30: The hardest thing in the world

Waking up the next day to find the space beside her empty, Chen Xinyi suddenly felt a bit empty inside.

Habitually reaching for her phone on the nightstand, Chen Xinyi discovered that Ye Su had left her a message.

[Ye Su: Breakfast is on the table; if it gets cold, just pop it in the microwave.]

Following her gaze, Chen Xinyi indeed saw the breakfast on the dining table covered by a plate.

"Quite thoughtful—"

The slight sense of dejection in Chen Xinyi's heart was swept away. She was about to get up to see what breakfast Ye Su had bought for her, but as soon as she rose, a wave of discomfort made her abandon the thought, and she lay back down on the bed with a long groan, "Ah."

"No wonder they say the hardest things in the world, besides diamonds, are twenty-year-old men."

"After what happened last night, he could still get up early today, buy breakfast, and then go back. A college student who hasn't been ravaged by work really has a good physique!"

...

Are twenty-year-old men hard?

Indeed.

Is their physique good?

Not necessarily.

Ye Su, who had already arrived at the Yirong Second-Hand Furniture City, kept rubbing his lower back with his right hand to relieve the muscle soreness.

"No wonder the ancestors said that lust is a steel knife that scrapes the bones; if I don't exercise some restraint, I'll be scraped to death!"

Ye Su didn't blame Chen Xinyi, either; after all, he was the one who couldn't control himself.

"Fortunately, her 'relatives' will be visiting her in a few days, so I can give my 'little brother' a good break. Otherwise, who could handle starving for five days and then binge-eating for two?"

Dismissing his own nonsense and vowing to control his impulses next time, Ye Su finally walked into the Yirong Second-Hand Furniture City.

"It's so big, where is that coffee table?"

Ye Su estimated that the furniture city was at least three or four thousand square meters in size, filled with an eye-dazzling array of second-hand furniture—sofas, wardrobes, dining tables, everything one could imagine.

With such a large space, the rent certainly wasn't cheap. The owner likely wanted to utilize the space as much as possible, as the second-hand furniture packed the entire furniture city, leaving only aisles between sets of furniture for customers to walk through and for carts to transport goods.

At this moment, the furniture city was brightly lit, shining so brightly that Ye Su couldn't even see where the light from the system's hint was located.

The furniture city only opened at nine o'clock, and it was now just past nine-ten. Ye Su wasn't worried that the coffee table would be bought by someone else.

Just as he was preparing to search for his target aimlessly, a sales clerk walked over.

"Hello, sir, is there anything I can help you with?"

"I want to buy a coffee table."

"Alright, then I'll take you to the sofa and coffee table section."

"Mm."

Walking towards the front right, Ye Su finally saw a faint, flickering light in the distance.

"Sir, I don't know what type of coffee table you are looking to buy?"

"Hmm... I'll go over there and take a look."

Ye Su couldn't see clearly what the coffee table looked like, so he casually pointed towards the location indicated by the system and walked over.

Upon walking up to it, Ye Su finally saw clearly that it was a low-legged wooden coffee table, about a meter wide, reaching just above his knees, with a length slightly shorter than his own height, and featuring two drawers.

No matter how he looked at it, this coffee table didn't seem to be made of any precious wood.

Although it had been cleaned by the furniture city, there were still some un-repaired nicks and scratches on it. Ye Su felt that this coffee table shouldn't be too expensive.

Without hesitation, Ye Su pointed directly at the coffee table: "Hello, how much is this coffee table?"

The sales clerk pointed to the QR code on the top left corner of the coffee table: "You can scan this QR code with your phone, and it will have the information for this coffee table."

"Alright."

"Oh, okay."

Ye Su took out his phone and scanned it.

"This costs 1499?"

"Yes, sir. The price marked in the QR code is the price."

"Can it be a bit cheaper?"

The sales clerk smiled apologetically: "I'm sorry, sir. Our furniture city uses fixed pricing, so there's no way to lower the price."

Ye Su realized that when he bargained, he seemed to only ever know the phrase "Can it be a bit cheaper?", and every time it only resulted in the response "It can't be any cheaper."

Ye Su wouldn't give up, continuing to ask: "How about 1200, how does that sound?"

"I'm sorry, sir. We really do have fixed pricing here, and there truly is no way to lower the price. If you aren't satisfied with this coffee table, we can pick out some other styles."

As she spoke, the sales clerk prepared to rely on her memory to help Ye Su look at other coffee tables with slightly lower prices.

Seeing the sales clerk's actions, Ye Su finally believed that this place really did have fixed pricing.

"Fine then. Does your furniture city include delivery?"

"For purchases over one thousand, we can provide free delivery within seven kilometers. If it exceeds seven kilometers, an additional fee will be required."

Ye Su's bargaining was purely symbolic, just like when he went to buy fruit—even though he didn't know how to tell which was good, he insisted on turning them over and picking through them a few times just to give himself some psychological comfort.

Not being able to shave off a hundred or two didn't bother Ye Su: "Fine, then I'll take this coffee table."

"Alright." The sales clerk flipped over her name tag, revealing the payment code on the back, which contained her personal information to facilitate performance statistics at the end of the month: "Please scan this QR code to pay."

After payment was completed, the sales clerk took out her phone again to let Ye Su confirm the delivery address.

Ye Su certainly couldn't have this thing delivered to his dormitory, and Chen Xinyi's place wasn't a suitable location either.

The coffee table had been cleaned, which proved that the qianlong tongbao·back dragon and phoenix lucky coin must be like the stamps from Journey to the West previously—hidden by someone in a place not easily discovered.

Ye Su decided to be cautious; he needed to find a place where no one would disturb him, along with the right tools, to figure out where that ancient coin was hidden.

Therefore, before coming here, Ye Su had already planned to rent a mini-storage unit first and keep the coffee table in there for a few days.

In any case, he had planned for a long time to rent a place outside, which would be convenient for having a space to handle things in the future, so now was the perfect time to put that on the agenda.

He had just scanned the QR code on the coffee table, which also contained the dimensions of the coffee table, allowing Ye Su to directly choose a suitable mini-storage unit.

"Yinhui Building, is that right?"

"Yes."

"The distance does not exceed 7 kilometers, so there is no need to charge an extra delivery fee. I will have my colleague deliver it for you now."

"Can I ride along with the vehicle?"

"One person can ride along."

"Alright."

After a brief communication, Ye Su went to the entrance to wait.

Before long, the sales clerk from earlier helped steady the coffee table, while a male employee pushed the cart to transport the coffee table out.

At the same time, the delivery van drove over and took Ye Su to the Yinhui Building.

While in the van, Ye Su had already opened a 1.2-meter-wide mini-storage unit, which cost him a total of 470 yuan, including one month's deposit and seven days' rent.

The mini-storage unit had a constant temperature and humidity system, so Ye Su wasn't worried that the items inside the coffee table would be affected by being left there for a few days.

Since this coffee table could sell for over a thousand in the furniture city, it certainly wasn't made of precious wood, but it still weighed over a hundred pounds. Ye Su had to ask the driver to help him pull it into the mini-storage unit using a hand truck.

Seeing Ye Su go to a second-hand furniture city to buy a coffee table, only to turn around and put it into a storage unit, the driver was curious but didn't ask any questions.

"Thank you, driver."

"No problem."

Since it was already included in the furniture city's delivery service, and it was just using a hand truck and an elevator to transport it to the third floor, Ye Su just expressed his thanks verbally without giving any extra payment.

After seeing the driver off, Ye Su put a combination lock on the storage unit door, and only then did he feel at ease returning to school.