Chapter 156: The Competition
“Dongming! About that money I asked to borrow before…”
As soon as class ended, An Han rushed to Wu Dongming’s desk. She first glanced carefully at Su Peng, who was sitting not far away, then leaned closer and whispered, “How much can you lend me?”
“Three hundred?”
“That’s fine! That’s quite a lot already!”
Wu Dongming could smell a faint, pleasant scent from An Han when she leaned in. It made him instinctively lean away to put some distance between them. He then asked, “When will you pay it back?”
“Well… maybe within this semester?”
“Then forget it. I only get about a thousand yuan a month. If I lend you three hundred, I’ll have nothing left to eat by the end of the month.”
An Han’s cheerful smile immediately disappeared.
She had planned to get a part-time job to pay back the money, but the school schedule was already packed. She could only work on weekends, which meant she would have to pay it back little by little.
Actually, she could also wait to get a job first and then rent a place, but that would take at least another month.
She sighed in disappointment and looked toward her other friends.
Chen Junjie really did seem to have a girlfriend. He’d been borrowing money from Long Xing every day for meals. And now Long Xing barely had enough left for his own food.
Wang Sheng loved buying game skins. As soon as he received his monthly allowance, he’d spend almost all of it, saving only what he needed for meals, and even used the rest to buy some fancy knife gloves. Now he didn’t have much cash either.
As for Wang Yu…
Just thinking about his cold expression made An Han decide it was better not to risk it.
She had never liked borrowing money from people, it felt embarrassing. With her roommate Wu Dongming, she was already used to it, but asking someone like Wang Yu, who she wasn’t close to and even found intimidating, was out of the question.
The same went for Lin Yi and An Kexin, she felt too awkward to ask them.
“I wonder if Lin Yi still has any side jobs… That boss last time was pretty generous. Too bad I spent most of what I earned on food and junk…”
An Han was starting to regret her habit of spending money so carelessly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Chen Junjie sitting nearby, holding his phone and typing quickly with both thumbs.
“Texting your girlfriend?” she asked, leaning over to peek.
Chen Junjie didn’t even bother to hide it and openly showed her the chat on his phone.
“Ooh~ Wenwen~ What a sweet name,” An Han teased with a playful grin after a quick glance. “Don’t you think that’s a bit too mushy?”
“Heh.” Chen Junjie gave a smug little laugh, full of disdain for single people.
It felt like a dagger straight to An Han’s chest. After a short pause, she asked, “So what does she look like? Which class is she in? Is she pretty?”
Long Xing, sitting nearby, leaned over too. “Big? Long legs? What kind of girl is she?”
Their questions made Chen Junjie’s pride soar. He quickly opened his photo gallery and showed them his girlfriend’s picture.
The girl in the photo had long, wavy brown hair, heavy makeup, and wore a small black T-shirt with a jacket that barely covered anything, showing off her slim, pale waist. She had on a short black skirt with fishnet stockings. Tall, thin, and curvy…
An Han felt this kind of look was too mature. It seemed like the kind of outfit someone who went clubbing a lot would wear.
If it were her, even if the girl was really beautiful, she still wouldn’t like someone dressed like that.
“She’s quite pretty,” An Han said out loud, keeping her real thoughts to herself.
But seriously, her chest was huge! She’d probably need to level up her body stats twice just to reach that girl’s bust size.
“If she wasn’t pretty, I wouldn’t even like her, okay?” Chen Junjie said proudly, closing his photo album.
His smug face made An Han grit her teeth in frustration.
If it weren’t for that stupid system screwing me over…
If her “body attribute” from the system had been something like height, abs, or muscles, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting a girlfriend at all!
But now, she just hoped she wouldn’t end up becoming someone else’s girlfriend.
An Han lay tiredly on her desk, waiting for this boring water engineering class to end.
“I think I’ve seen your girlfriend somewhere before,” Long Xing said to Chen Junjie.
“She’s from our school. It’s normal if you’ve seen her.”
He paused, scratched his head, and added, “A while ago, when I went drinking at a bar with the fitness club, I saw her there drinking with a few guys.”
Chen Junjie went quiet for a moment.
“I don’t think I saw you there back then?”
“I probably just went to the bathroom. You didn’t notice me,” he said, forcing a smile.
An Han immediately perked up and teased, “Sounds like your girlfriend’s cheating on you!”
“Shut the hell up!”
“Why so mad…” An Han muttered, slumping back down again.
I wonder if the system will ever give me a task that rewards actual cash.
Surely it wouldn’t be that vulgar, right? Even when the system rewarded money before, it was always through things like houses, cars, or lottery tickets. But now, she only needed about a thousand yuan.
Seriously, who invented this stupid “deposit” thing anyway?
If not for that, she could have just rented a place and lived with cheaper food. But with the extra deposit cost, she couldn’t afford to move out at all.
“An Han.”
“What?” She tilted her head slightly, revealing one eye from where she had been resting her face on her arms, and looked toward Chen Junjie.
“You asked to borrow money before, was it because you wanted to move out?”
Long Xing also leaned over. “Yeah, Xiao Han asked me to borrow money too.”
“Uh-huh. Didn’t I already say so? I just don’t have enough right now. Once I have the money, I’ll go look for a place.”
An Han noticed Wang Sheng staring at her in surprise, as if he didn’t understand, which made her a little nervous. Her voice softened. “So… do you guys know any part-time jobs that pay daily? I want to save up enough to move out.”
“If I win first place in the tournament next week, I’ll give you the prize money for rent,” Wang Sheng said without hesitation. “First place gets over two thousand yuan, plus a mouse and keyboard. If it’s not enough, I’ll just sell those online.”
“Wang Sheng~ You’re my brother for life!”
An Han was touched, but a second later, she froze.
Wait! Wasn’t the CSGO tournament supposed to be canceled because there was no sponsor?
How come there’s suddenly a two-thousand-yuan prize for the champion now?
She looked at Wang Sheng in confusion. “Didn’t Wang Yu say it couldn’t be held?”
“He suddenly said it’s back on.” Wang Sheng scratched his head with a shy smile. “I don’t know why. You’ll have to ask him.”
Did Wang Yu find a sponsor who’s into this kind of competition? An Han couldn’t help but feel something was off.
Could it be that Su Peng heard me complaining and decided to sponsor the tournament himself?
No way… That’s impossible. This was Wang Sheng’s tournament, she only wanted him to be able to participate.
After she failed that mission, whether the tournament happened or not didn’t even matter anymore.
She had already told Su Peng that much. He had no reason to go through all that trouble just to make her happy.
“So…” An Han wanted to curse, but forced herself to smile instead. “Don’t you dare win that prize money and then dump me aside, okay?”
Damn it, system! Why did you mark the mission as failed so fast?
My PS5…!