A hint of being flattered had just flashed across Jiang Zhiyu's heart. He was about to respond when Wu Li turned his face away and looked at Song Yueyao beside him.
"Then this one, I should call—"
He smiled brightly: "Sister."
Wu Li had two little canine teeth. They weren't obvious when he sneered on normal days, so hidden they were almost invisible. However, if he grinned, just like at this moment, they were fully revealed with his dazzling smile, like the baby teeth a young beast inadvertently showed, carrying a bit of innocent slyness.
The unique spirit of a youth rushed forth.
He smiled purely and harmlessly, his face as clean as snow, but his lips were bright red. He possessed a beauty untainted by worldly dust, yet carried an indescribable, almost dangerous attraction.
This move was a sure kill.
The original novel had already stated clearly: Wu Li was best at manipulating people's hearts. To achieve his goals, he could use everything of value around him—including his own exceptionally good looks.
Chai Xiaomi thought secretly.
Sure enough... he really had ulterior motives toward the female lead.
When had he ever been even slightly polite to women on normal days? His words were always harsh and hurtful, as nasty as could be. This was the first time she saw him take the initiative to show such an amiable appearance to the opposite sex; it was obvious he was plotting something.
Song Yueyao was obviously stunned for a moment, then returned a shallow smile.
Even if her heart belonged to someone else, suddenly facing such vivid and dazzling beauty, anyone would lose their focus for a second.
The book once described Song Yueyao's heartbeat at that moment like this: it was not romantic love between a man and a woman, but more like seeing fireworks suddenly blooming in the night sky, or a butterfly resting among summer stamens, or a rainbow accidentally emerging in the mist of a waterfall.
The kind of feeling that makes one unable to resist exclaiming, "How beautiful."
It only existed for that instant, merely an unexpected marvel at "beauty" itself.
Brief, pure, leaving no trace.
Chai Xiaomi was immersed in this wave of visual attack. But for some reason, although her mind was recalling those descriptions from the original work, images of this youth's most wretched and unbearable moments flashed before her eyes like a revolving lantern.
Those were things not mentioned in the book: the cold debris after the fireworks went out, the broken-winged butterfly falling into the mud, the bare gray sky after the rainbow dissipated...
Therefore, no matter what, she had to rewrite it this time.
Not only for herself, but also for him.
Chai Xiaomi only lost herself for a moment before suddenly snapping back to reality. Let go of that female lead; if you want to discharge electricity, aim it at me!
She grabbed Wu Li and pulled him in front of her, cupping his face with both hands, staring straight at those two little canine teeth, and commanded almost through gritted teeth:
"I want to hear it too!"
She had quite the aura of a domineering CEO.
"...Hear what?" The peacock showing off its feathers was suddenly startled.
When facing Chai Xiaomi, he seemed to have returned to his expression of looking at an idiot.
This sudden change in attitude made Chai Xiaomi even more furious.
Why did she always feel that Wu Li seemed to look down on her, especially in terms of IQ?
She once kept a silly cat that didn't have a single smart hair on its body and had a bunch of confusing behaviors.
For example, it would get scared by its own fart and puff up; when sleeping, it would spread out like a cat pancake and flow through an impossibly narrow gap, but when it woke up, it would pretend to be a solid object, getting stuck between the railings and meowing for help; for no reason, it would do a combo of meow punches at the air, and after finishing, it would wear a proud expression of "I have quelled the rebellion."
She could only tease it while helplessly rewarding it with cat treats, calling it a stupid cat every day, but that didn't stop her from crying like a dog the day it went to the Meow Planet.
And now, the expression Wu Li looked at her with was just like how she looked at her stupid cat that went to the Meow Planet.
She felt a bit personally insulted.
"Call me sister," she ground her back molars. "I'm also a year older than you."
"Want to hear it?" He leaned in slightly, the distance suddenly closing, his breath lightly brushing past her ear.
"Mhm, mhm, mhm!" Chai Xiaomi's eyes lit up.
Wu Li's lips had already silently outlined a certain intimate curve, but what he spat out was: "If you want to hear it, wait until your next life."
Not only did he not call her that, but he also deliberately leaned even closer, adding two words in a low voice: "Idiot."
The voice was so low that only the two of them could hear it.
The lowered breathy voice was wrapped in a hint of hoarse laziness. However, when this scene fell into the eyes of outsiders, the posture was so ambiguous it was almost like they were rubbing ears and temples together, as if lovers were whispering to each other.
Jiang Zhiyu and Song Yueyao turned their faces away in unison, one looking at the sky, the other looking at the ground.
Chai Xiaomi really wanted to curse, but she forcibly suppressed it. Her eyes rolled, and suddenly she curved her eyes, deliberately raising her voice, sickeningly sweet:
"Aiya~ Got it, I love you too~"
After saying that, she even gently nudged Wu Li away with her elbow, half-angry and half-shyly covering her face: "But, kissing is a no-no! We have to wait until we go home and close the door. I know you can't restrain yourself, but in broad daylight with so many people around, it's such a bad influence~"
As she spoke, she blinked at Wu Li, her face fully written with "let's see who is better at acting."
Wu Li: "..."
Obviously, the villain was good at manipulating people's hearts, but unfortunately, his acting skills still lacked a bit of fire.
The moment he heard the word "kissing" shouted out shamelessly by her, he was instantly defeated.
Her words were so bold and unrestrained that even people at the neighboring table looked over curiously.
It scared Jiang Zhiyu and Song Yueyao into hurriedly lowering their heads, wishing they could hide their faces in their teacups, for fear of their disguise being seen through.
Chai Xiaomi knew she had caused trouble, and her arrogance instantly dropped by half. She muttered an apology in a low voice, and only then did the topic barely loop back to the previous matter of saying goodbye.
"My departure this time was hasty, and I didn't bring any rare items with me, only some travel expenses. Please don't find it tacky." Song Yueyao fumbled in her sleeve for a moment and took out a shiny ingot of gold. Her gaze gently swept over Chai Xiaomi's lower abdomen. "Since I have acknowledged you two as my younger brother and sister today, it's a pity that the martial arts world is vast, and we may not meet again in the future. Let this serve as a meeting gift for my future niece or nephew."
Wow! What a huge gold ingot!
Chai Xiaomi excitedly held it in her palm, her eyes sparkling: "Not tacky, not tacky at all!"
When she was a child, she didn't understand the appeal of gold, but now Chai Xiaomi's "gold bloodline" had long awakened. In any world, the importance of gold was self-evident, not to mention she was currently short of money.
She even suspected whether this had triggered some hidden plot, causing the female lead to take the initiative to send her startup funds.
It was just a pity that the unreliable Youtiao, ever since she had a high fever, had its CPU overloaded and was still undergoing maintenance to this day. She couldn't count on it in the short term.
Seeing Song Yueyao act like this, Jiang Zhiyu to the side suddenly became constrained. His journey this time was rushed, and he actually hadn't brought anything decent with him.
Song Yueyao, despite her situation in Liangya Prefecture, could still treat newly met people with such sincerity. Jiang Zhiyu's heart warmed, and he gritted his teeth, untying the cosmos sack from his waist.
"Then I will gift this cosmos sack to the child!" He slapped the dark brown brocade pouch onto the table with soaring heroism.
Having just received the glittering gold ingot a moment ago, and now seeing this dull-colored small bag that looked only big enough to stuff two eggs into, a trace of an awkward yet polite smile surfaced on Chai Xiaomi's face: "Thank you, Brother Yu."
