This time, it was Gu Ximan’s turn to be hit by a nuclear bomb of shock.
What had she just heard?
What tradition?
Being the "smaller one"? What did that even mean?
A mistress?
A second wife?
Were they even living in the same era?
"Wait... wait a minute... Xuexue, what did you just say?" Gu Ximan wondered if the sheer embarrassment from earlier had caused her to hallucinate.
After all, even if the two of them were inseparable best friends, sharing the same man was beyond the pale.
"I said... Sister Ximan... I’m actually quite traditional. I’m willing to be the smaller one," Lu Xuexue forced out, doubling down despite the awkwardness.
Her white-stocking-clad legs curled into adorable question marks under the table.
"I... you..."
Gu Ximan’s brain was buzzing like a beehive.
She noticed the sunlight gilding the tips of Lu Xuexue’s hair, the hum of the air conditioner suddenly deafening, even the cloyingly sweet scent of lemon-scented hand cream on the nightstand—every sensory detail amplified tenfold by her shock.
Gu Ximan had imagined countless scenarios for today’s meeting with Lu Xuexue.
They might have a calm heart-to-heart, sharing their feelings. They might part on bad terms over irreconcilable differences. She’d even braced herself for accusations, for their friendship to shatter beyond repair.
But out of all possibilities, she’d never anticipated things taking such a bizarre turn.
"Sister Ximan, as long as you let me stay close to Brother Gu Luo, I’ll listen to you in everything. Really. You take the lead, I’ll follow," Lu Xuexue declared, her tone a mix of determination and pleading.
Right now, her priority was to stabilize Ximan.
No matter what, she couldn’t afford to compete with her.
The odds were stacked hopelessly against her.
Better to retreat strategically and aim for a happy ending for all.
As for Brother Gu Luo, Lu Xuexue would never willingly share him with another girl—unless that girl was her best friend, Gu Ximan. In that case, she could make an exception.
Worst-case scenario, the three of them could just live happily ever after together.
"Xuexue, do you even hear yourself right now?"
Gu Ximan was at her limit. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined her sweet, innocent best friend being this "traditional."
Willing to share a man.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—or just cry some more.
Hearing this, Lu Xuexue nodded earnestly. "I know what I’m saying. It’s not illegal, you know."
"......"
Gu Ximan’s lips twitched violently, rendered speechless.
Oh Xuexue, if your lawyer parents knew you were applying legal knowledge like this, they’d be so proud... not!
"Please, Sister Ximan? Pretty please?"
Seeing Gu Ximan’s silence, Lu Xuexue grabbed her arm and started shaking it, dialing up the puppy-dog eyes to maximum.
She looked downright pitiful.
"This... this..."
Gu Ximan squirmed, wishing Lu Xuexue would just yell at her instead of subjecting her to this torture.
As the saying goes, you don’t hit someone who’s smiling at you.
Add guilt to the mix, and outright refusal became impossible.
Noticing Gu Ximan’s hesitation, Lu Xuexue’s eyes lit up. She pressed her advantage:
"Ximan, the line of girls who like Brother Gu Luo could stretch across Caizhou. If we team up, it’d be a classic case of one plus one being greater than two."
"Honestly, what guy would say no to having both of us, right?"
"Besides, we’re best friends."
With every word, Gu Ximan’s already sluggish brain short-circuited further.
At first glance, it almost made sense.
But upon closer inspection—
No.
No no no!
Gu Ximan shook her head, her expression a masterpiece of conflicted emotions.
"Let me think about this..."
Lu Xuexue immediately stood up, circled behind her, and started massaging her shoulders. "No rush, Ximan. Take your time. We’ve got all the time in the world."
"A week, a month—I’ll wait however long it takes."
This strategic retreat worked like a charm.
Gu Ximan, who’d planned to delay briefly before outright refusing, found herself tongue-tied again.
How could she say no when Xuexue was being this accommodating?
Aaaaaaaaaah—!
This wasn’t how the script was supposed to go!
After an internal struggle of epic proportions, Gu Ximan collapsed weakly into Lu Xuexue’s arms, murmuring with closed eyes:
"Just call me Ximan from now on."
Lu Xuexue’s heart plummeted. She panicked, thinking this was a rejection.
But then Gu Ximan added:
"As for what you proposed... I need time to consider it."
"But until I give my answer, you’re not allowed near Gu Luo without my permission."
Against all odds, the path forward suddenly cleared.
"Ximan, you’re the best!" Lu Xuexue squealed, her cheeks flushing with excitement as she planted a loud "Mwah!" on Gu Ximan’s face.
The hardest part was getting started.
But now that the first step was taken, the rest would follow naturally.
Lu Xuexue knew that in this game of love, securing Ximan meant securing Brother Gu Luo.
This was a strategy only she had discovered.
A masterstroke she dubbed—Leverage Ximan to Control Brother Gu!
............
............
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
