I Don't Like Him

Jiang Chao gave a bitter chuckle, sounding somewhat in agreement. "How many stretches of seven years does a person get in life?"

"Exactly."

Their other two roommates, Li Sinian and Zheng Haoyu, who had arrived late, chimed in at the same time. After that, none of them brought up what had happened that day.

Chen Lu said nothing more. Just then, a girl holding a stack of flyers stopped in front of him and timidly offered him one.

When he seemed to be staring into the distance without noticing her, the girl said softly, "Hello..."

Her voice was so quiet that her words were quickly drowned out by the clamor around the snack street.

Only then did Chen Lu come to his senses. He blankly took the flyer and continued sitting motionless like a statue, his thoughts drifting.

He didn't know what he was thinking about, either. His eyes weren't even focused on anything.

"Thank you."

Even though Chen Lu hadn't responded, the girl still politely bowed and thanked him before moving on to someone else and repeating what she had just done.

"She's really conscientious. If I were handing out flyers, I'd stuff the whole lot in a trash can," Jiang Chao said with a cigarette between his lips. "But does someone supervise this kind of job?"

"Hard to say."

As soon as Chen Lu finished speaking, he heard the ringtone of Canon. He glanced at his phone, and his heart couldn't help trembling when he saw who was calling.

It was Mo Yuqing. She probably wanted his help with something again.

It couldn't possibly be that she'd had a change of heart and, after thinking it over, decided to accept his confession.

She probably thinks I'll keep being friends with her...

Chen Lu knew that as long as he answered the phone now, he could continue staying by Mo Yuqing's side as before, gazing at her beautiful figure from behind, as radiant as the bright moon.

As if nothing had happened today.

But he really didn't want to answer anymore.

He was really tired...

"Hey, that girl with the low ponytail, the one who just gave you a flyer—what score would you give her?"

Jiang Chao lit a cigarette and carried on talking to himself. "She dresses too frumpily and is so socially awkward, but her figure's not bad. Still, I can only give her a five."

Chen Lu looked thoroughly disgusted. "You're so boring."

He then silently declined the call and looked over at the exceedingly busy figure as well.

The girl didn't look very old. She was under 1.7 meters tall and wore a white T-shirt and jeans.

Though her clothes were inconspicuous, they still couldn't conceal the delicate curves of her figure. But she barely dared look at anyone, and she kept her head down as she walked. Apparently, all five points Jiang Chao had given her were for her figure.

As the girl walked around, the ponytail behind her neck swayed back and forth, neat and ordinary.

Judging by how diligently she worked, without the slightest thought of slacking off, she was probably a college student working part-time. Among the girls her age around her, dressed up like flowers and laughing together, she stood out like a sore thumb.

Seeing Chen Lu hang up, Jiang Chao finally breathed a sigh of relief. His tone grew much lighter too, as though what he'd said earlier had merely been a distraction. "What's wrong with giving her a score? Even if someone gave me a two, I'd still thank them with a smile. I'm not applying double standards at all! Besides, I just helped an old lady cross the road yesterday. I'm a totally good guy, okay?"

Chen Lu couldn't be bothered to say anything more on the subject and simply switched off his phone screen.

Pressing the button on the side of the phone wasn't much trouble at all, yet at that moment, Chen Lu felt as though it had taken tremendous effort.

This is the first time I haven't answered your call.

Even though you've hung up on me countless times.

Sometimes, the only reason you didn't answer was that you were in a bad mood.

"What gives him the right not to answer?!" Mo Yuqing complained with a frown, lightly biting her lower lip as her slender fingers kept tapping at the screen. "I've rejected him before too! Why won't he answer my call this time? What's wrong with being friends? Weren't things fine between us before?"

Her roommate and close friend Liu Yan watched her helplessly.

For a moment, she was a little dazed, because the girl before her was simply too beautiful. She was so lovely that even when she threw a tantrum, she was somewhat pleasing to the eye.

It almost made them understand why that ruler had lit the beacon fires to toy with his lords.

"Even when I argued with my parents back then, he'd answer at two in the morning... I'm going to ask him about it!"

With that, Mo Yuqing hurriedly changed out of her lace-trimmed nightgown and got dressed. Without even bothering to fix her messy hair, she headed for the door.

Just as she grasped the doorknob, her roommates all thought she'd finally come to her senses.

But Mo Yuqing walked back and sat down on her bed, puffing with indignation.

"I'm not going out of my way to find someone who won't answer my calls!"

Although Liu Yan had been trying to persuade her ever since Mo Yuqing returned to the dorm, she sat down beside her once more, placed a hand on her shoulder, and said:

"Yuqing, let me try to persuade you one last time, okay? If you like him and regret it now, there's still time. Chen Lu pursued you for seven whole years. Just look at what's happened since I met you: every day, one call from you and he'd bring you food, morning or night. My boyfriend won't even make me brown sugar ginger tea when I'm on my period, but you get it every time.

"Besides him, what other guy would make every dish you love? He learned them all for you.

"On paper, you're the class monitor, but he handles most things for you.

"Even if you're used to it, not everyone gets good-morning and good-night messages on time every day, you know?

"And..."

Liu Yan thought for a moment but ultimately left the words "you can't do without him" unspoken.

No matter how close girls were, they still had to watch their boundaries when talking. After all, she was Mo Yuqing's close friend, not Chen Lu's. What she'd already said was enough to count as siding with an outsider.

Though she hadn't said it, she firmly believed it.

When the school year had just started, misunderstandings caused by Mo Yuqing's personality had left her completely at odds with everyone else in the dorm.

Later, after Chen Lu had tried every way he could to mediate, the other three girls in the dorm had finally begun getting along with her, and only then had Liu Yan and Mo Yuqing become so close.

Chen Lu was only pursuing Mo Yuqing, but he still took the initiative to keep his distance from the other girls. Once, because she'd thrown a little tantrum, he'd stood in the rain outside the dorm building for an hour, making the three of them sigh with feeling.

For some reason, Mo Yuqing alone seemed unmoved.

Looking at the stunning girl pouting in front of her, Liu Yan inexplicably felt like a eunuch fretting while the emperor himself remained unconcerned.

Chen Lu is emotionally intelligent and good-looking. His family isn't as well-off as yours, but they're not badly off either, and it's not as though no one pursues him.

You're the only one whose every wish he obeys.

Mo Yuqing, being obsessed with you has practically become one of his few flaws.

"I... I don't like him! I didn't like him before, I don't like him now, and I won't in the future either!"

Without even taking off her clothes, Mo Yuqing burrowed under her blanket and hid her entire body, leaving only a good deal of her long hair spread outside.

Although she had no real definition of the word "like" in her heart, her pride made her deny it instinctively.

Liu Yan exchanged glances with their other two roommates. This good friend of theirs really made them love her and exasperated them at the same time.

Mo Yuqing actually treated the people around her very well and was usually generous too. She had even given Chen Lu the latest laptop for his birthday.

But she didn't know what Chen Lu really wanted.

She had never responded to Chen Lu's feelings, putting him through the wringer for seven whole years.

"Yuqing... you'll definitely regret it. Very soon, you'll realize something's wrong, when you, who's been protected as though you'd never experienced the world, have to face it on your own."

"He'll definitely come back to me! Just like before! I've known him for so long, so of course I know him better."

Meanwhile.

Apart from Chen Lu, who was lost in sorrow, Jiang Chao had gradually opened the floodgates of conversation while trying to comfort him.

"Don't add to your sunk costs anymore. Your youth will soon be over, you know? If you hang yourself on one tree, how can you justify wasting the best years of all those other girls?" Jiang Chao said, patting Chen Lu on the shoulder.

"Is that your reason for being a sea king?" Chen Lu frowned.

"I just want to give them all equal love!"

"Oh, please..."

Just as Chen Lu was about to talk back, an angry shout suddenly came from nearby.

It was piercingly shrill.

"Are you blind?!"