14
‘Beautiful Chen, let’s meet up today.’
Chen Linyiao’s smartphone chimed with a WeChat notification.
She saw the message was from Tang Beibei, her close friend from university.
‘What did you just say?’ Chen Linyao replied.
‘Let’s meet today.
Is it inconvenient?’ Tang Beibei responded within 1.5 seconds.
‘No, no, I meant what you said before that.’
Five seconds of silence followed.
‘Beautiful Chen, the most gorgeous woman in H City.
A beauty like you not competing in a pageant is a loss to the nation.’
After reading the message, Chen Linyiao nodded in satisfaction.
At least she had a friend who was honest and straightforward enough to tell her the truth.
‘Where should I meet?’
‘The usual place at the mall.
I’ve already told Ru Yi.’
Ru Yi was another close friend who had recently gotten married.
Her husband was a regional manager at a tech company.
Their university group had consisted of four friends.
Three of them still lived in H City, while the fourth had moved to S City for work.
After setting a time, Chen Linyao remembered the freeloader in her apartment.
Looking up from her phone, she was startled to see his face leaning in from behind, trying to peek at her screen.
“Hey, you, that’s rude.” Chen Linyao quickly locked her phone on instinct.
But realizing she hadn’t done anything wrong, she unlocked it again.
“What’s this thing for?
You’ve been fiddling with it all day.”
Chen Linyiao looked at the smartphone in her hand and replied without much thought, “It can do lots of things, but mostly it’s used for communication and taking pictures.”
“Communication, you say?” Xie Zhengjie seemed even more intrigued.
“How does it work?”
“You can talk to someone really far away, or send them messages if they have the same device.”
“Fascinating.
Show me.”
Didn’t you see?” Chen Linyao asked, surprised.
She felt that he’d been hovering for a while; surely, he must have noticed her conversation with Tang Beibei.
“Oh, those characters on the screen? I can’t read them. Your writing system is different from mine.”
This new information left Chen Linyao slightly bewildered.
Different writing but the same spoken language?
If this is a novel, the author would be slacking a bit on logic.
“So, how do you talk to someone?”
Without elaborating, Chen Linyao dialed Tang Beibei and put the call on speaker.
“What’s up, most beautiful woman in Hangzhou?
Need something?”
“Ahem, who are you talking about?”
“Who else but the one and only Chen Linyao, of course.”
Smiling in satisfaction, the young woman replied, “Sorry, Beibei, I accidentally called you.”
“Ah, I see.
Alright then, I’ll hang up.”
After Tang Beibei hung up the phone, the call ended.
Chen Linyao glanced at Xie Zhengjie, feeling a slight sense of satisfaction from flaunting technology the other party didn’t understand.
Especially now, seeing the young man frozen in place, she felt rather pleased.
“So, what do you think?” Chen Linyao asked, sipping her water with what she thought was her most refined demeanor.
“Who was that just now?”
“My friend.”
“You should choose more honest friends.”
“Cough, cough.” The water she had just sipped went down the wrong way.
Glaring at the young man, Chen Linyao retorted, “ We are just joking around.
Don’t take it so seriously.”
“Oh, I see.”
Chen Linyao nodded in agreement, though she couldn’t help but think that in H City, she was considered one of the more beautiful women around.
Once someone reaches a certain level of beauty, the distinctions between levels blur and come down more to personal taste.
Xie Zhengjie was silent for a moment before saying,
“I need one of those devices.”
“There’s no way. These are expensive,” Chen Linyao quickly refused.
“If you buy this for us, I’ll owe you a favor. I’ll help you with something in return.” The young man knew this wasn’t an easy request, so he immediately put an intangible bargaining chip on the table.
“Help me?” Chen Linyao looked him up and down.
“What could you possibly do for me?”
This prince couldn’t even read or understand the basics of her world’s society.
She struggled to think of a scenario where she might rely on him.
“Though I don’t normally enjoy causing trouble, I could fight someone for you.”
Chen Linyao’s eyes widened.
In such a peaceful era, she hadn’t even considered such an option.
“No, no, no way.” she blurted out, rejecting the idea outright.
Had she been too much of an online troll lately?
What if someone did try to confront her over it?
Alternatively, she considered sending him onto a show like Star Road or China’s Got Talent to help her earn some money.
But if he realized the prize money was a hundred times more than the cost of a phone, what would he think?
Not to mention the logistical nightmare of providing identity documents for him to enter such a competition.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Linyao began to waver.
Having him owe her a favor didn’t sound like a bad deal.
Plus, phones from Chinese brands aren’t that expensive nowadays.
If she picked a cheap, functional one, she could even come out ahead.
“I could also teach you the basics of cultivation,” Xie Zhengjie added, clearly unwilling to let the matter go.
He seemed to have thought long and hard before sweetening the deal.
“Cultivation? Why would I need that?”
Admittedly, it sounded cool, but Chen Linyao couldn’t think of a practical reason to want it.
What would she do with it—go mountain climbing for fun?
Summon fire from her hands?
Such abilities clearly aren’t easy to learn and would probably require grueling training.
“A woman who cultivates becomes at least 30% more beautiful. The body undergoes a transformation that eliminates toxins, bringing it to an optimal state. Your skin would become visibly radiant.”
Chen Linyao froze.
She hadn’t expected Xie Zhengjie to pivot into a professional pitch for a beauty regimen.
He didn’t bother mentioning superhuman strength or extraordinary phenomena—just the appeal of enhanced looks.
“At higher levels of cultivation, aging slows significantly.
You might not even be able to tell a 50-year-old cultivator from a 20-year-old based on their appearance.”
“Fine, fine!
I’ll buy it for you.”