Upon hearing her words, Zhou Yu’s eyelashes trembled slightly. His dark, cold, and damp eyes stirred, and he slowly rose from the ground.
He rose like a snow pine struggling to burst through the soil, his form suddenly towering and casting an overbearing presence over Jiang You.
Before, with one of them standing and the other kneeling, the distance between them hadn’t felt so close.
But now that he was on his feet, Jiang You was startled to find they were a bit too close. As his shadow fell over her, the cold, oppressive feeling intensified. A gust of frigid air swept past her as he rose, making Jiang You’s fingers instinctively retract from the chill.
Jiang You silently took a step back to put some distance between them. "Hey," she said, "did you hear me?"
Zhou Yu’s gaze fell upon her, his dark, cold, and damp eyes a vortex of inscrutable emotions.
’He knew this was her mission.’
’According to the mission’s script, he was supposed to refuse her.’
"Alright," Zhou Yu said. His throat was dry, his voice hoarse. His heart, once deathly still, seemed to start pounding in his chest.
’He didn’t want to refuse.’
A dark longing bloomed within his dense, gloomy gaze, slowly creeping across Jiang You’s delicate, alluring face.
"Don’t think you can just refu—" Jiang You stopped mid-sentence.
Her delicate, pretty face, which had been feigning superiority, now revealed a trace of bewilderment—a glimpse of the real her.
Jiang You froze. ’How am I supposed to keep forcing him now?’
’What did the male lead just say? "Alright"? He agreed?’
’How am I supposed to keep this act up!’
’The mission completion prompt hasn’t appeared, which means I wasn’t forceful enough!’
[Auxiliary System Reminder: Mission failure will result in a ten-minute electric shock.]
Jiang You started to panic. ’Why isn’t this guy following the script?’
She forced herself to stay calm. ’There has to be a way to salvage this!’
Zhou Yu’s fingertips tensed. He had heard the system’s voice too. ’She’s going to be electrocuted?’
"I was lying," Zhou Yu said, his gaze dropping, his tone unreadable.
Jiang You paused for a moment, then quickly adjusted her expression and snapped angrily, "Oh, so you dare to mess with me!"
Her expression was grim.
"Zhou Yu, your foster mother sells fried rice. If you want her to be able to keep selling it, you’ll agree to be my boyfriend," Jiang You said coldly. "Otherwise, I’ll have someone smash her food stall to pieces!"
’If he doesn’t agree, I’ll stop his foster mother from selling fried rice. That should be forceful enough!’
’But the system didn’t register the mission as complete. It’s still not enough.’
Hearing the system’s mission countdown, Jiang You grew anxious.
’Everything’s a mess, a complete mess! According to the script, I wasn’t supposed to run into Lin Jie and his friends when I cornered the male lead. And when I tried to force him to be my boyfriend, he was supposed to refuse me outright. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.’
’Even though things are a little different, I’ve basically followed the mission the system gave me. Why isn’t it complete?!’
’What exactly are the completion criteria for this mission?’
’Am I not being forceful enough?’
Jiang You grabbed his collar and yanked him down, speaking in a rush. "You broke peasant, if you don’t agree, I’ll..."
She had intended to utter a much more vicious threat.
But she was too hasty. The boy, completely unprepared, was yanked down so abruptly he was forced to bend over. At that exact moment, Jiang You instinctively tilted her head up. The collision was inevitable. The tip of his nose and his lips bumped against her face.
His lips seemed to brush past the tip of her nose.
Both of them froze.
At such close proximity, the sweet, rich scent of peaches drifted into Zhou Yu’s nostrils. His head, already buzzing from the sensation of his lips brushing against her delicate skin, now felt even dizzier.
It was intoxicatingly sweet.
His emotions were in turmoil.
[Mission Five: Complete.]
Jiang You snapped back to reality and shoved Zhou Yu away.
’What the hell? How did the mission get completed?’
Right now, Jiang You was in no mood to figure out how the mission had suddenly been completed.
All she wanted now was to escape this embarrassing place.
"Anyway, I say you’re my boyfriend, so you’re my boyfriend! From now on, you come whenever I call. Be at my beck and call, or you’ll regret it!" Jiang You spat out the threat, then hurriedly waved to her three followers. "Let’s go!"
The three followers quickly scrambled after her.
"Sister You, are you okay?" the three followers asked cautiously, seeing that the tip of Jiang You’s nose was red.
"I’m fine," Jiang You replied, her expression blank.
’In reality, she just wanted to dig a hole and bury herself in it.’
Jiang You couldn’t remember if his nose had hit her first, or his lips.
Now, belatedly, she felt a dull ache in the bridge of her nose.
"Sister You, how dare that scholarship student mess with us like that! After school, let’s get that simp Yang Qi to bring some guys and beat him up!" Yu Lin said resentfully. "He won’t agree to be your boyfriend now, but he’ll learn his place after a good beating."
Jiang You paused, then quickly said, "Not yet. I’ll handle this at my own pace."
’Without a mission, did they think she had nothing better to do than get involved with the protagonist?’
"We’ll listen to Sister You," the three followers naturally agreed.
「Lunch Break.」
Inside her grand villa, Jiang You finally relaxed, collapsing onto the sofa.
As the designated "vicious young miss," she could only eat diet food in public. Her gaze had to be arrogant, her spine perfectly straight, her steps firm and purposeful, and her expression a careful blend of disdain and contempt.
’Though the "malicious idiot" persona was questionable, it did come with a high sense of entitlement.’
’For instance, the character felt she deserved men at the top of the social pyramid, the F4-types.’
’Putting the fictional persona aside, there was one thing Jiang You did agree with: it’s good for a girl to have a high sense of self-worth.’
Before long, a household robot entered, carrying takeout: fried rice noodles, milk tea, malatang hot pot, and pan-fried dumplings.
Jiang You felt alive again.
She was just looking for a show to watch with her meal when her terminal buzzed.
Jiang You glanced down and saw it was a notification from a ten-person group chat for the "Heirs’ Circle." Yun Yue had tagged her.
Yun Yue: @Jiang You, I heard you went and tried to force that scholarship student to be your boyfriend? Did you misunderstand the terms of our bet?
Jiang You popped a pan-fried dumpling into her mouth. She hadn’t expected Yun Yue to get the news so quickly.
’It’s not that I misunderstood,’ she thought, ’it’s the system that has it all wrong.’
’Or maybe this is just how my character’s persona would interpret it.’
She casually typed a reply.
Jiang You: You can woo him your way, and I’ll do it my way. Got a problem with that?
Yun Yue’s plan was to have someone bully Zhou Yu, then she would swoop in like a heaven-sent savior. She would heal him, redeem him, and then, once he’d fallen for her, dump him.
That was her plan.
She had assumed that idiot Jiang You only knew how to throw money at a guy, but she hadn’t expected her to be even stupider than imagined—resorting to threats and coercion.
Yun Yue: Idiot. When I said "win him over," I meant make him agree *willingly*. What does willingly mean? It means he has to *want* to be your boyfriend, sincerely. Forcing him doesn’t count. You only win when he genuinely falls in love with you. *That’s* how you play with someone’s feelings.
Yun Yue: Do you even know how to play with emotions?
Seeing Yun Yue’s message, Jiang You’s lip twitched. ’This Yun Yue has clearly played with the emotions of plenty of poor students before.’
Jiang You replied: You just mind your own business. We’ll just have to wait and see who he falls in love with in the end—me or you!
She pursed her lips. ’The male lead is supposed to fall for the female lead.’
’In any case, it wasn’t going to be either of them.’