"Damn it, another rejection!" mumbled Li Yundong, drunk and slurring, "What the hell, always using those worn-out lines to brush me off!"

Recalling the confession attempt under the teaching building this morning, Li Yundong couldn't help but feel deeply frustrated and miserable: "Am I really that much of a joke? Twenty-one 'friend zone' cards in just one year of university?"

"To hell with it, big deal, someday I'll find someone prettier than all of you!" Ding-dong, the elevator door opened, and Li Yundong stumbled out, weaving his way to his rented apartment door, drunkenly fumbling for his keys.

His parents had divorced when he was young. His father had found himself a big blonde abroad for a happy-go-lucky life, and his mother, unwilling to be lonely, had also found a foreigner and emigrated to Australia early on to live it up, leaving him alone in the country, surviving on meager "relief funds" from both sides.

Li Yundong, lacking any proper guidance, had become aimless starting in his third year of junior high. Naturally, this trajectory meant he couldn't get into any top-tier schools; Tiannan City University was the best he could manage, but it was still only a second- or third-rate university in the grand scheme of things.

However, although the university itself was middling, its Fine Arts department was quite famous, having produced numerous celebrities. The campus was absolutely teeming with beautiful women, dazzling the eyes of Li Yundong, a virgin. The pity, according to the scientific theory of complementary attraction, was that places flooded with beauties were often also saturated with handsome men.

Li Yundong wasn't unattractive, but he certainly wasn't handsome either.

And in this day and age, a man either had to be strikingly handsome or uniquely weird. For someone utterly average in appearance? Too bad; if they weren't giving him the friend zone card, who were they going to give it to?

Furthermore, Li Yundong was arrogant, only pursuing beauties who were the class belle, department belle, or campus belle level. Thus, being handed twenty-one rejection cards in a single year—failing repeatedly yet fighting again and again—had already made him a laughingstock on campus.

Thinking of the surrounding faces full of amusement and mockery, especially those eyes that seemed to laugh at his ambition to catch a swan while being a toad, Li Yundong ground his teeth in bitter hatred.

"Bastards!!" Li Yundong stood at the door, raising both arms high, and let out a massive roar. Clatter, his key fell to the ground.

Li Yundong squinted and bent down, only to find a small, fiery-red fox terrier lying right by his doorstep. Its hind leg was stained with blood, clearly injured.

The fox terrier turned its head, diligently licking its wound, while looking up at Li Yundong with pitiful eyes.

That gaze instantly stirred intense sympathy in Li Yundong. He immediately scooped up the dog: "Did your owner abandon you? So pitiful. Ah, me too, my mom and dad abandoned me! Everyone looks down on me, everyone despises me. Is it the same for you? Don't worry, don't cry, I'll take care of you. I won't despise you!"

Upon entering, one first encountered the living room, which connected to a balcony through a set of floor-to-ceiling glass doors, screened by a thin layer of voile fabric.

In the middle of the living room sat a glass coffee table, resting on a rug. On the table was a half-empty glass of cold water next to a stack of game discs piled beside a P2 console.

Muddled and having carried the little fox inside, Li Yundong could no longer support his utterly inebriated body. His head lolled to one side, and he collapsed onto the rug beside the coffee table, soon letting out loud, heavy snores.

The little fox in his arms, which had been trembling violently at first, gradually calmed its body. Its eyes grew brighter and brighter under the pale moonlight. It nudged Li Yundong’s chin with the tip of its nose, testing whether he was truly asleep.

After several tentative prods, the little fox realized Li Yundong was sleeping more soundly than a dead pig. It curled up completely, and a faint cyan glow began emanating from its body. These cyan wisps, like countless threads, seeped into Li Yundong’s body, then slowly flowed back out. Each cyan thread transformed into fiery red as it traveled, and after these threads moved into the little fox’s body, they emerged again as cyan.

After circulating back and forth several times, extracting yang energy from Li Yundong’s body, the little fox was noticeably more energetic, and the bleeding from its paw wound stopped. Suddenly, with a whoosh, it sprang from Li Yundong’s embrace, spun once in place, and instantly transformed into a