Chapter 2: A Small Profit
"Brother, switch to another machine. This one is cursed; it just ate 600 yuan from me this morning."
The Yellow-haired man with the explosion hairstyle, seeing Chen Su at the third slot machine, advised him.
"It's fine, I'm just playing casually."
As expected, nothing came out.
Chen Su pretended to be indifferent, but his heart was bleeding.
"Damn it, ten yuan just disappeared, that's enough for two combo meals."
The Yellow-haired man looked unsurprised.
"See? Brother, I wouldn't lie to you."
"This arcade owner is really bad; he deliberately sets the slot machine odds extremely low, yet he's not afraid of no one coming to play."
Chen Su ignored the Yellow-haired man's incessant chatter.
He inserted five more coins.
The slot machine started a new round.
"Biu~biu~biu~"
It was empty again.
Eventually, Chen Su just played one coin at a time.
Without exception, he didn't win once.
Time slowly reached 3:30.
Chen Su gritted his teeth and threw all 25 remaining coins in his hand into the machine at once.
He slammed the button.
"Biu~biu~biu~biu~"
The red light circle kept spinning.
"Please hit, please hit," Chen Su prayed silently in his heart.
"Bang~"
The prayer seemed to have some effect; he hit a Small Joker.
"Bang~bang~"
He hit two more Small Jokers.
Then the slot machine went wild, continuously hitting Jackpots.
The Yellow-haired man nearby was drawn over by the commotion.
"Jackpot~Jackpot~Jackpot~"
The Yellow-haired man was incredibly excited, as if he had won the prize himself.
The amount won kept increasing.
50, 70
150, 500
850, 1200, 2000
...5000
When the number reached 5000, the slot machine's Jackpot sound stopped.
"Clatter~"
Coins began to pour out of the slot machine, and soon the tray below was full.
They started spilling onto the floor.
Seeing this, Chen Su quickly picked up a basket nearby and started collecting them.
The commotion here also caught the attention of the arcade owner.
The owner's heart bled when he saw Chen Su win so much.
After the slot machine finished dispensing money,
He was afraid Chen Su would win again, so he quickly ran over.
"Excuse me, everyone, today's slot machine is malfunctioning. We need to organize staff to repair it. Please play elsewhere for now."
"Hmph, when it was eating money, why didn't you say it was malfunctioning?"
The Yellow-haired man pouted from the side.
After Chen Su collected the coins, he took them to the front desk to exchange them.
A full 5000 yuan.
Seeing the extra 5000 yuan in his mobile wallet,
Chen Su breathed a slight sigh of relief.
This month's rent, utilities, and water added up to over 2500 yuan.
This money solved his immediate financial crisis.
On his way back, he cheerfully hailed a taxi.
Save when you can, spend when you should... "Half a catty of pig's head skin, half a catty of boneless chicken feet~"
After leaving the braised food stall, Chen Su went to the supermarket downstairs.
"A-Ming, a case of Maple City Beer."
"Alright, Brother Chen, the beer is on the shelf next to the milk inside. Go get it yourself."
A-Ming, the supermarket owner's son, was engrossed in interacting with his favorite streamer's bullet comments, his eyes never leaving the screen, his finger pointing towards the shelf inside.
"Thank you, big brother, for the little heart~"
"Just a tap of your finger, let's get 100,000 likes, and little sister will put on the gift sent by her fan big brother~"
Chen Su got goosebumps listening to the sweet, cutesy voice of the voice changer.
He went to the shelf alone, carried a case of beer, and scanned it himself at the counter to pay.
A-Ming's eyes never left the screen for a moment.
"Is it that good to watch?"
"It's great, Brother Chen, you don't know, this Xin Xin is a genuine beauty streamer, verified offline by fans."
As A-Ming spoke, his fingers kept furiously tapping the screen to like.
Chen Su rolled his eyes, said nothing, and turned to leave the supermarket.
Back home, Chen Su put a few bottles of beer in the refrigerator.
He went to the bathroom and took a cold shower... At the dining table, Chen Su ate the braised food and drank beer.
Xu Jing used to say she disliked the smell of alcohol, so for the past five years, Chen Su had barely touched a drop.
Recalling the bits and pieces of his life with Xu Jing over the past five years,
Chen Su sighed heavily again.
He drank bottle after bottle, and soon the dining table was piled high with empty bottles.
Finally, his stomach couldn't take it anymore.
Chen Su ran to the toilet, hugged the commode, and vomited violently.
Snot ran down his face, and tears streamed from his eyes.
After vomiting, he staggered to the sofa.
His alcohol-dominated brain was clearly much wilder than usual.
Chen Su first opened his phone and called Liu Tianchuan.
He unleashed a torrent of curses at him, and after he finished,
He called Xu Jing again.
"Sorry, the number you have dialed cannot be connected temporarily. Please try again later."
Blocked.
Chen Su let out a self-deprecating laugh.
At this moment, he felt dizzy and disoriented, as if the world was spinning.
He just lay on the sofa and fell asleep... The next morning, Chen Su woke up and opened his phone.
A dozen missed calls.
All from his good brother, Ye Sheng.
He called back.
"Hey, Sheng Zi, is something urgent? You called so many times in the middle of the night."
Ye Sheng's voice quickly came from the other end of the phone.
"Urgent? I should be asking you what's urgent! You called me in the middle of the night yesterday, talked a bunch of nonsense, and then just hung up."
"Did I?"
Chen Su was also confused; he had blacked out from drinking alone yesterday.
He only remembered calling Liu Tianchuan and cursing him out, but he didn't remember anything after that.
He turned to look at the messy floor around him.
Chen Su patted his slightly aching head.
Drinking leads to trouble!
"What are you doing? Are you home? I'm coming over right now."
"No, no, you don't need to come over."
"I'm already halfway there. You're telling me to go back? No way, I can't come all this way for nothing; you have to treat me to lunch."
Before Chen Su could say anything, Ye Sheng hung up the phone... At Chen Su's home.
Ye Sheng was sitting on the sofa, chattering away.
"I told you long ago that Xu Jing was a woman of poor character, vain and materialistic, but you wouldn't believe me. Now you know you messed up, right?"
"And that Prosperous Heaven, they're all cut from the same cloth, no good. I told you to switch jobs long ago, but you refused."
Ye Sheng was his college roommate, always straightforward and never held back his words.
"Never mind all that, it's in the past."
"So what are your plans now? Do you still have money?"
"I still have some, enough to last until next month."
"Oh, speaking of money, you owe 50,000 to a Chinese online payment platform and 40,000 to a Chinese online payment platform, and they're due soon."
"Damn, I can tell from a mile away that Xu Jing spent that money."
Ye Sheng cursed again.
After saying that, he directly pulled out his phone and transferred 100,000 to Chen Su.
"Here, use it for now. Don't think it's a freebie; I'm charging interest!"
After graduating from university, Ye Sheng and Chen Su both joined Tiansheng Group.
After working for two years and gaining some experience, he felt that working a job had no future.
He struck out on his own and has been doing quite well these past few years.
He became a small boss, with over a dozen employees, and his annual income could reach five to six hundred thousand yuan.
Lending Chen Su 100,000 yuan was relatively easy for him.