The Real Daughter Needs Saving by This Vicious Female Cannon Fodder? - Chapter 58

“Mmm… Ning Anran, I have a friend here, so I came to visit her while passing by.”

Gu Xia had become quite adept at spinning lies on the spot—after all, she’d done it plenty of times before, especially when deceiving her sister.

“Which friend? Important enough to bring so many bodyguards?”

With a single glance.

The bodyguards guiltily closed the car doors slowly, lowering their heads.

“Safety first when traveling, you know.”

Gu Xia casually looped her arm through Ning Anran’s, her eyes crinkling with amusement.

“Did you come to see me?”

Glancing at the two boys holding their phones, Ning Anran found herself inexplicably wrapping an arm around Gu Xia’s waist.

Stumbling forward from the sudden movement, Gu Xia took a few unsteady steps before a soft sensation made her inhale sharply.

She’d stepped on Ning Anran’s white sneakers!

Ahhhh! How embarrassing! Thank goodness… thank goodness Ning Anran wasn’t a sports major. Otherwise, Gu Xia genuinely feared she might have provoked an immediate fallout.

Gu Xia wanted to facepalm and sigh—she must have been watching too many short videos lately, filling her head with all these strange thoughts.

She absolutely needed to start an internet detox when she got back. After finally awakening and sharpening her mind, she couldn’t let it rot from nonsense!

Before she could retreat her foot, Gu Xia found herself pulled into an embrace.

She could feel the softness of Ning Anran’s chest pressing against her own, making her cheeks burn instantly. Her words came out haltingly.

“Ning Anran… what’s wrong?”

Though her voice sounded questioning, Gu Xia’s mind was already racing—Ning Anran smelled so nice, like the body wash from her shower.

And that part was so soft too.

“If you came to see me, then don’t say you came for someone else.”

Gu Xia: “??!”

Ning Anran’s words sounded downright domineering! Had she also pulled an all-nighter reading CEO romance novels like Gu Xia?

Wait no—someone with Ning Anran’s “beautiful, strong, tragic” female lead persona would never secretly read cringe-worthy, face-burning Mary Sue romance novels alone at night.

Actually, no! Ning Anran herself was the protagonist of those exact face-burning Mary Sue romances!

So it made perfect sense for Ning Anran to say these… these heart-fluttering lines.

After mentally twisting through eighteen layers of rationalization to calm her racing thoughts, Ning Anran’s next words shattered Gu Xia’s composure completely.

What did that mean?!

*”Obviously she’s jealous, Host. Based on this system’s extensive experience, I can definitively say that although you only have 12% progress in the female lead’s route, jealousy is the ultimate catalyst for affection~ One more level up, and it’ll evolve into explosively ambiguous hormones~ Since when had her system become such a flirt? Must be from binding with too many hosts—seen it all, done it all.

“Many thanks for the praise, Host. Those were but minor trials—nothing special, just honed skill.”

This guy really let praise go straight to his head—acting cockier than a dog chasing chickens.

The two boys were now stealthily hiding behind a tree trunk, watching this “heartwarming” scene while unconsciously biting their index fingers.

Truly, if you live long enough, you’ll see everything in this world.

No wonder the forums of Imperial Capital University were filled with stories of all the guys who tried to pursue Ning Anran failing—even the campus heartthrobs and department crushes had struck out spectacularly.

Turns out, Goddess Ning simply doesn’t like men at all!

If it weren’t for what they just witnessed, they might’ve actually believed that fierce beauty was Ning Anran’s sugar mommy. But they’d never heard of a kept canary being so bold as to openly act jealous in front of their patron!

These two were clearly, unmistakably, in a relationship!

“I… I came to see you, Ning Anran. I missed you.”

Though the words were somewhat embarrassing to say out loud, it was still better than directly exposing Ning Anran’s messy family situation and reopening old wounds.

Gu Xia felt that the book she’d bought with her SVIP membership—Three Reflective Questions: Why Don’t People Like What You Say? Master High EQ Communication Instantly After Reading This!—had actually been useful.

Even if the title was long enough to be toilet paper.

At least the content was short enough to finish during one bathroom break.

Her voice was so soft. Ning Anran knew Gu Xia had secretly followed her because she was worried about her recent emotional state.

So Ning Anran didn’t call out Gu Xia’s painfully obvious little scheme. Instead, she straightened Gu Xia’s clothes and said,

“If you want to visit Imperial Capital University, just tell me next time, okay? Gu Xia.”

Why did her tone sound exactly like Gu Xia’s mom?! Was Ning Anran seriously trying to become her mother now?!

If Gu Xia had rabbit ears, they would’ve shot straight up in alarm.

Ning Anran was so sharp—she must’ve already guessed exactly why Gu Xia had sneaked after her.

Was she avoiding saying it outright to spare Gu Xia’s pride?

Belatedly, Gu Xia felt the urge to touch her own cheeks. At this point, her face was probably so thick it could deflect bullets and withstand sieges!

“I just didn’t want you to worry! It’s fine, I came to check on you, and my friends—Yu Yingying and Gao Fei—are around here anyway.”

Sorry, Yu Yingying, Gao Fei.

What are best friends for if not to be used as convenient excuses?!

I’ll treat you both to a feast someday to make up for this.

“Am I not the one closest to you?”

“Couldn’t you have just come to me?”

“Gu Xia, I was worried about you.”

Damn it, why did Ning Anran have to be so smooth with her sweet talk? Gu Xia’s face felt burning hot, her heart even hotter—had Ning Anran slipped something into her water last night?!

Was that why she was so spellbound?!

“Tsk tsk tsk~ Host, stop pretending. The female lead is being this forward—if you keep running away, you’ll let down this audience of one (aka your dear system)!”

Ning Anran… being forward?

Gu Xia felt the Villainess Survival System was practically tailor-made for her. How else could it read her mind so accurately with just a few words?

Ning Anran was taking the initiative with her! She couldn’t let this female lead slip away now!

“Really? Ning Anran, you… were worried about me?”

Good. Let her worry more.

That way, Ning Anran wouldn’t have time to dwell on her deadbeat dad or her estranged mom.

Gu Xia had been instructing her subordinates to gather information about the recent activities of the chairman of Yuanye Group during this period.

After all these days, Gu Xia hadn’t come up completely empty-handed.

But before exposing everything, what Gu Xia really wanted was concrete evidence of all the crimes committed by her two wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing adoptive parents.

In the original novel, because the Yuanye Group chairman’s family still had some affection for Ning Jin, whom they had raised themselves, although Ning Anran obtained the inheritance rights, her adoptive parents’ intervention prevented her from delivering the final blow to them.

This led to these two individuals continuously causing trouble.

Gu Xia was well aware that in this clichéd, melodramatic Mary Sue romance novel, if supporting characters weren’t either transmigrated or self-aware, their troublemaking would inevitably escalate.

They would push their luck to the limit, stopping at nothing until they finally wrote their own death scene—only then would their villainous mission be complete.

She had to take preventive measures.

Don’t ask why—she herself had once been the diligent, ever-troublemaking villainess who never stopped courting disaster.