Yan Zhikai led everyone on a full tour of the esports club’s activity rooms.

The scale of the clubroom was far beyond Shu Yuxin and Peng Xiaoxiao’s expectations. Aside from the “internet café” room right by the entrance, there was also a console gaming room, as well as rooms for VR and motion-sensing games. Even after setting all of that up, there were still two rooms left unused. Although the other rooms weren’t very large individually, added together they still amounted to quite a bit of space. And according to what they’d heard, this was only a mid-sized activity room they had applied for. Truly, having money meant you could do whatever you wanted—at least, Peng Xiaoxiao was completely stunned.

But very soon, Peng Xiaoxiao’s attention was drawn to something else.

The final room they entered was the motion-sensing gaming room. Only seven gaming setups were placed inside, but each one was an inexplicably impressive racing simulator—steering wheel, pedals, gear shifter, and most importantly, the simulated driver’s seat.

At the moment, there was only one guy in the room, playing on a setup in the middle. The seat he was sitting in tilted and shifted in sync with the angle and speed of the sports car on the screen, providing feedback just like driving a real supercar, brimming with excitement.

Peng Xiaoxiao was a hardcore gamer through and through. Among all the different types of games available today, her favorite by far was racing games. Shu Yuxin could see her playing racing games in the dorm almost all the time, which proved the point. So the instant Peng Xiaoxiao saw what was in this room and realized what these things were, she practically exploded with excitement.

“Holy shit!! Such an awesome simulator?!” She turned to Yan Zhikai beside her with an excited expression. “Can I try it right now?!”

Even Yan Zhikai, who had been keeping a serious expression the whole time, was slightly startled by her reaction. He scratched his head and waved his hand. “If you want to play, then go ahead.” As he spoke, he walked over to the guy and lightly patted him on the shoulder. “Lao Wei, pause for a moment.”

The guy turned his head to look at him, paused the game, and took off his headset. Because of the racing angle in the game, his seat was still tilted at more than ten degrees, making it awkward to sit in. “What? I’m telling you, I’m in the middle of a championship race right now, you—”

“I don’t care what the hell you’re racing,” Yan Zhikai rudely cut him off, then pointed toward Peng Xiaoxiao behind him. “There’s a girl who wants you to take her for a ride. You in or not?”

The guy subconsciously looked in the direction he pointed. When he saw the three people standing there, he froze for a moment.

Yan Zhikai patted the guy’s seat and introduced him to Peng Xiaoxiao. “This kid’s called Wei Zhanpeng, from Nanhu College. He comes here every day just to race—doesn’t play anything else. If you’re interested, you can have him teach you. He’s way smoother at this than I am.”

Wei Zhanpeng was still dazed when Peng Xiaoxiao walked over, greeting him boldly with a wave. “Hi, my name’s Peng Xiaoxiao, a freshman at Nanhu College.”

“Y-you-you-you… hi! My name is Zhan—no, I mean, my name is Wei Zhanpeng. Uh, you can also call me Zhanpeng…”

“Just call him Lao Wei. He’s a dried-up loser anyway.” Yan Zhikai suddenly laughed and continued, “This guy hasn’t really interacted with girls before. This is how he always is when talking to one. You’ll get used to it.”

“Go fuck yourself!” Having his sore spot exposed, Lao Wei’s face instantly turned red. “Can’t you shut the fuck up for once? So what if I’ve never dealt with girls? What’s it got to do with you?!”

Yan Zhikai shrugged and didn’t reply.

Peng Xiaoxiao, on the other hand, burst out laughing. She climbed onto the seat of the simulator next to Lao Wei and said nonchalantly, “If it helps, you can just treat me like one of the guys… I mean, aside from the fact that getting naked together might be a bit difficult, I’m not really any different from a guy.”

As soon as his gaze landed on Peng Xiaoxiao, Lao Wei immediately forgot how to talk again. “It’s fine… I’m just a bit… uh… haha… that is… y-you… what do you want to play?”

“What game are you playing?” To spare him some embarrassment, Peng Xiaoxiao deliberately changed the topic. “It’s not NFS, is it? But it looks pretty fun.”

Once the topic shifted to games, Lao Wei’s nervousness eased quite a bit. He laughed and said, “Of course it’s not NFS. That series is getting more and more boring these days. This is Horizon 3. I think it’s way more fun than NFS.”

“Oh.” Peng Xiaoxiao nodded and started fiddling with the controls on her own setup. “Um… how do you play this thing?”

“Press that button to start.” Lao Wei was no longer in a hurry to continue his championship race. He awkwardly slid down from his tilted seat and came over to Peng Xiaoxiao, beginning to guide her hands-on. “First, like this…”

On the other side, Yan Zhikai looked at the other two newcomers and asked, “You guys want to try too? It’s pretty fun—just shakes so much it makes your ass hurt.”

Shu Yuxin couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll pass. I just came to take a look this time.”

“Alright, suit yourselves.” Yan Zhikai paused, then asked, “So, now that you’ve seen the whole activity room, what do you think? Any thoughts?”

“It’s good,” Shu Yuxin nodded. “I’m quite interested. I’ll discuss it with Peng Xiaoxiao later—she’ll probably join.”

Yan Zhikai secretly let out a sigh of relief. “No rush, though. You can join a club anytime. All the clubs’ contact info is posted on the campus bulletin board.”

At least the whole afternoon hadn’t been wasted.

After saying that, he scratched his belly and added, “That’s it for me. I still need to prepare for a makeup exam, so I’ve got to head back and study. If you’re in the mood, feel free to keep looking around. If you want to play, just go ahead. Ask the people here if you don’t understand something. They might look kind of sleazy, but they’re actually pretty decent.”

“Wait,” Jiang Zixuan suddenly spoke up and stopped him. “Since we’re interested in joining the club, shouldn’t you tell us about the club’s situation?”

“What do you want to ask?”

“The number of members this club has at Minghai University. Clubs with fewer than fifty members will have their activity rooms reclaimed. That fifty-person limit doesn’t include people from Nanhu College. I have to ask this—otherwise, one day the clubroom might be gone and we wouldn’t even know why.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. On the Minghai University side alone, we have over a hundred members. Even if a bunch of seniors quit this year, we’ll still easily have more than fifty.” As he spoke, Yan Zhikai suddenly let out a couple of meaningful laughs. “And even if our activity room really did get taken back, we’d still have our ways.”

Jiang Zixuan nodded. “One more question. What are the club’s regular activities? Just playing games? And what’s the club’s main objective?”

“Daily entertainment, relaxation, and socializing—that’s our routine.” After thinking for a moment, Yan Zhikai continued, “As for our objective—if I said we’re preparing for next year’s citywide esports tournament, would you believe me?”

“An esports tournament?” Shu Yuxin was taken aback.

“Yeah. I’m not bragging—last year’s citywide tournament, we took third place. Thirteen thousand per person in prize money. Pretty badass.” Yan Zhikai scratched his belly again. “Any other questions?”

Jiang Zixuan smiled. “That’s all.”

“Alright, I’m off then.” This time, Yan Zhikai didn’t linger. After saying that, he directly left the room.

Inside the room, Shu Yuxin looked up at Jiang Zixuan and complained in a low voice, “Why did you ask all that stuff?”

Even though his tone had been polite the whole time, those questions still felt like he was doubting the club.

Jiang Zixuan met her gaze with a half-smile and said, “If you don’t ask things clearly, aren’t you afraid of joining some weird organization? Or getting sold out and still helping count the money? Can you have a little sense of caution?”

Shu Yuxin fell silent for three seconds, then threw a straight punch at him.