On the hospital bed, Jiang Ran, who was beautifully waiting for the rich lady to transfer the money, was still browsing the food delivery interface.
Her finger had just swiped to the Braised Chicken Rice that was supposedly worth a chef’s entire career when a familiar message popped up at the top of her phone.
Jiang Ran stopped what she was doing.
She didn’t understand why Su Wanqing was looking for her at this hour.
With a sense of trepidation, Jiang Ran opened the chat window.
What caught her eye was a line of striking large text—
“Jiang Ran, are you… really short on money lately?”
“Eh, wh… why the sudden question?”
Jiang Ran scratched her head, not understanding what was happening.
Immediately after, a screenshot of a match result that made her heart skip a beat was sent over.
‘Could… could it be that the person I was just playing with was Su… Su Wanqing?’
She actually ran into her with such a small probability!?
“I noticed you never say a word in class. I didn’t expect your gaming skills to be so high. How about you carry me in ranked from now on?”
Sent along with the message was a large red envelope.
The cover note read:
“If you’re hungry, you can actually eat a bit more.”
Holding her phone, Jiang Ran didn’t know what to say anymore.
Should she take this money or not?
After thinking it over, Jiang Ran took it.
She really was hungry.
It was just that she really didn’t want to agree to the second half of Su Wanqing’s request about carrying the female lead.
‘I’ve already agreed to just slack off and keep a low profile, so how can I push my relationship with the female lead?’
“I think I’ll pass. I actually prefer playing games alone. I just didn’t expect you to like this kind of game, Minister. I always thought it was something only boys liked.”
After the message was sent, it felt like it had vanished into the ocean.
Jiang Ran’s heart rate instantly accelerated.
‘Did she start sharpening her knife because I rejected her?’
Tension and unease intertwined as sweat dripped from her forehead.
Gripping her phone, Jiang Ran once again felt the weight of the saying, ‘Serving a ruler is like serving a tiger.’
About 30 seconds later, a fragmented message was sent over.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“The others like playing it, so I just followed along and downloaded it.”
“If you don’t want to play, I’ll send you tomorrow’s speech draft. Could you help me take a look at it?”
The message was sent in three segments, but the timestamps were identical.
Jiang Ran didn’t know what that implied and merely replied mechanically, “Sure.”
Soon, several speech drafts were sent over.
They were all in Word format, and clicking them allowed for a preview in the window.
Reviewing speech drafts was a complete weakness for Jiang Ran.
In the past, her university speech drafts were always just things she randomly scraped from the internet; she had never scrutinized the content.
Now that she was being asked to look at them, what could she possibly see?
After forcedly reading the documents for a while, Jiang Ran’s gaze began to lose focus.
‘It’s so hard…’
‘Am I going to have to do this kind of work with the President from now on?’
Looking at the documents that seemed to have no end, Jiang Ran felt despair.
She couldn’t exactly say that tomorrow she would be in a small room with the female lead doing that kind of mouth-to-mouth thing.
—Referring to the speech.
Jiang Ran opened the internet and searched for how to provide a professional critique of a friend’s article.
After looking around, she couldn’t find any particularly good methods.
Swiping her phone, she switched back to the chat window and organized her words to reply, “I don’t really understand it, sigh… but it seems very impressive.”
Su Wanqing’s reply came 30 seconds later.
“Yeah, your suggestion was quite pertinent. Go eat something.”
“Ciallo～(∠・ω)⌒☆”
***
When Jiang Ran accepted the red envelope, she found that it was actually a full 200 yuan.
Moreover, that was the maximum limit for a red envelope, not Su Wanqing’s limit.
This price was definitely much higher than the market rate for game boosters.
No booster could earn 200 yuan for a single session.
Jiang Ran hurried to type, “This is way too much.”
“Think it’s too much? Then how about you play a few more rounds with me?”
“But I just said…”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to play. Get the script ready; you have a speech tomorrow too.”
“My speech?”
Jiang Ran’s attention had shifted from the 200 yuan red envelope to the fact that Su Wanqing wanted her to give a speech.
After all, nothing had been said about her giving a speech just now.
“Yes. It’s a rare opportunity, so you should try it. If I’m busy in the future, you can represent me at school activities.”
Huh?
Jiang Ran was stunned.
Why was she being pushed toward the center of the stage?
She only wanted to be a background character.
This kind of thing was absolutely out of the question.
“No, I have social anxiety. Besides, I’m not good at speaking. I’ll just handle the logistics as usual.”
“But you were commanding everyone so energetically in the game just now. Jiang Ran, I feel like you’re intentionally avoiding me. Your attitude definitely wasn’t like this before?”
Jiang Ran’s fingers gripping the phone paused.
She was indeed avoiding the female lead, but she definitely couldn’t say that to her.
Once she said it, how could she continue to disguise herself?
Even if she had to force it, she had to keep up the act.
“Because of my social anxiety, I only dare to command others a little bit in a game. In reality, I don’t dare to at all.”
On the other end of the phone, Su Wanqing’s eyes cleared up as she looked at the screen.
That made a lot of sense, but she really hoped Jiang Ran could have more opportunities to express herself.
Su Wanqing took off her Cat-ear Headphones, feeling a bit depressed.
Why was she paying so much attention to a minor Club member?
Frustratedly grabbing her hair, she pulled a stack of books from the shelf and took out a Liqueur Chocolate hidden at the very back.
She popped one into her mouth, feeling the mellow aroma of the alcohol.
Having recovered her energy, she continued typing:
“Since you don’t want to go on stage, then forget it. We’ll stick to the old rules. You handle the filming for me, and I’ll also leave the task of writing for the Official Account to you. How’s that?”
“Okay!”
Jiang Ran had finished ordering her food by now and simply tilted her head to start chatting.
She didn’t realize that outside the door, Gu Ge’s gaze was fixed on the petite figure on the hospital bed…
And the watched Jiang Ran remained blissfully unaware, tapping away at her phone.
Just now, Su Wanqing had sent her the Work Log.
Because the Club was small, it was called a log, but it was actually just a plan for who would be responsible for checking in and keeping records.
When the time came, the completed Work Log would also need to be submitted to the school leaders.
Only after they passed and provided daily site photos for check-ins would the assessment be cleared and credits properly distributed.
Some schools, in order to get everyone to actively participate in clubs, tricked people by saying that not joining a club would affect their graduation grades.
As a result, some first-year students who didn’t know the truth foolishly boarded the pirate ship.
Jiang Ran was in one of those situations, though it wasn’t entirely about credits.
Her Counselor had told her to participate in more social activities and not stay cooped up in the dorm.
The motto of Rongnan University had always encouraged everyone to make more friends.
Looking at it now, it was most likely a lie to trick her.
“You received the files, right? If you’re busy during your shift, let me know in advance, and I’ll send someone to help you check in.”
“Okay.”
Jiang Ran replied with a short message, but the shadow behind her grew longer and longer.
By the time Jiang Ran noticed, Gu Ge had already walked up to her.
Different from before, Gu Ge had changed into a black trench coat, and her aura seemed completely different from when she first arrived.
Gu Ge pursed her lips, her finger lightly brushing across Jiang Ran’s forehead.
“You look so happy. Who are you chatting with?”
“Sister Gu Ge?”
Jiang Ran only then remembered that Gu Ge was still at the hospital.
She said softly, “Just a classmate. Sister Gu Ge, your work is so busy, aren’t you going back?”
“No rush. It won’t be too late to leave in a bit. Can you get back by yourself? If not, I’ll send a private car to pick you up.”
“That would be too much trouble.”
Jiang Ran waved her hand.
“It’s just a minor ailment. I have to go to the hospital frequently, so it’s really nothing. Besides, I remember the doctor said yesterday that if I rest more, I might not have to come to the hospital so often in the future.”
“Is that so…”
Gu Ge smiled.
“That’s good. You should rest more.”
Gu Ge got up and left the Hospital Ward.
Walking to the door, she sent a voice message to the person on the other end of her phone.
“Principal of Rongnan, long time no see.”
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