Xia Yu continued pondering. If he were to make contact, what method and in what form should he use—temptation or intimidation?
At the moment, he knew too little about this girl called Liangliang to conduct an effective analysis.
He picked up his phone and sent a message to Zhong Yunxin, but Zhong Yunxin didn’t reply for a long time.
Glancing at the time displayed on the screen—22:05—Xia Yu inwardly grumbled:
Someone whose appearance and inner self both scream trouble, yet sleeps earlier than even the good students.
He put his phone down and fell asleep.
The next morning, during breakfast, Zhong Yunxin answered Xia Yu’s question: “Her name is Hu Lianglu. Since there’s already a girl named Lulu at school, she asked me to call her Liangliang.”
Xia Yu stroked his chin. Just now, for a moment, he had misheard it as “Fox Girl Lu.” He must have been reading too many comics lately.
“What do you think, interested in playing with her?” Zhong Yunxin placed her hand on Xia Yu’s shoulder.
Beside them, You Xue, sensitive as ever, lifted her head.
After Liu Manman and Xu Youxiang, was her brother about to acquire yet another lover?
Xia Yu had originally wanted to ask more, but seeing Zhong Yunxin’s expression, he feared she might genuinely try to push Hu Lianglu toward him, so he silently stopped himself.
Without makeup, Hu Lianglu was still a fresh and lively girl. But with makeup on, she was something beyond human comprehension.
“Shall I set up a meeting for you?” Zhong Yunxin continued playing matchmaker. “Don’t tell me you’re still faithful to that woman An Siyao.”
Xia Yu couldn’t say that her makeup looked too demonic because Zhong Yunxin actually admired such styles. If he gave other excuses, Zhong Yunxin would just say something like “give it a try.”
So he asked instead: “Does she prefer sweet or spicy food?”
Zhong Yunxin hesitated for a moment: “Both sweet and spicy should be fine?”
“I’m not interested in indecisive women without principles,” Xia Yu replied.
Zhong Yunxin was momentarily stunned.
Just as Xia Yu was thinking whether his rejection had been too cliché, Zhong Yunxin made a move.
She slapped Xia Yu’s back hard: “I get it now, you must strictly follow your own principles in every detail of life!”
With that, she grabbed the chili sauce and poured a large amount onto her bread.
Watching Zhong Yunxin struggle to eat the spicy bread, Xia Yu began to suspect that she wasn’t much harder to fool than An Siyao.
As long as you said something that sounded cool, you could seemingly control Zhong Yunxin’s thoughts.
Unfortunately, Zhong Yunxin lacked self-control; even if you controlled her mind, her body wouldn’t cooperate.
After breakfast, Xia Yu secretly called An Siyao and, under her authority, sent Zhong Yunxin back to school.
Upon returning, he asked Yu Ningmeng to look up some information on Hu Lianglu.
Yu Ningmeng quickly replied.
『What, have you already grown tired of the college student running the milk tea shop and now want to try a destitute rich girl?』
『???』
Xia Yu first sent a string of question marks, then continued explaining: “Didn’t I already explain the milk tea shop incident? Plus, you’ve already met Duan Yi.”
During this period, the company’s team had been preliminarily established and had begun their first project.
Rather than starting off by developing a game, Xia Yu chose a small software project for them to practice on.
In the meantime, Duan Yi and Yu Ningmeng had also met once, since Xia Yu was still unfamiliar with many programming aspects and relied heavily on Yu Ningmeng.
Yu Ningmeng didn’t answer Xia Yu’s counter-question. She was just teasing him.
She redirected the conversation back to the beginning: “This girl is the daughter of the Hu family, Tianhu Group, previously in construction materials, which has seriously declined over the past decade. Her parents have been running around for years trying to secure business deals for the company.”
Then she couldn’t help but tease again: “I just happen to have a business deal here. How about you use it to pressure those two into bringing Hu Lianglu over for dinner at your place?”
“…What happens if I agree?”
“How well-done do you want the crematorium?” Yu Ningmeng immediately replied.
Xia Yu knew there was no such good deal.
“You should ask what she actually wants to do?” Yu Ningmeng asked again.
“Zhong Yunxin and she are in the same class. Yesterday, the two of them were caught riding a motorcycle by the police,” Xia Yu explained.
“Shall I talk to her parents and have them beat her up?”
“I’ll see the specific situation first,” Xia Yu didn’t reject or accept outright.
Making Hu Lianglu stay away from Zhong Yunxin could only address the symptoms, but making Hu Lianglu watch over Zhong Yunxin could tackle the root cause.
He himself couldn’t get involved directly to maintain his “good older brother” image, but An Siyao could.
He could use An Siyao’s body to meet Hu Lianglu and see if he could find any leverage against her.
For someone obedient or pragmatic, threatening them with business deals for their parents might work. But Hu Lianglu was a delinquent girl—those methods would definitely be ineffective.
Putting this matter aside, Xia Yu picked up his phone and casually browsed a video website.
In the original content section, he found an edited fan video of the previous badminton match.
He clicked into the video. The silly UPloader narrated the previous three forum posts in a goofy voice.
After watching briefly, Xia Yu lost interest and continued scrolling through the video sections. Not finding any amusing silly videos, he was about to exit when suddenly an ad caught his eye.
『Adaptation of the famous novel “White Bird” by teenage female writer Wen Ziying into a TV drama, coming soon』
A drama adaptation of Wen Ziying’s book was coming out?
The ad was a promotional PV. Xia Yu clicked in and headed straight to the comment section.
The netizens didn’t disappoint. The first comment summarized the PV, expressing optimism about the show based on aspects like the script, director, and production company.
The second comment compiled a brief resume of Wen Ziying.
Most of the resume was information Xia Yu already knew, but there were a few small parts he hadn’t.
For example, Wen Ziying’s mother was Bian Guping, a moderately famous essayist and poet.
Now that Wen Ziying was involved, Xia Yu grew curious. He searched Bian Guping’s name but only found information about her essays, poetry, and some award records—nothing else.
The media in this world was too upright. If it were the media from Xia Yu’s previous life, they would have already dug up everything about Wen Ziying’s ancestors three generations back and any sellable gossip.
Continuing to browse the search results, Xia Yu discovered that Bian Guping had only been active in the literary circle for five years, with her most active period lasting just two years. That explained the lack of information.
He noticed another issue.
On the writers’ website, she wasn’t listed under the deceased category, meaning Bian Guping was still alive.
However, Xia Yu had visited Wen Ziying’s place around twenty times and had never met Bian Guping. Wen Ziying lived alone.
Curious about Wen Ziying, Xia Yu directly clicked the tab and took over her body.
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