Chapter 6: Weakness Part 2

Lu Zhou, a woman with fiery red short hair who was currently holding a mature beauty in her arms, was the owner of La Svegas. Everyone knew she was the youngest daughter of the Lu family, one of the capital’s powerhouses.

Yet even with her status, she wasn’t the center of attention in this booth.

The person in the middle ignored the admiring and curious gazes of those around her. She had no intention of playing the socialite. She simply leaned back into the sofa with her eyes closed, her entire frame sinking into the cushions, her long, straight legs looking as if they had nowhere to comfortably settle.

Her unnervingly beautiful features and “total top” aura were magnets for everyone’s attention. Even though no one knew her identity, she was the undisputed focal point of the night.

But the crowd only watched from afar. No one dared to approach; they had all just witnessed the awkward scene of a beautiful woman offering a drink, only to be completely ignored.

“A-Yan, I heard Zhuang Yulan went home today and threw a massive fit. You were really that heartless to your own future sister-in-law?”

Lu Zhou tutted, her voice thick with gossip.

Ji Yan didn’t speak. She merely opened her dark, cold eyes and glanced over lazily.

At the mention of Zhuang Yulan, the woman sitting next to Lu Zhou curled her lips into a smirk of pure schadenfreude. This was Qin Jiashu, Lu Zhou’s girlfriend. She didn’t seem to mind at all that Lu Zhou had another woman in her arms.

The two of them had an open arrangement, and besides, Qin Jiashu’s motives for being with Lu Zhou weren’t pure to begin with. The woman she actually wanted to pursue was the one currently sitting within arm’s reach: Ji Yan.

Lu Zhou had told Qin Jiashu to give up more than once. She warned her that while Ji Yan was technically “gay” and gave off a major player vibe, Lu Zhou had been her friend for over a decade and had never seen her in a single relationship. For all intents and purposes, Ji Yan was an asexual ice block.

Countless beauties had tried to chase Ji Yan, only to hit a very hard wall. As Lu Zhou put it, Ji Yan was so used to using her beauty as a weapon that she didn’t know the first thing about being “tender toward the fairer sex.”

But Qin Jiashu refused to give up. She wasn’t an empty-headed brat like Zhuang Yulan. She was in the Broadcasting and Hosting department at X University; now that she was Ji Yan’s Senior Sister, she had the advantage of proximity. She could take her time.

Just thinking of Zhuang Yulan made her blood boil. Zhuang had used her status as the fiancée of Ji Yan’s cousin to hang around the Ji family constantly. She had even begged the Ji family patriarch to force Ji Yan to take her along for registration at X University, clearly trying to prevent Qin Jiashu from acting as Ji Yan’s guide.

Fortunately, the girl had dug her own grave. She was probably crying at home right now.

Qin Jiashu felt incredibly smug. She had no idea that Lu Zhou, in order to keep dating her, had deliberately hidden Ji Yan’s most difficult trait: her severe “cleanliness” obsession, both physical and mental.

“Don’t even mention Zhuang Yulan, Lu Zhou,” Qin Jiashu said, pivoting to her own strengths. “I’m the host and announcer for the freshman military training and the opening ceremony this year. I’ll come find you when I’m free, A-Yan.”

“Then you’re going to be disappointed. A-Yan messed up her leg while street racing over the summer,” Lu Zhou said. She knew her girlfriend’s heart, but she wasn’t jealous. “She has the perfect excuse. She’s definitely going to skip military training.”

Qin Jiashu felt a momentary pang of embarrassment. She realized she wasn’t truly part of their inner circle; despite being Lu Zhou’s girlfriend, she hadn’t even known about the leg injury. She forced herself to remain calm. “Well, I can still go see her in the infirmary or the lounge.”

She peeked at Ji Yan. Seeing that Ji Yan remained indifferent but hadn’t voiced any rejection, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, did you meet your roommates? Any beauties?” Lu Zhou asked, changing the subject. “Isn’t the ‘secret dorm romance’ thing all the rage lately?”

A ripple finally appeared in the stagnant pool of Ji Yan’s eyes.

When asked that question, the first person to come to mind wasn’t the acknowledged beauty, Shen Ruoshuang. Instead, it was that voice—naturally delicate and soft, the kind that felt like it was brushing against one’s ear.

She thought of the girl who was as clean as a blank sheet of paper, a girl who instinctively felt fear and shock but didn’t know how to defend herself…

It was as if she had been designed specifically to satisfy Ji Yan’s hidden preferences.

Seeing her fall into a long silence, Lu Zhou acted as if she’d discovered breaking news. She ignored the woman in her arms and started hooting. “Oh? So there is a situation—”

Qin Jiashu’s expression soured. She had seen the posts on the school forum today. She knew that Shen Ruoshuang, the most famous girl in the freshman class, was Ji Yan’s roommate. She assumed Ji Yan’s distraction must be because of her.

Qin Jiashu felt she was far superior to Zhuang Yulan, but against someone like Shen Ruoshuang, she felt she had no chance. A sense of crisis washed over her.

Having seen Shen Ruoshuang’s “Ice Queen” videos on TikTok before, Qin Jiashu suddenly remembered that Shen was exactly Lu Zhou’s type. Perhaps…

“Lu Zhou, A-Yan won’t tell you, but I know,” Qin Jiashu said. “A-Yan’s roommate, Shen Ruoshuang, is a viral beauty and a top scholar. No one at X University doesn’t know her.”

As she spoke, she pulled up a video on TikTok and showed it to Lu Zhou.

Sure enough, Lu Zhou stopped teasing. Her eyes filled with unmistakable wonder and infatuation. She immediately began casually asking her girlfriend for more information about the girl.

Ji Yan knew they were guessing blindly. She could see her friend’s sudden interest in Shen Ruoshuang, but she had zero interest in Shen herself. She didn’t care what they planned to do and didn’t bother to correct them. She simply closed her eyes again.