Lin Shuxue’s knitted brows furrowed even deeper.
How did Meng Shuyin, who was far away at home, find out about her running into Jiang Zong?
She quickly scrolled down through the messages in the group chat, getting a general understanding of the cause and effect.
Unbeknownst to her, someone had taken a photo of her walking together with Jiang Zong tonight. Honestly, that in itself was nothing, but the title the poster chose was filled with absolute malice.
Should we say your pure goddess is truly capable? Previously, there was Pei Tianyang flaring up during the recruitment interview all for the sake of a beautiful woman, and now we have Jiang Zong running errands at her beck and call. She is two-timing them so clearly.
I’ve always said she doesn’t look like some obedient girl. Her looks are just average; she completely relies on filters and finding the right angles. I don’t know what you all are hyping her up for.
Of course, there were some rational comments mixed in.
Just because you snapped a photo of two people walking together, you’re making up rumors? Besides, they’re already in university; even if they are normally dating, what’s wrong with that?
However, these were quickly drowned out by what appeared to be orchestrated internet trolls driving the narrative.
The internet was just like that; under the protection of anonymity, people often revealed their most toxic and hostile sides. Add to that someone deliberately manipulating the situation, and it was inevitable that such comments would appear in the thread.
Lin Shuxue gently shook her head.
Switching from the Confession Wall back to the dormitory group chat, the next entire screen was filled with hundreds of messages of Meng Shuyin unilaterally raging in the group.
[I think that person just can’t stand that Shuxue is beautiful and popular!]
[Just wait, I’m going to look up my high school classmate who majors in computer science right now to dox them with their real name. I want to see which idiot dares to mess with Grandma Meng’s person!]
Pfft. Seeing this message, Lin Shuxue couldn’t help but let out a muffled laugh.
What kind of overbearing president web novels had Meng Shuyin been reading at home to project herself as the male lead?
On the other side of the chat, He Xicun was naturally offering a mix of comfort and persuasion.
In truth, when Lin Shuxue saw the post, her heart didn’t waver in the slightest. Getting close to Jiang Zong was bound to draw attention. His thousand-plus related searches on the Confession Wall didn’t come out of nowhere.
But how could this post manage to drag Pei Tianyang into it as well? Lin Shuxue felt that there was no need for Meng Shuyin to find someone from the computer science department to check the real-name IP address. The circle of people who knew about both of these incidents at the same time was far too small.
A vague suspicion formed in her mind, but Lin Shuxue had always refrained from speaking out about things for which she had no evidence.
The immediate priority was to soothe Meng Shuyin, who was practically exploding with rage.
Influenced by yesterday’s post, Meng Shuyin and He Xicun feared that Lin Shuxue would be unhappy moping alone in the dorm. Thus, they specifically moved their planned trip to the resort forward by two days, rushing back from their homes.
When they went, they rode in the extended Bugatti owned by Meng Shuyin’s family. Lin Shuxue didn’t know much about car brands; she only found out when He Xicun mentioned it.
“Hidden talents, Shuyin! So it turns out you’re a closeted wealthy young lady too?” He Xicun teased with a laugh.
Meng Shuyin cooperated fully, waving her hand grandly. “Keep it low-key, low-key. I just didn’t want you guys to feel too much pressure.”
The two of them burst into laughter, and Lin Shuxue couldn’t help but let her eyes curve into a smile too.
When the car stopped, Guan Zhiyu ran over to meet them. The moment Meng Shuyin and she met, the two of them began to furiously denounce yesterday’s post.
The person involved, Lin Shuxue, felt no emotional disturbance at all.
Once they had vented enough to feel relieved, Guan Zhiyu finally remembered to introduce things.
“I’ve booked the rooms for you guys. A king-size room for each person. Just go to the front desk to check-in.”
“Senior is invincible!” Meng Shuyin cheered, fully maximizing the emotional value of the moment.
At the entrance, Lin Shuxue took a call from her mother, briefly telling her that she was out playing with her friends.
The other party naturally nagged and urged her to pay attention to safety.
Consequently, by the time she walked over to the front desk, her two roommates had already finished checking in and were preparing to head back to their rooms to drop off their luggage.
Lin Shuxue provided her identification information and recorded her facial recognition as requested by the front desk staff.
A guest walked up beside her.
“The air conditioner in Room 206 is dripping water. Please have someone repair it.”
The lazy, weary tone was all too familiar. Lin Shuxue instinctively turned her head.
Sure enough, Jiang Zong looked as though he had just woken up. His eyes were drowsy, his hair was still damp, and he wore a long-sleeved T-shirt with a white bath towel draped over his shoulder. One hand was shoved into his pocket as he leaned carelessly against the front desk counter.
Because Lin Shuxue kept only her profile turned for too long, the facial recognition device failed to recognize her, letting out a sharp “beep-beep” alarm sound.
She snapped out of it in a panic.
The commotion was too loud. Jiang Zong narrowed his sleep-laden eyes and glanced sideways over.
Then, he completely woke up.
He strode over, naturally standing by her side, and picked up her luggage.
Jiang Zong: “Finished checking in?”
Lin Shuxue had just taken her room card from the front desk receptionist. Hearing his words, she was startled: “How are you…”
With an unperturbed expression, Jiang Zong leaned in close to her shoulder and said in a deep voice: “Let’s go, I’ll carry it up for you.”
Lin Shuxue froze. Were they in a relationship where he could just casually carry her luggage?
She weighed her words over and over, and in the end, she only murmured out: “Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?!”
In the corridor, Pei Tianyang, who was waiting for the room service to fix his air conditioner while wrapped in a bathrobe, saw a familiar and utterly detestable figure not far away and let out a horrified shout.
Guan Zhiyu looked at Pei Tianyang’s current outfit with a face full of disdain and argued righteously: “Why can’t I be here? Chen Feng invited your grand-auntie, me, here by prostrating himself three times and bowing nine times!”
Chen Feng was the young master of the family behind this resort. His family had always been family friends with Guan Zhiyu’s and Pei Tianyang’s families.
“He didn’t tell me you were coming these few days!” Pei Tianyang frowned, tightly clutching the loose bathrobe on his body.
Guan Zhiyu curled one side of her mouth in disgust: “What are you acting like an innocent virgin for? Nobody wants to see those two ounces of flab on your body.”
“We originally didn’t plan on coming today, but something happened to Shuxue. Fearing she’d be in a bad mood, we moved it forward.”
Pei Tianyang: “What happened to my goddess?!”
Guan Zhiyu sneered: “Go look at the Confession Wall yourself. Your goddess getting into trouble has a share of your credit too!”
Just as Jiang Zong led Lin Shuxue out of the elevator doors, they heard this roar from Pei Tianyang.
“Holy crap! Which dead person dares to insult my goddess! The relationship between us is clearly the most pure simp-and-goddess relationship!!!”
Lin Shuxue facepalmed, while Jiang Zong let out a soft scoff.
Hearing the noise in the corridor, Pei Tianyang clearly saw those two blurry figures in the distance and acted as if he had spotted a savior: “Brother Jiang! Don’t you know how to look up IP addresses? Quickly dox the real name of this post’s author!”
Lin Shuxue blinked. Seeing Pei Tianyang so furious, she guessed which post he was talking about.
Jiang Zong raised an eyebrow: “What post?”
Lin Shuxue quickly unpacked her luggage and agreed to meet up with her roommates at the buffet restaurant on the third floor.
When she went over, her two roommates had already arrived. On the other side of the table, Jiang Zong was leaning his entire body against the back of his chair in a slouching posture.
Seeing that almost everyone was present, Jiang Zong finally spoke in a slow and unhurried manner.
“The real name of the user bound to the one who posted is Xu Ya. Do you know her?”
His knuckles tapped lightly on the tabletop. He leaned forward slightly, barely sitting up straight, but then felt a bit tired, resting his jaw against the back of his hand as he cast his eyes down toward the others.
Very few people at Huada University knew that the initial code for the Confession Wall mini-program was actually written by him. Back then, he had just graduated from high school and had nothing to do at home during the summer vacation, so he studied some programming theory, casually wrote some code, and even made a WeChat mini-game on the side, earning his first pot of gold.
As for the subsequent maintenance of the application, he didn’t bother with it anymore, but he had always kept in touch with the operations team of the Confession Wall. Just now, he had asked them for the real-name information of this post.
Just as Guan Zhiyu was about to speak, Pei Tianyang beat her to it: “It’s actually her?”
Guan Zhiyu frowned at him: “You know her?”
Pei Tianyang raised his chin triumphantly: “I have an impression. The one who ran over to give Brother Jiang milk tea a few days ago.”
Now it was Jiang Zong’s turn to look completely bewildered: “When did that happen?”
Pei Tianyang: “During the Situation and Policy class. She ran over right before class started. You were sleeping at the time, so she asked me to hand it over. I saw her name written on the card tucked underneath.”
Jiang Zong: “Then where is the milk tea?”
Pei Tianyang spread his hands innocently: “I called for you to wake up, you told me to get lost, and you even said you never drink such sickly sweet things. The girl heard it and slunk away in embarrassment. The milk tea naturally became something I took care of on your behalf.”
Jiang Zong lost his words, saying gloomily: “You’re quite self-aware.”
Meng Shuyin analyzed: “It seems this Xu Ya is settling old scores and new grudges all at once!”
Pei Tianyang: “What old scores and new grudges? Do you guys know her too?”
Guan Zhiyu told him about the selection of the freshman representative.
After listening, he slammed the table in anger, shaking the dinner plate in front of Jiang Zong so much that it almost fell off the table.
Jiang Zong felt it was a bit embarrassing. Pressing his tongue against his inner cheek, he turned his head to ask a certain spacing-out protagonist at the dining table: “Do you need me to contact them to delete the post?”
Lin Shuxue let out an “Ah,” realizing she had drifted off, and then shook her head.
“It’s fine. If the post is deleted, the other party might become even more arrogant. These anonymous forums are all like this; it’s very normal,” she said softly, lowering her eyelashes.
“Besides, a straight foot fears no crooked shoe. Let them be.”
“Straight?” Jiang Zong repeated the word from Lin Shuxue’s sentence, his tone playful. “Us?”
The eyes of everyone else at the table instantly locked onto them.
Especially Meng Shuyin, who wished she could stare holes through Jiang Zong.
“Are we… not straight?” Lin Shuxue’s eyes widened slightly, unable to fathom why Jiang Zong would suddenly say such a thing.
“Yeah. If you say it’s straight, then it’s straight.” Jiang Zong muttered this sentence as he picked up his knife and fork, focusing on dealing with the buffet restaurant’s composite steak in the plate before him. His posture was elegant, somehow managing to make it look like he was eating in a high-end Western restaurant.
Why did it feel even less innocent after he said that?
Lin Shuxue’s face showed nothing as she looked down to eat.
Fortunately, the others at the table did not press to find out exactly what was “straight” or “not straight,” and they all changed the subject to discuss what to play in the afternoon.
Ultimately, with an overwhelming three-to-one majority, they settled on going to KTV.
This defeated, lonely soul was naturally Pei Tianyang, who had proposed going to the pool hall. He said resentfully: “You can sing KTV anywhere, but the pool hall at this resort is truly a masterpiece!”
Unluckily for him, no one validated his thoughts. After all, Jiang Zong—the only other person at the table who knew how to play pool—couldn’t be bothered to participate in such a childish vote.
Upon entering the private room, Pei Tianyang, who had claimed that KTV was boring and that real men only went to bars and pool halls, transformed directly into a mic hog. He held onto the microphone, howling out out-of-tune songs one after another.
The light in the private room was dim. Jiang Zong hadn’t slept well last night because he was disturbed by the dripping air conditioner. Hearing this guy’s ghostly wailing right now made his head spin even more as weariness surged up.
He picked up his cigarette pack and lighter, got up, and walked out of the room, intending to smoke a cigarette to refresh himself.
Just as the lighter ignited a faint blue flame, with the cigarette clamped between his lips, he caught a glimpse of the young girl following him out from the corner of his eye.
Mm. It was precisely the one who had previously claimed that the relationship between them was very “straight.”
He extinguished the lighter. Keeping the cigarette in his mouth, his words were somewhat mumbled, carrying a hint of a smile: “I’m smoking. What did you follow me out for?”
Lin Shuxue tilted her face up to ask him: “Can you not smoke?”
Jiang Zong lifted his eyelids, letting out a low, muffled laugh.
“This doesn’t seem like something you, who are in a very straight relationship with me, should be managing, right?”
Lin Shuxue was startled, blinking her eyes. Her lips, slightly parted due to surprise, were the most natural and subconscious temptation.
Jiang Zong felt a bit of itchiness in his throat again. This time, it wasn’t as simple as just refreshing his mind.
He turned his face away awkwardly, wanting to light his cigarette with his back to Lin Shuxue.
“Can an improper relationship be managed then?” he heard the girl ask half-timidly.
Jiang Zong felt that Lin Shuxue was just like the cigarette clamped in his mouth; she was clearly right in front of his eyes and could be easily plucked, yet she repeatedly gave you some sweetness only to throw a stone at you right after, making you truly realize the distance between yourself and her.
Irritation grew in his heart.
“Not either.” Jiang Zong’s Adam’s apple moved slightly as he scoffed lazily. “If I don’t smoke, what am I going to use to satisfy my addiction?”
The sunlight shone through the window frame, casting a circle of shadow over his long eyelashes. The man standing tall under the daylight looked pitiful for no apparent reason.
“Satisfy what addiction?” Lin Shuxue said softly.
Jiang Zong leaned down. Being half a head taller than her, his height easily enveloped her shadow. His peach blossom eyes, with their slightly upturned outer corners, curved upward. His dark pupils concealed an unerasable trace of desire, and his voice deepened slightly.
“What do you think?”
Within Jiang Zong’s line of sight, the girl stretched out her hand, with two candies lying in her palm.
He had just been about to say, “Do you take me for a three-year-old child? Sending me away with two pieces of candy?”
Then he saw Lin Shuxue raise her hand, holding the candies out in front of him, her tone timid.
“Can this satisfy it?”
Jiang Zong clearly saw the words on the packaging bag.
It was apple-flavored fruit candy.