5: Chapter 5: What's the first thing to do after getting money? Block your ex-girlfriend, of course!

Just after hanging up on Zhao Tianba, the screen hadn't even gone dark before it lit up again.

Two characters danced on the caller ID: [Lin Yao].

Jiang Chen looked at the familiar name, his footsteps faltering for a moment, then a playful arc curled at the corner of his mouth.

What a coincidence.

In his past life, at this very moment, he had been as anxious as a stray dog over those hundreds of thousands, calling this girlfriend he'd been with for two years over a dozen times, hoping to borrow even just two thousand yuan for an emergency.

And the result?

No answer, blocked on WeChat, and in the end, only a cold breakup text and a photo of her sitting in a rich second-generation kid's BMW.

Now, he hadn't even looked for her yet, and she was the one coming to him?

Jiang Chen swiped to answer, and before he could even bring the phone to his ear, Lin Yao's sharp and impatient voice came through the receiver:

"Jiang Chen! Are you crazy? Why are you calling me so many times?"

Jiang Chen was stunned for a moment, then realized. This must have been the harassment calls the original owner made before committing suicide last night.

"Something up?" Jiang Chen's voice was very calm, devoid of any emotion.

Lin Yao on the other end of the line was clearly stunned, seemingly not expecting Jiang Chen to be so calm. Usually at this time, shouldn't this simp be crying and begging to get back together, or wailing about his family's miserable situation?

"Don't play dumb with me!"

Lin Yao's tone became even more biting, "I heard from Wang Kai that your dad jumped off a building and your family owes a mountain of usury. Jiang Chen, we've already broken up; any feelings from before are long gone. Whether you live or die now has nothing to do with me, understand?"

She paused, as if to emphasize the point, raising her voice a few degrees:

"I'm warning you, don't think about borrowing money from me! My money is saved for buying bags; I don't have time to fill your bottomless pit! Also, stop blocking me at school in the future; if Wang Kai sees it, he won't be happy!"

Jiang Chen stood on the bustling street corner, listening to this, yet felt not a shred of anger in his heart.

He only found it amusing.

Was this the "goddess" the original owner loved so much that he even scrimped and saved, eating instant noodles for a month for her sake?

In the face of money, the fig leaf of human nature was truly thinner than paper.

"Are you done?"

Jiang Chen picked at his ear, his tone as relaxed as if he were listening to a stranger complain, "Lin Yao, don't you think you're taking yourself a bit too seriously?"

"What did you say?!" Lin Yao's voice instantly turned shrill.

"First, I didn't want to borrow money from you, and don't overestimate your pittance."

Jiang Chen looked at the long balance number in his mobile banking app, a flash of mockery in his eyes, "Second, someone like Wang Kai is only a treasure to you. Picking up my leftovers, you're actually proud of that?"

"Jiang Chen! You—"

"Beep."

Jiang Chen couldn't be bothered to listen to her shrewish ranting, tapped his finger lightly, and hung up.

The movement was smooth and fluid, without a hint of hesitation.

Immediately after, he opened WeChat, found the profile picture that had been pinned for three years, clicked into it, went to the top right corner, blocked, and deleted.

Then he opened his contacts, blocked, and deleted.

The whole operation took no more than ten seconds.

The world was instantly peaceful.

"Whew…"

Jiang Chen whistled, put his phone back in his pocket, and felt every pore on his body relax.

This feeling of throwing out old trash into the bin was just so damn satisfying!

After dealing with this fly, Jiang Chen reached out and hailed a taxi.

"Driver, go to Nancheng, to Zhao Tianba Loan Company."

...

Nancheng, in a mahjong parlor with a sign that read "Investment Consulting," smoke swirled.

Zhao Tianba was wearing a tight floral shirt, exposing a tattooed arm, sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed, picking his teeth. Several shirtless tough guys were playing cards loudly nearby, the whole room filled with the smell of sweat and smoke.

"Boss, do you think that kid will come today?"

A lackey leaned over to light a cigarette, "That kid looks like a coward; could he be so scared he ran away? Should we just go to the school and block his sister?"

Zhao Tianba spat out the toothpick, his fleshy face shaking: "Run? If he dares to run, I'll make sure his whole family has no peace! As for that little girl…"

He leered, but before he could finish speaking, the oily glass door of the mahjong parlor was pushed open.

Sunlight spilled in through the doorway, illuminating a slender figure.

Jiang Chen was wearing a baseball cap, hands in his pockets, walking in slowly. His leisurely, stroll-like demeanor didn't look like someone coming to pay a debt, but rather someone coming to inspect work.

The noise in the room instantly died down by half.

Zhao Tianba narrowed his eyes, and after seeing who it was, grinned sinisterly: "Yo, isn't this Young Master Jiang? What, figured it out? Did you bring the money, or did you bring the person?"

The surrounding lackeys burst into laughter, cracking their knuckles, their eyes scanning Jiang Chen with malicious intent.

Jiang Chen ignored these underlings, walked straight to the sofa opposite Zhao Tianba, and sat down, waving away the smoke in front of him with disgust.

"Account number."

Only two words, concise and powerful.

Zhao Tianba was stunned for a moment, then, as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world, slammed the table and stood up:

"Jiang Chen, are you fucking playing me? Account number? Do you even have the money to transfer? That's five hundred thousand including interest! Even if I sold you, you wouldn't make a fraction of that!"

He approached Jiang Chen step by step, his face full of menace, spittle flying, "Stop playing dumb with me! If I don't see the money today, I'll show you why flowers are so red!"

A rough, large hand reached out, trying to grab Jiang Chen's collar.

Jiang Chen leaned back slightly, avoiding the hand, his eyes remaining as calm as a stagnant pool.

"I said, account number."

He took out his phone, the screen lit up, showing the bank transfer interface, "I'm in a hurry, can you stop talking nonsense?"

Zhao Tianba looked at Jiang Chen's calm demeanor, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

This kid… how does he seem like a different person?

Whenever he saw him before, he was always shaking like a sieve; did he take the wrong medicine today?

"Fine, you want to put on an act, right? I'll indulge you!"

Zhao Tianba gritted his teeth and recited a string of card numbers, "If it says insufficient funds, I'm chopping your hand off today!"

Jiang Chen's fingers typed in the card number rapidly.

Enter amount: 400,000.

Although the principal plus usury interest was claimed to be five hundred thousand, this kind of usury wasn't legally protected, and the principal was actually only three hundred thousand. Throwing this four hundred thousand over was enough to shut their mouths.

"Ding."

A few seconds later, the phone Zhao Tianba had placed on the table vibrated.

He picked it up carelessly and took a glance, and the next second, he looked like he'd been struck by lightning, his eyeballs nearly popping out of their sockets.

[Your account ending in 6666 has received 400,000.00 RMB.]

That string of zeros looked exceptionally glaring in the dim mahjong parlor.

"Holy shit?!"

Zhao Tianba's hand shook, and the phone nearly smashed onto his foot. He looked up abruptly, staring fixedly at Jiang Chen as if looking at a monster, "You… where did you get so much money? Did you rob a bank?!"

The surrounding lackeys also leaned in to look, all of them gasping, their gazes toward Jiang Chen changing instantly.

That was an instinctive awe for money.

Jiang Chen put away his phone, stood up, and brushed non-existent dust off his clothes.

"Money's arrived, we're square."

He walked up to Zhao Tianba; though he wasn't as burly as the other guy, the coldness emanating from his bones actually forced Zhao Tianba to subconsciously take half a step back.

"In the future, don't go to school to harass my sister again."

Jiang Chen's voice wasn't loud, but every word was like a nail, "Otherwise, if I have a way to get money, I have a way to make you disappear from this area. If you don't believe me, you can try."

After saying this, he didn't even look at the stunned hoodlums, turned around, and left.

Until the glass door closed again, the room remained dead silent.

Zhao Tianba clutched his phone, looking at that huge sum of money, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty.

"Boss… did this kid get rich?"

"Rich my ass! He fucking met some big shot!" Zhao Tianba spat hard, his eyes complex, "Stay away from him in the future; this kid… is spooky!"

...

Walking out of the mahjong parlor, the air outside was exceptionally fresh.

The huge stone that had been pressing on his heart was finally moved away.

Jiang Chen went to a convenience store by the road, bought a portion of oden, asked for a bottle of ice-cold cola, and sat on the curb, eating heartily.

This was the first full meal he'd had since transmigrating.

With the hot soup in his belly, his whole body felt warm.

"Next, it's time to deal with that money-sucking bottomless pit—the hospital."

Jiang Chen swallowed the last fish ball and was just about to go home to study that magical game when his phone suddenly vibrated again.

It wasn't a call.

It was that game app that couldn't be closed, forcibly popping up a blood-red dialogue box.

[Alert! Alert!]

[Your follower Jiang Wanqiu is facing a life-and-death crisis!]

[Dawn City is under attack by a level one beast tide; the defenses are about to be breached!]

The screen changed.

The originally relatively calm Wasteland world had now turned into a slaughterhouse.

Countless mutated beasts with hideous appearances and green pus oozing from their bodies were crashing like a tide against the crumbling walls of Dawn City.

That silver-haired, red-eyed Empress was currently covered in blood, holding a broken alloy war blade, blocking the gap desperately.

Her health bar had once again turned a shocking red.

[Jiang Wanqiu (Desperate Prayer): Father God! We need weapons! Even just a blade that can kill enemies would do! I beg you to descend your divine punishment and save my people!]

Jiang Chen looked at the screen, his brows instantly knitting into a " river" shape.

Weapons?

I'm just an ordinary college student in the real world; where am I supposed to get you firearms?

This isn't something money can solve!

Domestic gun control is extremely strict; let alone guns, even buying a slightly longer watermelon knife requires real-name registration.

"I'm not an arms dealer, this is too hard for me…"

Jiang Chen paced the room anxiously, his eyes suddenly landing on the stack of printed paper on the table that he hadn't had time to throw away yet.

That was the waste draft of the Lithography Machine blueprints he had printed earlier to cover his tracks.

A crazy idea suddenly exploded in his mind.

"Wait… although I don't have ready-made guns and artillery, I have something more terrifying than guns and artillery."

Jiang Chen narrowed his eyes, tapping his fingers lightly on the desk, a flash of brilliance in his eyes.

"Since it's the Wasteland, and since technology has regressed…"

"Then what if I give them a set of manufacturing blueprints for 'homemade weaponry' from the Industrial Revolution era?"

"For example… a homemade mortar?"