Could you not talk to him?

Strangely, after Li Shu hugged him, the alarm in his head quieted a little.

It was an extremely bizarre feeling.

If Li Shu had simply walked away just now, Pei Song'an would have had no reason to stay here either. The system would not allow him to leave, so something must have been about to happen along the course Pei Song'an would take after leaving.

But looking at it the other way, if Li Shu hadn't come to the library today, or if he'd behaved according to the original owner's personality, Pei Song'an wouldn't have run into him at the library today, much less come over to see him. Naturally, there would have been no plot outside the established course.

So after thinking it over and over, was Li Shu himself actually the one who had caused this situation!?

So weird, so weird.

What did any of this have to do with him?

Caught off guard when Li Shu threw himself at him, Pei Song'an took two small steps backward, letting Li Shu rest his pointed chin obediently on his shoulder.

"Did the radar really go off this time?"

"Were there any prompts?"

Li Shu shook his head, his chin prodding the muscle of Pei Song'an's shoulder with the movement. His soft, tender jaw rested against it as though he meant to inject something lethal beneath the flesh, suddenly leaving Pei Song'an agitated.

The library was quiet, so quiet that Pei Song'an could clearly hear the heartbeat of the person in his arms.

For an instant, the temperature seemed to soar wherever he touched Li Shu, but soon a measure of thought settled in his dark eyes, and the frantic pounding in his chest gradually steadied.

Li Shu had no idea how Pei Song'an's emotions had shifted in those few seconds. He was merely grateful that he hadn't been hit.

Blessings, blessings.

"There aren't any prompts this time."

"Anyway, you can't leave."

Pei Song'an's expression darkened, as though he had picked up on something. His palm settled naturally on Li Shu's waist, while the fingertips of his other hand gently squeezed the boy's soft, smooth nape.

"Protecting me?"

Li Shu was terribly nervous. Even pressed against the man's firm, beautifully shaped chest muscles, his mind was full of everything the system had told him about how badass this male lead was:

"If I say yes, will you not hit me?"

Pei Song'an gave a soft laugh, curling his tongue. A watery sheen glimmered in his deep eyes, and without blinking, he lowered his gaze to the spot beneath the collar of Li Shu's sweater at the back of his neck.

"That's really unfair to me."

"From when you forced a kiss on me at the very beginning until now, have I laid a single finger on you?"

The man's voice was cold, but different from anger. It sounded more like an elder's reprimand, or an admonishment carrying a warning.

Hearing this, Li Shu wanted to lift his head and argue, but the man's two fingers on his nape suddenly tightened. Li Shu let out a little "ow" and rested limply on Pei Song'an's shoulder, still talking back:

"That night was an accident. Why do you keep bringing it up!"

Pei Song'an was dissatisfied with this answer. Especially once he thought about how he had actually been someone else's substitute that night, an unforgiving sharpness crept into his words before he even noticed it himself.

"An accident? How do you define an accident? Then if I lower my head and kiss you now, kiss your shoulder and collarbone, leave dark red marks on the back of your neck, can I call that an accident too?"

Li Shu trembled. "Huh?"

"You seem desperate to distance yourself from me, but you also seem unable to stay away completely."

"Are you being threatened? Or do you have no choice but to try to get something from me?"

...No, man, you're scaring me like this.

Li Shu was held in Pei Song'an's arms like a pitiful puppy. If Zhaocai saw him, even the dog would probably wag its tail and bark a couple of times to mock him.

"But... is this something you absolutely have to figure out? Isn't it enough that what I do benefits you?"

"Come on, man, my skin isn't a stainless steel basin. It's a little thinner than you think."

Just thinking of how the tendons in Pei Song'an's wrist went taut as the hand on his nape tightened slightly made Li Shu's legs go a little weak.

Their current position was a little too much...

He had initiated the hug, but after Pei Song'an's meddling, Li Shu was still the one left blushing furiously.

Suddenly, unfamiliar footsteps came from the other side of the bookshelf.

Li Shu instinctively tried to let go, but Pei Song'an directly turned them around, leaving Li Shu with his back to the approaching person while Pei Song'an himself fixed his gaze on whoever was drawing closer.

It was a face that bore some resemblance to Li Shu's, yet on closer inspection wasn't all that similar.

At the same time, the system in Li Shu's head, which had only just settled down, began sounding its alarm frantically once again.

Still without any reason or explanation.

Li Shu was now held completely in the man's arms, clothes pressed against clothes, heartbeat against heartbeat, even his body steeped in the scent of Pei Song'an's usual cologne.

He couldn't see who was approaching, but all he could think of was stopping Pei Song'an from having any interaction with this person.

"Could you not talk to him?"

The system's racket left his head buzzing, making even his voice soft and weak. Yet this utterly unthreatening sentence took on a different flavor in the ears of Pei Song'an and the stranger who had suddenly intruded.

The seemingly consultative tone greatly soothed the thoughts that had been churning so violently in Pei Song'an's mind.

Unfortunately, those words reached not only Pei Song'an's ears, but also those of the boy who was trying to strike up a conversation.

"Pei... Pei Song'an, I'm a freshman in international trade..."

Before he could finish, Pei Song'an lifted his eyes and interrupted, "You heard him too. This isn't a good time."

It wasn't easy to find two people with similar looks at the same school.

Pei Song'an couldn't convince himself this was a coincidence. Li Shu's sudden abnormal behavior, followed by this boy appearing in front of him-there had to be someone pulling the strings behind this series of apparent coincidences.

This was a very obvious test.

Of course, it could also count as a provocation.

It wasn't only Pei Song'an himself. Li Shu had been targeted too.

The boy was clearly even more surprised. It wasn't as though he'd never heard that the privileged heir had no interest in romance. He had only been doing it for the money in the first place: a thousand yuan just to strike up a conversation. Easy money like that was hard to turn down.

But seeing with his own eyes that the privileged heir had someone in his arms, and that the two clearly had an unusual relationship, still made the boy's pupils tremble.

Only once the departing boy was completely out of sight did Pei Song'an let go of Li Shu.

"Um, I... grrrumble..."

The sudden growl from his stomach left Li Shu frozen to the spot in mortification, his ears instantly turning red.

Haha. Unbelievable.

When exactly was this world going to end?

Pei Song'an didn't think it was a big deal. "Hungry? What do you want to eat?"

Li Shu declined. "No, I, um..."

Pei Song'an said, "We'll stop by the pet shop after eating. I bought Zhaocai two outfits. Let's have the dog try them on and see if they fit."

Li Shu changed his tune very quickly. "I want the clay pot food at Cafeteria 2."

Cheng Zhen had messaged Li Shu a few minutes earlier, saying he was going back to the dorm to play games.

Li Shu returned to his seat and packed his little backpack. Just as he and Pei Song'an stepped out of the library, they saw two people approaching along the path a short distance ahead.

It was Chen Yannan and Xue Chen.