Su Yan stared at the back of his boyfriend with his mouth gaping open. This … This was so mean! "You’ve cheated!" Su Yan ran after him and tried to get his phone but a certain someone was, unfortunately, a lot taller than him and hadn’t been careless enough to put it into his pocket.

Su Yan stamped his foot. "How can you do this to me?!"

Nie Chang raised his eyebrows at him. "Didn’t you tell Zhi Bao Yu earlier that I’m a really mean person?"

"Well, you are! But I also said you’re nice to me so give it back!"

"Only if you promise not to do anything stupid."

His little darling stayed silent and looked at him accusingly. Nie Chang grimaced. Alright, why was he getting a bad conscience now? He was doing this for Su Yan’s own good.

"We won’t need that long to get home."

Unfortunately for him, reasoning didn’t help. A certain someone continued to look miffed.

Nie Chang sighed and handed the phone back. It was snatched out of his fingers and pressed up against Su Yan’s chest. The accusing glare wasn’t retracted though.

"Ah Yan …"

"Don’t 'Ah Yan' me! You were mean to me."

"I’m just doing this because I’m worried about you. Is asking you to wait just a little while really too much?"

"Hmph." Su Yan crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away. His expression very obviously read 'coax me longer!' though.

Nie Chang heaved a sigh of relief. So it wasn’t as bad as he had thought. His little darling was just pretending to be a hedgehog. Well, if that was the case … He took a step closer and gently wrapped Su Yan in his arms. "Look, I didn’t want to be mean. I’m just really, really worried about you. I would feel much better if you could listen to me just this once."

"What do you mean 'just this once'? I’m listening to you a lot!"

"Er … Sure. Of course, you do that. I meant in regard to the system. Your reward really won’t vanish and it’s not like you couldn’t use the time, is it?" His eyes lit up when he thought of that. Right. Who said that Su Yan couldn’t use the time? That would be the perfect excuse to have him wait!

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, you don’t know yet what the reward will be."

"Which is why I want to have a look as fast as possible."

"Yes, but what if you have to use the reward right after looking? Wouldn’t it be better to wait a little longer then?"

Su Yan frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Nie Chang suppressed his smile, put his arm around Su Yan’s shoulder and led him further toward the car. "Think about it: Right now, you’re just a bit shy of reaching the next level. Maybe you’ve even gotten enough experience points with that last story."

"That’s true."

"And I don’t know about the system but in games, it is sometimes a waste to use a reward on a lower-leveled character and would do you much more good to use it after you’ve leveled up."

"So you think I should first make sure that I get to the fourth level and only then look at the reward?"

Nie Chang nodded eagerly. "Yes. I think that would be better. Just imagine: What if that ticket is something that will give you a lot of experience points but you can’t save them for the next level and they’ll only fill up the rest of your experience bar until the end of level three. You would have lost so many experience points!"

Su Yan blanked. He would lose experience points? His brows furrowed. "That’s so mean! Shouldn’t the system have told me?!"

Nie Chang hurriedly nodded again. "Yes. Of course, all this is just my assumption. It could be that I’m wrong but if I were you, I wouldn’t want to take the risk. This could be a lot of progress for the next level we’re talking about here."

Su Yan also nodded. "You’re right. Then we should first make sure that I’ve reached the next level."

"Mn. So why don’t you use the time in the car for that? In case you still have to read another story, the time might even be enough if it isn’t a long one."

"You’re right! Eh, let’s check right now if I’ve advanced already!"

Su Yan raised his phone while Nie Chang smiled wryly. Ah, he hadn’t wanted him to start immediately. Couldn’t he wait until they were in the car? Then he wouldn’t have to worry too much about Su Yan disappearing on him. If he found out that he had already reached the new level, wouldn’t their discussion start again?

Unfortunately, even though he knew that, there was no logical reason to stop Su Yan from having a look. He could only hope that his little darling hadn’t managed to reach his goal yet and would need to read another story.

Thankfully, Su Yan knew nothing of the thoughts his boyfriend had or else, Nie Chang might have been in for a harsh scolding. He excitedly opened the system and looked at the front page. Nothing. There was still the big 3 with the title 'Adept' below it.

Su Yan frowned. How could this be? Had the experience from that last story not been enough? He clicked to see the experience bar but only found the graph and a row of numbers. Uh … So, what did this mean?

Without any alternative, he turned to Nie Chang and extended his phone with sad eyes.

"What is it?" Nie Chang tried to keep a neutral expression.

Su Yan pointed at his phone. "I’m still at the third level. What does this mean?"

Nie Chang looked at the experience bar and almost heaved a sigh of relief. "It seems the experience points for the last task haven’t been added. Maybe it’s because we left immediately and you didn’t check it off?"

Su Yan’s face lit up as if he had a sudden epiphany. "Right! I didn’t click for the next part. Naturally, it didn’t add any experience! Ah, you’re the best boyfriend ever!" He hugged Nie Chang and kissed his cheek before happily opening the task line again.

Unfortunately, his happy mood vanished immediately. There was no way to go to the next task. It seemed he hadn’t managed to complete the part with the tropes yet.