[Qinghua University, South Gate — September 17, 2025, Wednesday, ~5:48 PM]
The silence after the names held for three seconds. Then four.
Long Tian and the two women behind him on one side.
Lin Feng and the girl buried in his chest on the other.
Xiao Yue stood at Lin Feng's left shoulder and watched.
Ohh…
The thought came and went. Zhang Tingting's fists were buried in Lin Feng's jacket so deep that the fabric had gathered and twisted between her knuckles, pulling the collar off-center. Her forehead pressed into his sternum. She was shaking, crying, barely standing.
But the grip was wrong for panic. A panicking girl grabs and releases and grabs again. This girl had locked on and wasn't letting go.
Hm.
On Lin Feng's right, Lin Weiwei's jaw shifted.
She saw the same thing. The same white-knuckled grip, the same weight pressed into him like gravity, the same full-body hold that went beyond fear and into something neither of them could ignore.
And another one.
Heat climbed her neck and settled behind her ears before she could suppress it.
Their eyes met across Lin Feng's back.
It lasted less than a second. Xiao Yue's gaze was flat and clinical, as if she couldn't be bothered by some small fry.
Lin Weiwei meanwhile carried an edge that said something closer to I'll deal with you AND her when this is over.
But the conclusion was the same.
This wasn't their battlefield. Whatever was happening between these campus children — the boy with the golden hair, the two women flanking him, the confused agent blinking in the guard house doorway — none of it required their involvement.
Xiao Yue turned first. The evening air had gone cool enough to bite, and her heels clicked once on the concrete as she walked to the SUV without looking back. The passenger door opened, closed.
The tablet was already in her hands before the dome light faded. She had things to deal with. Things that actually mattered.
Lin Weiwei followed a second later. Not because Xiao Yue had set the pace — because standing here watching some girl sob on her brother's chest was making her want to break something, and breaking things in public was beneath her.
The driver's door opened. Closed. Her laptop was balanced on the steering wheel before the seat had even finished adjusting, and the notebook went onto the dashboard — kernel architecture, operating software, the platform ecosystem — things that she'd staked her future on.
Inside the SUV, two screens glowed against the darkening windows. Neither woman spoke. The sound of typing filled the cabin — fast, precise, aggressive.
Outside, the lampposts hummed. Twenty meters of concrete still separated the two camps. And the girl who had just lost everything was still crying against a man whose two most dangerous women had looked at her, measured her, and decided she was a problem for a different day.
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Long Tian dusted his knees off and stood up, looking at Lin Feng with a very annoyed look. He rolled his shoulders once, set his jaw, and let his hands hang loose at his sides.
Behind Lin Feng, two car doors closed. One, then the other.
The red text at the edge of his vision dimmed. The [DISENGAGE. RETREAT] warning was still there, still pulsing, but slower now. Quieter.
The interface elements had been flickering and glitching since Lin Feng and his group arrived. Now, slowly, they began to stabilize. One by one. Like a signal clearing as the source of interference moved further from the receiver — or weakened.
Tch! How dare you Minor Villain come and ruin my good deeds.
Long Tian didn't look at the numbers. There was no need for him to look at it. He already knew what they'd tell him.
Compose yourself, Long Tian. There is still Zhang Yuting and Su Qingxue who are heavily relying on you.
I can do this!
Long Tian breathed deeply for a moment, trying to relax his nerves. He then let his hands hang loose at his sides, summoning a casual and unbothered demeanor. The posture of a man who had not just spent three minutes on a concrete floor watching everything he'd paid for unravel.
In front of him, Su Qingxue was already moving.
Not toward the SUV — toward Lin Feng. She was brushing dust off her sleeve with sharp, furious strokes, her chin lifted, her eyes locked on the silver-haired man across the gap.
Zhang Tingting shoving her had done something to her. Not broken her — rather it lit her up. Like now, she looked like she was ready to tear someone apart with her bare hands.
Good.
Zhang Yuting stood in the guard house doorway. Her eyes were red and burning, fixed on the same target.
Two women. Both furious. Both pointed straight at Lin Feng. And neither of them needed a single point of encouragement. No CP cost. No skill activation. No quest. Just raw emotion — the kind he didn't have to pay for.
I will let them handle him first.
Long Tian stayed where he was — steady and present. Standing there like a general commanding his troops.
Let's see how Lin Feng behaves. Perhaps there is still a way to save Zhang Tingting from Lin Feng.
I must also watch what Zhang Tingting will also do next.
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Su Qingxue stepped into the gap between the two camps, and Long Tian let her, like she was walking into a courtroom.
Dust still on her sleeve. The brushing had turned from cleanup into something rhythmic and unconscious — her fingers working the fabric in quick, agitated strokes until she caught herself and dropped her hand to her side.
She could still feel the shove. Not the pain — the indignity. Zhang Tingting's palms shoving her flat, the floor slamming into her back, the sound she'd made on impact. In front of everyone. In front of Long Tian.
Her best friend had shoved her to the floor like an enemy.
This is his fault.
"Lin Feng."
He didn't turn.
Su Qingxue watched them.
His hand was on Zhang Tingting's shoulder. He was leaning down slightly, whispering damning things she couldn't hear — low, quiet, meant only for the girl pressed against him. Checking on her. Making sure she fell into him.
That she would forever fall under him, becoming a toy for him to enjoy.
Like Su Qingxue wasn't even there. She clenched her fists tightly.
"I'm talking to you, Lin Feng."
Nothing. His thumb moved on Zhang Tingting's shoulder — a small adjustment, steadying her. His eyes didn't shift.
To Su Qingxue, it was like watching a spider slowly approach the trapped fly.
The rage built fast. It climbed from her stomach into her chest and pressed against her ribs until she could feel her pulse hammering behind her jaw.
"You think you can just — just take her? Just move her out of our dorm in the middle of the day and have some woman in black stand guard over her like she's your property?"
Nothing. He murmured something to Zhang Tingting. The girl's grip loosened slightly. Progress he cared about. Words Su Qingxue couldn't compete with.
To Su Qingxue, it looked like Lin Feng was casting a spell on Zhang Tingting. Making her compliant.
"Those two women in your car — you hired them, didn't you? To make yourself look important? To make me jealous?"
"Four years you chased me. FOUR YEARS. And now suddenly you've got two — two supermodels sitting in an SUV doing paperwork and you expect me to believe that's real?"
Her voice cracked on the last word. She swallowed it down.
"Look at me. LOOK AT ME, LIN FENG!"
The scream tore across the concrete. Behind her, she felt Long Tian's presence — steady, patient, the solid warmth at her back that reminded her she wasn't alone in this.
He turned.
Not fast. Not startled. The way someone turns when a noise has finally become loud enough to investigate. His hand stayed on Zhang Tingting's shoulder, and his head came around, and his eyes found her face.
And stayed there.
He was looking at her. Actually looking — not through her, not past her, but at her. His brow furrowed. His head tilted slightly to one side. His eyes moved across her features with the slow, searching quality of someone trying to match a face to a context.
Lin Feng is finally looking at me… His looking at me…
But…
The thought arrived and she killed it instantly.
No. No! He's just playing games. He's trying to get under my skin. He knows exactly—
"Sorry." His voice came out flat. Not cold, not cruel. Genuinely puzzled. "Who are you again? Have we... met before?"
The words didn't land immediately. They sat in the air between them for a full second, weightless, before gravity took them.
Have we met.
Have we MET.
"I'm Su Qingxue!"
It ripped out of her — not a statement but a correction, the kind of furious reflex that came from hearing something so wrong that the body responded before the mind could decide whether to be hurt or angry.
"I'm — you chased me for four years! You wrote me letters! You sent me gifts every week! You confessed in front of the entire school THREE TIMES and you're asking if we've — if we've MET?"
Lin Feng's brow cleared.
Oh. That's Su Qingxue.
He'd seen her before. At the restaurant — a shape entering through the doors while his attention was on Xiao Yue.
In the corridors — a name other students mentioned, a figure in his peripheral vision that he'd never had reason to focus on. A contact in his phone he'd deleted on his first morning in this world.
The original Lin Feng had worshipped this face for four years. Had memorized every angle, every expression, every shift of light across her features.
But the man standing here had been in this body for two and a half days. And in those two and a half days, Su Qingxue had never once been the person he was looking at.
"Right. Su Qingxue." He nodded once. The way someone confirms a colleague's name at a conference they've already forgotten. "Sorry about that."
He turned back to Zhang Tingting.
Su Qingxue stood in the middle of the gap with her mouth open.
He wasn't performing. That was the thing that wouldn't fit anywhere — the thing her mind kept pushing away and couldn't find a shelf for. Indifference could be faked. Cruelty could be calculated. Even amnesia could be a tactic, some elaborate power play designed to destabilize her.
But the furrow. The tilt. The searching. The genuine, unguarded confusion of a man who had looked at her face and found nothing there.
That wasn't acting.
He didn't know me.
The thought surfaced for one second. Clear and terrible.
He actually didn't know my face.
She crushed it. Buried it under four years of certainty and the weight of everything she knew about Lin Feng and the absolute impossibility of a man who had worshipped her forgetting what she looked like.
He's lying. He has to be lying. This is a game. This is manipulation. This is—
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. Her jaw locked. Her eyes burned.
She took a step forward.
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Su Qingxue's hand reached for Lin Feng's arm.
However, right before her hand could touch Lin Feng, Zhang Tingting turned around and blocked her.
She was still shaking. Her eyes were still swollen and her throat was still raw and her hands were still unsteady from everything that had happened in the guard house.
"Don't touch him."
Zhang Tingting did not scream. Rather, her voice was low and hoarse. But it stopped Su Qingxue's hand mid-reach.
Behind Su Qingxue, Zhang Yuting pushed off the guard house doorframe.
She stepped forward to flank Su Qingxue, and the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, and Zhang Tingting faced them both.
"Qingxue. Yuting… Listen to me!"
At the edge of her vision, movement. Liu-23 was standing straighter. The vacant, pleasant expression was gone — replaced by something sharper, more familiar.
Her eyes swept the scene, cataloging positions, assessing threats. Training coming back online. She began moving toward Zhang Tingting with the measured steps of someone resuming a duty she'd been pulled away from.
The security guard beside her looked between the two groups, then at his booth. He retreated to it without a word.
Zhang Tingting kept her eyes on Su Qingxue.
"Something is wrong with him." She pointed past Su Qingxue's shoulder at Long Tian. Her hand was trembling. She couldn't stop it. "That man — Long Tian — he did something to me in the guard house just now."
Long Tian didn't move. He didn't flinch. He stood behind Su Qingxue and Zhang Yuting with his hands loose at his sides, and when Zhang Tingting's trembling finger pointed straight at his face, his expression didn't shift at all. He just watched. The way someone watches a specimen do something mildly interesting.
He's not even surprised.
I just told them what he did to me and he's not even surprised.
She tore her eyes away from him.
Su Qingxue's expression had shifted. Not to alarm — to pity. The kind of gentle, tolerant pity reserved for someone who had clearly lost their grip on reality.
"Tingting, you've been through a lot today—"
"He reached into my head."
The words came out ragged. Pulled from somewhere deep and still bleeding.
"I was sitting in that chair and he took my hand and I started... agreeing. With everything. His voice, your voice, Yuting's hand — it all felt right. And the things I cared about started disappearing. One by one. And I just... watched them go."
Her voice cracked.
"I couldn't even want to fight it. That's what he does. He doesn't force you. He makes you not want to say no."
She stopped. Drew a breath that shook.
Su Qingxue shook her head slowly. The pity deepened, and something else crept in underneath it — a softening. Her eyes lost a fraction of their sharpness. Her shoulders eased.
When she spoke, Long Tian's name came out warm. Rounded. Like a word she enjoyed holding in her mouth.
"Long Tian would never do something like that. He's the most genuine person I've ever—"
"You sound exactly like Lin Feng used to sound when he talked about you."
The sentence landed before Zhang Tingting had fully decided to say it.
It came from a place she'd been living in for four years without ever naming it — the place where she'd watched Lin Feng worship Su Qingxue with that exact tone, that exact softness, that exact blind certainty.
Su Qingxue's mouth closed.
"That look." Zhang Tingting's voice was steadier now. Quieter. "That thing your eyes just did when you said his name. Lin Feng used to get that same look. Every time. For four years."
And I know because I was there.
Because I watched Lin Feng…
Every single time in the last four years.
Behind her, she could feel Lin Feng's silence. Not absence — presence. Standing where she'd left him, not stepping in, not pulling her back. Letting her say what needed saying.
The first time she ever saw him — a boy throwing himself out of a car to tackle Su Qingxue away from a truck.
Four years of delivering his letters to a woman who threw them away, arranging his meetings with a woman who didn't show up, collecting the earrings and the bags that Su Qingxue didn't want — grateful, always grateful, because at least it was something connected to him.
This is love.
The thought arrived without drama. Simple. Factual.
And he almost took it from me before I could even say it to myself.
She felt the gazes of the two women from inside the SUV. She knew they were watching her.
I can't say it.
Not here. Not with them right there.
So she didn't.
"You had four years of someone who would have done anything for you." Zhang Tingting looked at Su Qingxue.
"You had letters and confessions and gifts worth more than your family makes in a year. You had a man who threw himself in front of a truck for you when you were nobody, and spent every day after that trying to be worthy of you."
Her voice didn't rise. It stayed low, steady, controlled.
"And you threw it away. All of it. You even have the audacity to call him pathetic, a bootlicker."
She swallowed.
"I watched you get everything and throw it away. And I—"
The word caught. She felt it press against the back of her teeth — the confession, the real one, the one that would crack her open in front of the SUV and the lampposts and everyone.
She swallowed it.
"I — I cannot remain silent about that any longer."
The last word fell into silence.
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The silence after Zhang Tingting's last word held for three heartbeats.
Then Zhang Yuting stepped forward.
"Tingting, I came here to save you."
She took another step. Her bag slid off her shoulder and she didn't fix it.
"I searched the whole campus. I called your phone over and over. I went to your dorm and everything was gone — your clothes, your books, the photo of your parents — and I thought—"
Her voice cracked hard enough that she had to stop and breathe.
"And now you're standing there telling me that Brother Tian is some kind of monster? That Qingxue and I are — what? Brainwashed?"
"You're my family, Tingting. You're my blood. And you're choosing HIM over us."
She gestured behind Zhang Tingting at Lin Feng without looking at him. Her hand shook when she did it.
"If you stay with that man..." Her voice went flat. Deliberate. Forcing each word past something that didn't want to let them through. "Then— Then—"
She couldn't finish. Her jaw locked and the rest of the ultimatum died somewhere between her throat and the air.
Zhang Tingting stood very still. Her legs felt like wet paper and her throat was raw and she had nothing left to fight with.
"Very well…"
"Very well…"
"If you want to threaten me with severance…"
"Then… Severance it is…"
"Unless you stop ogling and acting like brain-dead girls around your Long Tian, then…"
"We're not family anymore."
She said it quietly. Not cold. Not defiant. The voice of someone setting down something too heavy to carry any further.
"And we're not friends anymore."
She looked at Su Qingxue when she said the second one.
"Not until any of you thinks properly again."
Su Qingxue's composure resettled. The pity was gone. What replaced it was harder. Colder.
"You know what you are, Tingting?"
Her voice was flat and precise.
"You're a gold digger. You always were. He paid you for three years to be our matchmaker and you took every yuan. And now that I've made myself clear that I don't want him anymore, you've decided to take my place."
The words landed on Zhang Tingting's skin like something thrown.
She looked at Su Qingxue's hard, flat eyes. Looked at Zhang Yuting's locked jaw and the fury that hadn't broken even when her voice did.
Then she turned away.
Toward Lin Feng.
But she stopped. Looked back one more time. At Su Qingxue. At Zhang Yuting.
"Takes one to know one, Qingxue."
Su Qingxue's face twisted. "Why you—"
"Stop right there, Tingting!" Zhang Yuting's voice cut across her, sharp and raw. She took a step forward, fists balled at her sides.
Zhang Tingting turned to face her fully.
"What is it, Zhang Yuting?"
The full name landed like a slap. Not Yuting. Not cousin. Zhang Yuting — the way you addressed a stranger, or an enemy, or someone you were putting at arm's length for the first time in your life.
Zhang Yuting froze. Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"I..."
"Is there something you want to say?" Zhang Tingting waited one second. Two. "If not, then don't waste Lin Feng's time."
Then she turned away.
Toward the SUV. Toward whatever came next.
She didn't look back this time.
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[Zhang Tingting] ★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (1-Star Heroine)
├─ Previous: -15
└─ Current: -30 (-15▼)
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Lin Feng took Zhang Tingting's arm and walked her toward the SUV, his hand steady on her arm.
Liu-23 fell into step on the other side. She was upright, eyes forward, hands at her sides — but something was off in how she held her shoulders. Too rigid.
She still looked a little confused, but at the same time, she couldn't help but look away and avoid having eye contact with Lin Feng or Zhang Tingting.
Seeing her, Lin Feng ordered her.
"Go back to your handler. Your mission here is over."
Liu-23's stride broke for half a step. Then she nodded, peeled off, and disappeared toward the campus interior.
They were almost at the SUV when Zhang Tingting stopped.
"My bags."
She was looking back toward the guard house.
Everything she owned was still in there. Her clothes, her laptop, her documents — and the photo. Her parents in front of the old apartment.
Her, squinting in her high school uniform. The frame that had left a dust rectangle on the shelf this afternoon when it was packed.
All of it sitting ten meters from Long Tian.
Lin Feng looked at them for a moment, then at Long Tian who was looking at him so menacingly, before finally settling on Zhang Tingting.
"Leave them."
"But—"
"I'll get you new ones. All of it."
She looked at the guard house one more time. At Long Tian's silhouette in the lamplight. At the space she would have to cross to reach her own belongings.
She got in the car.
The back seat smelled like leather and something faintly metallic — electronics, maybe, or the particular warmth of machines that had been running all afternoon. Two screens glowed in the front.
Xiao Yue's fingers were moving across a tablet.
Lin Weiwei had a laptop balanced on the steering wheel and a notebook open on the dash.
Both of them looked up when the door opened.
One second. Maybe less. Eyes on her face — the swollen lids, the raw skin around her nose, whatever expression she was wearing that she couldn't feel anymore — and then back to their screens.
Zhang Tingting sat down. The leather was cold through her jeans.
He… Hehehe… I own nothing now…
I… I have nothing left…
I own… nothing…
Lin Feng got in beside her and pulled the door shut, and the outside world went quiet.
He sat there for a moment.
Tingting broke free from the system's effects.
This is unprecedented. It never happened in the novel before.
In the original novel, once Long Tian makes his move, it's over. No one I know of ever resisted it. No one ever broke out of it. The target goes compliant and stays compliant until the timer ends.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with Tingting…
But…
What if there is… Probably… After all, I do remember that it took Long Tian a long time to conquer Zhang Tingting.
If anything, I remember how Long Tian was so frustrated at her that she wouldn't just let herself be conquered.
Like Long Tian was already conquering 4-stars and 5-stars and Tingting was still part of the unconquered list.
Or perhaps… there might also be something at play here.
Does Weiwei or Yue affect the system? Or is there something else that I don't know yet.
He didn't have an answer. He put the question somewhere he could find it later and left it there.
Lin Weiwei took her laptop away, stowed it at the side pocket of the car door and started the engine. The SUV swung through the south gate, and Lin Feng looked through the rear window.
Long Tian was still standing where he'd been standing. Same spot. Same posture. Su Qingxue at one side, Zhang Yuting at the other. The lamplight caught his hair.
Their eyes met through the glass. Held for two seconds. Three.
Then the gate was gone.
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Long Tian watched the taillights shrink.
The system display still blinked at the edge of his vision.
DISENGAGE. RETREAT.
He dismissed it with a thought, and the red text folded away into nothing.
Hmm… Just one heroine.
Su Qingxue quickly leaned into his arms the moment Lin Feng and his group left. Zhang Yuting stood at his other side, jaw still set, staring at the place where the taillights had been. Both of them close.
Both of them his.
One heroine out of three thousand.
He pulled up Zhang Tingting's profile. The number sat there like an accusation.
-30.
She'd been -10 when the system first registered her. Then -15 after the confrontation started. Now -30.
That Lin Feng has ruined everything for me.
How dare he, a minor villain, stand in my way. He even poisoned her mind and fed her stories about mind control!
But Tingting… Oh Tingting… Why do you have to make things so difficult for me. All I want is to save you.
But no… You came running toward that scoundrel!
Nevermind… you are still my woman. And you will become mine in the future. I will save you along with those two as well.
When I'm stronger — when the system levels up — there won't be interference. There won't be errors. There won't be some minor villain crashing in at the last second.
Next time, the numbers will go the right way.
Until next time… Lin Feng.
Long Tian finally placed his arm around Su Qingxue and turned toward the campus interior. His other hand was clenched so hard it began to draw blood. Meanwhile, Zhang Yuting fell into step beside them without a word, and the south gate settled into evening behind them.
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[End of Chapter]