Chen Xiao was going out of his mind. He said sternly, "Ladies, I just moved in today!"
One of the women said, "Of course we know you moved in today. We never see anyone around here. But you moving in today has nothing to do with whether or not you owe property fees!"
"No, I mean the deed to this house was just transferred to me!"
"Tch. Keep making things up. The property registration says Chen Xiao... Do you take us for idiots? The few times we managed to get you on the phone, you never said the house was just transferred. You always said you had no money. You have to pay the property fees today. If you don't, we'll take legal action!"
Seeing they weren't faking it, Chen Xiao couldn't help but ask the system, "Hey, big bro, what's going on?"
After a long moment, it replied, "...An error occurred while modifying the program. The previous owner was also named Chen Xiao. I took a few shortcuts when updating the information. Even the wisest make mistakes. The Host will be compensated."
'Damn it, is that all?' he thought. 'Are you reliable at all? And what kind of compensation are we talking about?'
Chen Xiao felt helpless. He looked at the two women and said, "Alright, alright, how much is it? I'll pay. You don't have to be in such a rush. How much can property fees possibly be?"
The woman looked at him with disdain and muttered, "Not much? You've been dragging it out for years!"
Then she opened her WeChat payment QR code. "2,000 yuan. Scan this and pay me."
Chen Xiao had no way to explain himself. He could only take the fall for the system's screw-up. He pulled out his phone to scan the code, but the result was embarrassing: insufficient funds!
Before getting the system, Chen Xiao had been a conservative spender. He was always skeptical about the security of linking bank cards to his phone, so he usually carried some cash for small expenses and kept a few hundred yuan in his WeChat Wallet.
His income wasn't high, and he had no major expenses. He rarely spent more than a thousand yuan at a time. If he needed to, it was always planned in advance, and he would withdraw the cash early.
"Um, insufficient funds..."
The woman glanced at his phone, her tone dripping with contempt. "More than insufficient, it's severely insufficient. 12.80 yuan? You can't even pay the water bill with that, let alone the property fee!"
Then she added, "We take cash, too!"
Chen Xiao dug through his pockets but only found a little over 300 yuan. Finally, he said sheepishly, "Could I trouble you to come back tomorrow? I'll go get the money then!"
"No way. We're settling this today. Who knows if we'll be retired by the time we see you again!"
'They have absolutely zero trust in people,' Chen Xiao thought. It felt like a scholar meeting a soldier—reasoning was useless!
Just as he was getting frustrated, a clear voice came from across the hall. "How much is it? I can pay for you first. You can give it back to me after you withdraw the money. It's getting late, and all this noise is disturbing the neighbors."
Chen Xiao followed the voice and saw a young woman across the hall with large, dark, and bright eyes, watching them quietly. She was the one who had just spoken.
With someone willing to come to his rescue, Chen Xiao breathed a sigh of relief and quickly said, "Thank you. I'll give it back to you tomorrow when I get home."
The girl took out her wallet, counted out 2,000 yuan in cash for the property management woman, and said, "What a coincidence, I just happened to withdraw some cash today."
Seeing the money, the property manager's face instantly lit up. "Miss, you're so kind. But I suggest you get his contact information, just in case you can't find him later."
Chen Xiao quickly pulled out his phone. "Right, let's add each other. That way it'll be easier for me to pay you back tomorrow!"
The girl replied, "That's not necessary. Just knock on my door tomorrow at 7:00 PM. I'm always home in the evenings."
'She's that cold?' Chen Xiao thought. 'She won't even add me as a contact, even when it's so I can pay her back?' He didn't want to make things more awkward, so he just nodded, said his thanks, and they all went back to their respective apartments.
The next day, a series of happy events greeted Chen Xiao as soon as he arrived at the office, sweeping away the gloom from the previous night.
It was payday. Chen Xiao's monthly salary was 8,000 yuan, with a 2,000 yuan performance bonus. Normally, he wouldn't have received the full bonus, but in light of his outstanding performance, Feng Feifei had instructed HR at the last minute to give him the full amount.
[DING! You have received a performance bonus of 2,000 yuan this month. Diligence Reward coefficient: 4. Diligence Reward amount: 8,000 yuan. Deposited into your Huaxia Bank Card!]
[DING! Your transportation subsidy of 400 yuan from last month has been received. Diligence Reward coefficient: 4. Diligence Reward amount: 1,600 yuan. Deposited into your Huaxia Bank Card!]
Chen Xiao was starting to understand the system's definition of "bonus." It seemed to classify all income besides his base salary as a bonus!
Watching the nonstop notifications of deposits pop up on his phone, Chen Xiao had never felt so loaded. Remembering last night's predicament, he quickly linked his bank card to WeChat to avoid any similar embarrassing incidents.
The office was noticeably livelier today. New employees were constantly arriving. Now that Feng Feifei had solved the funding issues, her swift and decisive nature meant that talent recruitment, project development, and other tasks were all accelerating.
Chen Xiao was no longer following up on the equipment for Bai Lu's side of things; Feng Feifei had already made arrangements. Bored stiff, Chen Xiao looked around and wondered if he should move his desk to the far corner. If he didn't move now, it would be inconvenient to do so after the new people arrived.
'As for why he wanted to move? It would be more convenient for the occasional gaming session,' he mused. His current spot was fine with fewer people around, but once the office filled up, it would reflect poorly on him.
He was a man of action. As he was packing his things, Xia Yun happened to walk by and asked curiously, "Chen Xiao, what are you doing?"
"Switching desks. The lighting in the corner isn't great, so I'll take it. Let's give the spot with good lighting to a new colleague!" Chen Xiao said with a perfectly straight face.
"Oh, how thoughtful of you. Already looking out for new colleagues, not bad! But you know, you'll probably have to move again before long!"
Chen Xiao didn't know what she meant. Xia Yun just gave him a mysterious smile and returned to the finance office.
Just as he finished moving, Chen Xiao's phone rang. He picked it up and saw it was his mom.
"Hello... Mom!"
"Chen Xiao! Your dad and I came to Jiangzhou today. We'll wait for you to get off work so we can have dinner together!"
"Oh... okay!" Chen Xiao hung up, wondering why his parents would come at this time. Since he'd be seeing them that evening anyway, he didn't ask any further questions.
After work, Chen Xiao headed straight for the Jinji Hotel. Jinji was a mid-to-high-end business hotel, simple and clean. His parents always liked to stay there whenever they came to Jiangzhou.
When he entered the room, Father Chen was alone, drinking kung fu tea. Seeing his son, he said, "Xiaoxiao, you're here. Was work tiring?"
Chen Xiao was exasperated. His dad always insisted on calling him Xiaoxiao, even though he wasn't a little kid anymore. But his dad was stubborn about it, so he had no choice but to accept it.
"It was alright. My arm's a little sore, though!"
"Look at you. Don't you just sit in an office? How did your arm get tired? You should still get up and move around once in a while, stretch your limbs. Don't just keep your head down and work nonstop!" his mother chided with concern.
Chen Xiao just smiled and didn't explain. 'How could I get up and move around? We were in a group raid! Everyone was completely focused. If I stood up to stretch and we got wiped, wouldn't I get chewed out?'
It was a good thing he didn't explain. Given his parents' lifelong, diligent work ethic, he wasn't sure they wouldn't disown him out of a sense of justice.