"Instead of waiting for such outrageous luck to be wasted, it's better I take it for myself. It would do the world good."
Li Wei stomped on the flicker of guilt and extinguished the voices in his mind that called him out, saying, "It's not right, you'll get your retribution someday."
He sneered at the word, "retribution," thinking, 'There's no such thing as retribution. As it's said, the good man dies early but the bad man lives on forever. What's wrong with being bad? I'm just looking out for myself.
'After all, selfishness is an inherent attribute of all human beings, and I'm no different.'
'In fact, anybody in the same position as me would do the same thing. The strong rule, the weak perish.'
Once he was done with his pep talk, he lifted himself from the chair, his eyes flashed with ruthlessness, and he walked into his room, hatching more schemes.
To pull down his roommate.
****
The days flew by as a subtle tension kept growing between the two, Jidenna and Li Wei.
It all started some nights ago when Li Wei came back to the dorm at 3 O'clock, staggering, with a flushed face and slurred speech.
Before then, different things had already set the stage for it, with the cold shoulder being one.
Jidenna preferred straightforward people, and he concluded that Li Wei was not.
If you don't like him, it would be better that you ignore him rather than plastering yourself to his body with that same strained, awkward smile.
Since Li Wei did not want to start it, then it would be better that he, Jidenna, does it.
On this day, his roommate, Li Wei, had stormed off around 9:00 pm to somewhere unknown.
Only to come back at 3:00 am. Jidenna's only response to this was a glance at Li Wei's drunk and embarrassed self, and that was it, but for some unknown reason, there was something about that glance that sparked rage in Li Wei's alcohol-dulled brain.
Li Wei, who was about to enter his room, thought, 'Is he looking down at me? Does he think he's better than me?' Not only was his brain dulled by alcohol, but his reasoning was also fogged up.
If Li Wei were sober, he might have kept that look in his mind, swearing inwardly to repay Jidenna at a later time, but because he was not, Li Wei impulsively confronted Jidenna while taking on an aggressive stance.
He taggered forward, slamming against the wall in his quest to reach where Jidenna sat, Li Wei pointed straight at Jidenna's face, his reddish eyes lit up with rage. He spat, "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Huh?" He took a step closer.
On the other hand, immediately as he stepped closer, Jidenna's nose felt like it had been baptized with a stinky alcoholic breath.
In disgust, he recoiled back to save his nose, but in Li Wei's eyes, Jidenna moving back became another solid proof.
"You think you're better than me," he pointed to himself, his eyes wide while nodding comically.
"Look at yourself, you're just an ant," he emphasized by bringing his two fingers together.
"An insect beneath me, that with one stomp of my foot," Li Wei stomped his foot in front of Jidenna's gaze, which had increasingly become colder.
"And you're dead—dead meat, you hear me!" Li Wei's lips broke out into a grin.
"Both you and your family," he stammered, then broke out into a loud cackle, almost toppling off his feet but somehow managing to retain his standing.
"You should be on your knees, pleasing and flattering me like everyone else that I, Li Wei of the Li family, found you a tad bit pleasing to my eyes, and yet what do you do? You scorn—"
Once again, he pointed to himself, "ME. You scorn me"
"You, a country bumpkin who needs grants to attend school, scorn me," he paused, then added, "If not for your lu—"
As Jidenna couldn't bear it anymore, without any warning, he shot up from the chair and stormed off to his room. In the process, his shoulder knocked the drunk and unstable Li Wei flat on the floor.
Without looking back at Li Wei's crumpled body, he slammed his door behind him, blocking off the unpleasantness that had just taken place.
In his anger, Jidenna did not know he missed the chance to find out the truth.
Jidenna walked to the full-length standing mirror, his mind lost in thought about what had just happened.
'So that's what he thinks of me, a person beneath him.'
He leaned against the wall. Jidenna clenched his fist and slammed it against the wall, only to crouch down, cradling his fist because of the pain.
'You dare to insult my parents?' Jidenna's anger was not about the insults thrown at him, but the ones directed at his parents.
Those kind couples who wholeheartedly took care of him. With his eyes blazing with rage, he wanted to go over and punch him a little bit to release his anger, but he couldn't.
Currently, he could not bear the consequences of such actions. He had heard that Li Wei was from a rich, fifth-generation family.
And he knew that the last thing his loving parents would want to see was him being rusticated from the university.
So he could only swallow his anger and watch.
Once again, the two roommates slept with different states of mind, one restless and angered, the other like a dead pig.
The next morning, when Li Wei woke up from slumber, to his surprise, he saw the notification from the system.
[Ding! You have siphoned +100 luck from your roommate.]
When Li Wei saw it, he almost fell off his bed in a mix of shock and disbelief. It had been some days since he got the last notification.
To his frustration, Jidenna almost seemed like an impenetrable wall. No matter what he did or said, Jidenna showed no reaction whatsoever.
Except for increasing the distance he kept away from him.
Li Wei scratched his head, trying to remember what he had said to Jidenna in his drunken state that was so effective, but he came up short.
Meanwhile, in the other room, once the morning came, Jidenna woke up, blinking bleary-eyed. For some unknown reason, he just felt extremely tired, like he had never slept at all after reading all through the night.
He propped himself up on his elbows, groaning. Even his back and neck felt strained, and his head felt like someone had stuffed a ball of cotton wool into his skull.
He blinked slowly, then remembered his classes. Instead of showcasing his vigorous energy by shooting off the bed, he slumped back.
Wondering, 'What in the world is going on?'