Chapter 72: I Have Special Skills

"Zhang Chu, first of all, congratulations on the successful publication of your work. Our admissions process at Yanda is nearly complete, and the lists for each major have been drawn up. You can log into the Yanda official website from outside campus, download the reverse proxy, and check your major and dormitory information through the student system." Shang Yuan had made a point of sending this message to Zhang Chu on QQ, believing that these were the sorts of matters prospective college students cared about most.

As a century-old prestigious university, Yanda’s dormitories ranged from old to new. In recent years, things had improved: undergraduates were now housed four to a room, with air conditioning installed and private bathrooms provided.

As someone who’d been through it all before, Zhang Chu wasn’t particularly fussy; air conditioning was a welcome bonus, and it was certainly best to have it. In truth, he was quite concerned about his dorm assignment, since he’d be living there for the next four years. Although Zhang Chu doubted he’d stay that long—sometimes renting an apartment off-campus was simply more convenient and private.

With nothing better to do, he followed the instructions and logged into the academic system to check his dormitory assignment.

Dorm 45B looked pretty decent; at any rate, it was far better than the shabby accommodation at the no-name college he’d attended in his previous life—eight people to a room and no air conditioning, making summer all but unbearable.

"Let’s just hope I’m not assigned any weird roommates. I’d rather not lose my mind for no reason."

These days, oddballs seemed to be everywhere, and being able to graduate peacefully was practically a matter of being spared by your roommates.

It was said that Yanda and Tsinghua were full of hidden dragons and crouching tigers. To keep his status as the top scholar under wraps, Zhang Chu continued to study diligently every day. Fortunately, he’d switched from science to literature, so rereading history and current affairs books helped him avoid embarrassing mistakes.

His days were packed: he had driving school, reading and studying, writing "Psychological Crime," and in his spare time, keeping an eye on the developments of "Sherlock Holmes." He could already drive, but since he didn’t have enough class hours, Zhang Chu’s dream of instantly getting his license was dashed.

...

Inside the Youfang Board Game Room, Zhang Chu was playing Werewolf with a few close friends and some girls from his old high school class. For someone who’d lived two lives, games like these and his classmates, green as bean sprouts, held little appeal. If it weren’t for helping Wei Wenlin make up the numbers, he wouldn’t have come at all.

"Why am I the werewolf again? This is five rounds in a row!" Fu Deyu complained. Changing roles once in a while would have been nice.

Zhang Chu replied coolly, "You’re definitely the wolf again. Witch, just poison him tonight, or we’ll vote him out tomorrow."

"I swear, I’m really one of the good guys!" Fu Deyu protested, waving his hands.

The others at the table burst out laughing at his words—truly, "one of the good guys!"

"I’ve never heard anyone call a good person 'one.' Did your elementary Chinese teacher moonlight as a security guard? Not even the PE teacher could come up with something like that!"

"Enough said, this vote has to go to Fu Deyu."

"First time I’ve seen someone out themselves like this. Who else would we vote for?"

Zhang Chu had been wanting to play the werewolf for ages, but he was always stuck as the guard, the witch, or an ordinary villager, never able to kill anyone. In frustration, he once blindly used the witch’s poison, only to kill off his own side’s seer—a huge blunder.

Then someone sighed, "In another month, we won’t be able to get together and play Werewolf like this anymore."

A wave of melancholy swept over the group. Zhang Chu, having experienced farewells more than once, no longer felt much at such moments.

So he offered lightly, "If you want to play in the future, we can always open a room on our phones and play together."

"It’ll be hard to get everyone together then," Wei Wenlin said with a touch of sadness.

The upbeat mood of the board game evening suddenly turned heavy. Zhang Chu quickly realized his attempt at comfort had fallen flat—maybe only a dose of harsh 'chicken soup' could snap them out of it.

He spoke again: "It’s alright if today’s not happy—tomorrow won’t be any better, anyway."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than he was met with a chorus of angry glares. Why speak such blunt truths at a time like this?

Come on, they were already feeling down—did he have to make it worse?

Zhang Chu caught the resentment in their eyes, but he had no intention of stopping. After all, days when you could tease your friends like this were numbered; he had to make the most of them.

"In life, almost everything goes wrong. That’s how life is: there’s laughter, and there are tears. Some people are in charge of laughter, others of tears."

Wei Wenlin immediately put Zhang Chu in a headlock, threatening, "You’re too much! Stop ladling out that poisonous chicken soup!"

"Hey, this isn’t poisonous chicken soup—it’s my special way of comforting people!" Zhang Chu wriggled free and retaliated with a playful punch.

The pair broke into a mock scuffle, grabbing cushions to pummel each other, and soon everyone else joined in. What began as a board game night turned into an all-out pillow fight.

The air of sorrow and impending farewell vanished, forgotten for the moment.

...

Covered in duck feathers, Zhang Chu returned home, realizing he'd definitely been influenced by his friends. Otherwise, with his personality, how could he have started a childish pillow fight?

He had to shift the blame!

"Sigh, why do I get myself into these messes?" he muttered as he listlessly typed into a Word document, unable to resist the urge to give himself a few slaps.

Even though he could pull up the content of "Psychological Crime" directly from the system, he still had to type it out himself. "I swear I’ll never write web novels—daily updates are torture!"

Even updating every other day felt suffocating and left him with no free time at all. He couldn't imagine how web authors who updated 365 days a year managed to keep going.

Those authors didn’t have a system backing them up—they had to come up with all the plots themselves.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt he was better suited to being a humorist. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten his real goal: to accumulate as much reputation as possible, so he could use it to hire a lawyer!

It was a major investment. If he could actually win a lawsuit against the Conan Doyle Foundation, the eyes of the world would be on him—he’d never have to worry about reputation points again.

The trouble was, Zhang Chu had neither money nor connections. He could only rely on reputation points to redeem a lawyer from the system, and for a cross-border lawsuit, the better the lawyer, the better. In fact, one lawyer wouldn’t be enough; he’d need an entire legal team.

Unfortunately, it took five million reputation points to exchange for an international top lawyer. Zhang Chu had just climbed back to the one million mark—still four million short, a daunting gap.

He’d written a perfect essay, scored as the top student in the college entrance exam, published a new book, and dispensed endless doses of 'poisonous chicken soup'—yet he’d only reached one million.

If only he hadn’t squandered tens of thousands on silencing those paid trolls back then. But he’d lost his head, never imagining what would happen later.

"I’ve got to stir up something big, or at this rate, I’ll never get there!"

*************

The first chapter for today is up.

Two more to come.

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