Almost the instant Xu Yu finished speaking, Tan Yin let go of her hand at lightning speed.
Beneath Ten Thousand: The Temptation of the Campus Hunk dropped to the floor with a thud, and Chu Hang stepped out from behind the screen.
Tan Yin arranged her expression into the most natural smile she could manage. “Chu Hang, you’re back?”
Chu Hang’s expression was extremely unpleasant. He picked up the fallen manuscript and looked at Tan Yin with unsettling calm. “Anything else you’d like to say?”
Faced with such a presence, Tan Yin didn’t flinch at all. She put on an innocent face. “Say about what?”
“This comic. Explain it.”
Tan Yin looked blank. “What’s that thing in your hand? A comic? What comic? I need to go to room 107 — did I walk into the wrong room? Why don’t you two chat, I’ll just be going!”
Xu Yu couldn’t take it anymore. “Isn’t this literally what you drew? We just caught you red-handed and you’re still trying to deny it?”
“How was it ‘red-handed’? The comic was just on the floor — that’s not proof it’s mine. I’m just a passerby who accidentally walked into the wrong room, I—”
“Of course I drew it! If I weren’t broke, I wouldn’t be selling it at all!”
Before Tan Yin could finish arguing her way out, she heard her own voice playing from Chu Hang’s phone. He stared at her, deep and unblinking, and said flatly, “I recorded it. Tan Yin, I suggest you be honest.”
“…”
Faced with the ironclad evidence, Tan Yin completely deflated.
Chu Hang tossed the comic down in front of her, and of all the terrible luck, it landed open on a rather suggestive image — several disheveled figures tangled together, and the young man pinned beneath had a small mole on his left collarbone…
Chu Hang frowned, seeming to strain with everything he had to suppress the urge to explode. He stared hard at Tan Yin. “You’re a girl — how could you draw something this vulgar!”
Tan Yin explained, “It’s not that vulgar, look — I mosaic-blurred all the critical parts, there’s no actual nudity, and the last few steps are left entirely to the reader’s imagination. I actually consulted a friend from the law school — this comic doesn’t break any laws. Some scenes just tease right up to the line, using stream-of-consciousness techniques, leaving things blank… You know the ‘lights out’ trick? Where two people take off their clothes and lie down on the bed, turn off the light, and then the next panel is the next morning…”
Chu Hang stared at Tan Yin, feeling his good upbringing was about to reach its limit.
“I have no interest in whether you tease the line or not. I just want you to explain why the male lead shares my exact name.”
“Your name isn’t that unique. Go check the national name registry — there are 28 people named Chu Hang in our city alone. And look, in the very first Ni Yin Qi Le Wo De Zhu Yi – Chapter of my comic I wrote a disclaimer: ‘This story is entirely fictional; any resemblance is purely coincidental,’ and I even bolded in red ‘No real-life inspiration, please do not self-insert’…” Tan Yin laughed dryly. “So, relevant parties, please don’t project yourselves onto it, hahaha.”
Chu Hang was so furious he actually laughed, a cold, bitter sound. He gave up being angry and instead smiled faintly. “Since there’s no real-life inspiration, then I’ll just take this to our department head and let him enjoy it too.”
“No—” The moment the department head was mentioned, Tan Yin completely wilted. “Don’t do that. We’re classmates after all, I can’t afford to fail his Structural Mechanics course this year…”
“You still remember we’re classmates? And you drew this?”
“I… I just… last year, after I chased you so hard and you rejected me so mercilessly, I suffered a deep emotional wound, and in my heartbreak I lost control and did something crazy… Can you just consider it a temporary bout of psychosis on my part?”
Chu Hang couldn’t even manage a cold laugh anymore. He stared at her, enunciating each word. “So, in the end, you drawing this — you’re saying it traces back to being my fault?”
Tan Yin, reading the room carefully, ventured, “You could put it that way?”
Chu Hang seemed about to say something, but the moment his gaze swept over the manuscript again, he pulled it away as if burned, his expression turning even colder and grimmer.
He reached out and, gritting his teeth, closed the manuscript, then flung it at Xu Yu as if disposing of something filthy.
“Tan Yin, I don’t want to see this thing serialized on the campus forum anymore.” Chu Hang’s voice was cold, full of warning. “Not if you don’t want to fail Structural Mechanics.”
Tan Yin was practically on the verge of tears. She tried to negotiate. “What if I just change the main character’s name and keep serializing it?”
“Not a chance.” Chu Hang glanced at her expression, his voice cold. “Not only is changing the name and continuing off the table — whatever else you’re thinking right now, none of it’s happening either.”
“I haven’t even said what I’m thinking, how do you already know it’s a no?”
“Weren’t you just thinking about snatching the manuscript back right now and making a run for it, then denying everything afterward?”
“…”
Under Chu Hang’s gaze, Tan Yin felt somewhat exposed and embarrassed — was her intention really that obvious?
Chu Hang glanced at her still-casted left leg. “Go ahead and try. Let’s see who’s faster — you or me.”
Tan Yin was utterly withered.
Xu Yu, meanwhile, had become fixated on Tan Yin’s cast. “What happened to your leg? Is it broken?”
Just as Tan Yin was about to answer, particularly attention-grabbing gossip drifted over from the next room —
“By the way, did you hear? Tan Yin jumped off a building and broke her leg!”
In this room, Xu Yu immediately shot Tan Yin an alarmed look. “Jumped off a building?”
Tan Yin was about to explain when the neighboring room continued —
“I know, right? Wasn’t it because of Chu Hang that she jumped?”
Facing the impossible-to-describe look Chu Hang was now giving her, Tan Yin immediately protested. “That’s not true! I did not jump for you! I swear it! That’s a rumor!”
The conversation next door continued in perfect sync, another girl’s voice chiming in: “No way, jumping off a building just because she couldn’t win him over? I don’t buy it. Must be a rumor.”
“I know there’s a lot of gossip going around school, but this one’s confirmed true. You know Jiang Yilu, right? Tan Yin’s best friend? I know her, and last time I heard it straight from her mouth — Tan Yin jumped because of a man. Wasn’t she chasing Chu Hang? Makes sense if you think about it — Chu Hang’s just too perfect, and Tan Yin liked him so much, once she couldn’t win him over she probably just fell apart emotionally, got stuck on it, tormented over love…”
“…”
Chu Hang said nothing, only staring coldly at Tan Yin.
In this mortifying moment, all Tan Yin wanted was to run back and strangle Jiang Yilu.
“As the person actually involved, let me set the record straight right now — that’s not true. Chu Hang, I’ve already let go of that whole thing…” Tan Yin stammered. “Believe me, I don’t have any improper feelings for you anymore. I’m a very laid-back person, I was just casually chasing you, and when it didn’t work out, I let it go — life’s full of disappointment, I get it…”
Tan Yin explained herself over and over, but the way Chu Hang looked at her now carried, beyond wariness of being clung to, a hint of subtle pity.
He glanced at her once more and finally pressed his handsome lips together. “I hate it most when people use death as leverage, using something like jumping off a building for emotional blackmail. Don’t think that some attention-seeking stunt like jumping is going to catch my attention.”
“And don’t think drawing that kind of comic will catch my attention either.” Chu Hang looked coldly at Tan Yin. “Tan Yin, I’d advise you to give up.”
With that, as if fleeing a virus, unwilling to stay near her even one more second, he walked straight out of the room.
Xu Yu, manuscript in hand, followed close behind. But before leaving, he shot Tan Yin a sympathetic look and offered some earnest advice: “Try to think positive. Fall for someone else.”
“…”
Tan Yin watched, stunned, as the two of them left, her insides practically screaming. And to make matters worse, more gossip drifted in from next door —
“I also heard something else about Tan Yin — that because she kept pestering Chu Hang, heaven punished her, and she got struck by lightning during a rainstorm.”
“Okay, that one’s definitely fake. That’s way too ridiculous to be real. Besides, Tan Yin’s still up and about — she doesn’t look like someone who got struck by lightning. I mean, sure, unlucky people do get struck sometimes in the rain, but what are the odds?”
“True, hahaha, this gossip really is too fake…”
Tan Yin listened, inwardly weeping. Right now, all she wanted to say was: You two next door have absolutely terrible judgment for what’s real and what’s fake. Me jumping off a building for Chu Hang — that’s fake! Me getting struck by lightning in a downpour due to sheer rotten luck — that’s real! And now, to make things even more miserable, she’d just been caught red-handed by Chu Hang himself!
Wait — remembering that she’d just been caught red-handed, Tan Yin suddenly snapped to attention, and, no longer wallowing in self-pity, chased limping out of the room. “Chu Hang! You took my manuscript — what about the five thousand yuan you promised me! We had a deal, cash in one hand, goods in the other!”
Endless.