Lu Xingyan couldn’t help but feel that Shen Xingruo was quite malicious. She always seemed to take pleasure in picking apart his words, relentlessly attacking and humiliating him. If someone with weaker psychological endurance were in his place, they might have fallen into depression long ago because of her.
However, it was also quite peculiar. Apart from when she was tearing him down, Shen Xingruo was quite friendly to others.
Lu Xingyan pondered for a moment—
Shen Xingruo only targeted him. That could be considered a unique form of special treatment. It also proved that his position was somewhat different. Hmm. Lu Xingyan convinced himself.
After about half an hour of droning on, Wang Youfu finally finished his speech. Then, with an extra burst of enthusiasm, he declared, “Summer vacation officially begins! I hope everyone can enjoy it to the fullest!”
The classmates in the class cheered and applauded.
This was followed by the sound of desks and chairs being moved around. Many students eagerly rushed off. Before Wang Youfu even left the classroom, he shot out like an arrow leaving the bowstring.
Lu Xingyan didn’t leave immediately. He watched as Shen Xingruo discussed the exam papers with others and made a phone call to the KTV they had booked in advance.
They had agreed before the exams that they would have a birthday celebration after they finished. Lu Xingyan had already booked the venue.
The general plan was to sing at KTV in the evening and then have a barbecue afterward. Many people had given gifts to him and Shen Xingruo, so naturally, they were all invited. Some couldn’t make it due to other commitments, but there were still quite a few who could come. There were over ten from Class One and five or six from Class Three, totaling around twenty people, most of whom were boys.
Having more boys had its advantages. As Chen Zhu put it, “This bunch of idiots might not excel academically, but they’re top-notch at livening up the atmosphere.”
Lu Xingyan had booked the KTV at Junyi Huazhang Hotel. The KTV space was spacious, elegantly decorated, and equipped with top-notch audio equipment. Originally, it wasn’t available for reservation by non-hotel guests. But after Pei Yueqiu exhausted his sister’s resources, Lu Xingyan had to send sincere greetings and plead poverty to his cousin Jiang Che through WeChat once a day for three days.
Jiang Che was always indulgent except towards his girlfriend. He disregarded Lu Xingyan’s pleading for money, but he thought there was nothing wrong with inviting classmates to sing on his birthday. So, amid his busy schedule, he managed to find a free place for Lu Xingyan to sing.
Junyi Huazhang was a five-star hotel with comprehensive entertainment facilities. It wouldn’t diminish his status as the young master of the Lu family. Of course, Jiang Che’s main concern was that the venue was clean.
High school students were naive and ignorant, simply put, they were a bunch of inexperienced rookies. Moreover, these rookies were quite arrogant, thinking they were very capable and loved to pick fights.
If they caused trouble in an unfamiliar place or got involved with something unclean, it would be very troublesome.
When these rookies arrived at Junyi Huazhang in the evening, it happened to be during a routine inspection by Cen Sen.
Cen Sen was the prince of Junyi and Jiang Che’s cousin.
Jiang Che exchanged greetings with Cen Sen, mentioning that his cousin and some classmates were coming to Junyi for karaoke. Cen Sen accepted the request but showed little interest in hosting a group of high school students.
Among the group, Cen Sen only knew Lu Xingyan. He exchanged a few words with Lu Xingyan before instructing the lobby manager to take care of things. Then, he was surrounded by his assistant secretaries and headed toward the private elevator.
The girls were initially stunned by this display of grandeur. Once they regained their senses, their inner fangirls went wild—
“Is that Lu Xingyan’s brother? He’s so handsome!”
“A living CEO!”
“Yes, exactly! From now on, when I read novels, I’ll have a specific image of the domineering CEO!”
“Someone just called him ‘General Sen’, and Lu Xingyan called him ‘Sen Brother’, so is his name Cen Sen?”
“Cen Sen was a frontier poet, right? We even had his poetry in the Chinese exam.”
“Why do you have to ruin the mood by mentioning exams?”
The girls discussed among themselves, but they were too embarrassed to ask Lu Xingyan directly.
However, Chen Zhu wasn’t afraid of Lu Xingyan. She boldly approached him, her eyes filled with hearts as she grabbed him and asked, “Who was that just now? You called him ‘Sen Brother’?! Why didn’t you introduce me to such a handsome brother of yours? Are you even human?”
“…Shut up. I’m not that close to him.” Lu Xingyan sized up Chen Zhu. “He’s just my cousin’s friend, and he’s at least ten years older than you.”
“Is age an issue?”
Seeing through the nature of these girls, Xu Chengzhou, with his hands in his pockets, poured cold water on them. “I think money is the issue. They’re surrounded by a bunch of assistant secretaries, all frantic like they’ve lost their souls.”
Chen Zhu turned around, correcting him seriously, “No! Money isn’t the issue! Looks are the issue!”
Lu Xingyan didn’t know where to start rolling his eyes and inadvertently glanced at Shen Xingruo.
Shen Xingruo seemed engrossed in conversation with Shi Qin, discussing something quite seriously.
He glanced at Shi Qin again—
That fangirl expression on her face, she was probably talking about Cen Sen too.
When Shen Xingruo walked over, he casually greeted her, “Hey,” then asked as if it were nothing, “Do you like guys like him too?”
“What?” Shen Xingruo didn’t catch on at first. After a moment, she thought about it and replied, “You mean your brother, right? Rich, good-looking, and intelligent, girls like that.”
“…Why do you think he’s intelligent?”
“Isn’t he the boss of Junyi? A boss shouldn’t score less than 400 in the college entrance exam.”
Here we go again.
Lu Xingyan quickly raised his hand to stop her, “Alright, let’s not talk about it. Just wait for Shen Xingruo. I’m sure I can score 400 points on this final exam.”
“But even if you score 400 points, it doesn’t mean you’re highly intelligent or that all girls like you,” Shen Xingruo interjected.
Lu Xingyan interpreted her words differently—scoring 400 points didn’t mean she would like him either.
Sure enough, Shen’s heart-piercing words might be delayed, but they would never be absent.
As they entered the private room, carts filled with beer and snacks were pushed in, followed by someone carrying a box of board games.
Li Chengfan flipped through them and casually said to the manager, “No poker? Bring a deck of cards, sis.”
The lobby manager, dressed immaculately in a work uniform with a smile as precise as her posture, responded, “Mr. Cen instructed that Master Lu and his classmates are young, so today, in celebration of the birthday, you can drink a case of beer. Later, we’ll also serve some good wine. However, hard liquor, cigarettes, poker, and mahjong, anything related to gambling, are not allowed.”
“What??”
“Damn it…!”
It was unbelievable.
All the boys’ eyes turned to Lu Xingyan one after another. Lu Xingyan was also taken aback. Could it be?
Why didn’t Jiang Che say anything earlier?
He looked back at Jiang Che, who had a clear message written in his eyes: I didn’t know either.
If it were his usual outing with friends and he was being told what to do like this, he would leave and find another place to hang out. After all, who’s the boss when he has money? But things were different now. Damn, wasn’t it because he didn’t have money…?
On the other hand, Shen Xingruo picked up a set of board game cards and suddenly spoke up, “We have the cards for Werewolf, I heard it’s fun. Do any of you know how to play?”
Joke.
Besides studying, what couldn’t they do??
When Shen, the goddess, spoke, the boys didn’t care about poker, mahjong, or hard liquor anymore. They all crowded around to offer their services.
As one of the female fan leaders, Chen Zhu naturally rushed to the forefront of offering her services. Taking advantage of her gender, she squeezed in beside Shen Xingruo and inadvertently pushed Shen Xingruo towards Lu Xingyan.
In an instant, the distance between Shen Xingruo and Lu Xingyan became very close.
Shen Xingruo felt that something was off, but before she could think it through, Chen Zhu started explaining the rules of Werewolf to her.
Lu Xingyan, who was sitting there feeling a bit dejected, suddenly received a blessing. He remained silent for several seconds.
The dress Shen Xingruo was wearing tonight had a small gap between the hem and her knees when she sat down. With the two of them sitting so close, they could feel the warmth from each other’s legs.
Pretending nothing had happened, Lu Xingyan enjoyed the proximity while chatting with Xu Chengzhou, Li Chengfan, and the others.
Zhao Langming was the KTV DJ, and he had already selected seven or eight songs while everyone was distracted. After finishing his selection, he picked up the microphone and cleared his throat.
Standing upright like a soldier, he slightly leaned forward and solemnly announced, “Ahem, the first song of the night, ‘Friends’! Dedicated to all the friends and family here tonight, thank you for coming to my concert at Star City Station!”
After Zhao Langming finished his grand bow, most of the girls, unfamiliar with his singing, thought he was joking and politely applauded. Li Chengfan, however, sensed trouble the moment Zhao bowed and quickly grabbed the microphone, gesturing to stop him, “Hey, hey, hey, Master Lang, let’s have a chat instead of singing!”
Xu Chengzhou also grabbed a microphone, “Still ‘Friends’? Lang, if you sing it, we won’t be friends anymore!”
But nothing could stop the KTV Reaper from harvesting fresh lives with his singing. Several boys couldn’t bear to interrupt his heartfelt performance and occupied the song selection station, crazily requesting songs and pushing all his remaining songs to the bottom of the queue.
Meanwhile, Chen Zhu finished explaining the rules of Werewolf. Shen Xingruo, barely keeping up, strained to understand. She might have grasped it due to her better comprehension skills, but even Lu Xingyan, sitting next to her and supposedly familiar with the game, struggled to understand Chen Zhu’s convoluted explanations. At one point, he wanted Chen Zhu to stop blabbering and let him explain.
With everyone preoccupied, singing continued and the tabletop games started swiftly, enhancing the atmosphere.
It was Shen Xingruo’s first time playing Werewolf. Before she could even start, as a police officer, she was slaughtered by Lu Xingyan, the werewolf, the next morning. Her intuition told her it was Lu Xingyan, so she left a dying message to hunt him down before dying a glorious death.
Li Chengfan randomly selected a bunch of songs, mostly from popular playlists, some of which nobody wanted to sing. When he jumped to a light-hearted song, “The Inner Workings of My Heart When I Fell in Love with You,” he casually asked the girls, “Does anyone know this? If not, I’ll skip it.”
Shen Xingruo looked up, “I’ll do it.”
She was not someone shy or hesitant to sing in front of others. With nothing else to do after being killed, she conveniently picked up the microphone from the table and started singing while sitting on the soft couch.
“In the damp carriage of September…”
“Damn it…”
“Who’s singing?”
As soon as she sang the first line, everyone raised their heads and turned to look at her.
Especially Lu Xingyan, sitting beside her, listened attentively.
With her usual cold voice, singing such a light-hearted song, the pure, clean feeling was amplified, and her voice sounded exceptionally bright and pure.
It was simply breathtaking.
“Lu Xingyan, you’re speaking now, you’re speaking!”
Someone urged him.
Lu Xingyan snapped out of it, weakly made a few excuses, and then—
Unanimously voted to be killed by the ballot.
But he didn’t care at all now!
“Look at the direction of nine o’clock,
Are the houses by Lake Geneva expensive?”
Not expensive! Buy, buy, buy!!! Immediately instruct Jinsheng to develop real estate by Lake Geneva!!!
“Among the seven thousand places in the world,
Where shall we settle down?”
Anywhere you want! Live wherever you want!! Money can’t buy your happiness!!!
—Lu Xingyan maintained a calm expression on his face, taking a sip of beer from his glass, while his mind was going wild with excitement.