Of course, Lu Ziqing did not go along with Lin Mianmian’s words, he wouldn’t kiss Gu Xiyu in full view of everyone to express his gratitude.
“I’m sorry, just take it that I’m sleepwalking!” Lin Mianmian also realized that she had accidentally said something she shouldn’t have, and after apologizing to them with a red face, she pulled Xu Chengxuan, who was full of doubts about life, and fled.
Gu Xiyu watched the two ride off in the silver car, and the corners of his mouth couldn’t help but lift upwards.
He took Lu Ziqing back to the car and had just fastened his seatbelt when the person in the passenger seat took the opportunity to come over and give him a gentle kiss on the lips: “Thank you, little mom, for all your hard work.”
Gu Xiyu found he was now immune to being called “little mom” and had even become accustomed to Lu Ziqing’s intimate touches, only looking around to make sure no one was passing by their car.
Although he felt that Liu Sheng and Zhou Tianyi would probably write to the school complaining about the students in Class 1, Lu Ziqing was involved, and after learning about the situation, a furious Lu Mingren called the school principal.
While Lu Mingren was downstairs angrily questioning the principal about how the students are managed, Lu Ziqing silently leaned against the staircase with a wan expression.
When Gu Xiyu spotted him, he turned around for a moment to hide.
Gu Xiyu noticed his abnormality: “What’s wrong?”
Lu Ziqing propped himself up on the handrail of the hallway with one hand on his cheek and stared down at the source of the light for a long time before speaking softly, “It’s nothing, I just feel so ashamed all of a sudden, the image I’ve been trying to maintain for years is ruined.”
“In all my years of schooling, I’ve never reported to my father, no matter how serious the case was.” Lu Ziqing’s eyes looked like they were covered with a thin layer of ice.
“Mostly because I didn’t have anyone to talk to even when I came back home. I got used to it after a while, and it made me look more handsome.”
Gu Xiyu thought about it and told him, “Actually, your father still cares about you.”
“I know, I have more pocket money than I can spend every month.”
“……” It was redundant for him to come and care about the Great Demon, worrying that he was emotionally affected and nervous because of the final exam tomorrow.
After the investigation into the incident, the students in class one who caused trouble were disqualified from taking the exams and were all given zeroes. Gu Xiyu and Lu Ziqing finished their final exams successfully and ushered in the summer holidays. Unfortunately for Lu Ziqing, who was taking the college entrance exams soon, his holidays were filled with a lot of pressure to study; the school might even set up supplementary lessons if necessary.
But this did not prevent Lu Ziqing from playing games happily.
The summer holidays meant a new season update, and in order to stabilize his standard and score, he had to engage in scoring activities with his teammates again, and with that, he had less time to enter the live stream.
The netizens in the live broadcast room expressed how much they missed him, but Gu Xiyu ignored those barrages and instead made the most of his time playing games, slowly practicing junglers that “he” was not good at before. His consciousness already had a good foundation because he had been exposed to similar games before, so the next time he chose a jungler, he wouldn’t make any major mistakes in normal games.
[Am I the only one who feels abused?]
The barrage had begun to divert from normal topics.
[Xixi must have quarreled with his brother, who then ran off to become a wild king for someone else. When he lost the wild king, he realized that the wild king was just a cloud of smoke and that the only way to be strong was to be strong yourself! So, Xixi practiced his heroes’ skills hard and has finally grown into a stable little jungler.]
[Goodness, that sounds like a full script, does the sister upstairs need help?]
Gu Xiyu glanced at the golden account that would silently hang out in his live broadcast room whenever he live streamed and did not reply.
It was after the game was over that he received an invitation to form a team, and accidentally clicked in.
The only person in the group was Lu Ziqing, and before clicking “Ready,” Gu Xiyu double-checked and confirmed that the nickname on it was his main account.
…though the nickname was a little different.
He remembered that Lu Ziqing’s nickname was called “Azure Sky Waiting for Rain,” and now the word “rain” at the end had been changed to “Yu” at some point.
Gu Xiyu stared at the nickname for a long time, and instead of pressing “Ready,” he went to the group chat and asked, “Did you invite the wrong person?”
Azure Sky Waiting for Yu: [No, it’s the right account.]
Azure Sky Waiting for Yu: [To prevent them from making up some weird plots, for example, that I’ve left you out in the cold and have gone to help other girls rank up.]
You could feel the grievance in his words.
Gu Xiyu didn’t even want to look at the real-time barrages in the live stream, and could only calmly prepare.
While Lu Ziqing was upgrading his rank, Gu Xiyu had also brought up his rank a bit while broadcasting in this new season, and he was now able to team up with Lu Ziqing’s main account.
With the rebellious teenager around, he certainly didn’t need to play the jungler, but this person turned on the microphone to answer the netizens in the live stream who kept sending out questions, saying, “Brother, I heard that you’ve been practicing the jungler lately, and you’re doing quite well, do you want to play together?”
[……fuck, worthy of a gong, what a brother, ah!]
[I’m alive again!]
[It turns out that Xixi’s brother was using a side account all along.]
[Wait, wait, wait—why am I so familiar with this account? ]
[I know who you’re thinking about upstairs, it’s the wild king who’s ranked first on the national server. Their names look similar, but they’re not the same, right? The last word isn’t “Yu”.]
The barrage went quiet for a while, and then another wave of mini-eruptions began.
Someone had purposely gone to the game rankings to take a look.
[Upstairs, the big boss on the list changed his ID, he is the real deal!]
The game had already started. This was Gu Xiyu’s first time playing with Lu Ziqing’s main account, so he was a little worried that his operation would drag him down, and he played the whole game a little cautiously.
The early season low rankers were all big players from last season’s high ranks, so it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be, and he made a few small mistakes in the middle. Lu Ziqing, on the other hand, was steady from start to finish; his rhythm hardly ever broke down. Even if he sometimes chose a jungler that was weak in the early stages and was forced to blow up the jungle, he was always able to find the right opportunity to gain the points back.
So his mistakes seemed insignificant with Lu Ziqing around.
Gu Xiyu remembered his previous expression and asked him once again after turning off the microphone: “You really haven’t considered playing professionally?”
This time, Lu Ziqing asked back after a short silence, “What if I said I had thought about it?”
Gu Xiyu whispered back, “Then go for it.”
The person on the other side of the headset chuckled, “But most elders feel it’s a bad life decision to let their kids go and play professionally, that there’s no good future in it.”
The mage in the little pink dress on the screen followed the jungler into the range of the enemy’s crystal, and with a few clicks, they killed off the rest of their enemies.
The glorious words of victory blossomed in Gu Xiyu’s eyes with a golden glow, and his voice rang out along with the announcement of victory, “Really? But I think it’s pretty good.”
“I quite like it.”
They went back to the team room, but Lu Ziqing, the captain, didn’t immediately click start.
The people in the live room had already discovered that Gu Xiyu had turned off the microphone: [What unspeakable secrets are this pair of dogmen hiding from us again? Why are they talking in private?]
He suddenly heard Lu Ziqing ask, “Don’t you think it’s ridiculous, or useless?”
“I’m just good at playing games and not as smart as Xu Chengxuan, who always takes first place and always excels in academics; that’s what society needs-”
Gu Xiyu interrupted, “The two are not in the same field in the first place, there’s no need to compare them.”
“And …… why are you comparing yourself to others?”
He gripped his mouse, and the pointer wandered on the screen as he moved it.
After thinking about it, he added, “You are Lu Ziqing, a unique individual, you can shine in any field you want. Just be brave enough to become that sun, and use your strength to silence those who question you.”
“That’s the real Lu Ziqing, isn’t it?”
The Great Demon he knew was indeed an existence so dazzling that even the world’s consciousness could not handle him.
Wasn’t it precisely because he was too brilliant that he was being targeted by the world’s consciousness, getting exploited and thwarted?
After saying these words, the two went silent and did not speak for a long time.
Gu Xiyu habitually clicked on the get ready button, and it was not until five minutes later that he and his teammate entered the queue again.
Lu Ziqing didn’t say anything, he turned the microphone back on and calmly answered the queries of the netizens in the live stream with nonsense: “I had a little cough just now, and I was afraid of disturbing you guys, so I closed the microphone for a while.”
Netizens: …… do you think our IQ is below zero?
At the same time, a long-lost notification suddenly rang out.
[Target’s risk value is -5; the current risk value is 34.]
Lu Ziqing still didn’t say anything, but he played the new round more ferociously, as if he had taken some kind of hormone.
Gu Xiyu couldn’t resist hooking the corner of his mouth gently.
In fact, this was the breakthrough he had been seeking since he crossed over. If he wanted things to turn out like the last world, the only way to allow Lu Ziqing to fully develop himself without clashing too much with Xu Chengxuan was to let him excel in the areas he was better at in this world.
In the original plot, Lu Ziqing, because he was obsessed with his mother and had the desire to be the better son, forced himself to compete with Xu Chengxuan in the same areas, ruthlessly abandoning his true dream. If he could remove this knot and let Lu Ziqing do something he was better at and enjoyed after he finished his entrance exams, while not clashing with Xu Chengxuan in terms of achievements, wouldn’t he be able to use this loophole to save Lu Ziqing while also completing his mission in this world?
They played a few more rounds, and then Gu Xiyu ended the broadcast. He had just turned off the live stream when some kid barged in without knocking and skillfully locked the door behind him.
Lu Ziqing didn’t do anything to him; he just walked up to him and hugged him for a long time when he got up, and finally said, with a low smile, “Thank you.”
“Thank you for coming to my side.”
Gu Xiyu’s eyelashes fluttered lightly with the movement of his eyelids, and he pursed his lips, not making a sound after all.
The person holding him suddenly spoke, “Little mom, I’m sorry, I can’t help myself.”
“?”
“The school results came out today; I’ve just checked on the school website, and I’m 72nd in the whole grade.”
“Little mom, I want the reward now.”
Gu Xiyu saw that the side mission on the panel was marked complete and that the risk value had dropped to thirty points along the way and said, in a complicated mood, “Okay, what do you want?”
Sure enough, a reduction of twenty points was a lie.
Lu Ziqing whispered in his ear.
Then the rebellious teenager was mercilessly thrown out of the room.
The boy outside the door rubbed his back and tried turning the door knob only to find that it couldn’t be opened, and he said in a hushed voice, “Little mom, you didn’t keep your word.”
“It was agreed that you would do anything I wanted as long as it wasn’t about your bottom line of murder and arson.”
On the other side of the room, the fair-skinned boy rubbed his face with a headache, gradually sinking into contemplation.
When did Lu Ziqing find out about the women’s clothes in his room?
Gu Xiyu regretted a little; he should have destroyed those costumes the first time he found them, otherwise he wouldn’t be in this situation where Lu Ziqing wanted to see him in them.
However, the promise had already been made, and it was indeed a relatively harmless thing, so he chose to compromise in the end.
Lu Ziqing picked a time when Lu Mingren happened to go on a business trip for a week, and it was time for Auntie Zhang to go back home to visit her family. With Lu Ziqing desperate for no one to disturb his and Gu Xiyu’s two-person world, Auntie Zhang’s leave was immediately granted.
“Do you have some kind of perverted hobby?” Gu Xiyu asked as he helplessly changed into a little pink dress. His mood was somewhat gloomy, and he didn’t even dare to face himself in the mirror.
Lu Ziqing, however, could guess what was going on in his mind and deliberately pulled him to the full-body mirror in the room. After admiring his embarrassed expression and indignation through the mirror, he started kissing him on the neck: “I just wanted to see you… in a way that only I can see. “
He couldn’t remember exactly how long he was forcibly held in front of the mirror as Lu Ziqing kissed him. It was only when his clothes were disheveled and he was pushed hard onto the bed that he came back to his senses.
He reached out and held Lu Ziqing’s shoulders, saying in a firm tone, “No, I am now your nominal guardian and your father’s legal spouse.”
Lu Ziqing’s Adam’s apple moved slightly, then he buried his head at Gu Xiyu’s neck with a pained expression: “I told you I couldn’t help it.”
Gu Xiyu’s face was expressionless: “You have to endure even if you can’t.”
The rebellious teenager, who was pitifully lying on his neck, suddenly chuckled.
He felt Lu Ziqing lean into his ear again and slowly finish a sentence.
“Brother, I actually already know that you and my father dissolved the marriage.”
Gu Xiyu’s pupils constricted; the last shield that could be used to block the absurd incident from happening was broken just like that.
When did Lu Ziqing find out about it?
…… How did he know?!T/N: Okay, I just noticed I’ve been making a mistake with the arc’s title! It was supposed to be “rebellious stepson”, I don’t know why I have been writing “scheming stepson”😅. But I’ll go back and change it slowly.