Chapter 67: I

Regarding this, Zhao Gaoyang could only smile bitterly.

Cheng Huaiyu grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and had no idea how hard it was to find a part-time job nowadays; those with high wages basically required full-time availability, and he looked down on jobs with wages that were too low.

At first, he thought about finding a tutoring gig just like he did during summer break, but he forgot that the tutoring job during summer break was found with the help of relatives in the city who trusted him. When he was left alone in Jinling to find a tutoring job, it was either those flaky agencies or the other party offering a low price.

Zhao Gaoyang felt that as a student from a Double First-Class university, he at least had a prestigious name to his credit, so how could the parents only offer fifteen yuan an hour? At fifteen yuan an hour, if he tutored for two days on Saturday and Sunday, three hours a day, he would only make two or three hundred yuan a month.

The parents would just say they didn't believe he was from a prestigious university, as student IDs and such could be forged. They had seen many cases of people pretending to be students from prestigious universities to ask for high tutoring fees. "How about this," they'd say, "you start teaching first, and once the child recognizes your ability, we'll raise the price."

Zhao Gaoyang couldn't accept their conditions, and the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

Unable to find a job like tutoring, Zhao Gaoyang suddenly realized that it was truly difficult for him to gain a foothold in a big city.

Although he was a student at a prestigious university, no one cared about a student who hadn't graduated yet. Plus, Zhao Gaoyang wanted to make money, so after searching all over the Xianlin District, he finally found a job as a stock clerk in a supermarket.

The supermarket boss told him that being a stock clerk wasn't tiring, that he just needed to count the quantity of goods when the supermarket closed every day, and Zhao Gaoyang agreed in a daze.

He thought stocking was nothing more than tidying up the items sold on the supermarket counters, but who would have thought that even the items in the warehouse had to be counted.

The supermarket closed at nine in the evening. He had to start getting busy around eight-thirty and wouldn't finish until after one in the morning, when he would climb over the wall to get back to the dormitory. He was sore and aching every day, but fortunately, the pay was acceptable—five hundred yuan a month—and he didn't have to go every day; going four times a week, every other day, was enough.

Zhao Gaoyang didn't go out to play, and Sheng Bo wasn't particularly close to him, so Cheng Huaiyu naturally gave up the idea of going out for the October 1st holiday.

"Forget it, there will definitely be a lot of people going out to play during the long October 1st holiday. The tourist attractions will be full of people, and you won't be able to see any scenery, just heads."

Since no conclusion was reached regarding the October 1st holiday, Cheng Huaiyu said, "Let's go to an internet cafe tonight. We're on break tomorrow anyway, so let's have a good time tonight. My treat."

For college students, sometimes the laptops they each brought couldn't satisfy them. By comparison, the passionate and intense atmosphere of an internet cafe could bring them the stimulation they wanted.

As soon as Zhao Gaoyang heard it was his treat, he immediately nodded in agreement, and he even asked Sheng Bo if he was going as if it were a serious matter.

Sheng Bo was the one in the dormitory who almost never played games, so asking this was a waste of breath.

Of course, Zhao Gaoyang didn't really want to ask him. After Sheng Bo refused, he turned his head and asked Xu Heng if he was going to the internet cafe.

Xu Heng originally wanted to refuse, but seemed to think of something. After hesitating for a few seconds, he agreed and then said, "We might be able to call two more people."

"I've already called Zheng Yang and Li Xu," Cheng Huaiyu said, holding his phone. "These two little brats agreed even faster than Old Zhao."

"Damn! What do you mean, Cheng Ge?"

"Hehe, I'm praising you for being a gaming addict!"

"Is that what you call a compliment?" Zhao Gaoyang retorted.

Xu Heng shook his head and said, "I didn't mean Zheng Yang and the others."

"Then who do you want to call?" Cheng Huaiyu asked.

"The New Members. Let's call those two girls too; consider it holding a club activity."

"Damn! Your brain is still the best, Old Xu." Cheng Huaiyu, Zhao Gaoyang, and the others immediately understood what Xu Heng meant.

Because applying for club activities wasn't troublesome; one just had to report the activity time, location, and participating members to the Student Union in advance.

They could completely wait until everyone was gathered today to take some activity photos first, and then apply for the club activity after returning to school from the October 1st holiday. By then, they could get credits by submitting the photos.

But the problem arose again: the few boys in the club weren't familiar with Jiang Mengyuan and the others. Who would go and call them?

Logically speaking, this matter should be left to Cheng Huaiyu, as he was the president of the Esports Club, but he hadn't even added Jiang Mengyuan and Chang Lingling on QQ.

Upon discovering this, Cheng Huaiyu looked at Xu Heng awkwardly: "Old Xu, help me call them! I wasn't there during the last recruitment, so I don't have their contact information."

Hearing this, Xu Heng rolled his eyes: "Aren't they in the group? Can't you just add them?"

"Old Xu, you should understand." Cheng Huaiyu smiled bitterly and touched his face, signaling that he was thin-skinned and couldn't bring himself to do it.

Xu Heng was helpless and could only go to QQ himself to talk to Jiang Mengyuan about this.

Asking girls he hadn't met twice to go to an internet cafe to play games—if it were a normal boy, he probably wouldn't be able to bring it up.

But Xu Heng wasn't a normal boy. Besides, in his previous life, he had gone to internet cafes with Jiang Mengyuan more times than he had gone to hotels with Ying Ziyun; he was long used to it.

"There?" he sent a classic QQ chat opening.

After a few seconds, the penguin avatar flashed, and Jiang Mengyuan replied, asking him: "Senior, is something the matter?"

Xu Heng didn't directly ask her if she wanted to go to the internet cafe, but continued to ask: "What are you doing?"

"Watching anime."

"July New Fan-series?"

On the other side of the computer screen, a trace of surprise appeared on Jiang Mengyuan's small face.

In fact, the term "Fan-series" wasn't very popular nowadays; everyone preferred to call them cartoons, anime, and the like.

"Fan-series" originated from the Japanese word "anime episodes," originally meaning serialized or already completed, not limited to the field of anime, and was later derived by Chinese two-dimensional enthusiasts.

Generally, Fan-series released in the current season would be called XX New Fan-series. For example, if the recent quarter was July, then it would be July New Fan-series, followed by October New Fan-series, January New Fan-series, and April New Fan-series.

It wouldn't be until two years later, after domestic online anime and Island Country anime exploded in popularity in the country, that the word "Fan-series" would gradually spread in Huaxia. Currently, "Fan-series" was basically only popular in the small two-dimensional circle.

Seeing this familiar term, Jiang Mengyuan thought for a moment that she had found a fellow enthusiast.

"Does Senior watch anime too?"

"I do. I'm an old two-dimensional fan too." After Xu Heng finished typing this line, he added "once was" in his heart.

After he turned thirty, he rarely watched anime.

"What does Senior like to watch?"

What did he like to watch?

Xu Heng fell into a brief moment of thought. It seemed the anime he liked to watch in 2007 hadn't come out yet. After thinking about it, he replied: "Tengen Toppa."

Over there, Jiang Mengyuan's eyes suddenly lit up.

"I like watching Tengen Toppa too! I didn't expect that you and I have the same hobby, Senior!"

That goes without saying, because it was you who dragged me to watch it.

Xu Heng thought to himself.

You have to know, in high school, he was also a good student who didn't play games, didn't watch anime, and didn't smoke. In college, he learned to smoke from Zhao Gaoyang, learned to play games from Cheng Huaiyu, and was led into the two-dimensional world by Jiang Mengyuan...

He just didn't understand, how could such a quiet, gentle young girl like a hot-blooded anime for boys like *Gurren Lagann*?