Chapter 9: When a Problem Cannot Be Solved... That Means It Isn't Big Enough!
Li Youzhi ran errands until past nine o'clock in the evening before dragging his exhausted body back to the dormitory.
Before coming to this world, Li Youzhi used to work out year-round to manage his weight. I have to say... compared to working as a delivery runner, working out was absolute child's play in terms of physical exertion!
Lying on his bed, Li Youzhi took out his phone and opened the WeChat step counter. Goodness gracious... Even with the little electric scooter sharing a portion of the physical load, his step count for the day had soared to over thirty thousand—and keep in mind, a large fraction of those thirty thousand steps involved climbing stairs.
Still, the harvest from a day like this was substantial.
From a little past eight in the morning until nine at night, excluding a short break around four in the afternoon, Li Youzhi had spent the entire day on the move.
By the end of it, he had actually completed over sixty delivery orders that day! Calculating the numbers, the delivery commission alone brought in over three hundred yuan.
There was more than one delivery service near Agricultural University, and because many students specifically requested Li Youzhi for their deliveries today, the company he worked for inadvertently received extra orders. When the manager tallied the wages that evening, he gave him an extra twenty-yuan bonus on the spot.
By that calculation, his income for the day reached three hundred and sixty yuan.
Li Youzhi had never dreamed that upon arriving in this spacetime, his first job with a decent possibility of making ten thousand a month would turn out to be running deliveries...
However, compared to the three hundred-odd yuan in wages, the biggest harvest for Li Youzhi was probably his weight.
Before heading out in the morning, he had specifically used an electronic scale left behind by someone in the dormitory to weigh himself. Upon waking up in the morning, on an empty stomach and in his birthday suit, his weight had been ninety-two kilograms.
Now, after a busy day of hustle and frantically drinking six or seven bottles of mineral water, his weight had actually dropped to ninety-one point five kilograms.
Although he knew in his heart that most of what he had lost on this first day was simply water weight, Li Youzhi understood that for this severely undertrained body left behind by the original owner, as long as he kept this up, losing twenty pounds within a month should be no problem at all.
After lying down for a while to recover some stamina, Li Youzhi took a cold shower in the bathroom. Then, he dove headfirst under the covers.
Lying in bed and feeling the rumbling sounds emitted by his empty stomach, Li Youzhi curved the corners of his mouth.
Thinking of the weight-loss suggestions netizens had given him for his side hustle, an exhausted Li Youzhi, on the verge of drifting off to sleep, gave a thumbs-up under the blanket.
Sure enough, if you want to turn your life around, you really have to listen to advice! Falling asleep hungry—wouldn't you wake up tomorrow practically starved thin?! Skipping dinner at night invisibly saved at least ten yuan; didn't he make another ten yuan today? Today... he won by a landslide!
For the next week, Li Youzhi strictly followed the rhythm of his first day: sleeping early and rising early, working and conditioning his body.
The only difference was that more and more people at Agricultural University recognized Li Youzhi. Every time he delivered goods, students wearing his white battle robe would take the initiative to greet him and cheer him on.
Whenever he met someone who showed him goodwill, Li Youzhi would universally respond with a huge smile.
Ever since she sent that Akagi Takenori over that day, Zhou Jingyao hadn't made any further moves. Li Youzhi couldn't be bothered to pay attention.
In his fulfilling and busy life, the only time he remembered such a female existed was every night when he returned to the dormitory, opened Douyin, and saw those little fairies in the comment section who were still cyberbullying him.
Until the fifteenth day of his side hustle.
At a little past two in the afternoon, just as Li Youzhi was hurrying along on a milk tea delivery, his phone rang.
Thinking it was a customer urging him on, Li Youzhi checked the caller ID and saw it was actually the original owner's counselor. He hurriedly answered the call.
"Hello?"
"Student Li Youzhi, if you have time right now, please come over to the counselor's office."
Hearing the counselor's voice, Li Youzhi was slightly stunned. The original owner had a rather introverted personality and didn't usually stir up trouble, so he wasn't very familiar with the counselor.
Now, with a sudden summons, what could it possibly be? "Teacher, what do you need me for?"
"Umm... You come over first. The counselor from the School of Foreign Languages has come over to my place, saying a female student has filed a complaint against you. Come on over, and the two of us will help you sort this matter out."
"Oh... Alright, I'll be right there."
Holding the phone, Li Youzhi had a sudden epiphany. Damn it, like a ghost that wouldn't quit!
No wonder Zhou Jingyao had been so quiet these past two days; it turned out she was brewing a massive ultimate move here!
Putting down the phone, Li Youzhi pursed his lips. After running through a few contingency plans in his mind, he started up his little electric scooter.
A dozen minutes later.
After delivering the order in his hands, Li Youzhi arrived at the third floor of the Vocational Education Building.
Knocking on the door of the counselor's office, he heard a "come in" from inside and gently pushed the door open. He bowed slightly when he saw the two teachers—a man and a woman—inside the office.
"Hello, teachers."
"Ah, Student Li Youzhi, this is Teacher Hu from the School of Foreign Languages. A female student had some friction with you earlier, and Teacher Hu is here to resolve this matter."
The one speaking was Li Youzhi's counselor, Zhang Chenbin. Following his lead, Li Youzhi looked at the female teacher sitting on the sofa.
Before he could even greet her, Teacher Hu stood up from the sofa, walked right up to Li Youzhi, and yanked at the sweatshirt he was wearing—one that had already been stained yellow and soaked with sweat over the past couple of days.
"Student Li Youzhi, do you have any idea what kind of catastrophic trouble you've caused? Your behavior these past few days has severely affected the life and studies of our student Zhou Jingyao! Influenced by you, the classmates and roommates around her have alienated and isolated her, and some students have even subjected her to verbal abuse. This has caused immense psychological and physical damage to Student Li Youzhi. She's been in a daze these past few days, and a hospital checkup diagnosed her with mild depression! With no other choice, she came to me for help. Now, I demand that you immediately cease your rumor-mongering against Student Li Youzhi and offer her a face-to-face apology!"
Oh? Depressed?
Li Youzhi immediately grinned.
A fairy's traditional performance, truly.
"Teacher, do you know the cause and effect of this matter? It was Zhou Jingyao who started—"
"Don't emphasize what she did! What I'm talking about right now is your problem! You're a young man, so what if people online say a few things about you? Where is your magnanimity?"
"No, wait—"
"What do you mean 'no, wait, no, wait'? Regardless of whether this female student is right or wrong, I'll say this in one sentence—you shouldn't be so extreme!"
Ah, crap...
Berated by this teacher in a machine-gun volley, Li Youzhi knew what he had to do. Fighting back against his counselor was certainly unwise.
So this score would just have to be settled with Zhou Jingyao! As the saying goes: you fight your battle, and I'll fight mine; we'll just see who cracks first!
"Sorry, Teacher, out of the two demands you mentioned, I can't fulfill a single one. Now I'll give you two choices: first, either you have the school expel me; or second, you have Zhou Jingyao call the police or sue me. I'm very busy with my side hustle, averaging thirty yuan an hour, and I don't have time to shoot the breeze with you here. Bye-bye!"
Disregarding the expressions on the two counselors' faces, Li Youzhi sauntered out.
Upon leaving the Vocational Education Building, Li Youzhi didn't head back to the delivery spot. Sending the manager a WeChat message to ask for leave, he returned to his dorm room.
After randomly splashing some water on his face to calm his mood, Li Youzhi turned on the computer that he hadn't booted up in a long time, created a new Weibo account, and logged into the fairy circle that had previously targeted his Douyin account.
[Sisters, help! I'm the victim who previously received death threats from a trashy man. Now this trashy man is spreading dirty rumors about me all over the school, and I've been isolated and cursed at by all the dick-cancer students in the school. I can barely hold on anymore, please help me, sisters!]
[Urgent, helping a classmate speak up! The young lady at our school who received death threats from a trashy man a few days ago is now having dirty rumors spread about her by the same trashy man. Now the young lady is isolated by the whole school, her mental breakdown has left her depressed, sisters go to the school forum and shout for her!]
After sending out two consecutive posts, Li Youzhi stretched lazily.
Watching as little fairies in the two posts were quickly enraged and organized a grand crusade to bomb the school forum, confession boards, and Tieba, Li Youzhi chuckled inwardly.
When a problem cannot be solved by oneself, turn it into everyone's problem—isn't that all there is to it? There are so many people in this world who are more awesome than him; why should all the grievances be borne by him alone?
Baby... is fragile too!