The first snow at Saint Sakura Academy came unexpectedly.
When Yu Jiuyuan pushed open the door to the student council office, Rong Shenghan was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, his fingertips tracing the frost flowers that had formed on the glass.
He was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater, and his profile looked exceptionally soft in the snowy light, like a carefully rendered ink painting.
"The president has come at just the right time," he said, turning around with a document in his hand. "I've read Lin Yanran's letter of self-criticism. It's full of accusations against Xie Zhecheng, saying that he deliberately wrote 'astronomy club errand boy' instead of 'student council officer'."
Yu Jiuyuan took the letter of self-criticism. The handwriting on the paper was flamboyant and ink splattered everywhere, clearly indicating that she had written it with great impatience.
She suddenly chuckled: "Perfectionists are more vengeful than I imagined." Her fingertips paused on the word "errand boy," where the ink was broken by the pen tip, revealing a suppressed anger.
When Rong Shenghan leaned closer to look, his breath brushed against her ear: "Xie Zhecheng stayed up all night at the astronomy club last night and crossed Lin Yanran's name off all the activity lists. He even used a red pen, like he was grading homework."
Rong Shenghan: Favorability +2 (currently 42) (triggered "Playful" mood bonus)
As Yu Jiuyuan closed her letter of self-criticism, the door was suddenly pushed open. Lin Yanran, wrapped in a black mink coat, rushed in, snowflakes landing on his expensive leather shoes and instantly melting into water stains.
"Yu Jiuyuan! Xie Zhecheng has gone too far!" He slammed an astronomy club activity schedule on the table. "He actually made me clean the telescopes at the observatory!"
The name "Lin Yanran" was circled in red on the activity schedule, with a note next to it stating, "Responsible for wiping the 1.2-meter aperture telescope. Anhydrous ethanol must be used. Do not touch the lenses directly with your hands."
The standard Xie Zhecheng-style rules even clearly label the types of cleaning agents used.
Looking at Lin Yanran's reddened eyes, Yu Jiuyuan suddenly found the arrogant peacock's bristling appearance somewhat laughable: "The telescope is Xie Zhecheng's lifeline. Letting you touch it is already giving me face."
She changed the subject, her voice softening, "However, if you can do me a favor, I can get him to change 'errand boy' back to 'clerk'."
Lin Yanran's anger subsided by more than half in an instant: "What kind of help?"
“The Su family has been secretly transferring assets from the unfinished building in the west of the city recently,” Yu Jiuyuan leaned back in her chair, tapping the table with her fingertips. “I need the asset transfer record in your father’s study. It’s said that Young Master Lin is best at ‘borrowing’ things.”
[Lin Yanran: Favorability 0 (Triggered "Incentive", Hostility -5)]
Lin Yanran's pupils contracted. He knew that his father had a private deal with the Su family, but he didn't expect Yu Jiuyuan to know even that.
The sunlight shone through the blinds onto his face, half bright and half dark, as if he were making a difficult choice.
"Why should I trust you?" he finally retorted, his arrogant exterior concealing a barely perceptible wavering.
“Just because Xie Zhecheng only listens to me.” Yu Jiuyuan took out her phone, and on the screen was a message that Xie Zhecheng had just sent: “The telescope has been replaced with an operating manual that Lin Yanran can understand, as you requested.”
She waved her phone, her smile innocent, "The compromises of a perfectionist are rarer than diamonds."
Lin Yanran stared at the message for a long time before finally gritting her teeth and turning around: "I will get the asset records, but if Xie Zhecheng dares to play me again..."
“He wouldn’t dare.” Yu Jiuyuan interrupted him, her voice as soft as falling snowflakes. “After all, all he can think about right now is how to make you ‘use anhydrous ethanol correctly.’ You can’t imagine the obsession of a perfectionist.”
As Lin Yanran slammed the door and left, Rong Shenghan suddenly chuckled, "The president is getting more and more adept at using this tactic of using someone else to do his dirty work."
He walked to the window and watched Lin Yanran's car drive away, crunching through the snow. "Aren't you afraid that the Lin family father and son will turn against each other?"
“It’s better if they turn against each other.” Yu Jiuyuan picked up the activity schedule that was covered in scribbles. “The Lin family’s scales should have tipped in favor of the Yu family. I’m just giving them a push.”
When she looked up, her gaze fell on the snow stains on Rong Shenghan's sweater collar. "Where did the vice president go this morning? The pine needles stuck to his cuffs aren't the kind from Saint Sakura Campus."
Rong Shenghan paused. He glanced down at his cuff and suddenly chuckled, "I went to the back mountain. I heard that Yuan Xu set up insect nets there. I wanted to see what the glowing butterflies he cultivated looked like in their natural environment."
Yu Jiuyuan knew he was lying. The pine needles on the back mountain were dark green, while the ones on his cuffs were light green, with a faint smell of turpentine, making them seem more like they came from a professional forest farm.
But she didn't expose it, she just smiled and got up: "Yuan Xu's lab report is due, I'm going to go to the biology lab to take a look."
The heating pipes in the biology lab hissed. Yuan Xu lay on the lab table, her cheek pressed against the petri dish, as if she were talking to the glowing butterflies inside.
The butterfly wings in the petri dish shimmered with a faint green light, like dancing sparks in the cold winter.
"What are you whispering to them?" Yu Jiuyuan walked over, her voice so soft that she was afraid of disturbing the tranquil scene.
Yuan Xu suddenly looked up, her glasses sliding down to the tip of her nose, revealing a pair of bright, sparkling eyes: "I'm trying to see if I can make them glow rhythmically! Like Morse code, so that we can use them to transmit signals during field research."
He suddenly took a small box out of the drawer. "Here you are. It's a bookmark made of fluorescent protein. It will glow when you put it in a book."
The bookmark in the box is shaped like a ginkgo leaf, with fine fluorescent powder embedded in the veins, which can spell out the two characters "玖鸢" in the dark.
As Yu Jiuyuan's fingertips traced those two words, the system panel quietly popped up: [Yuan Xu: Favorability +3, currently 63 (Triggered "Exclusive Mark" bonus)].
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