Don't Drive Out of Spite

Chen Chao was a local from Bin City. His family had become fairly wealthy after their home was demolished for redevelopment, and he had a somewhat boastful personality and loved showing off. That had been obvious from the very first day of school.

Still, that little flaw alone wasn't enough to make Li Xian and their other roommates dislike him. The main reason was that he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Li Xian was blunt, but he didn't mean any harm. Chen Chao, on the other hand, had no filter and loved stirring up trouble.

Who wouldn't find someone like that annoying?

During their first year, because of Chen Chao's big mouth, there were basically no secrets in Room 414, leading to plenty of awkward misunderstandings.

Thanks to Chen Chao, everyone in Room 414 had been branded a "weirdo."

Before even half of their freshman year had passed, Li Xian and the others had started distancing themselves from Chen Chao. They kept out of each other's way, and things were more or less peaceful.

In their second year, a minor incident caused the long-simmering conflict to erupt. Li Xian, Wang Meng, and the others joined forces and beat Chen Chao out of the dorm.

After that, Li Xian and the others from Room 414 were like strangers to Chen Chao. If they ran into each other, they'd go around. If they couldn't avoid one another, there'd at least be some sarcastic remarks; if things got heated, they might even fight.

Just now, if Peng Mengke hadn't stepped in to stop them, they might have come to blows.

"Chen Chao, I'm curious. What happened between you and Li Xian that you still can't let go of, even after all this time?" Peng Mengke asked.

"It was just some stupid stuff..." Chen Chao answered vaguely, then cautiously asked, "Back then, things got pretty heated in our dorm. Didn't you girls gossip about it?"

"Mm... I heard Deng Qi and the others mention it..." Peng Mengke recalled. "They said you had a fight, but they didn't explain exactly why. Still, didn't you make up afterward?"

Make up? My ass!

I even moved out of the dorm.

Damn, that was humiliating.

Chen Chao gave a self-mocking smile. Back then, the matter had ended with him admitting defeat and moving out of the dorm; he hadn't let it escalate any further.

Everyone knew that making a bigger deal of it wouldn't benefit anyone. Chen Chao wasn't about to go around telling people something so embarrassing, and Li Xian and the others hadn't spread it around either.

They'd kept the whole thing among the guys. Almost none of the girls knew the details, let alone Peng Mengke, who was on the fringes of the girls' social circle.

"I don't have anything to say to him. Make up? Heh..." Chen Chao gave a humorless laugh and changed the subject. "Everyone in our class knows what a mouth Li Xian has. He can piss you off like nobody else..."

"Li Xian can be a little blunt... and he does tend to offend people..." Peng Mengke had been a little more attentive to Li Xian back when she'd been on the chubby side herself.

"Heh... 'Offend people' is putting it mildly. Apart from Wang Meng and a few others, who gets along with him? Anyway, let's not talk about him." Chen Chao leaned a little closer and said, "The king crab here is really good. I ordered all their signature dishes, so I guarantee you'll like them... When you get off work tonight, I'll pick you up and we can go see a movie."

"Let's see about tonight. I might have to work late." Peng Mengke neither agreed nor refused, leaving herself some room to maneuver.

"Sure, we'll talk about it tonight." Chen Chao had already gone all out, but there was no need to rush.

About ten minutes later, the dishes began arriving one after another. Li Xian's table was clearly less lavish than Chen Chao's, but they were enjoying themselves immensely.

He didn't stand on ceremony with Dong Linlin. He dug in like a starving man, and in no time, they'd nearly finished a plate of salmon sashimi.

"Go ahead and eat. Don't just watch me. You're making me feel kind of awkward." Li Xian set down his chopsticks and took a sip of tea.

"Hehe... Watching you eat is making me hungry," Dong Linlin teased. She picked up a piece of salmon with her chopsticks, dipped it in soy sauce, and placed it on her plate. Then she added a little wasabi before putting it in her mouth and chewing slowly.

That was how you were supposed to eat sashimi with wasabi: the flavors layered, the presentation elegant. Nothing like Li Xian, who'd mixed the wasabi into the soy sauce in a sloppy mess and then dipped his food into it.

Did it really need to be that elaborate?

It was just raw fish that wouldn't even fill you up.

Li Xian's mouth twitched. He casually picked up a piece of ark shell and tossed it into his mouth. "I'm not picky about food. I eat however I like. Sorry you had to see that."

"Not at all." Dong Linlin swallowed and said, "Eating with someone who has a good appetite makes me feel like I can eat more, too."

"Hehe, didn't you say you'd put on some weight lately and needed to watch it? You still want to eat more? Aren't you worried you won't be able to control yourself?" Li Xian replied offhandedly. The moment the words left his mouth, he wondered if he'd said the wrong thing.

Dong Linlin didn't seem to mind. "I just can't control this mouth of mine, so... you can leave the sashimi to me, and you can finish the sushi."

"Hehe... no problem. I was worried I wouldn't get enough to eat." Li Xian cheerfully pulled the sushi platter closer.

The two chatted on and off as time passed. In the blink of an eye, half an hour had gone by, and almost all the plates on the table were empty.

Li Xian was about halfway full and still wanted more. Dong Linlin rubbed her little belly contentedly, clearly very pleased with the meal.

"Let's head out. I'll take you home." Li Xian glanced at the plates on the table.

"Okay... Waiter." Dong Linlin wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin and called the waiter over to pay.

The meal came to 815 yuan. Under the waiter's astonished gaze, Dong Linlin took out cash to pay.

The waiter glanced sideways at Li Xian, the look in his eyes seeming to ask, "As a man, aren't you going to do anything?"

Li Xian calmly took out his phone, completely ignoring the waiter's look.

Holy crap!

This guy's something else!

The waiter was impressed. He took the money from Dong Linlin and went to the counter to settle the bill and get her change.

"Thank you for dining with us. Your total is 815 yuan, so here's 85 yuan in change."

The waiter deliberately raised his voice. Only then did Li Xian look up. Still acting as if nothing were out of the ordinary, he said, "Can we go now?"

[I think you want to ask me out: mission complete. Time taken: 47 hours, 5 minutes, 20 seconds.]

[Mission rewards: Character Attribute Points +2, two draws, Character Dong Linlin's Charm +1, Yordle Cologne +1.]

"Pfft... cough, cough, cough..." Li Xian started coughing violently, startling both the waiter and Dong Linlin beside him.

"Are you okay?" Dong Linlin asked with concern.

"I'm fine, I'm fine... It went down the wrong way..." Li Xian waved it off, deeply annoyed inside: I can live with her getting one point of Charm. She gave me a mission, after all. But what the hell is Yordle Cologne? Damn it, where's my knife?

Li Xian wasn't in the habit of wearing cologne. He thought men who wore cologne were sissies. The system had given him a bottle of it—wasn't that just rubbing it in?

My skin's soft because of you, System. What's your problem? Discriminating against me?

Li Xian grumbled to himself, but overall, he was pretty satisfied with the mission rewards.

Two linked missions had given him two Character Attribute Points. The more things like that, the better.

Without a second thought, he put the points into his Looks. Just then, a "ding" sounded in his head, and a system notification appeared.

[Host, please adjust your physique. Otherwise, you cannot unlock the Looks cap.]

There was a cap?

Damn it!

Li Xian had considered that possibility before, but he hadn't expected there to be a limit. This lousy system was obviously trying to force him to lose weight.

Li Xian's expression shifted several times. Finally, he sighed and put the attribute points into Stamina instead.

Character Attribute Panel

Host: Li Xian, male, 24 years old, height 182 (increased by 4 centimeters), weight 187 (slightly chubby).

Title: Quick Shooter (Active)

Level: Lv. 1

Looks: 70 (capped).

Charm: 50.

Strength: 51.

Stamina: 55.

Agility: 40.

Unique Passive Skill: [Wish Come True.]

Skill Card Slots (4): [Iron Fist Boy], [Driving with One Hand is Super Cool], [One Shot Into the Hole], [Unlucky Bodyguard].

After adding two points to his Stamina, Li Xian didn't feel any obvious difference.

He didn't use the two draws for now. The cologne went straight into storage, and he wasn't in the mood to take it out and look at it either.

There was already a pile of "junk" in storage. Li Xian opened it with a thought and headed downstairs with Dong Linlin.

System Storage

[Lazy Person's Bath Towel, Ultra-thin Condom, Functional Drink, Elastic Chest Binder, Calming Drink, Strong Hangover Relief Tablet, Random Shopping Discount Card, Currency Conversion Card, Yordle Cologne...]

He was wearing Yordle insoles and socks, and now there was cologne in storage, too. Just how many things did the Yordles make? Were they the system's suppliers?

Li Xian was speechless. He really didn't want to have anything to do with the Yordles, but their products were genuinely useful.

That was kind of annoying.

Couldn't the system find a better supplier?

He grumbled to himself.

As he wondered how to make room in storage, he went downstairs with Dong Linlin.

Two people followed behind them: Chen Chao and Peng Mengke.

"Mengke, did you see that just now?" Chen Chao said with a disdainful look. "He actually let a woman pay. Li Xian really can do anything, huh? I was wondering how he could afford to come to Crab General. Turns out he's got no shame."

There was a note of jealousy in Chen Chao's voice, and his eyes were burning with it.

He really hadn't expected such a beautiful woman to pay Li Xian's bill. Why couldn't something like that happen to him?

"How about we split the bill, then?" Hearing Chen Chao's words made Peng Mengke suddenly feel uncomfortable. "I'll transfer you my share. The total was a little over 1,400, right?"

"Don't, don't... I'm not as stingy as Li Xian. How could I make a woman pay?" Chen Chao said righteously. He'd gone to great lengths to get closer to her and didn't want to ruin it over a little money.

A thousand yuan or so was nothing to him. He earned five or six thousand a month, and his family gave him over ten thousand more. That was more than enough for chasing women.

They came out of Crab General just behind Li Xian and Dong Linlin. To avoid Peng Mengke, Chen Chao hurried a few steps forward and ended up behind Li Xian. He took the opportunity to mock him.

"Big Guy, hope you enjoyed your meal." Chen Chao came up beside Li Xian and slung an arm around his shoulder, sneering. "If you're short on cash, just tell me. I can't give you much, but I can spare one or two thousand."

"We're not close, are we?" Li Xian glanced at him and bumped him aside with his hip, nearly knocking Chen Chao off balance. "Get lost."

"Fuck... I try to be nice, and you treat me like dirt. Keep pretending you're fine, then." Chen Chao steadied himself.

Li Xian glanced at him impatiently. "Dog Chao, if you've got an itch for a beating, just say so. I won't go easy on you."

"I can't be bothered with you..." Chen Chao refused to back down, but he was actually a little scared. He took his car keys out of his pocket and waved them in front of Li Xian. The Mercedes-Benz logo on them was unmistakable.

Then he said smugly, "I just got a new car. Want me to give you a lift?" As he spoke, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at Dong Linlin. "It'd be awful to make a woman pay for your ride home, too."

Chen Chao's obnoxious attitude really made Li Xian want to smack him. But when he saw the logo on the keys, he couldn't help laughing.

"Hahaha... A Mercedes, huh? Which one's yours?" Li Xian glanced at the parking spaces. There were only two Mercedes there: his G-Wagon and a brand-new white Mercedes-Benz GLC300.

"Beep, beep..."

Chen Chao pressed his key fob, and the white GLC300 chirped. "This year's latest GLC300. Only a little over five hundred thousand yuan. Not expensive!"

"Oh... Yeah, not expensive. Your family must've paid a lot toward it," Li Xian said unhurriedly.

"Hehe, so what if my family paid for it? Got a problem with that?" Chen Chao said disdainfully. "Don't give me that crap about it not being mine if my family bought it. Your family can't afford one. I grew up in a family like mine—you could never understand!"

Chen Chao was so confident as he talked about his family buying him a new car that Li Xian almost had to admire him for it.

Still, the more he talked, the harder it was for Li Xian to keep from laughing. Even Dong Linlin, who was just watching from the side, found it hilarious.

What was this, some kind of joke?

A son runs into his dad?

No, it was more like a grandson running into his grandpa.

That was what Dong Linlin thought as she looked at Li Xian's Mercedes-Benz G65.

"What a coincidence..." Li Xian cheerfully took out his car keys and pressed the button. The headlights of the black steel beast parked beside the white GLC300 flashed. "My family got me a new car, too."

As he spoke, he walked over to the G-Wagon and patted the hood. "It wasn't expensive, either. Only four or five million yuan."

"Giggle..." Dong Linlin covered her mouth and laughed.

"Li Xian, is this car yours?" Peng Mengke asked in surprise, walking over.

"Yeah, it's mine." Li Xian nodded.

At that moment, a few passersby came over to look at the steel beast, voicing their admiration now and then.

"How could it be yours?"

"No way..."

"You're just some broke loser!"

Chen Chao stood frozen in place, looking incredulous as he muttered to himself.

"Everyone, clear out. We're leaving." Li Xian opened the passenger-side door for Dong Linlin to get in first, then climbed into the driver's seat.

Just as he started the car, Chen Chao suddenly rushed in front of it and shouted, "Li Xian, where did you borrow this car? There's no way it's yours!"

"Vroom, vroom..."

Li Xian stepped on the gas and lowered the window. "Why couldn't it be mine? One day, your mom could tell you that your dad isn't your real father. Anything's possible. Move aside..." He revved the engine again. "The visibility in this car isn't great. With you being so short... I might not see you."

He meant that if he didn't see Chen Chao and ran him over, he shouldn't complain.

"I..." Chen Chao's face turned bright red. He felt as if his cheeks were burning. Seeing that Li Xian wasn't joking and might really drive over him, he quickly took two steps back and cleared the way.

"Idiot." Li Xian swore, rolled up the window, then floored the gas and swung the car onto the road.

P.S. Next week, it's another lousy PC-site recommendation. Please show your support however you can. I'm begging you. I'm really starting to lose heart.