Chapter 3: A scumbag's strength

Chen Nuo said generously: "It's me. Sorry about just now, I didn't know there was someone inside. Um~ the landlord's surname is Zhang, right? He's my uncle, and when he told me to come and live here, he didn't say you were living here. May I ask what your relationship is with him?"

The other party was quiet for a while and said: "I'm renting his house. The landlord told me to move out before, but I haven't had time to..."

Chen Nuo could tell that the girl behind the door shouldn't be very old. And, she seemed a bit lost now, her words trailing off halfway.

Chen Nuo asked: "Can I come in and talk face to face? No matter what, we have to meet, right?"

The woman was silent for a good while before saying: "……Alright."

Creak.

The anti-theft door opened.

Chen Nuo greeted politely, taking the initiative: "Sorry to bother you, hello……eh???" He actually rarely lost his composure in front of women, unless he really couldn't control himself.

He was surprised to find that the girl in front of him looked familiar, very familiar, very much like a green version of someone.

It's just that her chin wasn't that sharp, and her face wasn't that stiff yet. She couldn't be called very beautiful, but she definitely couldn't be called ugly either; she was just like people of this era, like someone who walked out of an outdated old photo.

The girl first froze looking at Chen Nuo's face, then was startled by his strange reaction, first subconsciously looking down to check her attire, and then asked inexplicably: "What's wrong?"

"Ah, nothing, nothing." Chen Nuo quickly returned to normal, smiled, and said: "You look a lot like a friend of mine."

"Really?" The girl stared at him suspiciously.

Chen Nuo nodded affirmatively: "Yes, she's surnamed Yang."

The girl was a bit surprised: "Ah, what a coincidence, I'm also surnamed Yang."

Chen Nuo said: "My name is Chen Nuo, what's your name?"

"My name is Yang Mi. Mi as in the sounds of Mi."

Chen Nuo wasn't very familiar with the entertainment industry, but this person's popularity was too high; the key was that he had a girlfriend who was her big hater, who poured some black material, true or false, into his ears every day, making it impossible for Chen Nuo not to be familiar with her.

Yang Mi's eyes wandered over Chen Nuo's face.

Chen Nuo wasn't afraid of her looking, but this wasn't a thing either, so he asked politely: "Can we go in and talk? I have no ill intentions, the key was also given to me by the landlord. I didn't know you were here."

Yang Mi blushed, glanced at him again, stepped aside and said: "Then come in."

The living room was spacious and bright, with sunlight spilling in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, adding a warm luster to the pale green wallpaper.

In front of the white leather sofa, a simple fruit plate was placed on a transparent glass coffee table, containing a banana and two apples.

On the balcony, the green plants were lush, and a pot of white-variegated monstera looked exceptionally vibrant in the sunlight.

Chen Nuo placed his suitcase at the entrance and sat generously on the sofa, his peripheral vision catching the water stains on the floor to the side, which extended all the way from the bathroom to the bedroom door.

Everything just now happened too fast, and he almost didn't have time to see anything clearly. He only saw two words. White, big. No wonder those haters either blacked her face or her feet, but no one blacked her breasts.

However, where was Yang Mi from? Why was she also renting here?

He didn't speak for a moment, and Yang Mi clearly felt uncomfortable on the single sofa to the side, making small talk: "Do you eat apples? I'll wash one for you."

"No need to trouble yourself." Chen Nuo smiled very politely at her, "Thanks. Let's talk, are you still planning to live here?"

Yang Mi froze: "What do you mean?"

Chen Nuo said: "If you want to live here, and aren't afraid of any problems I might have, then just live here. Anyway, it's such a big house, I can't live in it alone. If you don't want to live here, just find a time to move. Anyway, I won't urge you. After all, we are all outsiders, coming to the big Beijing, helping each other is what we should do."

Yang Mi said: "I'm not from out of town, I'm from Beijing. It's just that this place is close to my training school, so I've been renting it. The landlord told me someone was coming to rent it two days ago, and also returned my rent. However, I've been very busy these two days, and class ends quite late, so I was lazy and didn't move, and didn't expect... you to come suddenly today."

Chen Nuo realized, so that was it. He said immediately: "I didn't expect it either. If I had known I could meet such a great beauty like you, I would have come earlier, haha."

Yang Mi glanced at him sideways, but didn't get angry, just said: "No way, I'm not good-looking."

Chen Nuo smiled: "Who said that? Even if you aren't good-looking now, you will definitely be good-looking later. Girls change eighteen times as they grow up, I feel you can still change. Hahaha, just kidding, don't mind." This was said, and suddenly the atmosphere became a bit awkward.

But this was intentional by Chen Nuo.

This belonged to the advanced techniques of a scumbag.

Because blindly saying nice things, girls won't necessarily think you are a good person. Instead, they might think you are glib. If you deliberately use one or two silly, awkward cold jokes, sometimes people will have a better impression of you.

However, the sense of proportion is very important, and you must also know how to find a remedy in time and change the subject.

It is not recommended for beginners.

Chen Nuo was an old hand, deliberately let the silence hang for a few seconds, felt the timing was about right, then chuckled awkwardly, touched his head, and broke the silence: "So, you're renting here because you're attending a training class nearby, preparing to take the exam for the Film Academy?"

Yang Mi's guard indeed lowered by a few notches. She nodded naturally and said, "Right, eh... asking like that, could it be that you are one too?"

Chen Nuo smiled: "Yes, I am too. Wow, what a coincidence, it turns out we are both exam candidates. Hey, you say, is the Film Academy really that hard to get into?"

This was relatively elementary, finding a topic the other party is bound to be interested in, and doing a good job as a straight man.

Twenty minutes later, scumbag skill master Chen Nuo was organizing things in the second bedroom of the house.

Yang Mi stood at the door, feeling a bit embarrassed: "Is it really okay for you to live in the second bedroom?"

"Of course, the master bedroom is too big, I feel cold even with the heater on. I'm a southerner, I'm afraid of the cold."

Yang Mi smiled: "How is that possible? Hey, then thank you, just consider it me renting your house. I'll give you the rent later."

"OK." Chen Nuo didn't stand on ceremony either.

After a while, Chen Nuo finished tidying up, went out to the living room, and saw Yang Mi watching TV on the sofa, gnawing on an apple.

Hearing the sound of Chen Nuo coming out, she turned her head and asked: "Finished tidying up? Here, this is the rent, for you." Saying that, she took out a few bright red bills from her pants pocket and handed them to Chen Nuo.

Chen Nuo counted them slightly, 4 bills.

He didn't ask how this amount was determined, and just accepted it directly.

Yang Mi seemed to relax a bit, making small talk: "Have you seen this TV series? The third part of Ji Xiaolan."

Chen Nuo glanced at the TV; it was a must-watch series during his summer vacation, which he had watched n times, and later there was a fourth part, but that already belonged to the category of adding feet to a snake.

"Seen a bit, what do you think?"

"It's good. This show is mainly because the actors act well, they are all old drama bones, old seniors, our teacher told us to watch carefully and figure out how people act."

Chen Nuo didn't expect Yang Mi to be so enthusiastic about acting at this time, not at all like the way she would later point at traffic and eat, wishing she could gnaw the pot.

Although he was also very interested in acting now, he was a bit hungry, so he didn't pick up the topic and said: "I'm going to eat now, are you eating? Do you want to go together?"

Yang Mi chuckled: "No, I don't eat at night, you go."

Chen Nuo then went out alone, ate at a small restaurant outside the complex, and afterwards didn't rush to return, but followed the habit of middle-aged people to digest after a meal, wandering aimlessly on the street.

In his later life, he had been to Beijing many times, but he had never seen Beijing at this point in time.

The scenery here was completely different from other places in the country. Towering modern skyscrapers and hutong Sihe Academy full of life coexisted harmoniously in this city. On the same street, this side of the street still retained the style of the 1960s, while when you crossed to the other side of the street, you might have already stepped into the threshold of the new century.

At this time, he noticed the street sign on the side of the road; he had already walked near the Film Academy.

Since he was here, he would go and take a look.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 4 =====