“I’m overthinking it. I don’t mean that.”
That was what Bai Lang said aloud, yet his heart felt oddly tingly—an electric excitement crashing against his chest, thumping so hard his head grew hot.
What did Qiao Chu mean by that question?
Was she taking pity on his messed-up family background and inviting him to marry into the Qiao family?
He couldn’t deny it—just for a split second, he was tempted.
But his pride and self-respect wouldn’t allow something so casual. Besides, neither the Bai family nor his maternal relatives would ever agree to him becoming a live-in son-in-law.
Qiao Chu had only been teasing the young master on a whim. When she failed to fluster him, she didn’t get annoyed. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she strolled forward lazily, her tone faintly regretful.
“Alright then.”
Then she casually changed the subject.
“I’ll ask Shang Shixu sometime. He probably wouldn’t mind.”
As the Shang family’s exceptionally gifted eldest son, Shang Shixu shouldn’t have been an easy man to fool.
But based on Qiao Chu’s experience, she had reached a simple conclusion—
Any fiancé willing to eat pickled chili bullfrog with her couldn’t possibly be that bad.
If Shang Shixu could help her get her hands on the assets her scumbag father was hoarding, she didn’t mind treating him to hotpot and bullfrog every now and then.
Left behind in the dust, the proud young Master Bai stood frozen in the wind, fury instantly flaring up.
He’d only hesitated for a moment—how could this woman be like this?!
Bai Lang wanted to chase after her, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Shang Shixu was her legitimate fiancé—what would it make him if he tried to steal her away?
Not to mention that their families were on good terms. Even the mockery from his friends alone would drown him in spit.
From afar, Bai Lang watched as Qiao Chu got into the Qiao family’s waiting luxury van.
His attention was so fixed on her that he didn’t notice—
Not long after they left, a slender figure waded into the artificial lake and retrieved the jade Guanyin.
With the lake water cushioning it, the jade hadn’t suffered further damage.
Jiang Yixuan climbed back onto the shore clutching the statue, relief and secret delight flashing across her face.
Not long ago, she had bound herself to something calling itself a Reversal System.
The system told her that she was actually the female lead of an aristocratic, forced-romance campus novel.
As long as she followed its instructions, she would attract the attention of heaven-favored elites, borrow their power, and climb step by step to the peak of life.
She had questioned this before. If she truly was the female lead, shouldn’t the male leads fall in love with her naturally? Why did she need to make extra effort?
The system had replied cryptically:
“The task executor has altered the trajectory of fate. She is a natural enchantress—any man would go mad for her.”
After observing closely, Jiang Yixuan became convinced that this foreign “task executor” was Qiao Chu.
The system’s methods for stealing luck had never failed her before. She could easily siphon intelligence from Qiao Yue, beauty and figure points from pretty classmates.
But the moment she ran into Qiao Chu, everything went off the rails.
Not only could she take nothing from her, she was repeatedly crushed—her luck forcefully wiped out instead.
After last night’s chaos at the club, all the fortune she had painstakingly accumulated had been reset to zero.
Worse still, one of the male leads, Shang Shixu, had dropped to a favorability of –200%.
And the key supporting character, Wu Zhe, wanted nothing more than to erase her from existence.
Just thinking about it made Jiang Yixuan’s heart bleed. No wonder she’d lost control and ruined things this morning.
This wasn’t how the script was supposed to go.
Shang Shixu was meant to be her first husband.
Wu Zhe would become her sharpest blade after she married into the Qiao family—master and servant frequently indulging in taboo pleasures.
The thought made her blush and her heart race. She clenched the jade Guanyin tightly; her soaked body no longer felt cold.
In the past, she would never have dared imagine that elite heirs of powerful conglomerates would fall at her feet one after another.
The system’s资料 even described how they would often… play with her.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, Jiang Yixuan had initially been too embarrassed to read those scenes—but now she reread them obsessively, forbidden images filling her mind.
Since Shang Shixu was no longer an option, she decided to start with Bai Lang instead.
A sunny, outgoing, emotionally neglected big boy—he shouldn’t be hard to handle.
Now that she had his mother’s only keepsake, she was confident she could pry him away from Qiao Chu.
Reversal System: 【Special reminder: Current target Bai Lang’s favorability toward the villainess Qiao Chu is at 67%. Proceed with caution.】
“What?!” Jiang Yixuan trembled with rage. “Are you lying to me? They only spoke today—how is it already 67%?!”
In high-society circles, Miss Qiao and Young Master Bai were both notorious playboys.
She skipped class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He took leave on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
They’d been seatmates for two weeks and had barely met—today was practically their first conversation.
The system sneered: 【Instead of doubting my data, perhaps reflect on your own ability. You chased after the male lead for two weeks and achieved less than what she did with one sentence.】
Jiang Yixuan’s face cycled through red and green like a broken color palette.
Just like this jade Guanyin—
She had shamelessly begged and wheedled for two full weeks and still hadn’t gotten it.
Qiao Chu, with a few casual words, made Bai Lang toss it away without blinking.
That damned foreign task executor—stealing the men who should have belonged to her and wrapping them around her finger.
System: 【Enough. You don’t have time to wallow. Next week is Dilun Academy’s parent meeting. You need to make up for yesterday’s failure.】
As Dilun Academy’s top-performing scholarship student, Jiang Yixuan would be giving a speech onstage, thanking the school for its support and the philanthropists for their sponsorship.
The other student representatives, however, would all be pampered sons and daughters of powerful families.
Standing beside people trained in etiquette from childhood, she couldn’t afford to be overshadowed—especially with her luck at zero.
And more importantly, the parent meeting wasn’t a small occasion.
Her long-term benefactor would be there.
Yun Guanlan.
One of the few gentle male leads—steady, restrained, the classic “dad-type” partner.
He didn’t compete or demand, only provided financial backing and emotional support.
At first, Jiang Yixuan had been afraid of him. Wealthy men were often twisted, indulgent—she worried he might have ulterior motives.
Later, through the system’s files, she learned that he was a renowned philanthropist: refined, composed, understated.
Most crucially—
He would become her second husband.
He would indulge her endlessly, tolerate her entanglements with the other male leads, and even give up the master bedroom so they could seek thrills there.
The original text read:
“Xuanxuan was the rose he raised with his own hands. So even if her thorns pierced him, even if he bled profusely, he would never regret it.”
No—if she wanted to make a stunning entrance in front of Yun Guanlan, her current state was far too miserable.
She needed to find some unlucky soul and drain their luck.
“System, locate Shang Shi’an.”
System: 【Mingde Building, infirmary】
Meanwhile, Qiao Chu pulled open the passenger door of the luxury van and sat down.
The driver, Xiao Li, asked respectfully, “Young Miss, where to today? Paradise Above, or Neon Coast?”
Both were places Qiao Chu had been frequenting lately—decadent, dazzling, nights that ended well past midnight.
Thinking of the fresh, pretty male models who could brew tea, recite poetry, and paint, Qiao Chu waved her hand grandly.
“Let’s go to Zhuyu Qicha. Something refined today—wash my eyes a bit.”
Xiao Li said nothing and drove smoothly.
After playing on her phone for a while, Qiao Chu looked up.
“This isn’t the right direction. You took a wrong turn—turn around.”
Suddenly, the partition slid down slowly.
A low, magnetic voice came from the back seat—cool, authoritative, carrying Butler Wu’s signature chill, seeping straight into the bones.
“Does the young miss plan to go drink tea…”
“…or to soak the male models who are skilled at tea?”