislike Justin the Grey. Like ZipZing, he was also someone who actually worked very hard to let his guild members accomplish whatever they wanted to without expecting anything in return. But even though he respected Justin, he didn't enjoy his cool and calculating methods nearly as much as ZipZing's lackadaisical and meandering leadership. He had selfishly pushed her into creating the guild, but he really loved being part of her Endless Song.
He loved playing 'Living Jade Empire' a lot more than he'd expected to, even if the game was rather nosy. When things had been falling apart for everyone, when Sherri's mom had been dying, when his father had been informed of his impending transfer, the game had kept shoving advice at him. But he was thankful for it now, because the old wizard's comments about how to keep a marriage going had been what made him realize that his parents seemed to have forgotten why they were both working so hard.
He hadn't had to do much. He had merely put more effort into doing more of the household chores, made them dinner, and told them that he was proud of both of them. Just a bit of excellent minion work, a reminder of their family traditions, and they had sorted the rest out themselves. The only thing he regretted was that they had moved away from Sherri so soon after she'd lost her mother.
For a while he had desperately wished that he were older so that he could take care of her, and so that she would take him seriously. But once again, the nosy game had arranged things so that he was seeing examples of interactions between characters that commented on his own circumstances. And as soon as he paid attention to Shrubbery instead of his own complicated feelings, he realized that she was already taking him seriously, and that he was making her worry.
He often felt like he was working his way through a series of hidden quests in this strange game that reflected your own life, and rewarded you for kindness even if you were playing a thief or a murderer. ZipZing was like that too, she never objected to having thieves and assassins in Endless Song, but she always rejoiced when they could help someone out.
He glanced at the clock, and his teacher caught his eye. A moment later his screen displayed his completed course work. A good minion didn't need to have everything explained with words.