What's more important, your pride or your life?
Li Peifeng touched his handsome face and explained, "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get back together with you, I just want to have a meal."
"A meal? Why don't you just order takeout?! Why eat with me?"
Xu Manning sneered, "Take my advice, no matter how rough things get, never go back to an ex, it just makes you look pathetic."
"..."
"Come on, say it with me: 'I won't play with the same man twice!'"
"..."
Li Peifeng rubbed his forehead without speaking. At this point, explaining was pointless—making this call and asking to have a meal was truly indefensible.
But I really just wanted a meal, damn it. What is this task selection for assessments, targeting ex-girlfriends? I can't avoid them fast enough.
Xu Manning continued, her words full of condescension.
"How about I introduce you to some enemies, and you can go bother them?"
"..."
Li Peifeng took another sip of water, trying to suppress the gnawing hunger despite his reluctance to reply to her nonsense, yet he could only listen.
Emotions are complex, but after a breakup, people's emotions generally align. A psychologist once proposed a theory: after a breakup, people's emotions undergo five stages.
Stage One: Anger. You see yourself as a victim and may blame everything on the other person.
Stage Two: Denial of reality. You can't accept the breakup and desperately search for evidence of your past love. You keep telling yourself it was just a rash act and that your partner will come back.
Stage Three: Bargaining. Losing a lover is unbearably painful, so you start fantasizing about or trying to reconcile.
Stage Four: Depression. Facing the harsh reality that you will be strangers from now on is gut-wrenching, leading to a long, painful period of depression.
Stage Five: Acceptance of reality. You start looking forward to a new life and anticipating the next love.
It has been less than a month since their breakup. According to the "impression of the host" prompt in the system panel, and given Li Peifeng's understanding of her, Xu Manning should be transitioning between the first and second stages.
Therefore, Xu Manning's attitude and current mood aren't hard to understand. She remains resentful of the past relationship and blames all the hurt on Li Peifeng. Now that he's proactively reaching out and showing need, it's almost like:
A stray cat encountering a mouse, Tom seeing Jerry, a fat pig walking into the butcher's house...
Drop dead!
Xu Manning believed she had caught Li Peifeng's weak point and teased leisurely, "To be honest, I don't really want to see you. You said we weren't intimate enough before, but at least I know your heart well. It's black and cold, running a constant low fever, cold and wild."
"I don't believe a single word you say—not even the punctuation. The sky is blue, the sea is deep, and not a word you say is true! Even the legendary scumbag Hu Lancheng would bow at your feet, Wu Xiubo looks up to your knees and Chen Shimei will shout at the top of his lungs he's convinced, enough, just stop..."
"Why is your skin so thick? And you have the nerve to say you miss me? Breaking up over texts without even meeting, with the last line in the chat being 'Is that it?' which I said, and you didn't even respond, now you say you miss me? Just a simple 'I reflect' and you want to see me?"
The state could use your thick skin to research bulletproof vests; it's both nice-looking and practical. Your personality is quite unique, changing my understanding of humanity; despicable and shameless, promiscuous and unfaithful, ignoring morals!"
"..."
"Cat got your tongue? No words left?" As Xu Manning spoke, she too got more heated.
These long words, sharp and unyielding, though they were insults, didn't use a single foul word, yet they were humorous, orderly, and strikingly powerful—truly the work of a linguistic artist.
However, in Li Peifeng's view, even as fierce as Xu Manning's words were, they wouldn't stop him from enjoying this free meal, as long as he engages in a little...
"The point of an apology is that I admit I'm wrong and am willing to accept any backlash from your negative emotions, so I'm not angry about what you're saying, but rather feel regret and guilt. I'm sorry."
Draw closer...
Li Peifeng's tone was both ashamed and sincere: "As for getting back together, I absolutely have no such intention. I just feel that though there was resentment during our relationship, it's understandable, but it's unreasonable for us to become enemies after breaking up and never contact each other again. Even if we must part, why waste the encounter?"
"If possible, I'd like to be friends now, to get to know each other again, that would be my luck, if not, then never mind."
Push away just a little again!
"..."
There was silence on the other end of the line, and the man's intuition told Li Peifeng that she was wavering, so he seized the opportunity: "I'll wait for you at the Cantonese restaurant near the south gate of the school for half an hour."
There was no response from Xu Manning, instead she spoke slowly, "I was looking through my WeChat moments the night before last and saw some people posting screenshots of chats and transfer records with you. You're not borrowing money from me to buy this meal, are you?"
Hearing this, Li Peifeng felt a chill run through his heart.
The day before, he had used a method of asking female friends for money to buy meals, then repaying them after buying the food, trying to exploit a loophole in the system.
Unfortunately, the system seemed to detect his intentions. As soon as Li Peifeng had the thought of repaying the money in equivalent measures, the money he asked for wouldn't count. Using it to buy meals still had no effect.
Moreover, while asking female friends for money, Li Peifeng was teased and embarrassed by these women. They only gave him red envelopes of varying amounts like '38' or '250' as if in charity.
Even worse, these wicked women selectively published chat records on their moments, only capturing the parts where Li Peifeng asked for money while omitting the parts where he repaid.
True to the saying, there's no shortage of scumbag women in the capital, and Beihua University owns half of them.
This caused campus heartthrob Li to doubt everything, and question whether Beihua University's quality education was successful, but ultimately it was his past behavior that got blamed.
Green tea's fine, but don't overindulge.
"Recently, I've been in a bit of a financial pinch."
Li Peifeng stubbornly said, "A friend had an urgent issue, so I lent all my money to him, leaving me unable to even buy a meal."
The secret art of creating imaginary friends!
While deflecting blame, he subtly exposed his predicament to set up the stage for the 30,000 yuan objective.
Xu Manning obviously didn't believe it, asking sarcastically, "An urgent issue? Illness? A friend? Yourself, right? Tell me, what terminal illness do you have? I'll definitely help if I can!"
Hmm, seems like she's really hoping I die soon.
"Is it AIDS? Do you need me to report it to the school and raise donations for you?"
If I had AIDS, you'd be the first to get it, so better be careful.
Li Peifeng snorted inwardly but didn't retaliate. After she was done, he said, "If you want to scold me, do it when we meet, that'll be more satisfying."
Xu Manning felt something was amiss. It was, after all, the first time since their breakup that Li Pei actively contacted her, and even invited her out—so sudden, so sincere, she couldn't help but overthink.
"So... you're really just trying to borrow money from me?"
"It's not about borrowing money! Just eating!"
Li Peifeng was already so hungry his eyes were turning green, and his tone got impatient: "Just tell me if you want to eat this meal with me or not!"
"Why are you getting angry?!"
Xu Manning's tone was conflicted: "Aren't you out of money now... Do you want to use the money borrowed from those women to treat me to dinner?"
The subtext might have been; you borrowed money from so many girls just to treat me?
Xu Manning felt oddly touched, but still...
"Don't misunderstand, sister."
Li Peifeng's tone, though weak, was firm: "I want you to treat me for this meal."
"..."
"Beep~ Beep~ Beep~"