Chapter 460: 484 Self-Strategy

482 Self-Strategy: "I Really Don't Want to Sleep with Myself??" (Seeking subscriptions and monthly votes)

……

Not long ago.

As Li Juli, who was riding the horse, saw Lin Xiuyuan put down his phone, her whole body seemed to have its last bit of support drained away, and she slumped softly onto him.

Her chest was pressed against his, and the two people's heartbeats were transmitted to each other through two thin layers of skin and bone, and her heartbeat was clearly several beats faster than Lin Xiuyuan's.

Then, Li Juli gently rubbed the tip of her nose against his, her movements very light and soft, their breath intertwined, and she spoke in a warm and moist voice.

"Xiuyuan, I know that sometimes you do things based on your mood."

While speaking, Li Juli's breath brushed against Lin Xiuyuan's upper lip and nose tip, carrying the faint sweet and sour fruity scent of her lip glaze.

"But with me... no, I should say when facing the younger me, you can't be like this anymore."

"Why is that?" Lin Xiuyuan grabbed her buttocks, the pressure neither too light nor too heavy, just enough for his ten fingers to sink slightly into that soft and elastic skin.

His movements were neither hurried nor slow, carrying a sense of pure intimacy.

"Don't move around." Li Juli felt a soreness in her waist from his pinching, couldn't help but scold him coquettishly, and then gave his chest a light pat with her palm.

She then took a deep breath and continued, "Because I know my own personality well. In my current young state, it is absolutely impossible for me to give up the world of freedom for a man. You have to know, I broke with my family back then precisely for the sake of freedom. A man like you isn't worth it to the young me; I've mentioned this to you before, Xiuyuan."

When she said this, there was a rare kind of seriousness in her eyes.

Lin Xiuyuan nodded; he remembered.

Once before, after the two of them finished playing golf, they were sitting on the rest bench at the course, and she chatted with him about how she had fallen out with her family for the sake of freedom when she was young.

It was nothing more than her rebellious phase arriving; her family wanted to arrange her life path, and as a result, Li Juli simply quit and left, preferring to start from scratch alone in Seoul rather than go back.

Lin Xiuyuan had listened to that story very intently at the time, and after hearing it, he even said, "You were so headstrong even back then," and was then given a side-eye by her.

Seeing Lin Xiuyuan nod, Li Juli then continued, "So, the young me is not like the me who was on the Maldives island back then. I was truly a bit anxious back then; after all, it had been 25 years, and I wasn't as confident as I was when I was young."

"But here it's only been 13 years. Although I can't say the me here is very young, it is exactly the prime of my life. I haven't played enough, I haven't seen enough, and there are still plenty of things on my hands that I haven't done yet."

She paused here, then rested her chin on his collarbone, and looked up at Lin Xiuyuan from below.

"At this time, if you tell me some secret, it would be a burden to me instead. The me at this age isn't ready to settle down; I would feel like I'm being tied up by something, and I would want to run."

Listening to Li Juli's explanation, Lin Xiuyuan smiled, then used his finger to tuck a strand of long hair scattered by her cheek behind her ear, "I didn't say I was going to tell her either, why are you in such a rush?"

"What do you mean by why am I in a rush? It must be you who is more anxious." Li Juli gave the man beneath her a very charming side-eye.

After rolling her eyes, she pursed her lips and smiled, "I don't believe you haven't thought about having another me lying beside you right now."

"Thinking is one thing, but I wouldn't go so far as to do something that dangerous." Lin Xiuyuan was very frank, not denying that such thoughts had indeed occasionally crossed his mind.

After all, the fact that a strange, wonderful attraction would arise between those two highly similar faces was completely human nature.

However, in the end, he still handed the right to speak back to Li Juli, "On the contrary, Juli, why did you suddenly bring up this issue today?"

Facing Lin Xiuyuan's curiosity, Li Juli, who was a bit tired from supporting herself, simply sprawled forward and buried her face in the crook of his neck, "Nothing, it's just that the phone call earlier made me think of these things."

Then she tilted her head, moved her lips to a position closer to his ear, and breathed lightly, "And Xiuyuan, if you really have plans, I suggest you first provoke the young me until she explodes, detonate all my emotions, and even make me take the initiative to hit you, before you consider the step of bringing someone into the fold."

"What is this? A strategy?" Lin Xiuyuan was amused, and also a bit shocked, expressing with an exaggerated expression, "And if I provoke your personality to the point where you directly hit people, I reckon we'll become enemies; that's not right."

"It won't happen." Li Juli lifted her face from the crook of his neck, looking at him with a determined gaze, her lips slightly pursed, "What kind of person am I? Don't I know myself? Besides, I didn't tell you to keep making me angry without coaxing me."

"How so?"

Li Juli smiled and tapped Lin Xiuyuan's heart, pressing her fingertip lightly on the center of his sternum, and then revealed the complete strategy that followed.

"You have to know, after the young me gets angry, I'm actually very easy to coax. Just chat with me more about things outside the industry, like beautiful scenery, delicious food, or some real-world events. Anyway, as long as you don't chat with me about things inside the industry, I will pay attention to you."

She smiled when she said this, "My personality is the stubborn kind, the kind that won't turn back until I hit the south wall. You have to let me have a full emotional outburst before I can calm down and consider the issue of you as a person and the situation. Otherwise, I will only consider playing and freedom."

Speaking of this, Li Juli's gaze passed over Lin Xiuyuan's shoulder and landed on a void point on the wall opposite.

It seemed that she saw her young and vigorous self from many years ago there, trying to crawl out from under every rule to find a breath of fresh air.

"The young me at that time was someone who had the heart to become a big player, but didn't have the time or space to realize it, and was stifled. If you tell me about the future or the past now, I reckon it won't have much effect, and instead, it will make me let my imagination run wild, and even do something silly."

"Oh, how wild do you play?" Lin Xiuyuan asked, his tone carrying obvious curiosity and a little bit of interest generated by catching a keyword.

Thinking that Lin Xiuyuan was asking about certain specific aspects, Li Juli hurriedly clarified, fearing that this guy would misunderstand.

"Don't think nonsense. The player I'm talking about isn't in terms of men and women, but regarding life and reality. It's about drinking, sports, or traveling."

Having said that, she didn't forget to tighten her grip on Lin Xiuyuan, using the force of her body to give him a small lesson.

The result was self-evident.

Before that small lesson could take effect, she was directly breached at the palace gate by Lin Xiuyuan, who launched a full-scale counterattack, and then she retreated in defeat all the way back to the 25-year-old side.

……

Back to the present.

Lin Xiuyuan, who was eating in front, was thinking of this little interlude, so when facing the young version of Li Juli in front of him just now, he took the opportunity to tease her a little.

The result that he didn't expect was that this young version's personality really wasn't as indifferent as the 25-year-old side, and she was really provoked by him in the blink of an eye.

The moment she raised her eyes to stare at him just now, her black, bright pupils pierced directly through his gaze, looking straight into the depths of his eyes.

But fortunately, it was only being provoked.

After hearing his "not willing," although Li Juli's long eyelashes fluttered wildly for a long time and she opened her mouth several times wanting to scold him back, in the end, after glaring fiercely at Lin Xiuyuan in indignation, she turned to lower her head and eat her steak.

She didn't say a word, leaving only a faint, indistinct grunt rolling from the bottom of her throat.

At the same time, the sound of the knife cutting into the steak, and even cutting through the steak to scrape against the plate...

The long, drawn-out sound, without any obstruction between the metal and the porcelain plate, reached Lin Xiuyuan's ears.

More than any verbal abuse, it represented the psychological monologue she was having that he couldn't hear; without words, yet repeatedly using such a sharp tone to tell the man opposite her about the raging fire in her heart.

Fortunately, Lin Xiuyuan, who had already obtained the strategy in advance, did not follow his usual habit of cold treatment or silent avoidance when facing this intense silent protest.

Instead, he smiled and continued, "What's wrong? You wouldn't be angry, would you? Don't be like that; it was clearly you who asked first, and now you're unhappy because I told the truth."

To this, Li Juli gave him a direct eye-roll, not even wanting to reply to him.

Her hands were still gripping the knife and fork, only she stopped scraping the plate, wanting to hear what else this guy wanted to say.

As a result, the next second, Lin Xiuyuan smiled and brought up another topic.

"How about this, next time I'll treat you to something delicious. The things you usually eat in Seoul must be Western food, sushi, and the like. How about I take you to try a local stir-fry place from where I'm from next time? It's an absolute hidden gem."

"After we eat, we can find a tennis court to work up a sweat and release some stress. Don't keep your mind so tense all the time."

Sure enough, as Lin Xiuyuan said this, Li Juli, sitting opposite him, finally raised her eyes to look at him.

However, still carrying a hint of curiosity she hadn't fully hidden, she looked at Lin Xiuyuan before her and asked, "Do you want to sleep with me??"

"What are you talking about? I was talking about going to eat and having some fun; how did that get linked to wanting to sleep with you?"

Although he knew everything about this future version of Li Juli.

To put it bluntly, he had explored her depths and heights more than once.

But right now, Lin Xiuyuan couldn't help but be amused by this erratic logic of the Li Juli before him. With a sense of helplessness at being suddenly taken on a sharp turn, he leaned back against the chair and looked at her with an expression of being unable to laugh or cry.

"What else could it be? You were just saying you weren't happy with me, and in the blink of an eye, you want to treat me to a meal and go play tennis..." Li Juli calmly listed them one by one. "Isn't that just the prelude to getting a room?"

She said it so lightly, as if this deduction were the most obvious thing in the world, and it was Lin Xiuyuan's denial of this deduction that seemed rather strange.

Because in Li Juli's cognitive system, the progress bar for most people's relationships with the opposite sex starts with holding hands, then hugging, then kissing, and finally hitting a home run with sex.

This sequence has become a conventional social contract, stacked layer by layer; missing any link in the middle would be considered a procedural violation.

But sorry, for her, this sequence table is completely inapplicable.

In her view, sex is the starting point, and kissing is the final step.

Placing physical intimacy on the first step with the lowest threshold, while leaving eye contact and touching lips for the very highest point of the entire process—this is the ultimate test she uses to determine whether a person is worth entering her emotional line.

If a man wants to kiss her before he has slept with her, that is an offense.

If a man has slept with her but doesn't want to kiss her, that is a transaction.

Only by finding that subtle balance between the two, which only she can decide, is it considered the starting point she is willing to take seriously.

So in this inverted structure of a logic chain, Lin Xiuyuan first poured his heart out to her with a sweeping attack, and after less than a moment, he was smiling and saying he wanted to take her for hidden stir-fry and to play tennis to relax.

Combining these two things, in her unique judgment of the distance of male-female progress, it was equivalent to having the words "getting a room" pasted on his forehead.

It really wasn't that she was too sensitive; it was that the category of "not after my body" simply didn't exist in her system.

And Lin Xiuyuan, having finished listening to this complete answer from Li Juli, looked at her for a moment, then directly lowered his head, picked up his fork, and continued to focus on his meal.

He didn't know what else to say, so he remained silent.

Fortunately, when Li Juli saw Lin Xiuyuan fall silent, she instead read from his posture the signal that he didn't mean it that way.

This discovery made her feel that her offensive intensity just now had been a bit over the top, so she pulled her body back a little from the posture of suddenly leaning forward to press him, and sat back into the booth's backrest.

She asked, "You really don't want to?"

Then she added, "Then I really don't understand why you're treating me to a meal and going on a date."

"Then why are you letting me treat you to a meal this time?" Lin Xiuyuan asked in return.

Li Juli did not hesitate and looked straight into his eyes quite frankly, "I'm looking for you to ask about something, just the thing I asked about earlier."

Then, following this logic, she naturally took a step forward, "So next time you treat me to a meal, are you also going to look for me to ask about something? Making a dinner appointment in advance, thinking about asking about the future in advance?"

This sentence made Lin Xiuyuan's heart skip a beat, and he hurriedly gave a casual reply to get past it.

"I just felt my tone was a bit heavy earlier and wanted to make up for it. Since it made you think wildly, then forget it."

Just as Lin Xiuyuan said this, Li Juli opposite him suddenly leaned forward again, covering half the table, her eyes shining astonishingly.

"Do you really not want to sleep with me?"

This question was asked very softly, but also very steadily.

Because she wanted an answer.

Just then, two familiar figures entered the restaurant entrance again.

The wind chime on the door shook out a series of crisp sounds, and the afternoon sunlight, not too dazzling, shone briefly behind them in the corridor before returning to the gentle light of the interior.

There was a height difference between the people who entered; the short one walked in front, muttering something; the tall one followed behind, a ponytail hanging quietly on one side of her shoulder.

As soon as they entered, the two of them, just like Lin Xiuyuan who had entered earlier, cast their gazes straight onto the booth in the corner.

"Huh, is that Xiuyuan???"

The ponytail woman standing next to her also aimed her gaze in the same direction, then calmly confirmed the reconnaissance result, "It's definitely Xiuyuan,"

Then she lightly touched her companion with her arm, lowered her head slightly to press her chin, and added a piece of intelligence, "And Juli is there too."