Chapter 2: Fifteen Yuan for a Friendship

“I’ve lost my job, and now you’ve publicly shamed me online. It’ll be even harder for me to find another job. My relatives, friends, and neighbors will all gossip about me. You’re trying to ruin my life.”

Looking at the posts online, Li Lian didn’t show the slightest remorse.

She smiled at me again.

“Su Shu, why should I explain anything? Didn’t you eat and leave without paying?”

“Not one thing I said online was false. I’m not taking the video down.”

“And your job loss has nothing to do with me. If you can’t find another job, that has nothing to do with me either. We were just ordinary friends to begin with—we could even become strangers. You were the one who decided I was your best friend. I never asked you to.”

“Now get out of my shop!”

Li Lian suddenly glared at me and shouted.

As if she had never been the pitiful woman who once begged me for help.

I clenched my fists, but I didn’t argue or make a scene.

I memorized every word she said.

I didn’t ask for the gold necklace back.

I didn’t demand that she repay her debt.

I was waiting.

Just one more week.

Waiting for the day she’d regret it.

In the days that followed, I became an internet sensation.

“Always taking advantage of friends” and “freeloader” became labels attached to my name.

I went to the supermarket to buy a bottle of soy sauce.

The owner had known me for years.

But now, as soon as he saw me, he looked annoyed.

The soy sauce cost 6.8 yuan. After I paid, he checked and rechecked the transaction three times before he let me leave.

As I walked out, he even said, “Young lady, you’ve been shopping here for ten years, but don’t think you can walk off without paying! It’s not easy running a business. If you say you forgot to pay, I’ll call the police on you too!”

My mother went pale with anger and glared at him.

She was about to argue, but I took her hand and led her away.

On the way home, we ran into our neighbors.

They’d lived beside us for decades. They used to greet us warmly, but now they all looked at us with contempt.

“That Su family’s daughter—stay away from her from now on. Don’t let her use the fact that we’ve been neighbors for decades as an excuse to take advantage of you! I heard she lost her job. Don’t let her come borrowing money!”

Some people even dumped their household trash right outside our door.

“Doesn’t that Su girl love taking advantage of people? From now on, I’ll dump all my trash at your place! Let’s see if your daughter can find anything worth picking through!”

My relatives all blocked us, too.

Most of them owed my family money—some more than a hundred thousand yuan.

Now they blocked our calls and said, “Su Shu’s a freeloader. Who’d want to be related to your family? Don’t contact us again!”

My parents cried at home for three days over it.

My old friends and classmates blocked me one after another as well.

No one invited me to get-togethers anymore.

I wasn’t welcome at class reunions either.

My former coworkers avoided me as if I were a venomous snake.

I started submitting job applications online.

But as soon as HR learned I was Su Shu, they wouldn’t even give me an interview.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Su, but your reputation online is terrible. You wouldn’t even pay fifteen yuan for a bowl of noodles. You’re always looking for ways to take advantage of your friends. Our company won’t hire someone like you! Who knows how you’d take advantage of the company once you got here?”

And what about Li Lian?

Thanks to her righteous stand against a friend who liked to take advantage of people, she had become an online celebrity.

Her noodle shop was thriving.

On short-video platforms, clips showed lines of customers stretching for miles from the entrance of Li Lian’s shop.

People kept praising her.

They said everyone should learn from an outspoken owner like Li Lian and stop letting freeloading friends get away with things just to preserve the friendship.

Seeing all this made my mother so angry she had to be hospitalized.

My father seemed to have aged more than ten years. He sighed every day.

I heard his coworkers had started avoiding him too.

My mother cried as she spoke to me.

“Sweetheart, now the whole internet hates you. The neighbors mock our family, and our relatives and friends have all blocked us! Your friends and classmates won’t contact you anymore, and you can’t find a job. What are we going to do?”

My father let out a heavy sigh.

“Why don’t you try talking to Li Lian one more time? Ask her to take the video down. Whatever she wants, we’ll agree. If she wants money, we’ll pay.”

I took a deep breath as I looked at my worried parents.

Clenching my fists, I said, “Pay her to take the video down? How much would make her happy? A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? I didn’t deliberately do anything wrong. Why should I have to lower my head?”

My father frowned, as if he’d just thought of something.