"Hahaha, Shen Lang, guess what, guess what!"
On a Friday afternoon, Shen Lang was driving home when Su Lexuan excitedly called him via video chat to share her good news.
"I scored 530 on the English Level 4 exam. Shen Pig, am I awesome or what?"
"Wow, that's great," Shen Lang said with a nod.
In the Level 4 English exam, the highest score is 710, so a 530 isn't exceptional—it's just above passing. But since his girlfriend was so thrilled to share this, he knew she wanted him to praise her for all the hard work she put into studying.
"Hehe, this is what happens when you work hard. All my studying paid off."
Su Lexuan bragged a bit more and then asked eagerly, "Shen Pig, how have you been? Are you ready to start shooting the short video?"
"Almost. Everything's ready except for a few actors' schedules. Once those are sorted, we can start filming."
Su Lexuan blinked her big eyes with anticipation. "So, you're free tomorrow, right? It's Saturday, come hang out with me!"
"Sure, I'll take you out tomorrow afternoon."
"Great! I'll stop video chatting now. I'm going to ask my dad for some reward money. Haha!"
After chatting a bit more, Su Lexuan happily ended the call.
"Is your girlfriend from the Economics department or the Medical department?"
Ye Yinan, who had been silent, finally asked once Shen Lang put his phone away.
Shen Lang had briefly mentioned his two girlfriends to Ye Yinan. Ye Yinan had been too shy to speak up and had stayed hidden in the passenger seat, not daring to look at Su Lexuan's face on the screen.
"She's from the Economics department."
Shen Lang replied casually. Talking about juggling two relationships felt oddly easy, with no emotional burden at all.
"She seems pretty lively and cheerful."
Ye Yinan gave a fair assessment, saying she sounded like a sunny, youthful girl just from her voice.
"Yeah, that's why I saved her as 'Elf Girl' in my contacts."
Shen Lang smiled faintly, recalling the day when Su Lexuan ran up to him at sunset, taking the initiative to ask for his WeChat. He thought if she hadn't been so forward, they might never have crossed paths.
Ye Yinan got curious. "So, what did you save me as?"
"A little rich girl."
Shen Lang answered bluntly.
"That's a pretty blunt nickname."
Ye Yinan frowned, unhappy with the label. "I have so many good qualities, and you only care about my money."
"Oh really? So, what did you save me as?"
Shen Lang raised an eyebrow.
"Half bad, half good scumbag."
Ye Yinan said softly.
"Seriously?"
Shen Lang laughed and asked, "Did you really give me that nickname?"
"Yeah."
Ye Yinan nodded, showing Shen Lang her contact list, where he was indeed labeled as "half bad, half good scumbag." Although it wasn't a very poetic nickname, it accurately reflected Shen Lang's behavior.
"That's a pretty spot-on nickname."
Shen Lang said with interest. Ye Yinan had a straightforward personality and didn't bother with polite pretenses.
"Even though it's accurate, you might want to change it."
Shen Lang advised, "If your parents see it, they might not let you hang out with me anymore."
"What should I change it to?"
Ye Yinan asked.
Shen Lang shrugged. "You figure it out yourself. I don't know."
"Um..."
Ye Yinan stared at the blank space for the new nickname, then glanced at Shen Lang driving.
Determined, she typed two shocking characters.
...
After dropping Ye Yinan off with her bodyguard, Shen Lang happily drove back to Fulong Community.
With his busy schedule finally winding down, Shen Lang had to wait until the final scenes with the remaining actors were done before he could start filming his short video.
So, he was looking forward to some fun in the next few days.
"Hey, you're back?"
As soon as Shen Lang stepped out of the elevator, he saw Li Liusi standing at his door, wearing an apron and holding a mop, looking lost and with a sad expression.
"What's wrong?"
Noticing something was off, Shen Lang hurried over to ask, "What happened?"
"Shen, Shen Lang."
Li Liusi's eyes were red, and she hesitated to speak, just silently crying and wiping her tears with her sleeve.
"What's the matter? Just tell me."
Shen Lang thought something serious might have happened. He asked anxiously, "Did something happen to your grandma back home?"
Li Liusi shook her head gently and said, "If I tell you, will you promise not to blame me? I really didn't mean to..."
"Okay, I won't blame you. Just tell me what happened."
Seeing that Shen Lang was calm, Li Liusi finally admitted what happened.
It turned out that when she came over to cook after school, she noticed Shen Lang's computer desk was a bit dirty and decided to clean it. But when she brought a basin of water into Shen Lang's bedroom, she accidentally tripped and spilled the water directly into the computer's CPU.
Not knowing much about computers, Li Liusi stupidly tried to turn it on to see if it still worked. As soon as she pressed the power button, sparks flew everywhere.
In less than a minute, Shen Lang's computer, which had a 4090 graphics card from Su Lexuan, was completely ruined.
Shen Lang checked the computer with a hopeful glance, even using his "divine eye" to assess it. But unfortunately, with so much water inside and having been turned on, it was no surprise it was totally wrecked.
The graphics card and the computer itself weren't the biggest loss, but Shen Lang had stored thousands of words of drafts on it.
Now that the computer was dead, Shen Lang essentially lost tens of thousands of words worth of work.
Fortunately, it didn't start a fire.
Li Liusi, crying and apologizing, said, "Shen Lang, I really didn't do it on purpose."
[1: Damn it, who asked you to help? Do you know how valuable the documents on my computer were? You're just a country bumpkin who messes things up!]
[2: Forget it, I'm tired. You don't even know basic stuff like not turning on a water-damaged computer. Keeping someone like you around just makes things worse!]
[3: Check her injuries, gently ask: Did you hurt yourself when you fell?]