Ning Guiqu walked discreetly the entire way, the fog in his mind finally dissipating. Genius Xiao Qu had returned! Lu Yuan stopped in front of a stall selling stuffed toys next to the supermarket. Through Lu Yuan’s gaze, Ning Guiqu noticed him staring at a rabbit plush.
This rabbit was different from the snow-white one Ning Guiqu had bought. It was a black rabbit.
A black rabbit…
Ning Guiqu watched as Lu Yuan bent down to pick up the rabbit. He wanted to stop Lu Yuan, but the bouquet in his arms was too large. Just as Ning Guiqu switched it to his left hand, Lu Yuan had already picked up the black rabbit and was asking the vendor for the price.
The vendor smiled and quoted a price.
While the vendor was packaging the rabbit and Lu Yuan was scanning to pay, Ning Guiqu used the flowers to hide his face and whispered, “Don’t you already have a rabbit?”
“It lost its ears,” Lu Yuan replied as the payment went through.
The vendor handed the rabbit to Lu Yuan. Although his expression remained unchanged, Ning Guiqu felt that Lu Yuan was quite satisfied.
Ning Guiqu secretly wished Lu Yuan would throw away this black rabbit.
“A black rabbit isn’t pretty at all.”
Lu Yuan didn’t seem to mind. “If it’s not pretty, then we won’t feel bad when its ears fall off.”
Ning Guiqu: “……….”
Ning Guiqu: !!!!!
The earless rabbit alliance!!
Ning Guiqu’s own ears began to ache. He didn’t think of himself as a rabbit, and Lu Yuan probably just genuinely liked rabbit plushies. But! That night when he dreamed of becoming a black rabbit, he felt an incredibly strong sense of empathy! It was as if he could already see his ears falling off in the future.
Lu Yuan finally noticed that something was wrong with Ning Guiqu. He waved the black rabbit meaningfully. “This time, I won’t play with its ears until they fall off. This rabbit will be very well-behaved.”
Ning Guiqu forced a smile. “So you just didn’t cherish the rabbit I bought.”
Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow and chuckled.
“If you put it that way, Ning Guiqu, I would feel sorry if I didn’t rip off this rabbit’s tail.”
Ning Guiqu exclaimed in horror, “…Don’t!”
T-too scary!
Lu Yuan pretended to be regretful. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of it.”
Ning Guiqu slowly covered his face with the flowers, his expression troubled. What on earth was he discussing with Lu Yuan?
After returning to the dorm, Shi Wen, who had just finished showering, couldn’t help but notice the enormous bouquet in Ning Guiqu’s arms.
Shi Wen curiously approached, his face full of gossip. “Who sent these?”
Ning Guiqu placed the flowers on the table, about to say Lu Yuan, when he suddenly remembered Shi Wen’s homophobia. Would his relationship with Lu Yuan scare Shi Wen?
Shi Wen nudged Ning Guiqu. “Who is it? Who?”
Ning Guiqu obediently tilted his chin towards Lu Yuan, who was placing the rabbit plush on the bed, and formally stated, “Lu Yuan congratulated me on my successful performance.”
Shi Wen looked at Lu Yuan and hissed, muttering, “Why is there a black rabbit too?”
As Ning Guiqu was about to sigh in relief at Shi Wen’s distraction, Shi Wen suddenly fixed his gaze on him again.
Ning Guiqu’s heart leaped to his throat.
Shi Wen scratched his head, perplexed. “Just for that dwarf play with you and Xiao Jiang? He’s sending flowers for that?”
Shi Wen wasn’t easily led astray. Fortunately, despite his homophobia, he couldn’t imagine anything in that direction. But still! What he said was so tasteless!
Ning Guiqu said seriously, “Please respect art. It’s ‘Snow White’, not ‘dwarf’.”
Shi Wen conceded, patting Ning Guiqu’s shoulder. “Fine, Snow White then. But you guys can’t give each other the cold shoulder anymore! We’re roommates!”
Ning Guiqu: “……”
In the second of Ning Guiqu’s silence, Lu Yuan spoke up, “Don’t worry, we won’t be cold to each other anymore.”
Ning Guiqu thought to himself, no one could predict the future.
Shi Wen was satisfied. “As expected of the only penguin.”
Ning Guiqu shuddered.
Penguin! The nickname for Lu Yuan that existed only on his alt account. How did Shi Wen know?
Ning Guiqu’s breath caught, his vision blurring. His alt account… it couldn’t have been exposed, right? No, impossible. If it had been, Shi Wen and the others wouldn’t be acting like this.
“You were drunk last night. Shi Wen asked you what I was. You said I was a penguin.”
A soothing voice reached Ning Guiqu’s ears.
Ning Guiqu returned to normal.
He let out a soft sigh, vowing never to drink again.
Shi Wen was curious, too. “So why is he a penguin, while Jiang Xu and I are idiots? For me, it might be because I was already playing games with Li Mu, but Jiang Xu didn’t do anything last night, right?”
Shi Wen had completely forgotten his gloom from the previous night. Being called an idiot didn’t really bother them this time. But since Ning Guiqu had said it, Shi Wen was curious.
Ning Guiqu replied innocently, “I don’t know, I was just talking nonsense.”
Shi Wen replied, “Even nonsense should have some basis.”
Ning Guiqu insisted it was just nonsense, and Shi Wen gave up after failing to get any answers.
Ning Guiqu breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Xiao Shi was still easy to deal with!
“So, why am I a penguin?”
Ning Guiqu felt his hair stand on end! Xiao Shi might be easy to deal with and fool, but Lu Yuan beside him wasn’t!
Ning Guiqu tried to brush it off. “It was just nonsense.”
“Is that so?”
Ning Guiqu rubbed his arm. “Yes, it is.”
Then—
He noticed Lu Yuan’s gaze on his hand rubbing his arm.
Ning Guiqu slowly raised his eyes, only to fall into Lu Yuan’s intimidating gaze once again!
“When you lie, you do some small movements. I should have warned you before,” Lu Yuan reminded him again.
Yes!
He had mentioned it!
But this wasn’t something he could control!
And besides!
Wasn’t Lu Yuan pursuing him? Shouldn’t he be understanding and not press the issue when he saw that Ning Guiqu didn’t want to answer?
The usually timid Ning Guiqu, thinking of this, suddenly became bold and declared righteously, “Because you’re cold, so you’re a penguin!”
No nervous tics this time.
This was the truth!
Lu Yuan, of course, knew this. But wasn’t Ning Guiqu just too cute?
Seeing Lu Yuan’s gaze becoming increasingly strange, Ning Guiqu started to feel timid again. So he added seriously, “But penguins are globally protected animals. They’re very precious.”
Lu Yuan chuckled softly, reaching out to ruffle Ning Guiqu’s hair. Under Ning Guiqu’s wary gaze, he said in a low voice, “If you keep being like this, I can’t guarantee what I might do.”
Ning Guiqu instinctively felt a hint of threat. But realistically, what could Lu Yuan actually do?
Secretly kill him?
Murder was illegal.
While Lu Yuan was washing up, Ning Guiqu placed the roses on the balcony to bask in the sun tomorrow. He crouched down and sighed. Although it seemed ungrateful, he still wished Lu Yuan had treated him to a meal instead!
Ning Guiqu changed the water in the fish tank on the balcony, carefully avoiding pouring out the small fish. After changing the water, he fed them a bit of fish food.
The small fish began fighting over the food.
Ning Guiqu squatted on the ground and thought again, can a person really like two people at the same time?
If the original owner liked Lu Yuan, was it possible that he didn’t actually like the protagonist gong? Was the betrayal four years later part of a larger conspiracy, one even the novel’s author was unaware of?
Ning Guiqu: “……..”
What was he thinking!
So Ning Guiqu sent another message to his alt account: “Stupid protagonist gong.”
After sending it, he suspiciously called out to Lu Yuan, who had just finished showering, “Lu Yuan!”
Lu Yuan, who was wearing simple striped pajamas, walked over while wiping his hair.
Ning Guiqu’s heart skipped a beat.
A beauty emerging from water!
How… how could the original owner still like the protagonist gong after seeing Lu Yuan like this!
Ning Guiqu let out another long sigh.
Lu Yuan stood before Ning Guiqu, amused. “Did you call me over just to hear you sigh?”
Ning Guiqu shook his head. “No. I wanted to ask, was I previously…”
Lu Yuan listened attentively.
Ning Guiqu found it hard to continue. He could be shy, too!
He glanced at Lu Yuan, then lowered his head, took a deep breath, and asked in a serious tone, “Madly in love with you?”
Lu Yuan was stunned for a second, then instantly understood Ning Guiqu’s meaning. Ning Guiqu was upset again about being rejected before.
Lu Yuan put down the towel, looking down at Ning Guiqu’s head, sincerely promising, “Ning Guiqu, I’ll make it up to you double.”
Ning Guiqu suddenly looked up, eyes wide, seemingly bristling as he lowered his voice, “That’s not what I meant! I mean the original owner, was the original owner madly in love with you!”
Lu Yuan calmly played along. “Mm. He was madly in love. Genius Xiao Qu isn’t.”
Ning Guiqu looked suspicious.
Lu Yuan added, “When you were drunk, you called yourself ‘Genius Xiao Qu’. It was quite cute.”
Ning Guiqu’s face slowly reddened again.
“I see. I need some alone time,” Ning Guiqu mumbled.
Lu Yuan, who came when called and left when dismissed, walked away.
After Lu Yuan left, Ning Guiqu began to use his clever mind again. The current situation was that asking Lu Yuan was of no use, so there was no need to ask him anymore.
Ning Guiqu still felt it was difficult for one person to like two people at the same time.
So, he started to think that perhaps the original owner didn’t actually like the protagonist gong in the past.
Lu Yuan’s past cold attitude could have been simply because the original owner had confessed to him, and Lu Yuan was pretending to be aloof to maintain distance. Although Lu Yuan had called him fickle, he hadn’t explicitly mentioned him harassing Song Huai. However, he did misunderstand that Genius Xiao Qu liked Song Huai.
Ning Guiqu now desperately wanted to prove that the original owner hadn’t harassed or liked the protagonist gong in the past. Previously, he thought the original owner might have secretly liked the protagonist gong, so he couldn’t prove it and could only say it. Now, knowing that the original owner liked Lu Yuan, how could one heart like two people?
Although clarifying this matter seemed unnecessary at present. After all, the novel didn’t bother to write about it, jumping straight to the betrayal four years later out of unrequited love. Even if he knew the original owner hadn’t harassed or liked the protagonist gong, if something unexpected happened four years later, the betrayal would still occur.
But from another perspective, if he could prove it, he could righteously tell Lu Yuan, “You wronged the original owner who loved you wholeheartedly! The original owner was really miserable. Born at the wrong time, and now wrongly accused by the current Lu Yuan.”
Genius Xiao Qu was also miserable, being innocently threatened!
So, how could he prove that the original owner didn’t like Song Huai?
Ning Guiqu continued to ponder.
“Lu Yuan, what’s Xiao Qu doing on the balcony?” Shi Wen, who was in the room, noticed Ning Guiqu still crouching on the balcony floor.
Lu Yuan glanced over and calmly said, “Growing mushrooms.”
???
Shi Wen didn’t understand.
Ning Guiqu “grew mushrooms” for a while longer before having an epiphany. He had flashed back to the original owner’s memories twice, which meant that he did have the original owner’s memories in his mind, but they didn’t appear without reason.
The first time was when he fell from the ladder and hurt his leg. He was dazed from the fall; his mind was foggy and flashed back to the original owner’s memory.
The second time was the morning after getting drunk, in Lu Yuan’s bed, when Lu Yuan confessed his feelings. After Lu Yuan left, his brain was still in a highly excited state, so he flashed back to the memory of Lu Yuan rejecting him.
Both instances had a common point – his brain had received some stimulation.
So if the original owner really liked the protagonist gong before, just having the protagonist gong stand in front of him, or even speak in Ning Guiqu’s presence, would probably stimulate his brain enough to show him some memories. Although this stimulation might be a bit forced, the original owner stabbed for love four years later. If he had liked him before, it would have probably been intense love, love at first sight.
No memory meant no love. Ning Guiqu thought radically, because this was currently his only method. He couldn’t possibly go back to a home he didn’t know the location of to search for any secret diary the original owner might have written about his crush. Even if he knew where home was and found such a private diary, he wouldn’t dare to read it.
Moreover, if the original owner had openly harassed the protagonist gong before, the protagonist gong would surely show a look of disgust upon seeing him.
So if he greeted him and didn’t receive any memories, and the protagonist gong didn’t show any disgust upon seeing him.
It would prove! That the original owner didn’t like Song Huai. Then he’d need to prove the original owner’s innocence to Lu Yuan! Since he had also been misunderstood during this time, Ning Guiqu was an innocent victim, too, so he also deserved some benefits.
Make Lu Yuan sign a written agreement that no matter what happens in the future, he must unconditionally let him work at Lu Yuan’s company! It must be an eight-hour workday, weekends off, and holidays off! He couldn’t be deprived of any benefits. Even if his work performance was poor, he couldn’t be fired! Even if the company was near bankruptcy, they still had to pay his salary!
Ning Guiqu gloated silently, he truly was a genius!
For now, he just needed to figure out how to casually run into Song Huai in person.
Ning Guiqu happily washed up and took a shower, also scrubbing his white shoes. After freshening up, Ning Guiqu returned to his bed and opened his “alt account.”
Time for the first rant of the day!
Then—
His expression turned grave.
[Genius Xiao Qu’s head is empty, like his brain was sucked by a zombie]
[Is Lu Yuan a zombie?]
[Stupid zombie]
Damn……..
Ning Guiqu’s hand holding the phone trembled. He had gone crazy on his alt account while drunk!
Lu Yuan probably……. didn’t know, right? After all, when he woke up, his phone was on his butt.
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