A Deal

Cheng Xiaoyu felt his scalp go numb.

His mech had still been covered in armor at the time. How had Fu Junlin seen through it?

Just as Cheng Xiaoyu was racking his brains without finding an answer,

several students practically carried Teacher Sun inside.

Teacher Sun had been helplessly "kidnapped" by them, and Cheng Xiaoyu hurried forward to beg for help.

"Teacher, you have to save me!"

Teacher Sun needed no explanation. At a glance, he saw the badly warped mech.

His eyes immediately went wide, and he strode over to inspect it.

"This is clearly a problem with the lumbar power structure system."

Teacher Sun frowned as he analyzed it for a while before reaching his conclusion.

"How do I fix it?" Cheng Xiaoyu asked urgently.

"It can't be fixed right now. You'd have to make a new stabilizer, and that would take at least several hours, maybe more than ten."

Teacher Sun reached inside the mech and felt around, then shook his head helplessly.

Cheng Xiaoyu was completely dumbfounded.

If that was the case, there was no need to fight the next two rounds. He had lost.

His old mech had already been dismantled beyond recognition. All the awesome hardware on it had been incorporated into this mech—otherwise, where would the 2.4 superalloy have come from?

"Is there no other way?" Cheng Xiaoyu asked in disbelief.

Teacher Sun looked at the mech and shook his head.

"Ah, you brats should think of something yourselves. I still have friends waiting over there, so I need to get back."

Teacher Sun waved his hand and scolded the people who had dragged him over. After all, he had no idea Cheng Xiaoyu had bet one hundred thousand yuan with someone.

He had assumed it was just ordinary rivalry between students. Wasn't that commonplace? Winning or losing shouldn't have mattered.

After scolding them, Teacher Sun ignored the stunned Cheng Xiaoyu and hurried off.

He had been chatting with his friends when those rude little brats had dragged him away. That was no way to treat a guest.

"How about... asking Fu Junlin?"

A timid voice spoke up.

"Why ask him? That attention-seeking guy was the one whose crow mouth jinxed the mech!"

"That's right! If not for that foul mouth of his, how could we have gotten so unlucky? Maybe he was even the one who broke it!"

Someone had already started slinging mud with a sour tone.

They did not want Cheng Xiaoyu to think Fu Junlin had been right.

Even Teacher Sun had no solution, so how could Fu Junlin possibly have seen it back then? He had obviously just gotten lucky.

Yet those words struck Cheng Xiaoyu deeply.

Right, Fu Junlin. He had spotted the problem with the mech at a glance. Maybe he had a solution.

Most importantly, Cheng Xiaoyu had no other option now.

"Who has Fu Junlin's contact information?"

Cheng Xiaoyu snapped out of his daze, turned around, and asked the confused people around him.

Everyone around him immediately shook their heads.

A spark of inspiration suddenly flashed through Cheng Xiaoyu's mind. He quickly pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

"Hello! Sister Li? Yes, it's me. Help me look up the phone number of a member named Fu Junlin!"

He finally remembered that when he had gone upstairs that day, he seemed to have seen Fu Junlin with Qiao Zishu. They were members of his gym.

Sure enough, the front desk quickly found the number and sent it to him.

Cheng Xiaoyu called the number, and Fu Junlin's voice came through the line, panting heavily.

"Hello! Hah... hah..."

"Uh... Brother Fu, if you're busy, I can call back later."

Cheng Xiaoyu had not expected to call at such a bad time, yet he was reluctant to hang up. He was in a desperate hurry—five minutes had already passed, and the second round would begin in another ten.

"Who is this?"

Fu Junlin steadied his breathing and spoke.

"I'm Cheng Xiaoyu! Do you remember me? A couple days ago, you said there was something wrong with my mech, during Teacher Sun's mech specialization class!"

Cheng Xiaoyu said excitedly.

"Ah, I know. Young Master Cheng, right? I'm working out at your family's gym."

Fu Junlin wiped away his sweat as he answered between breaths.

"Oh, so you're working out."

Cheng Xiaoyu let out a huge sigh of relief. The main thing was that his family's gym was in this building, and the elevator would get him there quickly.

"Yeah, what did you think I was doing?"

Fu Junlin asked doubtfully.

"Haha, haha, I thought you were working out too."

Cheng Xiaoyu laughed awkwardly a few times before quickly getting to the point.

"Brother Fu, a couple days ago you said something was wrong with my mech. I regret not listening to you. Now it really has malfunctioned. I failed to recognize greatness when I saw it. Could I ask you to help..."

He awkwardly trailed off.

After all, his reaction and the reactions of those around him had not been very good at the time. They had avoided Fu Junlin like he was a jinx and had even spoken rudely to him.

Now he was asking Fu Junlin for help.

"Did the mech's lumbar power mechanism collapse?"

Fu Junlin asked directly.

"Yes!!"

Cheng Xiaoyu answered hurriedly. Sure enough, Fu Junlin definitely had not been guessing like everyone claimed.

He clearly knew exactly what was going on—perhaps even better than Teacher Sun. Without even seeing it, Fu Junlin had diagnosed it over the phone.

"Young Master Cheng, I'll be straightforward. I don't want to become one of your many sycophants, so I want to make a deal with you."

Fu Junlin seemed to have expected this and got straight to the point.

"Go ahead!"

Cheng Xiaoyu's heart stirred. He felt conflicted, yet also strangely relieved.

He was conflicted because he did not know what conditions Fu Junlin would demand. If they were too excessive, that would be troublesome.

But he also appreciated Fu Junlin's way of speaking. Most of the time, Cheng Xiaoyu actually hated having so many sycophants following him around.

Instead, he admired that Fu Junlin wanted to make a fair deal with him. Even if Fu Junlin had planned this all along, he would accept it—who told him not to listen to Fu Junlin in the first place?

"Your family's gym has a gravity room. I want to use it. Of course, if that's inconvenient, I can go when there aren't many people at the gym."

Fu Junlin added that last part so it would not be difficult for Cheng Xiaoyu.

"That's all?"

Cheng Xiaoyu froze.

No money, no gym membership card, nothing like that—he only wanted to use the gravity room?

"Yeah, that's all," Fu Junlin replied.

"No problem. You can use my black card from now on. You don't need to worry about how many people are there. My card is your card!"

Cheng Xiaoyu declared with a grand wave of his hand.

The black card was the highest-tier card accepted at all of their gym's locations. It granted access to every facility, regardless of level—the gravity room, sauna, swimming pool, space bike, everything.

"It's a deal!"

Fu Junlin immediately seized on the agreement, seemingly afraid Cheng Xiaoyu would change his mind.

"Don't worry!"

"Good. Wait for me."

Fu Junlin hung up right after saying that.