Chapter 47: Chapter 33: So You’ve Been Using QQ for Xiaoyanzi

Early the next morning, as soon as it was dawn, Su Zelin got up.

This unusual behavior made his parents a bit surprised because since the restriction order, Su Zelin had been sleeping in every day until the sun was high up in the sky before he’d be willing to get out of bed.

But they quickly understood the reason.

"Mom, today Haoran invited me out to play, could you give me a bit more time?"

At breakfast, Su Zelin grinned slyly and made his request.

"I was wondering why you’re suddenly so energized, turns out you want to sneak out again!"

Zhao Lixia snorted.

"Haoran is an honest guy, you know that. What trouble could I get into with him? We just planned to go biking in the countryside. Even during the holidays, you need to exercise, or it won’t be good for your health. Right, Mom? Even if you don’t trust me, at least trust Haoran!"

Su Zelin protested with an air of grievance.

His buddy had been over to his house, his parents were familiar with him.

"Lu Haoran is an honest guy, but what you guys do outside is still up to you."

No matter how smooth-talking Su Zelin was, Zhao Lixia didn’t believe a word of it: "Alright, if you’re really going biking, take the camera and bring back lots of pictures for me, then I’ll give you an extra two hours!"

Su Zelin was dumbfounded when he heard that.

Oh man, the higher the hill, the taller the devil; his mom played this trick on him.

If there’s only an extra two-hour extension, biking to the outskirts to take photos as fake evidence and coming back would almost take up all the time. Riding until his butt hurts—totally not worth it.

His lie exposed, Su Zelin could only smile sheepishly.

"You came from me, how could I not understand you? Four hours means four hours, not a minute more!"

Granny Su was firm in her stance.

Su Zelin was helpless.

Even with Haoran mentioned, his mom still wasn’t budging, nothing could be done.

To break the restriction order, he’d have to wait until his stocks soared and he became a ten-thousand-yuan magnate, but by then the holidays would nearly be over.

Just after finishing breakfast, the phone rang.

Su Zelin excitedly ran to answer it, no doubt it was Lu Haoran calling.

"Hello, Haoran, I’ve finished eating, I’m heading out now, let’s meet at the agreed spot!"

There’s no way he could tell his mom about going to the internet café, or she’d scold him for leading Lu Haoran astray.

"Dad, Mom, I’m heading out!"

After saying a few words, Su Zelin hung up the phone, hopped on his Phoenix single-speed bike, and hurried out the door.

He quickly arrived at the New Heaven and Earth Internet Café in the city center, where Lu Haoran was already waiting outside.

Su Zelin parked his bike at the entrance: "Haoran, why are you standing there in a daze, go in and grab a seat first!"

"No worries, Zelin, I just got here too."

In fact, Lu Haoran had been there for a while, but didn’t dare to go in alone.

Their personalities were quite the opposite.

Su Zelin had a curiosity and longing for new experiences, chasing thrills and excitement.

When Jianglan’s first internet café opened, he couldn’t resist going there alone to experience it, paid for two hours at the front desk, fiddled around, and quickly fell in love with the joys of web surfing, becoming the first "internet user" in the class.

Lu Haoran, on the other hand, was apprehensive about new things, perhaps even fearful.

Without Su Zelin, he wouldn’t dare enter an internet café by himself.

"Alright then, let’s go!"

Su Zelin led his good buddy into the internet café like a pro.

It was only a little after seven, and those who had stayed overnight were just leaving, so there were plenty of available computers.

Lu Haoran looked around; it was his first time in an internet café, as he’d only ever passed by the entrance before.

He found the place quite upscale.

"Two computers for four hours each!"

Su Zelin slapped thirty yuan onto the counter.

"Zelin, let me pay; I shouldn’t trouble you for teaching me to surf the internet!"

Lu Haoran felt a bit embarrassed!

"Oh, come on, between us, it’s all the same!"

Of course, Su Zelin wasn’t going to let his honest friend pay.

Especially since he was soon to be a ten-thousand-yuan man, while Lu Haoran had to live on a tight budget.

Lu Haoran didn’t argue further, knowing his friend’s generous nature, always taking care of him back in school.

But he made up his mind that if Su Zelin ever needed his help, he would do his utmost.

"Hey, could you give us the two computers in the far corner against the wall?"

Su Zelin requested.

"Sure thing!"

The front desk girl gave them a slightly odd look.

Working in an internet café for so long, she understood why some customers preferred the corner computers.

But the honest friend seemed puzzled: "Zelin, why are we taking the corner computers? There are a lot available here, and the lighting is better."

"You don’t get it, just wait and you’ll see something awesome. It’s easier over there!"

Su Zelin gave a mysterious smile.

"Uh, what’s that?"

Lu Haoran showed some interest.

They say there’s everything online, it should be something interesting.

"Don’t worry, you’ll soon find out!"

Su Zelin chuckled.

The young internet cafe attendant was speechless.

This handsome guy looks pretty decent, how can he be so sleazy, talking like this right in front of her without any reservations.

"25, 26!"

At this point, the computers were ready, and she flung two internet cards onto the counter, clearly not pleased.

Su Zelin didn’t bother with her attitude, put his arm around Lu Haoran’s shoulder, and walked over, finding two computers according to the numbers.

"Here’s the power button, just press it, see that light on the side, that shows the CPU has started running, now let’s turn on the monitor, it’s similar to a TV power switch..."

Su Zelin demonstrated personally, while Lu Haoran earnestly learned.

"When this login screen pops up, just use the keyboard to enter the account and password on the internet card, over here is the letter area, and the number pad is over there, if you make a mistake, just press the backspace key..."

Like many who go online for the first time, he took a long time to find the login credentials on the keyboard and made several mistakes before successfully entering the Windows 98 system.

By this time, the honest guy was already sweating profusely, thinking that going online was such a difficult task, luckily Zelin was here, otherwise he wouldn’t have known what to do.

"This is the browser, used for surfing the internet, you can read news, watch shows, browse forums... Open this URL navigation, and you can enter the sites by clicking with the mouse."

Su Zelin continued teaching patiently until Lu Haoran could browse web pages at will, which meant he was almost a beginner now.

Have I learned to browse the internet now?

The honest guy was a bit excited, clicking nonstop and pulling up a lot of web pages.

He stared at the screen, thinking it was indeed as legendary as they said, there’s truly everything online!

"I’ll play by myself first, let me get you a QQ account!"

Su Zelin swiftly opened Tencent’s homepage, found the registration page, filled out some information, and got Lu Haoran’s QQ number, which was 7 digits.

Back then, QQ could be registered freely, with no daily limit. Su Zelin quickly created seven or eight accounts, then picked one that was easy to remember and didn’t contain the number 4.

"Alright, Rat, this will be your QQ from now on, and the password is lhr12345!"

Su Zelin pointed at the string of numbers on the screen.

Now even I, Lu Haoran, have a QQ account!

Now I won’t be outdated anymore!

The little cutie thought excitedly.

He quickly took out the paper and pen he had prepared, carefully wrote down the number, and checked it several times, afraid he might get it wrong.

With Su Zelin’s hands-on guidance, he logged in to QQ, starting with filling out information. Although Su Zelin told him not to be too serious and to fill it randomly, the honest guy still dutifully filled in areas like region, birthday, and blood type truthfully.

If it weren’t for Su Zelin stopping him, he would’ve even used his real name for the net name.

In the end, he only trimmed a surname, hence just called himself Haoran.

When choosing an avatar, Lu Haoran picked one of a nerdy bookworm wearing glasses.

Su Zelin quickly suggested, "Rat, are you sure you want to use this avatar? People might immediately know you’re an honest guy."

"Isn’t sincerity good?"

Lu Haoran scratched his head.

"Sincerity my ass, nobody cares about that online, the person chatting with you could be a dog for all you know!"

Su Zelin rolled his eyes.

"How’s that possible, Zelin, how can a dog get online!"

Lu Haoran was shocked.

"I’m just giving an example, it means that people don’t know how you really are in real life, so it’s fine to embellish yourself a bit, pick a cool avatar to attract girls, like my sunglasses cool dude, got it?"

Su Zelin guided patiently though disappointed.

"Zelin, I don’t intend to attract girls; I got QQ to keep in touch with friends and classmates."

Lu Haoran said shyly.

"Alright, you’re missing the biggest fun of QQ!"

Su Zelin shrugged, giving up and not forcing it.

His approach didn’t work on an honest guy, even if he handed him a pile of girls’ QQ, he wouldn’t get anything out of it.

Soon he added his first friend, naturally, it was Su Zelin.

"Zelin, um, I heard Xiaoyanzi also has QQ, can you help me add her?"

A while later, Lu Haoran hesitantly requested.

"Hehe, so you’re using QQ mainly for Xiaoyanzi, huh?"

Su Zelin smirked, seemingly seeing through his good friend’s true intentions.

"No, not at all, just, just friends, adding to chat, otherwise I wouldn’t know who to chat with."

The honest guy stammered, his face blushing slightly.

"What are you so shy about, Xiaoyanzi’s pretty nice, young lad, there’s a bright future ahead!"

Su Zelin gave a thumbs up, his buddy finally got a bit on track, not wasting his efforts to push them together.

He found Xiaoyanzi’s number among the female friends, he had added her long ago and chatted several times, but Xiaoyanzi wasn’t online often, and her avatar was currently gray.

Adding Xiaoyanzi required a friend request approval, showing she was a pretty serious girl online too, not fond of being hit on by strange male netizens, otherwise she would choose no verification needed.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com