Chapter 282

"Mm-un... L..."

"You called the wrong name, oh. What kind of punishment do you want?"

"Don't, ah-ah..."

A long while later.

"What score?"

"Mm? What..."

"My make-up exam, Examiner."

"...Failing grade!"

"Is that so... then we’ll have to take a few more make-up exams."

"Ah? No, it’s not! That’s not what I meant! Full marks, full marks, ah—"

Having finally crawled off Li Yiquan’s bed alive, after finishing breakfast and seeing Qin Zhixiu off, He Lele resolutely hugged her laptop and stayed in the first-floor living room. No matter how Li Yiquan said the internet connection was more convenient at his place, she wouldn't go up there for anything.

After the live broadcast of the first round of the "Next Stop, Queen" advancement competition, this program, which had already sparked a craze, instantly had a trend of monopolizing all major social platforms. Often, six out of ten trending posts were related to "Next Stop, Queen." Of course, the focus of people’s attention was by no means just the competition itself.

The mid-stream replacement of the title sponsor, Muse Media’s intervention in production, the identities and stances of the hundred professional judges, the dark secrets behind the selection of the six predators, the various gossip surrounding the top twenty contestants... true and false, half-true and half-false, seemingly true and seemingly false.

Using the small tool Li Yiquan had specially written for her to filter the online comments about her, He Lele looked on with a calm face, while Li Yiquan, who was accompanying her on the side, had cold, fierce anger in his eyes.

"Mr. Fang went on vacation, isn't it okay for you not to go back to the firm to hold the fort?" He Lele turned her head to ask.

"It’s fine, Xiaoyu will call if there’s any situation."

"Between people and people and people..." Li Yiquan’s voice had just fallen when Ren Lingyu’s name appeared on He Lele’s phone.

The two looked at each other, and Li Yiquan reached out a long arm, picked up the phone, and pressed the speaker button.

"Lele! That bitch Cui Yaran really hired internet trolls to spread rumors everywhere!"

Silently listening to the conversation between He Lele and Ren Lingyu, Li Yiquan only spoke after He Lele hung up the phone.

"You knew all along that Cui Yaran would do this?"

He Lele nodded. "Since she has secretly had people spread rumors for me for so many years, now that I’ve jumped out in front of the public, how could she do nothing? But I really didn't expect her to show up in person to compete."

Li Yiquan lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, his right hand continuing to hold her, while his left hand nimbly tapped on the keyboard, checking the online discussion since the competition began.

"Uniform proxy servers, regular reply intervals, several almost identical phrasings... After the auditions, there were already fixed personnel spreading rumors, but the news you transmitted had been very little, and the attention itself was very low, so these rumors didn't cause much of a reaction."

"You mean, she entered the competition specifically to help me attract attention?"

"There is that possibility."

"...Heh, I’m starting to believe Lingyu’s guess a little."

"What guess?"

"Cui Yaran, she loves me to death, deliberately ruining my reputation so everyone stays away from me, just to monopolize me all to herself."

Knowing she was being sarcastic, Li Yiquan still felt his heart tighten, and his left hand lifted her chin and kissed her.

But Cui Yaran must not have imagined that her current real situation was even more jaw-dropping than those rumors.

Passionately returning Li Yiquan’s kiss, He Lele thought silently in her heart.

Airport.

"Director, this is the information you wanted. However, Cui Yaran immigrated to Country Y three years ago, and the information for the last few years is still being collected," Lin Qi reported in a formulaic manner.

Shentu Mo took the folder, opened the first page, and his gaze seemed to be drawn to a class photo of elementary school students.

In the center of the photo, a childish little face had a bright, innocent, and moving smile.

The corners of his mouth curled into a smile involuntarily, and Shentu Mo closed the folder. "Return to the apartment."

☆, Chapter 313: If I Want

Deep Blue Apartment, kitchen.

Putting the last ingredients into the soup pot, He Lele turned around and took the leftover rice from the morning out of the refrigerator, took two eggs, and skillfully fried a plate of egg-fried rice to serve as lunch. Now there was only her in the apartment, and she couldn't eat much food, so she simply didn't cook any dishes; at worst, she would eat a little more after the soup was done in the afternoon.

She had chased Li Yiquan off to the firm—it wasn't that she didn't like being accompanied, but she didn't like them deliberately making time to accompany her. Besides, with them watching from the side, it was easy for her to get distracted no matter what she did.

T-h-e-y... He Lele shook her head and smiled. The world was full of wonders, but she had never thought she would have the chance to become one of them. ===== CHAPTER 381 =====

Only cherish the blessings.

Sprinkling green onions, stir-frying, and plating, she was just about to reach for a spoon when an arm suddenly stretched out from behind her, scaring her so much she almost dropped the egg fried rice in her hand.

"You—" Shentu Mo! When did he come back?

Seeing Shentu Mo take the plate from her hand as a matter of course and walk out of the kitchen while eating, He Lele couldn't help but be stunned.

A scene that seemed familiar.

Wait, that's not the point now!

"That's my lunch." Looking at the man in black at the dining table, He Lele said coldly.

The man, whose handsomeness surpassed that of an idol, ignored her words and continued to eat elegantly.

Seeing the fried rice in the plate decreasing rapidly, He Lele could only stand there helplessly. What else could she do? Go grab it?

"Gurgle..." Whether it was hunger or anger, He Lele's stomach actually growled in response.

Shentu Mo tilted his head slightly and glanced at her, then scooped a full spoonful with the spoon in his hand and sent it into his mouth.

This bas, tard!

He Lele turned around and rushed back to the kitchen to grab the largest vegetable plate, picked up the spatula, and with the speed of lightning, scraped away more than half of the egg fried rice from the plate under Shentu Mo's nose, then quickly hid back in the kitchen, locked the door, and devoured the egg fried rice as fast as she could!

"..." What did she just do?

By the time He Lele realized her behavior just now, her first action was to pound her chest, swallowing the egg fried rice stuck in her chest first.

Ah! The window! He Lele hurriedly rushed over to lock the window.

Uh... that's not right! Why is she locking the window! She should climb out and run away! But what if he's already outside the window?

Sticking to the wall, she peeked out the window, no one. To be safe, she tiptoed back to the kitchen door and peeked at the dining room through the glass, and didn't see anyone either.

Went upstairs?

Her heart was thumping like she was trapped in a haunted house. He Lele moved to the center of the kitchen uneasily, pricking up her ears to listen to the movement on both sides.

Her phone rang suddenly from outside the door, and He Lele climbed onto the counter like a rabbit, opened the window, and jumped out.

"Ah-ah—" The world turned upside down.

"Splash!" She was carried by someone and thrown directly into the cold swimming pool outside the apartment.

"Gurgle gurgle... cough cough..." After choking on a few mouthfuls of water, He Lele surfaced, glaring at Shentu Mo on the shore with a smile on his face in shock and anger.

He was actually still smiling! He was a bastard—wait, he was smiling? Shentu Mo?

Before her muddled brain could count one, two, three, He Lele saw Shentu Mo move his hands and feet and take off his leather shoes.

He, what did he want to do?

"You, don't come over!" He Lele swam in the opposite direction with her hands and feet, but the more she wanted to swim, the less she could move, "Don't, unh—"

Her waist was clamped tightly and pressed into the water. She held her breath and tried desperately to pull away the large palm at her waist, her legs kicking wildly backward but hitting nothing.

"Su Tu Lu Mu Gu Lu!" Ignoring being underwater, He Lele struggled and shouted.

Splash! With a lift, a spin, and a pull at her waist, she fell into a fiery and hard chest.

"Cough cough! You—" Just as she saw his eyes with a faint smile, the force at her waist came again. This time, he pressed her whole body and sank into the water.

Don't!

Push, couldn't push, kick, he didn't react at all. He just tilted his head slightly and pressed gently against her lips with the composure of a controller.

"Unh..." She bit her teeth tightly and closed her mouth, but in the blink of an eye, her chest was about to explode from lack of oxygen!

Bastard, bastard! Perverted serial killer! Psycho glasses devil!

She cursed wildly in her heart, but her body gradually lost its strength. No, it's not working... She pinched his arms fiercely, and she unwillingly loosened her teeth, slightly opened her lips, and pressed tightly against his lips to absorb the meager air in his mouth.

Bastard... no, she was stupid, why did she provoke him? How could she... beat him?

Exhausted, she was carried out of the swimming pool by Shentu Mo. When the wind blew, she curled up in the cold, reflexively leaning into his arms—why does such a perverted, cold-blooded, inhumane man have such a scorching body?

"If I leave the apartment, can you let me go?" She asked without much hope.

"...Maybe." With a light laugh, he placed her naked body into the steaming bathtub, Shentu Mo stood up, took off his wet clothes and pants, stepped into the bathtub with his lean and sturdy body, sat beside her, and let the bubbles in the massage bathtub gently hit his body.

Maybe? That's why she didn't leave.

This man, if he wanted to do something to her, it would be the same wherever she was, and vice versa. If she went to another place, she was afraid she would have no way to avoid the eyes of the world. Because she didn't doubt at all that Shentu Mo didn't care how the world saw him.

"Aren't you afraid of lying in the hospital for three days again?" Thinking about it, she didn't seem to have any other bargaining chips.