Chapter 4

“Sit down and eat.” In the end, I could not bear the bizarre atmosphere any longer and broke the ice myself.

Zhou Bai nodded, sat down, opened his lunch box, and began to eat.

I propped my head on one hand and picked listlessly at my food. Bored, I began studying Zhou Bai again.

Even the movements and rhythm of his eating were as standardized as an AI’s.

How could someone make eating look this boring?

Puzzled, I asked aloud, “Are you always this rigid?”

The system suddenly chimed in my head. “Congratulations, valued guest! You have completed the third key line!”

In the original plot, I said that line to Qin Ruanruan when she stopped me from unbuttoning her blouse.

So the key lines worked no matter whom I said them to.

I narrowed my eyes. Under Zhou Bai’s dead-still gaze, I slowly continued, “If you’re this rigid, doesn’t your lover find you boring?” The fourth line was complete.

Zhou Bai carefully chewed his last bite, swallowed, and looked at me. “I think my life and my personality are both perfectly fine, Mr. Lin.”

“Oh? Don’t you have any other desires?” I tilted my head with a smile, though there was no humor in my eyes. “People who are always like stagnant water are the most frightening of all.”

The fifth and sixth lines slipped effortlessly from my lips.

“Zhou Bai.”

“When a dormant wasteland catches fire, that’s when it becomes truly terrifying. Don’t you agree?” The final line landed perfectly as well.

I dropped my provocative attitude at once and replaced it with a sincere smile. “Of course, those are only a few idle guesses. Eat some more.”

I lowered my head and resumed eating, missing the way the gaze across from me deepened.

Zhou Bai had genuinely begun to examine his life.

Everything had always followed the rules, as if an ordinary line had neatly contained him. He stayed within it and never crossed over.

Had anything unexpected ever happened in his life?

With his head lowered, he paged through each important scene in his past.

It was so ordinary it resembled a blank page.

“Tch. I don’t like chili peppers. Leave them out next time.”

A voice abruptly interrupted his self-examination.

Zhou Bai slowly lifted his head and stared at me without blinking.

An exception.

He had found one.

I suddenly felt an intense gaze upon me, and it made me deeply uncomfortable.

So I looked up.

His eyes were like a lamb’s. There was no malice, no desire, not even any emotion. He simply watched you quietly, as though observing you.

But after a while, they seemed almost mournful.

Why did you intrude upon my life? Even a life as still as dead water was happy enough.

Why did you have to tell me I was unhappy?

I stared, momentarily dazed, then clicked my tongue in irritation. “Hey, are you done staring?”

His gaze might have been different from those other men’s, but my instinctive dislike of men had not vanished.

Honestly, I would much rather Qin Ruanruan had been sitting across from me.

Zhou Bai blinked, withdrew every trace of emotion, and lowered his head to eat in earnest. “Sorry. My eyes were bothering me just now.”

What a pathetic lie.

I scoffed and confidently diagnosed the cause of his strange behavior.

My excellence had clearly made this guy feel inferior.

I understood male insecurity.