“Hiss~ Who hit me over the head? It hurts like hell...” Countless images flashed through Shen Guang’s dizzy mind.

He struggled to open his eyes. All he could see was white. The strong smell of disinfectant made Shen Guang furrow his brows, but then a splitting pain shot through his head.

Shen Guang pushed himself upright and looked around at the scene—familiar, yet somehow strange.

Then scattered images flooded his mind, like snippets of people talking.

【Shen Guang got handsy with Yan Qingxue. She fought back and smashed a vase over his head.】

Those words lingered in Shen Guang’s mind, refusing to fade.

Yan Qingxue... That name sounded familiar.

Yan Qingxue’s name flashed through his mind.

Suddenly, it hit him. Wasn’t this exactly like the text-based game he’d played, Rumored Girlfriend?

And Shen Guang—wasn’t he the guy who got written off as cannon fodder in the very first chapter!?

And wasn’t Yan Qingxue the game’s female lead?

He leaned against the head of the hospital bed, his face full of disbelief.

He remembered that Shen Guang eventually couldn’t take the rumors anymore and dropped out. Plenty of people said he got what he deserved, since he’d harassed a female student!

At the time, Shen Guang hadn’t looked into it any further. But as the game went on, more and more of it started to feel wrong.

Before all this, Shen Guang had been a handsome guy from a wealthy family. Yan Qingxue was the female lead. Though her family wasn’t well-off, she was kind and got excellent grades. Add in her striking looks, and it was only natural that plenty of popular guys would fall for her.

Apparently, even Shen Guang was no exception.

But would Shen Guang really do something so awful to Yan Qingxue just because he liked her?

It all felt like a mystery. But what mattered more to Shen Guang right now was finding a way to avoid getting expelled. If he got written out in chapter one, he’d have no chance to see what came next!

The wound on his head still throbbed faintly. Shen Guang closed his eyes, ready to rest, but then the hospital room door opened again.

“I’d like to get some sleep. Can whatever it is wait until later?”

The room fell silent for a moment. Then he heard the rustle of a plastic bag being opened.

The savory aroma of bone broth slowly drifted over.

Shen Guang’s eyes flew open. A girl stood beside his bed, taking a lunch box out of a bag. She wore a plain white T-shirt and short denim shorts that left a long stretch of pale skin exposed. Her unremarkable canvas shoes looked so thoroughly scrubbed that their color had faded.

She wore thick, black-rimmed glasses, and her dark eyes held a cold look.

She deftly took a lunch box out of the plastic bag. A rich, fragrant aroma wafted from the soup container, instantly whetting the appetite. Golden beads of oil shimmered on the chicken broth’s surface, and the soup itself was a snowy white. It all appeared before Shen Guang’s eyes.

But what puzzled Shen Guang most was this: Who was this girl?

The girl held the soup out to Shen Guang and asked coldly,

“Are you going to drink it yourself, or do you want me to feed you?”

Her emotionless, robot-like words made Shen Guang shiver. For a moment, even his heart seemed to turn cold.

They were perfectly ordinary words, but to Shen Guang, they sounded like a scene from a palace drama where someone was being fed poison.

After a moment of inner struggle, Shen Guang finally managed to ask,

“Y-you... who are you?”

The girl stiffened. Surprise flickered across her face, then impatience showed in her eyes.

“Shen Guang, can you stop pulling this ridiculous stuff?”

From her reaction, Shen Guang could tell she didn’t believe him. He reached out, about to explain himself, but she grabbed his wrist first.

Her eyes were as cold as frost. Her icy tone and the way she seemed to warn everyone to stay away startled Shen Guang.

“Shen Guang, if you get into trouble again, I really won’t help you next time!”

Faced with the girl’s anger, Shen Guang looked completely baffled.

He’d never heard that Shen Guang had a girl he was this close to.

And judging by the way she acted, this girl and Shen Guang had a pretty unusual relationship.

What ordinary friend would personally make soup and bring it over for you?

At that thought, Shen Guang grinned and started to scratch his head. But the girl shot him a glare and said irritably,

“You’ve got a head injury. Do you want to scratch the wound open?”

It was the first time a girl had chewed him out so badly. For a moment, Shen Guang didn’t know what expression to make.

The thing was, he couldn’t bring himself to say something cruel to a girl who cared about him!

He wasn’t the Shen Guang from the game, after all.

Feeling a little down, Shen Guang pressed his lips together and put on a pitiful expression.

“Um... I really did lose my memory. I must’ve forgotten something important. Like... your name?”

The girl seemed annoyed by what Shen Guang had said. She turned to scold him, but when she saw his pitiful expression, she couldn’t bring herself to be harsh.

She quickly turned away and coolly gave her name.

“Lin Qingqian.”

Lin Qingqian?

Shen Guang murmured the name. Then, as if something clicked, he suddenly looked up at the girl in front of him.

“You said your name was Lin Qingqian?”

“Yeah. Heh, does that ring a bell? I’m the person you hate most, right?”

Lin Qingqian’s voice was laced with mockery, though she looked completely indifferent.

Shen Guang stared at her blankly, growing more and more surprised.

Lin Qingqian was the Student Council president. She was top-notch in both looks and brains. In everyone’s eyes, she was an untouchable beauty.

She was also a romanceable character in the game.

So she really had some kind of connection to Shen Guang? Then why hadn’t she stepped in to help him when he was about to be expelled?

Or had she tried to help, only for Shen Guang to give up on his own?

Lin Qingqian’s appearance only made the fog before him even thicker.

The fragrance of the soup interrupted Shen Guang’s thoughts. He sat up and reached for the soup container on the table, but the girl suddenly mocked him.

“I thought you liked Yan Qingxue’s cooking. She cracked your head open, so the least she could do is make you a bowl of soup, right?”

From the girl’s tone, it was clear she looked down on Shen Guang for what he’d done.

Shen Guang grinned and said ingratiatingly,

“But yours smells amazing. I can tell just by the color that you’ve got a chef’s touch!”

The girl looked even more surprised, as if Shen Guang had said something unbelievable. But she didn’t say a word. She just watched him in silence.

........

Just as Shen Guang expected, the class group chat soon filled with talk of how he’d gotten handsy with Yan Qingxue.

Insults and sneers kept popping up in the chat.

They didn’t seem to care whether Shen Guang was in the group or not. They vented their anger like wild animals.

Shen Guang silently watched his phone, his expression unchanged.

Lin Qingqian came in with soup for Shen Guang, as she did every day. She glanced at the messages on his phone and furrowed her brows.

“Do you have nothing better to do than stare at your phone every day? You’ve got a head injury. You should be resting more. Aren’t you worried something’ll go wrong with your brain?”

Lin Qingqian’s words caught Shen Guang off guard. Then he realized what she meant and chuckled.

“Sometimes it’s pretty interesting to see what people say.”

“It’s all malicious garbage. What’s there to find interesting? They don’t know what really happened, but they blindly follow the crowd. That’s how people are.”

Lin Qingqian took the phone from Shen Guang. She gave the nasty messages a quick glance, then lost interest and turned it off.

She set the soup container in front of Shen Guang and said coldly,

“What you need to do now is explain what happened and clear your name.”

“What if I didn’t do anything? Would you believe me?”

Shen Guang looked up. There was no trace of joking in his eyes.

Lin Qingqian was taken aback by his gaze. The Shen Guang she knew was arrogant and selfish, and rarely thought about other people’s feelings.

And now he was asking if she believed him?

Lin Qingqian fell silent for a moment. Then Shen Guang chuckled.

“See? Even you don’t want to believe me. What good would explaining anything do?”

Shen Guang slowly got out of bed, but Lin Qingqian grabbed his arm.

For the first time, helplessness crossed Lin Qingqian’s lovely face.

“I didn’t say I don’t believe you. But right now, you need to keep this from getting to you. You have to get better before you can put these rumors to rest.”

“Lin Qingqian, do you know why they call them rumors?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Because they aren’t true.”

Shen Guang was certain that the Shen Guang in the game had never done anything so out of line. So why hadn’t Yan Qingxue spoken up for him as soon as he got into trouble?

Was there some secret behind all this?

........

The incident with Yan Qingxue had happened at an apartment Shen Guang owned. He’d rented a small unit to her at a low price, but hardly anyone knew about it. He’d pieced it together from the bits of information in the game.

That was exactly why everyone who knew about it was even more convinced that Shen Guang had taken advantage of Yan Qingxue’s poor family circumstances and her need for a place to live, and that she’d hit him hard enough to land him in the hospital.

Only Yan Qingxue and Shen Guang knew the real answer.

Shen Guang lay on his hospital bed with his eyes closed, resting, when a sudden knock came from outside.

“Who is it?”

“Shen... Shen Guang, it’s Yan Qingxue.”

The voice on the other side of the door was timid, as if she were afraid of something.

Shen Guang’s eyes flew open, and a smile spread across his face.

The person he’d been waiting for had finally arrived. He wanted to see for himself what the game’s female lead was really like.

In the game, Yan Qingxue came across as a sweet, well-behaved girl who naturally made people feel sorry for her.

But she didn’t give off that fake, manipulative vibe. She seemed to be that way by nature.

Even now, Shen Guang thought she seemed like a pretty nice girl.

“Come in.”

The door slowly opened, and a plainly dressed, pretty girl walked in.

When she saw the bandage on Shen Guang’s head, her expression grew even more guilty.

“Shen Guang, are you okay?”