He tricked the female lead into becoming his boyfriend, but then went on to criticize the male lead.

Chi Nanli coughed twice, almost choking on his drink. "No, I mean, guys, you all have girlfriends, but I don't. Aren't you guys just showing off your love?"

Jiang Shangyu laughed so hard he was shaking: "Who told you to be so bad at chasing girls? Look at Ci-ge, he already has a girlfriend, and you're still single. Either you stay single forever, or you accept the marriage partner your family arranges for you."

Chi Nanli clicked his tongue, grabbed a peanut from the table and threw it at Jiang Shangyu, which landed squarely on his shoulder: "Stop teasing me. I'm just enjoying my single life and don't want to be bossed around."

He then tilted his head to look at Wen Zhaoci with a sly grin, "But Brother Ci, you'd better live up to expectations and bring your girl over. I want to see what kind of amazing girl she is that can handle this ice block of a man like you."

Wen Zhaoci didn't banter with him, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing against the phone in her pocket.

Zhao Muze waved his hand and said, "Chi Nanli, do you want to take a look at this love guide? I guarantee you'll be able to win over the girl you like."

Chi Nanli quickly waved his hand, looking utterly disapproving: "Forget it, you didn't even understand how to use your 'treasure book' to woo girls, I'm not going to look at it."

Zhao Muze: "Hey, you don't believe me? I used this to win over my current girlfriend. I'll share it with you. It's a Douyin account that posts dating tips every day."

Wen Zhaoci: "Push it directly to our group."

Gu Yanshi: ??? You've already won her over, does Wen Zhaoci still need a dating guide?

Jiang Shangyu: ? ? ? What the heck? What dating guide? That's all toxic positivity. He tried to suppress his laughter but held it back.

Chi Nanli: "No... Brother Ci, you're already in a relationship, do you still need this?"

Wen Zhaoci neither denied nor nodded in agreement, but simply watched the expressions of his other brothers, his eyes seeming to say: This is exactly what we need!

The group laughed and drank, creating a lively atmosphere in the private room until late at night before finally parting ways.

Wen Zhaoci went outside to enjoy the night breeze, and the effects of the alcohol completely wore off. He took out his phone and opened his chat with Sang Jiuning. The pinned message was still from a few days ago. He scrolled to the bottom but didn't see any new messages. He hovered his finger over the input box, typed, and then deleted.

Since the school has a curfew, Wen Zhaoci had the driver take her directly to a high-rise apartment near the school.

He doesn't usually live in the dorms; he only stays here occasionally. The cleaning lady comes every day to clean, and the food in the refrigerator is replaced daily.

He sat down on the sofa, reopened his phone, and set the photo of him and Sang Jiuning patting each other's heads as his wallpaper. Then he went to the school forum, thinking that maybe the photo of him kissing the girl's forehead had been posted again, but after refreshing the page, he found that all the posts about him had disappeared completely.

Who deleted these posts?

He immediately opened his laptop and hacked into the backend of the school forum.

Lines of code scrolled rapidly across the screen, and within half a minute he found the operation record, confirming that all posts had been deleted by the original poster's account.

Wen Zhaoci paused on the touchpad, stunned for two seconds, and then chuckled softly.

I quickly typed a few words on the computer and then brought up the poster's information. The avatar was still the system's default gray icon.

He stared at the account information for a few seconds; there was a phone call.

I tapped the touchpad twice with my fingertips, exited the background apps, and closed the laptop.

He leaned back on the sofa, picked up his phone, glanced at the time—3:15 a.m.—and dialed the number directly.

……

It turns out that Fu Yanchen from the Fu family had it deleted.

Wen Zhaoci's eyes narrowed slightly.

One Weng Zhicheng wasn't enough, so Fu Yanchen came along.

Frustrated, he clicked on Zhao Muze's Douyin account, titled "Let's have a love that never ends," and started watching from the very first video...

❀

At eight o'clock on Saturday, Sang Jiuning was still sleeping in.

Her roommates had already gotten up.

Tang Tongtong yawned. She had been playing King of Glory late into the night. "Sang Jiuning, didn't you say yesterday that you would get up early and go to the library? How can you be so useless? It's time to get up, and everyone else will take all the seats." Sang Jiuning mumbled a reply from under the covers, rolled over, and tried to doze off for another two minutes, but her phone started vibrating under her pillow.

She groggily pulled out her phone, and the contact name that popped up on the screen instantly dispelled most of her drowsiness. Her fingertip hovered over the answer button for two seconds before she hesitantly picked up, her voice still hoarse from just waking up: "Feed?"

The voice on the other end of the phone was deep and resonant, carrying a hint of morning magnetism: "It's me, Wen Zhaoci."

Sang Jiuning suddenly sat up in bed, startling Tang Tongtong. Gripping her phone, Tang Tongtong pursed her lips and whispered, "What's wrong?"

"Go downstairs."

Wen Zhaoci's voice was low, clear but without much warmth. His voice was even deeper in the early morning, carrying a hint of imperceptible pressure.

Sang Jiuning frowned subconsciously, shrank back, clutched the blanket tightly, and tried her best to maintain a cold and distant attitude, bringing up their agreement: "Didn't we agree to meet once a week? We've already met this week."

She deliberately kept her tone distant, secretly rejoicing: once things cooled down a bit more, she could slowly bring up breaking up, and if the other person coldly agreed, everything would be fine.

There was a two-second silence on Wen Zhaoci's end, followed by the soft rustling of leaves in the wind. His tone was calm, yet carried an undeniable air of stubbornness: "I'll take you to have breakfast, at that shrimp wonton place. It's downstairs."

Sang Jiuning panicked even more, her tone becoming a little urgent: "Wen Zhaoci, you can't do this, we agreed to take it slowly..."

"You added the wrong person on WeChat, mistaking me for Weng Zhicheng. Did you think I didn't know?"

These words, spoken lightly from Wen Zhaoci's lips, were like a bomb; the sound was soft, yet it precisely pierced through Sang Jiuning.

Sang Jiuning's mind went blank on the spot.

All the confidence, all the cool-headedness, all the pretense of trying to slip away quietly shattered in an instant.

Did he trick her into going down there, then throw her into the mountains to be fed to wolves?

She hesitated for a long time, finally managing to stammer out, "When...when did you find out?"

Wen Zhaoci's tone remained calm, even carrying a hint of nonchalant indifference: "Come down and I'll tell you."

Sang Jiuning: "Let's break up."

Whether you stick your neck out or not, you're going to get stabbed anyway. Since we've already talked it out, we might as well just break up directly.

"You have five minutes. I'll wait for you downstairs."

Wen Zhaoci spoke in a flat tone, as if he were just saying that the weather was nice today, without revealing any emotion.

It's over, it's over, my life is over.

A storm is brewing beneath the calm.

Since you insist on her leaving, then break up with her face to face.

Sang Jiuning haphazardly put on a loose, thin sweatshirt over her nightgown (the kind with bra cups), her hair a mess, and went downstairs. Holding the star necklace, she stood three steps away from Wen Zhaoci, deliberately keeping a safe distance and not daring to look up at him the whole time.