Chapter 17: Deyun Club's Little Lele. I'll say it again: I don't like her...

Chen Che locked his gaze on the figure.

The girl, facing sideways toward him, was talking to a staff member.

The black classmate: "Your friend is asking how to get their salary transferred. Hey, there are so many of us in our class, no one cares about salaries."

"Thanks." Chen Che patted his shoulder.

"Can I take your car?"

"There's a bus stop outside. If that doesn't work, rent a scooter."

"Brother, you want me to ride a scooter for 30 kilometers?!"

The young man walked diagonally toward his target, passing over the wailing classmates.

Everything around him was hushed, but that aquamarine became increasingly concrete. It spread out, like the sky above a salt lake, where water and sky met, the blue rushing forward, overwhelming his vision.

Chen Che remembered how she had looked when she arrived.

She had her hair tied up in a ponytail, crouching beside him in a horse stance. Someone called for her to put on makeup, but she shook her head, causing him to be slashed across the face by the weapon, a burning sensation.

At that moment, a ferocious, unique hidden weapon emanated from the back of his neck, like thick clouds scattering across the sky. The killer tucked his hair behind his ear, his sharp nose jutting out.

The girl nodded, as if to thank someone, the corners of her lips slightly sunken, revealing a dimple.

Chen Che, hands in his pockets, his image of a laid-back young master cast a shadow over her.

"What?" he asked, using a coded language only they understood. "What's the problem?"

Chi Leyou, her head twitching, saw it was Chen Che, her dimples deepening. "You haven't left yet?"

"Not yet." He almost said, "I'll wait for you," but then despised himself for being so kind, so he feigned a glance back. "I'm waiting for my classmates."

"You're a student?"

"What do you think I am?" Chen Che lowered his eyes, his pupils meeting hers for a moment.

His eyes were so dark and bright that Chi Leyou felt a wave of fear. She'd assumed he was a college student giving presentations in class by day and a playboy spending his nights with his wealthy sister at her villa.

She repeated to herself three times: there's no distinction between high and low professions; she shouldn't discriminate against him through tinted glasses. 

Recalling the scene of Chen Che busy at work on the set, Chi Leyou smiled sincerely: "Little Shen, the crew's freelancer; Director Shen, the all-powerful director; Big-name Shen, with a bright future?" 

A series of titles were thrown at him, and Chen Che smiled broadly: "Why don't you go do crosstalk?" 

"My eloquence isn't great," Chi Leyou coughed lightly, "but I have experience working at 'Xiyouhui'." 

Xiyouhui is quite famous in the Chinese community of Maple Leaf Country. 

Once a small crosstalk teahouse, it has now grown into a crosstalk club with its own independent theater. 

Du Yuanshan's friend, Mrs. Cen, loves crosstalk and visits Xiyouhui every time she's on vacation. 

Chen Che glanced at her. She had more titles than he did, so he might as well call her Little Yueyue: "Oh, Little Lele of Deyun Club." 

"It's Xiyouhui." She walked forward. 

Chen Che followed her steps, and seeing her pretentious figure walking with her hands behind her back, he wanted to smile. 

A bright gaze darted in from the front, and his mouth froze. 

Du Yuanshan asked him to buy some VIP crosstalk tickets, but Xiyouhui was so popular that the first wave of online tickets sold out, leaving even scalpers unable to get them. 

Chen Che dug deeper, "Where do you work?" 

Chi Leyou, seeing his serious expression, grinned, revealing a few white spots. "Just odd jobs." 

His mind drifted to the employee serving tea and water in the private room, and Chen Che automatically imagined Chi Leyou in her crosstalk gown. He thought, "Odd jobs" was a self-deprecating way of speaking. Then he asked, "Are you a Xiyouhui employee?" 

The girl scratched her head and said, "Oh, I'm cleaning the bathroom." 

The atmosphere froze. The young master, raised in luxury, gave her a second look. She had the face of a child laborer, but she already had the demeanor of a working emperor. 

She cleaned the pool, dressed in a doll costume to drum up business, and performed as an extra. 

In the retake the director had just filmed, she tried hard to imitate a zombie's walk, her eerie movements startling. Her face, beneath the terrifying special effects makeup, must have been awkward and embarrassed, right? 

She looked a year or two younger than herself, but she had already settled down in a foreign country. In addition to her fluent English, she could also speak Spanish. If she wasn't a superman, what was she? 

One tall and one short walked out of the subway entrance. 

"I'll go first--" the girl's voice was drowned out by the man's apology. 

Chen Che gestured to her, picked up the phone and spoke a few words in Chinese, and then a word in dialect. 

The girl who had accidentally listened in the corner was stunned. 

Until, the man's voice came from the other end of the phone: "Xiaoxi, when will you be back?" Chen Che was annoyed by his former name, which sounded girly. 

He pressed the volume button with his fingertips. 

Chi Leyou caught a glimpse of his use, quietly moved aside, and kicked the weeds in the gap between the tiles with his toes. 

The dialect fell clearly into her ears, twisting the corner of her heart called homesickness. 

It turned out that they were from the same hometown. 

Chen Che: "I don't have time to go back. I'm busy with school. Air tickets are hard to come by lately." 

"Your grandma's illness..." 

Chen Che: "I bought her wild ginseng. She loves to drink it in water, make soup, or even just soak her feet. She's all you can eat." 

"Ugh, you brat!" 

A scolding voice erupted from the phone, startling Chi Leyou to stop, leaving a path for the grass in the crack. 

It turned out he had a bedridden grandma back home, and perhaps, like her, he had a gambling father. Thus, the responsibility of supporting the elderly fell on him. 

He couldn't bear to return home because the airfare was too expensive for his grandma's illness . 

He also couldn't bear to save money to buy her the most expensive and finest wild ginseng. 

He said he was busy with school and simply didn't want his family to know he was living abroad with his wealthy sister. 

A miserable life. 

Chen Che hung up the phone, but he couldn't escape the WeChat attack. 

[Director: I'm warning you, stop being so arrogant. Why book first class? What if my bureau finds out?! You're young, and economy class won't make you any less important. ] 

[Chen Che: I didn’t say I wanted to come back. Don’t threaten me with grandma. She practices martial arts on the plum blossom pile every day. Is she sick? ] 

[Director: Your grandfather Cen’s granddaughter is going to study in Maple Leaf Country. You go back first, so you can take the little girl with you. ] 

[Chen Che: If you have a lame leg, buy a wheelchair. If you are paralyzed, charter a plane. I say it again: I don’t like her. ] 

[Director:…] 

[Director: When will your mother come back? Can you ask for me? ] 

[Director: Red envelope] 

Chen Che passed by the rows of red envelopes and blocked his father. 

The air in the suburbs was fresh. Chi Leyou took a deep breath and injected full energy: "I have a part-time job group. I often throw out weird orders. It’s a recommendation system among acquaintances. Do you want me to invite you to join the group?"

"..." Chen Che, who had just pulled out his car keys, was silent for a second.

Chi Leyou looked up, the man's face expressionless against the backlight. She kindly introduced him, "Occasionally there are good jobs, like walking the dog for a world champion."

The yo-yo champion's family had a beagle, and she went to walk the dog, engaging in a battle of wits and courage with the beagle, earning a handsome salary.

On her last working day, the beagle, suffering from separation anxiety, chewed through her snow boots and trouser legs, and the owner compensated her with a championship ball.

These odd jobs paid surprisingly well.

If you want to save more money, casting a wide net is always a good idea.

"No," Chen Che declined.

She wanted to speak again,

but then she saw the man press the car key. The headlights of a matte gray sports car not far away suddenly lit up.

A streamlined body, a low-lying chassis, and a blade-like rear wing. Even in a city full of wealthy people, such a sports car would only appear at auto shows.

In that instant, Chi Leyou's lips closed.

She, a child working for $17 an hour with a time limit, was worrying about making money for high-income people?

The car door tilted and lifted into the air, giving it a cyber-world feel.

Having never driven a girl before, Chen Che's voice was stiff: "Where are you going?"

Chi Leyou nodded: "Oh, I'm going home. Bye."

His ears buzzed with the wrong answer. Was his words ambiguous? If he asked where you were going, any normal girl would have replied, "Ah, can you give me a ride? Thank you

." Chen Che blinked slightly, his confusion flaring.

A black whirlwind swept by, a distinctive rap accent ripping the air: "Che, is this the new sports car your family ordered for you?! Oh my god, it's so cool! Oh my baby, it's so hot!" Chen Che

didn't want to pay attention to him. He had spoken Chinese with Chi Leyou so much that his mind automatically translated English into Chinese. The black brother's translator's accent made his hair stand on end.

The white-eyed zombie he had met once on the set had removed his makeup and stood in front of the fan-shaped car door, his fingertips touching it.

Chen Che swatted it away, "Don't leave fingerprints."

The black classmate pulled his hand away, then gushed in praise of the top-of-the-line sports car, raising his arms and shouting like a primitive man worshipping a bonfire in an African tribe.

Not wanting to interrupt their two-person walk, Chi Leyou's raised eyelashes brushed against her drooping hair, and the threads of memory tugged softly in her mind.

"Is that custom-made sports car coming soon?"

The wealthy sister's words exploded like fireworks, revealing the car's origins.

Such a generous sister dotes on the one she loves!

As for Chen Che's claim to his classmates that "my family bought it," it was all an excuse.

Not wanting to be looked down upon by his classmates, he layered himself up, protecting his last bit of self-respect. It wasn't

that she didn't envy him.

He was so young, living in a manor house you could get lost in, driving the shiniest sports car at the auto show. He looked only slightly older than her, yet he already possessed things his peers coveted but couldn't.

Unlike her.

He was clearly a coward, yet he made a grand entrance into the zombie scene.

His dedication to work was just a facade; his underlying desire for money was his.

Being poor is her original sin, her inner drive, and the fundamental reason why she works so hard.

Looking back on this journey, she was like a blind man crossing a river, stumbling and struggling in the water for a long time. When would she reach the shore?

Where was the shore? She actually had no direction.

The black classmate pointed to the lonely bus stop, weak and helpless: "The next bus will arrive in half an hour. Please give me a ride, dear!"

Chen Che didn't want to be a good person. He turned around and scanned the target person.

Accurately locked.

The blue figure nimbly jumped onto a scooter, unlocked it, and started it.

She raised her hand to him with a swaying finger.

Looking again, the girl in the pink helmet looked like a skateboarding expert, rushing out like an arrow.

"She rides the scooter like she's racing a horse, like Mulan, so cool." Praising other Chinese people is equivalent to praising Chen Che in disguise. The black classmate understood very well.

Chen Che got into the car, and the scooter slowly closed.

The black classmate was locked outside the car, looking confused: "...You won't take me back to school?"

"Rent a scooter and drive slowly."

"Hey! Brother! That scooter of hers is obviously hers, with a back seat!"

The rented scooter was for standing, without seats. The one that Chi Leyou rode was obviously a modified version.

There is no car rental point in this wilderness.

Boom - the modern version of the Arabian horse roared.

In less than three seconds, the sports car disappeared.

The black classmate screamed at the top of his lungs:

- "Hey! Can you take me with you when you chase Mulan? There is no scooter here, my brother!!!"

- "Brother Chen!"

- "Chen Che!"

- "You! Big! Uncle!"