September's weather was abnormally hot, as if the whole world had been thrown into a furnace. Heat waves filled the air, making it hard to breathe and unbearably uncomfortable.
This kind of scorching weather posed a deadly threat to frail otaku men and women.
The air conditioner in Shen Lang's room never stopped. It stood ready twenty-four hours a day, and his refrigerator was stocked with piles of cold drinks so he would not have to brave the blazing sun whenever he ran out.
Shen Lang had no plans to keep writing novels. He did not know what to do next, and the more than one million yuan in his savings account was practically gathering dust.
He was an ordinary otaku to begin with and knew absolutely nothing about investments or anything like that.
Shen Lang planned to interact with Xia Shuyi more often in the future, raise her Favorability to the maximum, see what kind of good stuff the so-called treasure chest could produce, and then make a decision.
A little after five in the evening, inside the ice-cold room.
Shen Lang was about to play a couple of games when Su Lexuan's exclusive WeChat notification sound popped up.
Female Elf: Piggy peeking meme {What are you doing?}
Female Elf was Shen Lang's nickname for Su Lexuan.
Su Lexuan had a special aura similar to the White Moonlight from one's school days, and when Shen Lang first met her, she had also been rather socially anxious and introverted.
To Shen Lang back then, Su Lexuan had been like a lively, cheerful female elf who burst into the gloomy world of a Goblin like him.
Sleep Till Dawn: "I just woke up. I'll get ready to write in a bit."
Under the system's tempering, Shen Lang had learned quite a bit about getting along with girls.
When a girlfriend asked her boyfriend what he was doing at a time like this, she simply wanted to chat with him and relieve her boredom.
A guy could make up any excuse he wanted, but he absolutely could not say he was about to play games.
Otherwise, the girl would think, You'd rather play games than chat with me? Is there even a place for me in your heart?
Since his girlfriend had come looking for him, Shen Lang sensibly closed the game.
Sleep Till Dawn: "I remember your military training is about to start, right? Have you prepared everything you need? You're going to get tanned, you know."
Female Elf: "Of course I have. Look at the magical tools I bought. They're all for dealing with military training."
Shen Lang opened the screenshot Su Lexuan had sent. It contained sunscreen, a water bottle, heatstroke medicine, insoles, cooling spray, and even Band-Aids?
Sleep Till Dawn: "I understand the other things, but what are the Band-Aids for? Military training shouldn't involve any serious sports injuries, right?"
Shen Lang remembered that during his own military training, quite a few girls in his class had mysteriously bought loads of Band-Aids too.
Yet until military training ended, he had never seen any of them get hurt, and those Band-Aids had never been used.
After typing for several seconds, she kept him in suspense. "Hmph, I'm not telling you~"
Hm? Something's fishy!
Shen Lang's instincts told him that these tiny Band-Aids were definitely not simple, so he searched the browser with the keywords: Why do girls buy so many Band-Aids during military training?
"Holy crap, they can be used like that?"
After reading the explanation online, Shen Lang could only call it genius.
Who would have thought that such tiny Band-Aids could have such a huge use? Damn, he was jealous!
Just as Shen Lang fell into deep thought, Su Lexuan sent him another Douyin video.
When Shen Lang opened it, he saw Su Lexuan in green clothes singing, surrounded by a group of students sitting cross-legged on the grass during military training.
It was a performance segment during military training. Shen Lang had had one during his own training too.
Basically, the instructors picked a few students to perform, livening up the restless atmosphere while also helping the freshmen get acquainted with one another.
In the video, Su Lexuan was egged on by several girls and half-pushed, half-persuaded into standing in the middle of the crowd.
When introducing herself, Su Lexuan took off her military training cap, revealing a delicate and beautiful face.
Although the baggy military training uniform concealed Su Lexuan's slim figure.
That face, brimming with the feeling of a first love, still left the surrounding boys stunned. They whispered among themselves and clicked their tongues in amazement.
Su Lexuan sang "A Little Luck" a cappella. Her voice was incredibly pleasant, and the boys listened with dreamy, enchanted expressions on their faces.
The video had received over a hundred thousand likes, and most viewers in the comments were asking which school this girl attended.
Female Elf: "How was my singing? Did it sound good? {Little bear with hands on hips}"
1: Baby, you sing so well. Having a girlfriend like you must be a blessing I cultivated in my past life! 2: It was so-so. It was only one-third as good as my singing when I shower! 3: What's going on? It's not even New Year yet, so why am I hearing pigs being slaughtered?
Option three was rejected. If this had been the old Shen Lang, he might really have chosen the shamelessly simping reply in option one.
But the current Shen Lang felt inexplicably disgusted just looking at that sentence, his brows knotting into a frown.
Sure enough, simps really were a damned species!
Sleep Till Dawn: "It was okay, so-so. Only one-third as good as my singing when I shower."
Su Lexuan clearly understood the joke. "Hahaha, you really know how to brag. I don't believe you!"
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