"Meeting in person?" Jiang Han always felt something was a bit off.
"How did you two start chatting in the first place?"
Zhuang Yongzhi grinned and said, "We met playing League of Legends. Her ID is Strawberry Bubble Sauce, and she plays an insanely good Yasuo."
"It's the first time in my life I've met a girl who plays Yasuo that well. Do you guys know she popped a wind wall to save me?"
"Who could possibly understand that kind of feeling of being saved?"
He spoke with a face full of yearning.
Beside him, however, Jiang Han's frown only grew deeper the more he listened.
"Did she mention anything about selling tea when you were chatting?"
Zhuang Yongzhi slapped his thigh.
"Jiang-ge, you're practically psychic! She told me her grandfather was sick and the family's tea wasn't selling, so she asked me to buy some from her."
Jiang Han closed his eyes for a moment.
"I knew it would turn out like this."
Zhuang Yongzhi grew even more excited.
"I transferred ten thousand yuan to her, and she even mailed me a bag of tea. Do you guys want some? I'll bring it tomorrow for you to try."
Jiang Han was speechless.
"What kind of tea is so precious? Ten thousand yuan a bag—Young Master Zhuang, you really are rolling in money."
Zhuang Yongzhi completely missed the sarcasm in Jiang Han's voice, still lost in the sweetness of his first love.
Jiang Han didn't bother responding to him anymore. Instead, he turned his head and said to Sun Deming.
"You better take good care of your stomach these next few days. We might end up drinking with someone this month."
Sun Deming was completely baffled.
"Drink what? Out of nowhere, where's this drinking session supposed to come from?"
Jiang Han shook his head.
"You'll understand when the time comes."
……
The No. 3 Middle School Student Union office.
Su Yuhan, the vice president, picked up her phone in a flurry of exaggerated shock.
"Oh my god! Senior Sister An actually posted a Moments update?!!"
At the other end of the desk, a delicate-looking boy raised his head, his indifferent face revealing no emotion.
"What did she post?"
Su Yuhan's face was brimming with the excitement of a quintessential gossip onlooker.
"She posted: 'Why won't he call me baby anymore?!'"
"That 'he' uses the character for a male bystander—it's super obvious she's in a relationship, right?!"
"What did you say?" The boy who had spoken earlier spoke up again.
He was none member other than Jiang Chenyu, the student union president, a top-tier student in the second year of high school with quite a bit of influence in the school.
Su Yuhan said with gloating amusement, "Poor President, you've had a crush on Senior Sister An Yangning for two years and haven't even spoken a word to her."
Thinking back, the president was indeed one of the most steadfastly devoted among An Yangning's numerous admirers.
Moreover, he never did anything to disturb the senior sister's studies, choosing instead to harbor a silent, unrequited love.
"You're wrong. I've liked her for six years," Jiang Chenyu said calmly.
"We've spoken a total of twenty sentences."
Su Yuhan looked up in shock.
"Turns out you're the real, ultimate pure-love warrior!"
"Too bad you're way too pure—someone else just swooped in and snatched the senior sister away."
A flash of cold light crossed Jiang Chenyu's eyes.
"Post An Yangning's suspected relationship rumor on the forum and dig out the person behind it."
Su Yuhan hesitated somewhat. "That might not be so great. Won't the whole school blow up over this?"
Jiang Chenyu didn't care about any of that; he just wanted to fish out the guy who had stolen An Yangning's heart.
"Nothing's going to happen. High school students aren't some kind of monsters or demons."
"Fine, I'll give it a try."
Unable to win against Jiang Chenyu, Su Yuhan edited the post and published it.
That post was quickly screenshotted and saved by students around the school.
Half an hour later, the post was pushed to the highest trending spot.
Fearing that the teachers would see it, Su Yuhan hurriedly deleted the post.
Yet several other posts immediately popped up in its place.
"Searching for the school belle's mysterious boyfriend?"
"Shocking! Who snatched away our celestial school belle?"
Su Yuhan started getting a headache and said with some worry.
"President, what should we do if the teachers find out about this?"
Jiang Chenyu was busy handling minor student union affairs without even raising his head.
"Isn't that perfect? Once Senior Sister An breaks up, she can finally focus properly on her studies."
As soon as he finished speaking, his thoughts drifted far away.
There wasn't a single guy in this world worthy of An Yangning—not even himself?
Su Yuhan curled her lip and muttered inwardly.
"The president really is a scheming boy."
……
Before going to sleep that night, Jiang Han received a message from Sun Deming.
That was how he learned that An Yangning's Moments post had been leaked and spread.
"How boring. What a bunch of bored high school students. If they found out An Yangning and I have a kid, wouldn't they practically explode?" He shook his head helplessly.
Jiang Han closed the forum, having little desire to get involved in the matter.
Yet the thought that those teachers might find out and haul his wife in for a chat gave him a headache just thinking about it.
After considering it for a moment, Jiang Han suddenly thought of someone.
"Would it be a bad idea to message Fei-ge this late at night?"
After hesitating for a moment, he still decided to make a call to check in.
Jiang Han located the number and dialed out.
The phone rang for a long time without anyone answering, until just as Jiang Han was about to give up, a low male voice came through from the other end.
"Little Jiang Han? What made you think of calling me? I thought you'd gone missing!"
"Don't joke around, Fei-ge. I've just been way too busy studying lately to find time to contact you," Jiang Han said with an embarrassed chuckle.
The person he was contacting today was Chen Fei, a top hacker expert he had met while recklessly exploring the dark web a couple of years prior.
He and Chen Fei had tackled hacker missions together, and somehow the two of them found they clicked exceptionally well.
As time went on, they discovered to their surprise that both of them were from Haicheng.
They eventually met up in person offline and became good friends.
Before starting his senior year of high school, he used to frequently hang out at Chen Fei and his crew's base.
"Spit it out, what do you need me for?" Chen Fei slowly dragged on a cigarette.
Unable to hold back, Jiang Han decided to play along with some abstract nonsense.
"Here's the thing, Ge, I'm in deep trouble. Hurry up and help me hack a website—ideally, take it down permanently."
Hearing that his sworn brother was in distress, Chen Fei immediately pinched out his cigarette butt.
"Hold on, send me the URL. Who dares to bully my brother Chen Fei's boy!!"
Jiang Han hung up the phone and cheerfully sent over the web address.
"Damn it, I'm really too lazy to turn on the computer. I'll just let Fei-ge handle it."
When Chen Fei on the other end received Jiang Han's message, assuming it was some thorn-in-the-side crisis, he woke up all his teammates who had spent days pulling all-nighters.
Seeing him in such a rush, the others assumed it was a massive deal, shook off their sleepiness, and immediately pulled up the website.
Just as they were gearing up for a major operation, however—
Everyone was left dumbfounded mere seconds later.
Why use a butcher's cleaver to slaughter a chicken?
A group of people who had won the World Hacker Championship were being asked to hack a tiny school forum?
"You little punk Jiang Han, are you taking me for a ride???" Realizing he had been played, Chen Fei laughed out of sheer annoyance.
Cutting back to Jiang Han's home, he knew very well what Fei-ge was capable of.
Taking down a school forum probably wouldn't even take a minute.
Right at that moment, An Yangning walked out of the bathroom after finishing her shower.
Her damp hair was scattered across her fair shoulders, and droplets of water trickled down her delicate collarbone.
Jiang Han swallowed hard.
"Are you trying to seduce me again?"
Instead of acting shy as she usually did, An Yangning had a thin mist of moisture welling up in the corners of her eyes.
"Jiang Han, you big jerk. Do you stop caring about me once you've actually got me?"
Jiang Han: ???