That's right.
This person's mind must be thinking about lines like "On a dark night with a strong wind, it's a night for killing."
Qin Shen was certain of this from experience—he had seen plenty of such lunatics. For example, that kid who had sneaked into the banquet earlier had said something like, "The wheel of fortune turns; don’t you regret it."
Just a bunch of brainless folks.
What a pity; he remembered that the Yan family's youngest son had strong mental abilities and was a rare talent.
This was already the second time Qin Shen felt sorry for Young Master Yan. The first time was when he discovered that Young Master Yan had exceptional talent but was a member of the conservative Yan family, making it impossible for him to become an ally and likely turning into a rival in the future.
Yan Jicha was gradually walking over.
System: Don’t be nervous, host. Since you’re not good at emotional scenes, just follow what I say this time. Just keep up appearances; put your inner feelings aside for now.
Yan Jicha: Alright.
System: After all, you’re close to each other now, and you still can’t skillfully control the mental energy inside you. If your emotional fluctuations are too strong, they’ll be easily noticed. It’s better to have no emotional fluctuations at all; that way, you’ll appear more mysterious!
Yan Jicha sighed in relief: That’s good...
Maintaining the emotions he had while peeping earlier was quite exhausting.
At this moment, he felt tense; his steps were stiff, and his expression was serious. Unbeknownst to him, there was an air of determination, as if he were a soldier heading to an inevitable death, as well as a hint of unwillingness in his evasive gaze.
He walked slowly, wishing the path would never end, so he wouldn’t have to utter those terrifying lines and maintain that dreadful flamboyant persona.
But, what needed to be faced had to be faced.
Ultimately, he had to do it.
He had to act out this terrifying, embarrassing, and overly dramatic script.
Strictly adhering to the system’s script, Yan Jicha approached from the front left.
Closer, closer.
When the distance narrowed to an arm’s length, he would start reciting the first line to greet Qin Shen, pretending it was a chance encounter.
He looked at Qin Shen, and Qin Shen looked back at him.
The lines appeared at the bottom of Yan Jicha’s view in a karaoke-style font, making their presence felt.
Yan Jicha’s gaze paused as he glanced down.
Looking at the subtitles.
Qin Shen was also taken aback, following Yan Jicha’s gaze downwards.
What is he trying to do?!
While Qin Shen was momentarily confused for no more than three seconds, Yan Jicha silently moved two steps closer, his expression and demeanor showing no signs of disturbance, appearing completely unaffected by Qin Shen’s outwardly released mental energy.
He was careless.
Qin Shen suddenly snapped back to reality, cautiously shifting his stance slightly to the left, facing Yan Jicha directly.
The meaning was clear: today, I will accompany you to the end.
With this sudden movement, Yan Jicha’s steps also paused for a second.
Something felt off, but... never mind.
“Mr. Qin.”
Qin Shen reflexively responded, “Hello.”
As the words came out, both froze for a second.
Yan Jicha: “…” How come he said a line that wasn’t in the script?!
Qin Shen: “…” Recently, work had been busy, and hearing such a mechanical, synthesized customer service tone had been reflexive.
Seeing him freeze, the system quickly reminded: Act! Don’t be dazed, keep performing!
Yan Jicha came back to his senses and acknowledged in his mind.
He remembered that the system had mentioned that while reciting lines, he needed to circle around to Qin Shen’s right side.
Yan Jicha took another step toward Qin Shen’s back.
His gaze remained lowered, revealing his beautiful eyelashes while also exposing a somewhat strange line of sight.
It was the first time for Qin Shen to be stared at like this, with such a cold gaze focused on his lower waist.
A creeping sense of unease arose again. Plus, having already formed a defense against this person in his mind, he instinctively didn’t want to expose his back to him.
So, as Yan Jicha took two or three steps and was about to turn thirty degrees to approach Qin Shen’s back, Qin Shen shifted his stance again.
He was facing Yan Jicha once more.
Yan Jicha: …
What’s wrong with this guy?
After pausing for half a second, Yan Jicha reluctantly took two more steps, and Qin Shen, as before, turned in place, completely concealing his back.
When Qin Shen had been turned nearly ninety degrees, Yan Jicha finally gave up.
Yan Jicha: System, do I need to keep circling? Can I just complete the 270-degree arc based on my positioning and call it finished?
The system was so exasperated it didn’t want to watch them anymore: You, you decide what to do. Just make sure to finish the lines.
The rhythm that had been painstakingly prepared was easily disrupted. Yan Jicha pulled his gaze from the lines, furrowing his brow slightly as he shot a glance at Qin Shen, who was hindering the mission.
As if questioning him: Why are you just turning in place for no reason?
Qin Shen: ???
What’s wrong with this person?
Forget it.
Yan Jicha sighed and decided to continue reciting his lines.
“... Mr. Qin, what a coincidence.”
The system was stunned by his line delivery: Wasn’t the spacing in the middle very obvious?! It should be ‘Mr. Qin, what a coincidence!’
—
Yan Jicha: "What a coincidence."
Qin Shen: "…? Just say what you want to say."
The subtitles that had already been read disappeared, and the next line appeared at the bottom of his vision.
However, after just one sentence, Yan Jicha was already close to dying from embarrassment.
To get through it, he had to harden his resolve and hypnotize himself: this isn’t acting, this isn’t acting, this isn’t acting; this is reading the text, this is reading the text, this is reading the text.
Surprisingly, it worked quite well. After enough self-hypnosis, he could almost recall the face of his high school Chinese teacher.
Recalling that sense of task completion, Yan Jicha finally spoke calmly: "I’ve long heard your name; I didn’t expect to finally meet the real you; it’s thanks to my sister that I got to see you."
Qin Shen: "…?"
The system was about to crash: Don’t pause unnecessarily at line breaks!!!
Yan Jicha: I didn’t mean to.
According to the script, at this moment, Qin Shen should respond to him with, "There’s no need to say that; my thoughts are not on family and marriage right now. I came to this banquet only to celebrate."
It was serious, polite, but also created distance, subtly reminding this member of the Yan family not to bring up any talk of marriage alliances; he wasn’t interested.
With that line, Yan Jicha should follow up with a teasing remark, asking, "Oh? Is it that you’re not interested in marriage, or just not interested in women?"
Once Qin Shen responded again, he would take the opportunity to half-jokingly ask, "So, are you interested in me?"
So, after reading the first line, Yan Jicha stood in place, waiting for Qin Shen to play along.
Qin Shen had no idea what Yan Jicha was up to. A series of strange actions and unexpected statements had left him completely confused.
Moreover, although that last line was a compliment, it sounded extremely cold. For a moment, he even suspected that Yan Jicha was being sarcastic.
If it were sarcasm, that would be strange… Would a member of the Yan family not welcome him to the banquet?
One second passed, three seconds passed, five seconds passed.
After thinking it over, Qin Shen finally broke the silence: "Mm."
Yan Jicha: ???
Just an "Mm"?
How was he supposed to continue this scene?!
System: Don’t panic! Changes in plot details are normal; the dialogue assistant plugin has flexible AI adjustment features. Just continue with the refreshed new lines!
Yan Jicha glanced at the new lines.
Because Qin Shen didn’t play along and actively stated he wasn’t interested in matters of love, the first half of the original line was removed.
This time, to prevent any issues with pauses, the dialogue was divided according to punctuation marks.
"I heard you rejected her because she’s a woman."
After reading this line, Yan Jicha thought, "Huh?"
The original line had three and a half phrases, but it seemed he had skipped the second line: "Was it because she’s a member of the Yan family, or…?"
The main reason was that the way the subtitles refreshed was too outdated. The first line he read disappeared directly, replaced by the third line, causing him to instinctively continue reading the first line while ignoring the second line.
However, without that middle phrase and the subtle pause represented by the ellipsis, the emotional tone of the sentence changed significantly.
Not to mention that Yan Jicha was reading without any emotion.
What should have been a teasing remark ended up sounding like a cold interrogation to Qin Shen’s ears.
So that’s how it is.
Qin Shen suddenly realized, thinking he understood the source of Yan Jicha’s hostility.
The person in front of him was likely venting his sister's frustrations at being rejected.
That was right; he had indeed turned her down, but someone like Yan Jicha, who wasn’t clear on the overall situation—like someone who rarely dealt with company matters and lived life on his own terms—might misunderstand it as a simple romantic failure, believing that the young lady was embarrassed because of a man.
If it really was just that the two of them had no fate and didn’t see eye to eye, then that would be fine. But for some reason, this Young Master Yan had an extra layer of misunderstanding. He seemed to have heard some rumors from somewhere, believing that Qin Shen was deep in the closet. Despite their different orientations, he was still pretending to be something he wasn’t, which was why he was so angry.
However, explaining it this way didn’t make sense of why Yan Jicha was staring at his… belt.
"Young Master Yan, you’re overthinking it. I just don’t want to get married so early," Qin Shen said, wanting to avoid too much conflict with this young man who was protective of his family. He retracted the slight hostility from earlier and politely clarified, "As for my orientation, I’m not sure yet, but in any case, I have no need to deceive others in this regard."
Since he was dealing with a young man who didn’t understand the intricacies of business, he decided to speak in the language of an ordinary young person.
Yan Jicha was taken aback.
Although he knew the plot and was aware that these weren’t heartfelt words, they still sounded… quite pleasant.
If he hadn’t crossed over and hadn’t been given these system tasks, hearing someone similar say this just a few days ago would have made him feel like they should have met much sooner.
But…
Wasn’t this line delivered a bit too late?!
If he had said it earlier, he wouldn’t have had to wait for the system to change the lines!
In less than a second, the subtitles refreshed again.
Yan Jicha hadn’t reacted yet and blankly continued to read aloud: "In that case, why don’t you first…"
Qin Shen: "What?"
Yan Jicha: "…"
This is too suggestive; I can’t go on.
The system urged: Keep going!!
Yan Jicha closed his eyes, resigned to his fate, and pale-faced, read the last two words: "Try, try."
Thanks to the flexible dialogue assistant system, what started as a roundabout way of coaxing someone to drink had now turned into something much more devilish.
The following lines now included new physical interactions.
[Yan Jicha’s cheeks flushed, charming as a flower. After saying "try," he let out a flirtatious laugh and walked towards Qin Shen, but just as he took a step, he pretended to trip, spilling the wine from his cup onto Qin Shen's clothes and his own shirt.]
[Ah, I’m really sorry; it’s not good to be in wet clothes.]
[As he said this, Yan Jicha unbuttoned his shirt, stained with red wine, revealing fair skin, and blinked at Qin Shen while saying, "Yours is wet too; how about…," reaching out to unbutton his shirt…]
As for what the deleted data was, 030 said that was the recent censorship.
This was more than just wearing Pinru’s clothes; it was as if Pinru’s entire wardrobe had been moved in and dropped on him without even taking the hangers away.
Yan Jicha’s head was pounding. Gripping the wine glass tighter and tighter, in this critical moment, he couldn’t help but place his last hope on Qin Shen, wishing he would once again break away from the script, firmly reject this invitation, and save him, as well as himself!
Qin Shen: "Okay."
Yan Jicha’s eyes widened in shock; his mentality completely crumbled.
Qin Shen: "I have the latest equipment in my car; let’s go there and try it out."
Yan Jicha: "???!"
Qin Shen: "It’s spacious."
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