I'm not afraid of you

Click.

With a tap of the Enter key, Ji Ting extracted all the content in the novel that concerned the original owner of his body.

The book, titled Out of Control, Lost in Love, totaled 760,000 Chinese characters, while the passages featuring "Ji Ting" alone accounted for just over 60,000. His ranking as the fourth male lead was well deserved.

And in those passages, "What's so great about Ji Yanzhi," "What's so great about Lu Yanchu," and "What's so great about Qin Zaiye" accounted for nearly eight thousand characters of "Ji Ting's" dialogue. Being a peripheral love interest was bad enough, but he also kept banging his head against the same wall without ever turning back.

Ji Ting had originally wanted to sort through the original owner's life story to see whether there were any risks he needed to avoid in advance. Instead, he discovered that, apart from the year spent in prison, the remaining ninety percent of the man's life revolved around the central bottom, as though nothing else in life mattered besides love.

Being "love-brained" was something alien and useless to Ji Ting. He had no desire to understand it, much less respect it.

So, after serious and careful consideration, Ji Ting decided-

To block and delete every means of contacting the central bottom from his phone.

Cut off all evil at its source. As long as he avoided getting entangled with this person named Ling Xi, that ninety percent of the original story's chain reactions would never happen.

Ji Ting had just put down his phone when three soft knocks suddenly sounded at his door. He glanced at the small window on his screen and saw that it was the butler.

Ji Ting returned the computer to its home screen, then got up to open the door.

"Second Young Master, the eldest young master is home. Dinner will be ready in forty minutes."

As usual, Ji Yanzhi went straight to his room for a shower when he got home. While changing afterward, he suddenly remembered something.

Right.

When he had ordered Ji Ting confined to his room, he had not only confiscated his phone and car keys, but also replaced his computer. The new computer had no games installed, but it did have an additional screen-monitoring program that would record anything Ji Ting did besides studying.

At that thought, Ji Yanzhi walked over to the desk, opened his laptop, and found the plug-in on the desktop.

[Total computer usage over the past seven days: 79 hours, 34 minutes]

His gaze swept over the line, and he clicked to view the details.

Spider Solitaire playtime: 48 hours, 12 minutes

Minesweeper playtime: 16 hours, 07 minutes

At the first two entries, Ji Yanzhi gave a cold laugh, as if to say, "Just as I thought." The final entry, however, made his face darken.

Baidu search: How do you play Minesweeper? Time spent: 5 hours, 41 minutes

Five hours?

How stupid did someone have to be to fail to figure out Minesweeper, even after spending that long studying the rules?!

Ji Yanzhi slammed the laptop shut with a bang. What an idiot. A complete waste of his time.

The elevator doors slid apart, and Ji Yanzhi stepped out just as Ji Ting came down the stairs.

Their eyes met, and Ji Ting received a vicious glare for no apparent reason.

Ji Ting's brows drew together slightly. Although he could now read the other man's expressions, Ji Yanzhi's behavior still frequently baffled him.

With his temper constantly through the roof, did Ji Yanzhi really not consider seeing a doctor?

They entered the dining room one after the other. Once they were seated, the butler instructed the servants to begin serving dinner.

No one spoke at the table. Only the occasional soft clink of cutlery broke the silence.

Ji Yanzhi glanced at Ji Ting, who was eating quietly. As the simmering anger from feeling toyed with gradually settled, certain clues began to emerge.

Even if this man had been an idiot all his life, surely he wouldn't need five hours to understand the rules of Minesweeper. Ji Yanzhi wondered whether Ji Ting had discovered the monitoring plug-in long ago and, anticipating that he would check it later, deliberately arranged all this.

At this point, Ji Yanzhi had no idea that he already had one foot in the truth. He simply found himself recalling Doctor Zhou's words again, his composure wavering slightly.

Rather than speculate about whether Ji Ting was hiding his ability behind a foolish facade, Ji Yanzhi decided to follow his original plan and "listen" directly to what Ji Ting had to say.

A while later, Ji Ting finished eating and put down his chopsticks. Just as he was about to rise, Ji Yanzhi suddenly said coldly, "Sit down. I have something to ask you."

Ji Ting settled back into his chair and asked evenly, "What is it?"

Ji Yanzhi did not speak immediately. Instead, he remained silent for quite a while, seemingly weighing something. "Is there anything you're particularly good at? Something you pick up naturally, for instance, as though that entire field is effortless for you?"

Ji Ting found the question rather odd, but answered anyway. "Yes."

"What is it?"

Without a second thought, Ji Ting began, "I..."

"Wait." Ji Yanzhi abruptly interrupted him, then adopted a grave tone. "Think it through in your head, word by word, before you answer me."

Ji Ting blinked in confusion. Do I have to think carefully before talking about my strengths? Isn't what I'm best at...

Ji Yanzhi's fingers unconsciously tightened against the armrest. The next second, Ji Ting parted his lips. "I'm very good at telling jokes. Want to hear one?"

Thud.

It was like walking along the beach and suddenly getting hit in the back of the head by a coconut falling from a tree.

Absurd, dizzying, and enough to leave him unable to breathe.

Ji Yanzhi drew a deep, deep breath, his teeth clenched tightly together as though terrified that some unspeakable words might escape his mouth.

When Ji Yanzhi said nothing for a long while, Ji Ting took it as agreement. "A lamb, a calf, and a piglet went shopping at a convenience store. The calf and the piglet got beaten up, but the owner left the lamb alone. Why?"

A faint light sparkled in his beautiful eyes, and the previously flat line of his lips curved upward slightly. "Because a convenience store never closes, twenty-four hours a day-and 'closing' sounds just like 'hitting a lamb.'"

"Ha." Ji Yanzhi let out a short laugh. He was genuinely so furious that he laughed.

That damned doctor named Zhou had called him the highest cloud in the sky. This little bastard was nothing but a rotten fish in a filthy gutter!

Ji Ting, playing dumb? If this behavior could be acted, Lu Yanchu ought to come apprentice under him.

Ji Ting was somewhat surprised to see him laugh. I didn't expect Ji Yanzhi to have such a good sense of humor, considering how bad his temper is.

A good sense of humor, was it?

The veins at Ji Yanzhi's temples throbbed. Through gritted teeth, he said, "Get up."

Assuming the questions were over, Ji Ting rose. "I'll head upstairs, then."

"Who said you could go back to your room!" Ji Yanzhi's face was thunderous as he pointed toward the doorway. "Keep repeating that lousy joke in your head. Now walk out of this dining room, all the way out the front door, and keep going until I tell you to stop."

He couldn't bear to look at this person for another second. He might as well get rid of that damned inner voice, too.

By making Ji Ting walk away, he intended to find out how far those thoughts could carry. However far that was, that was how far he would send the man packing.

The corners of Ji Ting's eyes lowered, his expression returning to its usual state. "I'm not going."

Ji Yanzhi narrowed his dark eyes. "You dare?"

"I do." There was nothing fierce about Ji Ting's tone. It was simply quiet and cold. "Ji Yanzhi, I'm not afraid of you."