Jiang Xu’s circle of friends mostly consisted of wealthy second-generation heirs. Aside from billiards and golf, their usual hobbies included adrenaline-fueled activities like car and motorcycle racing that burned through cash.
He usually spent his time immersed in the laboratory, so he had little familiarity with the game Peacekeeper Elite (or PUBG Mobile).
On top of that, his friends frequently liked to exchange industry slang in private. These kinds of remarks were typically sent by “girls” who constantly posted explicit photos, acting clingy, showering others with sweet nothings, and extending invitations to explore human anatomy.
At that moment, Jiang Xu had only two questions running through his mind:
Did Xie Ran know this was his burner account?
Could that account possibly belong to the other person’s younger sister?
Harboring these thoughts, he raised his head to look at Xie Ran, who was currently looking down.
Sensing something, the other person slowly raised his head.
The two locked eyes once again.
Xie Ran blinked and asked with a puzzled expression, “Is there something you want to tell me?”
Jiang Xu fell silent for two seconds.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I just wanted to ask if you have any younger sisters at home.”
Xie Ran was surprised. He hadn’t expected Jiang Xu, who had always been aloof and sparing with his words, to proactively chat with him about mundane family matters.
Resting his hand on the edge of his chair, he answered the question, “No younger sister. I’m an only child.”
Once he got the answer to his second question, Jiang Xu arrived at only one conclusion:
The account belonged to Xie Ran, and there was a high probability the person on the other end didn’t know he was talking to Jiang Xu himself.
Regardless of what the ultimate answer turned out to be, this was something Xie Ran had brought upon himself.
Whatever the outcome, it had nothing to do with him.
“What’s wrong?” Xie Ran curled his lips into a light smile, teasing lazily, “Want me to introduce you to my sister?”
“I might not have a sister since I’m an only child, but if you want to fall in love, don’t be too rigid about gender.” He then jokingly pointed an index finger at himself with practiced familiarity, “What do you think of me?”
With that, he intentionally put on an affected, spoiled tone and added, “Brother Jiang Xu.”
Jiang Xu: “…”
“That’s not completely out of the question either.”
Xie Ran burst out laughing, seemingly caught off guard that the other person actually played along with his joke, “Never mind, I’m afraid the girls at school would shovel me to death.”
It was worth noting that Jiang Xu was quite famous at Beijing University, reigning at the very top of the campus male god rankings for two consecutive years. Even people from other universities came over just to catch a glimpse of him. He came from a prominent, wealthy family, and on the first day of the semester, he arrived in a low-profile silver-gray Aston Martin Vantage, which was rumored to be the cheapest car in the young master’s garage.
It was almost enough to make male classmates at the same university, who couldn’t even manage to flirt with girls, want to cry from envy.
Normally, Jiang Xu should have lived off-campus, but due to a heavy workload in the chemistry department recently, he simply requested to move into the dorms during his sophomore year. However, bed spaces in the same major’s dorm building were tight, and across all of Beijing University, only Xie Ran’s dorm had a vacancy.
Right at the start of the semester, Jiang Xu had lugged his suitcase and moved into Dorm A1503.
Aside from Xie Ran, the other roommates didn’t dare strike up a conversation with Jiang Xu. Even the traditionally noisy and messy dorm became restrained the moment he moved in. They observed lights-out on time, kept quiet, and kept the floors clean of trash and strange odors.
They were terrified that a single careless mistake would anger the young master.
Fortunately, Jiang Xu was fairly easy to get along with; he never lost his temper or nitpicked his roommates.
Gradually, the roommates managed to exchange a couple of words with him.
Jiang Xu said calmly, “It’s not that exaggerated.”
Xie Ran didn’t argue, because the young master never cared about such boring matters.
He stretched his back, stood up, and said, “It’s getting late. I’m going to climb up and lie down.”
Jiang Xu nodded, “Mm.”
After saying goodbye to Jiang Xu, Xie Ran climbed onto his bed with his phone in hand and smoothly pulled the curtains shut.
Once lying down, he opened the Penguin app.
He noticed that several minutes had passed since he sent his message, but the other person still hadn’t replied.
His brows twitched slightly, and he let out a soft click of his tongue.
Why did he show up for a moment and then disappear?
Could it be that He Ruizhe didn’t play Peacekeeper Elite?
Even if he didn’t play, he could at least reply with a short message.
Xie Ran scrolled through the chat history and discovered that the other person had only replied to him two or three times over the entire month. He was truly the only one actively throwing himself at someone and acting like a bootlicking simp.
It wasn’t that the thought of giving up had never crossed his mind, but the moment he remembered he had to spend nearly two thousand yuan to buy a keyboard for Yan Yi, his heart ached fiercely. With his total savings amounting to only five thousand yuan, he was still planning to buy a new camera lens next month.
With these thoughts in mind, he shamelessly sent another message to He Ruizhe.
[Do you not like playing games?]
When Jiang Xu saw the word “games,” it finally dawned on him that there had been a misunderstanding.
“Chicken” hadn’t meant anything else; it literally just referred to the game.
He replied calmly: [I don’t play.]
Was it because he didn’t play games that he didn’t know how to reply?
Xie Ran decided not to let the conversation die and followed up with: [Then what do you usually do, duck?]
This time, the other person replied instantly: [Read books.]
Read books?
Xie Ran stared at these two words and fell into deep thought.
Wasn’t He Ruizhe a sports major? He seemed to recall hearing that the other person usually liked activities like KTV, street racing, and playing basketball, and had never heard of this playboy taking a literary route.
Could this be a new persona?
Regardless of the other person’s situation, Xie Ran decided to take things as they came and cater to his preferences.
[I like reading books too.]
Sitting down below, Jiang Xu saw the message Xie Ran sent over. A slight curve touched the corner of his lips as his slender, well-articulated fingers typed back and forth on the screen: [Mm.]
Having been roommates with Xie Ran for a month, he had never once seen the other person read a single book.
In fact, Xie Ran had even proclaimed back in the dorm, “I don’t like reading books, not even novels.”
Staring at the other person’s cold, brief response, Xie Ran fell into contemplation. He belonged to the category of people who disliked reading text-heavy books; getting into Beijing University was entirely the result of the combined physical discipline from his mom and dad back in the day that forced it out of him.
He wanted to cultivate the persona of an innocent, pure young girl.
However, he hadn’t read more than a couple of romance novels.
Without pondering for long, he directly opened Baidu and searched:
“What kind of books make people think you’re easily gullible?”
“Top ten campus romance novel rankings.”
“What type of novels do young girls like to read?”
Xie Ran searched through a string of results and clicked into the answers. Someone replied:
Floor 1: [Always Some Villain Trying to Snatch My Master, Overbearing Tiger Girl’s Forced Affection, Visiting Home and Accidentally Conquering the Older Cousin, When the Wealthy Young Master Fell in Love with a Glamorous Step-mother and Repented Too Late While Chasing Love on a Rainy Night. I hope this can provide some help to the original poster.]
Why did the titles of these books look so unorthodox, yet sparked a desire to click and read them?
Yet why did he always feel like something was off?
Xie Ran continued scrolling down to collect a few more book titles as backups.
Someone on Floor 2 replied: [Of course, reading BL is the only way it’s interesting. That’s the real dish for girls.]
As a hardcore straight man, Xie Ran resolutely chose to abandon the answer on Floor 2.
As for Floor 1… at first glance, it looked quite improper.
Never mind.
The best way to hook a man was by sending photos.
Only the most direct photos could possibly attract a playboy-tier guy like He Ruizhe.
Xie Ran sent a message to ask: [Big Brother hasn’t answered me yet. Does the little skirt look good QAQ]