"Niu Niu, if that auntie comes again, just tell her to come upstairs to find big brother, okay?"
Chen Shu patted Niu Niu's head and sent her back home.
Returning to his own place, he casually tossed Hao Meili's purse aside, completely ignoring it.
If the police came knocking, he'd naturally return it to them. But whether it was filing a police report or checking surveillance footage—all of that was just a hassle.
When it came to being petty and vindictive, Chen Shu had it down to an art form.
He went back to his bedroom and summoned his golden slime.
After completing that recent choice, he'd successfully broken through to Level 6 Beast Tamer. The slime's stats had skyrocketed across the board—even its snoring was louder and more obnoxious than before!
What surprised him most was that the slime's 'Charge' skill had automatically leveled up.
With each breakthrough, there was a chance for contracted spirits to either learn new skills or upgrade existing ones.
While the probability of upgrading skills was slightly higher than learning new ones, both rates were depressingly abysmal.
Especially for an F-rank contracted spirit.
"You better shape up and start bulldozing through all those small fries in the future!"
Chen Shu patted the slime's head and began refining medicinal materials.
It wasn't until the afternoon of the next day that the slime finally finished digesting the potions, its defense and size having increased dramatically.
If he used Gigantification, the slime would reach a terrifying size of nearly ten meters—bigger than most Black Iron-rank contracted spirits.
While its actual strength was nowhere near Black Iron-rank level, at least the intimidation factor was off the charts!
My contracted spirit is HUGE—my opponents probably can't even handle it.[1]
---
That afternoon, Chen Shu and Zhang Dali spent the entire time sprawled on the couch gaming, successfully dropping from Gold rank all the way down to Silver.
"I'm telling you, Dali, you're straight-up throwing!"
Chen Shu couldn't help but complain. They'd played all afternoon and won exactly one match—and even then, the enemy team had two players go AFK...
"How am I throwing? I've evolved as a jungler—I don't just hide in my jungle camps anymore!" Zhang Dali protested.
"Yeah, you're right. You don't camp in the jungle anymore—now you leech minion waves instead."
Chen Shu took a deep breath and said, "Leeching minion waves is one thing, but getting a Gold Medal Mid Laner Award while playing jungle? That's just insulting!"
"..." Zhang Dali fell silent for a long moment before finally asking, "Is that why you reported me?"
"I call it serving justice for the people!" Chen Shu suddenly thought of something. "Oh right, I'm going to see Xie Sunan tomorrow. Want to come?"
"Me? Nah, I've got Spirit Chef training again."
"Feeling confident about it?" Chen Shu asked.
While Zhang Dali's cooking skills were exceptional, Spirit Cooking required handling spirit beast meat, which was exponentially more difficult.
"I guess I'll have to settle for first place," Zhang Dali said, shaking his head as if genuinely disappointed.
"By the way, when are your parents coming home? I'm getting hungry."
"You went from leeching minion waves to leeching meals!" Chen Shu retorted. Just as he was about to suggest they order takeout, the front door opened.
Chen Shu's parents returned home, but besides the two of them, there was also a police officer and a young woman.
"Oh ho, confirmed it's your purse? Pretty efficient, I'll give you that."
Chen Shu immediately recognized her—it was yesterday's Hao Meili.
"Chen Pi, watch your mouth!" his father Chen Ping scolded.
"Hello, Officer!"
Chen Shu stood up with a smile, completely ignoring Hao Meili.
Hao Meili had lost all of yesterday's arrogance and was even somewhat intimidated just seeing Chen Shu.
The police officer said, "Hello, young Chen. The investigation results are in. Ms. Hao miscounted the money inside, and the phone was accidentally broken."
"If it's possible, please return the purse to her!"
Chen Shu nodded and retrieved the purse from beside the bedroom trash can. "I can return it, but you need to go downstairs and apologize to Niu Niu one more time!"
"Do you realize you're harming the flowers of our nation? Auntie!" Chen Shu questioned with stern righteousness.
Hao Meili remained silent and nodded.
Chen Shu couldn't be bothered to argue further and returned the purse to her.
After the two left, the three of them immediately asked Chen Shu what had happened.
When he explained everything, Zhang Dali slammed the table: "Why didn't you beat the shit out of that asshole?"
Chen Shu looked over with an expression that said great minds think alike.
---
Early the next morning, Chen Shu arrived at Xiafei Road, ready to deal with that fake medicine dealer.
Just as he reached the intersection, a voice suddenly called out.
"Chen Shu!"
A ponytailed girl jogged over.
"Xia Bing?" Chen Shu looked at his former class study committee member and immediately recognized her.
"What a coincidence! What are you doing here?"
"I live around here," Xia Bing explained. "I still owe you money, right? I wanted to pay you back today."
"Hey, no rush! I'm not hurting for money or anything."
Chen Shu looked magnanimous, then immediately followed up with "So, mobile payment or cash?"
"..." Xia Bing was speechless. And here I thought you really weren't in a hurry!
Also, I'm not the one rushing to pay back—it's because there's daily interest accumulating...
"Bank transfer," Xia Bing said. "I borrowed 120,000 from you. Using double the bank's interest rate, that would be..."
"Forget the interest!" Chen Shu said generously.
Xia Bing looked Chen Shu up and down. Did you really just say that? Have you been body-snatched?
"Help me with a favor!" Chen Shu grinned, his eyes darting around with unmistakable cunning.
Xia Bing immediately sensed trouble. "Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to end well?"
Chen Shu declared with righteous authority: "How could that be? Help me catch a scammer! Maintaining city security—as upstanding youth of the new era, it's our duty to step up!"
Xia Bing hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "Fine, I'll consider it thanks for lending me the money."
Based on Chen Shu's assessment, Wang Bage definitely wasn't the mastermind. Would some guy selling mud balls have that kind of audacity?
There had to be someone else behind this, more likely involving Beast Tamers. What ordinary person would dare run a scam worth tens of millions?
Chen Shu alone might not be able to handle it, but with Xia Bing added to the mix, things would be different.
Her contracted spirit was an Ice Wolf, combining both attack and control abilities.
If they really couldn't win, the Ice Wolf could buy time while he executed a strategic retreat...
Free muscle that delivered itself to his doorstep—who could refuse such a gift?