At the entrance of Ashford University.
"Marcus, stop pestering me."
"Love without a material foundation is just a pile of loose sand. I want things you can't give me."
"He can take me to a candlelight dinner at the Dunmore Hotel, the most luxurious place in the city. Can you? The money you save skimping on food and clothes for a month isn't even enough for me to buy a single outfit. All your sacrifices seem so cheap to me."
Marcus listened in disbelief as the words drifted lightly from Jessica's mouth. Her tone was flat, carrying nothing but a faint trace of pity.
Having said her piece, Jessica tucked her black hair behind her ear and intimately took the arm of a greasy, bald man with a fat head and large ears, stepping into a black Mercedes-Benz.
As the two passed by Marcus, they looked at him the way someone looks at a pathetic stray dog.
Only then did Marcus snap back to his senses.
"No..."
"This is impossible!"
"Jessica! Make yourself clear!"
Marcus pounded hard on the tinted car window, his voice breaking. But the only response he got was the roar of the engine and a cloud of choking dust as the car sped away. The force of it dragged him to the ground.
The surrounding students pointed and whispered, watching like it was entertainment.
Marcus could do nothing but watch in despair as the girl he had loved for four years disappeared down the road.
"Pestering... all my sacrifices turned out to be pestering in your eyes."
"Was our relationship just my own wishful thinking from the start?"
Pain and humiliation filled his chest. He clenched his fists and drove them down hard against the cold concrete.
Piercing pain shot from his knuckles to his brain, and dark red blood seeped slowly from the wounds. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the bitterness sitting in his chest.
Today was supposed to be the best day of his life, the day Marcus reported as a freshman at Ashford University.
He had worked toward this moment for an entire year. When the exam results came out the previous year, Jessica had been admitted to Ashford with excellent grades while Marcus fell just short of the cutoff.
"Wait for me. I'll repeat the year. I'll definitely come to Ashford to be with you."
Repeating a year was something most students feared. But Marcus didn't hesitate, because she was the girl he deeply loved.
He had grown up in an orphanage, with no family to fall back on. He earned his own tuition while still setting aside a thousand yuan every month to send to Jessica so she could eat well. He himself survived on free soup and plain white rice from the school cafeteria.
During the day he studied hard. At night he washed dishes at a restaurant. He slept four hours a day and spent every waking moment either working or studying. The physical exhaustion and psychological pressure nearly broke him more than once.
But every time he felt he couldn't hold on, just thinking of Jessica's smile was enough to pull him back to his feet.
When his results came in and his place at Ashford was confirmed, he called her immediately. But she seemed inconvenienced by the call, gave a short response, and hurried off the line. The entire summer she was unreachable, busy with a part-time job, she said. Marcus never suspected a thing.
Until today. Until he walked through the gates of Ashford and saw Jessica strolling out arm in arm with a fat, bald, middle-aged man.
His angry questioning earned him nothing but cold dismissal. She shifted all the blame onto him, as if his poverty alone was proof he had never deserved her.
Marcus stood up and patted the dust from his jeans, his head still heavy.
Four years of sincerity. And she had handed it back to him like it was nothing.
"Maybe in your eyes I was just a useless licking dog."
"But one day, I will prove my own worth."
His gaze hardened with quiet resolve.
"Ding!"
An electronic chime rang out inside his mind.
"Divine Cashback System has detected a suitable host."
[Divine Cashback System activated.
Loading... 10%... 30%... 60%... 90%... 99%... 100%]
[Divine Cashback System loaded successfully.]
"Holy crap, a system?"
Marcus looked around. The students who had lingered to watch had already moved on. No one else had heard a thing.
His heartbeat quickened. With a thought, the system interface unfolded in his mind.
---
System Host: Marcus Cain
System Function: Spending money on members of the opposite sex can earn doubled cashback.
Prompt:
You must spend money on a member of the opposite sex who has been bound by the system to receive cashback.
The multiplier is random, with a minimum of 1x and no upper limit. The higher the target's favorability, the greater the probability of obtaining a high multiplier.
Once the bound target's favorability toward the host reaches 50 points, cashback will no longer be available, and other corresponding rewards will be granted instead.
---
Marcus read the description of the system functions several times.
"As long as I spend money on girls, I can get cashback?"
"The minimum multiplier is 1x, which means no matter what, I at least won't lose money."
"And the higher the other person's favorability, the greater my chances of getting high cashback."
"Holy crap!"
"In that case..."
"The more money I spend on a girl, the higher her favorability will be, and the higher her favorability, the more cashback I'll get!"
"A perpetual motion machine!"
The haze in Marcus's heart was instantly swept away.
"But what does 'a member of the opposite sex bound by the system' mean? How can I get someone bound?"
Marcus quickly spotted the key point. At this moment, another electronic voice sounded in his mind.
"As long as the host speaks with a member of the opposite sex, the system will automatically detect the host's heartbeat value toward that person."
"As long as the host's heartbeat value reaches the standard, the system will automatically list that person as a cashback target for the host."
"Once the binding relationship is successful, all expenses the host spends on that target can earn cashback."
Hearing this, Marcus understood everything.
"This system is forcing me to be a playboy!"
"It seems even the system knows that these days, a simp is worse than a real dog."
"Whatever! I'm going to farm money like crazy and reach the pinnacle of life!"
"I will never let today's humiliation happen a second time!"
Marcus opened his phone and checked. The balance in his bank card was still three thousand.
Talk is cheap. The primary task now was to test the system's cashback function.
Marcus reached out to hail a taxi and headed toward Wanda Plaza.
---
Arriving at Wanda Plaza, Marcus pushed open the door and walked into a coffee shop.
Near the window sat a woman who made it difficult to look away. She was stylishly dressed, her fitted top leaving just enough to the imagination, sunglasses resting in her hair, long legs crossed in black stockings. The kind of beauty that looked completely effortless.
Marcus approached and spoke politely.
"Hello, is this seat next to you taken?"
"Ding! Detected that the host is speaking with a member of the opposite sex."
"The host's heartbeat value is currently twenty points, which meets the binding criteria."
"Binding successful!"
No man could see a beauty like that without feeling a ripple in his heart, and Marcus was no exception.
Hearing his voice, the woman looked up, quietly assessing whether he had any other intentions. But the rest of the coffee shop was full, and Marcus's expression was calm and harmless.
"It's empty, you can sit."
She politely lifted her small bag from the chair beside her, making room for him.
Marcus thanked her, sat down, and scanned the code to order.
"To express my gratitude, let me buy you a cup of coffee."
As he spoke, his eyes were already scanning the electronic menu for the most expensive option.
Since she had already been bound as a target, he would take the opportunity to test the system and make a small profit first.