On the panel, the pale gray storyline carried a leisurely, unconcerned air—as if it didn’t care whether the host lived or died. The 50% offset value remained completely still.
So far, the “patching” missions had always been issued one-on-one: either between the female lead and the male lead, or between the female lead and the villain.
This time was no exception.
The exception was that in the villain’s case, the male lead had arrived first instead.
She finally understood what the system meant by “increased uncertainty in task execution” and “greater difficulty in patching.”
—But, but!
This was only a 5% corruption level!
She opened the chat interface and nervously sent a message to Gu Jinyan.
“Brother Yan, where are you?”
The other party replied:
“C109 private room! Oh, I’ve settled things here… I swear, how can someone be so petty?”
He then sent a video.
Zhu Shuiwen instinctively clicked it open.
Under dim lighting, a young man’s strong hand was gripping a girl’s wrist.
Amid sounds of “Are you crazy?”, “I’m warning you! Let go!”, and finally an enraged scream of “Gu Jinyan!”, the girl struggled, but in the end was firmly pinned down and forced to place her hand on a fingerprint lock.
With the camera shaking, Zhu Feifei’s hand was made to open the chat settings interface.
“Mute this person,” “Hide chat,” “Do not disturb”—turned off.
“Special attention”—turned on.
In the few seconds of the video, “Gu Jinyan” and a string of insults followed—ranging from but not limited to “turtle,” “bastard,” and “useless dog”—nearly ten lines in total.
Zhu Shuiwen: …
She didn’t understand. She had no thoughts. She was deeply shocked.
When she exited the video, she realized all the messages had already been recalled.
Gu Jinyan sent another message:
“Ah, sorry, I thought it was He Xueqi.”
“Don’t watch the video, nothing worth seeing.”
“Sister, what’s up? Are you hungry? Send me your address, I’ll order you takeout.”
Zhu Shuiwen: “…..”
Although she sensed something ominous, she still held onto a shred of hope and sent:
“Brother Yan, are you free to come out right now?”
I mean… the villain is about to arrive. Could you please make space for him?
Gu Jinyan replied:
“What’s wrong, something urgent?”
Zhu Shuiwen clutched her phone, racking her brains to come up with an excuse.
—But she couldn’t.
Brain, hurry up! Just get him away for an hour—no, even half an hour!
Once the plot passed, today’s mission would be complete…
But the more anxious she became, the less she could type.
Fortunately, Gu Jinyan didn’t press for details. Even though she stammered and couldn’t respond properly, he still said:
“Wait a bit.”
Before she could even breathe a sigh of relief, another message followed.
“I’ll bring your sister over to find you.”
Help! Help help help!
She quickly typed “Can you come over alone?” into the chat and was about to continue with “I want to discuss something about my sister” when a low voice suddenly sounded beside her ear—
“Classmate Zhu.”
With a click, Zhu Shuiwen locked her phone screen and pressed it against her chest, turning around while trying to suppress her panic.
—Thankfully, she was wearing a mask.
Otherwise, the panic on her face alone would have been enough to raise suspicion.
Her hand on her chest trembled slightly. The pounding of her heartbeat reverberated through her entire body, every nerve twitching faintly with tension.
“…H-hello.”
She greeted him stiffly.
He Xueqi stood very close, a bag slung across his back.
So close that she could see his eyelashes lowered without movement, like pine needles frozen in frost.
…He hadn’t seen the chat just now, right?
Her attention had been entirely focused on getting the male lead away; she hadn’t noticed anything around her at all.
She didn’t even know when he had appeared behind her.
The chat log with Gu Jinyan, and that video—he probably… hadn’t seen them, right?
She stole a glance at him.
Impossible to tell!
The villain’s expression was always like still water—neither joy nor anger, giving nothing away.
She weighed it in her mind. He probably hadn’t seen it…
Otherwise, even if his expression didn’t change, the offset value should have fluctuated at least a little…
[Corruption Level: 10%]
Zhu Shuiwen: …?
Inside the long-stemmed chamomile-like interface, a dark fluid suddenly began to seep upward without warning.
Her nerves instantly tightened.
Even though it wasn’t the offset value that changed… things somehow felt even worse.
What is he thinking?
C109 private room was at the end of this corridor. Even at a crawling pace, it would take only a minute to reach it.
Zhu Shuiwen’s pupils trembled violently, and for a moment she felt like she had become some ancient lackey, desperately trying to stop a madam from breaking in and catching her husband cheating.
But even if she stopped them, once they heard the noise, her sister and the male lead would probably come out to check anyway.
Then all three of them would collide head-on…
Disaster. Absolute disaster.
Under Zhu Shuiwen’s anxious gaze, the villain finally spoke.
But it wasn’t the expected “Move aside,” nor “Is Gu Jinyan here?” or anything interrogative.
“Classmate Zhu, didn’t you call me here? What is it?”
His voice was like fog drifting through a forest at dusk, weaving an illusion of calm and ease.
Zhu Shuiwen froze.
She hadn’t actually called He Xueqi—it was her sister who contacted him…
Wait!
She suddenly realized something—
She was wearing a mask!
He Xueqi must have mistaken her for her sister. If so, then by extension, he probably hadn’t seen the details of the chat interface—after all, her profile picture was completely different from her sister’s.
The situation suddenly showed signs of a dramatic turnaround—the probability of mission failure dropped from 100% back down to 99%… huh?
A trace of confusion flickered through Zhu Shuiwen’s mind.
Strange. If that was the case, why hadn’t the offset value changed at all from the very beginning?
But before she could think further, a faint “buzz” sounded from He Xueqi’s pocket.
That was… a message notification?
At that instant, an unprompted memory flashed through her mind—the message from the male lead just moments earlier:
Ah, sorry, I thought it was He Xueqi.
Zhu Shuiwen realized she had made a huge mistake.
How was she only realizing it now: that video—the male lead had actually intended to send it to the villain!
So these two people’s private chats were already this hostile?
Just as she saw the villain lower his head to reach for his phone, the girl jolted and instinctively leaned forward.
Don’t look—!
…
He Xueqi thought it was probably someone from home looking for him.
Reaching that conclusion didn’t require much logic. Even before he came over, he had already received a relentless series of calls from his aunt.
When he didn’t answer, she switched to message spam instead.
One after another, as if she wouldn’t rest until his phone battery was completely drained.
After the girl had come over last time, his situation had improved slightly.
It was probably because the words “Capital University” reminded Xu Huifeng that if her son became successful, it would bring her face and pride.
So when Xu Jiarui made a fuss, she even started saying things like, “Stop bothering your brother.”
But to He Xueqi, that sentence only proved one thing—
So she actually knows that a noisy child is annoying.
However, his mother had never been able to control them anyway. As expected, after just a few days, Xu Huidan and her son had fallen back into their old ways.
A wave of irritation rose in him, and he instinctively reached into his pocket.
But—
Before he could react, a soft, warm sensation suddenly covered the back of his hand.
His movement froze instantly.
The girl’s faintly pink fingertips pressed firmly against his knuckles—clumsy and urgent, like a plea—while her soft palm felt light and airy, almost like cotton candy.
In that instant, his heart gave a violent jolt.
Her slender fingers rested timidly against him, like a fragile glass tube; with even the slightest movement, he could trap it in his hand and easily shatter it into pieces.
Buzz—
The phone continued to vibrate nonstop.
The meaningless sound, combined with that faint, intermittent touch, gradually turned into an unbearable agitation.
He wants her… to touch more.
On the pale back of the boy’s hand, blue-purple veins rose like tender shoots nourished by spring water, greedily breaking through the silent layer of snow.
Before the edge of reason could be fully shattered, the girl pulled her hand back first. She lowered her head as if startled, and murmured, almost inaudibly:
“…Don’t check your phone, okay?”
Perhaps she herself knew this was an unreasonable request, her voice soft and close to a whisper.
He tucked his hand behind his back and unconsciously clenched it.
“Okay.”
“Shall we go out?”
We.
“…Okay.”