It went viral-but it was He Zhen!

What happened at lunch went viral.

But it wasn't Fu Xin's love triangle that went viral. It was He Zhen!

Meanwhile, saying Zeng Rou was bombarding Yao Tao's phone with messages wouldn't have been an exaggeration.

Zeng Rou: Well, well, little junior.

Zeng Rou: Say something, little junior!

Zeng Rou: When did you get together?!

Zeng Rou: Come out for dinner. Your senior's treating!

Zeng Rou: Little Peach, stop playing dead. Don't make me come to your classroom tomorrow to find you and He Zhen.

Yao Tao had no choice but to reply to Zeng Heroine.

Yao Tao: I was doing homework just now.

The all-purpose homework excuse. Yao Tao loved it dearly.

Zeng Rou: Quit pretending, Little Peach. Give me the details!

What was Yao Tao supposed to say? She was losing her mind.

When Bai Jianai came back from class, she found Yao Tao slumped in her chair, playing dead with the expression of someone resigned to her fate.

"What's wrong? You got what you wanted, so why the long face?" Bai Jianai asked, amused.

"What did I get?" Yao Tao stared at the ceiling like a corpse.

"The forum's gone wild." Bai Jianai hung her jacket over the back of her chair. "You and He Zhen even have your own shipping thread."

"People at school would rather ship He Tao than watch He Zhen and Fu Xin. Your popularity's soaring." Bai Jianai was practically dying of laughter. "How does it feel, you die-hard He Zhen stan disguised as a die-hard Qin Zhen stan?"

"...Stop making fun of me." Yao Tao hurriedly checked the forum.

Good grief. There was a whole string of posts.

He Zhen finally came to his senses.

He Zhen isn't blind anymore!

He Zhen x Yao Tao!

He Zhen's name dominated the trending searches, completely eclipsing Fu Xin's love triangle and firmly holding first place for the moment.

Most of the posts were photos from every angle of He Zhen holding Yao Tao to keep her from falling.

Every single photo was blurry, but Yao Tao downloaded each one she saw.

"Happy now?" Bai Jianai nearly died laughing as Yao Tao sprang up, suddenly energized, and fiddled with her phone. "It's only been a few days. How did things move so fast between you two?"

Yao Tao thought back to the night she got drunk.

She figured she must have been dazzling that night. How else could she have made He Zhen fall in love at first sight?

But why had she blacked out?!

Damn it!

"Speaking of that, hehehe." Yao Tao leaned over and held her index finger to her lips. "As the Buddha said, it must not be spoken. It must not be spoken!"

"Are you really together?" Bai Jianai could hardly believe it.

"Not yet." Yao Tao deflated at once.

"But this afternoon, I heard someone say they saw He Zhen take you out to eat with Wei Fang, Tang Zhao, and the others."

"Yeah, the cafeteria was too chaotic, so we ate outside."

"And that means nothing?"

"I wish it meant something! I'm all for it! Why don't you help me persuade He Zhen? I could go register our marriage tomorrow. Could he?"

"...You and that mouth of yours!"

"I've got his body, but I can't get his heart. Boohoo, Nana, my life is so hard!"

Bai Jianai pushed away Yao Tao, who was trying to lean against her. "Quit putting on an act."

Yao Tao sat up straight in an instant. "I'm just being myself!"

Bai Jianai sat down in her own seat. "Yes, yes, you're just being yourself."

"Wow, we look so good in these photos!" Yao Tao admired them happily.

"Keep admiring yourself. Does He Zhen know how narcissistic you are?"

"How could he know? If he did, he might not even take me along to eat anymore."

"Should I say you're pretty self-aware?"

"Boohoo, you broke my heart, and now you're rubbing salt in the wound!" Yao Tao whined.

"Oh, please. I couldn't hurt that steel heart of yours!" Bai Jianai pushed away Yao Tao, who was nuzzling her head against her.

"Boohoo!"

"All right, all right." Bai Jianai sighed helplessly. "By the way, a few classmates are planning to visit Xiangnuan and Xiangyang this weekend. Want to come?"

Bai Jianai was in the same class as their twin roommates, He Xiangnuan and He Xiangyang.

"Sure." After thinking it over, Yao Tao decided to go along with everyone.

The twins were dangerous, but as long as she couldn't tell which was which, she was fairly safe.

Their demands and desire to control anyone who could tell them apart were far too twisted.

Otherwise, Yao Tao wouldn't have found it so hard to like them.

Such lovely names, yet they were a pair of freaks.

The two of them were every bit as twisted as Guan Xingchen.

I'm exhausted. Only a good sniff of He Zhen can fix this!

Damn it, I should've swiped his clothes and brought them back!

Yao Tao thought this without the slightest guilt.

At that moment, she didn't think she was a freak herself.

"All right, let's go together when the time comes."

"Okay. Let me know once you've settled on a time."

"Wait for me in the dorm for a bit. I have one class this afternoon. We'll probably settle on Friday."

"Okay!"

Yao Tao and Bai Jianai had just made their plans when He Zhen messaged her.

He Zhen: Are you free after class on Friday?

He Zhen: Zeng Rou wants us to get together.

Yao Tao checked WeChat. Good grief-she had over ninety-nine private messages from Zeng Rou.

Suddenly, Yao Tao didn't think Zeng Rou was much of a heroine anymore. She was such a hassle.

Yao Tao: I have plans.

He Zhen's status kept showing "Typing..."

Yao Tao waited and waited.

Even when her head was full of question marks, He Zhen was still typing...

What's he doing?

Did he sit on his phone???

He Zhen was agonizing over it.

The longer Zhang Yuan watched He Zhen, the more amusing he found him. "What's got you so torn, room leader?"

He Zhen was also the leader of their dorm room.

Zhang Yuan rarely called him that teasingly.

He Zhen hadn't intended to say anything, but after some thought, he said, "The person I invited seems to have plans already."

What He Zhen didn't say was that when Yao Tao told him she had plans, his mind had filled with questions: With whom? Where? Doing what?

He knew nothing about Yao Tao.

"Pick another time." Unable to keep his mouth shut, Zhang Yuan asked, "Yao Tao?"

Only then did He Zhen look up.

"Oh, so the posts were true." Zhang Yuan was utterly intrigued. "Yao Tao's pretty nice."

Ning Tianci had just come out of the bathroom when he heard Zhang Yuan and He Zhen already talking openly about it.

Zhang Yuan said, "She made a lot of the posters for the open day."

Zhang Yuan said, "She's pretty good. She even thought to buy water, and she didn't slack off."

Zhang Yuan said, "As for people, I haven't seen her getting especially close to anyone. She just ended up on the forum with you recently, and look at all that attention. People have even made a thread for you two!"

He Zhen looked at the enormous He Tao shipping thread on the forum and fell silent.

"What nonsense are you spouting now?" Ning Tianci whacked Zhang Yuan with a towel. "Go shower. You stink."

"How do I stink?!" Zhang Yuan stood and sniffed himself on both sides. "There's no smell, okay!"

"You came back from basketball and didn't shower. You just can't smell your own sweat."

"It's not summer. Tianci, are you a little girl or something?"

"Get lost!" Ning Tianci shot him a look. "Want me to tell A Fu?"

Zhang Yuan raised both hands over his head. "I'll shower, I'll shower! I'll get lost and shower, all right?"

Ning Tianci and Zhang Yuan were childhood friends, and Zhang Yuan was dating Ning Tianci's younger sister, Ning Youfu.

With his best buddy doubling as his girlfriend's brother, Zhang Yuan lived in both pain and bliss.

"Don't listen to him." Ning Tianci sat down in his own seat, drying his hair. "We don't know Yao Tao that well either."

"If you like her, you should get to know her yourself," Ning Tianci said.

"Mm." He Zhen nodded.

He paused for a second, then explained, "I don't like her."

Watching him protest far too much, Ning Tianci nodded and said, "Oh."

He Zhen: ...He had something to say, but he held it in.

A message from Yao Tao came in.

Yao Tao: Any time except Friday and Saturday afternoon works.