"Chuanchuan, I'm off to the club."
After school in the afternoon, Ye Chuan packed up his things early and left campus right after saying goodbye to Luo Xi.
Today, he needed to buy a SIM card for Lan Xiaoke, but he also had other errands to run.
Passing by a phone store, Ye Chuan glanced at the sign and walked in.
"I need a data plan SIM," he said as soon as he entered.
"ID card and a hundred yuan," the shopkeeper replied without looking up, sliding a selection of numbers across the counter.
"Mm." Ye Chuan handed over his ID, and after purchasing the SIM, he picked a number and activated it.
The shopkeeper took a look and chuckled. "Ending in 4444? Guess you youngsters really go for these kinds of numbers."
Ye Chuan smirked. "It's not for the living anyway."
The shopkeeper: "?"
Why does this guy sound so creepy?
"Also, get me two phones—good quality, no lag," Ye Chuan added, then paused. "No, make it three. The third one should be the best you’ve got."
The shopkeeper glanced at the phone in Ye Chuan’s hand before pulling out two BlueMi models.
"As for the best one in the store," the shopkeeper said, "that’d be the Apple Pro Max, 256GB."
After a beat, he added, "Ten grand."
"Never mind then," Ye Chuan said.
The shopkeeper wasn’t surprised—Ye Chuan, with his student vibe and BlueMi phone, clearly wasn’t the target customer. But the next moment, Ye Chuan spoke again.
"Make it 1TB. 256GB isn’t enough for photos. And the two BlueMis—highest storage for those too."
The shopkeeper blinked. "We don’t support installment payments here."
"Straight scan," Ye Chuan said impatiently.
"Apple’s fourteen thousand, the two BlueMis three thousand each—total twenty grand."
"Twenty grand? Fine." Ye Chuan swiftly scanned the payment and left with his purchases, leaving the shopkeeper utterly bewildered.
Outside, Ye Chuan looked at the bags in his hand and stashed them directly into his backpack space—no need to carry anything himself, which was undeniably convenient.
Continuing down the street, he spotted a jewelry store.
After a moment’s thought, he walked in.
"Looking for something?" a sales assistant asked as soon as he entered.
"I’ve got some gold here. Wanted to see if you could make a bracelet out of it." Ye Chuan reached into his pocket and placed the gold he’d obtained from his adventures on the glass counter.
The assistant led him to a workshop in the back, where a goldsmith listened to Ye Chuan’s request to turn the fragments into a bracelet.
"Plain band, right?"
The goldsmith weighed the gold on a scale, then frowned. "Kid, this gold’s weight is off."
Ye Chuan paused. Off?
"It’s not 999 purity," the goldsmith said, testing it under a machine before pointing at the reading. "Not the purest. Where’d you get this?"
"Family heirloom," Ye Chuan said offhandedly.
Still, the purity wasn’t too low—just a slight discount for 95% gold.
"Heirloom?" The goldsmith rubbed the metal but didn’t press further.
"Add some more gold to it, then do a silver-wrapped gold finish. Just tell me the price."
Silver-wrapped gold?
An unusual request, but the goldsmith didn’t ask why. "Any other specifics?"
"If possible, engrave 'LX' on the inside."
"Got it. What’s the size?"
Ye Chuan didn’t know bracelet sizes. "No idea. Will height and weight work?"
"Sure."
"168 cm, around 50 kg."
"Then 56 it is."
The goldsmith got to work, and about two hours later, Ye Chuan had his finished piece.
"Added some gold, plus labor—total ten grand," the goldsmith said. "Purity’s solid, and you watched the whole process. Feel free to test it."
"Fine." Ye Chuan paid and left the store, satisfied.
Spending money felt pretty good.
……
With no classes in the afternoon, Ye Chuan was home by a little past five.
The apartment was quiet as he set his things down and slumped into a chair. Suddenly, a ghostly pale female face emerged from the wall beside him.
"Yoooooooo~~~ Back so soon, kiddo?"
Ye Chuan: "..."
Could you not be so terrifying?
Seeing Lan Xiaoke popping her head out of the wall, Ye Chuan suppressed the urge to roll her into a ball and yanked her out instead. "If you come out like that again, I’ll knock your head sideways."
"Mean."
"Hm?" Ye Chuan raised his voice.
"Ah, forgive me, Lord Ye!" Lan Xiaoke floated behind him, massaging his shoulders with an exaggeratedly fawning expression. "Sooo… did you get me a phone?"
"Yep." Ye Chuan pulled out the BlueMi. "Here."
"Woo-hoo!" Lan Xiaoke somersaulted midair in excitement.
"SIM’s already in. Need me to show you how to use it?"
"Nah, I’ve been hiding in the vents watching students use smartphones all day." She waved him off, as if it were child’s play.
But soon, she hit a snag.
Facial recognition didn’t work for her.
The front camera couldn’t detect her face.
After fiddling with it for a while, she silently turned off the feature.
As Lan Xiaoke played with her phone, Ye Chuan asked, "By the way, what about your family?"
After all these years, wasn’t she curious?
"Dunno. Dead, probably?" she replied casually.
"That’s awfully nonchalant."
"If they’d treated me well, I wouldn’t have choked to death on instant noodles," Lan Xiaoke muttered, her playful mood dimming. She brushed aside the bangs covering one eye and drifted toward her room.
"I’m heading back."
"Mm."
Once she was gone, Ye Chuan took the other phone and knocked on Bai Qianshuang’s door. "Qianshuang."
"Just come in," her voice sounded from inside.
Pushing the door open, he found Bai Qianshuang reading.
He glanced at the title—
The Art of Communication.
"You’re… reading this?" Ye Chuan asked.
Bai Qianshuang nodded expressionlessly. "There’s much to learn."
"Like what?"
"Closer terms of address facilitate better interaction." She pondered for a moment before looking at him. "Husband, are you hungry?"
Ye Chuan: "?!"
iaobai: "Councilor Dad, front me some funds. I want to hire ten thousand professional miners for a project!" [Five-Star Mission Issued: Capture the leader of the Blood Heaven Pirate Gang, who is on the run in the Radiant Star Sector. It is said the gang has over a hundred members. Proceed with caution.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, lend me the family's hundred-thousand-strong Lu Army!" [Seven-Star Mission Issued: Subdue a juvenile Void Dragon Beast.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, I'm taking your tamed Void Dragon Beast King out for a family reunion!" I said, System, don't you have any slightly more challenging missions? You're just not up to par! [Nine-Star Mission Issued: Become the Human Councilor.] Lu Xiaobai: "Dad, there's a small matter I'd like to discuss with you..."
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
shall grant"] ["Inscribing the glory of our race upon tombstones"] ["All that is threatened, I shall protect"] How his younger sister sees her brother: A brother who only makes eye contact once a day, mostly fading into the background as he tinkers with who-knows-what in his room all day. Their life paths should have remained largely separate. Until one day. Su Qi created an equipment card for his never-met "online girlfriend." His sister fell into silent contemplation upon receiving the "white stockings." [Card can be upgraded] [Upgrade by fulfilling any of the following conditions] [Condition ①: Consume one hundred higher-tier cards] [Condition ②: Complete one 'Heart-Pounding Adventure'] What constitutes a Heart-Pounding Adventure? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Beginner Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to admire it.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Easy Level): Equip the card, invite 'Su Qi' to touch it, and analyze the equipment's texture.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Entry Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to...] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Challenge Level): Freely combine the words 'Brother' 'Out' 'Brother' 'Me' 'Please' into a complete sentence...] "Please help me analyze both teams' mistakes in this match, brother..." His sister exhaled in relief—surely... surely there couldn't be anything more difficult? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Suicide Mission Level): Sneak a peek at the names of the galgames in 'Su Qi's' hidden E-drive folder]
