After following the middle-aged man away from the Caesar Grand Hotel, Xu Wenxing stood in the night breeze, his body trembling.
When he had come to pick up his father’s friend tonight, he had brought nothing but a mobile phone.
Now, that phone was left behind in Room 333. He had no way to use it.
If he went back to get it, he would be wasting the middle-aged man’s kindness.
But without a phone, he found it difficult to do anything.
‘What should I do…?’
Xu Wenxing couldn’t help but sigh. He looked at the middle-aged man beside him, then at the hotel reception staff who were staring at him in terror, and pondered his options.
However, he quickly thought of a solution.
“Hey, Mister. Do you have a mobile banking app on your phone?”
“I do, but what are you going to do with it?”
“I need to borrow it for a moment. I’ll log into my account, transfer some money to you, and then go buy a new phone,” Xu Wenxing explained.
The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You left your phone in Room 333?”
“Yeah. I don’t have anything on me right now, and my bank cards are back at the school,” Xu Wenxing said honestly.
“I don’t know anyone else around here, so I have to rely on you, Mister.”
“…Fine, I’ll see this through to the end. I’m willing to help with a small favor like this.” The middle-aged man shrugged and handed over his phone.
Moved by the man’s trust, Xu Wenxing nodded gratefully. He opened the banking app and used the face-scan feature to log into his account.
After confirming the account status, Xu Wenxing asked for the man’s account details and transferred the money. He then asked the man to help him buy a phone.
Once the money arrived, the middle-aged man immediately drove Xu Wenxing to a mobile phone store.
After they bought a decent-enough device, the man waited nearby to see the young man’s next move.
For some reason, the middle-aged man had a strange feeling.
He felt that this young man was going to give him a big surprise — one larger than he could possibly imagine.
After getting the phone, Xu Wenxing took a deep breath. He used the man’s hotspot to download a series of necessary apps.
A moment later, Xu Wenxing logged into his chat software and initiated a voice call to his father.
After a short wait, the call connected.
Xu Wenxing wanted to speak, but he was immediately met with a barrage of scolding from his father.
“Wenxing! What’s going on?! Didn’t I tell you to go receive the guest? Why didn’t you go?! I need an explanation!”
“Dad, I went,” Xu Wenxing explained.
“The hell you did! He told me himself that he didn’t see you! Could he be lying?!”
Hearing the conversation, the middle-aged man couldn’t help but let out a silent laugh.
‘Very good. Based on this reaction of scolding his child without even checking the facts, that’s definitely his real dad.’
Hearing his father’s doubt, Xu Wenxing took a deep breath and shouted back at him.
“Dad! Do you have any idea that your friend is a ghost?! Your son almost died at your friend’s hands!”
“What?! What kind of nonsense are you talking about?!”
“I’m saying your son almost died because of your friend! The only reason I can even call you now is that I met a good person who was willing to pay out of his own pocket to help me buy a phone! That’s the only reason I can talk to you right now!”
To make the situation sound more dire, Xu Wenxing even claimed the money spent was someone else’s.
Hearing that his son had used someone else’s money, the man on the other end of the line immediately sat up straight and asked urgently,
“You used someone else’s money? Do you know that debts of gratitude are the hardest to repay?! Quick, tell me how much. I’ll give you the money so you can pay them back!”
“Dad! Now is not the time to worry about that! The point is that there’s something wrong with your friend!”
“Nonsense! He has helped me so much over the last few decades! Do you think I wouldn’t know if he had problems?! Stop talking nonsense!”
His father dismissed Xu Wenxing’s suspicions without a second thought.
Xu Wenxing felt a fire burning in his chest. He wanted nothing more than to curse his father out through the phone.
However, to convince him and to smoothly implement the plan in his heart, he endured the frustration and suggested, “You don’t believe me? If you don’t believe me, call my old phone! Then go find your friend and have them investigate where my phone is!”
“You kid! What on earth are you talking about! Are you not in your dormitory right now?!”
The father on the other end suddenly sounded a bit panicked. He had never heard his child sound so certain and yet so full of rage.
Perhaps he really had wronged him.
“Dad, that’s all I can say. Believe it or not.” Xu Wenxing let out a long breath.
“Also, if you’re willing to believe me, remember to throw away everything that Zhou Chenfeng gave you. I feel like his things are problematic.”
“Are you crazy?! Those were gifts—”
“Goodbye, Dad.”
After hanging up, Xu Wenxing looked up at the sky. Watching the twinkling starlight, he didn’t know what to say for a moment.
The middle-aged man, who had listened to the entire conversation, rubbed his chin and joked with a smile, “Tsk, tsk. Young man, it sounds like your relationship with your dad isn’t very good. How about this? You call me ‘Dad,’ and I’ll give you a 500-yuan red envelope.”
“Stop joking with me at a time like this,” Xu Wenxing said, shaking his head. “My relationship with my dad was actually quite good before. It’s just that as he met more and more friends, he gradually changed.”
“Then your dad must be a successful man,” the middle-aged man said with a smile.
“Unlike me. I lost my daughter in my middle age, and now I have to work hard as a ride-hailing driver to earn money for my family. My mortgage isn’t even fully paid off yet.”
“…Wasn’t your daughter a Magic Girl? Shouldn’t there be Official subsidies?”
Xu Wenxing froze for a moment. He hadn’t expected the man before him to have such realistic troubles.
The middle-aged man shook his head with a smile and replied, “Ah, what you’re talking about is how things are now.”
“Let me tell you, back then, the salary you could get as a Magic Girl was pitifully low. Most of them could only make money by becoming an Idol.”
“But my daughter had no talent for being an Idol, and she wasn’t famous herself. Fighting Monsters was also exhausting for her, so she could only earn a fixed salary. She spent every day running around just as busy as I am.”
“But it’s different now. The environment has improved. Magic Girls don’t have to be Idols anymore, and their salaries have increased. If my daughter could have lived in today’s world, she definitely wouldn’t have had to work so hard.”
After saying this, the middle-aged man smiled at the sky. There was no trace of dejection in his voice.
Observing the man’s open-minded attitude, Xu Wenxing fell silent for several seconds. In his heart, he made a firm decision.
He would use every bit of Power he could muster to deal with that damn place, the Caesar Grand Hotel!