Seducing Him - Chapter 17

She secretly glared at him, suppressing her emotions. Her hands no longer carried the gentleness from before. Several times, she jabbed the cotton swab into him with deliberate force. His cheeks gradually flushed, faint red marks surfacing.

Slowly, she noticed—the harder she pressed, the heavier his breathing became.

It wasn’t long before he seemed unable to endure it. He opened his eyes, raised his hand, and gripped her “abusing her power” hand. In a hoarse but friendly reminder, he said:

“If sister keeps going harder, in a while, you’ll have to repeat what you just said to me again.”

“What?” Ci Yiyang didn’t understand what he meant.

Lu Jin unhurriedly took the cotton swab from her hand and tossed it casually into the trash. He didn’t explain, only shot her a glance with ambiguous meaning, then lazily said, “It’s nothing. I’m tired. I’ll head upstairs to rest first.”

Since he didn’t want to continue applying medicine, Ci Yiyang didn’t stop him. She just watched his cold figure walking upstairs, mind turning over that sentence he had just spoken.

What had she said earlier? Seemed like nothing more than a string of lies she’d woven to coax him.

Thinking for a long time, she suddenly realized the reason she had made up those lies in the first place.

So if he wanted her to say those kinds of words again, the only way… was if she slapped him once more, and that would only happen if he started kissing and touching her again like yesterday!

The National Day holiday passed quickly, and once it ended, she returned to school.

Peking University was vast, with the faculties far apart. Especially Finance and Journalism—they were practically at opposite ends of campus, north and south, so she and Lu Jin never really bumped into each other at school. They could only meet on weekends.

Ming Ying had recently been busy not only with her research in the lab but also with chasing after someone new. She’d apparently given up on her old crush from the Finance Department and now had her eye on another younger student—also from Finance. Ci Yiyang didn’t know how that was going, but from time to time, she overheard them already talking on the phone.

“Yangyang, there’s a freshman welcome gala on Thursday, let’s go together,” Ming Ying said after hanging up the phone. She turned to tug at Ci Yiyang’s hand, her face full of expectation.

The gala would feature Lu Jin—his speech was delayed on purpose until after his competition results came out, so he could represent the freshmen on stage.

Ci Yiyang didn’t want to go, but under Ming Ying’s persistent coaxing, she ended up being dragged along with Chen Yao’an to watch. Both of them said they wanted to see what Lu Jin really looked like in person.

When Thursday came, even though they had arrived early, the auditorium was already packed.

All she saw was a sea of black-haired heads. Most of the crowd were girls.

“I knew it,” Ming Ying sighed with relief as she sat in the fifth row, glancing back at the ocean of people. “Good thing I was smart enough to have someone reserve us seats in advance.”

Peking University had no shortage of good looks and wealthy heirs, but this year was truly extreme—especially with that person also enrolled.

It was Chen Yao’an’s first time seeing something like this. The auditorium couldn’t even hold all the people. There were students standing outside the windows, and even reporters with long cameras were everywhere.

“No wonder,” Chen Yao’an murmured, scrolling her phone. “Even before entering college, he was sent to compete in the ACM on behalf of the university. After winning the championship, my phone feed has been flooded with his news for days. Peking University’s been trending on Weibo for three days straight because of him.”

“I really want to see him in person.”

“People online even claim Lu Jin studied abroad in Country M for years. By middle school, he had already secured guaranteed admission from more than one famous university—including Florenby. But for some reason, he suddenly transferred back to China for senior year and even took first place in this year’s gaokao.”

Ming Ying relayed all the gossip she’d picked up. “Look, on the big screen—that’s the video of a reporter interviewing him back then.”

Chen Yao’an lifted her head to watch.

The video showed the boy’s striking face, his cool, clear voice cutting through the noisy background, effortlessly capturing attention as he calmly responded to the reporter’s questions.

At that very moment, the same boy they were looking up online sent out a new message.

A soft notification sound chimed. Ci Yiyang lowered her head, and her eyes slipped away from the screen just as the boy appeared there. Around her, the reporter’s voice droned on.

Then the big screen went dark.

Before anyone could react, the tall, graceful youth was already standing on the stage.

Under the concentrated beam of light, he looked like a god born under heaven. Fair-skinned, lips vivid, microphone in hand, his long dark lashes lowered slightly as he began to speak.

“I received the most unique gift of all—a rose sent from a thousand miles away…”

The entire auditorium echoed with the exact same words she had just received in his message moments earlier.

Ci Yiyang raised her head to look at the boy on stage, clutching her phone tightly.

[… continues with the gala, her sneaking out to meet him on the lawn, their ambiguous conversation, and her later attempts to flatter him over text… leading into the stray-cat abuse incident and the interview with Lian Rong.]