A huge, gleeful smile spread across Lin Li's face as he read the text message from his bank confirming the deposit.
He immediately paid off his family's overdue electricity bill.
After paying the bill, he waited a couple of minutes before getting up to flip the light switch.
CLICK.
He flicked the switch, and the room instantly lit up. The white light chased away the darkness. Lin Li nodded, satisfied, then picked up the TV remote from the coffee table and turned on the television.
"According to reports from our field correspondent, a large number of Tier One Mutant Beasts have recently appeared in the wilderness of the Rongcheng North District. In the coming days, the Exotic Beast Hunter Guild will be organizing Exotic Beast Hunters to clear them out..."
'That's more like it. The house just feels empty, like something's missing, without the sound of the TV.'
'Ah, it feels so good to have money. I can never let myself be completely broke and at the end of my rope like that again.' With his once-empty wallet now full, Lin Li felt like his life was bright again.
......
「The next morning.」
A brilliant golden sun rose from the eastern horizon, instantly tearing through the darkness that shrouded the earth.
CLICK.
The bedroom door opened, and a sleepy Lin Li emerged, yawning as he walked.
Last night, the power outage had made him consider going to bed early. However, once the money came in and he paid the bill, the electricity came back on. He promptly abandoned the idea of sleep and went to the study to play computer games instead.
Of course, once he started, he couldn't stop, playing all the way until two in the morning.
'My self-control is still too weak! I can't let myself get so hooked again.'
Last night, Lin Li had been playing a single-player PC game. He kept getting killed by one of the bosses, which really pissed him off, and he vowed to take it down.
Time flew by when he was gaming, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
By the time Lin Li beat the game and snapped out of it, it was already past one, nearly two in the morning.
He'd pulled an all-nighter without even realizing it. Having beaten the game, Lin Li now felt deeply that gaming was a major obstacle on his path to becoming a powerful Cultivator.
But quitting gaming was out of the question. After mulling it over, all he could do was chastise himself for a minute, and that was the end of it.
......
SPLASH...
After washing up, Lin Li came out of the bathroom. Time for breakfast.
But aside from the honey peaches Su Yue had given him yesterday, there was nothing to eat in the house.
So, Lin Li went back to his bedroom to change, then headed out to buy breakfast.
He had a lot to do this morning. After breakfast, he needed to rent a car, go to the supermarket for some food, and then stop by the pharmacy to buy another tube of healing ointment.
He hadn't finished the tube of ointment he'd bought before, but Lin Li thought it was better to have a spare. That way, if he got badly injured fighting a Mutant Beast in the future, one tube might not be enough.
The broken elevator still hadn't been fixed, so Lin Li had to take the stairs.
As he stepped out of the stairwell, brilliant golden sunlight instantly washed over him.
A few young boys and girls ran past him. They looked young enough to still be in school, probably high schoolers.
HUFF...
PANT...
Panting heavily, they jogged through the residential complex. The faint golden Spiritual Light that occasionally flickered around them proved that these boys and girls had all awakened their Spirituality.
These kids were all residents of the neighboring buildings. They had been getting up early every morning to train in the complex for several years now.
Lin Li knew they trained like this every morning, rain or shine, because they dreamed of becoming Cultivators.
Lin Li had once shared that same persistence. But eventually, limited by his own aptitude for cultivation, he had accepted his fate and decided to live as a carefree, ambitionless slacker.
'How unpredictable life is!'
Now that he was a Cultivator—and an Exotic Beast Hunter who could hunt Mutant Beasts in the wilderness at that—Lin Li couldn't help but feel a wave of emotion as he watched these vibrant youths still striving to become Cultivators themselves.
'Keep it up, kids. I'm rooting for you!!!'
GRUMBLE... His stomach was protesting. Heeding its complaint, Lin Li pulled his gaze away from the hard-training youths and turned to walk out of the complex.
......
「Jixing Car Company.」
This recently opened car rental company, which specialized in used vehicles, had ten employees, including the owner.
"YAWN~" A salesman walked into the office, yawning as he greeted his colleague. "Morning!"
"Morning."
"Huh? Where's the boss?"
"I think his daughter has a cold. He had to take her to the children's hospital this morning, so he won't be in until this afternoon."
"It's getting hot, so a lot of people are starting to use their air conditioning. It's really easy for kids to get sick this time of year."
"Yeah! That's why when my daughter sleeps, I either turn the AC temperature up in her room or just turn it off completely and let her use a fan."
With no customers so early in the morning, the two salesmen started to chat.
Lin Li polished off the last meat bun in the bag, drained his soy milk in one gulp, and let out a satisfied burp.
CLANG.
He tossed his trash into a nearby bin and walked toward Jixing Car Company.
"Welcome." Wang Xiaoming, who had been chatting with his colleague, spotted the customer and hurried over to greet him before his coworker even noticed.
"Hello, I'd like to rent a car."
"May I have your last name, sir?"
"Lin."
"Mr. Lin, what's your price range? We have cars ranging from one hundred and fifty yuan a day to over a thousand."
Lin Li had over twenty thousand yuan in his pocket, but after his recent predicament of being completely broke, he had become even more cautious with his money. It wasn't like he had a habit of spending lavishly to begin with.
After hearing the salesman, Wang Xiaoming, lay out the options, Lin Li didn't hesitate. "I'll take the one-hundred-fifty-a-day car..."
Wang Xiaoming was slightly disappointed to hear Lin Li ask for the cheapest car, but he didn't let it show on his face.
"Mr. Lin, the car for one-fifty a day is a van."
'A van? Fine. It's just for getting around, so a van is a van. Once I'm rolling in cash, I'll go straight to a dealership and buy an SUV...' Lin Li grumbled to himself.
......