Chapter 27
Shi Ye stood by the window for a long time, until the car headlights completely blended into the city lights. The little voice in her head that was always complaining finally restarted, but this time it didn't have the energy to dance, it just weakly hummed: "So what should I do now? Act out a sad drama in front of the empty building downstairs? Or should I celebrate completing the first step of the mission—successfully making Qi Jin angry and leave? Although it's really ridiculous that my favorability rating increased by four points..."
She turned away from the window, her movements a little stiff. The living room lights were off, only the neon glow streaming in from the window blurred the outlines of the furniture into indistinct patches of color. She groped her way to the sofa and sat down, sinking into the soft cushions.
The phone on the coffee table lit up briefly. Shi Ye didn't move, just stared at the light. It could be Lin Xiaoyu sending another message to ask questions, or it could be the system issuing a new task, or it could be... Qi Jin.
The thought made her stomach clench. She knew it was a physiological reaction, purely a stress response of her body to emotional stimulation. But psychologically, she felt empty, like a seashell that had been emptied, listening to only false echoes reverberating in her chest.
"Host's emotional fluctuation value is too high. We suggest you take deep breaths to regulate it." The system's electronic voice suddenly rang out, exceptionally clear in the silence.
"You still have the nerve to care about my emotional fluctuations?" Shi Ye sneered inwardly. "The mission is about to collapse, Qi Jin's favorability is rising instead of falling, and there's been no progress with Lin Xiaoyu at all. Shouldn't your system check for bugs?"
"The mission progress is still within an adjustable range," the system replied matter-of-factly. "Qi Jin's affection for Lin Xiaoyu has not decreased. The deterioration of the host's relationship with Qi Jin may actually prompt Qi Jin to shift his emotional attachment."
Shi Ye was speechless at this logic. So, her rejection of Qi Jin and her announcement of an engagement to someone else were seen by the system as a "strategic deterioration of the relationship"? "Where did you learn this algorithm from? A database of Qiong Yao dramas?"
"The system uses a multi-emotion simulation algorithm, referencing more than 30,000 works on human emotions." The system paused for a moment, "According to the data, 'sadomasochistic' plots often trigger emotional shifts in characters."
"So I'm now a villainous supporting character turned tragic heroine?" Shi Ye twitched the corners of her mouth, unable to laugh. "So next, should I get sick from being caught in the rain, wait for Qi Jin to bring me medicine, and then discover that I actually have a reason for my suffering, and finally have my favorability rating skyrocket to 100?"
"The success rate of this plan is about 37.8%, but considering the host's current physical condition, it is not recommended to implement it."
"Thank you for still caring about my health," Shi Ye said dryly. She reached for her phone, and the screen lit up; sure enough, it was three unread messages from Lin Xiaoyu.
"Sister Shi, are you alright?"
"My senior just sent me a message, just two words 'It's okay,' but it feels really strange..."
"Can I come over to see you? I bought milk tea and fried chicken!"
The last message was posted five minutes ago. Shi Ye stared at the words "fried chicken," and his stomach rumbled honestly. Well, at least his body remembered he was hungry.
She replied, "Come over here."
The doorbell rang just as the message was sent. Shi Ye paused for a moment, then got up to open the door. Lin Xiaoyu stood outside, carrying a full bag of snacks in one hand and a cardboard box in the other, her cheeks slightly flushed, her eyes sparkling in the hallway light.
"I was worried you were hungry!" She squeezed through the door and walked familiarly into the living room. "And I also have something I want to tell you! Something very important!"
Shi Ye closed the door and watched as Lin Xiaoyu spread out snacks on the coffee table—fried chicken, milk tea, potato chips, and even a box of small cakes. It didn't look like she was there to chat; it looked like she was there for a tea party.
"You eat first!" Lin Xiaoyu pushed the fried chicken box in front of her, then sat cross-legged on the carpet, looking up at Shi Ye. "Eat and talk at the same time, otherwise I'm afraid you won't be able to eat after listening."
Shi Ye sat down and broke off a piece of fried chicken. The fried chicken was still hot, and the crispy skin made a soft "crunch" sound when bitten into. Her sense of taste was still there, which made her feel inexplicably relieved—at least some functions of her body hadn't completely failed.
"What is it?" she asked.
Lin Xiaoyu took a deep breath, her expression becoming unusually serious: "Sister Shi, tell me honestly, did you and your senior have a fight?"
Shi Ye paused for a moment while chewing. "Why do you ask that?"
"Because my senior never just sends 'I'm fine'!" Lin Xiaoyu clenched her fist. "When she messages me, she's either giving instructions or checking on the progress. Even if it's just casual chatting, she'll use emojis! And the time she just messaged me was 9:47 PM. She's usually still working at that time, she wouldn't suddenly send such a random message!"
Looking at Lin Xiaoyu's detailed knowledge of Qi Jin, Shi Ye felt that sense of absurdity resurface. Lin Xiaoyu knew Qi Jin so intimately, yet she showed absolutely no romantic feelings for him. How did this timeline get so skewed?
"We..." Shi Ye carefully chose his words, "...have a bit of a disagreement."
"About the engagement?" Lin Xiaoyu pressed.
Shi Ye acquiesced.
Lin Xiaoyu slumped her shoulders, untied the milk tea straw, and shoved it in hard: "I knew it... Sister Shi Ye, did you reject your senior?"
"How could you..."
"Because you weren't in the right state after you came back from the lake." Lin Xiaoyu bit her straw, her voice muffled. "And if my senior had succeeded, she would definitely have told me. The fact that she didn't say anything means she didn't succeed."
Shi Ye didn't reply, and broke off another piece of fried chicken. The high calories of fried food seemed to temporarily fill the emptiness in one's heart, even if it was just a physiological illusion.
"Sister Shi," Lin Xiaoyu suddenly leaned closer, her eyes fixed on her, "You really... don't like your senior at all? Not even a little bit? Not the kind of 'not feeling' kind of dislike, but deep down, even if you can't feel it now, do you think you would want to be with her if you could feel it one day?"
That's a very pointed question. Shi Ye avoided her gaze and looked at the small cake box on the coffee table. The buttercream frosting was exquisite, topped with a bright red strawberry.
“I don’t know,” she repeated the weak answer. “Maybe… I do. She’s so good.”
"Then why refuse?" Lin Xiaoyu asked, puzzled. "Senior said we can wait, as long as we want. Even if you can't feel it now, we can get engaged first! Just consider it... just consider it giving her a promise, and giving yourself a chance too."
Shi Ye's fingers unconsciously rubbed the edge of the fried chicken box, getting her hands oily. "Because..." She couldn't find a reasonable explanation, so she could only resort to that universal excuse, "I have my reasons."
"It's this again!" Lin Xiaoyu said anxiously. "Every time you ask about the key point, you say 'there's a reason'! Sister Shi, what are you hiding? Is it related to your illness? Or... or do you actually have someone you like? Like Senior Jiang Chen?"
Shi Ye almost choked on her milk tea. "It has nothing to do with Jiang Chen."
"Why is that?" Lin Xiaoyu persisted. "Do you know how much your senior likes you? This afternoon when she was talking to me about the business plan, she couldn't stop talking about you. 'Shi Ye likes simple designs,' 'Shi Ye said this color is nice,' 'Shi Ye thinks this idea is good'... She sees everything through your eyes."
Shi Ye's heart began to beat irregularly again. Damn it, can't this body stop betraying him at crucial moments?
"Xiaoyu," she put down the fried chicken and slowly wiped her hands with a tissue, "some things can't be solved just by liking them."
"Then what can solve it?" Lin Xiaoyu retorted. "Can disliking it solve it? If you push your senior away, will the problem disappear? Sister Shi, what are you afraid of?"
I'm afraid the world will collapse. I'm afraid the mission will fail. I'm afraid of the consciousness erasure the system mentioned. I'm afraid I'm not the Shi Ye you know at all.
These words rolled on the tip of his tongue, then he swallowed them back. Shi Ye forced a smile: "I'm afraid I'll let her down."
Lin Xiaoyu was stunned.
“Qi Jin is too good,” Shi Ye continued, her voice very soft, “so good that I feel… I don’t deserve him. In my current state, I can’t give her any response. It’s not fair to make her wait for someone who may never get better.”
"But my senior is willing!"
“It’s her business if she’s willing,” Shi Ye said. “I can’t just accept it because someone else is willing.”
Silence fell over the living room. Lin Xiaoyu stared at her for a long time, then suddenly sighed, "Sister Shi, you can be really...stubborn sometimes."
"Same to you." Shi Ye pointed to the almost untouched box of small cakes. "Aren't you going to eat any?"
"Eat! Of course I'll eat!" Lin Xiaoyu regained her energy and opened the cake box. "I queued for twenty minutes to buy this! Their signature strawberry cream cake is super delicious!"
She cut the cake in half and handed one piece to Shi Ye. Shi Ye took it and forked the strawberry. The sweet and sour juice burst in her mouth, mixing with the creamy smoothness.
“Oh, right,” Lin Xiaoyu said, biting her fork, as if suddenly remembering something, “there’s actually another thing I wanted to tell you tonight.”
"Um?"
"I..." Lin Xiaoyu's cheeks flushed suspiciously, and her voice lowered, "I confessed to the person I like."
Shi Ye's fork stopped in mid-air. "When?"
"This afternoon, after I came out of the library." Lin Xiaoyu put down the cake, her fingers twisting together. "I originally wanted to wait a little longer, but... but while I was working on the project proposal, all I could think about was, if I could wait for that person like you waited for me, would that person reject me like you rejected you? Then I thought, no, I have to say it."
Shi Ye looked at her. Lin Xiaoyu's eyes were surprisingly bright, filled with a mixture of nervousness, excitement, and a hint of uncertainty.
"And then?" Shi Ye asked, "He... agreed?"
Lin Xiaoyu shook her head, then nodded, and finally slumped her shoulders: "He said... he needs to think about it."
"consider?"
“Hmm.” Lin Xiaoyu fiddled with the strawberries on the cake. “He said things were too sudden and he needed time to think things through. But he didn’t refuse. He said… he said he had actually been paying attention to me for a long time, but he didn’t expect me to confess so suddenly.”
Shi Ye was processing these words. So Lin Xiaoyu really did have someone she liked, not Qi Jin, not Jiang Chen, but someone who had "noticed her for a long time"? Who could it be? A classmate? A teacher? Or...?
"Can you tell me who it is?" Shi Ye asked.
Lin Xiaoyu's face turned even redder. "We can't do it now...we'll wait until it's confirmed. Otherwise, it would be so embarrassing if it didn't work out."
Shi Ye nodded and didn't press further. Watching Lin Xiaoyu eat her cake little by little, a question suddenly occurred to her: If Lin Xiaoyu really did get together with the person she liked, what would happen to the mission to bring her and Qi Jin together? Would the system flag it as a failure? Or would it automatically adjust the mission objectives?
"System," she asked in her mind, "what will happen to the mission if Lin Xiaoyu establishes a relationship with someone else?"
"The mission objective will not change," the system replied. "The host still needs to bring Qi Jin and Lin Xiaoyu together. However, according to data analysis, the mission success rate will drop to 12.3% under these circumstances."
Shi Ye: "..." Very well, I'm getting more and more desperate.
"Sister Shi," Lin Xiaoyu's voice pulled her back to reality, "Do you think... he'll agree?"
Looking into her expectant yet apprehensive eyes, Shi Ye felt a slight ripple in the still water of his heart. Lin Xiaoyu was so vibrant, so real; her emotions were as fiery and juicy as the strawberries on this little cake.
"I don't know," Shi Ye said honestly, "but at least you said it. That's better than keeping it to yourself."
Lin Xiaoyu smiled, a hint of relief in her smile: "Yes, at least I said it. Just like when your senior told you she wanted to get engaged, no matter what the outcome, at least she won't regret not saying it."
Shi Ye's fingers tightened around the fork. No, she would regret it. She regretted rejecting Qi Jin, regretted saying those hurtful things, regretted messing everything up.
But she couldn't say.
“Sister Shi,” Lin Xiaoyu suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist, “No matter what happens between you and your senior, no matter whether my confession is successful or not… we’ll still be good friends, right?”
Shi Ye looked at her warm hand and nodded: "Mm."
"That's good." Lin Xiaoyu let go of her hand and started eating cake again. "Oh right, my senior said she wants to formally discuss cultural and creative investment with me next week. Sister Shi Ye, can you come? I... I'm a little nervous."
Is it appropriate for me to go?
“Of course it’s suitable!” Lin Xiaoyu’s eyes lit up. “You’re my strategist! And if you’re here too, I’ll feel much more at ease.”
Looking at her sincere expression, Shi Ye couldn't bring himself to refuse. "...Okay."
"Great!" Lin Xiaoyu cheered, then glanced at her phone. "Ah, it's so late! I have to go back now. I have to go to school early tomorrow morning to revise the project plan."
She stood up and began packing up the snack wrappers. Shi Ye saw her to the door.
“Sister Shi,” Lin Xiaoyu turned around at the door, her expression serious, “Although I don’t know what you’re worried about, but… don’t push your senior too far. Once some people are pushed away, they may never come back.”
Shi Ye was taken aback.
Lin Xiaoyu waved to her and skipped downstairs.
Shi Ye closed the door and leaned against it. The sweet smell of fried chicken and cake still lingered in the living room, and wrappers were scattered on the coffee table. After the previous liveliness faded, silence returned, even heavier than before.
She walked to the window. The area downstairs was empty; there were no cars or people.
Her phone vibrated. She picked it up and saw a message from Qi Jin, containing only one sentence:
Get some rest.
It was sent two minutes ago.
Shi Ye stared at those three words, his finger hovering over the screen for a long time, but ultimately he didn't reply.
She tossed her phone back onto the sofa, walked to the coffee table, and began slowly cleaning up the mess. She crumpled the wrapping paper into balls, stacked the empty boxes, and wiped the grease off the table.
Doing these trivial things actually cleared my mind. Lin Xiaoyu's words echoed in my ears: "Some people, once pushed away, may never come back."
She knew. She always knew.
But she had no choice.
After tidying up the living room, Shi Ye stood in the center of the room and looked around. The house was large and empty, just like her heart at that moment.
She went to the study, took out the bottle of antidepressants from the drawer, poured out two pills, and swallowed them with the half-finished cup of milk tea that Lin Xiaoyu hadn't finished.
Before the drug took effect, she still had time to let her mind wander. For example, what was Qi Jin doing right now? Who exactly was the person Lin Xiaoyu liked? And what should she do with only twenty-five days left on the mission?
But soon, the familiar drowsiness crept in.
Shi Ye walked back to the living room, lay down on the sofa, and didn't go back to the bedroom. She stared at the chandelier on the ceiling, watching the crystal pendants reflect the faint light from outside the window in the darkness.
Before her consciousness completely faded, one last thought flashed through her mind:
I need to go see Dr. Chen tomorrow.
It's not a follow-up appointment, it's just a chat.
Let's talk about this damn mission, and all this chaos.
Then she fell asleep.
This time, I wasn't dreaming.
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