Chapter 213: Ying Chanxi Knows Everything

After seeing Yan Zhusheng off, Li Luo and Ying Chanxi had also packed their luggage and were ready to go home.

Xu Youyu planned to return home just before dinner.

After all, she didn't intend to take anything with her—the trip home took only a few minutes, very convenient.

She could still stay behind to write in the afternoon.

"Sis, don't forget to wash the dishes and chopsticks from lunch," Li Luo reminded her as he left.

"Got it," Xu Youyu waved her hand, then suddenly remembered something, grinning as she leaned close to Li Luo's ear and whispered, "Did you read the pen pal letter? Why not come back around the 10th and stay with me for a few days?"

Li Luo felt the warmth of her breath against his ear and instinctively stepped back half a pace, helplessly saying, "Let's decide about that when the time comes."

After saying goodbye to Xu Youyu, Li Luo pushed his suitcase, slung his backpack over his shoulders, and walked out the door of 1502 with Ying Chanxi.

Ying Chanxi curiously asked, "What did your sis say to you?"

"She said if she gets rejected again after going home for winter break, she'll sneak back here and stay a few days," Li Luo said. "She asked if I'd come over to cook for her and save her stomach."

"Didn't she stay here last year?" Ying Chanxi said, her face stern. "Didn't she already sneak back here last winter break? Why should you go all the way over just to cook for her?"

"True," Li Luo nodded.

Seeing Li Luo's agreement, Ying Chanxi relaxed, her mood brightening as she walked downstairs with him.

In the elevator, she adjusted her light red scarf, staring at her reflection in the elevator door, then glanced at Li Luo's red scarf, a satisfied smile spreading across her face.

Especially thinking about how she'd successfully slept on Li Luo's bed last night, she felt even happier.

When she woke up this morning and saw an extra blanket on her, she knew Li Luo had brought it from her bedroom.

Besides that, only Li Luo's blanket remained on the bed.

So it seemed Yan Zhusheng had gone back to her own room to sleep after the movie last night.

Thinking of this, Ying Chanxi's smile deepened, radiating pure joy.

Li Luo looked at her smiling face and asked, "Why are you smiling so happily?"

"Huh?" Ying Chanxi, suddenly aware she'd been grinning too broadly, quickly composed herself and explained, "It's winter break, of course I'm happy."

The two stepped out of the elevator, hailed a cab at the community gate, and returned to Jincheng Community with their luggage.

After calling his mom at the breakfast shop to say they were back, Li Luo and Ying Chanxi went upstairs to settle their luggage in their respective homes.

Not long after, Ying Chanxi pulled out her key at Li Luo's door and walked into Apartment 401, knocking on his room door.

"What are you doing?" Ying Chanxi peered in curiously and saw Li Luo opening the laptop Yan Zhusheng had lent him. "Are you going to play a game?"

Of course not—he wanted to use the free time to write more and restore his backlog of 200,000 words as soon as possible.

But since Ying Chanxi had come over, Li Luo set aside his writing for now and said, "Want to play together? Or are you planning to review your lessons?"

"Review what?" Ying Chanxi rolled her eyes. "I'm not a machine. It's the first day of winter break—can't I just relax?"

"Then come on."

……

The two played games all afternoon, from simple 4399 two-player mini-games to various co-op titles on Steam.

When they reached Portal 2, Ying Chanxi became completely absorbed, fully immersed in the game's pleasure.

"This game is so interesting—it really tests spatial imagination," Ying Chanxi said, finally releasing the keyboard only when Lin Xiuhong returned.

"Then let's play again next time," Li Luo smiled, standing up and joining Ying Chanxi in the living room.

Seeing them emerge from the bedroom, Lin Xiuhong smiled, pulling Ying Chanxi close and greeting her warmly.

"Welcome back, Xixi. What did you two do this afternoon?"

"Played some games with him," Ying Chanxi answered honestly.

"Oh, that's good," Lin Xiuhong nodded with a smile. "Games are brain-stimulating; playing occasionally helps with studies."

Li Luo, overhearing this, rolled his eyes.

Only because they both had good grades did Lin Xiuhong say this.

If he'd been bottom of the class and still played games at home, she'd have immediately started criticizing him.

Parents' attitudes toward you rarely depend on what you actually do—they dynamically adjust based on your academic performance.

Only because in this life his grades improved could he now enjoy this mother-son harmony.

"Just enjoy your winter break," Lin Xiuhong told Li Luo. "Just make sure you finish your winter homework."

"You're class monitor now—can't you go back to how you used to be, skipping homework entirely?"

"Oh, by the way—how did your final exam go?"

Li Luo watched Lin Xiuhong shift from "enjoy your break" straight to "how was your final exam?" and couldn't help but laugh bitterly.

"17th in the whole school, first in the class."

"Oh, pretty good," Lin Xiuhong nodded, then immediately asked, "Weren't you 15th last monthly exam? Why did you drop two spots?"

"Lin Yi~" Ying Chanxi linked arms with Lin Xiuhong and walked toward the kitchen, laughing. "Once you're in the top 40 of the whole school, fluctuations like this are normal—everyone's about the same level; it just depends on the exam's difficulty and how you performed that day."

"Then how did you do this time, Xixi?"

"Still first."

"See?" Lin Xiuhong said. "Why don't you fluctuate? Li Luo, you should learn more from Xixi—keep improving."

Li Luo looked at Lin Xiuhong, then at Ying Chanxi, who was helplessly rubbing her forehead, and barely held back a laugh: "I get it, Mom. What'll you say when I eventually surpass Ying Chanxi?"

"Try surpassing her if you can," Lin Xiuhong chuckled. "Has Xixi ever dropped from first since middle school? Do you think it's that easy to overtake her?"

Li Luo shrugged, unconcerned—it was just banter.

Ying Chanxi followed Lin Xiuhong into the kitchen to help prepare dinner.

Watching his wife and Xixi head to the kitchen, Li Guohong sat on the sofa, turned on the living room TV, and waved Li Luo over.

The father and son leaned close, and Li Guohong whispered, "How much do you think your royalty will be this month?"

"Based just on the current website, I'd guess around a hundred thousand?" Li Luo estimated. "Why?"

"A while ago, weren't you telling your mom you wanted to discuss whether to buy a house or a shop near the future subway line?"

Li Guohong said softly, "I think what you said makes sense—after all, that money's just sitting there."

"With such a good investment opportunity right there by the subway, we absolutely can't let it go to waste."

"But first, you need to give me the real picture."

Here, Li Guohong paused, glanced toward the kitchen, confirmed Ying Chanxi couldn't hear, then asked:

"How long do you think you can keep writing this novel?"

"I've looked up a lot about the Online Novel industry lately—I'm wondering if this income isn't too unstable?"

"What if, once you finish this book, your next one gets no readers? Won't you stop making money then?"

"Before we act, we need to assess the risks in advance."

After hearing Li Guohong's words, Li Luo could understand and nodded: "My book can go on for a long time—at least I won't finish it within one or two years, so you can rest easy."

Mainly because Li Luo had written and read plenty of cultural entertainment in his past life, so he controlled the pacing extremely well, never letting the protagonist develop too quickly.

Especially since he'd shaped all three female leads well, Li Luo often paused story progression to pull out one of them for some daily life scenes to add flavor.

The word count just kept soaring.

Some readers loved these daily, flirtatious scenes and constantly begged for more.

So they argued with another group of readers who preferred main plot progression—the comment section was lively.

Under these conditions, even though the book had only reached 1.3 million words, Li Luo felt he could easily write four or five million before finishing—it was still very far from ending.

At least let him earn back the money for the house?

If he could earn enough for several houses, that would be even better.

After hearing Li Luo's words, Li Guohong felt slightly relieved, thought it over, then said: "In any case, keep focusing on your studies—I'll start looking into this side of things."

Li Luo nodded, showing he understood, and behaved properly as a son.

In family decisions, with his current underage status, even if he earned big money, he still needed to indirectly gain some decision-making power by guiding his parents.

So his communication style with his parents was always measured—he left all decisions to them.

But while speaking, he had already consciously steered his words toward the outcome he wanted.

In this way, he could still achieve his goal.

…

After dinner, Ying Chanxi returned to the apartment across the hall.

Li Luo also went back to his bedroom and started typing.

When he kept typing until ten p. m., Li Luo stretched, looked at the steadily rising draft word count on his backend, and nodded in satisfaction.

Then he suddenly remembered something, turned his gaze to his backpack, and pulled out a letter.

It was the pen pal letter Yan Zhusheng had handed him before leaving that day.

He'd been so busy typing he'd forgotten about it.

Thinking this, Li Luo pushed his notebook aside, carefully opened the envelope, took out the letter paper, and spread it flat on the desk.

Compared to Ying Chanxi and Xu Youyu's ways of addressing him, Yan Zhusheng was much more normal.

【Li Luo:】

【This is my second letter.】

【The first was during the parent-teacher meeting, when Teacher Kong said we had to write a letter to our parents.】

【But I only wrote one sentence in that letter: Thank you, Mom, for taking time to attend my parent-teacher meeting.】

【So this is truly the first time I've written a serious letter.】

【I don't even know what I want to write, so I'm just writing whatever comes to mind.】

【I can't remember anything from childhood.】

【Since I could remember things, I've lived overseas.】

【My mom never enrolled me in school—only private tutors came to our home every day to teach me.】

【So when I returned to China with my mom in middle school and was sent to school, I felt a bit out of place.】

【I don't know why.】

【Whenever I speak to someone, even when I'm just simply expressing my thoughts, I always easily make people angry.】

【But when I was young, my tutors always taught me that if I had thoughts, I should express them seriously—I did exactly that.】

【But it seems not everyone is like that.】

【Everyone prefers to hide themselves and doesn't express their true thoughts.】

【But after entering high school and meeting you, I realized that no matter what I say to you—good or bad—you never seem to get angry.】

【Sometimes I even deliberately try to annoy you, just to see you angry—but I've never succeeded once.】

【Strange.】

【When we first met, I said you were staring at me, and you didn't avoid it at all—you openly admitted it.】

【During military training, I said you played several wrong notes on your guitar, and you weren't angry at all.】

【You even taught me how to get along with roommates and how to make friends with classmates.】

【Now I have many good friends—Xixi, the senior, Huanhuan, Xinyan, oh right, and Zhao Rongjun.】

【I like being with you all.】

【I'm no longer like I was in middle school, always hiding from others.】

【I really love the feeling of being with you every day—I love listening to your chats, love arguing with you, and love seeing your exasperated expression.】

【Because I know you won't get angry, I can share my true thoughts without holding back, completely at ease.】

【Li Luo, you are my best, best, best, best, best friend.】

【It will always be, always be, forever be】

【So, if we're good friends, shouldn't you come see me off on the 2nd?】

Since meeting Yan Zhusheng, whether in this life or the last, Li Luo had never before received such a long message from her all at once.

He read it carefully, again, and once more.

Then he smiled, closed the letter, placed it carefully back into the envelope, and neatly packed it away.

He was now somewhat glad that in this life he had met Yan Zhusheng during high school.

In his memory, in his last life, when he first knew Yan Zhusheng, her personality was far less approachable than now.

Both times, they had spent just over half a year together.

In this life, after knowing Yan Zhusheng for just a few days, Li Luo had gradually caused her to lower her guard.

The once pure white paper had slowly acquired his handwriting.

But the Yan Zhusheng of his last life was nearly twenty years removed from the Yan Zhusheng of now.

What had happened during those years, Li Luo knew nothing of.

But the Yan Zhusheng of his last life—colder, more aloof, less prone to laughter—was clearly far removed from the Yan Zhusheng of today.

Thinking of this, Li Luo caressed the envelope in his hand, his smile deepening, feeling that since his rebirth, he had gained another meaningful purpose.

Then he thought for a moment, pulled out his phone, and found Yan Zhusheng's number.

He dialed the call.

"Hello?" Yan Zhusheng answered instantly, as if reading his mind, "You finished reading it?"

"How did you know I finished?"

"You'd call me the moment you finished." Yan Zhusheng said, "Didn't I guess right?"

"You're getting smarter."

"I was always smart."

"What time tomorrow, the 2nd, are you and Aunt Yuan heading to the airport?"

"Probably after lunch." Yan Zhusheng said, "We'll likely leave around one in the afternoon. Are you coming to see me off?"

"You said it that way in your letter—if I don't come see you off, wouldn't I be inhuman?"

"True."

"So you always talk like this just to annoy me and watch my reaction, right?"

"No, I'm a very good person." Yan Zhusheng said seriously, "You're the one who's bad."

"Then the bad person won't come see you off."

"You'll stop being bad if you come see me off."

"Hmph, see you at the airport tomorrow. Let me know when you leave for the airport."

"Okay."