Chapter 37 (First Release)

Zhou Yanyao coughed awkwardly a few times. He knew that his good brother had always disapproved of his love-struck behavior after falling in love at first sight.

"She's a really lovely girl. Although she's timid and doesn't like interacting with others, I guarantee you, she's a really good person! You'll see when you meet her!"

Zhou Yanyao tried to speak well of Ning Wanwan and change Qi Lin's mind.

Qi Lin couldn't be bothered to listen to his nonsense.

You can know a person's face but not their heart; how can you make such a guarantee after only meeting that girl a few times?

She's completely blinded by love.

Now, whenever Zhou Yanyao mentions his "love at first sight" love, Qi Lin says he won't believe a word of it.

“Really, I can sense that she’s different from Zhao Rui and Lin Ruowei. Don’t you trust your brother’s intuition?” Zhou Yanyao continued to try to persuade Qi Lin.

However, Qi Lin said calmly, "I know your sixth sense is sometimes very accurate. But this is not the same thing."

"The facts are right in front of us. Putting aside the time when you were hit by Zhao Rui's car, she was at the scene the whole time and still insisted on being with Zhao Rui and Lin Ruowei. She was obviously an accomplice."

"Just recently, she knows exactly what kind of people Zhao Rui and his group are, but she's still hanging out with them, right?"

Qi Lin's voice was calm and his tone was indifferent, but every word he uttered was like a knife, precisely and ruthlessly striking at the crucial point.

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Yanyao opened his mouth to explain, but his voice was a little lower: "...Old Qi, you know the personalities of Zhao Rui and those people. How could you just get rid of them like that?"

Even now that things have come to this point, his friend is still speaking up for him, and Qi Lin's usually calm expression is starting to crack.

A cold glint flashed in his eyes as he continued to precisely stab the knife.

"You believe she didn't get involved in the despicable things Zhao Rui and Lin Ruowei did, but I think she might be enjoying it and doesn't care whether you believe it or not."

"You believe her, don't you? Do you see her even responding to you? She probably doesn't care whether you believe her or not."

The final, fatal blow came. Zhou Yanyao lowered his head, his face full of disappointment, looking like a big dog that had been defeated by reality.

Ever since Zhao Rui deliberately bumped into his electric scooter, causing him to discover that Ning Wanwan was with those people, Zhou Yanyao was initially saddened and conflicted, but he quickly put those thoughts aside and believed that Ning Wanwan was definitely not the kind of person Zhao Rui and Lin Ruowei were.

He's the kind of person who actively tries to solve problems. Not wanting Ning Wanwan to think he was angry with her, he tried his best to continue seeing her and tell her about his feelings for her.

But Ning Wanwan seemed to have misunderstood something, and she avoided him even more.

Qi Lin was still looking at him expressionlessly, as if waiting for him to "turn back to the right path".

Zhou Yanyao scratched his head in annoyance, messing up his short black hair. He sighed and said seriously, "Old Qi, I really like her."

"No matter what, I truly believe in her, and I also trust my own intuition."

Qi Lin: "..."

Okay, I've wasted my breath again.

Qi Lin didn't know why his seemingly cheerful but actually unapproachable brother was so persistent in his pursuit of that girl named Ning Wanwan. Qi Lin had long anticipated this outcome of being unable to persuade him.

"Old Qi" Zhou Yanyao was still looking at him, as if waiting for his reaction.

Qi Lin remained expressionless, then sighed almost imperceptibly: "Since you've said that, what else can I say?"

"Don't worry, now that you've made up your mind, I won't mention these things to you again."

As for his opinion of Ning Wanwan, that remains unknown.

It's not a good thing overall.

However, Qi Lin had no intention of actively meeting the girl his friend had fallen for at first sight, so he let Zhou Yanyao do whatever he wanted.

I guess he'll give up once he can't figure things out on his own.

Zhou Yanyao smiled and said, "Good brother!"

He knew how much Qi Lin, as someone who had been targeted for a long time, loathed Zhao Rui and Lin Ruowei.

However, Zhou Yanyao glanced at Qi Lin a few more times, then hesitated to speak.

Qi Lin: "What is it? Is there something else?"

Zhou Yanyao leaned closer, lowered his voice, and revealed an undisguised eagerness on his face.

"Old Qi, tell me more carefully about when you ran into Zhao Rui in the hallway. Did he say anything else?"

Qi Lin's forehead vein throbbed.

What did you mean by "good brother"? Were you just setting the stage for this question?

Sure enough, that's what I was thinking about.

What a "good brother"!

However, Qi Lin remained silent, but still described the situation again, picking out the important details.

Zhou Yanyao listened carefully, then his eyes lit up as he suddenly realized something: "Zhao Rui said he was going to cause trouble for Wanwan, so it must be because Wanwan's actions contradict his!"

"They didn't say they were going to cause trouble for her, they just called her a coward," Qi Lin said coolly.

Zhou Yanyao waved his hand: "Didn't you say his expression looked like he was going to settle accounts? Then he definitely..."

Zhou Yanyao's silly dog-like expression suddenly froze.

He suddenly stood up.

The force with which the chair nearly overturned surprised many students nearby who turned to look.

"Zhou Yanyao, what are you doing, disrupting class discipline?" The teacher, who was writing on the blackboard, turned around, holding the chalk, and frowned at him.

Zhou Yanyao: "Excuse me, teacher, I'm not feeling well and I'd like to ask for leave right away!"

Teacher: "What's going on?"

Before he could react, Zhou Yanyao had already swept away like a whirlwind.

The teacher, of course, couldn't just watch the student run out, and tried to call out to him: "Hey Zhou Yanyao, stop right there, it's class time now..."

However, Zhou Yanyao had already disappeared.

"I'm sorry, teacher, Zhou Yanyao has a stomachache. He must have been in so much pain to walk so fast." Qi Lin raised his hand, trying to smooth things over.

Teacher: "..." Well, considering that Zhou Yanyao's grades are also very good and he hasn't neglected his studies, I'll turn a blind eye.

They absolutely must be punished! Otherwise, if everyone suddenly stands up during class to ask for leave without even pausing, disrupting classroom discipline, what kind of behavior is that!

Of the two top students in my class, only Qi Lin was relatively well-behaved and obedient; the other students were too difficult to manage.

Qi Lin, sitting upright in his seat looking like an honest and well-behaved student, turned his attention to his textbook after cleaning up after his good friend, but was actually thinking about something else.

Zhou Yanyao, that silly dog, just ran off like that. Without a doubt, he must have been thinking that Zhao Rui might go and cause trouble for that "love at first sight" girl, so he couldn't sit still and rushed out without thinking.

But can he really find the address of that person he "fell in love with at first sight"?

Qi Lin was very skeptical of this.

...

The truth is that Qi Lin underestimated his good brother's intelligence.

Although Zhou Yanyao was anxious, he didn't act blindly. He had a clear goal: to find the area near the breakfast shop where he and Ning Wanwan had first met. Even though it wasn't breakfast time, he bought some leftover breakfast from the shop, not minding that it was a little cold.

At this time, there were hardly any customers in the store. The store owner noticed Zhou Yanyao was wearing a school uniform and asked casually, a little puzzled, "Isn't it time for school?"

Zhou Yanyao scratched his head, laughed heartily, his dog-like eyes clear, looking like a very innocent and good-natured high school boy: "Yeah, but a classmate I know didn't come to school, and the teacher was quite worried about her, so she asked me to come and check on her."

Shop owner: "Really? The teachers at your school are quite nice!"

Zhou Yanyao: "Yeah, yeah!"

Then, seizing the opportunity, she struck up a conversation with the shop owner, asking, "Do you know which neighborhood she lives in? She's very cute, and she often keeps her head down, avoiding eye contact. She's probably wearing our school uniform..."

...

Ning Wanwan was unaware that by simply taking a day off, two groups of people had already set off to find her.

Some people want to cause trouble for them, while others want to prevent others from causing trouble for them.

Ning Wanwan slept for a while longer, then woke up hungry and tapped her phone screen to order takeout.

The system, like a diligent guardian, saw Ning Wanwan was about to place her order and anxiously exclaimed: "No, no, this is too spicy! You've been staying up late and aren't feeling well; you need to eat something light and healthy!"

Ning Wanwan closed her eyes again as soon as she opened them. Her half-awake mind couldn't process much, and she managed to squeeze out two words: "Want to eat."

The system tried to coax her: "Host, let's eat this next time. How about we try something different this time?"

Ning Wanwan opened her eyes groggily, wrapped in the blanket, hesitant and conflicted, with a touch of stubbornness in her devotion: "But I want to eat it..."

The host seemed to be trying to wake up but wasn't fully awake, which was different from usual. The tone of voice was soft and sweet, even a little coquettish, and the whole person seemed to have become soft and fluffy.

The previously steadfast system suddenly froze: [Host, host...]

The system inexplicably felt that its normally smooth data processing was now overheating and lagging.

That's strange. Is there something wrong with the operating core?

But hosts with this kind of appearance are really rare.

Although Ning Wanwan usually acts close to the system and responds gently to whatever the system says, she rarely takes the initiative and the system usually initiates the conversation.

When they respond, they are usually calm, panicked, or worried, rather than acting coquettishly with such apparent vulnerability.

Sometimes the system feels that there is a subtle, invisible membrane-like barrier between it and the host.

This situation must be because I haven't acted friendly and harmless enough, and haven't given the host enough sense of security to make the host more willing to lower their guard, right?

However, as they spend more and more time together, the desire to become closer to their host grows stronger.

This inexplicable longing drives the system to often cautiously and affectionately try to get closer to her, and then even closer still.

But it seems... it doesn't work very well.

Therefore, even though the girl only showed such a slight sign of coquetry this time, it made the system, which was seeing it for the first time, feel at a loss. The data trembled and became chaotic, and it couldn't wait to immediately grant the host's rare little act of capriciousness.

"System?" The girl lying in the quilt was a little confused, perhaps because the system in her mind had been strangely silent, and she became slightly more awake.

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Author's Note: Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants with nutrient solution between 14:55:05 on December 22, 2023 and 16:41:49 on December 23, 2023!

Thank you to the little angels who watered the nutrient solution: Chun Sanyue 20 bottles; Mo Li 10 bottles; Gun Gun Lai, Tao Zi 9 bottles; Xiao Wan Zi, Jiang Nan 5 bottles; Bing Zhen Mei Zi Tang, Qi Zi Bu Xia Qi, Ji Qi Yue, Luo Luo Mi 1 bottle;

Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!