I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

Chewing on a milk candy that Xu Youwei had fed him, which tasted almost exactly the same as it had a few years ago, Chen Junqian mentioned it to her again:

"Oh, right, my sister will be coming to have drinks with me today too."

Unlike Lin Mu, Zhu Wenjun, and Gu Lingguo, Chen Xi's hometown is indeed in this village. Otherwise, Chen Junqian's godmother wouldn't have directly recognized his grandparents as godparents in the early years. So, she naturally had to give a gift today. Chen Xi would never have come to join in this fun before, but firstly, her parents are not in Guoning now, so she can only give a gift herself. Secondly, her brother is here, so she naturally agreed to come and have a meal.

"Oh, I see. But you two are living together now, right? Why didn't I see her come over with you?"

"That's because she couldn't get up, and I didn't wake her either. It's four or five in the morning, so let the child sleep a little longer. I myself haven't had enough sleep, and I guess Yoyo is too."

As he spoke, Chen Junqian let out another sleepy yawn:

"I need to take a nap after I finish my work at noon."

"Would you like to sleep in my room? Although there's no air conditioning... I can fan Qinqin."

Are you Huang Xiang?

Chen Junqian couldn't help but chuckle at Xu Youwei's unconscious remark:

"Let's talk about it later. Let's finish up what we need to do this morning first."

After speaking, Chen Junqian opened the steamer next to him as instructed by Chef Zhang. Longevity peach buns were to be steamed on the table for lunch today. The regular tables used pre-made semi-finished products, but he specially made a batch of handmade buns for the elderly people's table. They were more appealing in shape and quantity, and Xu Youwei herself wanted to try one first.

As the sun gradually moved towards the middle of the day, it slowly approached noon. More and more guests began to take their seats. The elderly people living in the same village were all related by blood or marriage. In addition, Xu Zhiling was indeed a well-known entrepreneur in Guoning, so there were quite a few people who came to offer their birthday wishes. The tables under the set-up tent began to fill up one after another.

The adults started chatting and eating sunflower seeds and peanuts, while the children either began to examine the wedding candies or tried to sneakily use their chopsticks to eat the cold dishes that had already been served. For them, the advantage of this kind of banquet over the New Year was that everyone could sit at the table. One or two families would put together at one table, just waiting for their favorite dishes such as chicken cartilage skewers, golden popcorn chicken, and sweet fermented rice balls to be served so they could start eating right away.

Chen Junqian wasn't really a kitchen helper, so when it was time to eat, he was dragged back by his sister who had come over. Chen Xi had always found it hard to handle such a bustling and noisy environment, so after paying her gift money in her father's name, she came directly to find him.

The relationship between Chen Xi and Xu Youwei was actually quite delicate. It couldn't be said that the latter harbored any malice towards the former; she had simply given Xu Youwei a hard time during her most triumphant period. However, because of that incident, Chen Xi could no longer look at the children's song "Tomorrow and Smile" the same one she had sung many times in the choir. Her mind was completely meme-contaminated by Xu Youwei's line that day, "Please take my brother back to your home."

Today, Chen Junqian and Xu Youwei naturally had to sit at the main table with their grandmother, so Chen Xi also took advantage of the situation and sat down, flanking him on either side of Xu Youwei. Feeling a sense of déjà vu about the situation, Chen Junqian subconsciously glanced at the tablecloth in front of him.

Good news, they used a solid red tablecloth for their table, so it shouldn't be too easy for someone to secretly tear it into a mess again.

However, since she was facing her father and grandmother at the main table, Xu Youwei couldn't do the red wine and Sprite mixing with Chen Junqian again. She could only obediently drink ordinary carbonated beverages here.

"Speaking of which, when I went to another restaurant for drinks a couple of days ago, the drinks they were serving weren't Coke, Sprite, or orange juice anymore. Instead, they were serving apple cider vinegar, which was awful. I couldn't get used to it at all. I feel like the only good thing about having a banquet at home is that you can buy whatever drinks you like."

After taking only two sips, Xu Youwei leaned over and started whispering to Chen Junqian.

"You mean Tiandi No. 1, right?"

"Hmm, it seems to be this brand."

Chen Junqian could empathize with Xu Youwei's complaint. It was true that this brand of apple cider vinegar had swept through the hotel and banquet tables in their area for the next two years, making many children feel a sense of awe when they saw those four familiar characters. After all, it was difficult for this kind of vinegar drink from Guangdong to suit everyone's taste. But from a purely business perspective, their strategy of focusing on small-town restaurants was indeed very effective. Otherwise, their parent company wouldn't have been able to list on the New Third Board just two years later.

Since almost everyone at the table was Xu Youwei's relative, Chen Xi, feeling completely out of place, had no desire to speak up. She simply sat there and ate her rice, only getting up to say a few words during the birthday celebration. The rest of the time, she just sat there watching Xu Youwei chatter away with Chen Junqian, talking about everything from the drinks on the table to what would happen after school started, and then to going to Beijing again in October, which she would be going with. After all, she had already watched the semi-finals, so she definitely had to watch the finals as well.

Chen Xi was clearly not interested in this topic at all, so after finishing her meal, she planned to slip away temporarily. After politely saying, "I'm done eating, you guys enjoy your meal," she gracefully stepped off the table, placed the empty bowl in the temporary kitchen, and prepared to find a place to wait for Chen Junqian to finish eating before going home together.

But it was so noisy everywhere that when Chen Xi came to her senses, she realized that she had already reached the foot of the mountain. Then, she spotted another creature that looked like it was also out foraging for food in the overgrown bushes.

The last time she saw a snake was in the middle of the road. She saw a mysterious creature that seemed to have been sent to another world to be reincarnated because it did not follow traffic rules. At that time, it was just a shapeless creature. But even so, it attracted the attention of many children. They pointed their heads and crawled in, took a look, and then screamed and crawled out. Then they called two more children to crawl in and scream again. It was like some kind of entertainment activity.

However, even for such recreational activities, Chen Xi had absolutely no courage to participate.

What she saw before her now was a living snake, the one she hated and feared most.

She didn't even bother to observe whether the snake's head was triangular or oval. Just from its bright green body, Chen Xi knew its identity. It was the most common venomous snake in the Guoning area, the bamboo viper that her parents had told her about when she was a child.

Just looking at it made it hard to breathe, and my feet felt like they were nailed to the spot, unable to move an inch.

She didn't know how much time had passed, but it felt like an eternity. Just when Chen Xi herself was starting to feel unbearable, a long-handled hoe suddenly came down from behind her, swiftly and accurately pinning the venomous snake to a branch of a bush.

At the very moment he made this move, Chen Junqian simultaneously covered his sister's eyes with his other hand:

"It's alright, it's alright."

The other person had completely collapsed into his arms.

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

PS2: The action at the end of this chapter is based on my grandfather's own experience. It terrified me when I saw it, and I still remember it vividly.

Chapter 74: Everyone's Here (Bonus Chapter 5/40)

It can only be said that there are indeed some similarities in their personalities. Chen Junqian always felt that his sister was basically the same as Mu Mu when it came to being difficult, with the particular emphasis on running off and wandering around alone. Lin Mu almost got lost once in Qinhuangdao a couple of years ago, and this time Chen Xi also slipped out of the banquet without saying a word. Of course, Chen Junqian couldn't let it go, so he quickly found his way here by asking around. Unexpectedly, he came across this scene and casually grabbed a hoe from the door of a nearby farmer, successfully replicating Liu Bang's actions in Mangdang Mountain.

Southern Anhui is mostly mountainous and hilly, and Guoning, located in this area, is no exception. Therefore, there are always many snakes, insects, and small animals in the countryside. I heard from the elders that wild boars could be seen in the mountains a couple of years ago.

Snakes weren't that scary for kids like Xu Youwei and Chen Junqian, who were used to being outdoors. After all, they could catch a whole basket of crayfish while fishing in the pond in the countryside during their free time. But Chen Xi was different. Chen Junqian knew what kind of fear his sister had of her zodiac animal, and since the snake in front of him was indeed venomous, he decided to go all out and kill her with one blow.

To prevent his sister from suffering any psychological trauma, Chen Junqian even reached out from behind and gently covered her eyes the moment he made his move. Upon hearing his voice, Chen Xi immediately went limp, collapsing there as if all her strength had been drained, panting heavily, looking utterly exhausted.

In fact, with one shovel strike, there was no need to worry about the three or seven inches; the physical fitness of an anime sports student was no joke. Chen Junqian dug a hole nearby and buried the bamboo viper that had broken in two, tamping the soil down. Only then did he pull his sister, who seemed to have lost the ability to walk independently, aside and temporarily put down the hand that was blocking her view.

"Alright, nothing happened."

It's fair to say that at the beginning of the year, the two of them joked about their birth year and Chinese zodiac signs, but unexpectedly, more than half a year has passed, and it really feels like a nightmare coming true. So Chen Junqian could only try to lighten the mood and move on from the topic as much as possible.

"Let's go back and sit down for a while, there are too many people over there."

If having many people was a debuff for Chen Xi in the past, it was actually a positive buff in the present situation. After all, the sense of security and safety was unquestionable. So, in response to Chen Junqian's suggestion, his sister just gave a barely perceptible "hmm," but she still didn't intend to let go of him. Just like during the stampede, she buried her head in her brother's chest, actively blocking her vision, and letting Chen Junqian drag her along slowly like he was carrying a koala.

It has to be said that the younger sister's identity has its advantages at this time. If Chen Junqian had been pursuing someone else instead of Chen Xi, Xu Youwei would have followed him to find out. But it is only natural for an older brother to coax his younger sister. Having already been fooled once, Youyou naturally wouldn't fall for it again. So even after seeing the two of them return to the banquet in this manner, she didn't think anything of it. She just asked a question out of curiosity, which was then brushed off by Chen Junqian.

This kind of thing is bound to get more frightening the more you bring it up, so for the sake of my sister's mental health, it's best to avoid mentioning it as much as possible and let her forget about it as soon as possible.

No matter where you are, the main force at a banquet, or rather, the ones who stay at the table until the very end, are always the adults who drink. The elderly usually get full after only a couple of bites, and the children, after finishing their favorite dishes, naturally enter a state where they only glance at the new dishes when they are served to see if they like them. Chen Junqian's table was no exception. The birthday boy had already put down his chopsticks and was taking small bites of the longevity peach that Chen Junqian had made. The main character at the table suddenly became Xu Zhiling, who was urging people to drink while also drinking one glass after another himself.

Xu Youwei had always disliked her father's behavior. Although Xu Zhiling himself did not commit domestic violence while drunk, most people would not like a drunkard who was drunk, smelled bad, and kept trying to vomit something even more disgusting. Chen Junqian happened to be back, so he simply called the two of them to his room, and the three of them sat on the bed and chatted together.

Although there were three people, it was mainly Chen Junqian and Xu Youwei who were talking. Chen Xi herself was just hanging there like a decoration, holding on tightly and showing no intention of letting go. She seemed to be afraid that Chen Junqian would get tired but also didn't want to let go, so she would change her position from time to time, sitting on her left leg and then her right leg, but her head was still resting on her chest. In this private space where there were no outsiders, she felt even less restrained, since no one would see her and she wouldn't feel embarrassed.

As for Hsu Yu-wei, let's just pretend she doesn't exist.

Chen Xi, who hadn't been able to visit the old house near the wear-resistant factory, secretly raised her head slightly. This time, she arrived at her grandmother's room in the countryside. What attracted the most attention was the handicrafts scattered everywhere. Among these handicrafts, the most eye-catching was the throne. Although several years had passed and the patterns had faded considerably, it was still full of gaudy decorations. After all, just like the calligraphy on the wall in Chen Junqian's room, Xu Youwei would also take the time to maintain it.

So even though Xu Youwei used to be obsessed with life and death when she had her chuunibyou episodes, and thought that only what she held in her own hands was the most direct and real, she actually kept many items related to Chen Junqian, which showed the shining experience that the two of them had with Uncle Neil in the past, replicating their imagination into reality.

Since Chen Xi was still there, Xu Youwei, having already gained experience, naturally couldn't bring herself to say something like, "Grandma wants to attend our wedding banquet." After all, her sister-in-law seemed to be a jealous little devil. Xu Youwei, who wanted to establish a long-term relationship with Chen Junqian, had now begun to seriously consider his family issues, since her family should have already been taken care of.

It is well known that the biggest obstacle to early love, or even normal dating or marriage, is family. Otherwise, so many urban romance dramas wouldn't have featured the clichéd plot of "I'll give you five million, leave my son." But Xu Youwei actually felt that her family was more like the reverse of the plot, "I'll give you five million, be with my daughter." In a sense, this is one of the underlying logics that allowed her to launch two confession offensives when everyone else was standing still.

In fact, Chen Junqian and even Chen Xi could certainly notice this. This was the scene when they were eating at the dinner table earlier. Unlike the atmosphere at Lin Mu's house during the New Year, there were all sorts of jokes going on almost non-stop here. Xu Youwei didn't hide to the side to secretly eat her rice like Lin Mu did. Instead, she tried her best to keep up with the conversation. Otherwise, Chen Xi wouldn't have thought about finishing her food quickly and running away, which led to the scene of encountering the snake earlier.

All I can say is that if Chen Jun had been there, he wouldn't have seen some other family's cabbage with long legs coming over to fork in the road. Instead, Xu Zhiling and his grandmother would have transformed into "Burning Vegetables," strapping their daughter/granddaughter to a slingshot and launching them headlong towards his son. Even Chen Junqian himself was a bit overwhelmed, managing to get by by drinking beverages the whole time. I reckon he would have forced himself to drink a bottle of apple cider vinegar he didn't like, even if it had been placed in front of him at that moment.

"Didn't Qinqin say she was sleepy this morning? Do you want to take a nap now?"

Noticing that Chen Junqian did indeed look somewhat sleepy, Xu Youwei proactively stopped the conversation and patted the pillow next to her:

"There's a bed here, and it's quiet."

"Okay, Xiaoxi... how about you play on your phone here for a while? I'll probably sleep for about an hour, and we'll have another meal here tonight, so we won't go back this afternoon."

After patting his younger sister, who was still lying on his lap, Chen Junqian lay back down. The bed in Xu Youwei's room was naturally a single bed. It was fine for three people to sit on the edge of the bed, but it was definitely not enough for two people to squeeze in to sleep, or rather, it would be very uncomfortable. After all, the youngest among them was a junior high school student, and in terms of size and build, he was no longer a child. Chen Junqian even unconsciously wondered whether his family would still feel comfortable letting his sister sleep with him during the New Year next year.

"Then I'll just sit here and watch."

As she spoke, Chen Xi pointed to the throne again and looked up at Xu Youwei:

"Can I sit there?"

Xu Youwei simply shook her head instinctively at this:

"I'll go outside and get you one."

So she got another ordinary bamboo chair for Chen Xi outside, and then sat down on the throne herself, some distance away from the brother and sister, and seemed to be engrossed in playing on her phone.

However, just as Chen Junqian closed his eyes to take a short nap, Chen Xi, who was sitting there watching her brother close his eyes, took out her phone from her pocket, opened a chat window on QQ, started typing, and then clicked send without thinking.

A message from the other party simultaneously popped up on Xu Youwei's phone screen:

My brother will not date early.

I will watch over him for my aunt.

Also, I'll be waking him up in a bit, so don't try to wake him up.

[Because it was my brother who said that, and he told me to call him that every day.]

Sitting in her room, Xu Youwei looked up in surprise. The girl in front of her still had her back to her, so she couldn't see her facial expression. She could only tell that the girl had put away her phone and was looking down at Chen Junqian's sleeping face with her chin resting on her hands.

Completely unaware of Xu Youwei's gaze behind her, Chen Xi, still in this posture, suddenly remembered her best friend Gu Linguo's complaints about her mother. In fact, before actually visiting Gu Linguo's home and experiencing the family atmosphere firsthand, Chen Xi always thought that this posture of looking down at someone's sleeping face was the most intimate way to show closeness to others.

Because this seems to be the most suitable position for kissing.

When she was little, she had also encountered her mother making rounds like this. Under the mother's gaze, she tried hard to pretend to be asleep for a while before finally breaking down and laughing. She then looked up and kissed her mother.

If the person below is actually asleep, then the person above can kiss them without any psychological burden.

Just like what she's thinking right now.

Thus, the last female lead's file was entered into the system. However, unlike her best friend Gu Lingguo, Chen Xi's various ratings were confirmed quite consistently and presented as specific data:

Chen Xi

[Appearance adaptability: A, Basic ability adaptability: B+, Personality adaptability: B, Action adaptability: B, Speech adaptability: B+, Current romantic comedy adaptability: B+, Top candidate for younger sister type character]

When Chen Junqian, who had already drifted off to sleep and enjoyed a comfortable afternoon nap, woke up again, two brand-new achievement notifications and his sister's smiling face simultaneously jumped into his field of vision.

The first one is "My Sister's Life," and the second one is—

[Of course, it should be the younger sister who wakes up the older brother.]

As we all know, the person who is geographically closest to the male protagonist in a romantic comedy is never his childhood friend, but his younger sister. Whether they sleep in the same bed, or they have to sleep in the same room in bunk beds because of poor family conditions, or even if they sleep in different rooms, the younger sister can always come up with a hundred ways to get her brother out of bed before the childhood friend.

A little sister who tries to wake her brother but then says the bed is too warm and crawls in to sleep with him is adorable. A little sister who straddles her brother through the blanket and whispers to wake him up is adorable. A little sister who ambushes her brother from under the bed and tries to grab his feet when he gets out of bed is also adorable... In short, little sisters who call their brothers "brother" are all adorable.

Achievement conditions: The heroine, deemed to be of a younger sister type and suited for romantic comedies, wakes you up. Each time a key milestone is reached—whether it's once, ten times, one hundred times, or one thousand times—it counts as completing one achievement.

Yes, the little sister in front of him is indeed very cute.

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

Chapter 75: The male protagonist of a romantic comedy needs to be a popular figure on campus (two-in-one)

Even the longest summer vacation eventually comes to an end, and soon it will be September again, the time for school registration and the start of the new semester.

However, unlike previous years, Chen Junqian will be going to school with his sister this year.

Although there weren't nearly as many fancy ways to wake someone up as described in the achievement description, Chen Junqian was still steadily racking up the related wake-up achievements in his mind once a day. At this rate, by mid-September, Chen Xi would have surpassed Lin Mu in the number of times she had achieved this achievement, which was similar to that of his childhood sweetheart. His sister definitely had an unparalleled advantage over his childhood sweetheart in this regard, not to mention that Mu Mu was the kind of classic childhood sweetheart that was a staple in romantic comedies, and the two weren't even neighbors.

Today is no exception.

His godmother still shows no sign of coming back. If it weren't for the fact that they could still communicate every day without any problems, Chen Junqian's family would have suspected that she had been misled into some kind of pyramid scheme. So Chen Xi continued to stay at his house temporarily after school started.