Chapter 493: What a Perfect Bootlicker, the Son of Destiny!
"Tang Kun, let's break up."
Zhou Luyao looked at the handsome man opposite her, who was dressed in a yellow delivery uniform, unkempt, and looked like a poor, pathetic loser. Her Kazi Lan eyes were full of disdain and contempt.
"Why? Yaoyao, why is this happening? If I've done anything wrong, tell me, and I'll change. I can definitely change."
The bag of takeout in Tang Kun's hand slipped from his nerveless fingers, crashing onto the pavement with a wet smack. The flimsy plastic container split open, spilling noodles and greasy sauce across the concrete. His world, however, had already shattered. His eyes were wide with a frantic, pleading panic as he stared at the woman standing before him.
Zhou Luyao was his childhood sweetheart, the goddess he had worshipped since he was a boy. Her beauty was the kind that commanded attention—the school's art committee representative, the undisputed campus belle, the subject of countless daydreams and the target of endless pursuits from men far wealthier and more influential than him.
For over a decade, Tang Kun had been her most loyal simp. From the innocent days of elementary school all the way through the grueling grind of university, he had orbited her like a devoted moon. Only after graduation did she finally grant him the title he so desperately craved: probationary boyfriend.
But what was a probationary boyfriend? It was a cruel joke he had willingly embraced. He was a glorified ATM, a personal chauffeur, a servant on call. Forget about intimacy, about a shared future—he wasn't even allowed to hold her hand. Yet, his entire salary was hers to command, funneled directly into her account the moment it arrived. Every holiday, every anniversary, every manufactured occasion demanded expensive gifts he couldn't afford.
And Tang Kun relished it. He saw it as a privilege. To win a sliver of his goddess's favor, he pushed himself to the brink, working with a manic dedication that bordered on self-destruction. He took every delivery order, no matter how far, no matter the weather.
Just a while ago, when the city's delivery riders had staged a collective strike, demanding better pay per order, Tang Kun had crossed the picket line. He kept working, dodging angry glares and barely escaping a beating from his furious colleagues. He endured it all for one singular goal: to buy Zhou Luyao a Chanel bag, a frivolous accessory that cost tens of thousands of yuan.
He had never in his life bought himself a single piece of clothing or a pair of shoes that cost more than a hundred yuan. His own needs were an afterthought.
But in his mind, it was all worth it. He was bubbling with a deluded happiness. The campus belle, the ethereal Zhou Luyao, was his girlfriend. The envy he imagined in the eyes of others was the fuel that kept his pathetic engine running.
He never, not in his wildest nightmares, imagined she would be the one to end it. Her words struck him like a bolt of lightning, leaving him utterly paralyzed, his mind a canvas of screaming static.
Zhou Luyao's exquisitely beautiful face was a mask of utter disgust, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. She tilted her fair, delicate chin upward, looking down her nose at the groveling man before her. The scorn in her voice was a physical blow.
"You? Change?" A short, sharp laugh, devoid of any warmth, escaped her lips. "I want money, Tang Kun. I want to live in a sprawling mansion in Hangzhou, this new first-tier city where everything costs a fortune. I want to be chauffeured in luxury cars. I want to walk into any boutique and buy whatever my heart desires without ever glancing at a price tag. I want to dine at Michelin-star restaurants every night. How can you possibly 'change' into that?"
Her eyes swept over his sweat-stained uniform, the worn-out sneakers, the desperation etched on his face.
"Can you afford a villa in Hangzhou? Can you even afford the down payment?" she sneered. "Forget a villa. Tang Kun, you could work your entire life, running yourself into the ground, and you'd never even be able to afford a tiny, crumbling old apartment in the suburbs. Look at yourself. You don't even have a few hundred yuan in your pocket right now, do you?"
A hot flush of shame and anger burned Tang Kun's face. He stammered, his throat tight, unable to form a coherent reply. A furious protest screamed within him. 'The reason I don't have a few hundred yuan is because I spent tens of thousands on that Chanel bag for you just a few days ago!' he wanted to roar. That money hadn't been a gift; it had been his blood and sweat, earned by running countless red lights, weaving through suffocating traffic, and outsmarting building security guards day after day. It was the price of his exhaustion and his risk.
But then he looked at her face—that beautiful, delicate, perfect face he had worshipped for so long. The anger evaporated, replaced by a familiar, soul-crushing wave of devotion. What else could he do?
He could only forgive her.
With a sickening thud, Tang Kun's knees slammed into the hard pavement. He threw himself forward, reaching for the hem of her long, flowing dress, but she recoiled with a gasp of disgust, sidestepping his touch as if he were vermin.
Tears and snot streamed down his face, a grotesque portrait of utter despair. His voice was a choked, pathetic wail.
"Yaoyao, don't break up with me. I'm begging you, please... please don't break up. I'll work harder! I'll earn money, I'll earn lots and lots of money, I swear! Just please... please don't leave me..."
"Tsk tsk tsk. I've seen simps before, but I've never seen one this committed to the craft."
At that moment, a lazy, mocking voice cut through the pathetic drama.
Shen Anyu stood nearby, an amused arch to his eyebrow as he observed the scene. He was genuinely astonished. 'Why?' he wondered, a genuine curiosity flickering within him. 'Why would a man, a creature supposedly built for strength and ambition, choose to abandon all dignity and become... this? A spineless dog begging for scraps?'
The casual, obvious contempt in Shen Anyu's voice was the final trigger for Tang Kun's overflowing, yet fragile, self-esteem. Humiliated and cornered, he snapped, his head whipping around to glare at the newcomer.
"You pretty boy!" he roared, spittle flying from his lips. "What the hell do you know? This is love! L-O-V-E, do you understand?!"
After spraying Shen Anyu with his furious retort, Tang Kun's face instantly morphed. He turned back to Zhou Luyao, the rage vanishing as if it had never been, replaced once more by that same desperate, pleading expression.
"Yaoyao, don't go, please don't go... I love you, I really, really love you..."
Standing to the side, Shen Anyu truly couldn't hold back a soft chuckle. He shook his head, his voice carrying a tone of pitying disappointment.
"A true man? So undignified. So spineless. To debase yourself to this extent. Do you think you're respecting yourself? If you don't even respect yourself, how can you possibly expect any woman to respect you? Even if you manage to force her to stay with this display, what have you truly won? A hollow victory? A resentful partner? That's not love. That's a prison sentence for you both. Be a man. Don't kneel. Stand up and say, 'If we break up, we break up. We'll see who regrets it in the end.'"
The commotion on the shaded path had begun to attract a small crowd of onlookers. As Shen Anyu's words resonated in the quiet air, a murmur of agreement rippled through the bystanders, followed by outright cheers.
"That handsome guy is right! As a woman, I find this embarrassing. A man's knees are worth gold; if he has no dignity, no backbone, how can he ever achieve anything great in life?"
"Brother, you nailed it! If you break up, you break up! Man up! What are you crying for?"
"Hey, delivery kid, take some advice from an old man. That girl already looks down on you for being poor and useless. What's the point of kneeling and begging? It only proves her right."
"..."
The combination of Shen Anyu's sharp words and the pointing, judgmental gazes of the crowd finally shattered Tang Kun's pathetic resolve. He felt his face burning with a humiliation so intense it was a physical pain. With a sudden, jerky movement, he scrambled to his feet. He stared at Zhou Luyao, a fierce, unfamiliar light in his eyes, and spoke with a tone firmer than any he had ever used with her.
"Zhou Luyao. I, Tang Kun, am giving you one last chance. It's not too late to take it back. Otherwise, when I become successful in the future, I swear I will make you regret this moment for the rest of your life. So, are we breaking up or not?"
"Break up."
Zhou Luyao's beautiful face was an arctic mask. She spat out the two words without a hint of hesitation. Then, she turned, pulling her rolling suitcase behind her, and walked away without a single backward glance.
Tang Kun's body trembled violently, then trembled again. His face contorted, a desperate battle between the urge to collapse into sobs and the new, fragile pride compelling him to hold it in. His knees bent instinctively, the muscle memory of groveling still strong, wanting to chase after her. But his feet felt as if they were encased in lead and mercury; he couldn't move.
Shen Anyu offered a final push from the side.
"Straighten your back. Don't kneel. You can do it. A man should be like this. Find someone better in the future and make her regret ever looking down on you."
The surrounding passersby applauded, cheering Tang Kun on as if he were a local sports hero.
Buoyed by the unexpected support, Tang Kun clenched his fists, his voice thick with emotion as he declared fiercely: "Yes! I'll find someone better in the future and make Yaoyao regret it!"
A corner of Shen Anyu's mouth twitched. 'He's still calling her Yaoyao.' It was the very definition of saying the most cowardly words with the fiercest possible tone.
This Tang Kun was a figure of future prominence Shen Anyu had learned about by soul-searching Long Hao, the Son of Destiny from the Rebirth Investment genre. In that timeline, Tang Kun became known as the "God of Delivery," a mysterious magnate rumored to be a young master from a super-rich family who was just playing at being poor by delivering food.
However, Shen Anyu had already sent his people to investigate. The reality was far more mundane. Tang Kun's parents had died when he was young, leaving him an orphan. He had no formidable background, no secret connections, nor was he the illegitimate son of some tycoon left to fend for himself.
Shen Anyu had also just tested him. The barrage of insults and public ridicule had clearly broken Tang Kun emotionally, yet the System had not awarded him any Destiny Points for it. When he had used the Son of Destiny Identifier, it returned a prompt: [Identification Unsuccessful].
'Hmm, two possibilities,' Shen Anyu mused, his mind working rapidly. 'One, Tang Kun isn't a Son of Destiny at all. He just gets incredibly lucky later in life—wins the lottery, stumbles into a successful business, something of that nature—and becomes the 'God of Delivery' through sheer chance. The other possibility is that Tang Kun is an unawakened Son of Destiny, and his System, his Golden Finger, simply hasn't arrived yet.'
Shen Anyu leaned heavily toward the second possibility. Given Tang Kun's ultimate simp personality, the probability of him achieving massive success through his own self-reliance and grit was practically zero. Such a profound psychological flaw almost demanded an external, reality-bending force to overcome. This public breakup, this soul-crushing humiliation, was the perfect catalyst for a System's awakening.
After subtly planting a nanometer-sized monitoring robot on Tang Kun's collar and conveniently taking a microscopic drop of his blood with a device hidden in his ring—a sample that would facilitate the God-level Blood Curse Technique should the need arise—Shen Anyu turned to leave.
As for his target, it was naturally Zhou Luyao, who had just left...
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