The Great Recluse

When it came to lunch, Chen Nan had to be particular too. After all, he was a child who had suffered hunger for a long time. He needed time to adjust his diet, or he would ruin his body.

So at noon, he chose a porridge shop that was considered fairly respectable in this neighborhood.

Though it was a porridge shop, quite a few people came there for lunch. Its specialty was nourishing seafood porridge, but it also served all kinds of stir-fried dishes.

Chen Nan still chose an inconspicuous corner. He ordered a seafood porridge, a grilled fish, and more than twenty meat buns.

Since the meat buns had been left over from the morning, the owner gave him a discounted price. Even so, Chen Nan spent around ten yuan on this meal. It made him realize that now that he was raising seven dogs, feeding them was no small expense either.

Luckily, those dogs dug through trash everywhere for food, so Chen Nan did not have to cover all their meals himself. That saved him some money.

It was not that Chen Nan was stingy. He simply had no source of income unless he went stealing. Stealing from an orphanage was one thing, but stealing from ordinary people was another matter entirely.

Chen Nan had not fallen that far.

This was called, "Though poor, grow ever stronger; never let the lofty ambition fall!" Well, actually, perhaps he simply had not been driven to that point yet.

As he ate lunch, Chen Nan watched passersby beneath the brim of his hat. The feeling was the same as when he had been at the internet café: he was extremely uneasy, terrified that someone might spot him.

He might not be a wanted criminal now, but he was still someone being pursued. Showing his face in public all the time was ultimately a bad thing.

If he wanted to be safe, he had to hide himself more thoroughly. But how?

Suddenly, he heard several children laughing and talking. Then he saw two parents bring their children in to eat.

The children were all wearing blue-and-white school uniforms. The sight gave Chen Nan an idea.

As the ancients said: "A small recluse hides in the wild; a great recluse hides in bed..."

Ah, that did not seem right. Let him straighten it out: "A small recluse hides in the wild; a great recluse hides at court." That was right! Sure enough, indulging in those "three vulgarities" back in ancient times had been a mistake—it had delayed him too.

But Chen Nan was not thinking of "hiding at court." As a child, the best place for him to hide was among elementary school students. For one thing, those people might not expect him to pull such a stunt. For another, hiding this way would blend him even more completely into the crowd.

Anything that stood out was easily noticed. For example, ordinary children wore school uniforms, while he wore regular clothes. At internet cafés and on the street, that made him far too conspicuous.

At the very least, people would wonder why this child was not in school.

Therefore, the best thing was to turn himself into an elementary school student. Then he needed to rent a place and hide inside, minimizing how often he went out.

And if he wanted to rent a place without drawing attention, it would be best to find housing near a school, the kind specifically rented out to students. Mixed among those students, plain and ordinary, no one would notice him.

By the time he finished the last bite of fish, Chen Nan had made his decision. He cleaned up the fish bones, took the buns, paid, and left.

After feeding the fish bones and buns to the dogs, Chen Nan began wandering around.

First, he needed to get a school uniform, preferably an old one. So he began searching around the school. He hoped to find a stall or shop selling used uniforms.

If it really came down to it, he could only stop a student and see whether forced buying and selling would work.

After searching for ages without seeing anyone selling old school uniforms, Chen Nan was sweating with anxiety. Suddenly, a girl appeared across the street, looking to be around eleven or twelve.

He could not worry about that much anymore. He stepped forward, stopped the girl, and asked, "Are you selling that? I want to buy it!"

The schoolgirl looked at Chen Nan in surprise and said coldly, "What are you talking about?"

Chen Nan's face reddened. He had been far too rash, so he quickly changed his words. "No, I want to buy the school uniform you're wearing. I need a uniform!"

The schoolgirl glared at Chen Nan. After a long while, she said, "Deep in that alley, there's a broken sign that says 'Clothing Workshop.' Go take a look. They've always bought used school uniforms."

Following the direction the student pointed, Chen Nan saw that there really was a small alley where the single-story houses met the apartment buildings. He had never considered that such a workshop might be inside.

Children really were pure and kindhearted.

He thanked the schoolgirl and immediately headed that way.

Watching Chen Nan's departing figure, the schoolgirl cursed under her breath and walked away as well.

When he reached the depths of the alley, he indeed found the clothing workshop. He was very lucky; Chen Nan got himself a used school uniform. Since he traded the clothes he was wearing for it, he did not have to spend any money.

After coming out, Chen Nan began looking for rental advertisements on utility poles, bus stops, and residential area walls.

Beneath an advertisement promising to restore men's virility and treat prostate disease, Chen Nan found a rental ad that suited him quite well.

It read: Taiping Residential Area, Building 5, Unit 3, Room 302 for rent. Only Taiping Elementary School students accepted (boys only). Shared rooms and single rooms available, indoor bathrooms, complete shower facilities, reinforced internet gateway, free to use.

No living with the landlord.

Below that was the contact number and other information.

Two things about this rental ad appealed to Chen Nan. One was that it was limited to students, and the other was that he could use the internet for free. That would spare him the danger of going to internet cafés.

This was the place!

Chen Nan made up his mind, but that meant he had to call and get in touch with the landlord.

It seemed he still needed a phone. He wondered whether mobile phones existed in this world. From the looks of it, they probably did.

Besides, after wandering the streets for so long, he had seen shops of that sort.

He returned once more to the alley where he hid his money. After summoning the rats and taking out five hundred yuan, he stored the remaining four thousand five hundred away again and began looking for a shop that sold communication devices.

There were plenty of such shops. Chen Nan picked one at random and began talking with the clerk. This scene felt strangely familiar.

Chen Nan recalled buying AI glasses back on Earth. He had left the store, put on the AI glasses, and then, just as he connected to his electromagnetic bicycle, an explosion had suddenly occurred.

Then he had transmigrated into Chen Nan's body.

Now he was buying a similar electronic product again. But this time, there should not be any danger, right?

After asking carefully and examining the devices, Chen Nan learned that the shops here also had demo models for customers to try. The electronic communication devices here were roughly the same as smartphones on Earth.

The only downside was that their phones were still extremely backward.

In his era, mobile phones already used holographic projection technology, Biological Coupling Technology, and so on. Their functions were comprehensive, and they were incredibly powerful.

The phones here, on the other hand, were roughly equivalent to antique models from a thousand years ago.

Still, they could at least be used.

Chen Nan spent a little over three hundred yuan on a phone, and the shop even gave him a SIM card for free.

There were two kinds of SIM cards here. One required identity information, while the other was a temporary card. The latter's number was randomly generated according to a certain pattern, and it could be used until the credit ran out.

Chen Nan was extremely satisfied with this phone. It could solve a major problem for him.

Of course, the first thing was still to secure the room.

He called the landlord, who requested an in-person meeting, so Chen Nan went to find the place.

Along the way, Chen Nan naturally had to make up some excuses for himself. Otherwise, it would be hard for a ten-year-old child to rent a room without an adult accompanying him.

Actually, if the phone shop owner had not been so greedy just now, buying the phone itself would have been difficult. Everyone was afraid of selling to a child and having the parents come after them. That would be more trouble than it was worth.

He finally found the address and knocked on the door. A kind-faced young woman opened it from inside.

When she saw that he was just a child, she froze. But Chen Nan was delighted deep down. Against a woman like this, his methods seemed likely to work.

The two began discussing the rental. Naturally, the landlady refused to rent him a room because he had no parent with him.

Then Chen Nan began to cry, telling her about his circumstances through snot and tears.

He said he came from a single-parent family, that his mother had died and he had only lived with his father. Later, his father had married him a stepmother, and Chen Nan began making up stories about how badly his stepmother treated him, how his father ignored him, and so on.

After his assault of words and tears, Chen Nan naturally had to produce compelling evidence. So he began taking off his clothes.

This was not hooliganism. How could a child possibly be a hooligan? He only wanted to show the landlady how skin-and-bones he was, as well as the faint whip marks on his body.

Later, Chen Nan said that his father had finally shown a little conscience and allowed him to live alone, sparing him from his stepmother's persecution. His father gave him money every month, but would not meet him, and so forth.

Those heart-wrenching sobs, coupled with the reality before her eyes, immediately moved the landlady. Tears streamed down her face without stopping.

The landlady said, "You poor child, stay here with Auntie. It's all right, I won't charge you rent. Stay as you please. Don't worry—no one here will make things difficult for you again."

Chen Nan said through his tears, "No, Auntie, I have to give you money. Giving me a place to live is already the greatest kindness."

The landlady still refused, which left Chen Nan deeply troubled. Playing the sympathy card and deceiving her was already dishonorable enough. If he cheated her feelings and then cheated her money too, could he still call himself a man?

So he displayed a man's silver tongue before a woman and said, "Auntie, thank you so much. But I don't want to let my dad off cheap. He should be the one spending the money. You are kind. This world cannot let kind people suffer losses while bad people profit instead. So you must take the money, or I won't stay here!"

That conquered the landlady even more. She sighed that he was so young, yet already like a real man, responsible and dependable.

She said to Chen Nan, "All right, I'll take the money. But don't talk about your father like that. He is still your biological father, after all. That isn't good."