Earth.
Lin Fan was utterly dumbfounded...
He had been furious at first. After all, Qi Zixiao had crippled his Inner Force. How could he not be angry?
But after discovering that his strength and everything else were actually even better than when he had Inner Force, he stopped being angry.
Clearly, Qi Zixiao, this "king-level account booster," had used his account to do things that a "beginner" like him could not understand at all.
But those "things" should have brought him more benefits than harm, so there was naturally no need to get angry.
However, after chatting with the owner of the phone shop for a while and having him inspect the phones, Lin Fan was dumbfounded.
He looked at the phone shop owner. "You mean both of my phones got water damage?"
"How could you not know whether your phones got water damage?" The owner spoke with a thick local accent. "Are you messing with me?"
Lin Fan: "..."
Well, damn!
He began mulling it over.
No wonder both phones had broken. So that spendthrift woman had soaked them in water?! What on earth had she been doing?!
Qi Zixiao had no idea that her status in Lin Fan's heart had already undergone a complete "upgrade."
From "Tigress" to "spendthrift woman."
Seeing Lin Fan's dumbfounded expression, the owner mused, "Bro, you didn't steal these phones, did you?"
"One of them was even bought here." Lin Fan glared. "Do I look like that kind of person?"
"You do!" The owner nodded repeatedly.
Lin Fan: "..."
"Don't you have surveillance here? Play it and take a look. I only bought it a few days ago!"
"This thing's just decoration, meant to scare people."
For fuck's sake...
Lin Fan was dizzy. He rubbed his brow. "Forget the useless stuff. Just tell me whether they can be repaired."
The phones had to be repaired.
After all, no matter what he did, he had to contact people, right?
Even hauling bricks required him to contact people and find out whether there were any bricks to haul. How could he make contact without a phone? A public phone? He would have to remember the phone numbers for that.
"The motherboards aren't burned out, but the various components have suffered serious water damage. It's hard to say."
The owner stroked his chin. "I've been in this line of work for more than ten years. I've repaired at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, water-damaged phones, but I've never seen one this badly damaged."
"You could toss it into a washing machine and wash it for half an hour, and it still wouldn't end up like this..."
"???"
Lin Fan was even more confused.
It was that serious?
So what exactly had that spendthrift woman done?
The owner had no idea what Lin Fan was thinking. After pondering for a while, he said, "It's like... how should I put it? Like it was soaked thirty or forty meters underwater for half a day?"
"So... kid, where exactly did these phones come from?"
"I bought them myself!"
Lin Fan felt as if two heads had grown on his shoulders.
How was he supposed to deal with this?
"Fine, I won't ask how you got them. Just tell me whether you want them repaired. If they're fixed, three hundred each. If they can't be fixed, one hundred."
"You charge even if you can't fix them?"
"Of course! I still have to charge for the labor, don't I?"
"Fifty if you can't fix them!" Lin Fan thought it was too expensive and began bargaining.
The owner's mouth split into a grin.
"Deal."
"..."
"Sit over there and play around for a while. We'll have a result in one or two hours at most."
The owner got busy.
Seeing this, Lin Fan could only wait.
Fortunately, he had earned several hundred after hauling bricks. Otherwise, he really could not have afforded the repairs...
As he waited boredly, the fellow began grinding his teeth again.
"So what exactly did that spendthrift woman go off to do? Forget not hauling bricks—how did she even get the phone soaked dozens of meters underwater?"
"Could it be related to the changes in me?"
At that thought, Lin Fan did not know whether he should cry or laugh.
Perhaps... he should laugh?
After all, people said that handsome men who loved to smile never had luck that was too bad, right?
As he waited, the television beside him began broadcasting the local news...
A beautiful female anchor sat upright at the "center of the television" and read the news aloud.
But suddenly, one piece of news caught Lin Fan's attention.
"According to reports, new developments have emerged in the case of a man who threw himself into Swan Lake two days ago, but it is not that his body has been recovered.
"The police are still maintaining a blockade around the scene, and the body has yet to be recovered. The police have even offered a ten-thousand-yuan reward to professional personnel to retrieve it. Clearly, the matter has encountered some difficulties.
"Today, however, we will be discussing another matter...
"Our station has learned that less than half a day after the man threw himself into Swan Lake, a taxi driver encountered a 'man' drenched from head to toe near Swan Lake.
"According to his account, the man was around twenty-five years old, had short hair, and was rather handsome. However, his face was deathly pale, without a trace of color, and he said he wanted to go to Green Mountain Town.
"Yet, when they were still several kilometers from Green Mountain Town, the man suddenly vanished from the vehicle...
"After taxi driver Master Chen connected this incident with the man's suicide at Swan Lake, he was so frightened that he developed a high fever and became bedridden...
"Next, let us watch the related video."
The female anchor's voice trailed off, and the news footage switched to a video, with a textual annotation at the top.
"Relevant surveillance footage of the man throwing himself into the lake. As can be seen, after jumping into the lake, the man did not struggle or surface again."
On the screen.
A man climbed over the railing and then sat there.
Next, something unknown caught his attention. He glanced back slightly and then... resolutely jumped down, vanishing from sight.
Then came the second video.
The interior surveillance footage from inside the taxi...
It showed a man drenched from head to toe getting into the car and sitting on the left side of the back seat. Because the seat obstructed the view, his face could not be seen clearly...
After some time...
Bang!
The door opened, and the man vanished along with it. The driver hurriedly got out of the car and appeared in the footage, running around to inspect the rear, only to find nothing at all...
After watching the news, Lin Fan was completely dumbstruck!!!
At first, when he saw the figure's back, he had only felt that it looked rather familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.
But when the man "turned around" and half of his face came into view...
Wasn't that fucking me?!
So that spendthrift woman had gone off to "throw herself into the lake"?!
Then she had taken a taxi, but because the phone was broken and she had no money, she could only jump out of the moving car, scaring the driver half to death and making him think he had encountered a ghost!
He understood!
Lin Fan understood everything.
But the problem was...
How was he supposed to explain this?
Especially when he turned around and saw the owner staring at him with an extremely strange look in his eyes, Lin Fan felt as if two heads had grown on his shoulders.
"Boss, why are you looking at me?"
"Bro..."
The owner shuddered. "Grudges have their source and debts have their debtor. You and I have no grudge or grievance, so you—you—you... don't do anything rash."
The owner had recognized Lin Fan too!
No full-frontal view? His profile was enough. After all, the person was standing right in front of him...
And besides, there were the phones as "evidence."
Lin Fan nearly rolled his eyes when he heard that...
But at the same time, he found it both infuriating and hilarious...
"No grudge or grievance? If you can't repair my phones, that might not remain true."
The fellow spoke faintly, with a smile that was not quite a smile.
The owner's scalp went numb, and he was almost scared into wetting himself outright.
Before you continue