Yu Shiyan withdrew his gaze.
Looking at his friend’s face, still calm yet unable to hide the irritation beneath, he found it somewhat amusing.
“I’m not Xie Xifan, there’s no need to be so guarded against me.”
“I’m just giving you a friendly piece of advice. If you don’t want to hear it, then forget it.”
Yu Shiyan didn’t know who the mysterious girl inside was, and the female classmate who had brought the uniform up didn’t know the specifics either.
He just felt that given Wen Jiayan’s personality, he shouldn’t have done something so lacking in propriety—but judging by the look of him, he was truly smitten.
Fine, let him be smitten.
If someone else was falling in love, what did it have to do with him?
…
When Yu Jinyao came out, Yu Shiyan had already left.
She was fully dressed, with even the top button of her shirt fastened.
Her hair had been blow-dried as well.
But she still looked like a fresh peach, as if a single squeeze would burst forth with sweet juice.
“Regardless, I still need to thank you for today.”
She expressed her gratitude to Wen Jiayan sincerely.
Yesterday, Wen Jiayan had framed her and said those things.
Today, Wen Jiayan had driven her to school, carried her luggage, provided her with a bathroom, and sent over a uniform.
In her heart, they had cancelled each other out.
So now she was offering him a thank-you, because she was a polite person.
But clearly, Wen Jiayan didn’t think they were even.
He sat on the leather sofa, sleeves rolled up, revealing the clean lines of his forearms.
“No need for thanks, but you owe me an explanation.”
Wen Jiayan never put on the mask of the gentle student council president in front of her.
“Weren’t you supposed to be tidying up your room and getting yourself together? How did you end up in the main building?”
The young man let out a light chuckle. “What, helping the cleaning auntie scrub the bathrooms?”
“…”
Yu Jinyao had no choice but to tell the truth. “Mu Yan asked me to bring her some books.”
Hearing this, Wen Jiayan’s eyes grew even darker. “She asks you to deliver, so you deliver. I want to be with you, and you push me away?”
“That’s different. We’re friends.”
The girl offered a somewhat pale defense.
“Friends? You really think you’re friends?”
The one who had always been the most composed was now the one tearing away that veil of pretense.
“Do real friends make you run errands to deliver books, or make you do that kind of thing in a bathroom?”
“If you two count as friends, then we still count as siblings, don’t we? Aren’t you always calling me ‘Brother Jiayan’?”
Yu Jinyao frowned slightly, unable to understand how the gentle, clean character from the original book could be so difficult to deal with in front of her.
Relentless and unyielding—where had the student council president’s high emotional intelligence, thoughtfulness, and patience all gone?
He was like a mad dog.
Was this the gap between a Plot Device Character and the female lead?
Yu Jinyao didn’t want to keep trading barbs with him, so she fell silent and played dead.
Fortunately, at that moment, Wen Jiayan’s office phone rang.
It seemed to be a rather urgent matter of business.
Taking advantage of the moment he was on the phone, Yu Jinyao backed away while saying, “Well, you go ahead and handle that. We can talk about our thing later!”
She made a quick escape.
Wen Jiayan didn’t intend to make things difficult for her anyway.
The top floor had a private elevator that didn’t require clearance to go down.
After exiting the elevator, Yu Jinyao just wanted to get away from this place as fast as possible, but she collided with someone at the corner.
A faint scent of cedar spread at the tip of her nose.
After snapping back to her senses, Yu Jinyao quickly apologized. “I’m sorry! You—”
But her words caught in her throat when she looked up and saw the man’s cold, handsome face.
That aloof, keep-your-distance expression was exactly the same as the one he’d worn when the original host had confessed to him in her memories.
Eyelashes lowered, Yu Shiyan stared at the girl’s face in his arms.
He rarely had such close contact with anyone, let alone a member of the opposite sex.
When the girl had bumped into him, he hadn’t even had time to express his distaste before he was stunned by the soft sensation in his arms.
That face was as delicate as a doll’s, yet it carried an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
Yu Shiyan racked his brain for a long moment before remembering—she was that follower of Xia Muyan who had blushed and handed him a love letter.
The elevator behind her was the private one for the top floor, so the girl Wen Jiayan had brought back was her.
Quite the skill. Quite the scheme.
He should have scoffed at such a calculating girl, but for some reason—
In his mind, that fair, beautiful arm lingered, refusing to fade.
Those slender fingers shouldn’t have been gripping some paper bag, but rather…
In reality, his gaze could no longer pull away from her.
Even though he knew she was nothing but a fool with a pretty face.
At that moment, Yu Jinyao was displaying strong rebellious feelings toward the task the System had issued.
[Host, this is an accident, but according to your character setting, you would definitely take the opportunity to fall into his arms, milk it for all it’s worth, and make him take you to the school infirmary.]
“But we just bumped into each other! We didn’t even scrape skin!”
This seduction tactic was way too clumsy—she was cringing so hard her toes were curling.
[That’s the character setting. If the Host refuses, Plot Richness will be deducted.]
“…Aren’t I supposed to be enriching the plot? What’s the point of just following the character setting step by step?”
Yu Jinyao argued her case.
[The Host must enrich the plot while ensuring the main storyline proceeds. You can’t make all the male leads notice your abnormality and shift their attention from the female lead to you.]
The System’s words were a bit hurtful.
Did it think she didn’t want to do this, that she was playing hard to get to attract the male leads’ attention?
They were just a bunch of paper characters—what was there to attract?!
In other words, they were just a bunch of paper characters—nothing worth caring about.
She didn’t want to be some female lead anyway. She just wanted to finish the mission honestly and go home to lie flat.
Fueled by the anger of being misunderstood, Yu Jinyao decided not to take any initiative anymore. Whatever the System told her to do, she would do.
To make it clear she had no intention of overstepping.
This conversation and reflection seemed to take a long time, but in reality, only a moment had passed.
Yu Jinyao used her clumsy acting skills, letting a hint of surprise show in her eyes.
Then she conveniently fell into Yu Shiyan’s arms, enduring her embarrassment and stammering, “Senior Yu, I, I…”
She couldn’t get past the mental block!
She’d only bumped into him—she couldn’t even fabricate an injury!
Yu Jinyao was starting to give up on herself.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
A cold, clean male voice sounded, and surprisingly, he didn’t push her away at all.
“I’ll walk you back.”
She was held in his arms as he stepped out of the building.
The scent of cedar grew stronger.
Her face was full of confusion.
Yu Shiyan, the untouchable flower of F4, aloof and reserved, cold and noble—was he really this… easy to talk to?
But when the original host had handed him a love letter, he’d thrown it away directly and warned her not to betray Xia Muyan, not to covet things that didn’t belong to her.
That hurtful coldness had left a deep psychological scar on the original host, and it also made Yu Jinyao, who had inherited those memories, secretly terrified of this man.
She didn’t understand—shouldn’t she, having been flatly rejected, keep her distance from him from now on?
Why was she still clinging on like a desperate simp, refusing to give up?!
【Host, don’t speculate about the characters using your own thoughts.】
“Fine, fine, fine. You’re the client. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, alright?”
Anyway, they were just characters in a book—even if she embarrassed herself, it wouldn’t reflect on the real Yu Jinyao.