Chu Li had the same dream during her lunch break.
She wasn’t just able to dream the scenes that were originally meant to happen in the restricted-rated novel, she could also, through the hazy blur of it, clearly make out the bullet comments scrolling by.
【Li Li’s really enjoying herself, look at her.】
【Shen Jichu’s build is way more mature and solid than Shen Zhe’s. Shen Zhe’s more lean muscle, but his brother’s been disciplined about working out for years, full six-pack, no joke.】
【Didn’t expect there’d be that much going on under the suit.】
【Li Li, come on, feel his abs one more time.】
Chu Li knew she was dreaming, but the sensations felt far too real. She could feel the faintly rough texture of his suit trousers under her.
When she finally woke, she looked up from the crook of an arm, feeling heat rising to the tips of her ears.
Good grief.
Thank goodness she hadn’t drunk that milk that day, in the end, the plot had only forced a dream on her instead.
These past few days, she was still gradually coming to terms with it, feeling dazed at every plot twist.
This was the first time she’d had a dream like that, and it suddenly gave her a very real sense of what being the female lead actually meant. She covered her face with her hands for a while, and only removed them once her cheeks had cooled down.
At the studio, Qin Mian was also on her lunch break.
She saw Chu Li wake up, opened the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of ice water to press against her own cheek.
She simply assumed Chu Li had gotten a little too worked up over signing that big contract with the Shen family today.
“Li Li, your face is so hot.”
Qin Mian said this casually, lying on the couch scrolling on her phone.
After watching a few videos, she immediately held one up to show her. “Look at this, quick, isn’t that Shen Zhe?”
“Sneaking around behind your back again, flirting with some pretty girl.”
The woman in the video wasn’t the Xia Zhi from yesterday, it was another unfamiliar, pretty girl.
Shen Zhe had taken off his racing helmet, and had turned to lean close to her, saying something with a raised eyebrow, the atmosphere unusually intimate.
Qin Mian: “Argh, I’m about to lose it!”
“Why haven’t you two broken up yet?”
She clearly felt he was a hopeless case.
【Qin Mian: (daily check-in) Has my love-brained best friend broken up with him yet today?】
【No breakup today either.】
【But today, on her lunch break, my best friend slept with her boyfriend’s older brother, in a dream.】
Chu Li: “……”
Whoever had posted the video wasn’t clear, it wasn’t Shen Zhe himself, nor the unfamiliar pretty girl.
The footage came from a third party, maybe one of Shen Zhe’s friends, filming it as if to watch the show unfold.
Chu Li held the bottle of ice water against her cheek for a while, and the flush finally faded.
As usual, she got back to sketching designs with Qin Mian, staying busy like any ordinary office worker.
Shen Zhe must have noticed belatedly, seeing the video too, since he sent her a message: “Don’t overthink this.”
“That’s a friend of mine, it wasn’t just the two of us alone, Jiang Qinian was right there too.”
“I’ll be busy today, won’t be back to eat with you.”
【Case closed, that video was clearly shot by your creepy, lurking ex.】
Chu Li had guessed as much herself.
After she’d broken up with Jiang Qinian, she’d blocked every way he had of reaching her. Since seeing him again yesterday, he’d been trying every possible method to add her back.
Not even discouraged, he’d tracked all the way to where she worked.
After work, Chu Li waved goodbye to Qin Mian.
She’d planned to walk to the subway. As she looked down at her phone, a black car pulled up in front of her.
The window rolled down, and Jiang Qinian sat in the back seat.
His eyes were dark, still wearing that same sickly, pale look. His thin arm propped up his chin as he stared at her, unblinking.
“So lost in thought.”
“What are you thinking about?”
Chu Li: “.”
What she was actually thinking was:
Given how sickly and frail Jiang Qinian looked, how on earth did he have the strength, as the bullet comments claimed, to lock her in some little dark room?
Truly, you couldn’t judge a book by its cover.
Jiang Qinian: “Get in.”
Chu Li shook her head.
He raised an eyebrow slightly, she answered earnestly, “I’m afraid you’ll take me away and do something illegal.”
She glanced inside, there was only him and the Jiang family’s driver in the car, no one else.
Living in a restricted-rated novel, she needed to stay absolutely vigilant.
Hearing this, Jiang Qinian laughed.
With that sickly, gloomy look of his, once he laughed, it only made him more unsettling.
“I won’t.”
【Who’d believe that, tsk tsk.】
【Later on, when the dark-room plot kicks off, he really goes off the deep end. Thinking Li Li likes Shen Zhe, he locks her up at home, imitates Shen Zhe’s style of dressing, and plays out scenes with her that way.】
【Before he got sick, he was great at playing the piano. So he especially likes using his hands to… help Li Li】
Ah, she didn’t want to hear this!
Chu Li, walking down the street, wanted nothing more than to cover her ears. Then, belatedly, she realized it was her eyes she should’ve been covering.
But she had to watch where she was walking.
There was just no escaping these bullet comments!
In the end, she could only keep her expression composed and gradually get used to this kind of plot, and the various strange spoilers from the comments.
Jiang Qinian told his driver to keep the car following her the whole way.
He seemed to have all the time in the world, just like back in school.
Back then, her grandmother had been sick, and the family needed money.
Under the pretense of being childhood friends, she’d gone looking for Shen Zhe every day. Occasionally she’d worked part-time to help out at home, working at a milk tea shop, dressing up as a mascot at an amusement park.
When Shen Zhe was in a good mood, he’d give her money.
Most of the time, he wasn’t interested in where she worked at all: “My little shadow’s such a pain.”
“Qinian, keep an eye on her for me, just make sure some punk doesn’t bully her.”
She’d stand in the convenience store, and Jiang Qinian would come by every day.
At first, when he’d have her make milk tea and then not drink a single sip of it, Chu Li thought he’d come to make trouble.
“Are you sticking up for Shen Zhe.”
“Trying to get me to stop chasing after him?”
Jiang Qinian’s eyes were cool and distant, usually expressionless. He stared straight at her, then lowered his gaze and took a sip of the milk tea. His dark brows furrowed.
Chu Li: “Not good?”
Jiang Qinian: “It’s good, really sweet. My family won’t let me drink sweet things, but I love it.”
He came every day, and every time, never finished the tea.
Being stared at day after day, Chu Li felt it like a thorn at her back. Finally, one day, unable to take it anymore, she spun around, footsteps sharp, and stood right in front of him: “What exactly do you want?”
“I’ll tell you now, I’m not giving up on Shen Zhe, so there’s no point trying to talk me out of it.”
Shen Zhe was her golden goose, after all, now that she finally had a rich source of cash, she wasn’t about to let go.
Jiang Qinian lowered his eyes, gazing at her with a faint, distant look: “I saw.”
“Saw what?”
“The water you give Zhe, it’s expired, and you peeled off the label. The homework you do for him, you scribble it carelessly.”
Chu Li: “!”
She’d been young then, still a little embarrassed and unpracticed at squeezing money out of Shen Zhe.
She looked at Jiang Qinian a little nervously, trying to negotiate. “Could you maybe not tell him?”
“I can split the money with you, half and half.”
Jiang Qinian said he wasn’t short on money.
“Then what do you want?”
His dark eyes held barely any warmth.
Just like the first time they’d met, he stared at her for a while, then slowly curved his lips, and said he wanted her.
When Shen Zhe walked into the convenience store, he looked around and asked, puzzled, in a low voice, “Weird, where’s Chu Li?”
Jiang Qinian had grabbed her wrist and pulled her behind the shelves, in a corner. Ignoring her shocked expression, he bent down and kissed her firmly.
【Hahaha, now I remember, the reason Li Li and Jiang Qinian ever got together in the first place was that she was taken advantage of at a low point. Add in his decent looks, and she barely agreed.】
【No wonder she ran the moment they broke up, clean and fast.】
That really was exactly how Chu Li had seen it at the time.
In her eyes, Shen Zhe was a dog, and Jiang Qinian was a second dog to match. [1]dog (tiǎn gǒu, 舔狗) – Slang, internet slang for a “simp”, someone who fawns over and debases himself for a person who doesn’t return his feelings jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3115099_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3115099_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
No wonder the two of them used to be so close, always hanging around together.
“Back then, when you got together with me.”
“Wasn’t it just for the thrill of doing something forbidden, wanting to steal your friend’s territory? Let’s part on good terms now.”
Chu Li had been followed the whole way by his car.
Finally unable to hold it in any longer, she turned back and reasoned with him.
【Li Li, you’re being unfair to him here.】
【Shen Zhe never went and flirted with any other girls he’d had something with, he only ever came for you……】
The bullet comments went on, just as they had with Shen Jichu, laying out various explicit scenarios. She didn’t dare open her eyes, hoping it was all a hallucination.
She could only quicken her pace immediately, running toward the subway station, shaking him off.
“Mr. Jiang, should we keep following?”
The driver asked him.
Jiang Qinian sat in the back seat, reaching up to loosen his collar slightly. His skin, unused to sunlight, looked even paler, watching Chu Li’s retreating figure in the darkness.
“No need.”
“No rush.”
Chu Li made it into the subway station, and only when she found no one following her anymore did she slowly let out a breath.
She video-called Qin Mian, who, seeing the sweat on her nose and her slightly labored breathing, sounded confused: “Li Li, Shen Zhe didn’t come pick you up today, so you took the subway?”
“Did you run part of the way?”
“You look like someone was chasing you.”
Chu Li hugged her canvas bag, sitting up straight, composed.
Once she reached a quieter spot, she cleared her throat lightly and told Qin Mian about the surreal experiences she’d been having these past few days.
“Mian Mian, actually, we’re living inside a novel. I used to think it was one of those clichéd wife-chasing stories.”
“Recently I found out.”
“It’s……”
Chu Li said those few words in a very low voice.
Qin Mian, having gotten off work, was in the middle of putting on a face mask.
Eyes closed, she leaned in close to listen as Chu Li lowered her voice—
Then the mask slid right off her face.
Qin Mian laughed until she cried. “Li Li, has Shen Zhe made you so mad you’re talking nonsense now?”
“Hahahahahaha.”
“If you’re the female lead of a restricted-rated novel, then I’m the long-lost real daughter of the richest man in the country.”
Chu Li: “……”
She knew it, no one would believe her.
【Qin Mian’s reaction is totally normal. If my best friend said this to me, I’d assume she’d gone crazy at work and started hallucinating too.】
【Future Qin Mian, once she learns the truth: You lucky little brat, you should’ve let me play a few scenes too.】
Chu Li sighed quietly, with no one to confide in.
After seeing Shen Jichu today, she’d had that dream about the original plot. Then just now, seeing Jiang Qinian again, if she kept having these vivid, realistic dreams, she really wouldn’t be able to handle it.
【Hello, I’d love to have this kind of trouble too.】
【Dreaming’s great, you get to enjoy yourself and don’t need to take responsibility for any of it afterward. You get to sleep with four different types of men, all in your dreams (munch munch on a cracker)】
Chu Li kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, pretending she’d seen nothing at all.
She really hadn’t seen anything.
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