Chapter 10: Today, I’m Choosing To Be Bad With You

The beginning of this summer… already has that certain feeling, doesn’t it?

They didn’t meet, as Lin An once described, through a drama performance at the school evening party.

Instead, they got to know each other in this unexpected way.

Was this a detour in life’s trajectory, quietly being corrected?

“So… will Lin An still die of lung cancer in the future?” The question gave Xia Hua a bit of a headache.

She felt like singing: What can I use to save you!!!

If—just if—Xia Hua thought, “If I change Lin An’s life path, can I prevent that kind of ending?” Maybe the answer is unknown, but Xia Hua felt it was worth a try.

One of the reasons Lin An got lung cancer was the toll of starting his own business—too much hardship, too much exhaustion.

And then he picked up a smoking habit.

At its worst, he went through several packs a day.

So should she keep Lin An away from anything containing nicotine?

No… what really mattered was cutting him off from the root cause—his overly close relationship with her.

Without the stress of their shared start-up journey, the difficulty would be dramatically reduced.

“When I become successful and famous,” “Then you can come and ask me for some shares,” Xia Hua narrowed her eyes and smiled to herself.

It wasn’t that Xia Hua was blindly good to Lin An.

It’s just that—unless you’ve been through those start-up days together—you can’t understand the feeling. Lin An gave it everything he had.

Didn’t he at least deserve a share?

Maybe the lung cancer wasn’t even caused by the smoking.

After all, some people smoke their whole lives and live to a hundred.

The causes of illness are complicated.

Xia Hua just wanted to eliminate what she believed was the biggest contributing factor—what she knew about.

As for whether this world truly existed just to “fulfill Lin An’s wishes after his death,” Xia Hua wasn’t too hung up on it for now. What, was she supposed to sacrifice herself to a tiger or something?

First of all, she didn’t mind high school life right now.

Secondly, she was enjoying this slow-paced ease.

Finally, if she really wanted to test the truth of this world, then she just had to wait—when Lin An eventually dies in that other world, the timing will either confirm or disprove everything.

“Hey, we’re here,” Lin An said quietly from behind her.

“I’m not called ‘hey.’”

“Then are you Chu Yuxun?” Lin An asked, trying to hold back his laughter.

“My name is Xia Hua. Xia as in summer, and Hua with the ‘wood’ radical and the character for flower, though that particular character comes from Japan. It’s mostly used in place names, and doesn’t mean anything special. But my name as a whole has the meaning of ‘living as brilliantly as a summer flower,’” Xia Hua said, stepping behind Lin An as they reached the computer warehouse where a teacher was logging inventory.

So her name was Xia Hua?

At first glance, it sounded a bit… rustic.

Like a name from the countryside.

But the more you thought about it, the more charm it seemed to hold.

Honestly, names rely heavily on looks.

On a pretty girl, it’s “charming.” On a plain girl, it’s “peasant.” And in Lin An’s eyes, Xia Hua was definitely a pleasant beauty to look at.

“She’s my classmate. Came to help out,” Lin An explained to the teacher in charge of the warehouse.

“Oh, I see!” The teacher didn’t seem suspicious.

It was a bit odd to see such a delicate-looking girl among the students doing manual labor, but there wasn’t much of value in the warehouse anyway.

Everything inside was either broken or obsolete—computers and electronics waiting to be scrapped.

The disposal process was too troublesome, so the pile had grown and grown.

Now it had to be cleared out before it completely took over the space.

Once they entered the warehouse, Xia Hua’s eyes lit up.

“Ahahahaha…” she nearly let out a snort-laugh like a pig.

This place was her dreamland.

Hadn’t she been planning to build her own PC lately?

She had already made a list of all the parts she needed.

Lately she’d been scouring online marketplaces and forums looking for the exact components.

“W-what are you laughing at?” Lin An asked suspiciously.

“Haha, nothing!” Xia Hua shook her head and waved him off. “Alright, you go on throwing out those busted computers. I won’t get in your way.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“Oh, nothing…” Xia Hua’s eyes curved into crescent moons.

That smile clearly wasn’t innocent.

Lin An had been assigned to junk disposal duty.

He had no choice but to continue hauling broken machines.

Meanwhile, Xia Hua had already vanished into the depths of the massive warehouse.

It wasn’t just a computer warehouse, actually—it was a general storage space for any school equipment awaiting official disposal.

It used to be an indoor basketball court that had long been abandoned.

Desks, chairs, computers, sports gear—you name it.

And since Xia Hua was probably the only one with treasure-hunting motives, she was especially thorough in her search.

“Huh? What’s this…” She flipped over a nearly-rotted cardboard box.

Inside was an old bulky computer and not just that.

It was one of those large white desktop towers from over twenty years ago, radiating a sense of slowness and lag that just felt heavy.

The next moment, Xia Hua realized she had struck gold.

“Phew~~” she let out a sharp breath when she got a closer look.

It was brand new, never used. Probably a backup unit the school had once purchased but never put into service—technology advanced too fast, and it got left behind.

“If I can manage to sneak this out…”

“At the very least, it’s worth this much.”

She held up one finger. Ten thousand yuan.

Its value was mostly in its rarity and collectability.

Then she opened a storage bin and pulled out a brand-new keyboard, still wrapped in its plastic cover—though the plastic was now coated with a thick layer of dust.

The keyboard inside the plastic cover was definitely brand new.

That was the very keyboard Lin An had treated like a treasure.

In fact, its value far surpassed that of the old desktop computer, because it was based on the original 1989 G80-3000 design.

That series had continued to sell all the way to the present day.

For die-hard fans of the model, it held immense collector’s value.

Xia Hua took the keyboard with her, and then—regretfully but decisively—smashed the desktop.

She had no choice. She couldn’t carry it out anyway.

If she couldn’t have it, then no one else would. Hehe~ o(￣︶￣)o

“I need a monitor,” she muttered, stopping in front of a pile of them and starting to dig through.

But after a moment, she shook her head and walked away.

Monitors, after all, usually had the longest lifespan.

Even in the 2020s, you could still find those bulky CRT monitors kicking around.

So unless one was actually broken beyond use, the school wouldn’t have tossed it in here.

Next, she moved on to the pile of desktop towers.

You could tell how old a school computer was just by looking at its power button.

The cases were all similar, but the power buttons were an era-defining detail.

If it had a full plastic button? Definitely an old machine from years ago.

But if it glowed faintly and had a bit of flair? Then it was from the past few years.

“Usually, the parts that fail in a computer are the motherboard circuits or other internal connections. But 99% of the time, the CPU is still totally fine.”

“There’s a saying, right?”

“As long as you don’t mind the computer being slow…”

“…then the CPU will last until the machine is completely obsolete,” Xia Hua said with a grin.

She pulled out her keys and chose the sharpest one. Then she began unscrewing a few of the newer-looking cases.

There were only two things she was after: the CPU and the RAM.

The motherboards, as previously noted, were basically all dead.

And school computers? They definitely didn’t come with graphics cards.

“This one’s an i3. And this one’s also i3.”

“Basic 4GB RAM… this one too, i3 processor,” Xia Hua muttered as she cracked open one tower after another. She felt like Socrates chasing the next stalk of wheat—always believing the next one would be better.

Finally, her perseverance paid off: an i5.

And not a bottom-tier one either. Just a few years ago, this CPU was still pretty popular.

Too bad they were already up to i9 now, which made the i5 seem outdated.

But hey—if an i3 was good enough for daily office work, then why wouldn’t an i5 be?

“Ahahahahaha!!” Xia Hua burst into a full-on pig-squeal laugh.

“What are you laughing at?” Suddenly, Lin An popped up out of nowhere.

“Damn it!!” She nearly jumped out of her skin.

Already feeling guilty like a thief, Xia Hua had almost leapt up to punch him. Instead, she tossed the i5 processor and two 4GB RAM sticks at him.

“Can you help me sneak these out?”

“Uhh…” Lin An hesitated. “That doesn’t feel right. I mean, we’re not thieves.”

“Oh really? Didn’t you already sneak out a keyboard yourself?” Xia Hua raised an eyebrow.

“That’s different. That keyboard was broken.”

“One question—are you helping me or not?” Xia Hua turned her back to him.

In her hands—hidden behind her back—was a brand new, discontinued Cherry keyboard.

Xia Hua wasn’t even a keyboard enthusiast, so she didn’t really have a use for it.

But the moment she found it, she’d set it aside for Lin An.

Isn’t that what it means to be real friends?

Today, I’m absolutely going down the rabbit hole with you.