Chapter 763

After the Online Novel elective class ended, Li Luo accompanied Xu Youyu to lunch, then went with her to the dormitory in the afternoon to check on the four kittens they had reserved.

"Huh? How did they get brought back from outside?" When Xu Youyu arrived at the dormitory entrance, she saw the head of the stray cat management team carrying a pet carrier into the building, and walked up in confusion.

"Oh, it's you two." The handler smiled, holding up the carrier. "We just finished deworming them a few days ago; today was their first vaccine shot. We brought them back right after. You're lucky to catch them now."

"They've already had their first vaccine?" Xu Youyu sighed. "Time really flies—by this count, they should finish all three shots in just over a month, right?"

"Exactly." The handler nodded. "Then you can take them home."

Li Luo followed Xu Youyu with the handler to the storage room entrance, helping return the litter of kittens to their cage.

Watching the four tiny cats, now much larger than when they were newborn, Li Luo couldn't help but marvel: "They're growing so fast—last time they were only fist-sized."

"Yeah." Xu Youyu's eyes sparkled as she gazed at the kittens, then opened a gap in the cage and pulled out her favorite one, Ali, cradling it in her palms to play with.

Seeing this, Li Luo simply reached into the nest and lifted out his own black kitten, Bai Ge.

"By the way, which ones are male and which are female?" Li Luo stared at Bai Ge in his palm for a long time without figuring it out, then asked the handler beside him.

"This one in your hand is male," the handler smiled. "The other three are all females."

"Oh wow." Li Luo laughed at the answer. "Looks like fate has its own design—you little guy's gonna join my harem too?"

As he spoke, Li Luo tapped the black kitten's forehead.

Hearing this, Xu Youyu rolled her eyes at him: "Can you stop saying nonsense? These four are siblings, okay?"

"That makes it even more thrilling."

"Pervert." Xu Youyu kicked him without hesitation.

"By the way, where's the mother cat?" Li Luo asked again. "Why didn't we see her today?"

"She's been released," the handler said. "After the kittens were weaned, we had her spayed, and once she recovered, we let her go."

"But if you still want to see her, it's easy."

"We feed cat food at the same spot on the lawn every day—she shows up almost every day."

"I'm not really that eager to see her," Li Luo shook his head. "Just asked out of curiosity—I'm not interested in older female cats."

After watching the kittens with Xu Youyu, the two returned to their respective dorms.

Li Luo spent his afternoon free time typing a bit, then had dinner with his roommates in the evening.

At the cafeteria table, Wen Zexuan slapped a poster down and sighed to Li Luo: "Our Qian Da really has beautiful girls—look at this one, absolutely stunning. I'd say, looks-wise, she's even prettier than your two girlfriends."

Hearing this, Cheng Xin immediately leaned over curiously, and in an instant was stunned by the girl's face on the poster.

"Holy shit, she's so beautiful," Cheng Xin exclaimed. "She does look a bit prettier than Xu Xuejie and Ying Chanxi, but I'm not saying your two girlfriends aren't gorgeous—they're both really pretty too."

Bai Haoran wasn't interested, glancing casually: "Music festival?"

"Right," Wen Zexuan tapped the poster. "I mentioned it before. There'll be tons of girls at the music festival, and music lovers tend to be more open-minded. If you handle the timing right, it's easy to get close."

"You said the same thing to me at the gym last time," Cheng Xin muttered bitterly.

"Is that my fault?" Wen Zexuan snapped. "You didn't follow my strategy properly—what can I do?"

Li Luo ate his meal, glanced at the poster, then chose silence.

Luckily, only Wen Zexuan and Cheng Xin were blind—Bai Haoran's gaze didn't fixate solely on the girls; he also noticed other parts of the poster.

The next second, Bai Haoran couldn't help asking: "Isn't that Li Luo over there?"

"Huh? What Li Luo?" Wen Zexuan froze, then stared closely—and gasped. "Holy shit?"

To be fair, Li Luo's proportion on the poster wasn't small compared to the other band members.

But he was only about one-third the height of Yan Zhusheng.

And he was shown only in profile—hard to notice unless you looked closely.

"You two are really dumb," Bai Haoran said flatly. "It says right here: 'Sheng Sheng Bu Xi Band, led by Yan Zhusheng and Chongran.' Can't you even read?"

Cheng Xin: "..."

Wen Zexuan: "..."

All they cared about was the girls—why bother reading the text?

But once they realized this, Wen Zexuan and Cheng Xin both turned sharply to Li Luo.

"What's your relationship with this Yan Zhusheng?" Wen Zexuan asked, unable to hold back. "Why are you even in her band?"

"I'm telling you—this is also my girlfriend. Do you believe me?" Li Luo said seriously.

"Can we stop joking?" Wen Zexuan rolled his eyes and chuckled. "You've got Xu Xuejie and Ying Chanxi already—now you want a third? Why not say she's the one chasing you?"

Li Luo: "..."

That... was actually accurate.

"Don't scare me, Li Guo," Cheng Xin blurted. "If she's really your girlfriend, does that mean all the beautiful girls at Qian Da are yours?"

"Not impossible," Bai Haoran said, pulling out his phone and showing them. "Online, quite a few people think Li Luo and Yan Zhusheng are dating."

"Really?" Wen Zexuan leaned over to look, then laughed confidently. "Just marketing accounts. The more serious they look, the more fake the news."

Listening to his roommates' chatter, Li Luo kept a calm face, but inside he was barely holding back laughter.

"If this Yan Zhusheng isn't your third girlfriend," Cheng Xin asked Wen Zexuan, "would you dare to pursue her?"

"Are you stupid or am I stupid?" Wen Zexuan rolled his eyes. "Look at the difficulty level of this mission—I'm that bored?"

"That's not like you," Cheng Xin frowned. "Such a beautiful girl—you'd definitely be interested."

"You know nothing," Wen Zexuan scoffed. "Look who's beside her."

"Even if she's not involved with Li Luo, having a guy like him as a benchmark makes the challenge way harder."

"When you go after her, she'll unconsciously compare you to Li Luo."

"Otherwise, how come such a gorgeous girl still doesn't have a boyfriend?"

"That's..." Li Luo stroked his chin, amused by the logic. "So if she's single because of me, does that mean I owe her responsibility?"

Wen Zexuan: "... Prove it then! I still don't believe you'd dare to date three girls at once!"

"Bro, I've warned you before, Luo-ge."

"You're already walking two paths—that's dangerous enough—but now you're getting this close to such a gorgeous girl? Don't you think the two at home will get jealous?"

"They'd probably get jealous, yeah." Li Luo smiled. "Chanxi is pretty jealous, but Zhusheng and I were classmates in high school—we know each other really well."

"I think you're going to blow up sooner or later." Wen Zexuan was genuinely envious of Li Luo's situation, and now could only grumble, "See how you'll clean up this mess."

Wen Zexuan wasn't wrong. Li Luo's current headache was exactly how to wrap this up neatly.

But the key issue wasn't how to convince the three girls anymore—it was how to convince their parents.

If his roommates found out the real situation, he couldn't imagine what expressions they'd make.

But Li Luo wasn't the type to show off, so he just brushed past the topic without saying more.

Meanwhile, Wen Zexuan and the other two checked Yan Zhusheng's info online and finally figured out her connection to Li Luo.

Turns out she was Yuan Wanqing's daughter.

No wonder she was so close to Li Luo.

Li Luo's three roommates never read Online Novels or used Weibo; back in school, each had their own reasons and never really engaged with such things.

They'd only heard a few of Yuan Wanqing's more popular songs, and some didn't even know she sang them.

Their recognition of Yuan Wanqing came mostly from her appearances at the Spring Festival Gala.

Under these circumstances, they'd never paid attention to her concerts, let alone known about the intimate bond between Yan Zhusheng and Chongran.

But after digging deeper online and learning the full details, Wen Zexuan began to doubt.

"Dude, are you really walking three paths at once?"

"What do you think?"

"I think it's not true." Wen Zexuan immediately retracted his guess. "Yuan Wanqing's a huge star—if her daughter was being trifled with, do you think she'd let you off? Even if you wrote songs for her, she wouldn't."

From a normal perspective, Wen Zexuan's words made sense.

Cheng Xin beside him nodded vigorously.

Mainly because he simply couldn't believe Li Luo could be juggling three girls—especially when all three were so beautiful and outstanding. It made him question what kind of life he'd been living.

Li Luo offered no further explanation, just smiled and fell silent.

After returning to the dorm and typing for a while longer, Li Luo received a WeChat message from Xu Youyu.

【Xu Youyu】: I'm going to clock my running count. You coming down too?

【Li Luo】: Coming. Whose car are we using?

【Xu Youyu】: Yours. So I don't have to hold the steering wheel with one hand and my phone with the other.

【Xu Youyu】: Besides, last time someone was so reckless, I had to take my brand-new car to the wash. I don't want to do that again.

【Li Luo】: So I should just go wash the car myself, right?

【Xu Youyu】: Then it's none of my business~

Li Luo didn't mind—he'd just tell Butler Liu to send a car for washing later.

At nine p. m., he met Xu Youyu downstairs and drove her into campus.

Following the running check-in locations on Xu Youyu's phone, Li Luo drove slowly, ticking off campus spots for her.

After more than ten minutes, as Xu Youyu's running count successfully increased by one, a satisfied smile appeared on her face: "Now I've got twenty-two! Perfect~"

"I should remind you," Li Luo chuckled, "Only six of those are morning runs. You still need to actually run ten morning sessions to meet the minimum requirement."

"No need to say that—I'll handle it when the time comes," Xu Youyu huffed.

"I wonder who hasn't done a single morning run since National Day ended," Li Luo said, exasperated. "At least run two or three times a month—then you'd be done by finals."

"Aww, don't rush. I've got a plan," Xu Youyu waved her hand impatiently, annoyed by his nagging. She climbed straight into the driver's seat, plopped down, and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him.

Li Luo had just stopped at the last check-in point, beside the Administration Building of the College of Literature.

Just as the two were deep in their kiss inside the car, upstairs in an office, Xu Rongsheng had just finished work and double-checked the scholarship fund application he'd written himself.

Satisfied after confirming everything was correct, he saved the file, tidied his desk, picked up his briefcase, and headed downstairs to go home.

Since the faculty housing complex was just a short walk north, Xu Rongsheng never drove to work—he walked.

So when he reached the first floor, he stepped out the main door of the Administration Building.

At that moment, his gaze unconsciously swept past the cars parked by the roadside—and then locked onto a black Audi A6.

That car looked familiar… wasn't that Li Luo's?

Xu Rongsheng muttered to himself, unable to clearly read the license plate, so he walked toward the rear of the car, leaned in, and confirmed—it really was Li Luo's.

What the hell was Li Luo doing here driving this late at night?

Thinking this, Xu Rongsheng approached the passenger-side window and tapped lightly.

The window rolled down quickly.

A face he knew intimately appeared inside.

It was his daughter, Xu Youyu.

"Why is your face so red?" Xu Rongsheng asked, puzzled.

"I—I just finished running!" Xu Youyu quickly pulled out her phone to show him proof—the timestamp of her evening running check-in.

But after looking, Xu Rongsheng grew even more suspicious: the completion time showed over twenty minutes ago.

She'd been resting in the car for over twenty minutes—and her face was still this flushed? Who was he supposed to believe?

But as soon as Xu Rongsheng realized the truth, he fell silent, his mouth shut tight.

"Dad? Why aren't you saying anything?" Xu Youyu asked cautiously.

"Nothing. Just didn't expect the sun to rise in the west," Xu Rongsheng forced a smile. "You actually came to campus to run on your own?"

"Li Luo came with me," Xu Youyu grinned, relieved her father hadn't suspected anything.

Xu Rongsheng nodded, said nothing more about it, and simply said, "Go home and get some sleep. I'm heading out too."

"Got it, Dad, bye!"

"Bye, Uncle Xu."

"Mm."

After watching Xu Rongsheng walk away, Xu Youyu's expression changed faster than a Peking Opera face-switch; she angrily pinched the soft flesh at Li Luo's waist. "I told you my dad was coming, and yet you still showed up!"

"I had to come too... and the timing was perfect, wasn't it?"

"You nearly blew our cover!" Xu Youyu snapped, furious.

"But I felt like Youyu-jie was kind of enjoying it too—back then you said you didn't want to, but really..."

"Shut up!" Xu Youyu's face flushed rare red; she quickly slapped her hand over Li Luo's mouth. "Don't you dare say another word!"