Chapter 543

Li Ao shared a three-bedroom apartment in Flushing's Chinese community. His roommates were an older man who worked in a restaurant kitchen and a student couple.

The older man seemed honest enough. The couple believed in freedom, but their idea of freedom came at everyone else's expense.

They liked inviting friends over to drink and smoke weed in the living room. They filled it with stale air, never cleaned up, and left the place looking like a dump.

The original Li Ao had complained to the landlord, who had spoken to the couple. They agreed to behave, then carried on as before.

Things had turned ugly. The moment Li Ao got his check, he thought of several things he needed money for. One was moving out.

He opened the door.

The sour stink of tobacco and alcohol hit him. It brought back unpleasant childhood memories.

His face darkened as he opened every window and switched on the exhaust fan.

Then he took a bathrobe and went to shower.

Fifteen minutes later, Li Ao lay in bed, thinking about everything that had happened lately.

Crossing worlds, the system, Marvel, Stark, Pepper...

If he hadn't lived through it, he wouldn't have believed it himself.

Gradually, Li Ao fell asleep.

He had no idea how long he'd slept before loud music woke him. He checked his phone: ten thirty. The student couple next door usually woke around now, then began another day of sleeping by day and going out at night.

And these people are students?

Oh, they study the arts... Never mind, then.

The original Li Ao had been kind. He'd worried that calling the police might end the couple's college careers, so he had put up with them.

Give some people an inch, and they took a mile.

His tolerance had