Liu Chen sat in the English classroom on the 22nd floor. Unlike the Chinese classroom earlier, the English classroom was noticeably larger. A beautiful, mature woman in her early thirties stood at the front, wearing thick-soled high heels and light blue eyeshadow.
Her attire was the epitome of contemporary fashion.
Following the seating arrangement from the previous class, Liu Chen took a seat on the second row, by the wall. Unlike the Chinese teacher, the English teacher offered a brief self-introduction, stating she could be called Teacher Wang.
Just as she finished, the classroom door was pushed open.
"Excuse me, teacher, I'm late."
All six students in the class subconsciously turned their gaze toward the door, following the teacher's line of sight. They saw a handsome young man with his bangs wet with sweat, plastered to his forehead.
Liu Chen also saw him and found Ren Mo's sweaty appearance a little odd. Both classrooms were on the same floor, and although there was only a ten-minute break between classes, it shouldn't have been so urgent, right?
However, a habit honed by years as a salesperson prompted Liu Chen to nod and smile at Ren Mo in greeting, after all, they were classmates in the cram school.
The seating was still open, with the seats next to and behind Liu Chen empty. Ren Mo walked to the seat behind Liu Chen and sat down.
"Alright, let's continue."
"Pay attention, the sentence structure here..."
Although it was a foundational review class, it still leaned towards explaining grammatical structures and a large number of short sentence patterns.
When class ended, Teacher Wang handed out ten sheets of printed English words. As they were passed around, she said, "The words on these ten sheets almost cover the basic vocabulary for the college entrance exam. Starting next class, we will have a quiz of 30 words every lesson."
"Ah... Teacher Wang... beautiful Teacher Wang~" Some more outgoing students began to wail, attempting to gain leniency through flattery.
Teacher Wang, however, was unyielding. While packing her water cup, she smiled good-naturedly and said, "Thirty words, not one less. I'll gradually increase the number of words to be written as we progress. Don't whine; you'd be better off using this time to memorize a few more words."
Upon receiving the ten sheets, Liu Chen felt a surge of nervousness. But years of sales experience had taught her that pushing her efforts to the extreme would always yield results. With this thought, her mindset calmed.
The teacher had already left the classroom. The students were in a hurry to leave, some rushing to their next cram class, others to catch the elevator. There were only two elevators in this building, and if one was slow, they'd have to wait twenty minutes for an elevator.
Liu Chen mentally reviewed the content of the class as she expressionlessly carried her bag to change classrooms.
The math teacher was a stern old man, barely over 1.6 meters tall, dressed in a shirt and suit pants. During class, if anyone secretly played with their phone, he would throw chalk, and he never missed.
The biology teacher was a rather ordinary middle-aged man who lectured according to his lesson plan. He paid no mind to the students chattering below, giving off the impression of teaching for the money and then leaving.
After four consecutive classes, Liu Chen felt a slight throbbing in her head. Even the action of packing her pens was slower than during the first class.
The two evening classes were scheduled to start at five and end at six-thirty. It would be too late to get home and have dinner by seven. Liu Chen decided to go downstairs. Adjacent to the bookstore was a large department store. Unlike the spacious atrium malls of the future, most department stores of this era lacked atriums, with densely packed counters occupying the entire floor space.
On the first floor of the department store, there was a KFC. During meal times, most restaurants in the vicinity were packed. Liu Chen bought a burger and took it upstairs to the physics classroom for her next class.
Ren Mo watched Liu Chen enter the KFC. He then quickly told his two close friends that he was starving and wanted to eat KFC. Before he could even join the queue, he saw Liu Chen emerge from the back door with a takeaway KFC and head into the bookstore.
Sitting by the window in the classroom, Liu Chen slowly finished her hamburger. She then rested her head on her desk, pretending to nap, but in her mind, she was calling out to the system, "Start ten consecutive draws, complete them all."
A colorful roulette wheel appeared before her eyes, displaying the number 68 in the center. Then, the wheel began to spin.
The wheel stopped, and the pointer landed on a red section, which occupied only one percent of the area. The wheel then erupted with a brilliant firework display.
"Permanently gained one point in memory, current memory 65+1, which is ordinary memory."
Permanently gained one point in memory? What did that mean? Hmm, but calling it ordinary memory felt like underestimating me.
Suppressing her excitement, she watched the wheel spin again.
"Received one hundred cash."
"Received one hundred cash."
"..."
Nine hundred cash was neatly stacked to the side.
Then came another ten consecutive draws.
Liu Chen anxiously watched the pointer on the roulette wheel, silently chanting in her heart: Memory! Memory!
This time, the pointer landed on a light pink square. A pink headband, adorned with a small diamond bow, flew out of the square and stopped in front of Liu Chen.
"Received one pink headband. Note: When wearing this headband, cuteness increases by one."
Cuteness increases by one?
This time it didn't mention the current cuteness value.
"Received one hundred cash."
"Received one hundred cash."
"..."
Another nine hundred cash.
The subsequent forty draws yielded a smooth, ever-writing neutral pen, a pair of white socks that never seemed to get dirty, a superiorly insulated thermos cup, and even a perfectly fitting bra...
In addition to three thousand six hundred cash, combined with the previous one thousand eight hundred, this time a total of five thousand four hundred cash was drawn, along with a permanent one-point increase in memory, a headband, a pen, a pair of socks, a thermos cup, and a bra.
---
Liu Juan sat with disheveled hair on a dilapidated bus. She had to flee with her daughter. She could no longer stay in C City. The people from the Macau casino who were chasing her for money were relentless and inescapable.
Millions in gambling debt – how could she, a woman who had lost her shop, house, and car, possibly repay it?
Just as she let out a sigh of relief, she saw Chao Ge boarding the bus through the front door.
At that moment, she utterly loathed that girl, Liu Chen!