After Lu Zhanbei left, He Xingluo put away his business-like smile and communicated with the system in his mind: “I wonder if we can see the game protagonist. Wen Tian should have arrived by now, right?”
The little system nodded, then asked curiously, “There is no one else here. You can just talk to me out loud.”
Of course, that was because even though there was no one around, there were security cameras, and the security team might be on duty twenty-four hours a day. He didn’t want to be seen talking to the air and have weird rumors about himself pop up the next day.
So, He Xingluo kept a straight face while having an intense mental exchange.
“Shall we check on Wen Tian’s situation?” He Xingluo asked enthusiastically. After all, it was time to eat; you would rather have your dumplings without vinegar, but a good video to watch while eating is absolutely essential.
System: “.”
Sure enough, it was him.
A few seconds later, the little system said with some uncertainty, “Wen Tian seems to be getting bullied.”
Here it comes.
The moment a cute protagonist appears, the bullying law must take effect.
However, Wen Tian was no ordinary cute protagonist. After all, he had the protagonist halo, and ordinary people couldn’t bully him easily. After all, the president’s famous line was, “Who dares to touch my person?”
He Xingluo curiously asked, “Who is bullying Wen Tian?”
“Uh, it seems to be a head chef in the kitchen.” The little system reminded him, “Fifty meters ahead is the scene. You can see it right away.”
Wen Tian was here to work as a waiter today, so the gathering point was naturally near the kitchen.
A few seconds later.
He Xingluo indeed heard it:
“Wen Tian is different from you people. He is a top student from P University! You guys working with him today are really sharing in his glory!” Foreman Wang gathered a group of people together, gave the above important guidance, and then said to Wen Tian: “Even a top student from P University has to change into uniform, though. All of us are waiting here for you to change and come back.”
When Wen Tian arrived at the scene, he discovered that he was the only part-time worker, while all the other employees were wearing neat uniforms.
This was a situation Wen Tian had not anticipated, and even less did he expect this kind of harassment.
“When he talks like that, is he bullying Wen Tian, or is he praising him?” The little system didn’t understand human sarcasm and whispered, “They have no past grievances, and Wen Tian didn’t offend him…”
Hearing this, He Xingluo fell silent.
This Foreman Wang was clearly using Wen Tian to vent. What he wanted to make difficult might not be Wen Tian himself, but someone like Wen Tian, someone who temporarily had to swallow their pride for money, yet possessed exceptionally high personal character.
This kind of bullying was actually quite low-level, intentionally provoking opposition between Wen Tian and the others, making people look down on him just to fit in, even if they had nothing against him.
But why should they!
Foreman Wang didn’t dare say half a word of objection to Lu Zhitao who arranged for Wen Tian to be here, yet he bullied Wen Tian like this. Honestly, how detestable!
He Xingluo unhappily knocked on the door. “Am I coming at a bad time, Foreman Wang?”
Wang instantly smiled. “Not at all, not at all. Butler He is here to inspect our work.”
“No, no, I just happened to pass by.” As soon as He Xingluo finished speaking, the driver he hadn’t seen for a while chimed in loudly from behind him: “Passing by, and stopping by to grab a boxed lunch.”
“Yes, yes, look at how absent-minded I am. On such an important day, someone didn’t wear their work uniform and delayed everyone’s time.” Foreman Wang didn’t forget to kick him while he was down: “That college student over there, go hand out the boxed lunches. You don’t look like someone who can handle hardship…”
Wen Tian acted as if he hadn’t understood the implication in Foreman Wang’s words, looking very submissive and yielding as he replied, “Okay.”
He Xingluo: “…”
What is this? A cute white flower transformed into a bullied punching bag?
Wen Tian had no clothes because he was a part-time worker, and shouldn’t this uniform have been prepared by Foreman Wang? He Xingluo was about to speak up, but Wen Tian implicitly stopped him.
“This gentleman,” Wen Tian walked up to him and said, “please come with me.”
He Xingluo immediately thought:
Very good, the moral standards of you protagonists are all this high! But seeing that Wen Tian wanted to smooth things over and avoid trouble, he had no choice but to cooperate.
He Xingluo silently closed his mouth and shifted gears: “Let’s go, let’s go eat!”
The driver was greatly shocked. What was the deal with this sudden surge of momentum? The driver tactfully reminded him: “You know that even if the two of us eat eighteen boxes of lunch a day, we still won’t eat the Lu family into poverty, right?”
He Xingluo thought again:
Sure enough, nature never lies, your natural predators are always right beside you!
Two minutes later.
He Xingluo lined up and received his boxed lunch, which Wen Tian handed to him personally. He Xingluo was still brooding over what happened earlier, while Wen Tian already acted as though nothing had happened. He Xingluo felt somewhat gloomy and decided to mess with the person next to him.
After opening the lid of his boxed lunch, He Xingluo compared them and evaluated: “Look closely, is my chicken leg bigger?”
Driver: “…”
Is it?
Then he needed to take a closer look!
After messing with someone else’s state of mind, He Xingluo happily dug into his meal.
“Since we’ve already eaten the boxed lunch personally picked out for me by the male lead, shouldn’t we do something for the male lead?” While eating his boxed lunch, He Xingluo communicated with the system in his mind: “Why don’t we start by changing tonight’s scene where Wen Tian gets publicly confessed to by Lu Zhitao?”
The system immediately became alert: “Warning! Warning! Host! The main storyline cannot be altered! It cannot be altered!”
He Xingluo tried it out eagerly: “Ah, yes, yes, yes.”
System: “…”
So despairing, the system’s future didn’t look very bright either.
The system was angry for a few seconds, then timidly asked: “Host, what are you planning to do?”
“Just a small matter.” He Xingluo left them in suspense, then took a roundabout way to find Foreman Wang and exchange a few words. During the process of watching from the sidelines, the little system went from bouncing up and down to obediently resting on He Xingluo’s shoulder.
He Xingluo asked: “How is it? This shouldn’t count as altering the main storyline, right?”
“I suppose not?” The little system tilted its head: “But why did you make all the waiters wear masks? Will this keep Wen Tian from getting confessed to?”
Naturally, it was to at least prevent that brat Lu Zhitao from pointing directly at Wen Tian’s face on the spot and shouting, “No, Mother! I refuse any commercial marriage! I want to marry Wen Tian!”
Just thinking about it made his social anxiety flare up, let alone how much trouble this incident would bring to Wen Tian. Therefore, the only solution was to have all the waiters uniformly wear masks, achieving the effect of running hares near the ground while making it impossible to tell which one is Wen Tian!
Once the first wave was survived, Wen Tian at least wouldn’t end up like in the original plot, working hard for half a day only to fail to even earn his part-time pay.
Of course, He Xingluo had no grand ambition of saving and healing the male lead. He had simply seen it and wanted to do a tiny good deed, as a way of thanking Wen Tian for that boxed lunch.
“But Host,” the little system said weakly.
“What is it this time?” He Xingluo was in a good mood now. “Stop butting around. Wen Tian is the protagonist; you have to believe he can handle what comes next!”
A lazy working-class employee could only do this much.
“It’s not that.” The little system swung its body back and forth in front of He Xingluo’s eyes, saying in a dizzying manner: “But you told Foreman Wang that Young Master Lu has a special fetish, which is why he likes other people wearing masks. That excuse is really fake!”
Those wealthy young master corporate boss male leads always had some quirks regular people couldn’t understand; that wasn’t weird!
At least it was more plausible than hearing someone tell a lie and breaking out in hives, where only the purest, most unpretentious protagonist could cure him and fall in love with him, right?
Compared to that, wearing a mask was such a great lifestyle habit.
Highly recommended, highly recommended.
Up to this point, He Xingluo felt that his work for the day was completely done. He needed to rest properly, otherwise, his brain might actually start growing.
The Lu family’s estate was unimaginably huge, and the little system diligently found a map for him, complete with a cybernetic screen for navigation. The system asked: “Host, where would you like to go? There is a golf course here, plus a swimming pool, tennis courts, and all kinds of facilities! With me here, I can point the way wherever you want to go!”
He Xingluo thought:
He didn’t want to move.
“Is there any chance this isn’t my own home and I can’t just casually check in anywhere?” He Xingluo yawned: “I just want to find a lounge, lie down without moving a muscle, and COS a fresh corpse.”
In short, a very niche hobby.
Just as He Xingluo was checking the map to see where an empty lounge might be, his phone rang without warning. His very first reaction upon picking up the phone was to press the mute button, and only the next second did he look at the caller ID:
Young Master Lu.
Why on earth was this young master calling him? Why was this happening!
He remembered a joke that once circulated on the internet. Question: Why do young people nowadays occasionally want to go back home to farm?
Answer: Because rice stalks won’t suddenly call you in the middle of the night to tell you they are fruiting tomorrow.
He Xingluo felt roughly like that right now. He was just an NPC; why was the young master calling him personally? Did he deserve this? He certainly did not!
Resigned to his fate, He Xingluo answered the call without a shred of anger: “Young master, what are your instructions?”