Happy House, 7 pm.

I was sitting carefully in my seat and sneaking glances at the two lively girls sitting opposite me. Lin Yixin and Sun Qingqing were currently staring at the menu and agonizing over tonight’s choice of meals. For this evening, they both dressed in fashionable youthful outfits.

“When are Bloody Mercenaries founding their own guild, Lu Chen?” Lin Yixin asked out of nowhere.

“I’ll do that the second I get a Hero’s Token!”

“Mn.” Lin Yixin nodded with a smile. “It won’t be easy though. The drop rate of Hero’s Token is already insanely low, and bosses between Level 60 to Level 70 are also very rare at this stage of the game. It would take both skill and good karma to find another Hero’s Token this soon~”

Sun Qingqing said, “Lu Chen definitely has the skill to make it happen, but his karma? That’s a different story…”

I asked, “Why do you say that? It almost sounds like you’re questioning my moral standing.”

“That’s because I am!” Sun Qingqing planted both hands on her waist and interrogated me out of nowhere. “Two days ago, Yiyi didn’t return to the campus for the whole night after she went for supper with you. What did you do to her during this time? Speak honestly!”

I shivered and looked at Lin Yixin immediately because she was the only one who could clear my name.

But not only did she not help me, she complained pitifully to Sun Qingqing like I actually did something to her, “Qingqing, I’m telling you he’s a monster. You need to help me…”

What the fuck… I groaned on the inside and tried to explain myself, “Qingqing, nothing happened, seriously!”

Sun Qingqing paid no heed to my plea and uttered murderously, “You’re still denying it after everything?”

I looked at Lin Yixin and noticed her smiling like a fox and pretending to look outside the window. She was clearly enjoying my suffering while sipping her fruit juice.

Well, you asked for it!

Steeling myself, I said, “Sigh, I didn’t want to do it, you know. Everyone here is as pure-hearted as a virgin after all. But Yiyi… she said she was tired and didn’t want to go back to the campus, so I had no choice but to take her to Green Tea Inn…”

“Ah?”

Sun Qingqing gaped at me and her best friend for a moment. Finally, she looked at me and asked, “She, uh… didn’t experience any discomfort, did she?”

Lin Yixin’s face immediately turned as red as an apple. She slapped the table—not too loudly since it was a public area—and shot me a look of concealed murder before whispering to Sun Qingqing, “Come on, Qingqing, you… do you really think I would go to a place like that with a guy I’ve barely known for a couple of weeks?”

But Sun Qingqing’s shock only deepened. “Ah? You didn’t even rent a hotel room? You went straight to Lu Chen’s apartment?”

At this point, her name was impossible to clear. The best part was that she had done this to herself. Feeling like crying, she lay on the table and pretended to be asleep. “I’m tired, I’m going to sleep for a bit. Just forget about me and keep talking the good talk, you guys…”

I shot her a glare. “Come on, you can at least try to act a bit better…”

“Like I care about your opinion…”

Sun Qingqing still looked a bit worried, however. “Yiyi, do you feel like throwing up lately?”

Lin Yixin was this close to bursting into tears when she heard that. She wrapped her arms around Sun Qingqing’s shoulders and said, “Qingqing, I beg you, can you please not let your imagination run wild? We’re not even going out, there’s no way I would, you know, also—ahhhh, forget about it. If you still can’t believe me I’ll let you run a full body checkup after we return to the dorms…”

“Ah? A full body checkup?” My jaw hit the floor as all kinds of exciting scenes started blooming inside my mind.

……

Lin Yixin’s phone suddenly rang and cut off everyone’s antics. From what I could tell, it was a guy on the other side of the phone.

“%&#@%&*&...%”

“What? How did this happen…” Lin Yixin exclaimed in surprise.

“%&#@%&*&...%”

“Hmph, how dare him!” Lin Yixin cursed angrily.

“%&#@%&*&...%”

“Sigh. We’ll talk later, okay? I’m having dinner right now.”

“...”

Lin Yixin finally hung up the call and looked at me. “There’s going to be a fourth guild in Floating Ice City in an hour or so.”

I asked, “What? Who is it? Is it Mad Dragon, Wild Sand Alliance, or maybe even Eternal Friendship? Eternal Friendship has been pretty famous for the past couple days.”

“You are wrong on all accounts…” Lin Yixin replied with an inexplicable expression, “It’s Flower Room…”

“Excuse me? Flower Room? What the hell is that...” I was completely confused.

Sun Qingqing came to my rescue and cried out, “I know! It’s Li Le’s gang, am I right? A while ago, I heard Li Le and his friends talking about creating a ‘Flower Room’ in the office at Mingzhi Building. It’s actually real?”

Lin Yixin nodded. “It is. I heard that someone in Floating Ice City found the fourth Hero’s Token and started a public auction at the eastern plaza. Roaming Dragon wasn’t present at the time, so Li Le spent two million RMB and won the bid…”

“Fuck, two million?” I gasped audibly. “This Li Le sure doesn’t care about money!”

But Lin Yixin smiled a little and said, “So what if he got the Hero’s Token? Li Le is a talentless little snob who’s worth nothing without his family. Flower Room? I can’t believe he actually fancies himself as another Casanova…”

Her comment put a smile on my face. “But I heard that Li Le had never had a lack of women. It is true in a sense, don’t you think?”

Lin Yixin rolled her eyes at me before pointing out, “You mean those below-20-IQ girls who turn starry-eyed when they see a BMW and faint when they meet someone handsome? He can collect as many of them as he wants, it won’t change the fact that he’s nothing more but a vase collector, am I right?”

I shivered. As expected of our virtuous and talented Fruit Knife Goddess, she had hit the nail right on the head. The truth of the matter was just as she said, Li Le’s so-called Casanova lifestyle was nothing but a farce.

Sun Qingqing also nodded in agreement. “Correct. There was a girl in the foreign language class that Li Le tried to chase, but he never succeeded. Our Yiyi never once looked at him in the eye either. Even you can be a gentleman if compared with Li Le, Lu Chen!”

“Fuck…” I rubbed my nose. “Why does that sound like not really a compliment?”

“It is a compliment, trust me, hehe~”

“...”

I changed the topic and asked, “Should this Flower Room worry you, Yiyi?”

Lin Yixin shook her head immediately. “Of course not. Sure he has a Hero’s Token, but he’s an empty shell with no real support beneath him. Frankly, I’m more worried about Gods of Destruction and Mad Dragon. These guilds have both wealth and power. They’re the real enemies we’ll eventually have to face in the future.”

I nodded. “Bloody Mercenaries will establish their guild in a month at most!”

“Mn!”

Sun Qingqing smiled yearningly. “So, Snowy Cathaya and Bloody Mercenaries will be working together to fight against Gods of Destruction and Mad Dragon, huh?”

“That is the case. Hmph, that reminds me of Mad Dragon trying to snatch our mine shaft away from us. Once the guild recovers in two days’ time, I’m going to show them that I’m not to be trifled with!” Lin Yixin clenched her fists together and declared menacingly. She was completely serious.

I couldn’t help but laugh. The three male guests sitting at the table next to us looked like three drakes in heat as they shot admiring looks at Lin Yixin while trying to suppress their laughter at her cutesy antics.

“Laugh some more, and I’ll throw you out of the window.” Lin Yixin tried to glare at me, but she couldn’t hold herself back from smiling a little.

“Okay, okay, I won’t. Speaking of which, can we order our meals yet? We’re almost at the end of the chapter and I still haven’t even eaten anything!”

“...”

We chatted as we ate, and it was past 8 pm that our dinner finally came to an end.

Lin Yixin footed the bill before following Sun Qingqing to the roadside. They looked damn good in their skirts, I had to admit.

Sun Qingqing turned around to look at me. “Aren’t you going to send us back to the campus, handsome? There are a lot of bad guys on the streets, you know…”

I looked around and spotted a grandma who was selling sweet potatoes, a grandpa who was selling roasted chestnuts, and a couple of kindergarteners riding on tricycles. She was right, this road was full of dangers, so I nodded. “I shall obey the ladies’ request. This is a good opportunity to check out which dorms you are living at too!”

“Oh?” Lin Yixin stared at me warily. “What do you need that information for?”

I spread my arms innocently. “What else? To avoid getting lost when I come looking for you in the future!”

“Hmph hmph!”

Lin Yixin stopped talking after that. After buying CoCo milk tea for themselves, the girls slowly made their way back to the university. I bought a can of Tsingtao for myself and followed behind them like a shadow.

When we reached the campus entrance, I immediately straightened my collar and tidied my hair.

“What are you doing?” Lin Yixin cocked her head in puzzlement.

I explained, “I’m trying to make myself look more like a student. Randoms like me aren’t normally allowed into the campus.”

Lin Yixin burst into laughter. “How old do you think you are? Come on, no one’s going to stop you. The campus guards are infamous for their laxness.”

“Oh…”

Lin Yixin and Sun Qingqing walked side by side after we entered the campus. For some reason, I felt a little happy as I stepped on the campus lawn.

Suddenly, we heard two honks from the roadside. A black convertible drove up to Lin Yixin and Sun Qingqing, and the driver was none other than the man we were badmouthing a moment ago, Li Le! It was practically impossible not to recognize his good looks, his frivolous behavior, his shallow attitude, and his punchable smile!

“What a coincidence, Lin Yixin!”

Li Le greeted her with a wide smile on his face.

Lin Yixin frowned, strode to the garden path and pulled me out from behind a flowerbed. She then clung to my arm and said with a smile, “Where were you, sweetheart? Did you enjoy a good time while I was gone?”

I shuddered at her fake words before whispering, “The hell? Don’t you think that was way too corny?”

Lin Yixin retorted with a smile, “Of course I do, can’t you feel the goosebumps on my arms?”

It was pretty dark outside right now, but I could see the rosiness on Lin Yixin’s cheeks as clear as day.

I declared, “I don’t mind being your meatshield, but it’s gonna cost you!”

“1 gold per hour. Old customer, old prices!”

“I think I’m worth more than that.”

“I can find someone else to replace you if you’re unwilling…”

“What was I saying earlier? Of course I’ll escort you, my lady.”

……

Li Le glared at me from inside his black convertible, but he managed to retain a semblance of grace and smiled at Lin Yixin. “Beauty Lin, I almost forgot to tell you that I built a guild called ‘Flower Room’ just an hour ago. Now, we’re both the signboards of our university. Would you like to ally with my guild when you log into the game?”

Lin Yixin replied off-handedly, “You almost forgot? Are you sure you didn’t purposely drive all the way over to tell me this?”

Li Le nearly choked on his own spit when he heard Lin Yixin’s retort. With an awkward expression, he said, “I uh, I’m just here to tell you that, that’s all. I wish for peace between Snowy Cathaya and Flower Room. If Snowy Cathaya needs anything in the future, just tell us and we’ll do our best to support you!”

Lin Yixin snorted softly, but didn’t give him an answer.

I laughed quietly at her and said, “The implied message here is that the beautiful leader of Snowy Cathaya, namely you, must agree to become his girlfriend if Snowy Cathaya were to garner any support from Flower Room. Did I get it right?”

Lin Yixin scolded me. “Go to hell. It’s impolite to expose the other person’s intentions right in front of their faces, you know!”

“...”

We finally arrived at the female dorms, giving Li Le no more opportunity to stick to us like a gum beneath our shoes. My mission passed with flying colors, I checked the time before shouting, “7 minutes, Yiyi. Don’t forget to send me 7 gold after you go online, got it? See ya~”

Lin Yixin almost fell off the stairs hearing what I said.