As he only needed to pay the rent on time, the elderly landlord did not forcibly require Li Pu to pay every three months or half a year. He even allowed extensions if funds were tight.
Therefore, if Li Pu had to name the person in this world he least wanted to offend at present.
It would probably be this security guard.
And this security guard seemed to have an unusual background, claiming himself that he used to be a combat hero. He never mentioned the specifics, though, and as for why he became a security guard.
It was purely out of boredom, just wanting to continue glowing and heating in his twilight years.
Facing someone who was both his landlord and an old senior, Li Pu naturally dared not be careless, so he ran right down the moment he received the call.
"If it's about the rent, I guarantee I can pay on time this month," Li Pu said with an exceptionally bright smile.
With money in his pocket, his speech became a lot firmer.
"If it's paying for a whole year," Li Pu said with a hint of small pride, "I can pay it off all at once for you."
"Oh?" The old man put down his newspaper, looking very serious as if he wanted to lecture yet held back a bit, and said, "Didn't you kid just find a job? How do you have money so soon?"
"Could it be that you really went to live off a woman?"
"No backbone!"
"What the heck?" Li Pu said completely bewildered, "Live off a woman? When did I ever do that?"
"Then tell me, old man, who was that girl today?!" Grandpa Li said indignantly, "Dyed her hair white at such a young age."
"She doesn't look like a proper lass at all, and she specifically came looking for you."
"You brat, you have hands and feet," Grandpa Li said with extreme anger, "Living off a woman and spending her money."
"Aren't you even ashamed?!"
Although Grandpa Li didn't much like the white-haired lass who came today, judging by her attire, he could tell she wasn't from an ordinary family. Her family background must be substantial.
"White hair?" Li Pu felt even more dizzy and said, "Who?"
"Dyed her hair white and even wore a pentagram hairpin," Grandpa Li described. "It seemed like she was also wearing those things called 'colored contact lenses'."
"She's a student from that foreign-style school, St. Freya."
As the most famous school in Changkong City, St. Freya! Let alone how the teaching quality there actually was, or whether it ranked as a key school in Changkong City.
That place was Changkong City's notoriously elite girls' school!
Kids without some money at home simply couldn't attend.
As a notorious elite girls' school, the old man knew a thing or two about it.
"Oh, you mean Kiana?!" Li Pu immediately knew who the old man was talking about, and he had to admit he felt a bit surprised as he said, "Why would she come looking for me?"
"Where is she?" Li Pu looked left and right; surely this tiny guard room couldn't hide a living person, could it?
"I chased her away," Grandpa Li said with a hint of disgust. "She even took a foreign name."
"It feels like I've gotten mixed up in some trouble," Li Pu scratched his head, always feeling that Grandpa Li's approach... Never mind. He wouldn't offer any commentary on how Grandpa Li handled things.
Still, he could roughly guess the situation.
"It's not as complicated as you think, and I didn't live off a woman," Li Pu explained. "The thing is..."
The teenager in the middle of explaining...
After listening to Li Pu's explanation, the old man's expression eased slightly, even taking on an approving look. He patted Li Pu's shoulder and praised him somewhat, "It seems I wronged you, little comrade did well."
"Even though you've gotten this money, you still can't spend it recklessly. Diligence, frugality, and arduous struggle are our military traditions."
"They must not be discarded."
The old man rambled on to Li Pu for a long time, just like a political class. After lecturing for quite a while, he finally let Li Pu leave.
Coming back from the old man's place, Li Pu instantly lost the urge to splurge.
It wasn't that he suddenly felt he should be frugal, knowing he had to drink the broth when eating instant noodles, and finish his vegetables without throwing them away. He just felt it was so strange.
He clearly had no special grievances with Kiana; if there were any, it was just that bit of trouble involving Mei.
And Mei didn't even care anymore, yet this Kiana kept clinging stubbornly and even followed him all the way here.
This couldn't help but make Li Pu's hair stand on end.
This was definitely not a good sign.
For now, this Kiana and Changkong City seemed like a place that merely contained Honkai Impact 3 characters without actually being the Honkai universe.
But what if this Kiana really was that Kiana?
Then the current situation meant their conflicts were escalating, and if a fight really broke out, he would undoubtedly be the one to suffer.
So... so... so...
"System~ um," Li Pu instantly dived into his system and said, "Can we discuss this again?"
"Can we change the transformation sequence for that outfit? I want to be the Bed King, to be a good king."
"But I don't want to be so mortified, look at this..."
"No, you can't! Impossible!" The system refused with a ruthless triple blow.
"If you want to be a good Bed King, things like a sense of shame."
"You must completely cast them away!"
Cross-dressing can solve problems
There are many things in the world that leave you speechless; you can't tell whether they're doing you good or ill.
Just like this system.
It skillfully refused Li Pu's request with a triple rejection, but it also stated a principle that Li Pu felt was both right and wrong, correct yet incorrect.
"Things like a sense of shame must all be cast aside," the system cajoled step by step. "The reason why it makes you do those transformation exercises that might seem mortifying to you."
"Do you know what a maiden's heart is, though? You certainly don't, and if you didn't know, you wouldn't understand why these things sweep across the globe."
"Just like most boys hold a hero's dream in their hearts, female knights also hold a soft maiden's dream."
"If you want to understand others as a king of understanding, you have to put yourself in their shoes to think about those issues."
"Just reading text files is not enough," the system said, looking earnest. "You also have to learn to dissect the character, interpret the character, and think from the perspective of 'suppose I were her'."
"Consider issues starting from her psychology, her position, and her habitual way of thinking."
"That's how you become a king of understanding!"
"You can't achieve it just by saying the phrase 'nobody understands... better than me'."
The system delivered the final verdict: "Whether it's dancing the transformation routine or cross-dressing, the common point is that there's only zero times and countless times."
"If you want to understand the Bed King, the system's suggestion is not to pick the transformation dance first, but to go COSplay the Bed King instead."
"COSplay can narrow the distance between you and the character, letting you understand them better."
"I can provide some help with this."
"Oh~ what you say sounds so reasonable, I am actually left speechless," Li Pu felt as though he had been persuaded; why did the system's words sound so reasonable?
Then, then... then there must be something wrong with it!
My system is definitely not this kind!
"Didn't you say you couldn't interfere with reality?!" Li Pu thought he had caught a loophole in the system's words and said, "COSplaying a character."
"How can you help me with this?!"
"I can provide the most outstanding COSer to guide you, along with the best costume designer, makeup artist, hairstylist, and photographer," the system said. "Although I cannot interfere with reality, I can provide you with some intelligence assistance."
"If you are willing, I can offer you some connections."
"As for money, you shouldn't be poor right now, right?"
That sounded truly thoughtful, offering a complete set of services from beginner to master. Especially since the bonus hadn't even arrived yet, everything had already been arranged for him clearly.
This...
"You really are out of your mind!" Li Pu dropped that single remark and exited the system.
As expected, it was pretty much as he had estimated. Perhaps this system really couldn't interfere with reality, nor could it force him to make a fool of himself through those Buddha-like tasks that had no time limits or failure penalties.
Yet this system truly harbored malicious intentions.
That internet meme from his past life—'Why don't you cross-dress? Cross-dressing can solve all problems'—might actually fall upon his head to be realized now.
"Damn it~" Li Pu stood up, pulled up his pants, and went to the kitchen to prepare a pack of instant noodles for himself.
He would splurge today!
A pack of instant noodles, boiled in water, lavishly using natural gas, adding a ham sausage, and poaching two eggs. If he were somewhere like a railway station, he could guarantee it would draw fifty or sixty people to watch.
Pity there were neither fifty or sixty people here, nor was it a railway station.
A steaming bowl of boiled instant noodles didn't require any special skills and was quick to make. He carried it to the table and turned on the TV to eat while watching.
"Feels pretty good."
With noodles and broth both gone, only after eating his fill did he feel like he had come back to life.
He had been poor for too long; the initial funds given by the system were neither much nor little, but the biggest problem before was that he hadn't had a job. Without a job there was no income, and without income that little bit of money was simply not enough.
Drinking cold water, eating steamed buns, eating salted vegetables, he had scraped his way through. For the first time, he felt that instant noodles with ham and eggs could taste this good.
"Hmm, there don't seem to be any special news reports lately..."
Li Pu boredly flipped through the television channels; the news was playing right at this hour. The format and broadcasts were basically indistinguishable from his past life with no differences.
After watching for a while, Li Pu finally put down the remote control in his hand.
He opened a can of Otaku Fat-Water, taking a fierce gulp. The sweet and sour taste coupled with bursting, restless bubbles brought a strong sense of refreshment.
Sufficient sugar also relaxed his mind and provided a sense of false satisfaction.
Yet this false satisfaction quickly transformed into a sense of emptiness and anxiety.
False satisfaction was, after all, still false satisfaction.
According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, having just escaped the days of a precarious existence where meals were uncertain, once basic food and accommodation needs were met, security needs became Li Pu's next target of pursuit.
The seemingly aloof system actually harbored malicious intentions.
Traditionally, this kind of system inevitably dug a massive pit waiting for the user to jump in themselves. And compared to this invisible and hard-to-predict pit.
Things represented by St. Freya were a genuinely visible threat to Li Pu!
Honkai!
The natural disaster of this world! Although he hadn't found any records regarding Honkai from public information yet, the existence of St. Freya Academy, Mei, Kiana, Theresa, and even Otto indicated that this world was bound to have some connection to Honkai.
Perhaps Honkai existed, and the authorities simply concealed the true information without telling ordinary citizens.
How to survive in this world that might be fraught with all sorts of dangers was truly a number-one problem.
Li Pu turned off the TV; Kiana showing up at his doorstep meant that whether he liked it or not, he had been pulled into a massive vortex and could not extricate himself.
And as for how to establish himself safely within this vortex, he really had to rely on this system that was probably digging a hole for him.
He stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror. His self in this life did not possess particularly robust muscles.
He lacked the sharply defined, intensely masculine tough-guy face of his past life.
He also lacked the bronze-toned skin tempered by wind and sun.
What he had was a somewhat feminine, handsome yet slightly cold-looking face, a slender yet appropriately proportioned, more symmetrical and gender-neutral physique, avoiding an overly emaciated body while possessing fair and tender skin.
He looked much like the pretty boys frequently talked about in his past life.
If he really were to cross-dress...
He might even rival Xuanmo Beibei.
It really felt somewhat capable of being both male and female, bewitching all living beings.
"Cross-dressing..." Li Pu looked at his current self in the mirror and said self-deprecatingly, "cross-dressing can solve all problems."
"Did that really come true for me?!"
Before you continue