The Crisis of Being Kept

Even though Chen Nan was living quite comfortably now, he felt deeply dejected inside.

He had a place to live, someone to cook for him, and someone to drive him around. If he hadn't insisted on taking on some of the household chores himself, he would have been no different from a spoiled rich kid.

But all of this came at the cost of sacrificing a year of his life.

After Wang Bodan reported him, his chance to enter the Wu City Preparatory Academy was gone. And as if things couldn't get any worse, another event contributed to Chen Nan's year of idleness.

The Preparatory Academy held its entrance exams and recruitment every year on October 1st, and Chen Nan had long passed that deadline.

Even with his significant achievements, it wasn't enough to overturn such a rule.

This was the source of his inner turmoil.

He had no idea how to spend this entire year. What's more, his yearning for transcendence was almost as intense as a teenager's love for a crush. Now that it was unattainable, he was truly restless, almost unable to sleep.

After a few days of moping, he realized he couldn't continue in such a state of despair.

Although he had wasted a year, the reality couldn't be changed. He might as well try to turn this bad situation into something good.

The first thing Chen Nan thought of was making money.

He already knew that the years spent studying at the Preparatory Academy would require a huge sum of money.

He could use this year to find a suitable way to earn money to support his future studies.

Although Jiang Lili had offered to support him—oh, no, he was still a child, at most she could raise him—as someone with an adult's mindset, he couldn't stand the idea of being a kept man.

Even though "soft rice" was indeed delicious, soft and warm, moist and nourishing...

He just couldn't bring himself to do it. This made Chen Nan sigh, thinking how much simpler and more comfortable life would be without pride. Living with pride was practically asking for trouble.

However, his heart as a man wouldn't allow it, so he had to find his own way.

Unfortunately, for a ten-year-old boy, talking about making money was like dreaming while awake.

Even though, in the shadows, exploiting children for money was a reality in this world; under the guise of civilization, child labor was absolutely forbidden.

This completely blocked Chen Nan's path to earning money through work.

Moreover, could one earn much money through labor? Where could anyone rely on honest work to get rich? Being able to make a living was already society's greatest gift.

Look at the wealthy and influential. Once they have an abundance of material possessions, quantitative changes lead to qualitative ones, and their material wealth transforms into spiritual wealth.

Thus, these opportunists, simply by being at the top of the wealth rankings, became like life gurus.

To prevent the working class, who were just managing to make ends meet, from feeling spiritually empty and rebelling, many "chicken soup for the soul" stories were concocted and force-fed into their minds.

Chen Nan, you see, disliked even "soft rice," let alone "chicken soup" that required no chewing. Therefore, he never believed those things.

"A person cannot get rich without external wealth; a horse cannot get fat without night fodder." The first half of the saying could also be interpreted as, "A person cannot get rich without illicit gains."

In any case, if he wanted to make a lot of money, the conventional paths were absolutely impossible.

Browsing the internet at home, observing and inquiring all sorts of things outside, Chen Nan found no peculiar avenues suitable for him.

One day, he accidentally stumbled upon an illicit website, and an advertisement that popped up caught his attention.

It was an advertisement for card gambling, naturally claiming that you would only win and never lose if you played.

Chen Nan wasn't so foolish as to believe such an advertisement, but it did give him an idea.

That's right, a shortcut to sudden wealth. Gambling might be inadvisable, but it could be a way to achieve it!

This must sound contradictory, but a contradiction doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.

If gambling couldn't make people rich overnight, how could lotteries, stocks, and casinos make some people wealthy?

As the saying goes, if you play by the rules in this game, you'll never get rich.

That's why gamblers lose everything and ruin their families.

If he wanted to get rich through gambling, he absolutely couldn't be a gambler who followed the usual path. And Chen Nan's idea wasn't just a whim; he had a foundation for it.

This foundation was his own AI system.

The first thing Chen Nan thought of was using his AI system's capabilities to see if trading stocks was feasible. However, as soon as he opened the stock trading interface, he realized he couldn't integrate into it at all.

The main reason was that his AI system lacked sufficient computing power to analyze stock trends.

This surprised Chen Nan somewhat.

His AI system was supposed to be extremely advanced; how could it not even perform such simple data analysis?

Since the AI system was fully integrated into Chen Nan's neural network, the system provided a prompt as he thought this.

The prompt stated: The HW-NX-96T Intelligent System has only developed 9.5% and currently lacks super computing and data processing capabilities, only strengthening the main body's organ nerve reflexes. If the intelligent system is to possess basic computing and data processing capabilities, it must develop to 20%.

Chen Nan understood this and felt a sense of confusion.

So, he couldn't fully utilize this intelligent system yet. But the problem was, it was integrated into his central nervous system; how could he upgrade it?

It seemed obvious that to upgrade this intelligent system, he needed to upgrade his own brain.

But the problem was, it was very difficult for a person's brain to undergo significant improvement. Generally, after adolescence, the brain's development basically stabilizes and doesn't change much.

Therefore, the academically gifted always remain gifted, and the academically challenged always remain challenged; no amount of effort can change this.

But perhaps on Kabudan Planet, there might be other methods, and this would have to be explored after becoming a Transcendent. It was estimated that if it were truly possible to improve one's brain, only methods available to Transcendent beings could achieve it.

This was just an estimate, and Chen Nan naturally couldn't be entirely sure.

Without a certain level of data analysis ability, stock trading was naturally out of the question. As for buying lottery tickets, Chen Nan wouldn't even consider it; that stuff was less transparent than stock trading.

It seemed that this kind of high-class, sophisticated gambling was out of reach for him at the moment.

Was this a sign telling him that he wasn't suited for the high-end route?

Was he really going to become a gambler, playing cards and rolling dice with others?

But even if he shamelessly degenerated, the problem was that casinos didn't allow minors to enter.

Sigh, these were the troubles of being a child; wanting to do anything was just too difficult.

However, Chen Nan wasn't discouraged. Although the law stipulated that minors couldn't enter casinos, there were many things that violated the law.

In this city, official casinos certainly wouldn't let children in, but who could guarantee that there weren't any underground casinos?

In order to earn enough money for school, Chen Nan could only think along these lines.

He began to go out for long periods, inquiring everywhere about underground casinos. Naturally, his methods of inquiry were very peculiar; he would have rats, cats, and dogs scattered around to eavesdrop on such matters.

However, the results were very meager.

After much thought, a person suddenly popped into Chen Nan's mind. He called himself too stupid for not having thought of this person sooner.

So, he immediately contacted her on his phone.

"Hello, Butterfly Loves Flowers, I need to ask you something," Chen Nan said into the phone with an anxious tone.

"I don't go by Butterfly Loves Flowers anymore," a voice said with a laugh from the other end. "I've changed my name to Chen Xiao now."

"Ah, that's great, congratulations," Chen Nan said speechlessly.

"What did you want to ask me?" Chen Xiao asked obediently.

"I wanted to ask you," Chen Nan said with a bit of trepidation, "do you know of any underground casinos that would allow a kid like me to gamble?"

Even through the electromagnetic waves, Chen Nan could sense the other person's astonishment. Chen Xiao asked in a shocked tone, "What do you want to go to a place like that for? That's a place that eats people without spitting out the bones!"

Chen Nan chuckled and said, "Don't worry, I won't get eaten. After all I've been through, don't you have even that much confidence in me? I'm just short on money and want to get some."

Chen Xiao immediately said, "How much do you need? I've saved quite a bit, I can give it to you; just please, don't do anything reckless."

Chen Nan felt so helpless. He thought that back on Earth, he had never received such treatment from a girl. For someone as ordinary as himself, no girl ever paid him much attention.

But after this transmigration, it was different. The women he met all seemed ready to support him.

He said very sincerely, "I can't use your money, and I'm capable of earning it myself..."

Before he could finish, Chen Xiao interrupted him with an outburst, "Chen Nan, are you saying my money is dirty? Just because I earned it doing that?"

Chen Nan suddenly realized that asking Chen Xiao had been a mistake. He began to constantly comfort and explain. Fortunately, Chen Xiao didn't intend to stay angry with Chen Nan and soon calmed down.

However, she was still determined to give him money, putting Chen Nan in a difficult position. It took him a long time to dissuade Chen Xiao from giving him money. Chen Nan dropped his phone and lay on his bed, feeling somewhat exhausted.

He discovered that dealing with women seemed far more difficult than eradicating an evil force.