C1 Divine Collection System!

"Fei, I told you ages ago that Lee Qian was bad news, but you wouldn't listen."

"Look, the proof is in the picture. Admit you were wrong?"

"Just remember what I always say: being a lapdog never ends well!"

On the packed bus, Soong Fei gripped the handrail with a vice-like hold.

His face grew darker as he scrolled through the barrage of WeChat messages from his best friend.

He could never have imagined that the girl he'd been secretly pining for over five years was actually a master manipulator!

His sincere affection had been reduced to being the 'lapdog' his friend warned him about.

The screenshots from his best friend were of Lee Qian's chats with a wealthy heir.

Each sentence about him felt like a needle, piercing through his heart and pride.

"That Soong Fei, what a lapdog!"

"Had it not been for our high school connection, I'd have blocked him long ago..."

"Soong Fei has no money, isn't good-looking, just a country bumpkin. He can't hold a candle to you..."

...

Soong Fei's anger made his face flush.

He was smitten with Lee Qian, yet he never mustered the courage to confess.

His circumstances weren't the best.

Standing at 185 centimeters, he was on the lean side, and his looks were more boyishly charming than traditionally handsome.

Coming from a poor rural family, he barely scraped by each month, relying on part-time jobs to survive without a cent to spare for self-improvement.

Personality-wise, Soong Fei could be slick with words, but at his core, he was kind-hearted and genuine.

Still, he wasn't as hopeless as Lee Qian made him out to be.

Throughout high school and college, a few girls had boldly expressed their feelings for him, all of whom Soong Fei gently turned down.

On one hand, Soong Fei believed in being responsible to those he committed to, and his finances couldn't even cover the cost of dating.

On the other hand, Soong Fei was a one-woman man, always harboring dreams about Lee Qian.

But!

He had never groveled before!

Soong Fei had always played the role of Lee Qian's friend, expertly concealing his affection.

But he never imagined that Lee Qian would speak of him so spitefully behind his back!

It was despicable!

It was maddening!

Soong Fei was livid!

Perhaps due to his overwhelming emotions, he pressed too hard on his phone's screen, which was already cracked like a spiderweb, and it sliced his thumb.

"Ouch! That really hurts..."

The pain was surprisingly intense.

He instinctively looked at his thumb and witnessed something even more bizarre.

The cut was healing at an astonishing rate!

In a flash, the wound vanished, the pain subsided, and the blood that had emerged was nowhere to be found.

It was as if the cut had been nothing but a figment of his imagination.

"Am I just exhausted and seeing things?"

"But wait, there's still a bit of blood on the screen..."

While Soong Fei was puzzling over this, his mind was struck by a sudden realization.

A 3D navigation page that only he could see materialized before his eyes.

"What in the world is this?"

Soong Fei was dumbfounded.

He wondered if the shock had triggered a severe delusion.

Driven by curiosity, Soong Fei's gaze was captured by the semi-transparent virtual navigation.

On the map, the blue marker representing his position halted as the bus reached a stop.

Yet, a red marker indicating an unknown entity was rapidly approaching him!

The closer it got, the more the markers seemed to dance.

The swift pace of the red marker confirmed that the target had boarded the bus.

Very quickly.

The red and blue markers nearly merged!

As the bus resumed its journey, the markers moved in tandem.

Soong Fei had an inkling and turned to look behind him.

What he saw took his breath away!

There stood a girl who could only be described as the epitome of pure allure!

She was quite young, around eighteen or nineteen, with bangs framing her face, bearing a striking resemblance to Jing Chuan. She was dressed in a cartoon T-shirt that was just loose enough to hint at her figure, but the long, graceful legs that extended from her dark brown skirt left no doubt about her impeccable proportions.

Soong Fei was momentarily spellbound.

It wasn't that he hadn't encountered beautiful women before, but being this close to one of such caliber was a first in his life, leaving him understandably flabbergasted.

Just then, two lines of bold text materialized at the top of the virtual screen.

[Approaching target. Please complete collection within one hour!]

[Countdown: 59 minutes 59 seconds...]

Yes!

The red target was none other than this gorgeous lady!

"Gulp~"

Soong Fei swallowed hard.

A perfectly natural physiological response.

The word "collect" couldn't help but send his thoughts down the wrong path!

Next, Soong Fei noticed a small jade wine cup emblem on the girl's wrist.

The emblem was strikingly conspicuous, glowing with a brilliant light!

At that moment, the girl was eyeing Soong Fei with deep suspicion, her gaze laden with intense wariness and revulsion.

She clearly pegged Soong Fei as some kind of creep!

Soong Fei quickly refocused.

His heart was pounding away.

This was excitement!

But don't get it twisted; it wasn't the lady that had his heart racing.

He had every reason to believe he'd stumbled upon what every protagonist in novels and anime seemed to possess: Fortune!

Indeed! Soong Fei was now convinced he had encountered the Fortune of treasure hunting!

It was possible that he was the only one in the entire world who could see and find these concealed rewards!

How else to explain the self-healing and the semi-transparent virtual panel?

And what about the luminous icon that had suddenly appeared on the girl?

Illusion or serendipity, Soong Fei was determined to find out.

He had committed the location of the small wine cup to memory.

His next step was to complete the collection within the hour.

How exactly to collect it was something he'd have to figure out on his own.

Soong Fei inhaled deeply, silently invoking divine favor, and with a resolute heart, he reached out to grab the girl's wrist at the spot he remembered!

He braced himself mentally, ready to claim the bus was too crowded and he'd lost his balance if he was accused of impropriety.

He made the grab!

But wait, something felt off!

Looking down at what he had snatched, Soong Fei realized it wasn't a wine cup at all, but a small plastic object.

Soong Fei had once had the dubious privilege of encountering this object before—it was unmistakably pepper spray!

His heart lurched in alarm.

This was it; Barbie had caught on!

She had grown suspicious of him, and no sooner had he brandished his weapon than it was wrested from his grasp.

In a flash of quick thinking, he spun around, his face earnest with apology, "Sorry, there's been a misunderstanding."

The girl fixed him with a furious glare, "Do you think I'm buying that?"

Soong Fei fought to keep his composure and, without a second thought, handed the pepper spray back to her, "Whether you believe me or not, I still have to say, it's never a mistake to protect yourself when you're out and about. Your vigilance is commendable..."

Her fury spiked, a whopping +99! In a hushed but fierce tone, she commanded, "Let go!"

Though Soong Fei had returned the spray, he had simultaneously seized the girl's wrist firmly.

He responded as if it were the most natural thing, "I'd like to let go, but I can't risk it. What if you spray me?"

The girl's teeth were clenched with anger. "Let go now, or I'll scream!"

[Collection Successful!]

[Skill Acquired from Su Weiwei: Drunk in a Thousand Cups!]