Duan Xiaolou looked at the news and confirmed that the elderly man with Ren He was indeed Zhou Wumeng, but she didn't understand how two people with seemingly no connection ended up together.
She never considered that Ren He could be the author of Three Character Classic, because Three Character Classic and a 15-year-old boy seemed to have no relation whatsoever.
Regardless, Ren He seemed to be far from as simple as she had imagined.
At 11 PM, Duan Xiaolou went downstairs on time, the moment she had arranged to go night running with Ren He the day before. As expected, Ren He also came downstairs at this time.
However, Duan Xiaolou didn't mention anything she saw that night, nor did she bring up the name Zhou Wumeng; she merely chatted occasionally about school matters during the run, spending most of the time in silence. Although she wanted to ask why this unremarkable classmate knew Elder Zhou, she ultimately didn't ask.
If the fact that they ran together every night were to spread to the school, who knows what kind of trouble it might cause.
During adolescence, girls mature much earlier than boys, but Duan Xiaolou always felt that the person running beside her harbored a more mature heart within his body.
Ren He took a shower when he got home. He wasn't very hygienic as a child, but after coming back to life with the soul of a 26-year-old, he paid extra attention to his cleanliness. He even cut off his childhood fingernails, leaving his hands clean and tidy, which was better than anything else.
He always took the initiative in what he did, and now that the preparations were almost ready, he wasn't planning to drag out the task of jumping off the building until the last minute. He was preparing to complete it soon. Ren He was also curious to see what kind of reward the Divine Punishment System would give after the task was completed.
Honestly, the reward from a world's Divine Punishment System must have some surprises, right?
Before going to bed, he took a glance at the performance of his novel, and hey, membership clicks also ranked in the top 3, the four recommendations today were truly explosive. He took another look at the favorites, and wow, it increased by over 30,000 in one day!
You must understand, for a newcomer, having 20,000 favorites by the time the novel goes live is already impressive, yet his novel somehow managed to reach over 30,000 favorites through public opinion and four daily recommendations.
Of course, the more people read it, the more critics there were.
The content of the criticisms was generally about the lack of depth, being a light novel, the author's delusions of grandeur, and so on. Most of the critics were essentially guardians of traditional literature.
Ren He couldn't care less to pay it any attention; this was all within his expectations. After all, his novel was indeed at odds with mainstream contemporary culture. Traditional literature values many aspects, whereas power-leveling fantasy literature values just one thing: thrill.
Who doesn't have pressure at work? Who doesn't face difficulties in life? Whose relationships always go smoothly?
At such times, they need a really thrilling novel to comfort their weather-beaten souls, and the birth of his novel just happened to meet their needs. For them, his novel didn't require pondering over anything; it just needed to be exhilarating.
At this point, word count was no longer an issue; he would probably go live soon. Ren He spent a bit more than an hour that night to update two more chapters and sent them out, "Thank you for your love and support; the updates of my novel will definitely satisfy everyone!"
Compared to traditional publishing, the update rate of his novel was more like a bug, especially for those who wrote mysteries and built their plots intricately and subtly, just thinking about the plot could take several hours, but Ren He didn't need that at all—it was all at his fingertips!
The author group watched Ren He's update volume, all dumbstruck, "How does he do it? That's at least ten thousand words a day. If it were me, I'd be peeing blood from the exhaustion!"
"Peeing blood isn't enough, buddy. It takes me half a month to update just over 20,000 words, and he gets it done in two days, sigh..."
...
Weekend.
With money in hand, Ren He naturally went to upgrade his gear as soon as he could, starting with the shoes he'd wear for running, which were a matter of life and death. He visited a store and was astonished to discover that those brands he knew from his own parallel world still existed in this one. It seemed that only culture and entertainment had taken a different turn in this parallel universe.
In his past life, Ren He was a pseudo-outdoors enthusiast—pseudo meaning he showed interest but didn't actually engage in any outdoor activities...
Some outdoor brands are very classic, like the Arc'teryx jackets, for instance. If those brands were no longer around, Ren He would have had to start from scratch when taking on new tasks. Thankfully, that wasn't necessary now.
When it comes to extreme outdoor sports, having high-quality gear is a prerequisite for staying alive. And of course, no one knew this better than Ren He, who frequently kept up with outdoor sports.
However, Luoyang was just a third-tier small city, lacking the brands he wanted. He had to make do with Nike running shoes for the time being. The urgency in buying gear was because he couldn't bear the thought of running in canvas shoes every day any longer...
For now, the immediate need was running shoes. He would deal with other needs as they came up. Next on the list was a laptop—a good, compact one at that, since he couldn't possibly type away on his phone all the time.
Switching to a laptop could potentially increase his typing speed.
In the end, Ren He clenched his teeth and left only 400 yuan for himself, using all the rest to buy a laptop...
"Money flows like water," Ren He thought bitterly. It was almost like returning to the pre-liberation days; his hard-earned manuscript fees had only managed to secure a pair of running shoes and a laptop.
But things would get better.
Ren He planned to complete the "Jumping Off the Building" mission by next Monday, which left him six days before the month's deadline. He could have dragged it out a few days longer, but that was just Ren He's character—if he was confident about something, he'd get on with it. Constantly having a task hanging over his head was no way to live. Plus, after several days of practicing the long jump, he was already managing to leap around five meters.
Theoretically, this task shouldn't be a problem for him anymore.
As he finished his shopping and was preparing to head back, he happened upon a not-so-familiar classmate who was there with their parents picking out a computer. Ren He had no intention of interacting, simply brushing past them without a greeting, like they were complete strangers.
But when that classmate saw the laptop Ren He was carrying, his mouth fell open, and to his surprise, he found himself at a loss for words.
Noticing the son's reaction, the parents asked, "What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing, just a classmate rumored to come from a very poor family just bought a pretty expensive laptop."
"Don't blindly compete with others!"
"Oh..."
"At school, try to compete with others in your studies. We wouldn't even consider buying you a new computer if it weren't for your recent good test scores."
"Oh..."
Is a 7000-plus yuan laptop considered expensive? Ren He chuckled upon hearing the conversation behind him. Damn it, I might be broke now, but something that costs over 7000 is cheap in my eyes. Seeing his classmate unable to speak up under parental control, he felt a sense of schadenfreude. What did student Ren He fantasize about back in the day?
Wasn't it just to earn a lot of money and have complete control over it?
At that moment, Ren He somehow found himself relating more to the identity of a student, and it seemed he was getting increasingly used to it too.