I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

"A little bit."

She kicked her toes, her voice muffled.

"I'm not Mu Mu."

"What do you mean 'I'm not Mu Mu'?"

Chen Junqian was amused by her nonsensical words and casually made this sarcastic remark.

Xu Youwei pursed her lips, offering no explanation, and instead changed the subject: "What else can Mu Mu do? She eats well, sleeps well, and plays well. Apart from recording a cheering video for you, she spends all her time in tutoring classes. I heard she even signed up for a small group class with one teacher to five students. Didn't she do only so-so on her final exams this time?"

Lin Mu's academic performance has always been mediocre, but she has high expectations for herself. So even though her parents don't put too much pressure on her, she still chooses to put pressure on herself. This has been the case from elementary school to junior high school. Chen Junqian is already starting to worry about her upcoming second year of junior high school, as well as the high school and college entrance exams after that.

"As for the others, your sister and Lin Guo play together every day. By the way, your cat is also well taken care of, mainly by the two of them, since they live relatively close by."

Xu Youwei generally doesn't call the name of the kitten that Chen Junqian has been raising for almost half a year. After all, just last year on the top of Jingting Mountain, Lin Mu from the good show explained the true meaning of the online name 'Senmu' in person. Now, encountering a kitten with the same name again, Xu Youwei naturally feels a bit overwhelmed.

If the kitten weren't so intellectually challenged, she probably would have wanted to do another classic remake and secretly give it another name, just like Chen Junqian's 'Qinqin'.

"Oh, I see. I'll have to thank them properly when I get back."

Upon hearing this, Chen Junqian, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, smiled and stretched. According to Xu Youwei, the situation in Guoning was indeed peaceful, and there was almost nothing to worry about.

But thinking about it, it makes sense. Right now, the three girls who are most likely to cause problems are all in Beijing, all with him. Among the trio with Guo Ning, two of them are Mu Mu and her sister, whom he trusts the most. They don't seem like they could cause any trouble.

"By the way, do you still have the gifts that Qinqin brought from Guoning to Beijing?"

"Of course I brought them. If I lost them, they would have scolded me to death. And they really are quite useful. That's how I made it to the finals."

Chen Junqian could understand why Xu Youwei would suddenly ask about the gift at this time. After all, she was the only one in the entire Guoning who hadn't given him a parting blessing. But just like the necromancer in that joke, this girl had used a combination of impure world reincarnation and teleportation magic to instantly teleport herself to Beijing. That was probably a special kind of blessing, right?

"Oh, let me see."

Following Chen Junqian's finger, Xu Youwei squatted down again and zipped up one of the suitcases. She immediately saw the glass bottle containing folded origami cranes and little stars, and took it out without hesitation.

"Yes, Mumu asked me to bring this."

"I know, it's the one that's always been on Qinqin's bookshelf."

She held the glass bottle in her hands, stroking it repeatedly, as if trying to feel the memories and warmth it contained. Under the light, the colorful origami cranes and little stars inside the bottle shimmered faintly, seemingly carrying countless unspoken words. After a long while, the girl carefully placed the bottle back in its place, as if completing an important ritual, before raising her chin and a satisfied smile playing on her lips.

"Let's go eat first."

----------------------------------

Just as Xu Youwei was caressing the glass bottle, Zhu Wenyun was simultaneously caressing the phone that Chen Junqian had switched with hers.

Because fingerprint unlocking technology for mobile phones will not become popular until the end of this year with the official release of the Apple 5S, unlocking mobile phones at this time will basically still be the form of swiping to unlock and then entering a password. Chen Junqian once led his club to do a joke where they deliberately set these mobile phone passwords as classic mathematical problems to make people who want to unlock them rack their brains to solve them.

However, his own phone certainly wouldn't use such a system that only appears in jokes, so at this moment, all Zhu Wenyun was presented with was a simple six-digit password.

Theoretically, she should have started by trying basic passwords like six ones, six sixes, or six eights, since those would have the highest probability of success. However, after actually getting hold of the other person's phone, Zhu Wenyun immediately chose to enter her own birthday.

The result was naturally "Incorrect password".

Although it wasn't quite to the point of unwarranted expectation followed by unwarranted disappointment and ultimately a breakdown, Zhu Wenyun still pursed her lips and entered the birthdays of Lin Mu, Xu Youwei, Shen Nianqiu, and others one by one. Only after the screen displayed the message "Password entered incorrectly five times, please try again in one minute" did she finally relax and lie back on the bed to wait for the unlocking time.

After confirming that the phone's unlock password wasn't the birthdays of the girls, including herself, Zhu Wenyun tried Chen Junqian's own birthday, both the lunar and solar calendars. Then she remembered the last six digits of his ID number, and this time she finally managed to unlock it.

Relieved, Zhu Wenyun didn't immediately open Chen Junqian's QQ page, which she had been longing for for at least a year. Instead, she first opened the contacts list and confirmed that she was still the emergency contact for him, and that the other contacts' notes were not particularly strange before she exited the contacts list.

Her fingertip lightly tapped the QQ icon on her phone. Upon entering, the first thing she saw was her recent chat list. The latest message was from Zhong Yu last night, inviting Chen Junqian to play "Counter-Strike Online," but he declined, saying he was "too busy."

Zhu Wenyun continued swiping down, just as she was about to view more records—

A brand new message suddenly popped up, leaping to the top of the message list with a bright red dot.

"Could my brother really be listening to Xu Youwei and obediently turning off his phone?"

It was sent by Shen Nianqiu.

Zhu Wenyun's fingertips paused in mid-air. The only sound in the room was the faint hum of the air conditioner. Neon lights from outside the window cast flickering shadows on her face through the gaps in the curtains.

P.S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

Chapter 54: The End of All Tactics is a Base Exchange (Part 2)

Zhu Wenyun did not reply to the new message from Shen Nianqiu immediately.

Therefore, the fact that Tencent QQ has not added a feature to check whether a sent message is 'read' or 'unread' for so many years is indeed a good thing in some ways, giving Zhu Wenjun ample time to think and investigate.

Or perhaps, this was her original purpose in going to great lengths to get Chen Junqian's phone.

Ignoring the new message from Shen Nianqiu for the moment, Zhu Wenyun lowered her eyes and gently swiped her fingertips upwards on the screen, quickly browsing through their past chat history.

Unlike Zhu Wenyun, who almost always communicated with Chen Junqian by phone, Shen Nianqiu's communication style shifted entirely to text chat after she started living at school. This gave Zhu Wenyun the opportunity to thoroughly examine all of Chen Junqian and Shen Nianqiu's conversations over the past period. She adopted an even more focused attitude than during the dictation competition, hoping to glean some insights into Shen Nianqiu's personality traits and to speculate on their interaction patterns and the true state of their relationship.

To be honest, as a valuable document that Zhu Wenyun had always wanted to see, alongside Lin Mu's diary, this chat log between the siblings didn't initially seem like anything special to her. This was because Chen Junqian and Shen Nianqiu's conversations mostly revolved around the most ordinary family matters: what classes they had at school that day, what homework they had, what the cafeteria was serving, and whether they had improved or regressed in the last exam—almost all of these were common topics among students.

After thinking for a moment, Zhu Wenyun gave up on the aimless search of scrolling up in reverse chronological order. Instead, she directly opened the chat settings in the upper right corner of the small window and began to investigate the earliest chat history between the two. Then, during the winter vacation of 2008, almost five or six years ago, she found what she was looking for.

Even without looking at the specific chat content, just confirming the time was enough to make Zhu Wenyun click her tongue in frustration.

The girl unconsciously tapped her phone case lightly with her fingertips, her eyes seeming to dim slightly.

Despite having anticipated this beforehand, seeing this moment, which predates her meeting with Chen Junqian, still inevitably brought a wave of disappointment to Zhu Wenyun's heart. It was as if something was stuck in her chest, something she couldn't spit out or swallow, leaving her with a faint bitterness.

This feeling made her think of the differences between herself and Lin Mu and Xu Youwei. Those two could easily say that they were classmates with Chen Junqian in elementary school, and that they had known each other since the beginning of first grade.

But as a student in the next class, she truly only began to meet and get to know Chen Junqian in the new semester of 2009. Before that, they had never had the slightest interaction. This time gap was particularly striking at this moment.

After confirming the most important issue—the timing—Zhu Wenyun took a deep breath and opened the search function in the chat history. Her fingertips hovered above the virtual keyboard, hesitating over which keywords to enter.

She pondered whether to search for a straightforward emotional word like "like," or words expressing longing like "I miss you"? Or perhaps, more directly, to search for the word "love"?

But then I thought about it again. Given Chen Junqian's personality, he probably wouldn't express his feelings so directly in his conversation with Shen Nianqiu. Rather, it's more accurate to say that he has never expressed such feelings to any girl before, and Shen Nianqiu is no exception.

Therefore, what she should investigate is Shen Nianqiu's attitude towards Chen Junqian, as well as some private information about Shen Nianqiu herself, not the information about his performance at school compiled by her online support groups, but more secretive matters closely related to his family.

Having confirmed this, Zhu Wenyun seemed to have found a breakthrough, and lightly typed the word "mother" into the search box.

Zhu Wenyun held her breath, gently pressed the search button, and waited for the results to appear.

But the search returned zero records. The girl, who quickly realized what mistake she had made, was lying there and shook her head, finding it a little funny.

Who would seriously use the formal term "mother" to refer to their own mother in a chat? I can only say that I've been writing too many novels in the past two years, and subconsciously typed out that description first.

So Zhu Wenyun quickly changed the search term "mother" to "mom" in the search bar.

However, the final search results were still fewer than she had expected, and there was almost no useful information. They were all comments like "My mom called me, I have to go now," "My mom wants me to go back home this weekend," and "My mom's relatives are here." Even after replacing "Mom" with "Dad," the search results were still largely the same.

Although it may seem that no useful information has been obtained at all, perhaps this in itself signifies something unusual, because the absence of this information is itself a piece of intriguing information.

This is, after all, a chat log spanning nearly six years, and the amount of chat logs is enormous. Normally, two children would never chat without talking about each other's families, because for children, the only topics in the world are family and school. But Chen Junqian and Shen Nianqiu seem to be deliberately avoiding this topic. The few chat logs they have are mostly about Chen Junqian, sharing some things about his family, and they are all from the early years, which gradually stopped later.

Judging from the few chat records, Shen Nianqiu's family is not a single-parent family. Both her father and mother appear in her words. It does not seem to be a left-behind family, because she mentioned that she would go home from school on weekends or during winter and summer vacations.

But thinking about it, it makes sense. After all, if Shen Nianqiu's family really was in this situation, then the other party should at least receive the same treatment as her in the VCR of the "Chinese Character Dictation Competition".

I can't figure it out.

I was reminded of the VCR clip of Shen Nianqiu that I had seen on the show. Shen Nianqiu in that clip was the most dazzling role model and ideal girl in my class during my school days. She was good at studying, good at sports, beautiful, had an outstanding temperament, and was also the lead singer in the school choir. Otherwise, she wouldn't have gained so many fans online after just one episode of the show, and even formed a fan club.

However, Zhu Wenyun still naturally felt that there must be some problems with the other party's family, because if there were no problems, then her relationship with Chen Junqian would not be like this, but should be an enhanced version, or a Promax version of Lin Mu.

If that were the case, she wouldn't have such strong aggression, possessiveness, and that seemingly calm exterior masking deep-seated insecurity.

But this is not inferiority complex.

Zhu Wenyun, who understands these emotions and feelings best, was naturally able to make such a judgment.

Children with low self-esteem are best at exaggerating the pain or suffering they have personally experienced. This is not because they want to gain sympathy from others, but simply because doing so makes the real pain lose its authenticity and cruelty. In this way, the harm it causes seems to be lessened and numbed, and it can even give them a self-deceptive sense of security that it is not so bad after all.

But Shen Nianqiu is not like that.

Having also encountered setbacks in keyword searches, Zhu Wenyun switched back to searching by time, starting by going through the chat logs of the only three meetings Chen Junqian and Shen Nianqiu had had in the past five years, excluding this one.

The 2010 World Expo wasn't very interesting, and Shen Nianqiu's speech was nothing special—just a simple invitation. What really made Zhu Wenyun, lying in bed, smile was Chen Junqian's resolute attitude at that time and his promise to achieve the top grade. In a daze, she saw a reflection of herself when she first met and became acquainted with Chen Junqian in his interactions with others.

Setting the timeline back to the winter break of 2012, it was the scene when Chen Junqian first went to Lin'an to meet Shen Nianqiu. The amount of information was much greater than that of the previous World Expo. What was visible to the naked eye was that after their last meeting and as they grew older, the atmosphere of their online chat was undoubtedly much warmer than before, and they were even talking about living together.

Okay, let's put aside the fact that the two of them were staying in the same hotel at that time...

I can't let it go, and what's the difference between this and ignoring the facts altogether?

For Zhu Wenyun herself, this was indeed something she cared about. After all, if you count the number of people, it seems that apart from Gu Lingguo, she was the only one in the entire Guoning who had never had this experience. Even Xu Youwei had it on December 21st last year, the day the world supposedly ended. And if nothing unexpected happens, the two of them will most likely be together tonight.

The thought that while she was scrolling through her phone, the phone's owner might already be wrapped up in someone else's arms made Zhu Wenyun feel a little discouraged. Even the way she was scrolling through the chat history slowed down considerably, becoming half-hearted. Then she saw that Shen Nianqiu had persistently sent another new message:

[Hmm? He hasn't replied to me yet. Is he really this obedient? He's never this well-behaved in front of his older sister. Could it be that my little brother has really fallen for that girl named Xu Youwei?]

It has to be said that the playful wavy lines in this message actually made Zhu Wenyun feel a little better, as if it were reminding her that there was another loser here who seemed to be in a similar mood, who could only use these seemingly indifferent little expressions and punctuation marks to cover up their true feelings, and who might also be tossing and turning in bed right now, just like her.

Thinking about this, Zhu Wenyun suddenly had the idea of ​​impersonating Chen Junqian and replying to Shen Nianqiu with something like, "Yes, I like her. Let's not contact each other anymore." However, she quickly gave up on the idea, since such a thing would be too easy to be exposed, and the benefits and risks were completely disproportionate.

Even setting aside the fact that her statement itself betrayed her, Zhu Wenyun had no doubt that Shen Nianqiu would immediately turn on Chen Junqian after she said that... Besides, this kind of thing is something only a villainous female supporting character in a third-rate female-oriented novel would do.

However, on the other hand, although she couldn't directly sever the relationship between Chen Junqian and Shen Nianqiu through this method, could she take advantage of the current information gap to pretend to be Chen Junqian and test Shen Nianqiu? For example, she had always been curious about, and even after investigating the chat history, she still couldn't fully understand, the other party's family and the personality issues that arose from it.

As for the follow-up, she just needs to delete the chat history on Chen Junqian's phone, and then use that as a condition to communicate with Shen Nianqiu. That should solve the problem.

[I'm here. Yoyo went to the bathroom. How's things at your house, sister?]

Worried that the other person might see "typing..." in the status bar while staring at their phone screen, Zhu Wenyun didn't even dare to type those words in the chat box. Instead, she mentally prepared a draft, mimicking the tone while deliberately blurring the word "family." After all, she didn't know whether the problem was with the father or mother, so using "family" was the best approach.

After confirming the wording several times to make sure it was correct, Zhu Wenyun hesitantly sent the message.

But to her surprise, the moment the message was sent, Shen Nianqiu called her directly.

At the same time, along with the ringtone Chen Junqian had set for his phone, "I pray to have a transparent heart and eyes that can shed tears," Zhu Wenyun also heard a series of knocks on the door, and a soft laugh from someone who seemed to have been waiting there for a long time.

"Alright, now we can be open and honest."

----------------------------------

Chen Junqian and Xu Youwei chose a well-established restaurant for dinner. Chen Jun, on the other hand, had to meet with a boss in Beijing for work. After paying, he left first. Anyway, his son never caused him any trouble. He was the kind of genius who could turn the tables on human traffickers and abduct them instead.

Just like the saying goes, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is no true man, and he who has not eaten Peking duck has a real regret." Since we've come to Beijing, we should at least have some Peking duck. After carefully removing the scallions that Xu Youwei couldn't accept, Chen Junqian handed her a wrapped Peking duck roll and took a tissue to wipe the bright sauce that had spilled from the corner of her mouth.

Well, it seems that not only are the girls unable to break the habit of feeding each other, but he himself seems to have gotten used to this way of interacting with them over the years.

"By the way, could you lend me Qinqin's phone?"

After a while, Xu Youwei suddenly spoke up.

"What's wrong?"

"Hmph, I want to see if those two have sent any more messages to Qinqin."