In truth, the dormitory Jian Yue lived in had always had lukewarm relations among its roommates.
Mostly, they regarded each other with neglect and hostility, maintaining silence and wariness toward one another in this cramped space.
The one on the top bunk, who had been flipping through a book, had only just returned to the dorm not long ago.
He’d come back around ten o’clock, right on the dot. Since returning, he’d read or worked without a word, and only now finally deigned to lift his eyes from the book and look outward.
His gaze happened to meet that of Mu Yansheng, who was just withdrawing his own from below.
And those gray-blue eyes from up high, peering through his glasses, coldly observed the visible undercurrents and desire in Mu Yansheng’s gaze below.
Rabid dog pup.
This was Li Cheng,the gentleman on the top bunk’s sole assessment of his roommate Mu Yansheng.
And that haughty, high-and-mighty manner of his seemed, in Mu Yansheng’s eyes, equally insufferable six of one, half a dozen of the other.
If the center of those undercurrents hadn’t once again pushed open his bed curtain, deliberately exposing himself in loose clothing before their eyes, this territorial pissing contest would likely have dragged on for a long while yet.
The young man, oblivious to all this, wore only a somewhat loose T-shirt and carried his toiletries, preparing to wash up in the private bathroom.
Mu Yansheng spoke up to warn him: “Someone’s in there. Wait a bit before you go.”
The young man clearly heard him, for his steps toward the bathroom unconsciously slowed for a moment. But the person inside seemed to be deliberately working against Mu Yansheng the moment someone gave warning, he happened to push open the door and collided head-on with the young man standing before it.
Shen Yu, the very student council president who, without knowing anything, had been doted on by Jian Yue for one second, and also one of Jian Yue’s roommates.
He seemed to have just finished showering, his whole body wreathed in steam, skin tinged with the flush brought on by hot water. Water still trailed down in streaks over the lean, handsome contours of his muscles.
That handsome face was sharply defined, with deep-set brows and eyes, yet the sharpness was softened by those light brown, downturned eyes, making him look gentle and harmless.
His bare upper body was plainly exposed to the air. Caught off guard by the sight, Jian Yue’s gaze could only land honestly on those beautifully curved pectoral muscles.
But in Shen Yu’s eyes, all he saw was the young man glancing at him for an instant before calmly looking away.
Ah, well.
“Jian Yue, you’re back?” Setting aside those thoughts, Shen Yu greeted the young man before him in his usual manner, like ordinary roommates interacting.
“Mm.” The young man nodded.
Except Jian Yue didn’t seem to care for this kind of pointless, superfluous socializing, so the expression on that cool, aloof face remained unchanged, his tone flat, stingy with even half a smile.
And once the young man went in to wash up and the door separating the dormitory from the bathroom was fully closed, Shen Yu’s eyes met Mu Yansheng’s, the latter’s face written with disgust and they both casually looked away.
That smile was no longer as mild as it had been with the young man; a chill had been quenched into those light brown, caramel-like eyes.
At this moment, Shen Yu was a mirror image of Jian Yue, completely dropping all pretense of that “can’t be bothered with pointless socializing” attitude, looking straight ahead at neither of the two in the room, treating them as air.
‘So, when exactly is the mission plot going to start?’
In the bathroom, Jian Yue was squeezing out toothpaste, a trace of impatience creeping into his brow.
Unlike his slender, tall figure, Jian Yue’s mentality was, in many ways, remarkably rough-and-ready.
The system could even hear the host’s inner thoughts clearly through the young man’s brain, which was why it often fell into a certain eerie silence as if it were looking at a combination of a beautiful girl’s body with a middle-aged man’s soul.
As for the host’s questions, based on the script the Quick Transmigration Bureau had written by roughly projecting future developments, the system judged that the current plot might still be in the prologue… or in the early-to-mid stage that was about to begin.
But he was, after all, a rookie system.
Even though he’d ranked first in the written exam, had decent reading and analysis skills, and had even brought along notebooks on character emotional expression and detail analysis for work… he had never actually put any of it into practice.
So faced with the host’s questions, and not too sure about those people’s attitudes, the system could only reply dryly: [It might take a plot climax to trigger it.]
Jian Yue was resigned, but he could only accept his fate.
If this had been at the very beginning, he might have actually enjoyed the waiting process.
But as a gold-medal employee, after working several consecutive days while maintaining his character setting, he no longer had even that much patience left.
Especially when he saw several people from campus whom he’d met only once or twice swagger in half an hour before his shift ended and order a whole pile of bubble tea.
Unbelievable. Even the quietest stretch of the evening shift wasn’t safe, here came a few day-student young masters and young ladies ordering bubble tea. And they ordered all sorts of obscure drinks like they were showing off at a hotel bar… Don’t you know I’ve only memorized the ingredient lists for the bestsellers?
Besides, you’re just adding to my workload, okay?
The only one making money is the boss, and you’re calling it “showing support.”
Showing support for a bubble tea shop… ugh.
Jian Yue took a deep breath, calmed his somewhat bitter and irritated mood, and resignedly picked up his rinsing cup and walked out of the dorm.
Late at night.
Jian Yue pulled back the curtain to look at his phone, calculating whether his balance could support taking a light break for a day or two.
Then he heard the bed board on his rival’s side being gently tapped, and a man’s lowered voice came through the wood.
“Your screen’s too bright.”
Jian Yue looked at how he and Li Cheng slept head-to-head, firmly separated by a solid wooden board, then looked at the few small holes in the board that were the only possible source of light leakage. In the end, he lowered the brightness and whispered back, “Got it.”
As drowsiness washed over him, Jian Yue turned off his phone and burrowed back into his blankets. Then, to avoid the possibility of insomnia leading to death from overwork, he had the system knock him out directly so he could enjoy an immersive, undisturbed, wonderful sleep.
The system, well-practiced, severed the man’s consciousness from his body and dragged him into the consciousness space.
He watched the host appear in the consciousness space, then silently pulled up several full-score completion videos from other hosts in the romance division for Jian Yue to use as reference.
When Jian Yue first arrived in the consciousness space and saw this scene, a subtle look entered his eyes.
But he was a veteran of the Quick Transmigration Bureau, so he knew how rarely these full-score completion videos could be obtained. With a complicated and moved expression, he patted the young system, who stood a head taller than him, and sighed, “Getting these must have taken you quite a lot of effort, huh?”
The silver-haired, blue-eyed young man’s expression was slightly awkward, but only for a moment. His face quickly returned to its usual stoic, deadpan look, and he answered dutifully: [This is also part of the System’s job.]
Jian Yue winced.
Look at that, just look at that, what a dedicated workhorse.
Given the measly commission the Quick Transmigration Bureau paid its rookie Systems, Jian Yue almost felt sorry for him.
But this culture of dragging your coworkers into the rat race was truly terrible, so all Jian Yue offered this young man, who looked so upright and so incapable of thinking outside the box, was an encouraging “that’s very thoughtful of you,” along with a reply that was both quite reasonable and not reasonable at all:
“But don’t worry, I have my own pace. So stop studying for now and let me get some proper rest.”