Su Yan once again sighed inwardly—of this ten thousand yuan, it was likely that five thousand of it was thanks to the coach’s looks alone.
With a coach like this to feast your eyes on every day, even if it were more expensive, there would still be a bunch of young girls lining up to throw money at him.
The guy sitting over there was pretty good-looking too, with a youthful, energetic vibe.
He glanced at Su Yan, and while putting on his boxing gloves, he grinned and said, “A new student, huh? I didn’t expect anyone would even find this dump.”
Su Yan secretly grumbled to herself—exactly!
Who knows how that boss managed to make a prime store next to a school feel like a hidden spot in a deep alley?
Once the two finished putting on their gloves, Chu Yi turned to Su Yan.
“We’ll spar using Combat Technique I. You just watch, you don’t need to learn anything yet—just get a sense of it.”
Su Yan nodded, focusing intently as the two started fighting.
Both of them fought with real force behind their punches, the kind you could practically feel.
But Su Yan wasn’t really paying attention to that—she didn’t know much about fighting anyway, only that it looked impressive.
What she mainly noticed was that this Chu Yi really did have a poker face.
Whenever the other guy got hit, he’d show some kind of pained expression, but from start to finish, Chu Yi looked completely calm and stoic.
But thinking about it more carefully, it seemed like Chu Yi barely got hit at all.
With that in mind, she couldn’t really call him poker-faced—at the very least, one thing was clear, Chu Yi was a very confident person.
During the match, Su Yan could clearly sense his focus—wherever he aimed, he struck.
But that actually fit Chu Yi’s vibe perfectly; Su Yan really couldn’t imagine what his face would look like if he ever bared his teeth and made a silly face.
After a while, the match was over.
Even though Su Yan didn’t know the first thing about fighting, she could tell Chu Yi was basically dominating the guy—the other guy barely had any chance to fight back.
The young man sat on the ground, rubbing his wrist with a wry smile.
“Man, you really don’t give me any face at all. There’s a new person here, can’t you let me win a little?”
Chu Yi picked up a towel to wipe off his sweat, giving a short laugh at the guy’s complaint but otherwise ignoring him.
He turned to Su Yan.
“Go work out today. Tomorrow I’ll teach you the basics of fighting stances.”
After saying that, he picked up the walkie-talkie and called Zheng Liqiu over to take Su Yan to the gym.
Only then did Su Yan realize in surprise—there was even a small gym inside!
With this kind of setup, Su Yan felt like her ten thousand yuan was definitely well spent.
Two days of training went by quickly.
Other than feeling exhausted, Su Yan didn’t really feel any different.
In Chu Yi’s words, her little body wouldn’t be able to fight anyone even if she learned the techniques, unless she trained first.
At the end of the month, Su Yan opened the Childhood Variety Show app with a heavy heart.
To her relief, Xiao Ya wasn’t there.
But based on past experience, Su Yan figured Xiao Ya would probably show up soon, so she quickly opened the Followers page, planning to take a quick look at her growth and then leave.
“37749.”
After a full episode, her followers had already reached nearly forty thousand—an astonishing number.
Su Yan finally felt a bit more at ease.
If her growth kept up like this, she’d probably reach 50% soon.
Just as she was about to put her phone down, suddenly, a devilish, deep voice echoed faintly, “Master, where do you think you’re going?”
Su Yan’s finger, hovering over the close button, paused instinctively.
But that tiny pause made her miss the best chance to pretend she hadn’t heard anything.
Even though her mind was screaming at her to pretend she hadn’t heard Xiao Ya and just turn off her phone, reason stopped her.
She had obviously heard it, and shutting off the phone directly would look really bad.
After all, the two of them would probably have to work together for a long time—if she offended Xiao Ya now, she’d definitely suffer for it later.
She put on a standard smile, feigning surprise as she said, “Ah! Xiao Ya, you’re online? I was just regretting that I wouldn’t get to see you this time!”
Xiao Ya was completely unmoved by Su Yan’s sweet talk, letting out a cold laugh, “A great man once said, ‘Beware of sugar-coated bullets.’ I don’t see a bit of regret in you, Master. I bet you did something guilty and just didn’t want to run into me!”
Su Yan’s mind raced, and she finally found a way in.
She bit her lower lip, putting on a wronged expression, “Xiao Ya, you’ve changed. You never used to mock me like this! Weren’t we supposed to be each other’s angels?”
If it were any random Earthling, they’d probably just sneer right back at Su Yan.
But Xiao Ya, who grew up on Nick Star, had never seen anything like this and immediately started to panic.
“I… I didn’t! I was just a little mad, that’s all.”
Su Yan had finally managed to get the upper hand, so how could she let this perfect opportunity slip by?
“I thought we could be friends, but just because of one little thing, you’re saying such mean things to me.”
Xiao Ya looked like she was about to cry from anxiety, “I didn’t! I was wrong, Master, don’t be sad! I won’t say anything anymore!”
Su Yan kept pushing, “Then, to make up for your mistake this time, you can’t treat me like that ever again.”
Xiao Ya quickly nodded, promising, “I won’t ever do it again.”
Su Yan finally nodded in satisfaction, mercifully letting Xiao Ya off the hook, “Alright then, I’m going to check how my post is doing now.”
At this point, Xiao Ya suddenly realized something was off.
This whole thing… didn’t seem like it was her fault at all, right?
Why was it that she had come to demand an explanation, but in the end, she was the one apologizing so humbly?
“Ahhh! Master, you’re too mean! I’m never speaking to you again!”
Xiao Ya puffed up her cheeks in anger, then immediately logged off, as if she was afraid of being tricked again.
Su Yan smiled, eyes full of amusement.
Oh my, she actually caught on!
She started seriously considering how to coax this little cutie next time they met—maybe she could send her some candy to try?
Thinking this, Su Yan opened the post interface.
By now, the comments under her post were completely different from when she’d just posted it.
The top comment was still from Hehe-kun, the same as before, but now all the replies below it were full of apologies—everyone was feeling bad for wrongly blaming him.
They had thought Hehe-kun was just a contrarian, but who would have guessed that the real problem was actually this guest’s behavior?
Besides that, there were a few other highly-liked comments.
“If you dare to tell ghost stories, then don’t you dare leave us hanging!”
“Bamboo shoots! I could’ve had a good night’s sleep!”
“I thought I was getting a gentle big sister, but now I finally understand how sinister this post really was.”
As expected, Su Yan calmly shut off her phone.
Looks like everyone really liked this storytelling format, so she could try it again next time.
With such a fulfilling life, a month passed by in the blink of an eye.
When she opened the app again, it was already time for Su Yan to record her second episode.
Xiao Ya seemed to have completely recovered her mood, and greeted Su Yan warmly, “Master! Long time no see. It’s time for your second show recording!”
Su Yan nodded.
Since she had already experienced it once, she skilfully tapped her way into the phone.
As soon as her finger touched the screen, the same envelope as last time popped open, with just three simple characters on it—”Hide and Seek.”
Once inside the space, Su Yan looked at her avatar.
Her outfit this time wasn’t much different from last time; she hadn’t changed her style just because the last instance was “Colour Crossing.”
Su Yan wasn’t a fool.
She knew that with the same kind of instance, it was impossible for her to get the same scenario twice, so this time definitely wouldn’t be “Colour Crossing.”
Since it wasn’t that kind of scenario, there was no need to dress up to match the instance’s flavor.
Hide and seek, huh? That was a game she played a lot as a kid.
She wondered if it would be the guests hiding and seeking each other, or if there would be something else involved.
She’d barely thought about it for a few seconds when the countdown began.
Swoosh.
Swoosh.
As soon as time was up, Su Yan felt a wave of dizziness, and the next moment, she entered the instance.
As usual, the first step was to observe her surroundings.
There were a few other guests around her, but it seemed like there weren’t many this time.
With a glance, Su Yan counted—there were only ten people in total, including herself.
They were in a large hall, which looked like an office lobby.
Other than these few guests, there was no one else—there wasn’t even a Host.
Su Yan was a bit confused at first, unsure of their situation.
But she quickly realized—the theme this time was hide and seek.
Although she didn’t know exactly what kind of hide and seek it would be, or whether the rules meant they would hide from each other or search for hidden people, either way, her best move now was to get familiar with the map as quickly as possible.
With that thought, Su Yan immediately started exploring.
The map for this instance wasn’t big—much smaller than the last one.
It was just an office area, but besides the main hall, there were a few small rooms as well.
At the same time, most of the other guests still hadn’t realized what was going on.
To them, this was probably just the prep time before the game started.
Of course, a few sharp ones had already quietly slipped away from the group to check out the other rooms.
Even if it was just prep time, it shouldn’t be wasted—using your time wisely is how you gain an advantage in the game.
After leaving one of the offices, Su Yan ran right into a young man.
He was really tall, probably close to 1.9 meters, and his proportions were great—he looked like a model.
Su Yan craned her neck to look up at him, silently sizing him up.
If he was here now, he was probably exploring the map too.
A smart one—maybe they could work together later.
But the man didn’t seem interested in talking.
He just nodded at her and slipped into the room.
Since he wasn’t looking to chat, Su Yan didn’t want to waste time either, and immediately headed to the next room.
After she finished exploring the entire office floor, Su Yan already had a basic understanding of the whole map.
The office area was divided into four sections: one was a storage room, one was the office she had just visited, one was the mission hall, and the last part was another computer room.
The layout wasn’t complicated, but none of the rooms were especially tidy—the storage room and the hall were particularly messy.
After finishing her tour, Su Yan returned to the office.
It was only after walking around that she realized this was the easiest place to find clues.
Why was that?