144 Thank you for reading

Is it really over just like that? Apart from Xun Ruyu, the other three girls were extremely displeased, cursing and shouting that they wanted to chase after them to beat them up.

Xun Ruyu walked inside, saying, "Don't bother with those pieces of trash. Let's go in and have fun; we must drink to our heart's content."

Long Xiaole thanked Brother Wang, then dragged Zhang Pa inside. "I feel quite uncomfortable not giving them a proper beating."

Zhang Pa replied, "They haven't gone far yet. You and Brother Wang can still catch up with them."

"My god, you're so wicked." Long Xiaole quickened his pace, catching up to Xun Ruyu to ask, "Sis, are you alright?"

"What could possibly happen to me?" Xun Ruyu put on a completely nonchalant air.

Walking down the long corridor, the music grew louder the deeper they went. Once inside the main hall, the dimly lit flashing lights and the deafening music instantly transported people into another chaotic world.

In this world, handsome men and beautiful women mingled, their passions and desires stirring together.

Xun Ruyu asked a waiter for a private room. It was a small compartment on the second floor, where a pile of liquor was set up and the drinking commenced.

Zhang Pa quite admired these women; having just been in a dispute with someone, they could immediately start drinking, dancing, and having a blast.

Zhang Pa pretended to remain calm, focusing solely on drinking and refusing to get up and dance. When the two crates of beer on the table were completely emptied and they called the waiter to bring more, a bald young man knocked on the door and pushed it open.

Wang Changchang asked, "Who the hell are you? Get out."

The bald young man walked in with a smile and asked, "Having fun? I've got some things to liven up the party, want any? I'll give them to you cheap."

Sitting in the back, Zhang Pa hadn't heard what was said, only seeing Wang Changchang talking. A moment later, Xun Ruyu went over to speak as well, driving the bald young man away.

Long Xiaole loudly asked what was going on, and Xun Ruyu swore, saying it was a drug dealer.

Zhang Pa was slightly stunned. Did they have to be this brazen? Stuff that would land you a prison sentence the moment you got caught, and that guy actually dared to come inside and peddle it? Truly brazen.

The rest of the night was spent drinking and having fun, only dispersing at two in the morning. Zhang Pa went home with Long Xiaole. The most terrifying thing was that the four women actually drove two cars away while completely drunk.

On the way home, Zhang Pa asked Long Xiaole, "Do all of you drive drunk?"

Long Xiaole cursed, "Get lost, don't play the moral sage with me."

Sighing, Zhang Pa said, "I really aren't playing the sage. Drunk driving isn't like other things, such as taking those little pills. That's just harming yourself. But if drunk driving causes an accident, it definitely harms others—it's a major disaster for several families."

Long Xiaole snapped, "Just shut your mouth."

When it came to topics like this, they simply couldn't see eye to eye. Even Zhang Pa felt he was being redundant. Why on earth did he have to bring this up?

The car drove all the way into Kowloon Garden and stopped at the entrance of Long Xiaole's house.

Before entering, Zhang Pa asked, "Is it convenient?"

"There's nothing inconvenient about it." Long Xiaole unlocked the door and went in.

It was a three-story house, and Long Xiaole lived on the second floor. Unlike Liu Xiaomei, who lived alone on an entire floor complete with a piano room and dance studio, Long Xiaole just had a bedroom with an attached bathroom. It wasn't small, though, and was filled with memories of his growth from childhood, such as various comic books and toys.

Zhang Pa slept in the guest room next door.

Presumably too excited from the night's events, Long Xiaole didn't want to sleep and brought two bottles of beer to chat with Zhang Pa.

Zhang Pa was startled. "Still drinking?"

"Let's talk for a bit." Long Xiaole handed over a bottle.

So they talked. It was obvious that Long Xiaole truly didn't have many friends. He rambled on endlessly, chatting away until he talked Zhang Pa right into a deep sleep.

Long Xiaole was very indignant. How could someone fall asleep to this? But not long after, he fell asleep too.

Sleeping very late meant waking up even later. He was woken up near noon by a phone call from Yun Zheng, who said they were getting ready to clean up the house and asked if Zhang Pa was coming back.

Of course he was going back. He washed his face, said a word to Long Xiaole, and left the Long household.

Interestingly, whether coming back in the middle of the night or leaving this morning, he didn't run into Long Jianjun at all.

When he got home, he saw Yun Zheng and the other four squatting at the entrance talking. He got out of the car and asked, "What's wrong?"

"No key," Old Pi replied.

Zhang Pa took out his key, then called Wang Baihe: "It's Sunday today. Are you resting?"

Wang Baihe wasn't resting. Private businesses were like that; whether you rested depended entirely on whether there was work. But she immediately added, "I can get off work a bit early this afternoon."

Zhang Pa said, "We're cleaning up the house now. If it's convenient for you, can you come back and take a look? We can decide right then and there what to keep and what to throw away."

"I don't want any of it anymore. Just do whatever you're happy with," Wang Baihe said.

"You should still come over," Zhang Pa insisted.

Wang Baihe agreed and said okay.

Hanging up the phone, Zhang Pa had a quick lunch and then got to work.

Although the fire had been upstairs, downstairs didn't seem to have been affected too badly. Yet the moment the door opened, a foul odor rushed out, and black ash covered the floor and the bed. Some of the furniture had even warped.

Normally, six people working together would make quick work of it, but unfortunately, they were all walking wounded. These guys dragged their feet so much that by the time Wang Baihe returned, the room still wasn't cleaned up.

Wang Baihe walked in, looked around, and quickly turned back outside. She had memories and a certain attachment to this home, but she wanted to move away even more.

Zhang Pa walked out with his bag and took out fifty thousand yuan. "The compensation we agreed on yesterday."

Wang Baihe took it and shoved it into her cross-body bag, then suddenly felt something was off. She pulled it back out to look closer. "Wait, this seems like too much."

Zhang Pa said, "Fifty thousand."

"That won't do, I can't take this much money from you." Wang Baihe tried to separate twenty thousand. "To be honest with you, if my family wasn't so poor and desperately needing money, I wouldn't have even asked for thirty thousand."

Zhang Pa pressed her hand down and pushed the money back into her bag. "Take it, you have places where you need money."

Wang Baihe still resisted, and only after a long standoff did she finally accept it. Naturally, the next part involved thanking Zhang Pa and telling him he could use this house however he pleased...

They still stayed at the hotel that night. While sending Yun Zheng home to fetch his laptop and while the rest of the monkeys were making a racket watching TV, Zhang Pa seized the time to work and then upload his chapters.

Starting from this day, Zhang Pa entered his recuperation phase, staying at the hotel for three consecutive days. Every day consisted entirely of writing, writing, writing, and uploading. In between, he took the time to reprint the contract, sign it, and mail it out.

This was serious business. Without a signed contract, the website wouldn't change his status to "contracted." Without that status, there would be no recommendation slots, and the website wouldn't do any promotional work, leaving him to struggle in obscurity entirely on his own.

According to normal procedures, a new book would be given a minor promotional slot for a trial run during its second to third week after status conversion. If the trial results were decent, a series of further promotions would follow. But if the performance was poor, some editors would give one more chance for a trial, while others would let it sink directly into oblivion, where no one would ever know it existed. Naturally, that meant no results and zero prospect of good development.

Zhang Pa valued this opportunity deeply, or rather, all writers valued this opportunity. He had to get that contracted status, fight for recommendation slots, and strive for better results.

Recommendation slots came in all varieties. Naturally, the ones on the homepage were the best, along with mobile-end recommendation slots—there were numerous opportunities anyway. Countless books rushed forward frantically; whether they were mules or horses, a single lap around the track would reveal the truth.

Zhang Pa's first book had been disastrous. After being contracted, it only managed to squeeze into a tiny category recommendation slot once before going straight to the shelves. The editor had simply said, "Put it on the shelves," which meant they didn't hold out hope for the book, meant the first recommendation slot had yielded poor results, and meant that future recommendation slots would make no difference whether he got them or not.

That book had been wretched. With that experience serving as a baseline, Zhang Pa lowered his hopes and fantasies to an extremely low level—so low, in fact, that he had zero extravagant expectations.

Strictly speaking, Zhang Pa didn't understand the exact process of applying for recommendation slots, nor did he know what the standards were.

All recommendation slots were in the hands of the editors; they had their own standards and procedures for handling these matters.

As for Zhang Pa, since he didn't understand, he naturally didn't harbor any grand expectations.

He hurried to sign the contract and mailed it out at the earliest possible moment, reaching the company in two days. Today was the third day, but the website still hadn't updated his status. The webpage still showed that his book was uncontracted.

Zhang Pa was a bit anxious, but late at night, he didn't know who to ask and could only wait. Besides dealing with the contract, he also had to clean up his home.

It took him two days to thoroughly clean Wang Baihe's room inside and out. At least it was livable now. But with the weather gradually turning cooler, he wondered how much longer he could stay there.

Today was Wednesday, and because of his head injury, Zhang Pa skipped his dance class once again. He apologized profusely to Liu Xiaomei over the phone, promising that he would definitely attend on Saturday.

In truth, there was an even more embarrassing matter he hadn't mentioned.

Liu Xiaomei didn't know the house had burned down, which meant she didn't know the guitar she had bought for him had burned in the fire either. Zhang Pa didn't dare tell her because he couldn't find an excuse—could he really tell her the house had burned down?

Yet keeping the truth hidden wasn't an option either, and after hesitating, he had dragged it out for several days.

Today being Wednesday, Xun Ruyu finally called, saying they should find a place to sit down tonight and chat about the script.

That was something they had to discuss, but Liu Xiaomei was also coming over. She had said, "Since you can't come to keep me company, I'll come to keep you company after school."

Xun Ruyu's call had come in the morning, and Liu Xiaomei's at noon. In terms of priority, Liu Xiaomei definitely came first.

So Zhang Pa called Xun Ruyu back to say he didn't have time tonight.

Xun Ruyu said that wouldn't do; they had to talk tonight. They needed to get the script written quickly, and she couldn't afford to waste any more time; she needed to do some serious work.

Zhang Pa was tempted to say he wouldn't write it anymore, but after all, it was money, and since he was currently jobless, he had no choice but to negotiate with Liu Xiaomei again, explaining, "I'll come find you to hang out tomorrow. Tonight I have a script to discuss. If we get it written, it'll bring in thirty to fifty thousand, just like I told you last time."

Liu Xiaomei gave a hum of acknowledgment and said fine, adding that even though he was injured and couldn't dance, he still had to practice his vocals and guitar every day.

Not wanting to keep hiding it, Zhang Pa simply came clean: "I'm going to tell you something, and you mustn't get angry. If you get angry, I won't know what to do."

Liu Xiaomei asked what it was and why she would be angry. "Could it be that you've got another woman?"

Taking a deep breath, Zhang Pa spoke slowly: "First, my place was burned down by bad guys, and I've been staying at a hotel these past few days; second, I wasn't home the day it burned, and the guitar was burned too." He quickly added, "You really mustn't be upset."

Liu Xiaomei fell silent for quite a while before asking, "Was this done by Wang Zhongxing?"

Zhang Pa replied, "That doesn't matter, everything has been resolved. I only care whether you're going to be upset."

Sighing, Liu Xiaomei said, "In the end, I'm the one who implicated you."

Hurriedly, Zhang Pa said, "Don't ever talk about who implicated whom. Are you trying to scare me to death?"

Liu Xiaomei said, "It's fine. I'll buy you another instrument. This time I'll buy an even more expensive and better one."

Zhang Pa said, "As long as you're not angry, I'd accept it even if you bought me the moon."

Liu Xiaomei retorted, "In your dreams. Do you think I don't know your target is the Goddess Chang'e? You big pervert." (To be continued.)