Chapter 66

Chapter 66

Exposed, Ning Xi slammed the tomato beef brisket and sweet and sour pork ribs back onto the table.

Then, she gave Fu Zhi a heavy flick to the forehead.

“He who criticizes my faults to my face shall receive a slap! He who exposes my inner thoughts shall be granted a swift death!”

Fu Zhi let out a sharp, high-pitched shriek of pain.

“You hit me again!!!”

Ning Xi sneered. “I hit you because I felt like it. Do I need to pick a special day for it?”

“Besides, why do I only hit you and not others? Taking ten thousand steps back, are you saying you’re completely blameless? Reflect on yourself-is it because you haven’t been working hard enough?”

If something could be blamed on Fu Zhi, Ning Xi would never blame herself.

[Using logic like a chaotic formula: Full marks.]

[That’s the thing about formulas; you just have to apply them, but the formula itself has to consider so much more.]

“You!”

Fu Zhi’s lips trembled with rage. In the end, he could only muster a weak, “Just you wait!”

Ning Xi couldn’t have cared less.

[Fu Zhi: Bullying me, are you? Just you wait, I’ll make you wait forever.]

[Wait all you want. Our ‘Princess’ will forget all about it in a moment anyway.]

[And then he’ll go right back to being a cold-faced simp for Ning Xi, hahahahahahaha.]

However, the netizens still overestimated Fu Zhi.

He didn’t even need “a moment” before he tacitly made up with Ning Xi.

He pushed the dishes toward the center of the table, though he kept his face turned away in a tsundere huff.

“I used a small bowl to eat earlier. These dishes haven’t been touched.”

Ning Xi chuckled and began to compare the difference between the sweet and sour ribs and the braised ribs.

Fu Zhi had promised to treat her to lunch anyway; she was just eating what rightfully belonged to her!

“Finished!”

Ning Xi was truly full this time. She pushed the plates back to Fu Zhi and headed downstairs for a walk.

Fu Zhi watched Ning Xi’s back until she disappeared before letting out a soft huff.

Then, he looked down at the plates Ning Xi had just finished.

His expression froze.

That brat Ning Xi had actually used the leftover bones to spell out “SB”!!!

Fu Zhi was furious.

To make matters worse, the previously silent Xie Lanchen let out a soft “heh” and laughed.

Noticing Fu Zhi’s glare, he pursed his lips and explained, “Sorry. I just thought of something happy and couldn’t hold it in.”

Fu Zhi glared at Xie Lanchen. Did he look like an idiot?!

“Let’s see if you can still laugh tonight,” Fu Zhi sneered.

He had originally wanted to threaten Xie Lanchen directly with the room assignments for tonight, but then he realized he shouldn’t alert the enemy and spark Xie Lanchen’s competitive spirit. Thus, he settled for a vague taunt.

But as long as one wasn’t a complete fool, it was easy to guess what Fu Zhi was thinking.

[It’s heating up! It’s heating up! The Princess’s fighting spirit is ignited! Go Fu Ruoningzhi!]

[Heh, Fu Zhi’s words aren’t even as fire as me doing my summer homework. Xie Lanchen is currently number one on the earnings list; he won’t be that easy to overtake.]

[But Xie Lanchen spends a lot, too. What if he buys something else this afternoon and his ranking drops?]

[Anything is possible, anyway.]

After lunch, everyone entered task time again.

The Program Team had refreshed the tasks. Not only had the difficulty increased, but some tasks now required two people to complete.

Ning Xi arrived at a villager’s home and saw an older woman sitting at the door, scrolling through Manjiao videos on an iPhone. She took the initiative to strike up a conversation.

“Auntie, you use an iPhone too?”

The woman glanced at Ning Xi, fell silent for a few seconds, and nodded solemnly. “…I’m a fine, law-abiding citizen.”

Ning Xi: “…Hahaha, Auntie, you’re so humorous.”

Then she got straight to the point.

“Auntie, is there anything you need help with?”

After chatting with her for a while, Ning Xi learned that the target of today’s task was the woman’s son, Li Hua.

Li Hua was a college freshman. Since coming home for summer break, he had locked himself in his room every day, listening to strange music every night.

“I’ve peeked through his window secretly and saw a green light constantly glowing from his phone. Do you think he’s…” The woman covered her mouth, her face grave.

“A joker?”

“A spy?”

Ning Xi and the woman spoke at the same time.

Ning Xi: ?

“I saw it on a Manjiao video. It said that if a room is glowing with green light, they might be a spy! Such a good kid went off to university, how did he end up becoming a spy!”
The middle-aged woman slapped her thigh and wrung her hands, her face full of regret.

[You never know how morally bankrupt a college student on vacation looks in their mother’s eyes.]

[Glowing green light? He’s clearly a sad Joker, but in your mom’s eyes, he might as well be a spy, hahahahaha!]

[This mom is really ready to sacrifice her family for the greater good; she just exposed this whole thing to the entire country, hahahahaha!]

Ning Xi scratched her head. “How about I talk to Li Hua first?”

And so, Ning Xi met the Li Hua who, according to his mother, “listened to weird songs every night and had a green light in his room, making him a suspected spy.”

“Ahhh! Ning Xi! My idol!!!”

When Li Hua saw Ning Xi, he did a literal kip-up and bounced off the bed.

Then his foot slipped, and he went straight into a sliding kneel.

One look at his eyes confirmed it: he was just a foolish, wide-eyed college student.

After signing an autograph for him, Ning Xi asked in the tone of a caring older sister, “The weather is so nice. Why aren’t you going outside?”

As she spoke, the mother’s voice drifted in from the courtyard.

“Oh for goodness’ sake! Who broke my eggs and didn’t clean them up? It’s so hot they’re turning into fried eggs on the ground! Li Hua, was it you, you brat?”

Li Hua, meanwhile, looked up at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle, trying to keep the tears from falling.

“There are some things you’ll only understand when you get to my age.”

Twenty-one-year-old Ning Xi looked at nineteen-year-old Li Hua, her lip twitching. “When I grow younger, I’ll be sure to say that too.”

Li Hua continued his emo routine. “Did my mom ask you to come talk to me? I’m telling you, it’s useless. Pain is the only way to stay awake.”

As he spoke, a crystalline tear shimmered in the corner of his eye.

Ning Xi: …

She couldn’t stand this guy living in his own little world any longer. She grabbed Li Hua by the collar.

“Speak like a normal person!”

Li Hua immediately straightened up and confessed the reason for his recent depression.

It turned out he had a long-standing crush on a high school classmate from the same village. They had agreed to go to the same university, but after arriving on campus, Li Hua had confessed three times with no success.

He assumed he had been delusional about their connection and decided to keep his distance, silently licking his wounds in solitude.

But to his surprise, every time the girl rejected him, she would continue to reach out to him.

It made him feel both miserable and sweet.

Ning Xi remained noncommittal about Li Hua’s perspective and went straight to the key question: “First, tell me how you confessed to her.”

Li Hua drifted into his memories. “I remember the first time was in winter. I sent her a message at six in the morning telling her to come outside, and then I confessed…”

“Wait, 6:00 AM?!”

Ning Xi’s face was a mask of confusion.

This Li Hua was even more ruthless than an 8:00 AM class. No wonder she didn’t say yes.

[Doesn’t he deserve to be rejected? What sane person confesses at six in the morning?]

[If anyone woke me up at 6:00 AM, I would definitely kill them. The girl actually went out to let him confess? I think this Joker actually has a chance.]

“Yeah! What’s wrong with a 6:00 AM confession? Your mind is clear, and she has the whole day to consider whether to say yes. If I confessed at 6:00 PM, wouldn’t she only have a few hours to think about it?!”

Li Hua argued his point righteously.

“…Impressive.”

If this task wasn’t paying three hundred yuan, Ning Xi would have walked away right then and there.

“You said this girl is from the same village? Have you been in touch since summer break started?”

Li Hua’s expression darkened. “I don’t have the WeChat app, so I can’t contact her.”

Ning Xi looked at the latest smartphone in Li Hua’s hand. “You’re saying you don’t have WeChat?!”

Li Hua explained, “After she rejected me the third time, I felt it was hopeless. But I couldn’t bring myself to delete her, so I deleted the WeChat app instead.”

[My god, he’s even crazier than that love-brain Jiang Sheshe.]

[Ning Xi is really suffering here.]

[It’s fine, this is just the standard mental state of a college student.]

[College students’ reputations are being ruined here.]

Ning Xi gave Li Hua a thumbs up, then shook her head and advised him from the bottom of her heart:

“Keep your voice down. Is this something to be proud of?”