Know yourself and your enemy, and you will never lose a battle

His sudden words startled Bai Chen.

Bai Chen looked toward the voice and asked, "You're still awake? Or did I wake you when I came in?"

If he really had woken him, he would feel terrible.

Gu Yun suddenly sat up and looked at Bai Chen.

It was dark, and Bai Chen couldn't make out his expression. He assumed Gu Yun was worried about him.

"Yeah, Lin Sen's place is near the hospital, so he dropped me off on his way home," Bai Chen said as he took off his shoes.

A few seconds of silence followed.

Gu Yun suddenly spoke, his slightly husky voice sounding rich and resonant. "Then you..." He had meant to ask how the two of them had met, but something occurred to him, and he swallowed the question.

"Then how are you feeling now?"

"I had two bags of IV fluids. I'm much better now," Bai Chen said.

"That's good. I'm going to sleep. I have class tomorrow." With that, Gu Yun lay back down and turned his back to Bai Chen.

Bai Chen: ...

He felt that Gu Yun was acting strange today, but he couldn't put his finger on why. Maybe he was overthinking it.

He washed up and went to bed.

Gu Yun lay in bed, unable to sleep, his heart unsettled.

Xiao Bai and Lin Sen are just friends, and they hardly ever see each other. There definitely won't be any problems. Only after thinking this did Gu Yun feel a little better.

The next morning.

Lin Sen came back very early, still smelling faintly of alcohol. He must have been drinking somewhere.

Bai Chen was up early too. With a smile, he asked, "How was it? Did you have fun yesterday? With that senior girl?"

At the mention of the senior girl, Lin Sen's face grew redder and redder. Like a little boy, he murmured, "It was nice. She's really gentle, and she's a good dancer too."

Bai Chen: "???"

"All you did was dance? Then where did you go last night?" Bai Chen asked.

He had thought Lin Sen had gone to a bar with her for drinks and a heart-to-heart, especially since he smelled so strongly of alcohol.

Lin Sen rolled his eyes at Bai Chen, speechless. "What are you thinking? Of course not. After we danced, she left with her friends. I spent all night eating barbecue on the beach with a few buddies."

"Okay, I got the wrong idea." Bai Chen felt a little embarrassed.

The three guys in Bai Chen's old dorm had all had girlfriends. He was the only one without one.

It wasn't that no girls liked him. He just hadn't found anyone he was attracted to, and he had a whole bunch of part-time jobs to work in college. Where would he find the time for a girlfriend?

On the Qixi Festival, everyone else had stayed out overnight, leaving him, the lone bachelor, studying in the dorm. It had been a miserable sight.

He had planned to find someone once he graduated and had a stable job, but before he could, he had inexplicably ended up in this world.

Lin Sen seemed to suddenly remember something and exclaimed, "Oh, right! How did you get on those four guys' bad side yesterday? That guy didn't do anything to you, did he? I'd gone to the bathroom, and when I came out, I saw the older Lin beside you."

Bai Chen said, "It's fine. Just something minor."

Then he quietly lowered his voice. "Just four pretentious jerks."

"Hahaha-true. But from now on, whenever you see them, stay as far away as you can. With their family backgrounds, they can beat people up without facing any punishment."

Of course Bai Chen knew that. He would avoid them whenever he could, not stupidly walk straight into the line of fire.

Wouldn't that be asking to die?

"What do their families do?" Bai Chen wanted to know just how absurd the backgrounds of this world's Campus F4 were.

Know yourself and your enemy, and you will never lose a battle.

After what had happened last night, Bai Chen knew he was definitely in trouble. The Campus F4 wouldn't let him off.

He had to find some way to keep dodging them for as long as he could.

After gathering his thoughts, Lin Sen told Bai Chen about the four men's family backgrounds one by one.

Gu Cheng was the only son of the Gu Family in City G.

Gu Cheng's mother was the eldest of the Xiao Family's three sisters.

There were four major families in City G.

The Lin Family, the Gu Group, the Xiao Group, and the Qin Group.

However, the Qin Group's main business operations were overseas, not in the country.

The other three guys today all came from smaller businesses on friendly terms with the Gu Family and the Xiao Family.

They weren't much of a threat.

The one who had splashed red wine on Bai Chen was Shi Long. He was always stirring up trouble, relying on his ties to the Gu Family.

The one with hair dyed granny gray was the nephew of the head of the Xiao Family. His name was Mu Congnan, and he was the biggest womanizer of them all, cycling through girlfriends every month.

Bai Chen had a slight impression of the last one. He probably wasn't too bad, because while the other three had humiliated and mocked him, that guy had never joined in.

His name was Yu Wen, and his family was also in business. He was a nice young man, honest and well-behaved, with no record of misconduct. He wasn't a womanizer and even had a girlfriend who was his childhood sweetheart.

Apparently, they had already held their engagement party. All that remained was for him to graduate, take over the company, and then get married.

Lin Sen sat there and explained all four men's family backgrounds and connections, leaving nothing out.

Bai Chen listened and memorized everything, forcing himself to keep all of them straight.

The family connections in a Mary Sue world really were extensive, like a branching web, each link connected to the next. It was so complicated.

Bai Chen said, "Okay, I get it. Thanks for telling me all this."

He had no classes that morning, so he could get something to eat at the cafeteria first, then visit the Pottery Club around noon.

The club happened to be open for activities that day.

"The Hongde Building in the southeast?" Bai Chen opened the campus map, following the address Xia Wangqiu had given him last time.

This time, everything went smoothly. Before long, Bai Chen had reached the Hongde Building in the southeastern part of campus.

Hongde Building was a fairly normal name. They hadn't given it anything bizarre.

His old high school had also had a building by that name. He thought it had been the boys' dormitory.

At this school, the Hongde Building was used exclusively as an activity space for the various clubs.

In one of the rooms on the first floor, students sat in a circle around a table, looking at a model in the middle as they sketched. This was an art club.

If he listened closely, he could also hear the lilting, peaceful music of students playing violins on the top floor.

Bai Chen didn't linger long before heading up to the pottery studio on the third floor.

There weren't many people in the pottery studio. At a glance, he could see only a dozen or so students.

It was just as quiet as the Pottery Club he had joined before.

Xia Wangqiu was also there, sitting near the front and carefully shaping the clay piece in his hands.

He occasionally chatted with the person beside him, smiling as they talked, completely unaware of someone behind him.

Bai Chen walked briskly to the front door and knocked lightly. Smiling, he said, "Hello, I'm here to learn pottery. May I come in?" His voice was clear and gentle.

Everyone turned toward the voice.

They saw a young man standing with the light behind him, a faint air of gentleness radiating from him.

A smile played at his lips, and his wispy bangs covered his eyebrows. In the light, the top of his layered, tea-brown hair was edged with a beautiful halo.

"Wow-huh? So this is the new student the club president mentioned! He looks so sunny and cheerful. Come in, come in." Everyone found it hard to believe.

Would a boy like this enjoy pottery? They felt that someone like him ought to be into sports.

Pottery was so dull. Had he signed up for the wrong club?