Chapter 858: No Topic Is Off Limits

I was being pestered by Jiang Ruoxue.

This kind of pestering was really strange.

She was clearly a girl, yet she barged into my life with shameless, borderline harassing persistence.

Didn’t she know I was also a girl?

No—actually, it was a good thing she was a girl. If it had been a guy acting and speaking the same way, I might’ve already used my **Soul Snatch** to make him slam into a wall.

But I had no idea how to shake her off. Every time I appeared in this city, Jiang Ruoxue would somehow be standing right in front of me.

As I said, my first impression of her was terrible—she managed to step on every single one of my pet peeves.

I didn’t like talkative people, I didn’t like overly affectionate people, and I *especially* didn’t like people who pried into my secrets.

So for the longest time, I never spoke to her voluntarily. I thought my cold attitude would make her back off, but she followed me around as if nothing had happened.

She would strike up conversations with me every now and then, acting as if we were already close. But no matter how little I responded, she never seemed to get the hint.

If our roles were reversed, I would’ve taken the hint and never spoken to the other person again.

Too bad she was nothing like me.

What made things even more frustrating was that with her constantly sticking to my side, how was I supposed to finish the task Bai Yang had given me?

*”Honey, did you deal with your leg hair before coming here?”*

Jiang Ruoxue’s sudden question left me speechless.

I shot her a glare and sighed. The world was falling apart, and she was worried about *leg hair*?

*”Ugh, I should’ve shaved before getting dragged here…”* She rolled up her pant leg, showing me her calf as if sharing a secret with a friend, and pointed at a few sparse strands. *”See? Every time I respawn, it grows back… So annoying. I just bought new hair removal cream and didn’t even get to use it before getting trapped here. Why doesn’t this place save my smooth legs? So unfair…”*

She looked up and met my deadpan stare. After three seconds of silence, she asked:

*”What brand do you use?”*

I couldn’t take it anymore!

This girl had *zero* sense of boundaries!

Just as I was about to snap at her, a sudden memory flashed through my mind.

I remembered my college dorm days, when my three roommates would often chat about stuff like this—completely ignoring me, as if I wasn’t even there.

I was always out working part-time jobs, and even when I wasn’t, I spent most of my time in the library.

Over time, the other three girls grew much closer to each other than to me.

There were so many topics girls could talk about, but I never had anyone to share them with. Did that mean *they* were friends… and I wasn’t?

Because I couldn’t play games with them, film silly videos, or afford to travel together… did that mean we weren’t friends?

I always told myself I didn’t care about these things, that I just needed to focus on my goals… but I was still human.

If I *truly* didn’t care, why did I tattoo **YNA** on myself?

I *wanted* a close friend—someone I could talk to about anything.

*”Does… hair removal cream work well?”* I muttered.

*”Ha!”* Jiang Ruoxue’s eyes lit up the moment I spoke. *”If you don’t use cream, how do you usually deal with leg hair?”*

*”I… use tweezers.”*

*”Plucking? That works, but it’s bad for your skin. Might even cause infections.”*

That was the first real conversation I ever had with Jiang Ruoxue—and I never imagined we’d bond over *leg hair removal*.

No, actually, I never imagined we’d bond *at all*.

I used to think only people with similar personalities could be friends, but maybe that wasn’t true. Jiang Ruoxue and I were polar opposites in temperament and thinking, yet I didn’t hate her.

Even though my first impression of her was awful, everything she did afterward only made her grow on me. She said things I’d never dare to say and did things I’d never dare to do—that was just who she was. And in the days that followed, she never changed from that “first impression.”

Those days were some of the happiest I’d ever had. For the first time, I understood what it meant to have someone you could talk to about *anything*—even things you’d never dare mention to your parents.

She felt like a friend who had arrived far too late.

*”Jiang Ruoxue… if you just wanted to be friends, why didn’t you leave any boundaries?”* I asked her one day, genuinely curious. *”With a first impression like that, most people would’ve run away.”*

*”Nope, wrong logic, honey.”* She shook her head. *”It’s *because* I knew we’d end up as close friends that I treated you like one from the start.”*

*”Here we go again…”* I sighed. *”Whose logic is faulty here? What comes first—the friendship or the behavior?”*

Thinking about it, she wasn’t wrong. From the very beginning, she had acted as if we were already friends. Everything she said and did was unlike how you’d treat a stranger.

*”Definitely your logic,”* Jiang Ruoxue said. *”Honey, I’m **Causality**—how could *my* logic be wrong?”*

*”Stop calling me ‘honey.’ My name is Yan Zhichun.”* I finally gave her a proper introduction. *”Zhi as in ‘know,’ Chun as in ‘spring.’”*

*”Oh?”* She grinned. *”Yan Zhichun—‘one swallow heralds the spring.’ Nice name.”*

*”You’re one to talk,”* I shot back. *”Isn’t yours just as poetic?”*

*”Jiang Ruoxue—most people think of ‘an old man in a straw cloak, fishing alone on a cold river in the snow,’ right?”* She gave me a wry smile. *”Sounds like a lonely fate, doesn’t it?”*

*”If you read more poetry, you wouldn’t think that.”* I shook my head. *”Ma Zhiyuan’s *Shouyang Qu* says: ‘Dusk descends, snow dances wild—half plum blossoms, half willow catkins. The river at dusk is a painting, a lone fisherman in his straw cloak returns home.’”*

*”Oho…”* Jiang Ruoxue nodded slowly, then smirked and reached for my chest. *”Didn’t know you were so cultured…”*

I dodged her hand. Even though she was my friend now, I still couldn’t handle her *aggressive* affection.

That night, I took Jiang Ruoxue to the building where I had first appeared. After all this time together, I felt it was finally right to tell her what I was really doing.

*”Jiang Ruoxue, what I’m about to say might be dangerous. If you feel uneasy after hearing it, you can leave anytime.”*