chapter 3

I was just scaring myself.

I must have driven myself crazy writing my thesis. What System? There was no System.

Xie Ji had been admitted to graduate school without an exam, and he still had to go to campus for experiments.

I used the chance to slip out and book an appointment with a psychiatrist.

The result came back completely normal.

I sat on the hospital bench with the report in my hands, dazed.

The System piped up again, smug as ever.

[Ha, you don’t still think I’m a hallucination, do you? Stop fooling yourself. The male lead and female lead are bound to end up together!]

At that very moment, a message from Xie Ji popped up on my phone.

[Baby, where are you right now?]

I hesitated, then replied: [Just taking a walk outside.]

I’d better not tell him about this until I figured out what was going on.

This time, it took him two full minutes to reply.

[Come home soon. It’s not safe out there. Lock the door and don’t talk to strangers.]

Xie Ji had mentioned before that con artists had been spotted in the area recently, and he’d told me not to go out.

I didn’t think much of it. Figuring he was busy, I let the slow reply slide.

I replied: [Okay.]

To my surprise, Xie Ji got home before I did.

I was delighted and confused all at once, so I ran over and wrapped my arms around his waist, sweetly.

“Why are you home so early today?”

Unusually, Xie Ji was silent for a long time.

I frowned and looked up.

His dark, quiet eyes were fixed on me without blinking.

His face was like a storm barely held in check—terrifyingly grim.

Was I seeing things? How could Xie Ji have an expression like that?

The next second, my eyes were covered.

Xie Ji seemed to draw a deep breath. Apart from a slightly hoarse voice, his tone was just like always.

“Baby, I was only worried you might run into danger. Don’t go out alone next time, okay?”

I was instantly flooded with sweetness and pushed the faint wrongness in my chest aside.

Xie Ji only loved me the way I loved him. What had he done wrong!

Over the next few days, Xie Ji stopped going out.

But he’d grown a little strange.

When I lay in his arms watching shows, every so often I’d glance up and catch him staring at me with knitted brows—and the moment I noticed, he’d snap back to normal.

He seemed less enthusiastic about cooking too. He let me take the lead but no longer took over the kitchen the way he used to.

Sometimes his brow would betray an expression of extreme forbearance, his knuckles whitening as he clenched them.

I came to a conclusion: he was resisting my touch.

That wasn’t right at all.

My sense of crisis finally kicked in. I took the initiative to talk to the System and wheedled the female lead’s name and appearance out of it.

Jiang Shiyan. She was on the same project team as Xie Ji.