It was 12:30 PM.
The Fourth Cafeteria at Agricultural University.
Zhou Jingyao sat at a table holding a set meal of braised pork bones with rice, feeling thoroughly ill at ease.
This discomfort had started that very morning and was only intensifying.
Sitting with her roommate Zhang Ling, she hadn't even snapped apart her disposable chopsticks yet when a hushed murmur drifted from behind her.
"Hey, hey, hey, isn't that Zhou Jingyao?"
"It is her. Somebody posted her photo in the group chat."
"She certainly is pretty, but she has the face of a human and acts like a beast. Look at how she screwed over that poor guy, tsk, tsk... When I came to the cafeteria just now, I actually saw him delivering food to our dorms. In this scorching weather, sweating profusely, making three or five bucks a single just to scrape by... My heart ached just looking at him."
Hearing the whispers behind her, Zhou Jingyao frowned and turned around.
Noticing her looking over, the whispering girls hastily lowered their heads and shoveled rice into their mouths.
Ridiculous!
Zhou Jingyao frowned deeply as she turned back around, but just as she was about to eat, a pair of shapely legs encased in white silk stockings suddenly stopped right beside her.
"Well, well, if it isn't Lady Jingyao! What an unexpected honor to grace the Fourth Cafeteria today. fallen on hard times, have we? I would have thought a goddess like Lady Jingyao always had a spare-tire simp delivering meals right to her lips."
Hearing this sarcastic voice, Zhou Jingyao raised her head. Seeing the girls standing before her, she pressed her lips into a thin line.
The ringleader was Song Jia, who was in the same department and whom she never got along with. The reason for their bad blood was Song Jia's ex-boyfriend...
Dropping her chopsticks, Zhou Jingyao's face chilled. "What are you talking about? Watch your mouth and stop spreading groundless rumors."
"Pfft! Who are you trying to kid with this pure act?"
Song Jia rolled her eyes, casually pulled out her phone, and opened a campus group chat.
"Look for yourself and see what you've reduced that poor guy to. The whole campus knows about it, and you're still sitting here playing innocent?"
Gazing at Zhou Jingyao with malicious amusement, Song Jia sneered, "Lady Jingyao, you can be a flirt, but at least have a conscience. If you're going to have financial trouble in the future, just go start a live stream, stare into the camera and call guys 'babe,' play the edge, and sell some sex appeal—you can easily make a hundred or eighty bucks that way. Don't go listing people on Xianyu! To take a fine young guy, sell him for fifty bucks, and screw him over like this—disgusting! Pull stunts like this and you won't even be able to keep a spare tire around anymore. You really are a bitch and an idiot!"
In her ears was Song Jia's mockery.
Before her eyes was Li Youzhi's distinctive "battle robe."
Seeing her own name written on Li Youzhi as he shuttled across the entire Agricultural University campus, Zhou Jingyao's body began to tremble.
With rage!
She had completely lost her appetite for the meal she had just bought. Zhou Jingyao stood up abruptly and, amidst a sea of sideways glances from the surrounding students, quickly left the cafeteria.
Panting as she reached the flower bed outside the cafeteria, she finally took out her phone with trembling hands.
"Asshole... If I don't strip the skin off your back today, my name isn't Zhou Jingyao and I've wasted two years at Agricultural University!"
Gritting her teeth, she opened her WeChat contacts and quickly tapped the top-ranked contact under a group called "Fish Pond."
"Hangsheng, are you there? I've run into some trouble. There's this psycho who used to pursue me, and when I turned him down, he went and wrote my name on his clothes and ran all over the school. Can you find him and talk to him? I'm genuinely terrified of what he's doing; this guy is too extreme..."
After sending the voice message, Zhou Jingyao took a deep breath.
She waited a full half-minute before the other end replied.
Normally, with a response time like that, Zhou Jingyao would have left the person hanging for a whole day. But right now, desperate to deal with Li Youzhi's problem, she immediately tapped on the voice message.
"Yaoyao, we've known each other this long, so I roughly understand where you stand. Since there's no love there, let's not waste any more time. You don't need to contact me anymore in the future; I'm afraid my roommates will see it and make fun of me."
"What the fuck! Is he an asshole?"
Listening to that voice message full of hope, Zhou Jingyao's formidable facial expression management completely collapsed.
With a distorted, gritted smile, she immediately opened her second contact.
"A-Hao, you there? I've run into some trouble... I'm so annoyed right now, do you have time to come out?"
This time, the message received an instant reply.
"No time, can't get out, afraid you'll list me on Xianyu!"
The smile Zhou Jingyao had managed to coax back onto her face... completely froze this time.
Cracking under the pressure, she blocked and deleted both contacts in one smooth motion. It took her a long time to finally steady her emotions.
With trembling hands, she flipped back and forth through her contacts for several rounds before her gaze finally stopped on one particular name.
Tapping that profile picture, she summoned every ounce of skill she possessed, squeezing out what she considered her softest, most innocent voice.
"Old classmate, what are you up to? I happened to pass by the school basketball court today and saw those boys playing, and suddenly your shadow flashed through my mind. It's been over two years since graduation, and I haven't seen you play basketball in so long. Sigh, thinking back, high school really was the best. Every day was carefree; sitting in the classroom, all I had to do was lift my gaze and I'd see an idiot like you sprinting across the court. Unlike now... there are so many, many things that leave a person gasping for breath."
Controlling her breathing, she finished it in one breath and hit send, gripping her phone tightly.
The boy she had contacted was the sports committee member from her high school days.
They didn't go to the same university, but he was attending college in this same city.
As for the campus spare tires, Zhou Jingyao knew she couldn't count on them anymore. All her hopes now rested entirely on this single person.
The sports committee member didn't disappoint her expectations; just a few seconds later, a flurry of consecutive messages came through.
"What's wrong?" "Yaoyao, did you run into some hard times?" "Are you at school right now?" "I'm heading over right now!"
Hearing these rapid-fire, self-answering replies, Zhou Jingyao let out a low chuckle and narrowed her eyes.
"Li Youzhi, you just wait!"
***
Events proved that the part-time job Li Youzhi found was the right choice—running deliveries really was exhausting!
Agricultural University had a large student body and plenty of nearby shops. Particularly for dining and supermarkets, the demand for delivery runners was quite substantial.
There was no help for it; the commission rates for platforms like Meituan and Ele.me were simply too high. Most of the platform's costs were passed on to partnering merchants through turnover commissions, so if online prices didn't go up, profit margins would be squeezed thin.
Moreover, the Agricultural University dorms weren't far from the commercial district outside the campus, so most merchants posted ads in the dorm areas and, upon receiving a student's call, had a runner deliver the goods.
This way, students got a bargain while merchants only had to pay a small delivery fee—once you throw capitalism out the door, it's a win-win.
No... make that a three-way win.
Aside from the buyer and seller, there was also Li Youzhi.
Throughout the entire morning, Li Youzhi had completed over twenty orders.
It was past one o'clock, with the sun hanging high overhead and baking people's scalps numb, yet he was still rushing around carrying deliveries—the daily routine of contemporary college students generally lagged one to two hours behind office workers. Elsewhere the lunch rush by one o'clock was already over, but at a university, it was only just beginning.
In late March, the temperature in Rongcheng was already quite high.
Bathed in the scorching sunlight after a whole morning's work, the skin exposed on Li Youzhi's limbs had darkened by a couple of shades.
Sweat on his face trickled down the straps of his safety helmet, wetting his hoodie over and over as it dried and soaked through again.
Coated with a layer of crystallized salt, the hoodie clung tightly to his body, making him profoundly uncomfortable.
"Classmate, your spicy chicken and dry-pot chicken gizzards have arrived! The boss threw in two bottles of mineral water. Enjoy your meal!"
Downstairs at the dormitory building, having delivered yet another order, Li Youzhi flashed a broad smile at the customer.
"Awesome! Bro, I just saw your thing in the WeChat group chat. Our dorm decided that from now on, whenever we order delivery from outside, we're specifying you to bring it! Take this water and drink it, rest when you're tired. Keep it up!"
The classmate who had come downstairs to pick up the food patted Li Youzhi on the shoulder and shoved the bottled water provided by the merchant into his hands.
Then... this jerk picked up his phone and aimed the camera at Li Youzhi, shooting a short video.
"Hey guys, take a look—senior from the Film and Television Literature Department, Brother Zhi! The legendary warrior who pays the price for love. If any of you have delivery orders in the future, make sure to hook Brother Zhi up!"
As he sent the video out, a chorus of "Received!" instantly popped up in the group chat.
I goddamn told you I didn't even have a chance to catch my breath all morning—turns out you bastards scheduled every single order in the men's dorms for me?
Facing the classmate's encouraging gaze, Li Youzhi twitched the corners of his mouth.
I fucking thank you so much!
Li Youzhi was genuinely grateful, though.
Tying deliveries was tiring, sure, but his morning earnings were quite handsome. Figuring an average of four bucks a single, he'd already made eighty or ninety yuan this morning.
The pay was secondary, though; the main thing was... it was a real weight-loss program!
After running around all morning, Li Youzhi felt like his legs had actually gotten thinner. Sweating buckets like this, if he kept it up for a month, wouldn't he starve the fat right off?
"Thanks, bro! Next time you order delivery, no need to come downstairs to pick it up—I'll bring it right to your dorm."
Having lost a massive amount of bodily fluids all morning, Li Youzhi didn't refuse the classmate's kindness this time. After taking the mineral water, he waved goodbye to the student and rushed off without stopping to his next order.
Yet just as he climbed onto his little electric scooter, a figure stepped directly in front of him.
"You Li Youzhi? Come on, get down here. Let's chat."
Li Youzhi raised his head, blinking as he looked at the giant standing before him—easily two meters tall without a shred of exaggeration, whose sheer presence actually blocked out the sunlight.
What the hell!
Akagi Takenori had run straight out of the cartoon!
***
Author's Note: Starting tomorrow, scheduled updates will begin. Two chapters will be released together every day at 12:00 PM to make it convenient for you gentlemen to follow along. And then... please add to your library, follow the serial, drop monthly tickets, and throw in investments!