It's such a hassle

In the blink of an eye, the military training was nearing its end. Lin Yu, now tanned to the color of soy sauce, didn’t even dare to go out at night.

He was genuinely afraid it would be like that comedy skit—if he grinned in the dark, people might mistake his teeth for floating ghosts.

Lin Yu actually had plenty of ways to protect himself from the sun, but he hadn’t used a single one.

Not only that, during breaks, he would deliberately find a quiet spot to lie down and bask in the sunlight.

If I get really dark, maybe those random people will stop trying to strike up conversations with me, Lin Yu thought as he walked out of the supermarket, carrying a bottle of sweetened drink.

"Hey, handsome!"

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Lin Yu instinctively turned around. Standing before him was a delicate girl with an oval face, almond-shaped eyes, willow-leaf brows, and a sweet smile. She wore a white spaghetti-strap dress, her voice crisp and cheerful as she asked:

"Interested in joining our club?"

Lin Yu frowned. He hadn’t expected to still get approached even after tanning himself to this extent.

Just as he was about to refuse, his shoulder was tapped again.

Turning back with a scowl, he saw another girl—same oval face, same almond eyes, same willow-leaf brows, same white spaghetti-strap dress—standing there, her voice just as sweet as she repeated:

"Interested in joining our club?"

"Handsome?"

????????

For a moment, Lin Yu’s head was practically bursting with question marks.

He whipped his head back and forth several times before finally confirming—these were twins.

Not a ghost encounter!

The two girls, identical in appearance, outfit, and even hairstyle, linked arms, shoulders pressed together, tilting their heads toward each other as they faced Lin Yu. Like mirror images, they asked in unison:

"Handsome, interested in joining our club?"

After a brief moment of shock, Lin Yu shook his head and rejected them just like he had with all the other women who’d approached him:

"Not interested."

"Huh?"

"Why?"

"You didn’t even ask what kind of club it is!"

"Are you really gonna reject us just like that?"

The two girls took turns speaking, their words flowing seamlessly as if they shared one mind. Paired with their flawlessly matching beauty, any man with even a hint of interest would’ve found them irresistibly quirky and adorable.

But Lin Yu genuinely had no such thoughts.

Not even a sliver.

All he felt was that they were noisy.

His indifference stemmed from two things: first, his heart already belonged to someone, and second, he was always wary of these inexplicably forward beauties. He couldn’t shake the fear that, somehow, he’d fall victim to fate’s tricks again.

"Whatever club it is, I’m not interested."

"Go find someone else."

Lin Yu waved them off and turned to leave.

"Come on~"

"Come on~"

Refusing to give up, the twins hurried after him, their voices pleading:

"Handsome, just do us this favor!"

"Do us this favor~"

"Do us this favor!"

This time, their speaking pattern was even more amusing—the one on the left spoke first, while the one on the right dragged out the latter half of the sentence, repeating it twice like an echo. It sounded like both a spoiled tone and an emphatic reinforcement.

Adorable, admittedly.

"Just join our club! We promise there won’t be any annoying activities later!" the left twin continued.

"Annoying~"

"Annoying!" the right twin chimed in, repeating the last word again.

Their ridiculous antics nearly made Lin Yu burst out laughing.

He glanced at the right twin and noticed the left one glaring at her sister, eyes narrowed in warning.

Clearly, the right twin was just messing around.

She stuck out her pink tongue playfully at her sister, then suddenly lunged toward Lin Yu’s chest.

"Handsome, save me!"

"My sister’s about to lose her—"

Her words cut off abruptly as Lin Yu’s tanned hand pressed against her soft, petite face, holding her at arm’s length.

"Go find a cop. Whether your sister loses her temper or not isn’t my problem."

"Let me make this clear one last time."

"I have zero interest in joining any clubs right now, and even if I did, it wouldn’t be yours."

"Stop bothering me."

"Got it?"

Without waiting for a response, Lin Yu turned and walked away.

This time, the twins didn’t chase after him. They stood frozen, staring blankly as his figure grew smaller, eventually disappearing from sight.

Simultaneously, they turned to face each other.

The right twin—the younger sister—was the first to speak, grumbling:

"He didn’t even waver a little?"

"Is he gay or something?"

The left twin—the older sister—frowned slightly. She glanced once more in the direction Lin Yu had vanished, uncertainty in her voice:

"Probably not."

"Doesn’t he have a girlfriend already?"

"Oh my god!" the younger sister gasped, also turning to look where Lin Yu had gone. Her tone was almost wistful as she murmured:

"So there really are men out there who don’t stray?"

"He rejected us so firmly."

"Didn’t even leave room for negotiation."

After a pause, she turned back to her sister and whispered:

"Sis, do you think he was just pretending?"

The older sister’s eyes dimmed for a fleeting moment, as if recalling something. Softly, she murmured:

"Who knows?"

"..."

...

"You got so much darker."

During their nightly video call from the dorm, Xia Muzhu couldn’t help but laugh at Lin Yu’s now pitch-black complexion, though her voice also carried a hint of concern:

"Did you not use sunscreen during training?"

"Nope." Lin Yu shook his head honestly.

"Why not?" Xia Muzhu asked, baffled.

"Your skin’s sunburned."

Lin Yu hesitated. He didn’t dare tell her he’d deliberately avoided sunscreen to deter unwanted attention from women.

"Uh…"

"Didn’t like how it felt," he lied, improvising an excuse.

"With all the sweating, the sunscreen just made my face sticky. Uncomfortable."

"Oh…" Xia Muzhu nodded, not suspecting anything else.

Exhausted from the day, Lin Yu had already washed up and was lying in bed, chatting with Xia Muzhu.

She, however, was still at the dining table, seemingly having just finished dinner with Xia Yueshan.

Mid-conversation, a small head popped into the edge of the screen. The moment the face saw Lin Yu, it lost all composure, teeth gleaming in an unrestrained grin.

"Holy crap!"

"Are you at college or what?"

"Did someone trick you into working in a coal mine or something?"

Lin Yu shot Xia Yueshan an unamused side-eye. Noticing the dishes still on the table, he immediately assigned a task:

"Go clean up the table for me!"