It was not until Charlie had walked into the dormitory building that Elsa came back to herself. Seeing the cash that was still in her hands, she felt frustrated and mumbled to herself, "I wanted to pay the money back! I don't want to owe you! You're annoying!" She stamped her feet, annoyed at him.
Then she walked to her own dormitory building, pouting and drooping her head sulkily. She hadn't taken many steps before she was intercepted by somebody.
"Tell us what your relationship with Charlie is," the girl in front of her asked harshly.
The two girls from earlier, the ones who had tried to give Charlie love letters, were now in her way. Seeing the fierce look from their eyes, she hesitated slightly and then said, "I forgot to take my wallet when I went out for lunch earlier. Charlie helped me by paying for my food. I came to repay him."
The two girls exchanged glances with each other. When their eyes met, they communicated silently and tacitly. Neither of them thought that Elsa was lying. When Charlie was talking to Elsa a while ago, he had his back to the girls. So they couldn't see what had transpired between them at the time. However, they had already seen the cash in Elsa's hand. "You'd better stay away from Charlie. Otherwise, you will become the common enemy of our Charlie Only Society*. You will feel sorry if you cross us."
*TN: A club organized by Charlie's female fans.
After warning Elsa, the two girls looked her up and down. Finding that she had neither the perfect stature nor a pretty face, they snorted and left. Elsa stood rooted to the spot, confused by their warning. She wondered how so many things could go wrong to her in one single day. She was finding it difficult to cope.
When Charlie arrived at his dormitory, his dorky roommate was immersed in reading a book, just as he always did. Charlie was not surprised at all. He was quite familiar with his roommate by now. He handed the food container to him.
Then he sat down in front of his laptop. After glancing at the time indicated at the lower right corner of the screen, he double-clicked the 'Dragon' icon. After entering the interface, he clicked on update. When he was just about to pour himself a cup of water, his cellphone rang.
"Charlie, check the forum! Hurry up!" Evelyn's sly voice came from the other end of the phone.
As he slowly poured the water into his cup, Charlie said, "Not interested."
"Come on!" she tried to tempt him, "I promise you won't regret it!"
From Evelyn's voice, Charlie was sure that something must have happened. As soon as he opened the forum, he saw the hot post which was flickering in yellow and had a red title at the bottom. When the name "Sweet Dream", which was in the title of the post, caught his eyes, he immediately sat straight up.
He opened the post. The host was a new player account, who composed text and also printed screens all by themselves. The post already had more than two thousand replies, making it the hottest post since Dragon had begun.
When the roommate was about to put a spoon of food into his mouth, he suddenly ceased his movements, sensing an unusual aura beside him. Slowly, he turned his eyes to look at Charlie. He could not help but shudder at the chill that was emanating from Charlie. His aura could have frozen over hell.
After skimming through the post as quickly as possible, Charlie typed some characters on the keyboard with his slender fingers. Very soon, he had entered the management interface of Dragon. When he found out the IP of the host, a sneer spilled over his thin lips. The bookworm took a slight peek at him sideways once again and saw his cold sneer by accident. He was so freaked out that he lost his grip on the spoon, which fell onto his desk with a loud clang.
Charlie turned to look at his roommate by instinct. The bookworm pushed his glasses over the bridge of his nose. With an innocent look, he explained, "Sorry, That was careless of me... Careless..."
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