Su Yang saw that Deng Hao had already left, but Li Shixuan was still sitting there. He looked at her and smiled, "Why aren't you leaving yet?"
"You hit me, and you think I’ll just walk away that easily?"
"Hey." Su Yang chuckled helplessly and glanced at Meng Wenzhou and Liu Bo. "Wasn’t it you who asked to spar with me? Now that you lost, you’re refusing to leave?"
Li Shixuan glared at Su Yang, then pulled out her phone. "Give me your WeChat."
"Huh?"
"Why do you want my WeChat?"
"You hit me—shouldn’t I at least have your contact? What if I find out later that I’m injured? I’ll need to hold you accountable!"
"Damn, you can do that?"
"Give it or not?" Li Shixuan thrust her phone toward Su Yang.
After a brief pause, Su Yang laughed. "Fine, fine, I’ll add you."
Liu Bo nudged Meng Wenzhou and whispered, "Bro Meng, doesn’t this feel off? Bro Yang gets into a fight and still scores a girl’s WeChat?"
Meng Wenzhou scratched his head and sighed. "I don’t get it either."
Once they exchanged WeChat, Li Shixuan stood up without another word and quickly left the private room.
Su Yang exhaled and plopped down next to Meng Wenzhou. "Phew—done!"
"Only you could pull this off, Lao Su!" Meng Wenzhou slung an arm around Su Yang’s shoulder and gave a thumbs-up.
"So, is this settled now?"
"That depends on whether Deng Hao actually posts that apology video. What do you think—will he?"
Liu Bo thought for a moment. "I bet that little punk won’t. He’ll probably just ghost everyone."
Su Yang shook his head. "Not necessarily. I think he’ll post it. Didn’t he say he’s trying to build his following for live sales? An apology video could actually boost his traffic. It just depends on how he frames it."
Meng Wenzhou nodded. "You’ve got a point, Lao Su. I think he’ll post it too. That guy might act like a careless idiot, but he’s not actually stupid."
"Exactly. He just loves playing petty tricks."
Liu Bo didn’t quite follow, but he didn’t want to dwell on it.
He grinned at the two. "Hey, Bro Meng, Bro Yang, can we stop talking about that loser? Now that things are settled, shouldn’t we three have some fun?"
"What kind of fun?" Su Yang tilted his head.
Liu Bo smirked. "Bro Yang, didn’t you see the two beauties sitting with me and Bro Meng when you came in?"
"Yeah, weren’t those just hostesses?"
"Right, but they’re way hotter than the usual bar or nightclub girls."
Su Yang’s eyes gleamed with amusement. "So, what’s your point?"
"Let’s party! Call them back for drinks and karaoke. I’ll even get one for you, Bro Yang."
"Sure, as long as you’re paying." Su Yang lit a cigarette with a grin.
"Fine by me. I can cover this small expense."
Liu Bo walked over to the wall and pressed a few buttons on the control panel.
"Done."
He returned to the couch and sat down.
Suddenly, Meng Wenzhou remembered something. He took a cigarette from Su Yang’s pack and lit it. "Oh, before we start, there’s something I meant to tell you two earlier, but the Deng Hao mess made me forget."
"What’s up?" Liu Bo asked.
"My dad’s turning fifty-five the day after tomorrow. He’s throwing a party at home and told me to invite my friends."
"Whoa, Uncle Meng’s already fifty-five?"
Meng Wenzhou rolled his eyes at Liu Bo. "What, you thought he was younger?"
Su Yang asked, "Uncle Meng’s back in Haicheng?"
"Yeah, he got back a couple of days ago. He came specifically for his birthday. He takes these milestone ages seriously—fifty, fifty-five, sixty, stuff like that."
"And he’s got this habit."
"What habit?"
"For non-milestone birthdays, he just casually treats friends out somewhere, no big deal."
"But for milestone ones, he insists on hosting at home and makes a huge fuss. He always tells me to invite my friends too. The non-milestone ones don’t get that treatment."
"Huh, did Uncle Meng get his fortune told or something?"
"Probably. He’s super into that stuff."
"That makes sense. Some fortune-teller probably advised him."
"Anyway, you two better show up! Oh, and this time, I’m not inviting the girls from the group chat. My dad said to only bring my closest friends."
Realizing how that sounded, Meng Wenzhou quickly added, "Not that I’m not close with them, but my dad only gave me five spots. Counting you, Fatty, Ziming, Yi Xue, and Ji Bo, that’s already five. No room for others."
Su Yang nodded. "Got it. But didn’t Ziming and Yi Xue go to Shanghai?"
"They’re coming back tomorrow."
"Oh, good. What about Pan Pan?"
When Su Yang mentioned Pan Ning, Meng Wenzhou grinned. "She’ll be there too—she’s my cousin. You two haven’t been in touch lately?"
"We have, but she went home a couple of days ago for some family thing."
"Right, right. But she didn’t tell you what it was?"
Su Yang thought for a moment. "She just said someone was visiting, and her parents called her back. That was two days ago."
Meng Wenzhou smirked meaningfully. "Heh, so you don’t know who it was? Let me tell you."
Liu Bo leaned in eagerly. "I wanna hear this too."
Meng Wenzhou cleared his throat and grinned. "It’s actually the son of my aunt’s—Pan Ning’s mom’s—best friend."
"What?"
Liu Bo frowned. "Your aunt’s best friend’s son? Here to see my future sister-in-law?"
"Hold on, let me explain. So, this woman is super close with my aunt. She married some wealthy businessman in Hangzhou—big-time tycoon, apparently. Her son’s around our age."
"She came to Haicheng to visit my aunt and planned a trip together. Her son happened to be in Haicheng too. When he heard his mom was at my aunt’s place, he brought gifts and dropped by."
"My uncle told me this guy met Pan Ning once before and seemed interested. So, you can guess why he showed up this time, right?"
"Holy shit?! This guy’s making moves on my future sister-in-law?!" Liu Bo slammed the table angrily.
Su Yang stayed calm. "What happened after?"
"Later, as you know, my aunt and uncle called Pan Pan back home. To put it bluntly, it was basically their indirect way of setting the two of them up on a blind date~"
"Holy shit!! Su Yang! Even if you agreed to this, I wouldn’t!"
Su Yang shot Liu Bo a sidelong glance: "What nonsense are you talking about? When did I agree to anything?"
Meng Wenzhou chuckled at the scene: "Hey, Fatty, why are you so worked up? With Pan Pan’s personality, do you really think she’d be interested in just anyone?"
Hearing this, Liu Bo rolled his eyes and grinned: "Heh, good point. Forgot about Pan Pan’s fiery temper."
Su Yang also smiled faintly: "Any follow-up to this?"
"You’ll have to ask Pan Pan herself. I don’t know what happened afterward—my uncle had to leave early, so no one filled me in on the rest, haha~"
"Alright, no worries. I’ll ask her when I visit your place later~"
"Sure."
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
