Every villa at the resort had its own private hot spring pool in the backyard.
Jiang Hezhou had brought Chu Luyu here specifically to let her soak and soothe her muscles. After the staff delivered a brand-new swimsuit, he nudged her toward the bathroom.
“Go change into the swimsuit, then come out and soak.”
The swimsuit the staff had brought was a bikini style. In the past, Chu Luyu would have been shy and screamed at the sight of those few pieces of fabric.
But right now, she was still reeling from the shock of the system’s new task, so her attention wasn’t on the clothes at all.
Chu Luyu: 【The original owner must have been possessed, right? She has to have been possessed! This is insane! Strip completely naked! Naked! I… no, absolutely not. Cuihua, I’m choosing not to do this task!】
She remembered that the system had told her at the beginning that she could selectively refuse some tasks. She knew there would be a price to pay, but at this point she didn’t care anymore!
She was going to revolt! She was going to resist!
The system sounded a bit troubled: 【Are you sure? You can choose to refuse a task, but it’ll cost some points.】
Chu Luyu: 【Deduct them! Deduct them right now! There’s no way I can do this inhumane task!】
System Cuihua: 【Alright, let me calculate it for you. The point cost for refusing a task is ten times the points that task would have earned. Oh no—that won’t work, what you’ve saved up so far isn’t even enough to cover it.】
Chu Luyu nearly laughed in frustration: 【Say that again?】
She’d been grinding through tasks for nearly three months now. The plot was more than halfway through. Even though the difficulty of each task varied, there was no way three months’ worth of work couldn’t earn her a single chance to refuse!
System Cuihua: 【For real, I’m not lying. You really don’t have enough. Your highest task so far was 12 points, the lowest was 3. Altogether you’ve only accumulated less than 100 points. But this task is worth 15 points—ten times that would be 150… ahem.】
Oh. So the catch was the “ten times” multiplier.
She felt so hopeless, standing there on the verge of tears.
Chu Luyu: 【Is there really no other way? No other way at all? Cuihua, I’m serious—I might as well just die… Let the plot kill me off!】
Her eyes were red, genuinely panicked.
She’d complained about tasks plenty of times before, but she’d never broken down like this.
The system, being from Northeast China with its protective, fiercely loyal nature, saw Chu Luyu like this and for once started to get anxious too.
System Cuihua: 【Sweetie, don’t be impulsive. We still have time—let’s figure out if we can find a loophole. You’ve been pretty good at exploiting task loopholes before. Remember how you handled the second task? Just calm down, and stop talking about dying. You’ve already died once in the real world. Now you finally have a new life. In just three months, you could have a future even better than before… Would you really give all that up because of one task?】
Chu Luyu really did cry. A thin layer of tears welled up in her eyes. Her inner voice came out hoarse and pitiful: 【But it’s just too humiliating—way too humiliating…】
The system kept nagging and comforting her for a long while. Eventually, Chu Luyu’s emotions settled down a bit.
Chu Luyu: 【I’ll never complain about the original owner again. I realize now that she was probably also constrained by the plot. A lot of the time, she might not have wanted to act that way either—she had no choice.】
Take this plot point for example. She couldn’t imagine any normal, independent-thinking woman ever doing something so outrageous.
System Cuihua: 【Probably. That’s just how short-drama worlds work—the plot needs absurdity and conflict. If the male lead is supposed to develop a phobia of women later on, it requires an unhinged character… Regardless of who the original owner really was, she was definitely influenced to some extent along this storyline.】
Chu Luyu felt a pang of sadness.
She thought of Jiang Hezhou again.
Chu Luyu: 【Cuihua, do you think the male lead might not actually be the person he’s written to be either? What if, a lot of the time, his actions, his choices, even his thoughts—go against who he really is, but he just can’t help it?】
System Cuihua: 【Well, looks like you’re really calm now—you’re even pondering useless existential stuff. Since you’re fine now, hurry up and figure out how to game this task. You can’t offset it with points. If you don’t do it, the plot will punish you, and who knows what kind of mess that might cause. I won’t be able to warn you in advance either.】
Chu Luyu drooped her head again, not wanting to face reality at all.
Suddenly, a knock came from outside the bathroom door.
Jiang Hezhou had noticed that Chu Luyu had been in there for quite a while with no sign of coming out, and he was starting to get worried: “Is something wrong? Do you need any help?”
Chu Luyu quickly replied, “No, no, I… I just used the bathroom. I’m changing now.”
This time, she finally registered the tiny scraps of fabric that made up the bikini in her hand. But after the shock of the task, she could only muster a speechless sigh.
She looked slender, but she was certainly well-endowed where it counted.
The bikini was a white tie-up style. The top had no shoulder straps—just ties that went around the neck and the back. The bottom had no fabric on the sides either; instead, it was held in place by two tied bows at the hips.
Chu Luyu barely managed to get it on and took a look at herself in the mirror.
The two curves were only half-covered, with a clear valley between them. She really couldn’t bring herself to go out like this. After a moment’s hesitation, she pulled out her hair tie and let her long hair fall loosely over her chest.
Jiang Hezhou had been waiting outside the whole time. The moment the door opened, he saw her.
He had also changed into swim trunks by now, his upper body bare. His cool, pale, leanly muscled frame met her gaze, and Chu Luyu felt her face heat up.
Chu Luyu: 【The male lead’s body…】
She swallowed unconsciously as the thought crossed her mind.
Jiang Hezhou, however, didn’t notice her expression at the moment—because his attention was similarly captivated by her appearance.
It took him several seconds before he slowly looked away and led her toward the hot spring pool in the backyard.
The pool was kept at a constant temperature of around 40 degrees Celsius. Although it was autumn now—still warm during the day but cooling off in the mornings and evenings—the air around them had a slight chill.
As Chu Luyu stepped into the pool, the warmth instantly enveloped her.
A moment later, a splash sounded from beside her as Jiang Hezhou stepped in as well, settling very close to her.
She watched helplessly as that cool, pale, leanly muscled body floated just inches away—so close, yet untouchable. She pressed her lips together and took two steps back.
“Where are you going?” Jiang Hezhou reached out and grabbed her. “I had the staff prepare some snacks, fruit, and drinks—they’re all over here. Don’t sit so far away.”
The system cackled from somewhere in the air: 【This male lead really has no idea how dangerous the situation is. Look at you, practically drooling over those muscles, and he’s not even afraid you’ll assault him.】
Chu Luyu was too embarrassed to say anything and just kept telling the system to shut up.
She moved back to sit beside Jiang Hezhou. They were pressed so close together now that she could feel the ripples in the water every time he shifted.
“Is your stomach upset from the barbecue earlier?” Jiang Hezhou asked.
“Huh? No.”
“Then why were you in the bathroom for so long?”
She was silent for several seconds after his question. Then, suddenly, she looked up at the man beside her with the resolve of someone walking to their execution.
“Jiang Hezhou…”
“Mm?”
“If—if I said that someone used a… rather undignified method to offend you—what would you do?”
Jiang Hezhou was far too sharp. From her micro-expressions and her words, he instantly understood what she was getting at.
So, her little not-so-bright head had come up with yet another scheme to seduce him?
His hand, submerged in the hot spring water, unconsciously clenched.
The girl’s cheeks were flushed pink and dewy, whether from the steam or something else. Most of her long hair was already wet, drifting like seaweed across the water’s surface. Through the gaps, the parts she’d originally tried to hide were now fully visible beneath the water.
Somewhere below the surface, a certain part of him began to stir again. Jiang Hezhou’s eyes grew deeper and darker, and when he finally met her almond-shaped gaze, he forced himself to maintain his usual composure.
“That depends on what kind of offense, and… who’s doing the offending.”
Chu Luyu: 【Oh no. I feel like the male lead is warning me—did he catch on to something?!】
System Cuihua: 【Well, you made it pretty obvious. And you’ve done plenty of crazy things before. He’s not stupid.】
Chu Luyu: 【What do I do, what do I do?! We’re completely stuck now! How did this scene play out in the original plot?】
System Cuihua: 【In the original, the original owner did exactly what the task says—stripped completely naked, waltzed right up to the male lead, and brashly asked him to put lotion on her. But the male lead was so disgusted that he pushed her away and left.】
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