But when Xu Feng saw the reproachful look in Lu Fei's eyes, he couldn't help laughing. "All right, all right. How about we split it fifty-fifty?"
"Split it?" Lu Fei was tempted, but still refused. "No. I said I'd treat you, so I'm paying."
"Thanks, then. Shall we go see Xiao Dan?"
Xu Feng didn't bother pretending to refuse. He stood up at once.
Lu Fei took a deep breath and forced a smile. "I'll go pay first."
Before long, Lu Fei, looking pained, had taken Xu Feng out of the hospital. She pushed his wheelchair toward an apartment building deep inside the base.
"This place isn't connected to the residential area?"
As they walked along the shaded path, Xu Feng looked down at it in surprise.
He had never been here before.
He hadn't even heard of it.
"Right. These are the student apartments. They're for Martial University students. I applied for a temporary place for you, so you can stay for a week."
Lu Fei sounded rather pleased with herself.
Xu Feng gave her an admiring look. "You're amazing. I owe you a lot for this. I really don't know how to thank you. Maybe I could—"
The words "repay you with my body" stuck in his throat.
Xu Feng just couldn't bring himself to say something so shameless.
"Maybe I could... maybe I could..."
But after stammering for a while,
Xu Feng realized he couldn't offer Lu Fei any help at all.
The gap between them was simply too big. They might as well have belonged to different worlds.
He felt a little dejected.
All his earlier ideas seemed laughably childish and pathetic.
"What's there to thank between friends?" Lu Fei's words surprised him.
"Are we friends?" Xu Feng asked, astonished.
"I guess so? At least that night, you..." Lu Fei paused. "At the very least, you're a decent person. A decent friend.
"And you did a good job raising Xiao Dan, too. I really like that girl."
Xu Feng understood.
Well, that was nice, too.
Inside the apartment.
"Dad!"
The moment Xiao Dan saw Xu Feng, she excitedly launched herself at him again.
This time, though, Lu Fei caught the little girl before she could reach him.
"Your dad's injured. Don't send him right back to the hospital," Lu Fei teased with a smile.
"Dad, how did you get hurt?" Xiao Dan asked curiously as she sat in front of Xu Feng. "Did you think about women so much you gave yourself internal injuries?"
Lu Fei: "..."
Xu Feng: "..."
Seeing the murderous look in Lu Fei's eyes, Xu Feng quickly straightened his expression. "Do you remember what I told you?"
"I do!" Xiao Dan's little face immediately turned serious. "Dad said that even if you think something, you shouldn't say it out loud in public."
Lu Fei's eyes narrowed at once.
Xu Feng hurriedly said, "(ΩДΩ)?? Not that!"
"Oh, right." Xiao Dan tilted her head and counted on her fingers. "Kids should act their age and stop saying grown-up things. You should talk about things appropriate for your age!"
Only then did Xu Feng relax. He glanced at Lu Fei and said solemnly, "You know that, so why do you keep saying things like that? Am I that kind of person? I'm focused on my career right now. I don't have time to think about my personal life."
"Oh? Didn't you say the other day that you'd find me two stepmoms?" Xiao Dan asked, puzzled.
Pfft!
Xu Feng immediately spat out a mouthful of tea.
He realized the little girl was definitely messing with him, so he pretended to get up. "You little rascal! Take this!"
"Ahahaha!" Xiao Dan sprang to her feet and ran outside. "Dad, you're so silly! I'm going out to play!"
Xu Feng pretended to chase her, but in the end, he just smiled and sat back down.
Lu Fei was smiling now, too.
Only then did she understand.
Xu Feng had been fooling around with Xiao Dan on purpose so she wouldn't worry about him.
"You two really are... quite the pair of oddballs," she said with a laugh.
"I'll take that as a compliment." Xu Feng smiled, then looked around the room. "The place is pretty nice, even if it can't beat our doghouse."
Lu Fei rolled her eyes at him. "What are you planning to do from here? It'd be a waste to keep someone with your combat ability in the Maintenance Department.
"I never expected you, who usually kept such a low profile, to cause such a huge stir."
Xu Feng gave a light cough, suppressing the faint pride he felt. "You're exaggerating. I just had the advantage of catching them by surprise.
"They wanted to use Xiao Dan to threaten me, so they had to die!"
A faint killing intent entered Xu Feng's voice as he spoke.
Lu Fei nodded, understanding.
Looking at Xu Feng's cold expression, she felt her heart stir.
Xu Feng didn't notice the change in Lu Fei's gaze. He just frowned and said, "But after fighting Lurence this time, I realized I still have a lot of weaknesses.
"Lurence's blade technique was strange. It produced sparks of electricity when he used it, and it made people's muscles go numb. Do you know what kind of secret technique that was?"
"Just an ordinary C-rank attack technique. It only costs a few million," Lu Fei replied casually.
"A few... million?" Xu Feng gaped. Now that was what you called a rich kid!
Xu Feng glared at her in outrage. "Seriously, couldn't martial artists' stuff start at a few tens of thousands, then go up to hundreds of thousands and millions? How could it jump straight to millions!?"
Lu Fei rolled her eyes. "If you don't have money, why practice martial arts? The saying 'poor scholars, rich martial artists' has been around since ancient times. You know that.
"But even so, most Martial University students are still poor when they're freshmen.
"So every university offers students a discount of ten to thirty percent on secret manuals.
"There are three types of secret manuals: cultivation methods, attack techniques, and movement techniques.
"The basic Genetic Blood Qi Cultivation Method provided by Sky Moon Martial University is free.
"You have to pay for the advanced ones, but they're discounted to thirty percent.
"Attack and movement techniques are discounted to ten percent.
"So for most Martial University students, the expense isn't too bad.
"If they have to, they can take out a campus loan. They can always save up enough to buy a secret manual.
"Once they become official martial artists, they can earn the money back after a few missions. So having a C-rank manual isn't unusual.
"And Lurence seems to come from a pretty good family. His uncle is a high-level warrior, so it's easy for him to get money."
Xu Feng asked enviously, "Martial University students get such good benefits?
"Do you think someone like me, a forty-year-old, still has a chance of getting in?"
Lu Fei rolled her eyes. "Get in? My ass. If you want to buy secret manuals now, your best option is a loan.
"There are three types of Martial Loans at the Sky Moon Martial University base. If you're serious, you can ask around."
"Take out a loan to practice martial arts?" Xu Feng was at a loss for words.
But Lurence's blade technique really was powerful. Xu Feng could tell that the other man's mastery of it was quite ordinary.
Far worse than his own.
Yet its attack style and the special power it contained were things Xu Feng desperately wanted!
If he had the same blade technique as Lurence, he wouldn't have been so passive in that fight!
Could a loan make him stronger?
Should he take one?
At this point, Lu Fei seemed to have a lot to say. She spoke as if she'd opened the floodgates:
"I'm telling you, don't put too much pressure on yourself. When you take out a loan, what matters is whether it's worth it, not how much you borrow.
"Look at all those people on Earth taking out loans to buy houses. Isn't that foolish?
"By now, humanity's nations have completely taken control of quite a few Dimension Realms in the Sky Pit World.
"They're building new cities and putting up new apartment buildings everywhere.
"Houses can't appreciate in value anymore. They're constantly losing value.
"Those kinds of loans don't bring people any value or improve them in any way. Spending money on that is foolish.
"But what about taking out a loan to practice martial arts? Once you grow stronger, won't it be easy to make money?
"You're spending money to improve yourself! That's what makes it worthwhile!"
Xu Feng nodded, clearly tempted. "But... I don't know much about this. If I want to buy a secret manual, what options do I have? Could you recommend something, Miss Lu?"
Lu Fei scoffed. "Now you know to call me 'Miss'? Don't worry. I know this stuff very well."
### A three-chapter update! Please vote, please vote! The new-book rankings have us in ninth place. Please help me climb higher, my esteemed readers!
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