Ethan Bolton was somewhat skeptical and began to ask people one by one, all about borrowing money. It wasn’t that he had no dignity—at this moment, he didn’t care about such things at all. After all, when he cultivated his third eye, he knew he would reach another pinnacle, and before that, so-called friends and brothers truly needed to be understood for who they were. His friendship, Ethan Bolton’s friendship, was not so cheap!

Previously, he borrowed money just for the sake of borrowing—it was merely a test, nothing more!

He asked fourteen male classmates, and not a single one could lend him 500 yuan! All of them were men!

In the end, completely disappointed, Ethan Bolton turned his gaze to the female classmates—those former classmates, more than 50% of whom had once liked him.

Although not many were online at the moment, there were still nine.

This time, when he reached out, it was no longer a matter of dignity or saving face, but had truly become a question of whether these people were worth treating as friends.

“Emily Bennett, could you lend me 500 yuan? I’ll definitely pay you back on the 15th of this month. I’m having a bit of trouble right now.”

“Oh.”

A simple “oh,” a completely perfunctory attitude, and then she disappeared without a trace.

……

“Lily Cooper, could you lend me 500 yuan? I’ll definitely pay you back on the 15th of this month. I’m having some difficulties these days.” Ethan Bolton looked at this girl who had always liked him very much, then sent her a message.

This Lily Cooper was really into online games—Legend, PopKart, Crazyracing Kartrider, Audition, Dungeon & Fighter, and so on—she was totally obsessed. And her favorite thing to do was to find lots of “husbands” in the games, create many alternate accounts, voice chat and video call with others, and ask for equipment and such.

Back then, Ethan Bolton had even bought her at least 2,000 yuan worth of game cards.

“Wait, let me finish killing this monster first.” Lily Cooper replied hurriedly, then continued to be busy.

Thirteen minutes later, she sent another message.

“Aren’t you a famous writer? How could you not have money!” Her tone was full of mockery.

“Well, the subscriptions for my latest novel have been really bad, so my income isn’t good—less than 2,000 yuan this month.” Ethan Bolton didn’t like to lie, so he replied honestly.

“I never read that kind of trash novel you write. I only like Guo Jingming’s decadent and sentimental stories. I told you long ago, there’s no future in writing those kinds of novels. Didn’t you say you made over 30,000 a month before? How come you can’t even come up with 500 now?” Her words were even more arrogant.

“Heh, everyone has their low points. You never know when you’ll hit a slump.”

Acquaintances all over the world, but not a single true friend!

Ethan Bolton laughed at himself, closed the chat window with his last female friend, and then, as if his hand was cramping, deleted everyone he had contacted!

The new version of QQ has a feature that, when you delete a friend, you can also remove yourself from their friend list. Ethan Bolton checked this option and then directly cleared out his QQ friends.

There’s a limit to how many friends you can delete at once and a time restriction, so after deleting about 40 people, Ethan Bolton was ready to just close QQ.

At that moment, on QQ, a penguin icon suddenly started bouncing. The girl with the original black penguin avatar, called ‘Grace’, made Ethan Bolton’s heart skip a beat.

Chapter 5 Grace

This girl had a rather difficult past. Before the first year of high school, she was very beautiful. Her father owned a brick factory and the family was very wealthy. But in her second year, her father went to a casino with someone and lost everything—not only all their savings and the shares in the brick factory, but also racked up 1.3 million yuan in gambling debt.

Later, they sold their house, car, furniture, jewelry, and so on, scraped together 1.3 million to pay off the debt, and were left penniless. Her father ended up working as a laborer on construction sites, and her mother became a housekeeper for others.

As for her, because of the family’s dramatic rise and fall, and being traumatized by being kidnapped by loan sharks, she was devastated. Her grades plummeted, and to make matters worse, she was slashed on the face in a revenge attack by gangsters, leaving a terrifying scar.

After that, Ethan Bolton and she had almost no contact. The only reason he had her number was because she had added Ethan Bolton herself in the class group.

“Are you having some trouble? I work at a factory making electronics. I started last month, and this month’s salary won’t be paid until the 15th. I already sent my previous wages home for my younger brother’s school. But I borrowed 2,000 yuan from some fellow townspeople. Give me your account number, and I’ll transfer money to you now via online banking. If it’s not enough, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. It’s almost 10 p.m. now, so most people aren’t around. I’ll help you borrow more, but you might have to wait a while. I just wanted to let you know first, in case you log off in a bad mood.”

On the other end, Grace quickly sent a message.

Slightly stunned, Ethan Bolton suddenly smiled. This feeling—perhaps only those who have experienced it can truly understand.