My Unconventional Online Dating - Chapter 19
Xiao Nianyuan hadn’t reacted in time, but a figure beside her moved swiftly, pulling her away.
The shop owner lunged at empty air, lost his balance, and crashed into the clothing rack behind him. With a loud clatter, the rack toppled over, scattering clothes across the floor. The owner scrambled up from the ground, his face dark with fury.
The shop assistant hurriedly tried to gather the clothes while casting worried glances at her boss. Though his words had been unpleasant, he was still her employer. If he got into trouble, her job wouldn’t be secure either.
Xiao Nianyuan turned to see who had pulled her—it was Du Xiaotong.
Du Xiaotong had been watching the owner’s movements closely. The moment he fixed his gaze on Xiao Nianyuan’s phone, she had guessed his malicious intent.
Sure enough, she was right. The owner had tried to snatch the phone when Xiao Nianyuan wasn’t paying attention. Fortunately, Du Xiaotong had yanked her away in time—otherwise, not only might the phone have been stolen, but Xiao Nianyuan could have been hurt in the scuffle.
Amid the chaos, Xiao Nianyuan had accidentally ended the call. She glanced at her phone, then at the fuming owner. “Were you actually going to hit me?”
The owner faltered for a moment. Though his main goal had been to grab the phone, he had indeed considered resorting to force.
Given his size, he could easily overpower Xiao Nianyuan. But with a crowd gathering outside the shop, he couldn’t possibly admit it now.
“I just didn’t want you to call the police,” he argued weakly.
“Why wouldn’t you want me to call the police?” Xiao Nianyuan pressed forward. “If you’re innocent, why be afraid?”
The owner was left speechless. Xiao Nianyuan didn’t say much, but every word struck a nerve.
“Boss…” the shop assistant called softly, trying to mediate.
Her only concern was keeping her job and getting paid on time. Whether the owner suffered consequences didn’t matter to her—they had a purely professional relationship, nothing more.
The owner shot her a glare. “Since when do you tell me what to do?”
The assistant shut her mouth. She wasn’t trying to boss him around—she was just worried he’d do something even more reckless.
But since he wouldn’t listen, she decided not to bother. If the shop went under, she could always find another job.
The pay wasn’t great anyway—it would just take some time to search for something new. She’d been too lazy to switch before, but now it seemed like the right moment to start looking.
After snapping at the assistant, the owner seemed to regain some composure. He turned back to Xiao Nianyuan, forcing a smile. “I was being foolish earlier—I didn’t understand the situation. How about I just give you a refund?”
“Just a refund?” Tan Xialan rolled her eyes. “You refused before, and now that things have escalated, you think a refund will make us leave?”
“Forgive and forget,” the owner said awkwardly. “Everyone makes mistakes—what matters is learning from them. There’s no need to be so harsh.”
Even now, the owner refused to admit his wrongdoing, insisting it was just a “misunderstanding” and acting as if Tan Xialan and the others were the ones being unreasonable.
“Hey, aren’t you being a bully?” a voice suddenly called from the entrance. “Do you think you can push them around just because they’re girls?”
Xiao Nianyuan looked over and saw the group of girls who had been watching earlier.
Seeing Xiao Nianyuan look over, they smiled at her with encouragement in their eyes.
The shop owner’s face turned pale then red. He had never been publicly called out like this before. Thinking Xiao Nianyuan and her friends would be easy to fool, he never expected her to not only counterattack but also escalate the situation so dramatically.
Now everyone around knew he was deliberately trying to scam customers. If this continued, word would spread even further, and his shop might really go out of business.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s my fault!” the owner quickly apologized. “I’ll refund you right now, okay?”
Not daring to make any more ambiguous remarks, he admitted his mistake outright and promptly issued the refund to Xiao Nianyuan.
After Xiao Nianyuan left, his mind was still reeling. He never thought he’d suffer such a major setback at the hands of a few college students today.
While the owner was fuming with anger, Xiao Nianyuan and her friends were in high spirits.
Tan Xialan chattered nonstop, praising Xiao Nianyuan for her bravery one moment and Ji Rongxue for her quick wit the next. She didn’t leave herself or Du Xiaotong out either, taking turns to compliment all four roommates until her praises became increasingly exaggerated, nearly elevating Xiao Nianyuan to celestial status.
“Du Xiaotong was so cool just now!” Tan Xialan finally exclaimed with admiration.
Xiao Nianyuan glanced at Du Xiaotong and noticed a faint smile on her lips. Du Xiaotong was the quietest in the dorm after Xiao Nianyuan, who knew the least about her. Curiosity piqued by Tan Xialan’s comment, Xiao Nianyuan couldn’t help but ask, “How did you know what he was going to do?”
Du Xiaotong replied nonchalantly, “He kept staring at your phone—obviously he wanted to snatch it.”
“That simple?” Tan Xialan was surprised. “Have you learned martial arts? Your move was so fast I barely saw it.”
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I have mixed feeling about this story. In one hand, I absolutely adore the relationship between Xiao Nianyuan and Lin Qiushi, despite the rocky start, their relationship quickly evolve into a very soft and clingly relationship where Xiao Nianyuan get to indulge her need for physical contact through Lin Qiushi due to the fact that she’s less self conscious about it with her initially since she’s an NPC, and Lin Qiushi get to indulge in her need for companionship through Xiao Nianyuan, who is pretty introverted and as such don’t interact with other players or NPC in the game, so Lin Qiushi get to have all of her attention. As time goes on, they become pretty clingly with each other, both physically and emotionally.
My main gripe is that I don’t think enough time in the story is dedicated to their relationship
A good third of the story is dedicated to a rather boring mystery about a classmate of Xiao Nianyuan who’s using her photo to scam people online in order to ruin her reputation and take revenge on her over a perceived slight about his scolarship, but it feels pretty disconnected from the main point of the story, Xiao Nianyuan never actually exchange a single sentence with the perpetrator, outside of once, when he’s about to get caught.
The mystery of the sky city take another large chunk of the story, but in my opinion, it really wasn’t all that interesting. Xiao Nianyuan caught a glimpse of a silhouette that she recognized in the sky city early on, and then obsessed over the sky city to try to find that person and find out what’s the sky city is. While the story doesn’t explicitly said it, the person is most likely Ji Rongxue, who Xiao Nianyuan thought was dead. But the mystery is revealed in a rather boring fashion and so is the true nature of the sky city.
I also have a slight gripe with the ending, I do think that Xiao Nianyuan and Liu Qiushu relationship benefited a lot from the dynamic of one of them being a real person and the other being an NPC who was stuck in a virtual world, and while I always expected this barrier to eventually fade for an happy ending, I do have a slight problem with how it happened. Firstly, it’s a personnal preference but I would have prefered if they had started their relationship in the game, while Liu Qiushu was still an NPC, and secondly, the story kind of brush off all too quickly how Liu Qiushu was actually a real person with her memory sealed inside of the game, so it almost feels like Xiao Nianyuan end up with a different Liu Qiushu than the Liu Qiushu we got to see for the entire story (since their meeting happen in the last chapter).
Also, there is some hints of a relationship between Ji Rongxue and Jing Siyan (another NPC), but it’s never explicited, Jing Siyan get deleted due to a virus and there’s no resolution on that front, which is pretty sad.
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts! <3