Chapter 5: As Expected of Me…

Around 9:30 PM, Xia Hua clocked out on the dot.

Her part-time shift had officially come to an end for the day.

Inside a slightly messy room, a girl twisted her body into awkward positions, gritting through intense physical exertion.

Sweat dripped from her forehead as she performed advanced movements, her tense muscles trembling visibly.

“Ugh!! Aah!! ~~”

“Eight, nine, ten…” Xia Hua counted through clenched teeth.

When she finally finished a set of planks, she collapsed straight onto the floor.

This fat-burning workout really felt inhuman.

She was only just getting started on managing her figure.

She wasn’t fat. Seriously. At 168 cm tall and 115 jin (57.5 kg), she was well within the healthy weight range.

It was just… a bit of baby fat.

And maybe a bit on the curvier side.

In short—she had some “shape.”

Her goal was to slim down to around 96–98 jin (48–49 kg).

Only then, she figured, could she carve out the abs she dreamed of—her ideal “beauty figure.”

Yes, a beauty figure. Completely different from a healthy figure.

What does a healthy set of abs look like?

Definitely not skin and bones. It’s a beauty that still holds a sense of physical fullness.

Lean, but strong. That kind of healthy.

After finishing a set of burpees, Xia Hua was sprawled on the ground like a corpse.

“Nope. That’s it for today—I’m done!” she groaned. She honestly couldn’t move a single muscle more.

“Summer break isn’t far off now. I’ll work on the online shop then. Until then, I can lay the groundwork—and get my figure in shape first.”

“Even though I know… I shouldn’t be so obsessed with appearances.”

“But come on, this fat’s on me, isn’t it?”

“If it were on you?”

“I’d be showering you with compliments—telling you how pretty, how beautiful, how you’re the most ridiculously cute creature in the whole universe…”

The floor was rough, unfinished concrete.

Even the air sometimes carried strange odors.

That was because Xia Hua lived on the ground floor or more accurately, in a garage.

Not an underground garage, but one of those old roll-up-door garages you find in aged apartment complexes.

She wasn’t well-off. She couldn’t afford a multi-bedroom apartment.

Xia Hua chose not to live in the school dorms.

The dorms were strictly supervised, and she’d have zero chance to slip out and work part-time jobs to fund her little savings account.

This garage—roughly 20 square meters—cost her 200 yuan in rent.

Which meant she could earn it back in just two or three days of part-time work.

In this older neighborhood, garage-converted rooms like this were common.

They were often rented out to elderly people while their kids lived upstairs in the high-rises.

No one found it unusual.

Xia Hua had only been able to rent this one so cheaply because the old man who used to live here had passed away.

The landlord couldn’t find another tenant, so they gave Xia Hua a bargain deal.

People can be superstitious—honestly, even if Xia Hua had asked for an even lower price, the landlord probably would’ve still wanted her to stay.

The hope was that having someone live here would drive out the bad luck left behind by the old man’s death. It just needed a bit of “human energy” over time.

Xia Hua’s eyes gleamed.

She murmured, “There’s another garage next door for motorcycles… Should I ask the landlord if I can rent that too? The price can’t be too high though—definitely not more than 150.”

“If I could talk them down to 100, that’d be perfect.”

“I could use it as storage once I start the online shop.”

“But that won’t happen until summer break. It feels like a waste of money until then… Still, if I don’t grab it now, I think someone else’s gonna rent it soon to store their junk.”

“My assets are way too thin…”

“……”

Xia Hua let out a sigh.

She had just over 9,800 yuan to her name—the sum of years of penny-pinching and frugal living.

It wasn’t enough to make life good, but it kept her from looking completely desperate.

And what could she even do with that money?

Opening an online shop required a 1,000-yuan deposit right off the bat.

Even a modest inventory order would eat up several thousand more.

Then there were all the operation costs—ads, logistics. It was like tossing water into a burning house.

She had once said this was the age of post-modern e-commerce.

And what defined e-commerce in this age?

You either burn money to build a storefront, or you find a viral hit—and even then, that might only last you a few months.

Three months, tops. After that, the market’s flooded with copycats.

In short, one word described e-commerce now: hard.

With that thought, Xia Hua furrowed her brow again and muttered, “Damn it all. I haven’t even factored in the cost of a computer, an internet connection, printing and shipping equipment, or the courier deposit…”

“Ahhhhhhh…”

“So annoying!!!”

“Ugh, whatever. Just wash up and sleep.”

In the corner of the garage apartment, there was a tiny bathroom.

Everything—eating, drinking, sleeping, bathing—happened in this one room.

Thankfully, Xia Hua was still someone who cared about hygiene.

Her bed could be messy, sure, but the bathroom?

That had to be cleaned almost daily.

Otherwise, how could anyone live like this?

Under the harsh glow of a pale-white energy-saving bulb, Xia Hua looked miserable.

She was nearsighted. Over 500 degrees.

She had left her glasses on the nightstand outside while showering, so now, in the broken half-mirror on the wall, all she could make out was a faint, pale figure—just clear enough to make her breathing quicken.

Then there were those things on her chest. At first, they’d seemed funny. Novel, even.

But once she got used to them being there, they just felt like a burden.

Earlier, when she was doing those fat-burning planks, she realized: it felt like she had weights dangling from her chest. Like trying to do pushups with a backpack strapped to the front of your body.

And don’t even get started on the sweat. Those who know, know.

“Ughhhh~~” She stepped out of the cramped bathroom, finally breathing a sigh of relief. “Finally saved. Even in the middle of summer, a cold shower still feels like I’m melting.”

“And now I’ve gotta use the hairdryer…”

“Emmmmm!”

Xia Hua pulled out the tiny, low-powered dryer and was already sweating again.

After a moment of cool-headed analysis and deep contemplation, she came to a firm conclusion: “Forget it. We’re done here. It’s summer. You expect me to sit here blow-drying my hair for half an hour? I’d rather die.”

“Isn’t a fan good enough?”

“Or just let it air-dry naturally?”

Air-drying was nice—refreshing, even. The only downside was that her hair would end up all dry and frizzy.

With the old fan left behind by the previous tenant blowing on her, Xia Hua sat down to work on her homework. Mostly mock exams. She always thought memorization for Chinese class was the hardest—at least until she actually sat down to do the work.

That’s when she realized: Nothing was easy.

Her grades had always been average.

She only got into college by sheer dumb luck—barely scraping into a second-tier university.

“Hoo~” Xia Hua let out a long sigh.

As she flipped through her textbooks and jotted down problem-solving steps, flashes of clarity lit up in her eyes.

She smiled and muttered, “But now that I’m relearning this stuff, it’s not as hard as I remembered. English, for example—I already passed CET-4. As for the other subjects…”

“This knowledge has already been stored somewhere in my brain.”

“Knowledge is like wine.”

“When you first learn it, everything’s fuzzy and confusing.”

“But after it’s aged in your mind for years, the things that once didn’t make sense—go through them again, and they’re easier to understand. Hahaha, I really am a genius. As expected of me…”

Well, that’s what she told herself.

Other people might master it all on the first try.

But if you need years of mental aging just to get it?

Maybe it’s not exactly a badge of honor.

Xia Hua had long stopped forcing herself when it came to academics.

She was only aiming to put in some honest effort.

Just enough to make that barely-passing second-tier university score feel a little less painful.

985, 211?

She wasn’t going to torture herself anymore.

If you weren’t born with the fate of a top-tier student, don’t go catching the illness of trying to be one.

Just having a university to attend—Xia Hua was already content with that.