Chapter 137: Sure, they must be pretty

(1)

One o'clock in the morning.

Pei Du, who had just finished all his schedules for the day and returned to the suite, received another invitation from Shu Lingchen.

"Little brat, you've finished lunch, right? Come on, let's rank up."

After calculating the time, it should be about 1:30 p. m. domestically.

"Hmm."

After Pei Du clicked the game link to join the team, he put down his phone, lifted his hand to undo the buttons, and casually placed his dark Western suit jacket on the back of a chair; the slender man wore a thin shirt of the same color.

He found a spot on the sofa to sit down, picked up his phone again, and the Starlight Watch on his wrist reflected a cold glint; he still bore the cool, composed aura of a superior from having just left a formal occasion.

Then, with his fingers, he locked onto the next character in the game: all pink, with little chirps on its head, an image soft, cute, and lovable.

Pei Du asked: "Still choosing this one?"

"Yes, just like yesterday, just follow behind me; you don't need to worry about anything else."

Shu Lingchen opened the microphone again, directing Pei Du when to use his skills, when to launch an attack and when to retreat.

"What did you eat for lunch?"

The game chat window suddenly popped up this line; Shu Lingchen saw it, thought a moment, and casually answered: "Braised eggplant, fried chicken wings, stir-fried shrimp, oh, and some lettuce."

"Was it good?"

"Of course it's good—my mom's cooking is top-notch, right?" Shu Lingchen said, smacking his lips as if to prove the taste was really good, then added emphatically: "They're all my favorites; I ate three big bowls of rice."

"Hmm, very impressive."

"You're still growing; eat more."

Shu Lingchen furrowed his brows: "...?"

Why does that sentence sound weird when heard? Do elementary schoolers nowadays talk like that? Or is it because he wasn't speaking into the mic, lacking that ultra-spicy noodle sound effect?

"Did you have lunch with your mom?"

"No." Shu Lingchen replied absentmindedly while playing with both hands: "I also have my sister; there are three of us."

Outside the phone screen, Pei Du let his long, sparse lashes droop halfway, his eyes calm; it seemed he hadn't guessed wrong—Shu Lingchen indeed knew that Mu Yin was his sister.

"Can you play games for a long time every day? Will your mom complain?"

Upon seeing this, Shu Lingchen automatically imagined that the little brat on the other side probably had his phone usage limited, and seeing him able to go online anytime, anywhere, he surely felt envious.

"Of course I can; my mom wouldn't complain—she herself finds it boring, and right now she's doing crafts with my sister in the living room to kill time."

"Doing crafts?"

"Yeah, those little crocheted dolls that can be used as small decorations for various accessories."

"Sure, they must be pretty."

Speaking of this, Shu Lingchen couldn't help but show off: "That's right—when I was in kindergarten, whenever the teacher assigned this kind of family craft homework, no one in the class could score higher than me."

Through the screen, Pei Du almost could feel the boy's happy self-satisfaction on his face, and he couldn't help imagining Shu Shu doing crafts and little Shu Lingchen receiving the highest score amid admiring glances from the teacher and classmates.

"This summer, are you planning to stay at home the whole time?"

Shu Lingchen chuckled: "I actually want to go out for a stroll, but the key is that just stepping outside for a day could bake me; here, as soon as summer arrives it's unbearably hot—I hate the heat. If only it could be like other cities, where summer is also cool."

After saying that, he suddenly became curious: "Hey, little brat, where are you from? Is it hot where you are?"

Pei Du glanced at the window where the night had turned completely black; although it was scorching hot during the day as well, he didn't tell the truth, thought for a moment, then typed a reply to Shu Lingchen:

"Not hot."

"Around here, the temperature is about twenty degrees all day, a bit cool in the mornings and evenings, so you need a jacket; during the day you can go to the mountain spring to splash water, and at night you can gather around a fire for BBQ."

"Holy cow, little brat, your life is way too happy." Now it was Shu Lingchen's turn to feel envious, and he exclaimed in surprise: "Besides, you even know what BBQ is."

Pei Du paused his actions, guessing that the person Shu Lingchen was about to mention must be very young, so he tried to adopt that age's perspective and replied: "Learned it from TV."

Shu Lingchen teased: "Oh, you must have learned it from Ultraman."

Pei Du: "..."

Ultraman?

Pei Du: "Hmm."

He asked: "Do you like this kind of life of mine?"

Shu Lingchen: "That's no nonsense—I'd love to replicate your city in ours."

"Good."

Shu Lingchen didn't understand; what was the little brat agreeing to?

Without realizing it, the two played for over half an hour; the first half went smoothly, and Shu Lingchen thus led Pei Du to 'sweep the board,' easily defeating novices.

Ranking up was as easy as drinking water.

But, not long after, an accident occurred.

The character Pei Du had been using was picked first by the opposing team, and the support slot was also locked by a teammate.

Shu Lingchen said: "No problem, little brat—pick another character, stay in that spot and don't leave the protective tower; I'll help you catch people."

"Okay."

Even without a support following him, Shu Lingchen played well, but because he had promised the little brat to protect him, while playing his own part well he also had to look after the little brat's part, and the opposing players obviously noticed his strategy and directly targeted him.

They had set up an ambush in advance near Pei Du's protective tower; Shu Lingchen, off guard, was surrounded.

"Really damn!"

As his health bar was about to empty, Shu Lingchen was about to accept defeat and close his eyes, but at that critical moment he saw a figure leap out not far away, raise a huge shield in front of him, and block all the damage.

He then quickly used another skill to fling an enemy player beneath the protective tower, where that player's character collapsed directly.

This smooth, flowing maneuver left Shu Lingchen stunned; he opened the scoreboard and saw that the little brat's kill count had increased by +1.

Just now, was it the little brat who saved him and also counter-killed an enemy?

Shu Lingchen was extremely surprised: "Holy shit, awesome, awesome! Little brat, when did you learn this trick?"

After a pause of about three seconds, a line of text appeared on the chat interface.

"I saw you playing this character like this."

"So, you learned it from me?"

"Yeah."

Shu Lingchen: "Oh ho, so my operation has that much teaching value?"

"Yeah, very high value."

The boy immediately got conceited; he wasn't never been flattered by this "little brat", but that kind of constant shouting "great god, great god" flattery had zero technical merit.

"This time, the flattery wasn't bad."

"He's improved a lot!"

Shu Lingchen immediately declared: "Little brat, I've decided—this summer I'm taking you to the highest rank!"

Pei Du paused slightly: "Okay."

…

After another half hour or so, Pei Du said he'd go offline after finishing this match.

"OKOK."

Shu Lingchen didn't suspect anything, thinking the little brat's phone time was about to run out, so he deliberately sped up to end the game.

The opposing side was already at a disadvantage; now they had no power to fight back, the screen lit up as they walked out of the protective tower then went black, playing to the end, they even started to give up and launched all-chat trash talk:

"That pretender on the other side, what exactly are you pretending to be?"

"You play the game well, but you're a poor ghost, your account has no skins at all, yet you dare to bring a girl?"

Because Pei Du played support and followed Shu Lingchen the whole time, the two were attached, so the opposing side naturally assumed Pei Du was a girl.

They cued Pei Du:

"Hey sis, after this match, come play with us—we can give you a skin for free, that pretender definitely can't afford to."

Then they cued Shu Lingchen: "Pretender, seeing how hard you're playing, we can offer you a money-making opportunity—next match we'll bring you in, we'll be your boss, and for each point we'll give you a hundred bucks; that's definitely more than you'd earn sweating at a real job, right?"

"No lie, seriously, you can look up our account levels, top ten skin value rankings—actually running into us this match was lucky for you; otherwise, where would you find such an easy money-making opportunity, right? Hahaha."

"……"

Shu Lingchen had played this game for so long, he'd seen all kinds of weirdos.

Not wanting to waste time, he still had to keep track of when the little brat would hand over his phone, couldn't let him get scolded by his mom, so he yawned and simply blocked the all-chat, refusing to engage.

On this side, Pei Du's usually aloof brows furrowed.

Even though he wasn't familiar with the game's stuff, he could tell those were clearly insulting remarks.

Shu Lingchen, afraid the little brat would be scared, deliberately said into the mic: "Little brat, don't worry, watch me crush them."

One minute later.

The enemy base was almost blown apart in a crushing fashion; Shu Lingchen typed at lightning speed into all-chat: "You grandsons, mad or not, come fight grandpa me."

(2)

The game ended, the team disbanded.

But Shu Lingchen hadn't had enough, saying he wanted to play two more matches.

Before Pei Du switched out of the game interface, he caught a familiar ID in the world chat box on the main page.

"Cold-hearted Foreman."

Shu Lingchen's account name.

Someone in world chat was @-ing him, and the sender turned out to be several of the opposing players from that match, obviously angered by Shu Lingchen's remark, directly dragging him into world chat to mock him.

The talk, inside and out, was nothing but those same remarks, revolving around skins and equipment to disparage people.

In the game, paying players always have the highest status; the key is these people, while talking, also sent red packets, a bunch of players who grabbed the red packets echoed them, all @-ing Shu Lingchen there to follow the trend.

Pei Du frowned, thinking it childish.

He opened the top-up interface and gifted Shu Lingchen a full set of equipment.

After seeing the top spot on today's skin value ranking refresh become "Cold-hearted Foreman."

He went offline.

While the world chat had been buzzing just a second before, the next second it froze like ice; those few were dumbfounded, never expecting the person they'd just been mocking to directly outrank them—this wave slammed them hard in the face, drawing onlookers to watch the joke.

Now the ones being mocked turned into those few, who hurriedly slunk away in embarrassment.

Then, after finishing that match, Shu Lingchen exited the settlement screen to see his skin page fully lit up, and he was dumbfounded.

"What the heck is going on?"

…

After Pei Du finished showering, his phone was "bombarded."

Over 99 messages from Lingchen.

"Little brat! What did you do!!!"

"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, you've gone crazy! Did you secretly use your parents' money to send me skins?! And this many?!"

"Hurry up and apply for a minor's refund! Otherwise your ass will get spanked! And I'll get arrested as a fraudster!"

"Do you even know how to do that?!"

"\"Minor's Refund Procedure\"."

"Got it done?!"

"How much did you top up in total? If not, I'll transfer you money—just treat it as me buying it, though I only have a few ten thousand on hand, probably not enough? If not, I'll borrow some from my mom. = ="

"Voice call not connected…"

……

Where are you?!!

You couldn't already be eating stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork, could you?

Is your butt okay? Is your butt still there?

Two minutes passed.

…… Are you still there?

Pei Du read all the messages from top to bottom, then replied: "Still here."

The other side instantly replied: "!!!"

Refund, have you applied for it?!!

Pei Du paused while typing: "It's not your parents' money, so no need to transfer it to me."

Shu Lingchen: "Stop lying to me! If it's not your parents' money, are you using your own? You're just an elementary school kid—having ten or eight yuan to buy spicy strips already makes you a rich kid!"

Hurry up, no nonsense.

Shu Lingchen then went to make a voice call, intending to have a one-on-one to get Xiao Gui to refund, and then saw a screenshot sent from the other side.

Balance: 2763989.33.

Don't worry, I have money.

Shu Lingchen: O. o.

Seeing Shu Lingchen so anxious, Pei Du casually screenshotted a floating balance from some app to reassure him.

If it were your parents' money, I probably wouldn't be able to reply to your messages.

Also, with such a large flow, parents would normally get a notification, so Xiao Gui really does have money!

Shu Lingchen is no longer worried; he opened his own balance to take a look:

This is still the pocket money his mom transferred last semester; he's been saving it and hardly using it.

No, your family runs a gold mine, right?

How can they give a kid this much money? Could it be that he's joined some hidden wealthy family's child?

Pei Du: "Do you like gold mines?"

Shu Lingchen: "What a great question—who in the world doesn't like gold mines?"

Okay, I'll remember that.

Shu Lingchen: "?" Remember what?

Pei Du: "I might have something going on the next few days, so I can't play games for now."

Shu Lingchen understood: Xiao Gui must be doing summer homework; even though his family runs a gold mine, he can't escape having to do homework.

He replied with an OK.

After playing the game for quite a while and getting tired, Shu Lingchen got up and left the room.

In the living room.

Seeing Shu Lingchen, Pei Muyin enthusiastically introduced the dazzling array of small toys in front of her, presenting them like a treasure: "Brother, look."

Wow, they're all really nice.

Pei Muyin: "Sister taught me to crochet lots and lots."

Shu Shu beside her curled her lips: "The premise is that our Muyin is especially clever~"

Hehe.

Pei Muyin's face showed a shy smile; she planned to take a photo of all the toys and send it to her dad to see, so she ran back to her room to get her charging phone, only then discovering that her dad had sent her a message an hour ago.

The content: work ended, he had already returned to where he lives, and would probably return to An Shi in about five days.

Pei Muyin first replied telling her dad to balance work and rest, eat on time, and rest well; then she sent the photo of the toys over.

Older sister is amazing; these are all things she taught me to weave.