To be honest, Lin Nan had always felt that his parents weren't exactly responsible.
From his earliest memories, the time he'd spent with his parents combined probably amounted to just a few years. Before elementary school, he lived at his grandfather's house in the countryside, and at his maternal grandparents' house, basically equivalent to being a left-behind child.
After middle school, his parents felt that the rural schools were too chaotic and the teaching staff too poor, so they brought Lin Nan to the county town to rent an apartment. However, after taking care of Lin Nan for one week, his parents left for work again.
They came back roughly every three days or so. When they returned, they'd either collapse into sleep or hurry to do their own entertainment to relax. At that time, Lin Nan was bewildered to discover that despite being only in middle school, he already had to live independently.
He was different from other children who had parental guidance. He was right in his chuunibyou phase then, and his personality and worldview seemed very strange by today's standards, making it impossible for him to fit in with groups.
Fortunately, he met Chen Yao, and under Chen Yao's guidance, his personality and worldview gradually became stable. However, his childhood experiences made him somewhat introverted and sensitive, and the lack of parental education and companionship meant his sense of family bonds wasn't very strong.
Other families' parents always said they were like parasites in their children's stomachs—they knew whatever you were thinking. But Lin Nan's parents probably couldn't even describe his appearance clearly. For Lin Nan, he felt closer to his maternal grandparents. As for his paternal grandparents, they had passed away some years ago.
Besides, his father's car accident wasn't something he could control. After feeling dejected for a moment, he immediately perked up.
"Let's go eat at the buffet!"
"Didn't you just say you weren't going?" Chen Yao had already gotten up from bed. He'd originally planned to comfort Lin Nan seeing his state become dejected again, but unexpectedly Lin Nan had returned to normal in less than half an hour.
Chen Yao had vaguely heard words like "car accident" from the phone call and asked worriedly: "Is everything okay at home?"
"I'll go back next Friday. Going back now wouldn't mean much." Lin Nan straightened his body and stretched, then yawned. "Should be fine, probably just... expensive."
Otherwise his mother wouldn't have said that living expenses might be cut off recently and told him to find some part-time work.
Fortunately, he already had a part-time job. He could go distribute flyers again tomorrow—in this hot weather, probably no one would compete with him for the work.
"Then why do you suddenly want to eat at the buffet..."
"I might be poorer later, so let me have a good meal while I can." Lin Nan sighed deeply.
Since the area was full of students, the buffets here weren't expensive either. All-you-can-eat barbecue was about 40 yuan per person, though whether the meat was actually beef, lamb, or pork wasn't guaranteed.
But from Lin Nan's perspective, as long as it was meat, it was fine.
Chen Yao knew a bit about Lin Nan's family situation. Like his own family—although his parents didn't really manage him much either, they still had some parent-child interaction every evening, what with singles matches, doubles matches, mixed doubles, and such. But Lin Nan didn't even have parent-child interaction. When they first met, Chen Yao had even thought Lin Nan was an orphan.
Therefore, even though he vaguely heard the word "car accident," Chen Yao didn't say much and jumped down from his bed while yawning.
But Lin Nan suddenly remembered something.
He had magic!
If he could have healing magic, then his father wouldn't need to be hospitalized, the family savings wouldn't need to be entirely used for his father's treatment, and he could still receive his living expenses as usual.
He hurriedly searched through Lilith's memories for healing magic, but after a general search, he discovered that Lilith had never learned any healing-type magic at all.
This was to be expected. After all, when Lina had tricked him into that stomach ache last time, he'd thought of this too. He'd searched around and found nothing, only later learning from Lina that it was the effect of magic—even if there really was healing magic, it wouldn't work.
"This Lilith... lived for hundreds of years and couldn't learn more things?" Lin Nan muttered quietly.
He didn't know if Lina would be willing to help either. She was a Holy Maiden—it would be unreasonable if she couldn't heal people and save lives. But if she was willing, there would definitely be a considerable price.
His father's car accident didn't affect Lin Nan too much. After all, judging from his mother's tone, there shouldn't be any life-threatening danger.
Getting tired of lying in bed, Lin Nan finally left his covers and slowly climbed down from his bed.
"Xiong Da, are you coming to the buffet later?"
"I need to catch up on sleep." Xiong Da answered from in front of his computer.
He'd played horror games all night. When Lin Nan woke up at 3 AM, he'd still found the three of them huddled together playing games, but when he woke up at noon, only Xiong Da was still playing.
Lin Nan had no fondness for horror games whatsoever. When he was little, he could still watch horror movies, but as he grew up, even going to the bathroom at night made him nervous. Especially now that he had magic, ghosts and monsters that he'd originally known couldn't possibly exist no longer seemed like empty talk.
Fortunately, his roommates were all night owls, and waking up in the middle of the night, he could often see one or two still playing on their computers.
"I'll go! I'll go!" Tu Junhui waved from his bed.
"I didn't even call you."
"I'm fat—I can eat back your portion too!"
Lin Nan rolled his eyes. He didn't know what it had to do with him even if Tu Junhui could actually eat back the cost.
The atmosphere in the dorm was very lazy. Lin Nan, who had just gotten out of bed, was too lazy to wash up and sat in front of his computer in a daze. Chen Yao was already preparing to go out for the buffet, currently doing push-ups on the floor trying to make his stomach hungrier. Xiong Da and Tu Junhui were both on their beds—one sleeping, one shaking his leg.
"Stop shaking..." After lying down for a few minutes, Xiong Da couldn't fall asleep due to the shaking. He could only sit up and slap Tu Junhui's foot, then wiped his hand on the other's blanket with a disgusted expression.
Lin Nan and Chen Yao usually slept head-to-head, while Xiong Da and Tu Junhui slept foot-to-foot.
"I want to sleep!" Even the usually ice-faced Xiong Da showed some anger on his face.
Tu Junhui looked up at him bewildered: "I wasn't!"
"Like hell you weren't!"
Lin Nan turned around to look at them in confusion, not knowing how they'd started fighting. But Tu Junhui had quite a few annoying habits, and having suffered from them, Lin Nan unhesitatingly took sides: "Tu Tu, why are you bullying Xiong Da! Shaking your leg while others are trying to sleep!"
"Where was I doing that?" Tu Junhui looked baffled.
That expression almost made Lin Nan believe him.
Chen Yao, who had been doing push-ups, also stood up, wiped his hands with a tissue, and said disdainfully: "You're really something, not even admitting to shaking your leg. Just don't shake it, okay?"
"I suspect you're all ganging up on me." Tu Junhui still had that carefree attitude, completely unwilling to admit his mistake. "Just finding random reasons to frame me."
"Hurry up and get down to prepare for the buffet. Stop bothering Xiong Da's sleep."
Upon hearing this, Tu Junhui immediately bounced down from his bed. Chen Yao doing this was nothing unusual, but the problem was this guy weighed at least 200 pounds and crashed onto the floor like a tank, immediately making the entire dorm shake three times.