I was approached by a cat-eared girl.

"Alright, stop whining and get back to your work. There are many benefits to learning, the simplest being that the more you learn, the more money you can earn."

"I've already earned so much money."

"how many?"

"More than two million."

"Did you earn that? You clearly found it."

At this point, Chen Shuo changed his tone and said, "Even if you earned it, you earned it by luck. All money earned by luck will eventually be lost by your own efforts. Even if you use it to buy a house now and won't lose it, you can't have this kind of good luck every day, right?"

Have you heard the story of "waiting for a rabbit to run into a tree stump"? A farmer finished his farm work and was resting against a tree stump when suddenly a rabbit ran into the stump and died. The farmer picked up the rabbit and took it home to eat.

After eating the rabbit, the farmer thought that rabbits must be running into the tree stump and dying every day, so he stopped farming and started sleeping against the tree stump every day, hoping to encounter the next rabbit that would run into the tree stump and die.

As a result, no more rabbits ran into the tree trunks, the fields became barren, and the farmers starved to death.

This story teaches people not to dream of getting something for nothing, nor to think about making money by luck. Earning money through hard work is the most reliable way; there are no free lunches.

"But you might fall into a trap."

Bai Xiaoqi added, biting her pencil stub, "This guy initially provided me with food and lodging, took care of me, taught me knowledge, and helped me with everything. It seemed like a windfall, but it was actually a trap."

She foolishly jumped into the trap, and now she does his laundry and cooks for him every day, gets bullied by him every day, and will have to have his children in the future.

Moreover, she jumped in voluntarily; she offered herself up to him in the first place.

She felt like that silly rabbit; Chen Shuo was sleeping against a tree stump, and then she bumped into it on her own.

"That's right, there are traps. You need to stay vigilant so you won't be foolish enough to get scammed when you go out in the future."

"Only you would lie to me, but you can't actually lie to me. Many times you think you've lied to me, but you haven't actually lied to me at all. It's just that I make you think you've lied to me."

"What do you mean by 'you think I think'? You're playing a game of cat and mouse. Hurry up and do your homework."

Chapter 205

Time does not move forward at a constant speed in a straight line, but rather at varying speeds. Similarly, things in the world are not static, but rather sometimes calm and uneventful, and sometimes unexpected little surprises or special circumstances arise.

Just like now that it's November, it seems like autumn hasn't really passed and winter has already arrived, and the temperature has suddenly dropped. Just like the videos that Bai Xiaoqi has been consistently posting on Douyin, which were clearly only half-dead, she suddenly became popular.

It all started with some bored influencer. They somehow had all the free time in the world, watched all of Bai Xiaoqi's videos, edited and processed them, and then made a video and posted it online.

Then this ridiculous video inexplicably went viral, and many people flocked to leave comments under Bai Xiaoqi's other videos.

Many people say these videos are the most boring in history, but I disagree. Nearly a thousand videos have no faces, no voices, and no editing. The video content is uninteresting, and the titles are also unoriginal.

It seems boring, but she posts these boring videos every day, sometimes more than a dozen a day, and she enjoys it immensely.

And every single one of her videos is related to her boyfriend. If this isn't love, what is? I think these videos... well, they are really boring.

It's obvious she really likes her boyfriend.

It's clear she really enjoys posting videos.

It's clear she really enjoys making videos.

It's clear she really enjoys writing headlines.

It's obvious she really enjoys posting on Douyin.

.........

As Chen Shuo scrolled through these comments, he suddenly burst out laughing. It was clear that these silly netizens were really interesting.

As for Bai Xiaoqi, she was already unhappy about being teased by such a group of people, and when she saw him still laughing beside her, she immediately pouted, "What are you laughing at? You're not allowed to laugh."

"I'm happy for you. Look how popular you are now!"

"I became famous, but my videos didn't."

"You've posted nearly a thousand videos, how did you become popular?" Chen Shuo asked rhetorically. "Besides, those videos of yours are indeed... well, there's not much content, you could say they're all the same. People just flip through the titles and pick a few to watch. But anyway, you've become popular, which is better than before."

"It's not as good as before. That person's videos are popular, but mine aren't. I don't earn much money, and a bunch of people make fun of me in the comments section."

Thinking about it this way, Bai Xiaoqi became even more unhappy and felt a little upset that others were using her videos to create buzz and then making money from them.

Although many people flocked to watch his videos, it didn't increase the number of views much; it just got more likes and a lot of comments that joked about him.

“I understand how you feel. It’s one thing that you posted the video yourself and no one watched it, but then someone edited and edited it, added some funny captions, and suddenly it went viral. You think that’s unfair, right?”

"Yeah, it's inherently unfair."

"You may think it's unfair, but it's actually fair. In this era of monetizing traffic, so many people want to become internet celebrities and make money. They rack their brains to create content to grab other people's attention."

Your videos are just casually filmed, no editing, no voice-over, not even a script—a completely unregulated product. Why should anyone watch yours?

As he spoke, Chen Shuo swiped the screen and opened the viral video. "Take this video for example. First of all, the person in question is a big influencer with a built-in fan base. As for the content, it looks like it's all videos you've filmed over the past six months."

But its success isn't due to how good or amazing your video is, or even that's the main reason. The core reason this video went viral is its skillful editing and witty, humorous script.

There's a saying that people can never earn money beyond what they know. The short video industry seems simple: just shoot a video and post it online.

But actually, the water inside is very deep, and you need to be patient and spend a lot of time studying it. And you know your own personality well: you are lively, mischievous, and noisy, and you can't stay still at all.

So from the moment you started making short videos until now, I've never thought you could make money, nor do I need you to make money through short videos. I only chose to support you because you wanted to.

After rambling on and on, Chen Shuo picked up his water glass, took a sip to moisten his throat, and gave Cat Girl some time to digest the information before continuing.

"Actually, what I just want to tell you is that you can make these videos, but you have to relax and think that I'm just making videos for fun, not to make money, but to share my life."

So don't be envious of others, don't feel it's unfair, and don't harbor resentment or jealousy—understand?

Bai Xiaoqi lowered her eyes and thought for a moment, then looked up at him again, "I thought you would also feel that it was very unfair."

"But I didn't, and I didn't even make you feel it was unfair, so you think I'm siding with others and even turning against them?"

At first, I thought you were siding with someone else, which made me a little angry and upset. But after listening to what you said, I realized...

"You think what I said makes a lot of sense, that it's right, so you're not angry or upset anymore, right?" Chen Shuo interjected.

"Don't interrupt."

"Okay, go ahead and tell me."

"You've already said everything, so what else can I say?"

Bai Xiaoqi gave a soft hum, got up from the sofa and went to the balcony to collect the clothes, not wanting to sit with Chen Shuo, who was stealing her lines.

It's early winter, and the weather is getting colder. Clothes drying on the balcony take two or three days to dry. Because she's not tall enough, she uses a clothesline pole to bring the clothes down and then takes them to the sofa in the living room.

Chen Shuo didn't help fold the clothes, nor did he spend much time paying attention to her studies.

When I opened the workbook, I was surprised to find that I did quite well, much better than before. At first glance, I didn't even have any mistakes.

"You did a pretty good job. It seems that Anya really has some skills. She taught you everything clearly."

"Yes, she also has a teacher's certificate, which means she can become a teacher."

Chen Shuo put the workbook away and returned it. "I actually thought about becoming a teacher. I even took the teacher qualification exam and passed, but I didn't become one."

"Why didn't you go? Isn't being a teacher good enough?"

"Well... let's put it this way. It's true that passing the teacher qualification exam allows you to become a teacher, but it's unstable. You need to pass a civil service exam, which is relatively easy, but getting a civil service position is extremely difficult. And even if I did pass, I wouldn't take the position. I don't want a life where I can see my entire future laid out before me." M.

"When I asked Ya Ya, she said the same thing, that she didn't want to live a life where she could see the end from the beginning, so she didn't become a teacher."

Bai Xiaoqi carried the folded clothes to the bedroom and put them in the closet. When she came out, she pursed her lips and said, "Sometimes I think you and Ya Ya are a bit alike."

"Just because we don't want to be teachers?"

That's not what I meant.

"So, what do you mean by 'similar'?"

"Um..."

With a drawn-out sound coming from her nose, Bai Xiaoqi suddenly couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she just felt that it sounded somewhat similar.

After thinking for a while, she felt that she had found something in common: both of them were scoundrels.

Chapter 206 Double Standards [Two-in-One]

Chen Shuo pondered Bai Xiaoqi's comment that they looked somewhat alike. He had only met Anya a few times and didn't know her very well. Of course, even if he knew her well, he wouldn't think they looked alike.

Little A Miao is a bit simple-minded and doesn't have much of a social circle. Now that her new house is being renovated, she lives a very simple life, going back and forth between two places every day: spending the day with Anya at her house and going home to be with herself at night.

Over time, at some point, I suddenly felt that I had a similar image to Anya. This is normal and nothing to investigate.

Chen Shuo shook his head, snapped out of his thoughts, and got up to go to the bathroom to take a shower.

Now it's that time of year again when you're too cold to shower, but once you start showering you don't want to stop. And the first person to go in to shower gets even colder. Bai Xiaoqi is cunning; when it's hot, she goes in first because it's cool, but when it gets cold, she gives that spot to Chen Shuo.

Chen Shuo was very magnanimous and didn't hold it against her.

When he came out after taking a shower, Bai Xiaoqi was sitting on the sofa with her head down, writing and drawing with a pen.

"Wow, our little cat is actually studying on her own initiative! That's like the sun rising in the west...!"

Chen Shuo dried his hair and leaned closer. Oh, she wasn't studying or doing exercises; she was doing accounting. There was an open notebook in front of her.

That was the renovation ledger, which recorded all sorts of expenses, including the purchase of building materials and construction costs, since the renovation began.

She was holding several sheets of draft paper, which were covered with her scribbles.

"What are you doing? Are you checking my accounts because you suspect I'm falsifying them?"

"No." Bai Xiaoqi looked up. "I just want to calculate how much our renovation cost."

"Have you finished calculating?"

"Not yet, I've only just started calculating."

"Don't start calculating now, go take a shower first, or all the heat will escape."

"Then you calculate it for me."

"Okay, I'll calculate it for you."

Chen Shuo took the pen, intending to help with the calculations, but then tossed it aside, picked up his phone, and opened the calculator.

By the time Bai Xiaoqi finished showering and came out, Chen Shuo had already finished calculating the bill. "The total is 374,300."

"so much?"