"I see." Lin Li nodded, thought for a moment, then asked curiously, "Your classmate who owns the flower shop—is it a guy or a girl?"
Su Yue was about to set down her glass of water, but she paused when she heard his question.
A light danced in her large, shimmering eyes, and her lips curled into another smile. 'Could this blockhead finally be catching on?' she thought.
"A girl, and she's very pretty! She doesn't have a boyfriend yet, you know. Want me to introduce you?" Su Yue said with a smile.
'I don't have time for a girlfriend right now. I've only just taken the first step on my journey to becoming a powerful Cultivator. I can't let myself get bogged down by romance...'
'Besides, I'm dirt poor right now. Girlfriends cost money. If I had that kind of spare cash, I'd rather pay my electricity bill or buy Spirit Stones to raise my cultivation level.'
"No, thanks. I appreciate the thought, but a girlfriend is not something I'm considering right now," Lin Li said, shaking his head.
"But she's really pretty! And she has a great body. Are you sure you won't reconsider?" Su Yue coaxed with a chuckle.
"..." Lin Li fell silent, simply shaking his head to show how resolute he was.
Su Yue was very pleased with his response. Seeing him finish the second honey peach, she reached out, picked another from the fruit bowl, and offered it to him.
"That's enough. I can't eat another bite."
Lin Li quickly waved his hand. He was already full from dinner, and now with two fresh, juicy honey peaches in his stomach, he truly didn't have any room left.
"I bought a few too many of these peaches. I'll pack some for you to take home when you leave."
Su Yue could see that Lin Li was genuinely full, so she placed the honey peach back in the fruit bowl and spoke.
'That would be great...' When Lin Li, who was completely broke and out of food, heard Su Yue offer to let him take some honey peaches home, his eyes instantly lit up. He looked at her, deeply moved.
...
CLICK.
THUD.
At nine o'clock at night, Lin Li opened the door to his apartment and stepped into the pitch-black interior.
He took off his shoes, placed them in the shoe cabinet, slipped on his house slippers, and walked into the living room.
He turned on his fully charged phone and, using its light, took the bag of honey peaches he was carrying and arranged them in the empty fruit bowl.
'Wait a minute! Why am I using my phone as a flashlight? What a stupid waste of electricity!'
Lin Li chided himself internally, locked his phone, and raised his left hand. A faint golden Spiritual Light bloomed from his fingertips.
FWOOSH.
A small, orange-red Fireball the size of an egg appeared on Lin Li's fingertip.
Bathed in the orange-red glow of the little Fireball, Lin Li placed all the honey peaches from Su Yue into the fruit bowl. He then extinguished the flame, sat on the sofa, and surveyed his surroundings.
Without the orange-red glow of the Fireball, the only illumination came from the dim, yellow light of the streetlamps filtering in through the window, faintly lighting the area near the balcony corner.
'Sigh... A Cultivator who can't even pay his electricity bill. I'm probably the only one of my kind in the whole world.'
Lin Li had been planning to go to a rental agency tomorrow to get a used car.
But now, the two Mutant Beasts he'd consigned to the "Superfast Recycling" company hadn't sold yet. With not a single cent in his account, even affording food was a problem. Renting a car was out of the question.
In the pitch-black living room, Lin Li sighed in distress. 'Maybe I should ask Su Yue to lend me a few hundred to tide me over,' he thought.
However, the moment the thought of borrowing money from Su Yue occurred to him, he immediately dismissed it.
It wasn't that he was too proud or embarrassed to ask. Given their relationship, Su Yue would definitely lend him the money.
The problem was, if he asked to borrow money, Su Yue would certainly ask him *why* he needed it.
After all, Su Yue knew he had a million in savings. Logically speaking, there was no reason he should need to borrow money from her.
When she inevitably pressed him for details, how was he supposed to explain it?
The secret of his "golden finger" was something he could absolutely never reveal to anyone.
'Sigh... It's a good thing Su Yue gave me that bag of honey peaches. They should be enough to last me a day or two.'
Sprawled on the sofa, Lin Li sighed. He had already resolved to live on honey peaches for the next day or two.
In his current predicament, his plan to hunt Mutant Beasts in the wilderness would have to be put on hold for now.
You need a full stomach to have the strength to hunt Mutant Beasts. If he was just eating honey peaches, where would he get the energy to hunt in the wild?
Besides, he was broke. He couldn't even afford a bus ticket. Was he supposed to run all the way from his apartment complex to the wilderness on his own two feet?
...
DING!
The room was pitch-black, and there was nothing to do. Just as Lin Li was about to get up and head to the bedroom to sleep, the phone in his pocket vibrated and chimed.
Lying listlessly on the sofa, Lin Li reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
"Huh?"
Lin Li, who had been listless and apathetic, instantly perked up when he pulled out his phone, unlocked the screen, and saw a notification from the "Superfast Recycling" app.
He opened the "Superfast Recycling" app and immediately saw that his order, which had been processing, was now marked as complete.
He tapped the order details and quickly skimmed them. Then, Lin Li burst out laughing. "Haha, I have money! I'm finally not a broke bum anymore."
The "Superfast Recycling" company had sold the two Mutant Beasts he hunted to a hotel for a total of 25,300.
A quick calculation showed that the two Mutant Beasts weighed over three hundred pounds in total, and the average price per pound was considerably cheaper than the Exotic Beast Meat Lin Li had bought at the market.
Still, the price was within his expectations. The stalls selling Exotic Beast Meat at the market charged retail prices.
"Superfast Recycling," on the other hand, had taken his two Mutant Beasts and sold them to their client at a wholesale price.
After deducting fees for butchering, logistics, and so on, the final price was actually quite fair.
He tapped "withdraw," and in less than ten seconds, 25,000 was transferred to his bank account.
The remaining three hundred was automatically deducted to cover the fee for the transport drone he'd used earlier, which he hadn't paid for at the time.
...