Zhou Yu had barely walked five meters when he heard an exaggerated theatrical tone from behind. His hand, reaching for the cigarette pack in his pocket, paused briefly. Maintaining his half-pocketed posture, he glanced back.
Su Lin, standing beside him, chuckled and said, "Is this the 'chili pepper' you mentioned? She's quite the wild one."
Zhou Yu lit a cigarette, looked away, and casually moved on, saying, "And yet we can't hold it against her."
"Oh?" Su Lin followed, asking curiously, "Why's that?"
Zhou Yu exhaled a smoke ring: "Can't beat her."
As the crowd moved away in droves, Wen Shuangmu felt her heart sink at Zhou Yu's final glance before leaving. She said to Wu Xiaoqi, "I'm done for."
"What's wrong?" Wu Xiaoqi was busy observing Xia Zhili and Chu Xi, noting how Zhou Yu's earlier comment had made them both smile. "The effect seemed pretty good, didn't it?"
Wen Shuangmu: "I suspect Zhou Yu is falling in love with me."
Wu Xiaoqi: "Your basis for that is...?"
Wen Shuangmu regretted her actions deeply: "Isn't it typical for guys like him to be most attracted to those who challenge and defy them? My bluntness just now must have made him think, 'Woman, you're truly different.'"
Wu Xiaoqi, who was amused by his host's thought process a hundred times a day, deliberately said, "Well, he is a popular supporting male character. Even if he falls for you, it's not a bad deal, right?"
Wen Shuangmu sighed: "As if there's any good to be found in a player."
Wu Xiaoqi laughed, "Don't worry. That rule you mentioned only applies to female protagonists with the 'irresistible' setting. Otherwise, Chu Xi's initial challenges to Zhou Yu's boundaries wouldn't have held his interest for even two days."
Wen Shuangmu focused on an odd point: "Even two days is terrifying enough!"
Wu Xiaoqi: "..."
Wen Shuangmu decided that from now on, wherever she was, Zhou Yu wouldn't be, and wherever Zhou Yu was, she wouldn't be. She promptly pulled Ji Jiahui to return to school, politely asking Xia Zhili before leaving, "Are you guys coming?"
"Yes, we're coming," Xia Zhili and Chu Xi had agreed to visit that dessert shop after school, following the earlier distraction.
The four girls walked towards the school gate in relative harmony.
Wen Shuangmu wasn't sure if Chu Xi harbored any resentment towards Xia Zhili, but at least on the surface, things seemed peaceful.
The worry was that Chu Xi's "domineering female CEO" script might lead her to play hard to get when pursued by Zhou Yu, mistaking his shift of affections as just another ploy. If she only realized after a month or two that Zhou Yu was her true love, things could get crazy, and their friendship would surely be over.
Given Su Qiyan's inexplicable concern for Xia Zhili before - even asking about her eating alone in the cafeteria - if he found out that Xia Zhili had lost her only friend, he'd probably feel inexplicably sorry for her again and launch a gentle offensive to comfort her.
Wen Shuangmu pursed her lips, casting a wary sidelong glance at Chu Xi.
Meanwhile, Xia Zhili was still fretting over the hot potato in her hands.
Probably out of guilt that her best friend's former pursuer was now chasing after her, Xia Zhili seemed somewhat at a loss: "Xixi, do you want this?"
Chu Xi said, "Since Zhou Yu gave it to you, you should drink it."
Xia Zhili was indecisive and instinctively looked to Wen Shuangmu for guidance.
However, Wen Shuangmu now had severe PTSD regarding Zhizhi Green Beauty. Without thinking, she raised her own milk tea and refused, "I already have one."
Xia Zhili let out a soft "Ah" and turned her gaze to Ji Jiahui.
Ji Jiahui quickly made a gesture of refusal: "I'm not thirsty."
It wouldn't be right for her to drink something a boy gave when pursuing another girl.
As Xia Zhili hesitantly eyed a nearby trash can, Wen Shuangmu suddenly spoke up: "Alright, don't waste it. Give it to me."
Xia Zhili handed the milk tea to Wen Shuangmu, visibly relieved.
Wu Xiaoqi wondered what sudden insight his host had gained. She hadn't touched Zhizhi Green Beauty since her rebirth, after learning it was named after Xia Zhili in the novel.
"Host, won't you get full drinking so much?" Wen Shuangmu replied flatly, "Who said I was drinking it myself?"
Wu Xiaoqi: "Then who's it for?"
Wen Shuangmu: "Think about the deeper meaning of this milk tea's name."
Wu Xiaoqi was confused and repeated the name: "Zhizhi Green Beauty... It's just a fresh-sounding name, what's the problem?"
Wen Shuangmu: "Well, who do you think is being 'greened', and by whom?"
Wu Xiaoqi was shocked.
Zhizhi Green Beauty.
Beauty, Yan, ...
Wen Shuangmu smiled confidently: "So you see, is there anyone better suited to drink this milk tea than Lu Jing?"
Xia Zhili and Su Qiyan were doomed from the start, just by the novel's title. Her villainous mission was destined to succeed from the beginning.
They parted ways with Chu Xi at the gate of No. 13 High School.
Xia Zhili said, "Thanks for earlier, Wen Shuangmu. You're really nice."
Receiving this 'nice person card', Wen Shuangmu returned Xia Zhili's gentle smile: "You're welcome. I just hope there's no unpleasantness between you two."
Ji Jiahui, who really couldn't understand these tactics, wanted to speak but chose to remain silent.
Mingli High School had three self-study periods on Saturday afternoons, and lunch break discipline was also quite relaxed. As long as they didn't make too much noise, the teachers generally didn't interfere.
When Wen Shuangmu entered the classroom, it was bustling with activity. Some girls had switched seats to do homework together, boys were discussing sports news, and quite a few were playing games in groups.
Lu Jing was at his seat, but Wang Chengshuo, who usually sat in front of him, wasn't there. Instead, Lin Sen from Class 1, who often came to hang out with them, was sitting in his place.
Wen Shuangmu had been running into Lin Sen frequently in the teachers' office lately, so they weren't complete strangers.
They had a Chinese composition notebook open on their desk, taking turns drawing circles and crosses to play tic-tac-toe.
Wen Shuangmu walked over and placed the milk tea on Lu Jing's desk: "This is for you. The cream top has melted a bit, is it still okay to drink?"
"Ah." Lu Jing responded softly. Meeting Lu Jing's confused gaze as he looked up, Wen Shuangmu realized her approach might have been a bit off, too natural and familiar. She added, "The milk tea shop had a buy-one-get-one-free promotion today. The others didn't want it, do you?"
After a couple of seconds, Lu Jing nodded: "Sure, leave it there."
Wen Shuangmu thought his response sounded pretty cool. She turned back to put her half-finished cup on her own desk, then went to the storage cabinet at the back to get some test papers.
The math papers had been counted by Xia Zhili in the math teacher's office during the morning break. Zhou Quan, worried that students might work on weekend assignments during class, had asked her to hand them out at lunchtime.
Seeing Wen Shuangmu go to the front podium, Lin Sen playfully nudged Lu Jing's arm, winking: "Look at you, doing well for yourself."
Lu Jing drew a circle on the composition paper, blocking Lin Sen's nearly complete row of four: "Didn't you hear? It was buy-one-get-one-free."
Lin Sen: "How come I don't have female classmates buying one and giving me free milk tea to drink?"
Lin Sen only returned to his own class when the bell rang for class to start.
Wang Chengshuo entered the classroom right after him, carrying a stack of elective course guides from the teaching affairs office.
Wang Chengshuo was the class monitor elected by his classmates.
He wrote a string of numbers on the blackboard while distributing the elective course guides, saying, "The numbers on the board are for the new class group chat. Please add it when you have time. I'll post the school's academic affairs website link in the group later. What I'm passing out now is this semester's elective course list. Take a look at it in a bit. The course selection requirements are all printed on the paper. The unified course selection opens at 10 AM next Sunday. Don't forget, or if you don't select your courses and don't have enough credits, it will affect your college applications and independent recruitment in senior year."
As Wang Chengshuo finished speaking, a pleasant system notification melody sounded in Wen Shuangmu's mind.
Wen Shuangmu remained silent for two seconds, then asked Wu Xiaoqi, "...Why are you playing music for no reason?"
Wu Xiaoqi was quiet for even longer than Wen Shuangmu: "This is the exclusive prompt for the upcoming main storyline mission. In the future, when you hear it, you'll know I'm about to highlight important points for you."
Wen Shuangmu put down her pen and said seriously, "Oh, go ahead and highlight."
[Main storyline mission: "I won't let them have even one class" action has been unlocked.]
[Current progress: 0/10]
[Final reward: Exchangeable based on the increase in villain value.]
Wu Xiaoqi asked, "Host, do you remember what elective course you chose in your first year of high school?"
Wen Shuangmu frowned, "How could I possibly remember that?"
Wu Xiaoqi choked a bit: "...But according to the original story plot, you put a lot of effort into trying to take the same elective course as Su Qiyan in your first year. Although you didn't succeed in the end."
"Ah..." Wen Shuangmu pondered for a moment, as if remembering something, "Was it the bridge course?"
Wu Xiaoqi smiled: "That was your college elective."
Wu Xiaoqi decided to abandon this topic: "Never mind, let's not talk about this now. Anyway, what the host needs to know now is that in your previous life, because you couldn't choose the same course as Su Qiyan, it led to Su Qiyan and Xia Zhili having plenty of opportunities to be alone together in the same elective class, causing their relationship to progress rapidly."
Wu Xiaoqi saw that Wen Shuangmu had already received the course selection guide passed down from the classmates in front, and continued: "The host can now choose to unlock a chapter to see what course Su Qiyan chose, or try to find out on your own. A friendly reminder here, the plot unlock card can still only unlock 200 characters at a time, and it might unlock irrelevant plot points."
Wen Shuangmu counted the points in the mall, 25 points, equivalent to five chances to try, but she hadn't even completed the side quest of winning over the Chinese teacher yet, so she needed to save them for later use.
Seeing that the course selection deadline was next weekend, Wen Shuangmu said, "I'll try to find out on my own first."
Mingli's elective courses were diverse and varied, and before long, classmates had gathered in groups here and there to discuss.
Wang Chengshuo came down and handed one of the two course selection guides that had been passed to his desk to Lu Jing: "What are you planning to choose?"
Lu Jing shrugged, not very enthusiastic about this: "You take a look, I'll just choose the same as you when the time comes."
Wen Shuangmu's ears perked up beside them, hoping to hear if Wang Chengshuo would mention any options.
After all, persuading Xia Zhili to change to Lu Jing's course would have the same effect.
However, before Wang Chengshuo could say anything as he flipped through the course table, Lu Jing suddenly started coughing violently.
A dull cough after cough, as if he was coughing his lungs out, his spine bent over, face lowered into the crook of his left arm.
Wen Shuangmu was startled and quickly passed the tissue box on her desk to her neighbor, asking, "Are you alright?"
Lu Jing clearly had no strength to respond, so Wang Chengshuo helped take the tissues and patted Lu Jing's back: "What's going on with you?"
Lu Jing struggled to wave his hand, even his fingertips turning red from the effort.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the next second he was overcome with nausea and couldn't make a sound.
Wang Chengshuo was at a loss, the only thing he could think of was that Lu Jing had taken a sip of milk tea when he was talking to him earlier. Thinking that even if he had choked, it shouldn't be this severe, he had just picked up the milk tea when he quickly put it away: "Damn, what is this stuff, why does it smell so fishy?"
Wen Shuangmu's expression turned horrified for a moment.
Fuck, Zhou Yu actually put something in the milk tea he gave to Xia Zhili!!!
About fifteen minutes later, Lu Jing and Wang Chengshuo returned from the bathroom one after another.
Lu Jing was carrying a half-empty bottle of mouthwash he had just bought. He looked quite unwell, his hair a bit messy with a few drops of water still dripping from the ends.
Wen Shuangmu was biting her pen cap, looking at him guiltily, when she saw Lu Jing walk straight towards her. As he approached her desk, he suddenly raised his hand.
Wen Shuangmu had thought about Lu Jing taking out his anger on her, but she didn't expect it to come so suddenly. She instinctively protected her head with both arms and quickly closed her eyes, saying, "It really wasn't me playing a prank."
Actually, during the time Lu Jing was gone, Wen Shuangmu and Wu Xiaoqi had discussed possible solutions for a long time.
Wu Xiaoqi hadn't expected Zhou Yu to pull such a crazy move either, and they really couldn't come up with a solution. In the end, she actually advised her to take the blame: "Just bear with it."
This solution was undoubtedly terrible, but for the sake of future alliance relationships, Wen Shuangmu forced herself to put herself in Lu Jing's shoes and empathize for a moment.
Regardless of the reason, the problematic milk tea had been handed out by her. If Lu Jing really wanted to vent his anger and fight her, she could only accept it.
But when the person actually raised his hand to strike, she couldn't help but chicken out and tried to explain as a last resort.
Lu Jing had originally just intended to return the pack of tissues Wen Shuangmu had lent him to her desk. Seeing Wen Shuangmu's defensive posture, he paused.
He raised the hand holding the tissue pack a bit higher.
"Pat."
A very light sound.
The tissue pack tapped Wen Shuangmu's head once, then "pat" fell onto the desk.
"Mm, I know."
Lu Jing's voice had a very peculiar quality, brushed with a layer of the classroom's fluorescent light, the kind of voice that would make people turn their heads to look when passing by in school during their youth.
But at this moment, Wen Shuangmu couldn't think about all that. She lowered her hands and asked, "You know?"
"Ah." Lu Jing suddenly slowed his speech, as if making it up on the spot, "I'm lactose intolerant."
Wen Shuangmu was stunned, feeling something was off: "Didn't we drink milk tea and eat cake together last night?"
Lu Jing calmly added two words: "Acute lactose intolerance."
Wen Shuangmu: "..."
Is he serious?
Wen Shuangmu raised her hand to point at Wang Chengshuo behind him: "Then what's with him saying the milk tea smelled fishy?"
Lu Jing turned his head to look back as well, with an equally curious expression: "I want to ask too, it's just normal milk tea, why did you say it smelled fishy?"
Wang Chengshuo: "...It smelled so fishy it stank. Is your nose broken or your tongue?"
The evidence was still on Lu Jing's desk, not yet thrown into the trash.
Wen Shuangmu leaned her body across the aisle, took it and sniffed: "Hm? It smells normal."
Apart from the sweet milk cap and the fragrance of the tea base, she couldn't smell anything else.
"How is that possible." Wang Chengshuo didn't believe it and took the milk tea to check again. This time it was his turn to be stunned. He asked in confusion, "Then what did I smell earlier?"
Lu Jing looked left and right: "The window probably wasn't closed, maybe something drifted in from outside."
So it was all a misunderstanding.
Wen Shuangmu immediately felt relieved: "It's good that nothing's wrong. If you can't drink it, don't. I'll throw it away for you."
Lu Jing didn't say anything, which counted as tacit approval of Wen Shuangmu's action.
However, Wang Chengshuo felt it wasn't that simple. After ten minutes, when he turned back to Lu Jing, Lu Jing was already resting with his head down.
Wang Chengshuo pushed his arm to wake him up: "I still think it's very strange."
Lu Jing didn't open his eyes, but responded: "Mm, your feeling isn't wrong. I've recently come into contact with something unclean."
Wang Chengshuo: "..."
He did think it was strange, but he didn't expect such an eerie response.
Lu Jing actually hadn't intended to sleep, it was just that the nausea had just passed and he had explained so much, now he felt a bit weak.
Hearing Wang Chengshuo not continuing after a while, he raised his head to find the person just sitting sideways there, one hand resting on the edge of his desk, tapping and clicking on his phone.
Lu Jing asked, "What are you doing?"
"Sending the file the homeroom teacher sent me to the class group," Wang Chengshuo said. "I've added you to the group, remember to accept."
"..."
Lu Jing didn't move for two seconds, then fumbled for his phone from the drawer.
He propped his chin on one hand, and after joining the group, instead of directly exiting the interface, he slowly scrolled down the group chat members page.
The classmates had just joined, and hadn't changed their nicknames yet. They were all called things like "Summer Oh My" and "Orange Can't Fly", a hodgepodge of names that made it impossible to tell who was who.
Lu Jing asked, "Has everyone been added?"
Wang Chengshuo looked at the number of people, 45, including several subject teachers: "More or less."
Lu Jing thought for a moment and said, "Should we ask everyone to change their nicknames to their real names?"
Wang Chengshuo had just finished editing the group announcement, and at this moment he had just finished typing and sent it out.
Lu Jing closed the announcement that popped up on the chat interface, waited for a while, and found that the person next to him was still lowering his head to do homework, with no tendency to look at his phone.
Lu Jing's hand that was propping up his chin moved up to grab his bangs, his fingertips sliding into the roots of his hair, his knuckles curling to give a tug, letting out a long sigh before releasing.
He swung his phone across the aisle: "Add me as a friend?"
Hearing his words, not only Wen Shuangmu but also Wang Chengshuo looked up at him.
Wen Shuangmu was stunned for a moment, while fumbling for her phone from the drawer, she reported a string of account numbers to him. Lu Jing entered it into the search box, went to the user interface, and suddenly said, "Is your nickname Miaomiao?"
"Huh?" Wen Shuangmu didn't react.
Lu Jing pointed at the username: "Three Waters."
"Oh, that," Wen Shuangmu said. "Wen plus two Mu characters, isn't that three water radicals?"
Lu Jing understood. Seeing Wang Chengshuo still looking confused, he said, "Aren't you going to add her? As the class monitor, don't you often need to contact classmates about things?"
Wang Chengshuo, drawn in by his words, also searched for her.
Wen Shuangmu's phone had died automatically. After she found a power bank in her backpack and charged it up, she saw a friend request pop up on the screen:
["Elementary Schooler Turned Dark (Looking for CP)" has added you as a friend.]
Wen Shuangmu felt suffocated by the wave of chuunibyou that hit her. Her eyes darted between Lu Jing and Wang Chengshuo, unsure which one had chosen such a cringeworthy username.
What should she do? She had originally planned to gradually build a connection through the app, casually inquiring about elective courses later. Now, she suddenly felt reluctant to accept.
Lu Jing said, "I've added you. 'Fog Dispersed' is me."
Wen Shuangmu was stunned and turned her gaze to Wang Chengshuo.
So...
Seeing her look over, Wang Chengshuo added, "Golden Poplar at Nanjing Cross Alley is me."
Huh?
Wen Shuangmu refreshed the interface and found two new friend requests.
They were exactly the ones Lu Jing and Wang Chengshuo had mentioned.
A memory from her past life flashed through Wen Shuangmu's mind like a glowing white line.
!
She suddenly remembered who "Elementary Schooler Turned Dark (Looking for CP)" was.
Wen Shuangmu suddenly felt embarrassed. She rubbed her forehead, tapped to reject one request, and then accepted the other two.
Five minutes later, the rejected one sent another request, this time with a verification message: "Big sis, it's Yiyi. Why didn't you add me?"
Wen Bingyi was in third grade this year. Previously, his family had been worried about him getting addicted to the internet, so they only gave him a smartwatch phone. But as the school increased online homework assignments, which often required parents to check in, and since Boss Wen and Mrs. Han were both busy with work, they decided to get him a proper phone this semester, with Aunt Shuqin supervising his daily homework.
Boss Wen had mentioned buying the phone at the dinner table just two days ago, and she had almost forgotten about it.
Wen Shuangmu embarrassedly rubbed her left eye with her palm, rejected the request again, then quickly locked her phone and tossed it into the drawer, out of sight, out of mind.
After adding friends, Lu Jing showed no signs of stopping and began discussing elective courses with Wang Chengshuo in a seemingly knowledgeable manner.
"Are you taking basketball? Liu Yiheng and Lin Sen will probably join too," Wang Chengshuo said.
"Probably not."
"C programming?"
"Too difficult."
"How about basic mathematics? It's just slightly more advanced than the regular curriculum."
Lu Jing gave him a sidelong glance: "You think this week's math homework isn't enough? You want to add an elective course on top of that?"
Wang Chengshuo couldn't handle this young master anymore: "...Didn't you just say you'd let me pick and you'd choose the same as me?"
Lu Jing turned to ask Wen Shuangmu: "Have you decided what you're going to choose?"
Wen Shuangmu tilted her head, twirling the pen hanging from her hand. She noticed that Lu Jing had been chatting with her quite frequently during this lunch break, already twice now.
However, this topic suited her perfectly, so she said, "Not yet. Do you have any recommendations?"
Wen Shuangmu's probe was extremely subtle.
Lu Jing, however, was unexpectedly straightforward. He flipped through the course list and browsed: "How about 'A Survey of Righteous Role Models Throughout History'? Or 'The Birth of the Madonna'? 'Wrong Love - Guiding Teenagers Towards Correct Views on Relationships'?"
Wen Shuangmu was shocked for a moment. How had she never heard of such elective courses during her three years of high school?
She thought carefully about her words: "...They sound like courses with very strong value indoctrination. I personally don't really like that kind of thing."
Lu Jing closed the course list and spoke without hesitation: "Right? I don't really like them either."
Wang Chengshuo was completely lost: "..."
Brother, weren't you just recommending courses to her? How did you end up contradicting yourself?
Lu Jing, however, didn't seem to think there was any problem. He put his things away in the drawer and said to Wang Chengshuo, "Can you pull down the blackout curtain for me? I want to take a nap."
Wang Chengshuo: "..."
Wen Shuangmu: "..."
In the last twenty minutes of the lunch break, the class wasn't as noisy as before. Although some students didn't have the habit of napping, they quieted down and worked on their weekend homework.
Wen Shuangmu finished the last step of a function problem and went to turn off the incandescent lights in the classroom.
