The Arch-Rival's Jealousy

Lu Xiaoxiao blinked, the corners of her lips curving up, her eyes holding a smile: "So you're... jealous?"

Her voice was soft and sweet, carrying a trace of teasing.

Shao Enci's fingertips paused on the doorknob, remaining in that exact pose. His deep eyes sank, a trace of jealousy surfacing on his usually calm and aloof handsome face, yet he stubbornly spat out two words: "No."

Lu Xiaoxiao grabbed his arm, turning him around to face her directly.

His eyelashes lowered, refusing to look at her, and the corners of his mouth pressed into a line, as if enduring something.

She raised her eyelids and said: "You should go check the security monitoring room."

Shao Enci's handsome brows furrowed, his eye-base carrying doubt, but he did not interrupt her.

"Those boys keep harassing me, and I don't want to deal with them at all." She paused and said, "Later, when I really had no choice, I told them a lie."

After finishing this sentence, Lu Xiaoxiao looked at his tightly pressed thin lips, stood directly on her tiptoes, and almost pressed close to his ear, her voice softening a bit: "I told them that Shao Enci is my boyfriend, and they didn't dare do it anymore."

The moment her words fell, her feet lost their footing, and everything before her eyes seemed to be drawn away by some force.

Shao Enci's figure faded away in front of her, like water stains sliding off a glass. She reached out wanting to grab something, her fingertips only brushing through air.

"037? 037?!" Lu Xiaoxiao looked around in a panic, surrounded entirely by black fog without a single end in sight.

A golden transparent floating panel slowly appeared in front of her.

[Xiaoxiao, you have triggered the Punishment System. The task clearly dictates: the host must accumulate 50 or more designated tasks before the love-invitation permission can be unlocked.]

"What do you mean?" She stared at those words: "I can say in front of others that Shao Enci and I are together, but I can't say it in front of him?"

[System mandatory rule: before reaching 50 designated tasks, you must not say "I like you", "I love you", "You are my boyfriend" or other statements involving love confirmation to the arch-rival. Violators are directly obliterated. This is a warning, and let there not be a next time.]

Lu Xiaoxiao stood in the black fog, staring at those words for a long time. She took a deep breath, her throat feeling as uncomfortable as if something was blocked in it, and she nodded resignedly: "Understood."

All scenery returned to its original appearance, and time rewound to before she spoke those words.

Shao Enci was standing right in front of her, his handsome brows slightly furrowed, looking at her long silence and asking: "What lie did you tell them?"

Lu Xiaoxiao's mouth corners twitched, not knowing how to begin, and finally turned her head away to avoid his deep gaze, her tone revealing no emotion: "I said you're my big brother and I'm your little brother, and they didn't dare do it anymore."

Shao Enci's pair of attractive phoenix eyes gazed deeply at her. After a few seconds, he gave a light scoff, raised his hand and flicked her forehead with a knuckle: "That elementary school routine of acknowledging a big brother?"

Lu Xiaoxiao covered her forehead, her heart filled with bitterness she could not voice, and could only helplessly and lightly smile: "What's wrong with elementary schoolers."

Shao Enci withdrew his hand and shoved it into his pocket, completely disbelieving her pretense, while secretly plotting how to deal with those boys who had been harassing her.

At night, Lu Xiaoxiao finished her shower and lay back on the bed when her phone screen lit up.

She glanced down, and it was a friend request.

The note wrote: Qiu Boye.

She sat up, holding the phone and confirming it once: "Yuanluo moves fast enough."

Qiu Boye's profile picture was a group photo of a racing suit and racing car, and his screen name was fallinout.

She clicked accept and took the initiative to send a message over: [Hello, I am Lu Xiaoxiao.]

The other party replied very quickly: [I know you.]

She thought for a moment and stopped beating around the bush: [Yuanyuan told me some things today. I have a few questions I want to ask you, are you free right now?]

Qiu Boye replied with: [Do you believe I was reborn?]

She stared at these words for two seconds, typing: [I believe it, because I was reborn too.]

The opposite side went quiet for a few seconds, and then popped out a "???".

Immediately after, the phone vibrated, and he called directly.

Lu Xiaoxiao sat up from the bed, glanced at the bedroom door to confirm it was closed, and then answered.

She pressed the phone to her ear and lowered her voice: "Hello?"

"You're reborn too?" Qiu Boye's voice carried obvious astonishment: "When were you reborn?"

"Time-traveled from 21 back to 18, ten-odd days ago until now." She leaned against the head of the bed: "And you?"

"Time-traveled from 25 back to 19, three days."

She recalled the timelines of the two of them and shook her head: "Not the same."

"How did you die at age 25? Was it an accident or were you murdered by someone?"

The other end of the earpiece fell silent for a few seconds, as if mulling over something.

Then Qiu Boye's voice sounded: "He Xi murdered me. One year after Yuanyuan and I got married, he grew jealous and couldn't bear to see us happy. So he tricked me to the 36th floor and pushed me down."

Of course he couldn't tell the truth, which was that he was jealous, childishly threatened his wife with jumping from a building, and then accidentally really fell to his death from the 36th floor.

That would be too disgraceful.

Moreover, the other person was his wife's good best friend, and whatever he said, she would definitely tell Meng Yuan. It was better to use her to smear this scum He Xi's image and make his wife completely lose interest in him.

Kept completely in the dark, Lu Xiaoxiao was filled with astonishment in her eyes, and asked: "You were murdered by He Xi?"

"This person He Xi is hypocritical." Qiu Boye said: "You should have Yuanyuan stay away from him."

The more Lu Xiaoxiao listened, the more she felt something was not quite right. Her pretty brows furrowed, and she changed angles to ask: "Then you should know about things after my death, do you know who the culprit that killed me is?"

The other end of the phone was quiet for a few seconds.

"Strange to say, I should know." Qiu Boye's voice carried confusion: "But after I reborn back, that memory is very blurry. I only remember that after you were poisoned to death, Shao Enci became decadent for a long time..."

He even committed suicide many times because of you.

Qiu Boye paused for a moment, not finishing the second half of the sentence.

The fingers holding the phone trembled, her throat drying up as if she were being gripped by an invisible hand, unable to breathe. It took her a moment to ease up before speaking, "My parents, and Yuanyuan, how did they spend their time after I passed away?"

Qiu Boye was silent for a moment before speaking: "When Yuanyuan and I got married, you had already been gone for three years. Yuanyuan was in great pain; not only did she lose you as a good sister, she also lost the family who cherished her. After marriage, I took her back to visit your parents a few times... Your parents have aged a lot, and your mother's eyes..."

He sighed lightly: "Can almost no longer see."

After that, Lu Xiaoxiao could no longer hear clearly. She switched the phone to her other ear and lowered her head to bite the inner side of her wrist, keeping herself from crying out loud.

Her slender shoulders heaved, her eyes brimming with tears, the tip of her nose red, her whole person repressed and in pain.

Seeing that there had been no sound on the phone for a long time, Qiu Boye spoke with a tentative tone: "You... you aren't crying, are you?"

He knitted his brows together, pressed his ear against the earpiece, faintly hearing fragmented sobbing coming from the opposite side, his expression grave.

The matter of coaxing a girl was still best left to his brother to do.

Qiu Boye immediately hung up the phone and dialed Shao Enci.

The other party was obviously impatient, his voice cold and detached: "Something the matter?"

Qiu Boye cleared his throat and said: "The girl you like is feeling upset at home right now. It's time for you to shine, brother."