Chapter 62: Wealth Beckoning Cat Spirits (1/2)

It was already after nine o’clock at night when we returned to the hotel. Dali’s cold had gotten better. He had been watching TV in the hotel room alone for the whole day and was already bored to tears. When I opened the door, he greeted me as if we hadn’t seen each other for years.

I, on the other hand, had been busy all day. All I could think of was getting some rest. I took a hot shower, then snuggled into bed and watched TV. As I flipped through the channels, I accidentally stopped at a channel that was airing a romance drama. It was right at the moment when the protagonists slipped and fell on top of each other and accidentally kissed.

“Look at how fake that is, dude!” mocked Dali with a big hearty laugh. “If only real life was like these stupid dramas! When will I finally get to fall on a hot girl and kiss her like that?”

“Wouldn’t the girl slap you and hate you if that happened in real life?” I asked.

“Damn right she would, dude!”

My heart sank. But I didn’t understand why.

“There are… exceptions, though,” Dali suddenly remarked.

“What exceptions?” my interest was piqued.

He said that it happened to a buddy of his in high school. One day, a girl accidentally slipped and fell on his lap as he was sitting on a chair in the classroom. It was summer, so the girl was wearing a short skirt uniform. Dali’s buddy had a physiological reaction to that, so what followed was very awkward and embarrassing for both of them.

Their classmates noticed it and ever since then they would make fun of Dali’s buddy for it—calling him ‘Laz-E-Boy’ and all that. But after a while, they found out that the two hit it off and were actually dating!

Dali stared at the ceiling wistfully and lamented, “But that buddy of mine was tall, handsome and a good basketball player too. People even compared him to Takeshi Kaneshiro! It probably wasn’t so surprising that he could get a girlfriend so easily. Ah, life is so unfair!”

As I dried my hair with a towel, I asked him, “Dali, what do you think of my looks?”

Dali stared at me for a moment, and replied, “If you clean up a bit, you look kinda like that K-Pop singer Lu Han. It’s just that, uh…”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I think all of your talents went to your IQ…” Dali analyzed. “Your social skills and emotional intelligence are completely zero, no, actually, they’re in the negative!”

I sighed heavily. Why did everyone say that about me?

“You probably never even noticed it,” Dali added, “but when we were in our second year, Xiaoli had a crush on you. You were none the wiser, of course. Later, Xiaoli started dating this gym monkey and they eventually got into a serious relationship. We all felt sorry for you even though you were completely clueless about it.”

I was shocked. I had always thought of myself as a boring guy destined to be single until at least the age of twenty-five. Who would’ve thought that I would ever catch a girl’s eye?

“Shit, I didn’t notice it at all!” I exclaimed. “Every time I saw her, she was always glaring at me. I ran into her on the stairs once and wanted to say hello, but she quickly turned and ran away. I thought she hated me!”

“Don’t you get it, dude?” asked Dali. “Girls only act awkward and angry around you when they have feelings for you!”

“But… why?”

“Because girls often feel very shy and don’t want to admit that they like you, so their face turns red when they see you.”

“Ah, okay…” Dali’s words really hit home with me.

Dali looked up at the ceiling again and sighed, “I used to be friends with the girls in my class a lot, thinking that it would give me better chances of getting a girlfriend. But none of them ended up with me because they regarded me as a ‘sister!’”

“Don’t worry, Dali. You’ve still got me!” I comforted him.

Dali reached out and patted me, his eyes full of gratitude as he said, “Thanks a lot, bro!”

I lay down in bed and pondered on Dali’s words. “Girls only act awkward and angry around you when they have feelings for you.”