At five that afternoon, Cheng Che carried the last net bag of tennis balls into the storeroom, sorted them by color, and stacked them on the shelves.
Old Chen came out of the office and scanned each of the three with his phone:
"Good work today. I've sent your wages through WeChat. Nine tomorrow again. Don't be late."
Cheng Che's phone vibrated.
He tapped it open: a transfer of 100 yuan, with "Daily part-time wages" in the note.
The two college students had received theirs too.
The tall, skinny one whistled. "Let's go, let's go. Malatang's on me today."
"On you, my ass. I paid last time too." The chubby one chased him outside, and the two disappeared through the doorway, laughing and horsing around.
Cheng Che put his phone away and told Old Chen, "Brother Chen, I have class tomorrow."
Old Chen waved a hand indifferently. "No problem. Just come next week."
Cheng Che picked up his backpack and headed out, but he kept feeling a gaze following him from behind.
He didn't think much of it. On the subway, he opened a shopping app on his phone and added facial cleanser and toner to his cart.
His finger paused when he saw the price.
His last bottle of cleanser was already down to the dregs. He could squeeze out one last use at most when he showered tonight; tomorrow, he would have none left.
The toner was much the same.
But after thinking it over, Cheng Che closed the cart anyway.
His charm would reach 60 when tomorrow morning's rewards were tallied.
Once he drew a talent and raised his stamina to 60 as well, he would meet all the requirements to advance to a "Lesser Incubus."
The system would definitely give him a new quest then.
So there was no rush.
When Cheng Che got home, Jiang Xue was busy in the kitchen, and Cheng Jianguo was watering the flowers on the balcony.
"You're back?" Jiang Xue asked without turning around. "Where did you go with your friends today?"
"We just wandered around. Went for a walk near the sports center."
Cheng Che put his backpack back in his room without mentioning the part-time job.
He couldn't quite say why.
Perhaps he felt that word getting out about a senior high school student working on weekends wouldn't be entirely appropriate, or perhaps he simply didn't want his parents to think he was short of money.
Cheng Jianguo came in after watering the flowers and shook the water off his hands. "Go take a shower. Look how sweaty you are."
Cheng Che answered and ducked into the bathroom.
He picked up the cleanser bottle, which couldn't have been any emptier, and squeezed hard one last time.
A tiny dab of white cream landed in his palm, a pitiful amount.
He added water and rubbed his hands together, barely managing to spread a layer over his face.
When he came out after washing, Cheng Jianguo was sitting on the sofa looking at his phone.
Seeing Cheng Che come out, he looked up. "Oh, right. We're going back to our hometown next month. Your Grandpa Xu is celebrating his eightieth birthday. It happens to fall on a Saturday."
"Grandpa Xu?" Cheng Che rubbed his hair dry. "Which Grandpa Xu?"
"The one from the village next to ours back home. You met him when you were little. We moved afterward, so it's normal that you don't remember."
Cheng Jianguo smiled and waved a hand.
Cheng Che said, "Oh," and thought nothing of it.
Cheng Jianguo added, "He's your homeroom teacher's father."
Cheng Che's hand stopped drying his hair.
"...Old Xu?"
"Mind your manners." Jiang Xue came out of the kitchen carrying a dish and shot him a look. "That's Mr. Xu to you."
Cheng Che opened his mouth, momentarily at a loss for words.
They were going back home to celebrate an elder's birthday, and he turned out to be his homeroom teacher's own father.
What were the odds?
He scratched his head and went back to sit in his room. It took him quite a while to digest the news.
Fine.
Next month's business could wait until next month.
He sat down at his desk, activated Total Concentration, and spent an hour drilling multiple-choice questions for the combined science exam.
The instant he deactivated the skill, fatigue arrived right on schedule, as though someone had gently pressed the back of his head.
He forced himself to put his pen away, collapsed onto the bed, and fell asleep in under two minutes.
When he opened his eyes again, it was already light out.
[Ding! Yesterday's quest results:] [Quest "Incubus's Beauty Sleep" completed. Charm +0.5.] [Quest "Incubus's Face Project" completed. Charm +0.5.] [Charm attribute has reached 60. Specialized trait draw triggered!]
Cheng Che shot upright in bed, his sleepiness instantly gone.
The familiar pale-purple wheel appeared before his eyes, spinning of its own accord without a breeze. He sat cross-legged, his hands unconsciously clenching the corners of his blanket.
The pointer slowed more and more.
Ding.
[Congratulations! You have obtained the passive talent "Stars Surrounding the Moon."] [Stars Surrounding the Moon: In crowds or moments in the spotlight, your presence is naturally amplified. You can calmly withstand and enjoy others' attention. The greater the pressure and the more attention you receive, the more dazzling your performance.]
Cheng Che stared at the words, his expression shifting from anticipation to bewilderment, then from bewilderment to resignation.
"Why this one...?"
He flopped backward onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Wasn't it supposed to be something like "Jade tree in the wind" or "Ten thousand years in a single glance," making him as handsome as Daniel Wu on the spot?
What the hell was Stars Surrounding the Moon?
Who wanted to be the center of attention?
He had social anxiety, okay?
He just wanted to be an invisible nobody in peace and clear up his face a little. Why was that so hard?
The system ignored him.
Cheng Che lay there for two minutes before climbing up, resigned to his fate.
The wood had already become a boat. Life still had to go on.
He went out for his usual run.
The girl in the cap appeared in the park again.
She had started earlier today. By the time Cheng Che arrived, she had already run two laps. As they passed each other, she seemed to turn her head slightly.
Cheng Che paid no attention and kept running.
Back home, he showered, ate breakfast, and saw the note Jiang Xue had left on the table:
"Cheche, don't come help at the shop today. The college entrance exam is coming up. Spend more time studying. Your dad and I can manage."
After some thought, Cheng Che decided to listen.
He folded the note, put it in the drawer with the previous ones, then took out his English textbook and began memorizing vocabulary.
He studied for three hours that morning.
At noon, his parents came home and quickly stir-fried two dishes. The family of three ate around the table, and afterward, Cheng Che headed out with his backpack.
There were classes at school this afternoon. That was how their schedule worked: they only got a day and a half off each week.
He took the bus to the school gate. The moment he got off, he sensed something was wrong.
It was time for students to arrive, so there was a large crowd at the gate, but that was nothing unusual. Yet as he walked into school, he noticed that the number of gazes landing on him had instantly multiplied more than tenfold.
Glancing over out of the corner of his eye, Cheng Che saw a group of girls standing beside a flower bed, chattering about something. A few were holding up their phones and taking pictures in his direction.
Click.
A flash of white light went off.
Cheng Che instinctively looked over.
A girl hid her phone behind her back, blushing, then lowered her head and hurried into school, still holding her phone upside down.
Cheng Che: "?"
He took a few steps forward, and more and more people looked over.
"Look, look! Who's that?"
"No idea, but he has such a vibe. Is he a transfer student? A first-year or a second-year?"
"Did you get a picture? I forgot to turn my flash off just now. So embarrassing..."
Cheng Che walked faster and faster.
He finally realized what was happening.
Stars Surrounding the Moon.
This lousy talent had already been working from the moment he stepped onto the bus.
Head down, Cheng Che hurried toward the classroom building. He vaguely heard someone call, "Handsome, wait for me!" behind him. Pretending not to hear, he practically jogged into the building.
Only after climbing to the third floor in one go did he lean against the railing to catch his breath.
"What the hell...?"
When he used to pass through the school gate, those girls wouldn't spare him so much as a glance.
Now look at this. Even camera flashes had joined in.
Would he have to wear a mask whenever he went out from now on?
He steadied his breathing and pushed open the classroom's back door.
A few students had already arrived and were scattered around in their seats.
Cheng Che kept his head down as he walked to his seat, trying not to make any noise.
It was no use.
Someone looked up, saw him, and froze for a second.
Then the girl in front pretended to flip through her book while repeatedly looking back. A boy coming through the back door gave him several extra looks.
More and more people arrived.
The whispers fell around him from every direction like fine, dense rain.
"Is Cheng Che here? Is that him?"
"Yeah. Wow, he really looks... so good today."
"When did his skin get this good? I didn't notice during PE the day before yesterday..."
"Don't you think there's this indescribable feeling about him just sitting there? What's that word... atmosphere!"
Guo Xin entered the classroom just as the bell rang.
He plopped down beside Cheng Che and was about to pull a book out of his desk when he turned his head and froze.
"Holy shit, you..."
He stared at Cheng Che for five seconds and even leaned a little closer, as though checking something.
"Did you get cosmetic work done??"
"Get lost." Cheng Che pushed his face away.
"No, seriously, this is ridiculous." Guo Xin lowered his voice, his eyes round and wide. "It wasn't this extreme yesterday. Did you turn on a beauty filter before coming to school today? No, even a beauty filter wouldn't make you look like this!"
Hearing the commotion, Lin Xiao, who sat in front, turned her head slightly, her gaze resting on Cheng Che's face for a second.
Just one second.
Then she quickly turned back, the tips of her ears red, her pen drawing a meaningless circle on her scrap paper.
Zhao Lei sat on the other side of the classroom, his expression as complicated as an overturned palette.
Only yesterday, he had comforted himself that Cheng Che had merely gotten lucky and would definitely be beaten back to his original form in the next mock exam. But seeing that face today, he felt as though someone had pricked the last scrap of superiority in his heart with a needle.
How could he have changed so much in just one day?
A word flashed through his mind: plastic surgery.
But he immediately dismissed it.
As if he didn't know what Cheng Che's family could afford.
Surgery would require recovery time no matter what. How could he be fine in a single day?
Impossible.
That only made it all the more irritating.
Cheng Che sat in his seat, seemingly calm, but in reality, he had already gone numb.
He could clearly hear the comments. Most were friendly, most were amazed, and several girls were sneaking looks at him.
In the past, he would have been so nervous his palms would sweat.
But now, although his heart was beating fast, he didn't feel that suffocating urge to run away.
He realized that his life from now on would definitely be even more over-the-top than this. This might only be the beginning.
Then, since he couldn't fight it, he might as well enjoy the hell out of it.
Sure enough, the moment Cheng Che thought that, his mood instantly cleared. He patted Guo Xin on the shoulder and said cheerfully, "From now on, stick with me. You can be my little lackey."
Guo Xin: "??? Screw you!!"