In the vast, silent living room, the faint sound of a keypad lock being pressed echoed from afar.
The front door was opened from the outside, and Jiang Hezhou walked in, carrying his laptop bag.
He was still wearing his white lab coat, the pristine fabric spotless, without even a single crease—accentuating his already exceptional figure, making him appear even taller and more poised.
Methodically, he set down his laptop bag and began changing his shoes.
As he looked down, he noticed an extra pair of black women’s sandals in the corner, with heels at least ten centimeters high. The left one was toppled over his own slippers, while the right one had been flung about half a meter away.
He furrowed his brow slightly, paused in thought, then took out a clean pair of spare slippers from the shoe cabinet before silently making his way toward the living room.
Jiang Hezhou was a man with mild OCD. He usually lived alone, keeping every corner of his home impeccably tidy and organized. It was rare for the place to be in such disarray as it was now.
A dress discarded on the carpet, a snack bag with half its contents spilled out, a bright red women’s undergarment hanging from the armrest of the sofa, and two open, half-eaten takeout containers.
The air still carried the scent of artificial food flavorings—not pungent, but greasy in a way that was somewhat off-putting.
That feeling wasn’t entirely unlike the impression left by the fiancée who had just moved into his home that very day.
He instinctively cast his gaze toward the master bedroom.
At the same time, inside the master bedroom—
Chu Luyu heard the commotion outside and paced anxiously around the bed.
She said to the system hovering mid-air, “Wait, I’ve only been here for half an hour, and the male lead already shows up? Not even a moment of buffer time?”
The system was a tall, sleek figure in a short fur coat, who had introduced herself earlier as Cuihua, hailing from the Northeast.
System Cuihua: “So what if he’s back? Why are you scared of him? Have you forgotten your mission is to annoy him and disgust him? Logically speaking, he should be the one afraid of you.”
Half an hour ago, Chu Luyu had inexplicably transmigrated into this short drama titled The Forensic Genius and the Little Nanny, becoming the former fiancée of the male lead, Jiang Hezhou—a dramatic, empty-headed troublemaker.
In the drama, the male lead was an exceptionally brilliant forensic medicine professor, also serving as a specially appointed forensic expert for the criminal police team.
Before meeting his official female lead, he had been arranged by his family to have a fiancée.
That fiancée shared the same name as Chu Luyu—a beautiful but vapid, high-maintenance “vase” with a head full of inappropriate thoughts.
In just six months of living with Jiang Hezhou, she had thrown his life into complete chaos and even given him a case of gynecophobia.
Given that setup, it was obvious she was nothing more than a plot device to facilitate the eventual meeting of the male and female leads.
And sure enough, as the story went, the male lead developed such a deep trauma regarding romantic and physical relationships because of his ex-fiancée that it wasn’t until he met the unemployed college-graduate female lead, who came to his home to apply as a nanny, that he gradually began to heal, thanks to her innocent and kind nature.
In the end, the two walked out of the shadows together and headed toward their happily-ever-after.
When Chu Luyu had watched the drama, she barely paid any attention to the ex-fiancée’s storyline. It was only after transmigrating that the system filled her in.
System Cuihua: “That woman was a total handful. She was a handful at home, and after getting engaged to the male lead, she became downright absurd. At first, the male lead agreed to be with her with genuine intentions of making it work—even though he didn’t like her vulgar, gaudy demeanor one bit, he was willing to take things slow and adjust.”
“But after she secured the engagement, she grew resentful of his cold, distant attitude and his single-minded devotion to his career, so she started trying every trick in the book to seduce him. Her logic was that the purest attraction between a man and a woman is physical attraction. So all those dirty thoughts in her head went to work, and she went all out trying to drive him up the wall. The last straw was when she shamelessly drugged him, used force, and even pulled out S&M gear on him. That finally gave him full-blown gynecophobia, and then she broke off the engagement.”
When Chu Luyu first heard all this, she was utterly stunned.
In real life, she was a 26-year-old lifelong singleton who had never even held a man’s hand, and her understanding of romantic and physical relationships came almost entirely from novels and TV shows.
But the original owner’s antics—whether in novels or on TV—would’ve been censored to oblivion…
Chu Luyu asked the system: “All that stuff she did—didn’t the video platform censor it? Didn’t the ‘Clean the Web’ campaign get her?”
System Cuihua: “Nope. In the actual episodes, most of her storyline is either mentioned by other characters or shown in the male lead’s flashbacks. The timeline you’ve transmigrated into is six months before the main plot begins.”
Chu Luyu: “So I’ve become her, and my job is to…?”
System Cuihua: “Play the role of the male lead’s fiancée, follow the original plot—seduce him, disgust him, until he develops gynecophobia and breaks off the engagement with you.”
Chu Luyu: “…”
Chu Luyu found these tasks far too jarring for her personality.
She asked, unwilling to give up: “Do I absolutely have to do this? What if I just slack off…”
System Cuihua cut in: “Best-case scenario, you’ll suffer all sorts of accidents and mishaps—including but not limited to getting hit by a car, drowning, being kidnapped. Worst-case scenario: death.”
Chu Luyu was especially afraid of pain. In the real world, even when using a lancet to test her blood sugar, she never dared to set the depth gauge higher than 2.
So after hearing what the system had to say, she nodded frantically: “I’ll do it, I’ll do it. I’ll take the mission.”
—
After cleaning up the trash in the living room, Jiang Hezhou went to the kitchen to make dinner.
He usually led a simple, regimented life—at home alone, he’d make one meat dish and one vegetable dish. Today, with an extra person, he took the time to add two more plates.
Once the table was set, he went and knocked on the door of the master bedroom.
That morning, when the woman had moved in, he had already left for school. The elders in the family had brought her over, and they hadn’t run into each other.
After settling her in, the elder had sent Jiang Hezhou a message saying she had chosen the master bedroom to stay in, and his belongings had been temporarily moved to the secondary bedroom, so he’d have to reorganize things himself when he got back.
When Jiang Hezhou learned of this, his first reaction was to frown in irritation.
He and this so-called fiancée had only met four times so far. And with each of those four meetings, his impression of her had been refreshed—downward, almost every single time.
Mercenary, foolish, frivolous and rude in demeanor, vulgar and tacky in taste…
Nearly every trait he had never before encountered in the women around him seemed to have found its way to her.
Now that he knew she had moved into his original room, Jiang Hezhou added another item to his list of impressions of her: a complete lack of boundaries.
After the door was knocked on, Jiang Hezhou heard some rustling sounds from inside the room. Two seconds later, a tentative voice came through: “Who… who is it?”
The voice was still the same as before, yet it somehow sounded a little different from the way the woman used to speak.
Jiang Hezhou didn’t think much of it and simply replied flatly, “It’s me. Dinner’s ready. You can come out and eat.”
“Okay.”
Before the door opened, Jiang Hezhou had already assumed that when the woman came out, she’d be decked out in her usual gaudy, flashy getup.
After all, every time he’d seen her before, that had been her style—tight, plunging V-neck mini dresses at most, her hair curled in waves, heavy makeup, and a very strong cloud of perfume.
Jiang Hezhou braced himself to be assaulted by her perfume again and had just taken a step back, planning to head to the dining area first, when the door swung open—
Behind it appeared a face that could briefly stun anyone with its pure, fresh beauty—completely different from her usual heavily made-up look.
Her eyes were striking. Before, she’d always worn thick false lashes and drawn her eyeliner long and heavy, but now, without all that extra adornment, her almond-shaped eyes were dark, clear, and slightly lustrous, with double eyelids folded at just the right width. When they curved, they looked like a crescent moon arched above her pupils.
Her bare cheeks were also fair—a translucent, clean kind of pale.
Beyond that, her soft lips had gone from bold red to a light pink, and her small, delicate nose stood pertly, with a tiny mole on the left side of its tip.
Jiang Hezhou was momentarily stunned by the visual contrast. His gaze unconsciously drifted downward and he noticed that her clothes were also quite different from before.
The tight mini dress had been replaced by a loose, oversized T-shirt, likely paired with athletic shorts underneath—the hem of the T-shirt almost completely covered them, with only a sliver of black shorts hem peeking out.
Was it because she was at home and didn’t need to dress up?
Jiang Hezhou withdrew his gaze, a guess flashing through his mind.
“Come eat.”
Chu Luyu nodded quickly and followed the man out of the room.
She was still very nervous.
In real life, she rarely interacted with strange men, let alone suddenly sharing a roof with one.
The man walking ahead had an extremely straight and upright back, his hair neatly trimmed. From behind, she could see a stretch of cold, pale, slender neck.
She recalled his look from the short drama—often clad in a white lab coat over a shirt, always wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, with a cool, refined, and composed aura.
Walking behind him, she was just thinking about how to speak and behave more naturally during the meal when a mission alert suddenly rang out above her head.
【Ding! Please pretend to have injured your ankle, get the male lead to show concern, and deliver the key line: “My ankle hurts, I need you to blow on it.”】
Chu Luyu: …
—
The man had made four dishes and a soup. When Chu Luyu walked over, she noticed he’d even already served her rice.
She pulled out the chair opposite Jiang Hezhou and had just sat down when the system couldn’t help but urge her from the side.
System Cuihua: “What are you doing? Didn’t I tell you to pretend you hurt your ankle? Why’d you plop your butt down?”
Chu Luyu: “Geez, what’s the rush? The mission doesn’t have a time limit, does it? As long as I finish it today, that’s fine, right? When I take a shower before bed later, I can pretend I slipped on the wet floor and twisted my ankle—wouldn’t that be more natural?”
System Cuihua: “Oh, you’re pretty clever, huh.”
Chu Luyu: “Keep it low-key, keep it low-key.”
During the meal, Chu Luyu ate with great seriousness.
As a man who was fiercely fought over by various female characters in the drama, the male lead truly excelled in every aspect. Chu Luyu found every single dish on the table delicious.
She happily devoured several pieces of sweet and sour spare ribs and shredded pork with green peppers. Her bowl of rice was nearly empty, and she was hesitating over whether to get another serving when the man across from her suddenly spoke.
“Another bowl?”
Chu Luyu looked up and happened to meet his gaze.
These were the most beautiful pair of male eyes she had ever seen.
Beneath his lenses, his eyes were deep, their color like two pools of unmeltable ink—profound and intense.
Normally, eyes like that would make anyone feel cold and aloof when fixed on them. But the strange thing was, the man had a pair of gentle, affectionate peach-blossom eyes. No matter how deep or cool the look in them, at most it came across as composed and steady.
Chu Luyu felt extremely self-conscious under his gaze and awkwardly averted her eyes: “Sure, that works.”
After filling her second bowl of rice for her, Jiang Hezhou sat back down and said to her in a fairly natural tone, “Are you getting used to it here today? Is there anything you need to have added?”
Chu Luyu quickly shook her head.
To be fair, no matter how much the male lead disliked or even loathed this fiancée of his, at least from start to finish, he had never skimped on her living conditions.
The system had said that after learning she would be moving in with him, he had gone out and bought a lot of women’s supplies to keep at home—brand new bedsheets and duvet covers, unopened cups, toiletries, and even two sets of skincare products for her.
And according to plot points mentioned by other characters in the main episodes, it seemed that when the original owner later cheated on him with some playboy during the engagement, the credit card she used to book the hotel room was his…
In terms of character, this was truly a man who couldn’t be any better.
Just then, the person across from her suddenly pulled out a bank card and handed it to Chu Luyu.
“This card contains my salary savings over the years, plus some annual dividend payouts from the family business. From now on, if there’s anything you want to buy or anything you’d like to add to the house, you don’t need to tell me—just use this card directly.”
Chu Luyu was momentarily stunned: So he’s actually the type of good man who hands over his salary card too.
After the meal, Jiang Hezhou stayed in the kitchen to clean up, while Chu Luyu returned to her room to prepare for the system mission.
The system kept urging her, complaining she was taking too long.
Wrapped in a towel, Chu Luyu was drying her hair while stalling guiltily: “Wait, wait a little longer—let me finish drying my hair first.”
Bath done, hair dried, even skincare applied… Chu Luyu had no more excuses to put it off.
She took a deep breath, mustered up her courage, and started heading out, rehearsing the key line she’d have to say over and over as she walked.
“My ankle hurts, I need you to blow on it. My ankle hurts, I need you to blow on it… Ah!!!”
Coincidentally, Jiang Hezhou had just finished cleaning up the kitchen and was passing by the master bedroom when he suddenly heard a startled cry from inside.
He paused mid-step, his mind instantly flashing back to the previous two times when Chu Luyu, upon seeing him, had deliberately twisted her ankle or tripped over something just to throw herself onto him.
Was this another new trick?
Jiang Hezhou wasn’t sure. He stood there pondering for a moment, then finally called out toward the master bedroom: “Chu Luyu?”
“I’m here.”
The master bedroom door wasn’t closed, and the voice came from the direction of the bathroom inside.
Jiang Hezhou caught the oddness in the woman’s voice—it sounded weak and limp, as if she were gritting her teeth through something.
He frowned. “What happened? I heard you yell just now.”
After about two or three seconds, a hesitant voice came back: “I… when I came out of the shower just now, I stepped on some water on the floor, slipped, and fell. My ankle hurts a bit. Can you come in and help me up?”
Yes—while Chu Luyu had been agonizing over how to make her fake ankle injury look more convincing, she had actually stepped on a puddle of water, slipped, and twisted her ankle for real.
The system was cackling wildly above her head, saying this was the first time she’d ever seen a host as adorably stupid as her.
Chu Luyu was speechless and didn’t want to acknowledge it at all.
A flurry of hurried footsteps approached from outside, but when they reached the bathroom door, they suddenly stopped.
“Your clothes…”
Chu Luyu quickly answered: “I’m wearing them! I’m wearing them!”
Hearing that, Jiang Hezhou hesitated no longer and quickly pushed the door open.
The woman, fresh out of the bath, was now wrapped in nothing but a towel around her chest, its length barely covering from her bust down to the top of her thighs.
He had always known she was fair, but he hadn’t realized she was fair to this degree.
Her skin, still damp from the bath, had a gleaming, moist white sheen that even caught fragments of light under the lamp.
She usually looked slim, but now with her clothes off and her limbs fully exposed, he could see she had a very small frame—her arms and legs were evenly fleshed, looking absurdly soft.
Perhaps because the fall had hurt quite a bit, the woman’s eyes were now misty, as if she were about to cry.
“Jiang Hezhou, I think I hit a bone. My ankle really hurts.”
It wasn’t the first time Chu Luyu had called his name, but it was the first time it gave him a strange feeling.
He quickly crouched down and lifted her into his arms.
The two of them were now very, very close—Chu Luyu could even clearly see a tiny, hidden mole about two centimeters below his jawline. She was completely enveloped by his clean, crisp masculine scent.
But at this moment, she didn’t have a single romantic thought.
Because her ankle really hurt—ahhhhh!
“Your ankle doesn’t show any obvious deformity, so it’s probably not a bone injury.”
Jiang Hezhou carried Chu Luyu and set her down on the bed outside, then crouched in front of her to carefully examine the injury.
He pressed on the injured area and asked, “Does the bone here hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt, but the surface does.”
“Mm. Soft tissue contusion. Nothing major. A few days of spray and rest and it’ll heal.”
Jiang Hezhou got up and brought back a medical kit from outside, which contained medicinal liquor and spray for bruises and sprains. He hesitated for a moment, then decided to massage the area with the medicinal liquor first.
The woman’s ankle was extremely slender—even though it was swollen, he could still easily encircle it with one hand.
As he pressed his palm, coated in the medicinal liquor, against the contour of her bones, an exceptionally smooth and delicate sensation spread beneath his hand. His gaze unconsciously drifted upward to the top of her foot.
Those feet were exquisitely small and delicate, with a gentle arch across the instep. The skin there was moist and fair, with faint, pale blue veins faintly visible beneath. Her five toes were rounded and neatly aligned in an orderly row, each nail tinged with a soft pink.
Jiang Hezhou discreetly averted his gaze again, refocusing all his attention on her ankle.
The system could no longer hold back, frantically urging her from above her head.
System Cuihua: “What are you doing? This is the perfect opportunity! Just say the key line and the mission will be complete!”
Chu Luyu: “I’m working on it, stop rushing me.”
Chu Luyu truly was working on it—steeling herself through the pain in her ankle while taking quiet, deep breaths.
Jiang Hezhou was almost done. He was just about to apply the bruise cream for one final coating when he saw that the little foot resting on his leg suddenly lifted slightly.
A moment later, a timid voice came through—
“Jiang Hezhou… my ankle hurts. I need you to blow on it.”
TOC | More chapters later
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