"Are you okay?"
As Han Juyou sat there in a daze, Liu Muye’s gentle voice snapped her sharply back to reality.
"Ah? I, I... I'm fine."
Han Juyou gently shook her head. Her exceptionally alluring and charismatic eyes, like a pair of mysterious, deep pools, stared straight into Liu Muye’s eyes, as if trying to probe some hidden secret deep within them.
Liu Muye could not handle Han Juyou’s gaze at all. He felt as though she would see right through him in the next second, and he quickly darted his eyes away, trying his best to avoid meeting her gaze.
Seeing him avert his eyes, Han Juyou stopped looking at him and asked, "Why did you help me?"
Liu Muye smiled and said, "I'm just that kind of warm-hearted person. No need to thank me."
"Who's going to thank you!" Han Juyou narrowed her eyes, glared at him, and said, "Why did you pay that man money for me?"
"If I hadn't given him money, wouldn't he have kept pestering you?"
"...A person like that is a bottomless pit. Once he tastes sweetness, he'll just come back to pester me again in the future." As she spoke, a hint of sorrow flashed in Han Juyou’s eyes.
Liu Muye said, "Don't worry, he'll never have a chance to enter Silia Academy again."
"Sigh~" Han Juyou let out a sigh and said, "It's not like I can stay cooped up at school forever without ever going out, is it?"
Liu Muye's expression suddenly turned serious as he said word by word, "As long as I, Liu Muye, am still in Shangjing City, no one will ever be able to bully you here!"
"What... what... what are you really plotting against me?"
Han Juyou grew nervous again. She instinctively wanted to take a step back, but looking into Liu Muye's sincere gaze, this time she stopped after pulling back only half a step.
"I... I..."
Liu Muye panicked a little. He knew Han Juyou was smart and ordinary lies certainly wouldn't fool her. Besides, Han Juyou was already starting to suspect his identity; saying even a little too much would easily give him away."What?" Han Juyou frowned slightly, pressing him, "Ever since my first day at this academy, you've seemed overly concerned about me. You're saying you have no ulterior motives?"
"Are you kidding? What motives could I possibly have toward you?" Liu Muye nervously thrust his hands into his pockets, pretending to be nonchalant, and imitated Nangong Ye's tone. "I'm the eldest young master of the dignified Liu Financial Group—what motives could I possibly have toward a scholarship student? I'm leaving!"
"Wait—!"
Afraid that this clever girl would spot any clues, Liu Muye wanted to slip away the moment he finished speaking, but as he turned around, Han Juyou grabbed his sleeve.
Liu Muye asked defensively, "W-what else is there?"
Biting her lower lip gently, Han Juyou whispered, "The money you gave my dad, I'll find a way to pay you back. And for what happened today... thank you."
This was the first time she showed the shy, girlish demeanor in front of Liu Muye.
Hearing this, Liu Muye breathed a sigh of relief, waved his hand, and said, "Don't mention it. The money doesn't matter; your young master here isn't short of that little sum."
"No!" Han Juyou shook her head firmly. "I will definitely pay you back."
"We'll talk about it later, we'll talk about it later."
With that, Liu Muye pulled his sleeve from the girl's grip and fled from beneath the girls' dormitory building as if running for his life.
It was merely a few thousand bucks, anyway; from the moment he pulled it out, he had never intended to make Han Juyou pay it back.
After all, to him now, money was nothing more than a pile of meaningless numbers and scraps of waste paper.
The girl quietly gazed at the boy's retreating figure under the sunlight. That figure seemed enveloped in a layer of golden brilliance, glowing radiantly and exuding a touch of mystery.
"As long as I, Liu Muye, am still in Shangjing City, no one will ever bully you here!"Han Juyou's mind echoed once again with what Liu Muye had just said to her. For a moment, she felt somewhat dazed, and before she knew it, a captivating smile naturally curved up the corners of her lips.
She turned around and limped toward the girls' dormitory.
……
[Novel authors always seem to love creating somewhat unreasonable, magical settings for the first meeting of the male and female leads, but real-life first encounters are often even more unreasonable and magical than in novels. — From Liu Muye's Notes]
……
"Why are you running in such a rush? Is a ghost chasing you?" Nangong Ye asked, unable to help himself as he watched Liu Muye hurry back into the dorm.
"Yeah, exactly, because I was printing these damn documents for you, I almost got caught by a female ghost," Liu Muye tossed the documents for Nangong Ye's meeting onto the table. "And she was even a fox spirit."
"A fox spirit?" Nangong Ye chuckled softly. "You really are an interesting fellow."
"Forget it." Liu Muye took a bottle of cola from the refrigerator in the living room and plopped down on the sofa opposite Nangong Ye.
Nangong Ye pulled a check out of his pocket and said, "Take it."
"Huh?" Liu Muye took the check, which was only signed and stamped with no amount filled in, glanced at it, and asked, "What are you giving me a blank check for?"
"Your hard-earned compensation for running errands for me," Nangong Ye pointed at the check and said. "Fill in whatever amount you want, just go to Nangong Bank to cash it."
"Holy crap, so generous!"
Upon hearing this, Liu Muye immediately picked up a pen and prepared to write down an amount, but then he second-thought it—he himself was clearly a rich second-generation heir now too.
So he handed the check back to Nangong Ye and said, "Don't look down on people; this young master isn't short of your petty little pocket change."
As if he were an NPC whose trigger condition had been met, Nangong Ye immediately said, "You're the first man who has dared to reject my check. You've successfully caught my..."
"Shut up!" Liu Muye immediately cut him off. "We're all our own people here, don't start that script!"
"Uh-huh... Huh?" Nangong Ye blinked, his spell interrupted.
Liu Muye asked, "Why do you always like saying those lines?"
"Hey, who knows." Nangong Ye scratched his head, a look of pure, innocent foolishness in his eyes as he said, "I just couldn't help saying them."
"All right, fine, I get it, blame me." Liu Muye covered his face and muttered a self-deprecating remark under his breath.
After a moment, Liu Muye suddenly asked Nangong Ye, "Young Master Ye, do you make a habit of giving people checks when you've got nothing better to do?"
"I give out cash too, do you want some?" Nangong Ye said, blankly pulling a wallet out of his pocket.
"No—!" Liu Muye shouted, black lines of exasperation covering his forehead.
Nangong Ye thought about it and asked, "Why don't you call me Young Master Nangong?"
"Why should I call you Young Master Nangong?" Liu Muye shot right back.
Nangong Ye frowned in thought, then said, "Because everyone else calls me that."
Liu Muye immediately said, "Well, I like to be different. From now on, I'll call you Master Ye."
Nangong Ye nodded. "That works too. Then I'll call you Little Ye from now on."
"Get lost." Liu Muye immediately retorted, "Even if my family isn't as rich as your Nangong Family, I'm still a rich second-generation heir at least. The least you could do is call me Master Ye!"
"Master Ye?" Nangong Ye considered it and said, "That works too, Master Ye it is. Come to think of it, you're the first peer I've ever used an honorific for."
Looking at Nangong Ye, who exuded an indescribable, goofy foolishness, Liu Muye suddenly realized a problem—back when he was writing his book, he had been so focused on depicting how awesome the male lead was that the real-life Nangong Ye in the story now behaved like a little child when facing other people or situations... way too naive?
Aside from being naive, sometimes he was also exceptionally ridiculous.
……