TMLSG -Chapter 50 Heartbeat

Tang Zhen turned her back, avoiding his gaze. From Ren Yanjing’s perspective, the back of her head was exquisitely shaped—long, black, and silky hair, every detail perfectly aligned with his aesthetic.

Even the swirl at the crown of her head was cute.

Ren Yanjing leaned close to her face, his voice soft and slightly teasing. “Baby.”

Tang Zhen continued to look away. “I don’t know you.”

The restroom doorway bustled with people coming and going, so Ren Yanjing led her to a quieter spot.

“Hug me and you’ll know me.” He said this, then pulled Tang Zhen firmly into his arms.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

It was an utterly silent embrace.

Time ticked by, second by second.

Ren Yanjing suddenly said, “Actually, my school days weren’t much different from anyone else’s—classes, basketball, reading, sometimes playing games, a few trips abroad during holidays. Nothing special.”

“If only… I had met you in high school.”

Elementary and middle school were too early. Back then, he spent every day after school hanging out with the boys playing basketball, barely paying attention to girls, probably even ignoring her.

High school would have been just right.

High school academics were easy for him, and he could have tutored her in his free time. Perhaps they could have even attended the same school.

Of course, now was fine too.

Their schools were close, so meeting was convenient. And now, under the same roof, meeting was even easier.

As he spoke, a hint of regret crept into Ren Yanjing’s voice.

If only he had met Tang Zhen in high school, perhaps they would have started dating then.

But he hadn’t met her in those years.

Tang Zhen still didn’t speak. She was still “cold-warring” with him.

She was just surprised.

Why was Ren Yanjing suddenly saying this to her?

Did he think she was upset about not being part of his past?

That was a time when she and he hadn’t even met yet. Even though he was the same person, there were subtle differences between the him then and the him now.

Still, she was a little curious about his past.

Just a little.

Time slowed.

Unconsciously, the mission had been completed. Tang Zhen had coldly ignored Ren Yanjing for fifteen minutes—but most of that time had been spent in his embrace.

111 didn’t say anything either. It had gone to the “Male Lead Strategy Department” to borrow a favorability scanner from its peers.

This male lead was really strange.

It didn’t know what had gone wrong. To verify whether recent missions were effective, it had borrowed the machine to test Ren Yanjing’s favorability toward Tang Zhen.

When it returned, it stealthily used the scanner on Ren Yanjing.

At first, the scanner displayed garbled data, then the index started rising from 0, finally freezing at 36 after a few hiccups.

Normally, close friends sometimes had a favorability of 36.

So, at that moment, Ren Yanjing’s favorability toward Tang Zhen was roughly equal to that of a close friend.

111 felt relieved, put the scanner away, and fully relaxed.

But in a corner it couldn’t see, after the scanner hiccupped, the favorability started to soar, eventually surpassing the 80 “heartbeat line” before slowly stopping.

After exceeding 80, the machine completely shut down and the data disappeared into the darkness.

After the mission was complete and the “cold war” ended, Tang Zhen finally spoke. “Let’s go back quickly—they’ve been waiting.”

Ren Yanjing nodded slightly, pretending to be casual. “My high school days… nothing special happened. So there’s nothing to worry about.”

Tang Zhen pressed her lips together. “Oh.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“Same here.” She had been busy back then, never sleeping more than six hours, with nothing particularly noteworthy happening.

“Mm.”

111 was happy again.

Because the male lead’s favorability toward Tang Zhen was only 36—a very safe number. In a month, if it dropped from 36 to around 10, he would regard Tang Zhen as a stranger, and there’d be no problem.

In other words, it could safely ship them again!

What a relief. Looking at all his actions, it had thought he had feelings for the female supporting character—but he didn’t.

So the mission hadn’t gone wrong; it had just been overreacting before!

Fortunately, the mission stayed on course. Everything was under control!

Back at their seats, Jiang Zhi and the others wisely didn’t ask where they had been all this time.

After sitting down, Ren Yanjing casually asked, “What were you talking about?”

Zhang Ziwang smiled. “Talking about how back then, you only cared about academics and ignored all the attention from girls.”

Dong Chao interjected, “I remember a girl with the surname Li often passing by our classroom. We were all guessing who she liked.”

Zhang Ziwang added, “Surname Li? Oh, I remember too. In senior year, her classroom was downstairs, and she would pass by our door every day. It’s a pity—I never knew who in our class she actually liked until graduation.”

Jiang Zhi, however, knew the girl’s name. She also knew who the girl secretly liked—but she didn’t say it. She just took a sip of juice from the table.

Dong Chao continued, “At first, I thought she was interested in Yanjing, but then I didn’t think so.”

Ren Yanjing said lightly, “Don’t cue me. I don’t know, don’t remember.”

Zhang Ziwang and the others laughed at the same time.

Zhang Ziwang took a sip of sake. “Honestly, except that her surname was Li, I don’t remember what she looked like. But if I saw her, I think I’d recognize her.”

Jiang Zhi: …

She had long stopped expecting these guys to remember much. Or perhaps they simply forgot because they didn’t care. Even if that girl had been first place all three years in high school and never second.

The conversation quickly moved to other topics.

Tang Zhen guessed that the girl they were talking about must be the female lead, Li Ran.

Interestingly, the original story only started writing from when the male and female leads met in their second year of college. So their connection had started so early?

It turned out this was a sweet story about a secret crush eventually coming true.

Back in her room, Tang Zhen called “Zhenguai” over.

“Good evening, Zhenzhen.”

“Good evening, Zhenguai.”

Tang Zhen handed over the calendar she had just finished making as a gift. “Take this calendar to the brother next door and tell him it’s a gift for him.”

Zhenguai responded with a mechanical “Oh” and slid toward the neighboring room.

Knock, knock, knock.

The door opened.

Zhenguai held up the calendar and, using the sweet, mechanical voice that Ren Yanjing had specially adjusted, said, “Brother, this is for you. It’s a gift for you.”

Brother?

Ren Yanjing knew he had never input that word.

Yet now, the word “brother” came from Zhenguai’s speaker.

Zhenguai had some autonomous learning ability.

Simple vocabulary, once mentioned in front of it, would be remembered.

So Tang Zhen had called him “brother” in front of Zhenguai?

She called him brother.

She actually called him brother.

He clenched his right hand into a fist, held it near his lips, and cleared his throat. “Good, thank you, Zhenguai.”