Chapter 38: Chen Jingle, You’ve Caused Great Harm! Your Crimes Are Heinous!

Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Chen Jingle, You’ve Caused Great Harm! Your Crimes Are Heinous!

Chen Jingle slept very comfortably.

Poor Zhong Qing, however, waited all night in anticipation but never received a message from Chen Jingle.

She felt a bit upset and couldn’t help but complain, "He said we’d chat when he was free in the afternoon, but he’s been nowhere to be seen."

"He couldn’t possibly be napping until now, right? So annoying!"

This was entirely Chen Jingle’s fault. After waking up, he was so focused on completing his system tasks that he completely forgot about their lunchtime chat.

Chatting with girls was never part of his daily routine to begin with. Having a blind date suddenly shoved into his life made him feel like his rhythm had been disrupted. Saying he was uncomfortable would be an exaggeration; he was just unaccustomed to it. As a result, once he got busy, he forgot about things he deemed less important.

On the other hand, Zhong Qing was the type of person who romanticized love. This was the first time her family had introduced her to someone, and a very handsome guy at that. With an attitude of giving it a try, she was willing to interact but approached him cautiously.

Only to end up rejoicing over nothing.

After some thought, she finally gritted her teeth and decided to take the initiative. Li Yuting had told her that if she wanted to quickly advance a relationship online, she needed to share more of her life with him.

"The desire to share is the highest form of romance. And responding to that desire is an even higher form of romance."

Zhong Qing thought this made a lot of sense. After all, she also wanted a sweet romance!

And so—

"Good evening. I just got back from the library. I saw a super cute tuxedo cat on the way, and it looks just like Inspector Black Cat."

[Image]

It took an immense amount of courage for her to send the message and the picture. After sending it, she felt a twinge of regret. What if he wasn’t interested, or even found her annoying?

She was afraid that this one act of initiative would result in a lifetime of introversion.

In truth, she wasn’t particularly fond of cats, but she wasn’t averse to them either. After all, cats were quite cute creatures. Her older sister had previously mentioned that Chen Jingle had a cat at home. She had thought about it seriously before choosing this topic as an icebreaker.

However, unlike those students who liked to feed and pet stray cats up close, she mostly just watched from a distance. She was afraid of getting scratched. When she was little, a neighbor’s kid got scratched by a cat and had to get multiple vaccine shots.

She was terrified of injections, so she had to learn to protect herself.

Yet, after the message was sent and she waited a while longer, there was still no reply.

Zhong Qing felt a bit disappointed.

"He couldn’t possibly be asleep at this hour, right?" It was barely past 10:30 PM. For Southerners, this was still very early.

"Or am I really that unpresentable? Am I not worth you taking a little initiative?"

Zhong Qing felt conflicted and distressed.

At that moment, Li Yuting leaned over. "Qingqing~"

"Ah?!" Startled, Zhong Qing hurriedly looked up.

Li Yuting wore a sly expression. "Has *he* sent you any messages since this afternoon?"

"No," Zhong Qing replied with a forced smile.

Li Yuting immediately frowned. "That’s too much! What is he doing?"

If Zhong Qing had intentionally left him hanging by not replying, and he didn’t want to be proactive anymore, that would be excusable. But right now, Zhong Qing was the one being left hanging. It was ridiculous! Was their Zhong Qing really that subpar? Couldn’t such a pure, beautiful college girl pique his interest?

Could it be that this guy was actually gay or impotent?

Li Yuting quickly consoled her, "It’s fine, we don’t need him! There are plenty of fish in the sea. I’ll introduce you to someone even better!"

Zhong Qing didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. "It’s not that serious. It’s not like I have to marry myself off before graduation."

"Well, as long as you know what you’re doing. Like I said before, finding a partner is a screening process. Both sides filter each other out. Make sure you don’t look at each other through rose-tinted glasses, or you’re doomed."

Seeing this, Li Yuting didn’t press further, merely offering her usual word of advice.

"I know," Zhong Qing replied with a smile.

Although Sister Li was usually boisterous and careless, she was very reliable when it mattered most. Zhong Qing wasn’t going to be depressed just because Chen Jingle didn’t reply to her right away. At most, she felt a tiny bit moody.

After all, they had only just met today and were still in the initial phase of getting to know each other. Neither of them seemed particularly extroverted, and their self-introductions had been exceedingly polite. Breaking the ice would likely be a bit difficult.

"I’ll wait and see. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll just be passersby."

With these thoughts in mind, Zhong Qing fell asleep a little later than usual. That was just what happened when something weighed on your mind.

The next morning.

Chen Jingle didn’t see the WeChat message until he woke up.

He slapped his forehead. "Crap!"

It was only their first day knowing each other, and he had already left a bad impression. What a sin.

He hurriedly replied, "I’m so sorry. I usually go to bed very early. I was asleep by 10 PM and missed your message.

"The cat is very cute. It really does look like Inspector Black Cat."

While scrolling through short videos previously, he had seen a kitten that also resembled Inspector Black Cat. Finding it interesting, he had screenshotted and saved it. But it wasn’t nearly as similar as the one Zhong Qing had sent.

He sent the photo saved on his phone over as well. Now there were two little Inspector Black Cats.

Then he asked another question, "Are there a lot of stray cats at your school?"

It was highly unlikely he’d get a reply from Zhong Qing at this hour, so he locked his screen and got ready to head out for a run.

After persistently running in the mornings for several consecutive days, he felt his cardiopulmonary function had improved significantly.

"It seems I’ll have to keep this up as long as it’s not raining."

Going out for aerobic exercises like running in the morning, and doing anaerobic strength training at home in the afternoon—combining the two, his mental state was much better now compared to a while ago.

The Teacher College’s track and field on a weekend morning was still filled with disciplined individuals. Chen Jingle spotted a few familiar faces, and those students saw him too. By unspoken agreement, no one greeted each other. They silently chose a pace that suited them and began their workouts.

At most, they would give a nod or exchange a glance when passing by each other.

Meanwhile.

Chen Qiyun was also up.

She had forgotten how long it had been since she had slept early and woken up early like today. This morning, she got out of bed on her own without needing her grandmother to call her. Even though she had only gotten an hour or two more sleep than usual, her energy levels were completely different. Her head was clear, unlike its usual grogginess.

"You don’t have classes this morning, and yet you woke up on your own?" her grandmother asked, very surprised to see her up.

Chen Qiyun gave a noncommittal hum. Without a word, she silently grabbed her toiletries to wash her face and brush her teeth.

She ate a simple breakfast, then returned to her room to do her homework.

Middle school students had a lot of homework. Their weekends were piled high with various test papers and after-school exercises, leaving them with almost no extra time to rest. Plus, she had spent almost all of yesterday playing.

Suddenly remembering something, Chen Qiyun dug a carton of milk out of the milk box and took it with her.

Seeing this, her grandmother was even more surprised. "You’re actually willing to drink milk today?"

Chen Qiyun kept a straight face, remaining silent as she closed the door behind her.

Sitting at her small desk, she inserted the straw into the milk carton and took tiny sips, her brow furrowing slightly. Her dad had bought high-calcium pure milk, specifically a certain brand’s milk brick. This kind of milk was incredibly bland and tasted terrible!

But she had no choice.

"For the sake of growing taller, I’m going all out!"

Of course, she couldn’t help but inwardly curse Chen Jingle for being such a menace. If he hadn’t been so meddlesome, she would still be sleeping comfortably right now.