Tang Zhen said to 000, “Shouldn’t the male lead have said he was busy with schoolwork and asked me to be more understanding? Instead, he just said it was his fault.”
000 couldn’t quite figure it out either and could only guess: 【After all, you’ve only been together for six days—not even a full week. You’ve gone on just one date, and you’re still in the honeymoon phase.】
What 000 said did make sense.
At the beginning of a relationship, both sides tend to be more patient. They don’t fully understand each other yet and are still feeling their way through each other’s personalities.
Tang Zhen glanced at the task and realized it still hadn’t been completed. What did that mean? It meant her little tantrum wasn’t quite enough.
She still wasn’t very good at finding the right balance between a small tantrum and a big one.
She had a pretty mild temper and rarely ever clashed with people, much less lost her temper. To be honest, she didn’t really know what “throwing a little tantrum” was supposed to look like.
“000, didn’t what I just said count as being mad?”
【I think so. But you can be fiercer—more impatient. Even a small tantrum is still a tantrum. But Xiao Zhenzhen, your attitude can’t be too bad. If you and the male lead go straight to a BE, that would be disastrous.】
Tang Zhen felt a headache coming on. At first, she’d thought this task would be easy. Only later did she realize she’d seriously underestimated how difficult “throwing a tantrum” actually was.
In the end, it all came down to lack of experience.
The call had already been made, the task had already begun—there was no backing out halfway.
Gripping her phone, Tang Zhen looked up at the scattered stars in the sky and started to argue irrationally. “We haven’t seen each other for three days. If I didn’t call you first, would you just… never contact me at all?”
Ren Yanjing’s rebuttal sounded weak. “No…”
Tang Zhen let out a soft huff. It was supposed to sound dismissive, but her voice was too sweet—far from fierce, more like a kitten’s little protest.
Still, she was already trying her hardest to “throw a small tantrum.”
“But the fact is, you haven’t sent me a single message these past three days. If I didn’t call you now, would you forget about me for a week? A month?”
Ren Yanjing let out another long breath. Clearly, this was his first time dealing with something like this.
The situation was tricky. It was obvious he had no prior experience, and he came off a bit awkward and inexperienced. “No…”
“Then who am I to you, m— Ren Yanjing.”
Crap. She’d almost blurted out “male lead.”
Fortunately, this was a question Ren Yanjing knew how to answer. “You’re my girlfriend.”
“Mm. A girlfriend you don’t contact for three days.”
This point was going to haunt them.
Of course, it could have been let go—but the reason it wasn’t was because the task still wasn’t complete.
Ren Yanjing changed the subject. “Where are you right now?”
Tang Zhen heard faint rustling noises from the other end of the call. She didn’t pay them much attention and continued relentlessly, “Where else could I be but the dorm? My boyfriend doesn’t take me out anywhere. Every day it’s just classes and sleeping in the dorm. It’s no different from when I didn’t even have a boyfriend.”
“My roommates have asked me so many times, ‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ And I don’t even know what to tell them.”
“I still go to class with them, eat with them, go back to the dorm together, and stay in at night watching short dramas.”
She hadn’t cared much at first, but as she spoke, she started to feel a little sad. Even if this was all for the task, it really was her first relationship.
At her age, she still had hopes and expectations about love—especially when the male lead was so ridiculously handsome, perfectly matching her aesthetic in every way.
Yet for three whole days, she hadn’t even seen a single strand of Ren Yanjing’s hair.
She didn’t have to rush things, but the breakup countdown had already begun. Her time to experience a first love was limited. If possible, she wanted to leave something behind.
A memory. Or something else.
She didn’t want her first relationship to end with nothing but a blank void.
After saying all this, Tang Zhen fell silent. She didn’t check the task either, so she failed to notice right away that it had already been completed.
The call timer kept ticking upward.
Seconds passed, minute by minute.
Listening to the shallow breathing on the other end, Tang Zhen finally got genuinely annoyed. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
“Come down.”
She froze. “What?”
“I’m downstairs at your dorm.”
Tang Zhen: !!!
She rushed to the railing and looked down—and sure enough, standing in front of the dorm building was a tall, long-legged, devastatingly handsome guy. If that wasn’t the male lead, who else could it be?!
He must have come in a hurry. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a thin short-sleeved shirt.
It wasn’t too late yet, and people were still coming and going in front of the dorm. It didn’t take long for others to notice him.
Tang Zhen lived on the second floor, so getting downstairs was easy. She pushed open the balcony door, said a quick word to her three roommates, and hurried down.
It wasn’t until she ran out of the dorm building and was hit by the cold wind that she finally calmed down. She walked up to Ren Yanjing in small, restrained steps, looked up at him, and asked, “Why did you come?”
Ren Yanjing looked down at her. “I was afraid that if I didn’t come, my girlfriend would run away.”
Running away wasn’t likely.
At least, not right now.
Ren Yanjing took hold of her wrist. “Come on. I’ll take you out.”
Tang Zhen didn’t miss the dark circles under his eyes. His skin was fair, which made them even more obvious. She blinked. “How long has it been since you last rested?”
Ren Yanjing didn’t want to dwell on it. “Not long.”
In reality, he’d only slept ten hours over the past three days—just over three hours a day, in fragmented naps of about half an hour each.
Next Sunday was the university robotics competition. These past few days, he and his teammates had been debugging their competition robot, Robert. Three days ago, Robert developed a serious malfunction that required systematic troubleshooting, which was why his teammates had been calling him nonstop.
Fortunately, the issue had been resolved. Robert was stable now, and Ren Yanjing would finally have a bit more free time.
Tang Zhen followed the male lead into the car.
Today, he’d switched to an orange-red sports car. Compared to the previous black one, this color was far more eye-catching.
Curiosity sparked. “Other than me, have any girls ever sat in the passenger seat?”
Ren Yanjing glanced at her. In the dim interior of the car, his handsome face seemed to glow—deep-set eyes, a high nose bridge, and lips that looked… very kissable.
“No.”
“Oh.”
She didn’t let him drive. Instead, she said, “Let’s just sit in the car for a bit.” Then she tilted her head and added playfully, “You look like you haven’t rested in forever. I don’t dare ride in your car.”
Ren Yanjing suddenly laughed. “I hired a driver.”
In truth, he didn’t dare drive her around himself either. He really hadn’t rested properly in a long time.
Tang Zhen turned toward him. “Then why don’t you sleep for a while in the car?”
“And you?”
“I’ll watch you sleep.”
Ren Yanjing didn’t refuse. He leaned forward onto the steering wheel and quickly fell asleep.
He looked surprisingly well-behaved—and handsome—when he slept.
Tang Zhen sighed. “000, the female supporting character really is just the female supporting character. The male lead rushed all this way just to rest in front of her.”
000 burst out laughing. 【Get used to it. Look on the bright side—you’re the first girl to ever see him sleeping.】
Tang Zhen: “….”