Sharing an H-Country School Comic with My Archrival
It was already eight at night when Shao Enci returned home after playing basketball with his friends.
Huaqing Jiayuan was located in the most luxurious wealthy district in central Jing City, about ten kilometers from Jingzhou University and Jingzhou Affiliated Middle School.
This was the "home" he had lived in for more than three years.
In the enormous villa, there was no one else apart from his personal assistant and personal driver. It was desolate all year round.
Few people knew that Shao Enci's parents had divorced when he was very young and each started a new family. Having grown up deprived of love, he had long since grown accustomed to the loneliness.
When he was fifteen, he had just started his first year of high school. His grandfather, the person who treated him best, passed away. From then on, the last family member in the world who treated him well was gone too.
That year, there was something else he couldn't understand: after he returned to school from his grandfather's funeral, why had his deskmate Lu Xiaoxiao, who had once been closer to him than anyone else, suddenly distanced herself from him and even started hurling insults at him?
His only good friend had become his archrival.
Steam swirled in the bathroom, warm mist filling the entire shower enclosure.
The young man emerged from the bathroom after his shower, dressed in loose black pajamas. Back in his bedroom, his gaze happened to sweep over the nightstand and settle on a photo album.
The hand he had been reaching out to pick up his phone with paused. He picked up the album instead and sat at the head of the bed, carefully leafing through it.
In the photo, the girl wore her senior-year graduation uniform, her hair tied in a high ponytail and her smile bright and uninhibited. The boy behind her was none other than him, wearing the same uniform. Though his handsome face was set in a cool expression, the corners of his mouth had secretly curved into a faint smile.
A touch of tenderness colored his cool features, the stirrings of a young heart he couldn't hide.
Shao Enci remembered that on their high school graduation day, Lu Xiaoxiao hadn't wanted him standing behind her at all.
So he had deliberately teased her. "You don't want me standing next to you that badly? Are you afraid I'm so handsome you'll feel inferior when you look at the graduation photo later?"
Lu Xiaoxiao had folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "I just think you're too ugly. You'll bring down the looks in my graduation photo!"
As the two of them bickered nonstop, their homeroom teacher had stepped in at just the right moment to make peace. "You've graduated. Can't you two give it a rest for one day? You might not even get another chance to see each other after this."
Lu Xiaoxiao had muttered, "I hope we never see each other again."
Shao Enci had reached out and tugged gently on her ponytail. "I hope so too," he said casually.
Only he had silently repeated to himself, I'm lying to you, Lu Xiaoxiao. You'll never shake me off.
His youth was like a grapefruit, sweet and sour on the tongue, its bitterness lingering in his throat long after he swallowed.
Shao Enci's long, pale fingertips brushed over the girl's eyes and brows in the photo. The love buried deep in his heart surged and churned, impossible to conceal any longer.
Lu Xiaoxiao would never know that her dust-covered graduation photo was the most precious treasure Shao Enci had hidden in his heart. He had despicably cropped out their two figures and kept them, making it the only photo of the two of them together in all their youth.
The night breeze swept in through the window, bringing Shao Enci a refreshing coolness. It was like the wind that summer, unable to blow out a young man's dream of chasing the future.
He lounged against the headboard, turned on his phone, and opened WeChat. Before he knew it, he had scrolled to the pinned chat and tapped Lu Xiaoxiao's cyan profile picture. Their chat history ended that afternoon.
14:14
Lu Xiaoxiao: [Are you still coming to biology class this afternoon?]
14:16
Shao Enci: [On my way]
14:17
Lu Xiaoxiao: [I saved you a seat]
14:19
Shao Enci: [Okay]
The messages stopped there, with nothing after them.
In high school, he had always been the one to start conversations with her, finding all sorts of excuses. But her attitude toward him back then had been extremely hostile, and she had even deleted him on WeChat seventeen times. So when he added Lu Xiaoxiao back on WeChat later, he held himself back much more, restraining himself and not daring to bother her again.
Now, Shao Enci was hesitating over whether to message her first.
Another self was urging him on: Send it. That's how you'll make her see you're not aloof and are actually pretty easy to pursue.
So Shao Enci pressed his thin lips together and couldn't resist sending two messages in a row:
[You kissed me yesterday, and you held my hand today]
[Lu Xiaoxiao, is it really that easy to take advantage of me?]
The moment he sent them, she replied.
Shao Enci's eyelid twitched. He saw that she hadn't replied with words, but with a link whose suggestive title didn't seem quite right.
His brows knitted slightly, and he tapped it with a mixture of confusion and curiosity.
In the space of a second, the explicit, suggestive images on the screen finished loading.
His pupils contracted sharply, his fingers clenching around his phone. Almost instinctively, he flipped it face down and pressed the screen firmly into the soft bedding.
His ears were visibly red, his breathing grew rapid, and his chest rose and fell. Shock crossed his cool face, leaving him with an expression too complicated to describe.
Damn. Lu Xiaoxiao... has her WeChat account been hacked again?
Meanwhile.
Lu Xiaoxiao hugged a pillow and grumbled, "The country strictly prohibits pornography, gambling, and drugs. Seriously, of all the tasks you could give me, why did you have to make me do something so off-putting? It's mortifying. If Shao Enci gets upset one day and reports me, I'll have to spend a few days at the police station drinking cold tea..."
037 was anxious: [Stop, stop, stop! Xiaoxiao, you still haven't completed task 5!!]
Lu Xiaoxiao was dumbfounded. "Why?!"
037: [Task 5 is to share a naughty H-Country comic with your archrival. An H-Country comic, not an H-manga. We're a "proper" system!!]
Lu Xiaoxiao's expression was as ugly as if she had swallowed a dead fly.
Two seconds later, she screamed, "Aaaaaah, 037, why didn't you say so earlier?!"
She immediately opened her phone to delete the link, but the time limit for recalling it had long since passed. Staring at the words "unable to recall" on the screen, Lu Xiaoxiao pounded the bed and wailed, "I'm done for, I'm done for... completely done for... what will Shao Enci think of me now..."
037: [Xiaoxiao, stop complaining for now. There are only 5 minutes and 48 seconds left on the current task countdown. Hurry and find a naughty H-Country comic online.]
"Good point."
Lu Xiaoxiao sat up straight and quickly opened her browser to search.
Shao Enci sent five messages in a row:
[Lu Xiaoxiao, I never expected you to have this kind of fetish in private]
[If you like reading that stuff, just hide under the covers and read it on your own. There's no need to share it with me]
[Don't share it with anyone else either. That's illegal]
[Anyone else would have reported you already]
[Only I didn't report you]
Lu Xiaoxiao had no time to worry about his snide remarks. She picked a school romance comic at random online and shared it on WeChat.
037's voice rang out in her mind: [Congratulations, Xiaoxiao, on completing task 5.]
Only then did Lu Xiaoxiao breathe a sigh of relief.
Shao Enci went to the living and dining area to get a glass of ice water. When he returned, his phone screen was lit up on the table. He opened the new link Lu Xiaoxiao had sent. It was a school comic with a romantic, dreamy style.
The corners of his lips slowly rose, and he sent her a voice message:
"The male lead in this comic isn't as handsome as me, and the female lead isn't as pretty as you."
Lu Xiaoxiao hadn't paid any attention to the characters in the comic. Hearing his low, resonant, sexy voice, she sent a perfunctory voice reply: "Yes, yes, yes. I just thought the plot was pretty engaging and wanted to share it with you. Oh, and the previous link was a complete accident. I don't have that fetish, thank you."
Before long, Shao Enci sent another voice message, his voice seductive and alluring: "When we get the chance, let's read it together."
Lu Xiaoxiao didn't hear the other meaning in his words at all and casually typed: [Sure]
037 suddenly popped up: [Don't worry, Xiaoxiao. You'll have a chance to read it together in the future. After all, we're a "proper" system.]
"Huh?" Lu Xiaoxiao didn't understand. But she would understand what 037 meant in the tasks to come.
She stretched, rolled her neck, and started fishing for information. "037, we've already completed five tasks together. Could you give me a preview of the fifty tasks still to come?"
037 was silent for two seconds.
[I can only give you this kind reminder: every task from now on has something to do with Shao Enci.]
"I know that. Can you tell me something I don't know?"
[Every task from now on is a benefit for you.]
"A benefit?" Lu Xiaoxiao's eyes lit up, but when she thought back to the first five tasks, she pursed her lips. "Is it a benefit for Shao Enci or for me? Are you sure you haven't made a mistake?"
037 decisively changed the subject: [It's getting late. Get some rest. I'll tell you about task 6 after you wake up.]
Lu Xiaoxiao: "..."