Yan Luqing stared at the phone screen in disbelief.

This was… the plan had failed?

The reason Yan Luqing had originally chosen to take Big Black out was, first, because she was already used to it, and second, because Big Black had spent more time in contact with the psychologist, so most of the communication was basically handled by him.

Moreover, she felt that it was just a matter of staying home and dropping a few side remarks to Gu Ci, and letting Little Black act it out would be more convincing—because judging from Big Black’s emotional intelligence and IQ, he was clearly not the sort of person who would suddenly sigh and lament; if Gu Ci heard that, he would find it extremely strange.

But Little Black was different. Nothing was strange when he did it. Just like receiving a message and then running to Gu Ci to sigh and moan, and even exaggerating with emotion—this all very much fit his idiot persona.

Yan Luqing had never thought that sending an idiot to play an idiot would still end up crashing.

So now, when she saw Little Black’s inner complaints, she felt as if the blood in her whole body froze for an instant.

Meanwhile, the bubbles above Little Black’s head were still continuously rising—

Gray terror: What do I do? What should I say now?

Blue sadness: Miss Yan and Mr. Gu Ci are truly a match made in heaven, neither of them speaks human words…

Yan Luqing: “……” A false compliment. He and I are truly not of the same species.

Then, for some reason, Little Black’s emotions shifted from dejection to anger—

Red bubble: Seriously, is scaring me every day really that fun??

Red bubble x2: I may just be a bodyguard earning a wage, but I also have a temper. Why must you play me like this?!

Yan Luqing: “…………” You’re rather good at gilding yourself.

By rights, she should order Little Black to stop acting, but judging from Little Black’s state of mind, he probably wouldn’t continue acting anyway.

On the side, Big Black seemed to sense that her mood wasn’t right, and, having just overheard her phone call to Little Black, was a little worried about his silly younger brother. At this moment, he respectfully and cautiously asked her: “Miss Yan… did Little Black make some mistake?”

She waved her hand at Big Black, indicating no.

Yan Luqing couldn’t say anything at all right now.

She only knew that this home… she somewhat didn’t want to return to it.

But as Yan Luqing’s emotions fluctuated in the car, the car had already driven into the villa district. In less than five minutes, she saw that villa in which Gu Ci was.

Yan Luqing let Big Black get out of the car first, while she stayed inside for a while.

“Makka Pakka,” she called out to it in her mind, “last night I got drunk and said some things…” Yan Luqing briefly recounted it. “Gu Ci’s reaction was so calm… could it be possible that he knows I transmigrated into this book?”

“If, at some moment, a character inside the book becomes aware that there is someone from the outside world, then I would receive a warning, and the host would be punished—” Makka Pakka paused. “But Maria has not yet received anything.”

The limiting condition was characters inside the book.

Then Gu Ci surely counted as… a character inside the book, right?

Yan Luqing murmured: “So that means he hasn’t discovered…?”

That was also very strange—

“No, what is going on with Gu Ci? In order to explain away my drunken nonsense last night, I arranged such a smooth plan for Little Black, so why did it still get seen through by him?”

The more Yan Luqing thought about it, the more baffled she became. On one hand she felt regret for her seamless plan, on the other hand she felt a trace of shame at being so easily seen through by Gu Ci: “In the end, is it that I can read minds, or that he can read minds???”

Makka Pakka hesitated for quite a while before finally answering softly: “…Because my host is Maria, I also cannot see any information about Gu Ci other than the original plot line in the book… but…”

“But what?”

“Maria, do you… do you not think that Gu Ci is very possibly simply of high intelligence?”

“……”

That was outright insulting.

Yan Luqing shut off the dialogue with Makka Pakka, did a bit of psychological building-up in the car, and finally opened the car door and got out.

Upon entering the courtyard, she first forced a smile at the Disney Auntie cleaning the yard, then her eyes met the dark face of Little Black who had come out to greet her.

That suffocating feeling she had just experienced in the car came rushing back again.

Little Black, however, did not appear like his inner red bubbles just now, instead wearing a pitiful expression: “Miss Yan, Mr. Gu Ci has long known that your illness is very serious, why did you still make me go ask…”

Yan Luqing’s steps did not pause, but Little Black still chattered by her ear: “Made me look just like an idiot…”

“……” Yan Luqing felt that she really spoiled him too much.

She closed her eyes briefly and then said: “It would be more fitting if you removed the word ‘like.’”

Big Black walked in front of the two, helping her push open the main door, and once Yan Luqing stepped into the living room, she saw Gu Ci sitting on the sofa.

And beside him was… Liu, the ophthalmologist from the Mediterranean clinic?

Little Black promptly supplemented by her ear: “While you were away, Dr. Liu came.”

Yan Luqing calculated—it did seem to be about the time for this doctor’s follow-up visit.

Having an outsider present was also good, sparing the awkwardness of just the two of them left in the living room.

Thinking this way, Yan Luqing did not so much as glance at Gu Ci, kept her gaze straight, and walked directly over to greet Dr. Liu.

This old man was still as kind and easy to talk to as ever, and he even remembered that when Yan Luqing had asked him for new medicine she had mentioned traveling: “That’s right, did you two just come back from Dieye Mountain? How was it?”

Yan Luqing spoke honestly: “Pretty good.”

“Mm,” Gu Ci, sitting on the sofa in a leisurely and comfortable posture, opened his mouth yet only to deliver a stab, “Other than us falling down a slope and being trapped for a day and a night, everything was pretty good.”

Yan Luqing: “……”

Dr. Liu exclaimed in amazement: “Oh, you two even fell down? Nothing happened, right?”

Yan Luqing forced a stiff smile: “Now nothing’s wrong…”

From the moment she entered, Yan Luqing had always been avoiding meeting Gu Ci’s eyes directly, only looking at Dr. Liu. But after Gu Ci said that sentence, she immediately turned toward his direction.

Although she had always labeled herself as a heartless sand sculpture, and her sisters also judged her to be warm on the outside but cold within, hard to truly engage emotionally—yet Yan Luqing believed that in many moments she still did have heart, and it was soft, only that ordinary little things rarely managed to touch it.

And as luck would have it, those twenty-four hours spent with Gu Ci were not a small matter to her. Many details, when recalled, seemed to hold a special meaning for her.

And once she began to care, she did not much like having this matter taken out and made into a joke.

Just like back then, when Big White Teeth had mocked the youth’s frail figure, she had angrily struck back. Although the situation now was far from that time with Big White Teeth, it still made her somewhat uncomfortable.

Especially since this was spoken from the mouth of the very person involved—Gu Ci.

The two of them looked at each other from across the room for a while. Gu Ci very faintly lifted the corner of his eye and smiled at her, “What is it?”

That smile carried a profoundly meaningful air.

Yan Luqing was instantly made somewhat unsettled by his smile, and at once walked over to the sofa, sitting down beside him with a throw pillow’s distance between them.

She asked softly: “Why did you use that tone to talk to him?”

Gu Ci looked lazy in manner: “What tone?”

“It’s just…” Yan Luqing did not know how to describe it either. “Just now when Dr. Liu asked me if we had a good time, I said it was pretty good, so why did you have to bring up us falling down?”

Wasn’t that plainly tearing down her stage, contradicting her?

“Oh,” Gu Ci’s voice drew out, drawn and lilting, “so you think that falling down was also pretty good?”

“???” Yan Luqing was stunned for a moment, “When did I ever…”

She had just said those words when she suddenly stopped short.

When she first came in, she had clearly held to the principle of not taking the initiative to speak to Gu Ci—if the enemy did not move, I would not move.

So why was it that now, the two of them were already conversing as if no one else were present???

Yan Luqing had not noticed earlier that from the moment she sat down beside him, everyone in the living room had unconsciously been watching them. Not only because people liked looking at a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman, but even more because the scene of the two talking and laughing truly looked very much like…

“As expected, they all say traveling together can promote feelings,” from behind came Dr. Liu’s sighing words with a smile, “compared to the first time I came here, it’s really very different. Seems that after this trip, your relationship has leaped forward by bounds.”

“………”

Yan Luqing felt that once again, she had unconsciously fallen into a trap.

Gu Ci had already completed his examination before Yan Luqing’s return, and after a few words of conversation, Dr. Liu soon departed as well.

Yan Luqing still sat in the same spot on the sofa, and as the sound of the car leaving drifted in from the courtyard, the living room once again fell silent.

She did not know how many seconds had passed when she felt the person beside her move, and immediately after, Gu Ci’s voice came—

“Last night……”

He had just spoken two words when Yan Luqing seized the timing and cut him off—

“Gu Ci, I just came from seeing the psychologist, and right now I’m in a very bad mood.”

“………”

She said this while slightly turning her face toward him.

Her expression was empty, her voice low, the corners of her eyes half lowered—utterly lifelike.

In Gu Ci’s eyes, interest arose once again.

Although she had many actions and thoughts that ordinary people could not understand, it had to be said—her acting skills were consistently online.

Yan Luqing remembered that last time too, she had been drunk and unwilling to face him, yet had been forced to go out with him, and had resorted to the Biluochun Green Tea Technique.

So now, she once again used the same trick—

“A person like you cannot argue with someone whose mind is unclear, all the more when she is a pitiful girl who was drunk.”

“What fault does she have? She was only incited and goaded by her cousin to drink two glasses of wine, and then said a bit of nonsense, that was all.”

After Yan Luqing launched the Biluochun Technique, she still did not receive any response for a long while.

Unable to hold on, she shifted her angle slightly, wanting to see what Gu Ci’s reaction was now.

She never expected…

She instead saw him pressing a hand against his mouth, as though stifling laughter, his eyes nearly bending into beautiful crescent moons.

At once, all expression collapsed from Yan Luqing’s face. She was utterly shocked, and directly pushed at him with a pillow, “What are you laughing at! Isn’t this matter serious!”

Yan Luqing was deeply immersed in her role, pushing as she pouted in grievance, “I really just finished psychological counseling, how can you be like this!”

The hand Gu Ci had pressed against his lips came down, and he lifted his eyes to her again. His expression at last carried seriousness.

He said: “Yan Luqing, what you said last night truly didn’t much sound like nonsense.”

Yan Luqing’s heart gave a violent jolt, as if a stone had crashed down, pressing painfully against her chest.

“But it doesn’t matter.” —— Yet Gu Ci quickly turned.

“If you so much wish for me to treat you as mentally ill,” his expression relaxed again, with still a trace of laughter lingering at the corner of his eyes, making him seem very gentle, “then I can take you for muddled.”

Some people, with a single light sentence, would walk away, leaving the listener to rack their brains in confusion.

Yan Luqing returned to her own room, brooding hard all morning.

First of all, Makka Pakka had said that if someone in the world of the book realized she was a person from the outside world, she would receive punishment—yet she had not received any punishment now, and Gu Ci was certainly a person inside the book.