Zhou Rui quickly typed back: What kind of joke are you making?
Li Xiaonan: How could I joke about risking my life?
Chasing after Chai Meicen already requires risking your life.
Telling Zhou Rui, based on how Zhou Rui rejects the two of them being together, Zhou Rui may not even be able to get through this.
Under such circumstances, Li Xiaonan daring to say this already took a lot of guts.
Zhou Rui: Impossible, no way!
Li Xiaonan: She already has a boyfriend.
Zhou Rui: No, she doesn't.
Hou Ranxi can't really be considered Chai Meicen's boyfriend right now. Although Chai Meicen has opened up a little, she still feels like she doesn't like Hou Ranxi.
Not liking him, Zhou Rui also can't force the two of them to be together, right?
Li Xiaonan: So why can't Uncle Hou be the target of your mother?
Zhou Rui: ......
Li Xiaonan even noticed this.
He couldn't help but sigh, turned off the screen and stopped responding, sitting down to continue brainwashing Chai Meicen.
"Think carefully, aren't there many boys who like how you look now, especially those little bastards at school, quite a few have confessed to you already." Zhou Rui asked.
Chai Meicen nodded: "Actually I was quite popular when I was young."
"But think again, how many people had the same attitude when you became ugly, fat, and were covered in dirt?"
Chai Meicen fell silent.
Only Hou Ranxi.
"Think carefully again, what were you like when you were in love with my father, what were you like later? If he saw how you looked later, would it be possible for him to change his mind and reject you? He might have felt disgusted and fortunately abandoned you." Zhou Rui continued his vicious tactics.
Chai Meicen lowered her eyes, thinking of Li Xiaonan's biological father. Judging from his eyebrows and face, if that man wasn't so sloppy he would be quite a decent man.
But now, her current appearance would only make Li Xiaonan's mother feel disgusted, and not regret her decision.
She was in the same situation back then.
And she still dares to say anything about others.
"You're right." Chai Meicen nodded.
Zhou Rui finally breathed a sigh of relief: "Don't be fooled by those sweet talking young boys. If you suddenly regained your original appearance some day, they would definitely abandon you immediately, and might even become furious and badmouth you everywhere. The only one who wouldn't leave you is Uncle Hou, you know?"
"I understand everything you said, what I'm struggling with now is whether or not I actually like him."
Up until now, Chai Meicen was still confused about this.
How did he suddenly confess?
Zhou Rui picked up his phone and stood up: "I'm going to curse someone out now, think carefully yourself."
"Curse who?" Chai Meicen immediately regained focus.
"Don't worry about it, just think carefully about things with Uncle Hou." He said, taking his phone and leaving.
Seeing Zhou Rui leaving the room to curse someone out, Chai Meicen was worried he would cause trouble, and specifically called out into the hallway: "Don't get into fights!"
"I'll try my best." Zhou Rui ran off quickly.
When Zhou Rui met Li Xiaonan, they immediately got into a fight.
To avenge being unlocked, and also because this guy actually wanted to pursue his mother, it was like he wanted to usurp the throne, or change fate against heaven.
Actually, Zhou Rui only planned to curse Li Xiaonan out at the start.
However, after cursing for a while, cursing like a rapper, Li Xiaonan didn't say a word, just "humph"ing repeatedly, making Zhou Rui feel extremely uncomfortable.
So in the end, he just started fighting.
At first, Li Xiaonan only blocked a little, to let Zhou Rui vent his anger, but Zhou Rui kept going relentlessly.
After going back and forth, being kicked a few times, Li Xiaonan also got angry, and they started fighting in no time.
After the fight, Zhou Rui was trembling with anger, squatting by the railing and panting.
Li Xiaonan felt like Zhou Rui had gone crazy. His whole body hurt without a single uninjured spot. Sweat streamed into his eyes, making him unable to even open them.
He walked to Zhou Rui's side and asked: "Does me pursuing her warrant this from you?"
"It warrants it!" Zhou Rui nearly shouted.
"Do you feel like I'm unworthy, not good enough for her?" When Li Xiaonan asked, he sounded quite upset. He didn't expect that after knowing Zhou Rui for so many years, Zhou Rui looked down on him so much.
If Zhou Rui and Qiu Si Tong really got together, he wouldn't hesitate for a moment and would immediately agree.
He believed in Zhou Rui's character.
But Zhou Rui clearly didn't believe in him.
"It's not that you're unworthy of her, it's that you two are not suitable for each other!"
"Why are we not suitable?"
Zhou Rui really wanted to yell at him, I don't want my buddy to be my stepdad, but in the end could only say: "She's my aunt, I don't want you to be my uncle-in-law!"
"......" Li Xiaonan looked at Zhou Rui strangely.
The two stared at each other for a while. Li Xiaonan simply sat down next to Zhou Rui.
"This is the first time I've realized I like someone." Li Xiaonan said in a low voice.
Zhou Rui immediately started anxiously scratching his head.
Zhou Rui knew what Li Xiaonan was like. If he wasn't planning to be serious, he wouldn't say anything at all.
He also knew Li Xiaonan's stubborn personality. He wouldn't turn back unless he hit a wall.
When they first saw Chai Meicen, Yang Ming's eyes had gone straight, but Li Xiaonan didn't even glance over once, clearly not caring much about pretty girls.
Now saying he likes Chai Meicen, it probably wasn't because he found Chai Meicen good looking, but truly liked her.
Liked Chai Meicen as a person.
If Chai Meicen wasn't his mother, no matter what he said, Zhou Rui wouldn't try to stop him.
He probably would even be squatting by Li Xiaonan's side right now, eagerly giving Li Xiaonan ideas, and encouraging Li Xiaonan for opening up, it wasn't easy.
But that person was his mother!
After pulling his hair for a while, Zhou Rui still hadn't come up with a solution.
He didn't even dare to look at Li Xiaonan: "How about this, Qiu Si Tong shouldn't pursue me anymore, and you shouldn't pursue Chai Meicen either. We'll call it even, okay?"
"What does one thing have to do with the other?"
"Hasn't your family gotten tangled up with our family?"
"I feel like she's quite good." When Li Xiaonan spoke, his voice was a little muffled, seemingly a bit shy.
The more Li Xiaonan acted like this, the more anxious Zhou Rui became.
"I'm also quite good, how come you didn't fall for me?"
"Stop messing around, can you?"
"I'm not messing around. The two of us can make do, so you should stop pursuing Chai Meicen." Zhou Rui really said it.
For others it could work, but for Li Xiaonan...
Why did it have to be Li Xiaonan, his most iron buddy!
Li Xiaonan knew Zhou Rui was talking nonsense today, especially over the line.
"Can you tell me the reason? Just because you don't want me as your uncle-in-law?" Li Xiaonan frowned and asked.
"Yes! That's the reason!"
Li Xiaonan got up angrily without saying anything and directly left.
Zhou Rui got up and chased a few steps, asking: "Where are you going?"
"Piss off, looking at you just pisses me off!" Li Xiaonan had also gotten impatient.
After following his mother to his stepfather's house, Li Xiaonan's temper improved by a lot, and he rarely cursed anymore.
Going straight for a few years, Zhou Rui had thought Li Xiaonan was a good person before too.
Zhou Rui felt awful.
He really was worried sick about his mother.
On the last day of break, he went to school early and returned to his dorm room, empty and quiet with just him alone.
His roommates were all in the international class, including Li Xiaonan, Yang Ming, and Fang Qiao. Fang Qiao was the only one in the dorm with a girlfriend, and spent most of his time accompanying his girlfriend.
He wasn't the only one returning to school a night early. After all, the cafeteria would be open tonight. Zhou Rui went to the cafeteria supermarket to buy some snacks, and on the way back vaguely saw Zhang Ruchen walking towards the dorm.
Zhou Rui returned to the dorm room, took out the new tattoo stickers he bought from his luggage, grabbed a stack, preparing to let Zhang Ruchen pick one himself.
Holding the tattoo stickers, he gnawed on an ice pop and went to Zhang Ruchen's dorm room.
Zhang Ruchen had a relatively loner personality, looking quite gentle, but had very few friends, living in a single room dorm.
He arrived at the dorm building, walking to the room furthest inside. He discovered the single room dorm building was empty and quiet, with not many people returning early.
When Zhou Rui got to Zhang Ruchen's dorm room door, just about to knock, he heard sounds from inside.
"Wait for me to group up, there are five loners on the other side... Yeah, taking five, so weak." Zhang Ruchen's voice was always nice to listen to, currently speaking calmly.
After listening to this trash talk, Zhou Rui couldn't help but peek in, discovering Zhang Ruchen seemed to be playing games on his computer.
He also had a bunch of equipment next to him, looking like he was streaming.
Zhou Rui took a step back, suddenly doubting life.
The school genius and campus heartthrob from their school turned out to be a game streamer?
He hesitated for a bit, then deliberately walked again to make noise with his footsteps, before knocking: "Zhang Harvard!"
"Uh... Someone came to my dorm, I'll turn off my mic first, wait a moment..." Zhang Ruchen told his teammates in-game, then turned around to look, "I didn't close my door."
Zhou Rui walked into the dorm, sitting quite naturally next to him: "You play your game, I'm in no rush."
While operating his game, Zhang Ruchen swiftly glanced at what Zhou Rui was holding in his hands.
Zhou Rui just watched him like that, leaning on his chin. He took a peek at Zhang Ruchen's ID, then secretly went online on his phone to search.
Seeing the millions of fans, Zhou Rui secretly put his phone down, still maintaining a calm appearance, but internally surging with waves.
He would go back to his dorm to search more about whether Zhang Ruchen had any dirt, like... sleeping with fans.
After Zhang Ruchen finished this match, he quickly turned off his computer and organized his streaming equipment: "It's just playing games."
"Yeah, you play pretty well. It must have felt awful when I was teaching you games, pretending to be a newbie, a pig eating tiger."
Zhang Ruchen still tried his best to stay calm responding: "The few you taught me I really hadn't played before."
Zhang Ruchen normally had few friends, very rarely anyone came looking for him.
Zhou Rui had just come in, and the others on his floor were high school seniors who would be going to classrooms in the teaching building for evening classes, so they didn't pay attention when he came in.
Zhang Ruchen got nervous when Zhou Rui came in, but tried to pretend like nothing was wrong.
"I got some new temporary tattoos. Pick one and I'll put it on you," Zhou Rui said, reaching to squeeze Zhang Ruchen's arm. "Your little twig arms could probably fit a whole row of them. I'll have gaps if I put them on myself."
Zhang Ruchen looked at a few and asked, "Do you have any for other places?"
"Oh, so you don't want people to see, is that it? Where do you want it, your butt? Will you be able to relax if I'm staring at your butt while I put a tattoo on it?" Zhou Rui teased.
"Ahem...my collarbone..." Zhang Ruchen said.
Narrator: Zhou Rui: I have to stay calm and act like someone who is used to these kinds of situations.
Zhang Ruchen: I have to stay calm and act like I don't care that he found me.
[He's misunderstood and thinks I'm gay now, poor moth.]
[Nutrient solution to encourage more updates has arrived.]
