Chapter 100: Liu Kun

"Kun-ge... Kun-ge..."

It was not until someone gave him a hard shove that Liu Kun, startled, finally snapped out of his trance.

He turned his head to see it was his roommate Li Meng, and after rolling his neck, he asked, "What is it, Fourth?"

"The Boss and I are going out to eat, you coming?"

Li Meng curled his lip as he asked him, though the enthusiasm he once had was long gone from his face.

Clearly, his conversation with Sun Cheng last time had made him notice the changes in Liu Kun as well.

"Eat? You guys go ahead, I'm not hungry yet..."

Liu Kun, whose face was somewhat pale, rubbed his stomach—which was actually a bit hungry—and shook his head, making the excuse that he wasn't very hungry, and did not agree to go out with the two of them.

The Boss, standing to the side, was just about to urge him again, but Li Meng tugged at him, and he nodded as well, "Alright then, we're leaving first!"

"Mm!"

Once the two were gone and there were no outsiders left in the shared apartment, the already very pale complexion on Liu Kun's face could no longer be maintained, becoming even more gloomy and unsightly.

"How could the person just die suddenly? If the police investigate and find me, what should I do..."

Muttering in a low whisper, Liu Kun felt more and more fearful the more he thought about it; he couldn't help but bury his head on the table, his body trembling slightly.

This world is truly too unfair.

A long time ago, Liu Kun had actually already had this feeling.

He, who worked harder than anyone else, was born into a poor family in a central province.

Moreover, the terrible family situation did not improve even after he was admitted to the country's top institution—the 【Nandu University of Technology】—but instead became even worse due to the high tuition fees of Nandu University of Technology.

Originally, the painstaking support from his family, combined with doing odd jobs in his spare time at university, and encountering a few roommates who never looked down on him and occasionally extended a helping hand, had undoubtedly changed Liu Kun a lot during his years at Nandu University of Technology.

However, everything came to an end the moment he met that girl.

She was also surnamed Liu, named Liu Tian, a girl who loved to smile and whose very name flowed with a sense of sweetness; she was a junior in the same major as him.

He accidentally met her during an activity within the department in his final year of university. From the very first moment he saw that girl, Liu Kun felt as if he had been struck by lightning, his mind filled entirely with her shadow.

Later, with the encouragement of a few roommates, he finally gathered the courage to confess to her. Although he did not receive a direct affirmative answer, he did gain the qualification to pursue her.

After that, it was all about racking his brains to please her and endless romance. With his already thin family background, he was soon stretched thin in this comedy called "love."

With no income from part-time jobs, the help the guys in the dorm could provide couldn't be infinite either.

Time and time again, after falling into debt with quite a few people around him, he remained obsessed with the romantic comedy the girl had woven for him, unable to extricate himself, and ultimately committed a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life: he borrowed money from loan sharks disguised as "campus student loans."

"I really deserve to die..."

Recently, whenever he thought of this, Liu Kun couldn't help but be filled with fear.

What kind of people are those who run loan sharks? Some are children of officials, some are children of the wealthy, and there's no escaping organized crime. If these people had even a shred of conscience, they wouldn't be running loan sharks; whoever they encounter, they are ruthless characters who wish they could swallow them bones and all.

Thinking of his own experience, isn't that exactly the case?

At first, he only borrowed a few thousand yuan here and there from the "Student Loan" group. Unexpectedly, when he happened to run into the girl's birthday, he bought her a new phone. After spending it all in the blink of an eye, he had to bite the bullet and borrow some more. To his surprise, they were actually very welcoming and lent him the money again immediately.

Thus, time and time again, round after round, by the time Liu Kun himself finally realized something was wrong, he was already two or three tens of thousands in debt to the "Student Loan" group. This amount of money was long past what a university student could repay.

Finally, it seemed they felt that this pig had been fed fat and it was time for slaughter, so the Student Loan side soon came knocking to force him to repay the debt.

There were no more initial gentle words or warm attitudes; there was only fierce verbal intimidation and relentless pressure. After being beaten up for the second time and threatened that they would call his home to make Liu Kun's parents pay the debt for him, he was forced to sign a new debt note they produced and borrow a new loan with even higher interest to repay the old debt.

By this time, it was too late to be afraid. Even to keep his family from knowing about the trouble he had caused outside, Liu Kun had to sink to becoming a lackey for the "Student Loan" group, scouting and looking for more lucrative prey within the school for them!

"Our love, once passed, will never return..."

The suddenly ringing phone startled Liu Kun, who was in the middle of fear and anxiety in the shared apartment. When he saw who was calling, he felt his hands and feet go cold, and he didn't dare to swipe the answer button.

The phone rang for over ten seconds and finally stopped.

Liu Kun breathed a slight sigh of relief and was just about to put the phone back away when, unexpectedly, the ringtone started up again the next moment.

After glancing at it and seeing it was indeed that same call he least wanted to answer right now, he hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he still didn't answer.

Thus, the ringtone ended again, and then, as expected, it soon rang once more.

After wasting over ten minutes like this, discovering that the phone was still calling incessantly, and yet Liu Kun didn't dare to turn it off—because that would undoubtedly tell the other party that he was right next to the phone.

"... Looks like he's going to keep calling until I answer..."

After hesitating for a long while, finally, when the phone rang for the seventeenth time, he ultimately answered the call, "Hello..."

"You finally answered my call..." A young man's voice with an indifferent tone came from the other side of the phone.

Liu Kun swallowed a mouthful of saliva and calmed his mood, though his voice still carried a slight tremor: "... A-Cheng, sorry, I was outside washing clothes just now. What's the matter..."

"Oh..."

What replied to him was an even colder voice, so cold that he felt as if he were talking to a block of ice. Knowing the other party's personality well, Liu Kun even suspected that his former roommate might already know everything he had done.

Just as he didn't know how to respond, fortunately, a voice came from the phone again, but as soon as the other side spoke, he was stunned, "I'm looking for you to ask about something; as for what it is, you know in your heart. Half an hour from now, meet at He Street Park. Whether you come or not is up to you. You've done things that require you to give me an explanation... Beep beep beep..."

The call had already been hung up by the other side, but Liu Kun gripped his newly bought 6s phone tightly, feeling chilled to the bone from head to toe, inside and out!

He understood: all the filthy things he had done, the other party knew!

"What do I do..."

Panic, guilt, and even more unease and embarrassment.

He didn't know how to face this former roommate, how to face this one-time friend whom he had almost pushed into a fiery pit with his own hands!

PS:

A few readers have expressed some opinions regarding my occasional use of one or two chapters to describe supporting characters. How should I put it? It's probably just a difference in personal understanding.

The author believes that if a book is to be written completely to over two million words without being abandoned, at least seven or eight hundred chapters must be used to describe the protagonist. Why can't we give a supporting character a chapter? After all, they are also drivers of the plot, and perhaps their only chance to appear is in this one chapter. I ask for your understanding.