Before they knew it, the sky outside the window had darkened.
"I'm off, Coach! I'll eat strictly according to your 'doctor's orders'!"
In the basement, Kevin, sore all over and clutching his precious "muscle-building prescription," grinned and said goodbye to Shane, leaving the Gallagher house with satisfaction.
Shane smiled as he walked him to the basement door. "Uh-huh, looking forward to you turning into a muscle beast and 'shocking' V for a whole day."
After sending Kevin off, Shane turned around and saw Karen helping him pack up the scattered training equipment.
He walked over and said softly, "Hey, stay for dinner tonight? Fiona should be back soon."
A trace of hesitation flashed across Karen's face, but she shook her head.
She walked over and kissed Shane. "No, sweetie, I have to go home to eat. You know, if I don't go back, my dad will nag endlessly."
She paused, then added, "Besides... I have some of my own things to do tonight."
Shane nodded understandingly, not forcing the issue, and squeezed her hand. "Alright, see you tomorrow then."
---
Before long, dinner was quickly whipped up by Fiona, who had returned home. It was mainly leftover roast meat from the party mixed with a large pot of freshly boiled pasta.
At the dinner table, the Gallagher house was as noisy as ever. Carl and Debbie were fighting over the last meatball on the plate, while Lip ate and read a programming textbook he had gotten from who-knows-where.
Just as everyone was wolfing down their food, a noise came from the door.
Kevin appeared, dangling a rusty key in his hand, shouting: "Hey! Shane! Catch!"
Smack! The key flew through the air and was caught by Shane.
"Warehouse key! That place is yours!" Kevin grinned, but then revealed a gloating smile. "Don't forget to clean it up. Your 'rat poop buffet' is waiting for you!"
He grinned at everyone at the table as a greeting, then disappeared out the door as briskly as he had arrived.
This little episode attracted the attention of everyone at the dinner table.
Fiona put down her fork and looked at Shane, frowning slightly. "Warehouse? What warehouse, Shane? What's going on?"
The Gallagher family was like this. Unless you did something secretly behind the family's back, someone would always ask. Of course, this wasn't a bad thing; they were just afraid that this already fragile family would fall apart because of something.
Shane picked up the key and explained: "It's the abandoned storage room behind the Alibi Room. Kevin rented it to me very cheaply. I plan to use it as a future training and filming site."
He paused, adding with a bit of helplessness, "I can't keep filming in this basement where it's hard to even turn around, right?"
"Don't worry, Fiona. The rent Kevin gave me is very low—ridiculously low. I can totally afford it. You know I saved some money from doing things for people before."
Fiona stared into Shane's eyes, seeming to want to find some flaw, but ultimately didn't press further. "OK. But you have to promise me that doing this won't affect your studies."
"I promise," Shane replied quickly and crisply.
At this moment, Lip looked up from his book and inserted a Lip-style tease. dragging out his tone, he feigned surprise:
"Whoa... looks like our family's 'Basement Hermit' is finally walking out of his cave and upgrading to a 'Warehouse Entrepreneur'? Is the next step establishing 'Gallagher Fitness Inc.'? Do you need a CEO? I think I'm quite suitable. My salary requirements aren't high, just don't make me shovel rat poop."
Facing Lip's teasing, Shane couldn't be bothered to bicker. He returned a standard eye roll and a middle finger, then lowered his head to continue attacking the pasta on his plate.
After dinner, Shane returned to his basement "studio" and imported all the footage filmed today from the camcorder into the old computer that reacted half a beat slow.
He didn't start editing immediately, just doing simple classification and backup.
Because the current internet environment was different from later generations, fragmented videos were not the mainstream. Videos on YouTube that were hours long were common, and the audience was patient.
The first video in his plan needed to have at least twenty or thirty minutes of solid content, so he needed to supplement it with some training and explanation shots later.
The next day, Shane rarely didn't skip class and went to school with Karen.
As the winter break for American high schools approached, although there wasn't the high-pressure final exams of the East, tests and essay deadlines for various courses were coming one after another. Today there happened to be an important test he had to handle.
After parting with Karen at the school gate, a few "old customers" came up and asked if he really wasn't taking homework jobs anymore.
Because Shane's homework was high quality and he could imitate handwriting, he had always been their first choice.
But Shane shook his head again, refusing firmly: "No, I won't be taking this work anymore."
Those few people looked disappointed, muttered a few sentences, and walked away.
Shane originally wanted to take the opportunity to mention his fitness plan, but swallowed the words back.
Because he analyzed it calmly:
His target was adults like Kevin who had a stable income and a genuine desire for change, not these classmates with overflowing hormones who probably couldn't even afford the lesson fees.
Also, being too high-profile in a place like a South Side high school, which was a mixed bag, could easily attract unnecessary trouble and jealousy. He didn't want to fall at the beginning.
Moreover, promoting in school would destroy the proud image of "silently struggling in adversity" that he wanted to create in his videos.
What he needed was the mystery of "being discovered" later.
So, for the next few days, apart from dealing with school exams from time to time, Shane's life entered a stable three-point line: school, home, and the warehouse behind the Alibi Room (and "tutoring" Karen in his spare time).
Cleaning the warehouse was a big project. Shane had a flash of inspiration and pulled in Carl, whose energy had nowhere to vent.
His rhetoric was simple, but extremely effective on Carl.
Shane pointed at the warehouse and said:
"Soldier Carl, I have an extremely important mission for you. See this? This used to be the secret base of an evil villain, full of dirty traps and curses! Our mission is to purify this place! Help me sweep all these 'pollutants' out. From now on, you are the Safety Supervisor of this pure land!"
Carl agreed immediately upon hearing this.
Because this sounded way cooler than electrocuting Barbie dolls!
He transformed into a little human bulldozer. Holding the cleaning gloves and large trash bags Shane bought from Temu, he howled and rushed into the trash heap.
Of course, half of Carl's "help" was actually hindrance:
He tried to drag a huge old wine cabinet and almost brought down the "art wall" made of empty wine bottles next to it on top of himself.
He discovered a mouse family in the corner and excitedly chased the mice all over the warehouse, stepping rat poop all over the places that had already been cleaned.
He also smashed some wooden boxes that were still usable, claiming they were "evil pollutants," calling it "thoroughly destroying the enemy's supplies."