Definitely Next Time

As dawn began to break, the bus stopped outside Jiangyuan Residential Community. Jiang Chen got up and stepped off, his classmates warmly calling out their goodbyes. They had all survived the night thanks to him and Zhao Erhu.

Someone suddenly pointed out that this was Jiangyuan Residential Community, where many of the apartments were rentals.

Li Jie nodded. "Yeah, Jiang Chen still rents."

Upon hearing this, several students from well-off families immediately discussed pooling their money to buy him an apartment in Jiangbei City as a thank-you gift.

Some of the girls' eyes also lit up. They felt that Jiang Chen's modest family circumstances suddenly brought him closer to them.

Zhao Qian, for example, boldly added Jiang Chen through the Department Group Chat.

Her first message was:

"Jiang Chen, are you free next weekend? I've booked a table for two at the Sky Restaurant. After dinner, we can browse the Golden Dragon International Center and buy you a few outfits, then see a movie at Global Cinema that evening. If you like cars, there's a dealership nearby."

After sending it, Zhao Qian bit her pretty red lip, already working out how she would ask her mother for money when she got home.

Halfway home, Jiang Chen saw the message. Though he normally wouldn't flinch even if a mountain collapsed in front of him, the corner of his mouth twitched violently.

The whole message practically screamed of a rich woman keeping a pretty boy. The impression was even stronger than when Sister Hong had produced that stack of property deeds.

More importantly, Zhao Qian was a young woman who usually dressed well, with pretty, innocent looks and a nice figure. She was easily an eight out of ten or better.

Surely she didn't need to resort to this?

"Wait, I think..."

Jiang Chen suddenly remembered that Zhao Qian came from a single-parent family. Her mother was a powerful career woman, a senior executive at a foreign company.

Thinking about it that way, the girl probably had little romantic experience and had only said all that because she was copying how her mother spoke.

Not wanting to hurt her feelings, Jiang Chen replied gently.

"Definitely next time!"

On the bus, Zhao Qian's delicate, willow-leaf eyebrows furrowed. "Next time? Does he mean he's busy this weekend and can only go the weekend after... I'd better ask Sister Zhao what to do in this situation."

As she spoke, she opened a WeChat conversation and explained what had happened.

Although the contact was saved as Sister Zhao, she was actually Zhao Qian's mother. The two were so close that they often called each other sisters.

That was also why Zhao Qian had immediately asked her mother how to express her interest when she met a boy who made her heart flutter.

The message she had just sent had been the result of that advice.

This time, a voice message arrived from the other end.

"Hah, he's playing hard to get. That's men for you, always full of tricks. Don't worry, Qianqian. Your big sister will drive you over to see him next week!"

On a spacious bed in a bedroom in an upscale residential complex, a woman in a spaghetti-strap nightdress lounged on her side, holding her phone in one hand. A trace of wariness appeared in her long, beautiful eyes.

She had suffered at a man's hands herself, and naturally didn't want her daughter following in her footsteps.

That earlier message had been full of questionable lines. As a seasoned businesswoman, her emotional intelligence obviously wasn't really that low.

It had actually been a blatant test!

The boy had replied that he would go next time, which was an indirect acceptance. That meant he was a manipulative little scumbag. She was already secretly planning how to expose his true colors and make her daughter face reality.

Meanwhile, after replying, Jiang Chen naturally had no idea that his message had caused a small misunderstanding because this world didn't have the "definitely next time" meme.

He took the elevator upstairs, went home, showered, and fell straight into bed.

Although he now possessed Demonic Power and a powerful physique, Jiang Chen was no machine. Besides, even cultivators in novels had to reach Foundation Establishment before they could stop eating, didn't they?

He had spent the entire night chasing ghosts with a blade in hand. Naturally, it had taken its toll.

Sun Zhibing had already promised to request leave from the school for everyone, giving them a day to rest and recover.

Jiang Chen slept from dawn until well after midnight the following night. When he finally woke up, he felt fully refreshed.

"Time to draw some cards!"

He still remembered that he would be joining a group mission the day after tomorrow, so he naturally needed to prepare.

"System, draw two one-star cards and one two-star card for me."

With Jiang Chen's current base strength, handling a lesser vicious ghost was a piece of cake. He could also take on weaker intermediate vicious ghosts, but if he encountered a superior vicious ghost, his only option was to run.

Against a top-tier vicious ghost, he wouldn't even be able to escape.

He still needed Monster Transformation Cards for critical moments. However, using a Two-Star Monster Transformation Card without encountering a Vengeful Ghost would be too wasteful, so he needed to have a couple of one-star cards ready.

Besides, Jiang Chen was flush with funds now, so he drew an extra two-star card for emergencies.

"Ding! Congratulations, host. You have drawn One-Star Monster Transformation Cards-Tiger Vanguard and Benbo'erba."

These were both very basic monsters, with little worth mentioning.

"Ding! Congratulations, host. You have drawn a Two-Star Monster Transformation Card-Elder Guzhi!"

This card made Jiang Chen's eyes brighten slightly.

It wasn't because the monster was particularly powerful. In fact, this monster was relatively weak in Journey to the West.

But he was a rare plant spirit and might prove extremely useful at a crucial moment.

"Another poor sucker with no backing who got killed," Jiang Chen said, shaking his head.

Elder Guzhi was actually a cypress spirit from Thorn Ridge. Together with Cloud-Brushing Elder, Lingkongzi, and Eighteen Sire, he was known as one of the Four Immortals of Thorn Ridge.

They had abducted Tang Sanzang just to drink tea and chat, and had even tried to pair him with an apricot-tree spirit. When that fell through, they hadn't forced the matter.

Yet Zhu Bajie had still killed them with his rake.

Of course, Jiang Chen didn't think the group of four had done anything wrong in this incident. He had certainly thought otherwise as a child: in Journey to the West, monsters with powerful backers were spared despite their evil deeds, while those without backing were casually killed. Surely that meant the master and his three disciples weren't good people either.

But after experiencing more of life, Jiang Chen had come to a different understanding.

There was a saying that put it well.

Children argued over right and wrong; adults dealt only in reality.

Thinking about it carefully, in a world as cruel as Journey to the West, where the strong clearly ruled, these monsters had neither strength nor backing, yet still dared to provoke the group of four. That behavior was itself asking for death.

If they got killed, who else could they blame?

After drawing the cards, Jiang Chen browsed the Underworld App's store again.

He had originally wanted to choose a magical artifact, but discovered that his points were only enough for some of the poorest mid-grade magical artifacts. To a D-rank Unusual Person, these would qualify as treasures.

But after browsing for quite a while, Jiang Chen still felt they were all too fragile.

Demon-reflecting mirrors, Fifty-Year-Old Peachwood Swords, Soul-Capturing Bells, Jade Balance Daggers, Fire Cicada Pestles...

Looking at the pictures, he had the feeling that if he activated a Two-Star Monster Transformation Card and squeezed a little too hard, he could crush these things!

"I'll save up more points before buying a magical artifact. After all, I can use Ghost Artifacts too, and I still have this knife to get by with." Jiang Chen had also brought back a switchblade this time. It belonged to those two plotting ghosts and barely qualified as a graded artifact.

Then he browsed the pill section and found a few useful things.

For example, there was a mid-tier, low-grade pill called the Spirit-Gathering Pill, which could help Unusual Persons quickly recover their true qi and Netherworld Messengers quickly recover their yin qi.

Jiang Chen wasn't quite sure whether it could restore demonic qi, but it wasn't expensive, at fifty points a bottle. He bought a bottle to test its effects.

There was also something called Blood-Coagulating Powder, priced at a hundred points a bottle.

According to the description, applying it to a blade wound less than three centimeters deep would allow new flesh to grow within two hours. It was quite miraculous!

He bought a bottle of that too.

In this line of work, stocking up on health and mana potions was the bare minimum.