Upon arriving at the unfamiliar environment, although still tired, Tuanzi forced herself to be spirited and wandered around the house to inspect it—looking here and there, sniffing around, occasionally turning her head to say something to Zhou Li.

"She's quite bold," Ms. Ji said.

"And quite naughty," Zhou Li nodded. "Have you cleaned the house?"

"Yes, I spent all day cleaning yesterday. I haven't been this tired in a long time," Ms. Ji said, sitting down on the sofa. "What do you want for lunch?"

"Anything is fine."

"That's quite a high demand."

"Lord Dumpling wants to eat abalone, double-headed abalone!"

"Hmm... let's have seafood. Yan City doesn't have a place to eat seafood," Zhou Li mused. "But I'd like to sit for a while first."

"Okay, I'll look for a place."

Ms. Ji's cooking skills were nowhere near Aunt Jiang's. She could, at most, cook a few simple dishes, as she was not a housewife. Therefore, for the next few days, most of their meals would likely be eaten out or ordered as takeout.

Fortunately, the area here was bustling, with plenty of food options.

Ms. Ji searched on her phone for a while but couldn't find a good seafood restaurant; Yi Province was inland, after all. In the end, she resorted to searching on Baidu for the best hotels in Jin Palace, deciding to try her luck with one of them.

"Have you gotten familiar with the place?" Seeing Tuanzi return, Zhou Li picked her up and started playing with her tail.

"Meow?"

"I heard your online classes are quite troublesome," Ms. Ji said, putting down her phone.

"I think it's okay."

"Is college a lot of fun?"

"Yes," Zhou Li replied briefly, as usual. But after a moment, he added, "Much more fun than high school."

"Then, have your grades dropped?"

"They have," Zhou Li admitted honestly. "I almost failed the final exams, ranking in the middle to lower end of my class."

"It's good to have some fun," Ms. Ji nodded. She didn't mind this at all, especially for Zhou Li. She and Aunt Jiang had always hoped he would be a bit more playful. "Have you considered studying abroad?"

"No," Zhou Li answered, then thought for a moment. "In the past, I had thought about going to Africa after graduation, to study animals on the savanna."

"What about now?"

"Now, I'm not going."

"Because you found a girlfriend?" Ms. Ji smiled. "Is it that girl? She's very pretty."

"Not as pretty as me!" Tuanzi declared proudly from Zhou Li's arms.

"You've become much more outgoing!" Ms. Ji was very happy. "It seems that girl's influence has been significant."

"I'm very grateful to her too."

In front of her, Zhou Li didn't hide anything.

After chatting for a while and catching up on each other's recent situations, they left the house.

Zhou Li brought the disposable small plates he had prepared for Tuanzi.

Recently, Huai Xu had bought a cake from a popular internet-famous cake shop, which came with several plates and forks. Although disposable, they were exquisitely made. Zhou Li didn't know what material they were made of, but it wasn't foam. They were light blue, with a texture similar to porcelain.

Zhou Li said he really liked them.

Then, that very night, Huai Xu went and stole a stack for him. These were now being used as temporary tableware for Tuanzi.

For lunch, they had abalone, Australian lobsters, and razor clams.

The hotel's quality control was good, and the food was delicious; even Tuanzi ate with great enthusiasm.

Double-headed abalone was, of course, not available. Zhou Li couldn't afford it, and neither could Ms. Ji. Even if they could afford it, in an inland city like Jin Palace, it was nearly impossible to find—money can't easily buy three-headed abalone, let alone double-headed.

Perhaps only Sister Hong Ran would have the means to acquire something like that.

After eating and returning home, Zhou Li attended online classes while Ms. Ji helped him organize his room; he planned to stay here for a few days.

「Dusk descended.」

The city lit up with twinkling lights. Especially prominent were the grid-like patterns of light from the windows of distant buildings, forming a dense and orderly constellation. If you squinted, these lights would blur into even more magnificent spots, like stars scattered on the ground.

Tuanzi lay by the window, the city's night view reflecting in her gem-like eyes, her gaze rapt.

"POOF!"

Huai Xu appeared in front of Zhou Li, holding a laptop, and asked somewhat eagerly, "Do you have time now?"

"Yes."

"Hurry up and help me with it!"

"Okay."

Zhou Li opened the laptop Huai Xu handed him.

Huai Xu sat beside him, leaning in close and staring intently at his actions. "Is that your mom outside? She's pretty good-looking!"

"What are you planning?" Zhou Li instantly became alert.

"Just saying! I don't want to do anything!" Huai Xu was taken aback. After a moment, he came to his senses and stared back at Zhou Li, his expression clearly saying, You can't even trust me this much?

"..."

Zhou Li looked at Huai Xu's computer desktop, cluttered with a mess of shortcut icons, including several kinds of antivirus software, and said speechlessly, "Did you spend the whole day installing all this crapware?"

Huai Xu was speechless.

Huai Xu muttered, "It installed itself."

Zhou Li didn't make a sound but patiently uninstalled them one by one. Some were tricky and required special methods.

An hour later, the uninstallation was complete.

Then he changed the username to 'Chatty Old Monster,' set the password to be the same as his own, and started setting up some content for Huai Xu.

Zhou Li was a bit of a perfectionist. His computer needed to be neat and orderly, his desktop clean, and everything easily accessible. Therefore, he generally wouldn't install anything on the C drive. Even default system folders like 'Desktop,' 'Pictures,' 'Videos,' and 'Downloads' had their paths redirected to other drives. The directory structure under each drive letter also had to be clear, with folder names that were self-explanatory.

He disabled most auto-startup programs and installed Huorong to block ad pop-ups. Then, he downloaded some commonly used software and games. Finally, he deleted all icons from the desktop except for the Recycle Bin and QQ, configuring everything else to be found through the Start menu upon bootup.

Huai Xu watched and listened silently as Zhou Li taught him.

...

Zhou Li stayed in Jin Palace for several days, not returning to Yan City until March 15th. Ms. Ji had also left for Caiyun by then.

The first thing he did upon returning to Yan City was to take Huai Xu to Brother Nan's place for noodles.

At that time, Brother Nan was in the shop doing accounts. She had been there for the past few days and would likely take over the shop by the start of the school term. She had been frowning, but as soon as Zhou Li arrived, her expression immediately brightened. She let out a hearty, silly laugh, looking incredibly adorable.

"What'll you have?" she asked.

"Chopped pepper noodles, a large serving."

"And Huai Xu?"

"Beef noodles, super, super, super large serving, plus braised eggs, plus fried eggs, plus more beef, and three bread rolls."

"Got it! Take a seat, I'll bring it over to you in a sec!" Seeing Zhou Li reaching for his phone, she quickly waved her hands and said, "Go sit, go sit!"

"Okay."

Zhou Li pocketed his phone again. The young lady of a prominent family business, now a temporary store manager... letting them eat for free was hardly a significant exercise of power. He had experienced this sort of treatment several times recently.

He and the demon casually found a spot to sit. With their keen hearing, they could overhear the cashier speaking with Brother Nan at the entrance.

The cashier lowered her voice, "I suspect the only reason your boyfriend is with you is to eat free noodles!"

Brother Nan laughed heartily.

Zhou Li, listening from afar, smiled too.

A few minutes later, Brother Nan brought over the noodles.

Both bowls were special versions, almost entirely covered with toppings. She set down the bowls and didn't leave, sitting next to Zhou Li with an authoritative, bandit queen-like posture, and asked, "Did you have fun at your mom's place?"

"It was pretty normal."

"What do you mean by 'pretty normal'?"

"Attending classes during the day, finding time to read, and just wandering around in the evenings. Nothing particularly fun," Zhou Li replied honestly.

"Heh!" Brother Nan grinned. "Isn't it always like that?"

"That's why I call it pretty normal."

"Got it. There's a generation gap," Brother Nan said, sprawling on the table. She folded her arms, rested her chin on them, her hair's "antennae" perking up. "It's the same with my parents and me. Nothing much fun, not a lot to talk about. Except when they argue, then I might chime in with a word or two to stir things up."

"Impressive."

Being with Brother Nan, somehow, his mood would always lighten up after just a couple of sentences.

Sometimes, words weren't even necessary.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.