"You can tell at a glance. University students' eyes are different from everyone else's." Li Zhi smiled as he explained.
"What's different about them?" The male student seemed determined to get to the bottom of it.
"University students' eyes almost always carry a trace of clear stupidity. They're easy to recognize." Li Zhi said it jokingly.
"Clear stupidity? Hahaha, Ye Fan, I never thought we looked like that in the boss's eyes." The burly boy beside him spoke up.
"Boss, you've got a good eye." Ye Fan gave Li Zhi a thumbs-up.
Li Zhi said, "You two should be freshmen at Ke University this year, right?"
The burly boy said, "Boss, you guessed wrong. We're sophomores now."
"Pang Bo, have you decided what gift to buy?" Ye Fan asked the burly boy.
Li Zhi immediately said, "If you're choosing a gift for your girlfriends, I suggest you look over here at the Dynasty-style accessories. We have Tang-style hairpins, Song-rhyme earrings, and Ming-Qing pendants. They're all excellent choices. Quite a few couples from Ke University have bought things at my little shop."
Pang Bo didn't seem very good at choosing gifts, so he asked Ye Fan, "Ye Fan, what kind of gift do you think I should give Kong Shengyi?"
Ye Fan pointed at a Pixiu bracelet in the glass display case. "I think that Golden Pixiu Bracelet would be pretty good."
Pang Bo said, "Wouldn't giving a Golden Pixiu Bracelet seem a little tacky?"
Ye Fan said, "Listen to me and you can't go wrong. Your Miss Kong is famous for being money-loving. If you want to win her over, you have to be willing to spend money. Otherwise, she won't even give you a proper look."
Pang Bo said, "All right, then I'll take it. You have more experience than me in this area, so listening to you can't be wrong."
Ye Fan said, "Actually, I don't think you and Kong Shengyi are a good match. Instead of paying such a price to pursue her, you might as well choose someone else."
Pang Bo said, "You don't understand. Shengyi is the only girl who has ever moved my heart. If I don't go all out and boldly pursue her at least once, I'll regret it in the future."
Ye Fan said helplessly, "As long as you're happy."
Afterward, Pang Bo called out to Li Zhi, "Boss, wrap up that Golden Pixiu Bracelet for me."
Li Zhi, however, seemed to have lost his soul, as though he hadn't heard Pang Bo.
His eyes were vacant as he stared at the street outside the shop, his mind seemingly hooked away by something.
Deep down, however, his heart had already been rocked by towering waves.
"Ye Fan, Pang Bo..."
This world wasn't Earth in a parallel spacetime at all. It was Earth in the Shrouding the Heavens World.
Li Zhi had originally planned to lie low and spend his whole life in peace, but his thoughts suddenly became incredibly complicated.
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After failing with an original novel, I've returned to fan fiction once again. I hope everyone will enjoy this story of Shrouding the Heavens told from an entirely new perspective.
After seeing Ye Fan and Pang Bo off,
Li Zhi stood at the shop entrance and watched them disappear around the corner.
The pedestrians on the street were as usual, but he could no longer calmly appreciate the bustle and warmth of the mortal world.
He returned to the shop and immediately collapsed into his recliner.
But less than three seconds after lying down, he stood back up.
He set down the string of Peach Wood Prayer Beads he had unconsciously been rolling rapidly between his fingers, picked up a large thermos normally used for brewing tea from the coffee table beside him, and walked into the shop's storage room.
The moment he picked up the kettle, he found it completely empty.
Then he took a bottle of Wahaha purified water from beneath the table, gulped it into the kettle, switched on the power, and began boiling the water.
He watched the temperature display on the kettle rise gradually from 23°C.
Li Zhi should have waited until the water boiled before leaving, but today he seemed unusually impatient.
As soon as the temperature reached 40°C, he picked up the kettle and poured the water into the thermos. Then he walked toward the shop entrance, drinking as he went.
His gaze swept back and forth across the street, but he didn't see Ye Fan or Pang Bo. Having bought their gift, they had probably already returned to school.
When he turned back into the shop, Li Zhi realized that in the mere few dozen seconds he had been gone, the thermos he had just filled with warm water was empty again.
He had actually drained the tea, which no longer had even the slightest fragrance, in a single breath.
That had been 596 milliliters of bitter tea.
Ordinarily, he would have poured out the bitter tea in the cup before carefully selecting tea leaves and brewing fresh tea.
But now he couldn't be bothered with any of that.
He returned to the storage room and boiled another kettle of water.
Then Li Zhi hurried out of the shop and ran straight to the public restroom eighty meters away.
Two minutes later, he came out of the public restroom, shaking his damp hands.
As he passed Zhou Mei's clothing shop, Zhou Mei suddenly came out, grabbed his arm, and asked, "What was wrong with you just now?"
"I didn't pee on my hands. I just forgot to bring tissues, so I washed my hands and came out without drying them." Li Zhi seemed preoccupied and hadn't heard what Zhou Mei was asking. He instinctively began explaining.
"Ugh! Who asked whether you peed on your hands? How shameless." Zhou Mei rolled her eyes at Li Zhi with alluring charm, then continued, "I was asking why you seem so absent-minded. You've already gone in and out three times just now, haven't you? This isn't like you at all."
Normally, Li Zhi would lie down rather than stand whenever possible. Even when customers came to the shop, he left everything to chance.
He never took the initiative to introduce the shop's products to customers, acting as though it made no difference whether they bought anything or not.
And he never haggled.
But just now, Li Zhi had actually left the shop and come all the way to the entrance.
And not just once.
Zhou Mei was extremely curious about who those two university students were. They had actually turned Li Zhi, who was as lazy as an old tortoise, into an alert cat.
"Old tortoise" was how Zhou Mei privately summed up Li Zhi.
"Sis Mei, I've still got water boiling in the shop, so I'll head back first." Li Zhi seemed to remember that the kettle in the shop was still heating. He immediately broke free of Zhou Mei's hand and hurried back inside.
Wearing her high heels, Zhou Mei followed with a clack-clack.
After entering the shop, Zhou Mei saw that the Peach Wood Prayer Beads Li Zhi never took off had actually fallen to the floor. She asked with concern, "Little Li, did you run into some trouble?"
"Nothing." Li Zhi held the now-boiled kettle in one hand and the thermos in the other, speaking as he poured the water.
When Zhou Mei saw the hot water pour into the thermos without releasing a rich tea fragrance, she asked curiously, "Why didn't you add tea leaves today?"
Only then did Li Zhi realize that he hadn't poured out the tea leaves in the thermos, which had already steeped until they turned bitter.
"I planned to drink bitter tea today." Li Zhi smiled at Zhou Mei as he spoke.
"How strange." Zhou Mei muttered to herself, then said, "Don't order takeout tonight. I made soup at home, and it'll be delivered soon. Come have some with me."
"Sis Mei, I still have something to do. I'm going to close early in a little while." Li Zhi apologized.
He needed to go home and calm himself down in solitude.
Ye Fan and Pang Bo, who had suddenly appeared in his life, were far more than two ordinary university students.
Their appearance meant the gears of fate had begun to turn.
This world would soon cease to be ordinary.
His wish to live out his life in peace and happiness was practically impossible now.
Although Earth's cultivation world wasn't as prosperous as Beidou,
that didn't mean Earth had no cultivators. It was only because of the Age of Dharma Decline that they hid within Array Barriers and almost never ventured into the Mortal World.
But thirty years later, when Ye Fan returned from Beidou and took the damaged Immortality Ascension Cauldron from the Kunlun Immortal Pool, Earth's Age of Dharma Decline would end, and a golden age of cultivation would arrive once more.
By then, he would still be under sixty, with another thirty or forty years of life ahead of him.
And by that time, he would already be old and frail. Even if he wanted to step onto the path of cultivation, it would probably be exceedingly difficult.
Li Zhi was currently twenty-five, the same age Ye Fan would be when he later embarked on the Path of Cultivation.
This was already his final chance.
With his emotions fluctuating constantly, Li Zhi suddenly remembered something his father in this life, Li Daqiang, had told him the day before his death.
It made his eyes light up.
Moreover, the death of his father in this life, Li Daqiang, had been extremely strange. He hadn't died of a sudden illness or an accident. He had clearly been in the prime of his life, yet for no apparent reason, he had called Li Zhi home and said that his end was near. A few days later, he had passed away peacefully in his sleep.
"Sis Mei, I'll buy you a drink another day." With that thought, Li Zhi quickly placed the thermos and kettle on the glass display counter, no longer caring whether the hot water spilled onto it.
After saying that, he took a backpack from the cabinet beneath the counter.
Then he picked up the phone and keys from the recliner and hurried outside.
Once outside, he began locking the door, not even giving Zhou Mei time to react. He nearly locked her inside the shop.
After pulling down the rolling shutter, Zhou Mei grabbed Li Zhi's arm and asked with concern, "Little Li, are you really all right?"
Li Zhi smiled. "I'm fine. I just suddenly remembered something important that's waiting for me to take care of."
Then he removed Zhou Mei's hand and said, "I'll explain later, Sis Mei. I'm leaving first."
He hurried out of the pedestrian street and arrived at the parking lot.
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