As for how Clara and Huaiyan ended up together, it all started from a certain popular story on the Luofu.
Switching to Clara's perspective…
Some time ago.
"Miss Clara! Please wait a moment!"
Clara turned her head and saw an orange-haired girl in black stockings jogging over with a selfie stick. She was smiling brightly.
"Hello! I'm Guinaifen, a video blogger from the Luofu. Are you free right now? Could I interview you?"
"Interview… me?" Clara pointed at herself in confusion and instinctively glanced at Cocolia beside her.
They both knew that Jarilo-VI was just a remote, insignificant planet in the vast galaxy. Why would someone from the Luofu want to interview them?
Guinaifen nodded enthusiastically. "That's right! You might not know this yet, but you've blown up recently on the 'Martial Exhibition Forum.' Look!"
She handed her phone to Clara. The top pinned post had a bold title:
[Attention: The biggest dark horse of the Martial Exhibition might be this mysterious girl! She actually has these secrets?]
Clara scrolled down with a puzzled expression.
[OP: Let me explain briefly. This mysterious girl named Clara is from "Jarilo-VI" (a planet I've never even heard of). She has two insane achievements: one, she yanked a spaceship with her bare hands. Two, she one-punched the Borisin warlord Hoolay into the ground.]
The replies were chaotic:
[Bro, are you having a left-right brain debate again? If she's really that strong, would you still dare to open bets? I'll crawl through your internet cable and shave you bald.]
[Can minors even participate in the Martial Exhibition?]
[What exactly is a Borisin warlord? Is it that big white wolf that climbed onto the Skysplitter the other day?]
[OP: Calm down, everyone. I did some digging. Hoolay is a major war criminal from the Denizens of Abundance wars. He was supposed to be impossible to kill, yet this girl from a remote planet beat him with one punch. That's not normal.]
[OP: Also, did anyone notice? She doesn't wear shoes.]
[That's the key point! In such a harsh environment, how do her feet stay so pristine?]
[This only proves her physical body is ridiculously strong. Ranking her in the top three of the competition isn't exaggerated at all.]
[Indeed reasonable. She feels like a walking alloy.]
Clara's mouth twitched slightly. Although she was still young, her mindset had matured far beyond her age. She could roughly understand what the forum users were implying with their strange comments.
What a bunch of weirdos… So disgusting.
She handed the phone back to Guinaifen and sighed. "So, Miss Guinaifen, what exactly do you want to interview me about?"
"Just call me Little Guizi~" Guinaifen winked. "I want to ask: In such a harsh environment on your home planet, how did you become so strong?"
How did she become strong?
Clara fell silent for a moment, her thoughts drifting back to the distant past.
She remembered when she was wandering alone in the Underworld. The snow froze her feet purple, and sharp stones and scrap metal would cut her soles until they bled. Yet she refused to give up.
Until one day, in the middle of a blizzard, she met a strange man wearing a smiling face mask.
Smiling Mask Man: "Oh my, what a cute little girl! I can tell you're born with exceptional talent—a natural martial arts prodigy! I happen to have a copy of 'One Punch XX' here. It's a secret manual passed down in my family. Since we're fated to meet, I'll sell it to you for ten Winter City Shields!"
Clara didn't remember all the details. She only knew she originally didn't want to buy it, but the masked man kept pestering her until the deal somehow became a "negative ten Winter City Shields" transaction — meaning he paid her ten shields and gave her the manual for free.
After that, in order to survive, Clara forced herself to train like crazy every single day: a hundred squats, a hundred push-ups, a hundred pull-ups, and a ten-kilometer run, no matter how bad the weather was.
After three full years of this hellish routine, even the sharpest nail would bend under her feet.
She, Clara, hadn't gone bald… but she had become ridiculously strong!