Chapter 714: Ying Chanxi: The Taste Is Strange

Outside the seafood buffet restaurant.

Just as Ying Chanxi tightly held Li Luo's arm and walked through the restaurant's entrance, she couldn't help whispering quietly: "I heard Jiang Lai say her boyfriend is your roommate?"

"Mm." Li Luo nodded slightly; seeing her nervous and worried expression, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Relax, I've already talked to him. He won't say anything."

"Oh…" Ying Chanxi finally exhaled in relief after hearing Li Luo's words, but still felt a flicker of awkwardness and shyness.

Just thinking that her relationship with him had been found out by Li Luo's roommate made her unsure how to face that roommate.

Fortunately, Wen Zexuan was more mature—he walked in behind them and didn't greet Ying Chanxi again the entire time, only occasionally chatting casually with Jiang Lai, leaving the entire dinner table's spotlight to the girls.

As the server guided the six of them inside and seated them at a six-person table, Li Luo invited everyone to go get food.

This seafood buffet restaurant had a very large interior, with four corridors total, front to back, requiring several minutes to walk around.

Li Luo's reserved table was right in the center of the restaurant, making it convenient to reach any food station.

Ying Chanxi also breathed a slight sigh of relief, thinking Li Luo had made the right choice picking a buffet for the meal.

At least if she felt awkward, she wouldn't have to sit still at the table the whole time.

Ying Chanxi obediently followed beside Li Luo, watching him pile on a lot of oysters, and asked curiously: "I remember you never really liked these before—why are you taking so many?"

Hearing Ying Chanxi's question, Li Luo coughed to mask his embarrassment, then replied seriously: "Tastes change as you grow up. I've really been liking these lately."

If I don't eat more to build up my strength, how will I ever handle you three sisters?

Li Luo muttered this to himself but didn't dare say it aloud in front of Ying Chanxi.

If Xu Youyu were here, he wouldn't even need Li Luo to say it.

Although Ying Chanxi had been influenced by Xu Youyu's Literary Era, she wasn't as diligent or studious as Yan Zhusheng, so her knowledge and sensitivity in this area were still lacking, lacking that sharp intuition.

The two of them wandered around, filling their plates with plenty of food.

When they returned to their seats, their plates were already heaped with various seafood.

Besides the oysters Li Luo took, there were lobster, salmon, and more.

Then Li Luo picked up the buffet menu and asked a server for a king crab.

This item had to be ordered separately—one per table only, not just freely taken.

Soon, Lin Zhixia and Qiao Xinyan returned to their seats.

A little while later, Jiang Lai and Wen Zexuan came back too.

The six of them sat together, tasting the delicious food and chatting casually.

To keep Wen Zexuan from talking too much, Li Luo directly turned to Lin Zhixia and started chatting with her.

"Where are you from, Lin Zhixia? Your accent sounds like it's from Qiongzhou?"

Lin Zhixia looked surprised, then nodded lightly: "Mm, you can tell that?"

"I traveled to Qiongzhou City before," Li Luo chuckled. "I went there for a platform annual meeting."

Back then, Xu Youyu had secretly followed Li Luo without telling anyone else.

But he'd already been exposed.

Hearing them talk about Qiongzhou City, Ying Chanxi also shared some of her own past trips there with Li Luo.

The atmosphere at the table quickly grew lively.

Wen Zexuan stayed silent the whole time, attentively savoring the seafood, occasionally peeling shrimp for Jiang Lai.

But when he saw Ying Chanxi across from them chatting while still carefully peeling shrimp for Li Luo, he nearly cracked.

Brother Li is truly a bastard!

How could such a beautiful girl willingly and sincerely peel shrimp for him?

Wen Zexuan shook his head repeatedly, feeling he could barely sit there anymore.

To be fair, he'd originally thought Xu Youyu's looks and figure were already outrageous—no girl at Qianjiang University could possibly match her.

But apparently, there really was one.

Though her body stats might be slightly inferior, Ying Chanxi's petite, adorable frame had its own unique charm.

And her beauty was on par with Xu Youyu's; while Xu Youyu had a slightly seductive face, Ying Chanxi was more pure and cute.

Especially when she carefully peeled shrimp, her lips slightly pouting, paired with the faint baby fat on her cheeks, she looked even cuter.

Thinking that Li Luo had two top-tier beauties at once, juggling both, made Wen Zexuan's teeth ache.

Why did all the good girls end up with this guy?

And just from their interactions and small details, Wen Zexuan, the battle-hardened playboy, could clearly sense it.

The affection between Li Luo and Ying Chanxi was clearly not fake.

If you wanted to know what fake romance looked like… his current relationship with Jiang Lai was about that level.

There wasn't much real emotion between them—mostly just hormonal stimulation, plus a bit of superficial attraction, leading to a temporary union.

But Li Luo and Ying Chanxi's dynamic felt completely different.

Wen Zexuan realized Li Luo didn't seem to be just playing around…

Some small details—these two acted entirely on instinct, with zero pretense.

For example, when Ying Chanxi got sauce on her lips, Li Luo casually grabbed a napkin and wiped it off—no gentlemanly finesse, just a blunt swipe.

If it were a new couple, they'd at least act all lovey-dovey and clingy.

Not like Li Luo, so casual.

And Ying Chanxi was the same—she didn't even take a drink herself, then just picked up Li Luo's cup and took a few sips, as if it were her own.

There were many more such details.

Wen Zexuan had been silenced by Li Luo, giving him more time to observe these things.

After noticing these details, a bizarre yet strangely plausible guess suddenly popped into Wen Zexuan's mind.

Could it be…

Xu Youyu is the one who came later, right?

Wen Zexuan's mind swirled with this bold guess, but he dared not directly ask Li Luo to confirm it, his curiosity gnawing at him.

He hadn't been particularly gossipy before, but Li Luo's matter was simply too tantalizing.

Just as Wen Zexuan was pondering this, Jiang Lai curiously asked Li Luo: "Earlier, Chanxi told me you recommended I register a Douyin account to try it out—it might be more useful than doing WeChat commerce?"

"Oh, that." Li Luo remembered, prompted by her reminder, the casual chat he'd had with Ying Chanxi before.

He'd seen Jiang Lai's posts selling things on her Moments, and it made him think of the livestream e-commerce model that would become wildly popular in the future.

"I just mentioned it offhand—I felt Douyin had real potential," Li Luo said with a smile. "If you enter the scene now, you could reap plenty of platform growth dividends."

"Really?" Jiang Lai was skeptical.

Everyone was a college student—how could Li Luo dare predict a software's future trend?

But then she remembered his identity, and her doubt softened.

Sure, Li Luo was just an Online Novel writer who occasionally wrote songs and shot Short Dramas—he had little to do with the big internet companies' development.

But the people he knew? There were countless of them.

His perspective was surely far higher than hers.

Jiang Lai thought of this, silently memorized the name "Douyin," and decided to search for it when she got back.

Li Luo said no more on the matter.

After all, Jiang Lai wasn't particularly close to him—mentioning it casually was already more than enough.

Whether she believed it or not? That didn't matter much to Li Luo.

If it hadn't been for being reborn in 2014, Li Luo might not have chosen the path of Online Novel.

if he hadn't been reborn in 2014, Li Luo might never have chosen the Online Novel path.

If he'd been reborn in 2017, he could've directly launched a Douyin account—using the vision and content he'd accumulated from his past life making Short Dramas—he'd probably have made money far faster than writing Online Novels.

But now, Li Luo had already completed his initial capital accumulation through Online Novels; he no longer needed much help from this direction.

When free, he could set up an account for Yan Zhusheng and try running it, a return to his previous life's old trade.

If he had free time later, he could set one up—get Yan Zhusheng an account to manage, too. It'd be like returning to his old profession.

Douyin was currently in its high-speed development phase.

Anyone who could ride the Douyin traffic wave during this period could easily make a fortune over these two years.

Anyone who caught Douyin's traffic wave back then could easily make a fortune over the next two years.

And competition was still relatively low compared to the future—ordinary people had a very high chance of breaking through.

If he could build up an account, and link the same-name accounts to Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, and other platforms—it sounded pretty good.

Thinking of this, Li Luo made a mental note in his Memory Palace, then turned and leaned close to Ying Chanxi's ear, whispering two sentences.

As the future president of the Li Group, Ying Chanxi nodded repeatedly, taking every word Li Luo said seriously, planning to consult her professors after taking relevant courses.

"Then if you guys open Douyin accounts, I'll study them," Ying Chanxi whispered. "See what kind of content works best."

"If you have time, you could set up a few WeChat Official Accounts too," Li Luo said. "Even a mosquito's worth of meat counts."

Besides, if the Official Accounts took off, the earnings wouldn't be negligible.

To turn Chongran Culture into a proper company, these operations couldn't revolve entirely around Li Luo himself.

There needed to be other tasks assigned to other employees.

The two whispered for a long while; Ying Chanxi grew more and more excited, as if she'd already become CEO of Chongran Culture.

The meal lasted over two hours—the six of them ate, paused, chatted, waited until they felt a bit digested, then ate again.

Only when their stomachs were full and they couldn't eat another bite did today's buffet dinner finally end.

Li Luo and Ying Chanxi drove the others back to their dorms, then drove themselves back to Bihai Lanting.

Following Li Luo back to 1502, Ying Chanxi opened the door and found no sign of Yan Zhusheng or Xu Youyu—her face instantly lit up with a delighted smile.

"They're not here," Li Luo said, wrapping his arm around Ying Chanxi's slender waist as he walked into the master bedroom, smiling. "Want to take a bath together? My little maid?"

"N-No way!" Ying Chanxi's cheeks flushed red; she instinctively refused and turned to flee.

Li Luo was used to this—he just smiled at her tiny, retreating back, then stripped off his clothes and stepped into the bathroom, planning to shower before writing.

But just as he finished rinsing off and was about to lather up, he heard a soft knock at the bathroom door.

"Huh? What is it?" Li Luo asked, puzzled. "You need something?"

"Y-Yeah…" Ying Chanxi's voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz—he barely caught it. "C-Can you open the door?"

"Coming," Li Luo said, confused, walking over and cracking the door open just enough to peek out.

The next second, he saw Ying Chanxi dressed in a cute black-and-white maid outfit, her legs encased in thigh-high white socks, her hands clasped nervously before her chest, her toes curled tightly.

Then.

Ying Chanxi's cheeks burned red; she lowered her head and whispered:

"Master… your little maid wants to wash you… c-can I?"

In that instant, Li Luo felt his whole body flush—he forgot how he'd opened the door, how he'd pulled Ying Chanxi into the bathroom.

Only when he held the soaked, warm little maid in his arms, her gentle hands enveloping him, until he fully released in the shower, did he snap back to reality—his expression dazed, realizing what had just happened.

"What's gotten into you today?"

Once Li Luo regained his composure and entered a state of absolute calm, he gently pulled her into his arms and whispered in her ear.

"N-Nothing special," Ying Chanxi replied, her face crimson. She felt something sticky on her hands, curious, lifted them to sniff.

Then she frowned slightly and murmured, "Smells weird."

"Cough… wash it off right away, don't let it stick," Li Luo said, quickly taking her small hand to clean it thoroughly.

Then he slowly peeled away the little maid's shell, just as she had peeled shrimp shells for him at the buffet tonight—carefully, meticulously.

"Now it's my turn to wash my little maid's body."

"Don't… there…" Ying Chanxi, her face flushed red, leaned against Li Luo's chest, saying "don't" yet making not the slightest move to resist.

More than twenty minutes later, Ying Chanxi's legs slightly trembling, followed Li Luo out of the bathroom.

After hastily putting on her pajamas, she shyly dove under the covers, too embarrassed to face anyone.

"Did you feel better?" Li Luo sat at his desk and noticed Ying Chanxi secretly peering at him from beneath the blankets; he smiled and asked.

At this question, Ying Chanxi immediately pulled the blanket over her head, like a startled fawn, flustered and fleeing, too terrified to answer.

She looked utterly adorable.

(End of Chapter)