“You…”

Gan Lan stared at him in a daze.

For a moment, she didn’t know how to respond.

“Let go!”

“No.”

The two of them quietly struggled against each other.

Several red marks stood out on her clean, pale ankle.

They somehow had a strangely sadistic beauty to them.

Ye Yubai coughed lightly and turned his face away, unable to look any longer.

The tips of his ears were a little red.

His confidence had faded, too.

“I paid for your treatment, so it’s only fair you let me rest my head on you.”

Even as he spoke, he slowly withdrew his hand.

What the hell.

They were both guys, so why was Gan Lan’s ankle so slender?

And the top of her foot was way too pale!

Ye Yubai’s thoughts started to wander.

He couldn’t tell whether something was wrong with Gan Lan or with him.

If there was nothing wrong with him, why did he keep paying so much attention to Gan Lan?

Gan Lan stopped trying to pull her foot away.

Mostly because she couldn’t outlast him.

They’d moved around so much just now that they’d nearly knocked over the congee.

One hand protected the bowl of congee, while she had to keep the other steady so she wouldn’t pull out her IV. She was stretched too thin to do anything else.

When she stopped resisting, Ye Yubai settled down against her foot, finding the most comfortable position.

With his weight pressing down on her like that, Gan Lan’s heart always felt like it was hanging in the balance.

“My foot’s going to go numb like this.” She muttered with some exasperation, “Can’t you just lean on a pillow?”

Ye Yubai pretended he hadn’t heard and closed his eyes to rest.

Gan Lan was completely helpless against him.

When she thought about it, Ye Yubai wasn’t wrong. He’d lent her three hundred yuan for her treatment and stayed with her in the hospital room. What was the big deal about letting him rest his head on her foot?

“This IV will make you sleepy. You should get some rest. I’ll keep an eye on things for you.”

While Gan Lan was lost in thought, Ye Yubai said this.

Gan Lan murmured, “Oh,” then slowly pulled up the blanket and covered herself.

“Why are you covering your head? Playing dead?”

Hearing Ye Yubai say that, Gan Lan angrily threw the blanket back.

Ye Yubai looked at her flushed face and suddenly burst out laughing.

“What are you laughing at!”

“Nothing.” Ye Yubai replied calmly, “I just think you’re kind of like a girl.”

As soon as she heard him say she was like a girl, Gan Lan’s heart leapt into her throat again.

Had he figured her out?

Ye Yubai glanced at her, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

“Too bad. If I hadn’t seen you naked, I could’ve still imagined you as a girl.”

Gan Lan pinched the corner of the blanket and lowered her eyes.

She was still uneasy.

So he still hadn’t figured it out.

“But now… sigh. It breaks my heart to think that someone this cute is actually a boy.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Gan Lan grabbed a pillow and threw it at him.

“Shut your mouth.”

…

Ye Yubai wasn’t exactly a gentleman.

Gan Lan had figured that much out.

After all that fooling around, Gan Lan couldn’t fall asleep anymore.

All she could do was crane her neck to the side and look at her phone.

What did a 25-year-old working adult do? Read the news, scroll through Weibo, scroll through Douyin.

But Douyin wasn’t popular yet at the time. Weibo was more popular.

Gan Lan opened Weibo and found her account from eight years ago.

She’d even picked an ID with an intensely melodramatic vibe: “Heartbroken Soul of Nancheng’s Old Dreams.” The profile picture matched, just as melodramatic.

What kind of taste did I have eight years ago? Gan Lan silently roasted her younger self, then used one hand to change her profile picture to a snowy landscape.

Now that she’d changed her profile picture, it was time to change her ID.

After graduating from college, Gan Lan had changed all her social media accounts to use the same ID: Light.

Simple, plain, and nothing to criticize.

She silently changed her ID to Light.

As she browsed the news, a keyword suddenly flashed past her eyes.

“Bitcoin?!”

Those three words made her sit straight up at once.

Ye Yubai, lying by her feet, jumped in surprise.

“What’s wrong?”

Gan Lan let out a breath.

“N-no… nothing…”

Well, it wasn’t exactly nothing.

She’d suddenly remembered that at this point in the year, Bitcoin hadn’t gone up in price yet. Each coin cost less than two dollars.

But before long…

Its value would skyrocket. In three years, it would climb from two dollars a coin to a peak of 2,920 dollars. Five or six years after that, it would reach 20,000 dollars a coin!

This was a sure bet!

But…

Right now, she and Ye Yubai were both broke students. Even at two dollars a coin, they couldn’t buy many.

And they didn’t even have a way to buy any!

Ye Yubai saw the grave look on her face and the cold sweat on her forehead, and his heart leapt into his throat.

“Are you feeling sick somewhere?”

“I’m really fine.”

Gan Lan habitually bit her finger, slowly lay back down, and started making plans in her head.

Ye Yubai gave her a strange look.

She so obviously looked like something was wrong!

She’d never been good at hiding what was on her mind. Whatever she felt showed right on her face.

But if she didn’t want to tell him, there was nothing he could do.

“If something’s wrong, remember to call me.”

“Mm.”

Gan Lan gave him a noncommittal answer.

But she thought that if she could pull off this investment, she’d be able to help Ye Yubai someday.

Then she wouldn’t have to just watch him struggle helplessly, like she had in her previous life.

…

By the time her IV was done, it was already noon.

Gan Lan had spent the whole morning thinking it over.

Then, all of a sudden, a promising candidate came to mind.

“Maybe I could talk to my cousin and ask her to help me buy some?”

Her cousin Li Li was a junior in college, majoring in computer science. She might be able to help.

“But before I buy any, I need to get the lottery ticket first.”

Gan Lan thought it over carefully.

In her previous life, the person who’d won that lottery ticket was a younger student at her university.

The lottery win had caused a huge stir across the whole school.

It was 20,000 yuan!

Twenty thousand yuan eight years ago went a lot further than it would eight years later.

For a while, business at the lottery ticket booth had been booming.

If I remember right, that third-prize ticket should be drawn three days from now! Gan Lan’s thoughts gradually became clearer.

She was determined to get that ticket.

After leaving the clinic, Gan Lan reminded Doctor Xu once more to get his liver function checked.

After she reminded him again and again, Doctor Xu started taking it seriously.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get it checked soon.”

Gan Lan nodded and casually said two words.

“Take care.”

…

Ye Yubai led her out and took her to a nearby ramen shop.

Once they were seated, he ordered two bowls of beef ramen.

While they waited for the ramen, Gan Lan brought it up again.

“We should go back to school this afternoon. Classes have been pretty intense lately. Don’t let your studies fall behind.”

Ye Yubai shrugged, looking unconcerned.

“Whatever you say.”