A little over twenty minutes later, Yu Qingxue finally finished her shower.

“There are spare towels in the drawer.”

Gao Sijin stared fixedly at the computer screen, not daring to cross the line in the slightest.

“It’s fine. I used the blue towel.”

“Qingxue, that’s my towel…”

“What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is still mine.”

“What are you, Fat Tiger?”

Bathed in the bathroom light, she must have looked like a lotus fresh from the water—radiant and breathtakingly beautiful.

Gao Sijin could practically picture her nearly perfect S-shaped figure, bare shoulders exposed and her smooth back gleaming. If a woman that beautiful were really by her side, she’d never need to spend all day trawling the group chat for spicy pictures.

Her snow-white feet stepped onto Gao Sijin’s floor. Gao Sijin had even set out a pair of spare slippers for her, but she seemed to prefer walking barefoot.

“Can’t you put your slippers on?”

Gao Sijin glanced at her feet, then quickly looked away.

At that moment, Yu Qingxue was wearing nothing but Gao Sijin’s blue towel.

“Why should I? Your floor’s spotless.”

“It’s still a floor, though.”

“I’ll do what I want.”

Yu Qingxue walked up behind Gao Sijin and looked at the computer screen.

Gao Sijin was playing League of Legends.

“You boys really do all like playing games.”

A droplet slid down her beautiful dark hair and landed on the back of Gao Sijin’s hand. The icy touch made Gao Sijin shiver and throw off her ultimate.

The enemy bot lane immediately counterattacked. Without their ultimate advantage, Gao Sijin’s team crumbled in an instant, and the enemy traded one kill for four. With zero kills and four deaths, Yasuo started flaming right away.

“I died. This is all your fault.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me to stay?”

“You should head home early. You can see for yourself—I’ve only got one bed. If my place were any bigger, if I had a guest room or even just a sofa, I’d invite you to stay the night.”

Gao Sijin looked helplessly at the cramped little place she rented, not even forty square meters. It was almost pitifully shabby.

She sat on Gao Sijin’s bed, smiling as she said:

“Then you can stay over at my place. It’s pretty big, and my PC has a 4080 Ti. Games run perfectly smoothly.”

Incidentally, Gao Sijin’s graphics card was a secondhand one from four years ago. She’d agonized for three whole days before buying it.

“No. I’m not going to your place.”

“Are you afraid I’ll eat you?”

“It’s anyone’s guess who’d eat whom. You’re just a college student in your twenties, while I’m already a working adult. Do you even know how much clout working adults have?”

Gao Sijin adjusted her imaginary glasses.

Then, in the mid-lane team fight, Gao Sijin landed a perfect ultimate on all five enemies. Yasuo followed up with his own ultimate.

But after using her ultimate, Gao Sijin’s Malphite flashed away, leaving Yasuo alone and utterly bewildered.

And, naturally, they lost the game.

“I’m Challenger in League of Legends. If you come over, we can duo.”

“Qingxue, what do you even see in me? I don’t get it.”

“Does liking someone need a reason?”

“Is this a confession?”

“If you think it is, then it is.”

Yu Qingxue sat on the bed beside the bench.

“If this were a novel, a woman throwing herself at a guy like this would just put people off. We’ve barely been through anything together—we’ve only had one meal at a French restaurant. What makes you think you like me?”

“Sijin, this isn’t a novel. It’s real life. Sometimes reality is more absurd than fiction, because fiction follows a certain logic, while reality often makes no sense at all.”

“That’s a Mark Twain quote.”

Gao Sijin hadn’t expected Yu Qingxue, a woman who seemed like a queen, to say something like that.

“So you don’t need to feel uneasy about me having feelings for you. Why not just think of it as a little ripple in that stagnant life of yours?”

“Free lunches don’t fall from the sky. I’m afraid you’ll harvest my kidneys without anesthesia.” Gao Sijin took a bottle of barley tea from the fridge and tossed it to Yu Qingxue. “Now hurry up and go home.”

“You’re no fun. You won’t let me stay over, so I’m docking points from you.”

“Go ahead.”

There was no chance this relationship would work, so it was better to end it early. The time she saved could be spent writing more chapters—that was the priority.

A woman so perfect it was almost offensive was better left behind.

“I’ll ask you out again next week. Don’t you dare pretend you’re dead.”

“If you still remember me next week.”

“I’m leaving, then.”

“You’re not putting on those black stockings?”

Gao Sijin glanced at the patterned black stockings and asked.

“They’re a gift. Keep them and wear them yourself.”

“Like hell I will!”

Yu Qingxue left the apartment without looking back.

Once she was gone, Gao Sijin was alone again.

The word “perfect” was blindingly out of reach for a recent graduate earning just 3,000 a month.

She opened the author dashboard on her novel-writing site. Her royalties were still pitifully low.

“When you’re poor, you have to find a way out, Gao Sijin.”

Staring at the blank desktop, Gao Sijin ultimately decided to start another game.

One win, then she’d write.

…

…

Yu Qingxue ran a hand through her long black hair, tied it into a high ponytail, and got into her BMW i8.

She casually tossed her shoulder bag onto the back seat.

It held more than just a phone charger and an electric toothbrush. There were other little toys too: handcuffs, hallucinogens, black duct tape, syringes, a personal GPS tracker, a stun baton, and an assortment of other professional-grade equipment.

She took out the latest iPhone, made a call, and held it to her ear:

“Miss Yuexue, I’ve made contact with the target.”

“Thanks for your hard work, Qingxue. What does he seem like?”

“He’s not as mysterious as you made him sound. He just seems like an ordinary shut-in.”

Yu Qingxue crossed her long legs. The innocent yet alluring expression she’d worn around Gao Sijin was gone, replaced by a face as cold and emotionless as a machine.

“That’s because you don’t know him well enough. Why don’t you read more of his books?”

“Novels that use maids for self-indulgent fantasies? Sorry, I’m not interested.”

“Say that again and I’ll dock your pay.”

“It’s a masterpiece, but with my tastes as they are, I can’t quite appreciate it.”

A scornful sneer appeared at the corner of Yu Qingxue’s lips.

She couldn’t understand why Miss Yuexue would be so fond of someone as utterly ordinary as Gao Sijin.

With the Yuexue Conglomerate’s resources and Miss Yuexue’s own qualities, she could have her pick of the finest men in the world.

And yet she’d fallen in love with Gao Sijin.

It made no sense. None at all.

“He may be unknown, but he wrote twenty-five books over the course of his life. The characters in his books aren’t just props that exist to make things satisfying—they’re real, flesh-and-blood people. Thanks to him, I was able to find human emotion in this world that’s little better than garbage. I’m grateful he taught me how to smile and how to cry. He kept me company when I was lonely, and brought me back down to earth when I was feeling proud.” The voice on the other end of the phone paused. “Yu Qingxue, I love him. So no matter what, I’m going to make him mine. I want his body and soul to stay by my side forever, and I want to change his dull, boring, downright tragic life.”