Long Aotian took out his phone and glanced at it, thinking it was a message from his three buddies.
But when he saw the friend request notification with the name [Han Xiaojing] in the comments below, he couldn’t help but look up at her.
Feeling his gaze, Han Xiaojing said softly, "We’ve known each other for so long, but I still don’t have you on QQ. If I come across any good food worth trying, I’d like to recommend it to you too."
Han Xiaojing had always been quiet and reserved, so her words might have seemed ordinary coming from anyone else. But hearing them from her, everyone turned to look.
Shen Mengjie, Zhang Mengmeng, and Wang Lijuan weren’t too surprised—as Han Xiaojing’s roommates, they knew she had a bit of a crush on Long Aotian.
Huang Fei and Xu Shuai, however, focused their attention on Li Longlong instead.
Seeing this, the last flicker of hope in Li Longlong’s heart finally faded.
He gave Long Aotian a wry smile, then took a deep breath.
Back when they’d had drinks in the dorm, Li Longlong had already sensed that Han Xiaojing only saw him as a friend.
He’d mentally prepared himself for this—after all, it had always been one-sided.
It wasn’t like just because he liked her, she had to like him back.
No wonder she’d always asked, "Who else is coming?" whenever he invited her out...
Now it was clear—Han Xiaojing had liked Long Aotian from the start.
"What are you looking at me for?" Li Longlong nudged Long Aotian with his shoulder and grinned. "Whether I get to eat good food from now on depends on your intel!"
"Rain or shine, I’ll be waiting for you in the clay pot soup shop!" Long Aotian replied.
The phrase "waiting in the clay pot soup shop" struck everyone as oddly hilarious, and they burst out laughing.
The shift in mood filled the private room with cheerful energy.
Han Xiaojing smiled faintly when she saw Long Aotian accept her friend request on his phone.
Shen Mengjie rested her chin on her hand, amused by how effortlessly Long Aotian had lightened the mood.
As for Huang Fei’s attempts to impress her, she neither rejected nor encouraged him, leaving him plenty of room to fantasize.
By the end of the meal, Huang Fei felt like he’d made progress—though in reality, nothing had changed.
"I’ll walk you guys back," he offered.
"Get lost, I’m taking my Lijuan home," Xu Shuai cut in.
"What do you mean, your Lijuan?" Wang Lijuan pinched his ear.
At this rate, it was clear Xu Shuai was doomed to four years of being henpecked—not that he seemed to mind.
As they left, Shen Mengjie shot Long Aotian a meaningful glance, which he pretended not to notice.
"Regrets are common, but at least you tried, right?" Long Aotian said.
"Thanks. I was fine until you said that—now it feels like I’ve been stabbed," Li Longlong joked.
He glanced at Han Xiaojing’s retreating figure. "You know, I could see how this would end from the very beginning. Believe it or not."
"But like you said—how could I not try?"
Everyone liked pretty girls. Shen Mengjie and Han Xiaojing were the most sought-after in their class.
"I took my shot. If it worked out, great. If not, no skin off my back."
"Damn, that’s some wisdom right there!" Long Aotian clapped him on the shoulder.
Li Longlong sighed. "I’ve just temporarily lost the ability to love..."
Just then, a group of people walked past.
Li Longlong’s eyes locked onto one of them—a senior girl in denim shorts. "Wait... I think I’ve regained the ability to love."
With that, he jogged after her.
"Hey, senior! Can I get your number...?"
Watching Li Longlong’s sudden rebound, Long Aotian couldn’t help but laugh. The best way to get over a failed crush was clearly to start a new one.
Back in the dorm, Huang Fei and Xu Shuai returned soon after, roughhousing as usual.
"Shh!" Long Aotian signaled for them to keep quiet.
The two glanced at Li Longlong, who was sitting on his bed, and lowered their voices.
"What’s going on?"
Long Aotian waved them over and whispered, "He's deep in conversation with a senior sister."
Huang Fei and Xu Shuai finally realized they’d been fooled—Long Aotian and Li Longlong had played them.
"You little—nice one!"
Li Longlong didn’t even try to hide it. "Just met her today. Found out she’s single too!"
"Now that’s the legendary Love King Li Longlong we know," Xu Shuai teased.
"Oh, by the way, Long Aotian, what was it you wanted to tell me earlier?" Seeing that Li Longlong was fine—in fact, in better shape than expected—he turned to Long Aotian and asked.
Hearing this, Long Aotian straightened up and said seriously, "About this matter, I just want to share what I saw."
He then recounted what he had witnessed the previous day: seeing Shen Mengjie at the KTV and later spotting her again on the food street.
After Long Aotian finished speaking, the dorm fell so silent you could hear a pin drop.
"Long Aotian, are you sure you didn’t mistake her for someone else?" Huang Fei sounded incredulous, but when he saw the gravity in Long Aotian’s eyes, he sat down on his bed and lit a cigarette.
Xu Shuai chimed in, surprised, "So when you brought up the KTV and the clay pot soup in the private room, you were actually hinting at Shen Mengjie?"
"Maybe those two guys were just admirers? Shen Mengjie is pretty, after all," Huang Fei muttered to himself.
Long Aotian had no intention of delving further into the topic.
As roommates and brothers, he felt obligated to share what he knew without hiding anything.
But the final decision still rested entirely with Huang Fei.
Just then, his phone vibrated in his pocket.
Long Aotian pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
Han Xiaojing: [Long Aotian, let’s meet at the sports field.]
After a moment’s thought, he agreed.
Han Xiaojing’s behavior today had given him a hint of something.
Though they were classmates, they had barely spoken to each other.
Their only two private encounters had been brief and uneventful.
But whether his instincts were right or not, he wanted to clarify things upfront—for his own sake, for his little follower’s, and for Han Xiaojing’s as well.
"I’m heading out for a bit," he said before leaving the dorm and making his way toward the sports field.
On the last day of the holiday, the field was nearly empty.
"Long Aotian."
Hearing the voice, Long Aotian turned toward its source. "Shen Mengjie?"
[To generate electricity, the vulture kneels in gratitude—love you all.]
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!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
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?!
