In the afternoon, Zhong Guochao paid a visit to the warehouse, and Zhu Xi Ning's expression looked as if she had swallowed a bug.
"Oh, why do you two comrades have such expressions upon seeing me?"
Chi He looked at the two of them with a beaming smile. "Comrades should care for one another."
"Why is it you again?"
Chi He heard Zhu Xi Ning's quiet grumbling. He stood with his hands behind his back, wearing a blue worker's cap, looking quite the part.
"How can you say that? We... haven't seen each other in a long time."
Technically, they hadn't met since the mission at Zhengmiao Childcare School ended, but Nan Yue was thriving on the Top Rankings, and everyone knew it.
Chi He had been quietly keeping an eye on the forums.
He was interested in Nan Yue, but he was even more interested in doing purification missions.
Purification missions didn't just purify the pollution; they purified his body and soul.
So, even though he had Nan Yue's contact information, he hadn't reached out to her once.
Nan Yue was also very aware of Chi He's temperament. She knew that events in the real world were at most a seasoning to him, something he would glance at occasionally for a bit of variety.
However, encountering Nan Yue in a mission was like hitting the jackpot for Chi He.
Missions with Nan Yue were always more interesting.
Chi He had already keenly noticed that the difficulty and complexity of missions increased whenever Nan Yue was involved. Although he didn't know the reason, he considered it a good thing.
For example, in this mission, the deadline was unknown, and after two days, they had a pile of messy clues but almost nothing that pointed directly to the objective.
Wasn't that interesting?
Chi He felt he was someone who knew how to show gratitude, so he had come to find Nan Yue to express his thanks.
"I'm actually here to bring you some clues."
Chi He looked at Nan Yue with a smile. Since there were no outsiders here, he didn't bother acting out his persona.
He dropped both the role assigned by the mission and his own habitual mask.
The audience wasn't appreciative, so there was no point in acting.
"What clues?"
Chi He blinked and leaned in closer, lowering his voice to create a mysterious atmosphere.
"I discovered... that I am very popular in the factory."
The two of them met this clue with cold, indifferent faces.
Chi He let out a small gasp, looking a bit embarrassed. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Nan Yue suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.
"You're the factory director's son. Of course you're popular."
Chi He nodded with a smile. "True, true. But there are a few people who like me exceptionally much."
"I'm nearly twenty-eight. It's rare to be unmarried at this age."
Nan Yue sensed something unusual.
"It's quite normal for several people to want to be the factory director's daughter-in-law."
Chi He dangled the clues slowly, like he was teasing a kitten.
"In this factory, I am known for being the most disciplined, upright, and incorruptible person, entirely devoted to my work without a single selfish thought."
Nan Yue understood what Chi He meant. "But if your persona is truly that noble and straightforward, there wouldn't be so many butterflies fluttering around you."
It was normal to be interested in the factory director's son.
But even from Huang Ya Nan's big mouth, she hadn't heard of anyone being particularly close to Zhong Guochao.
Everyone seemed to admire him from a distance, maintaining the boundaries of normal male-female relationships.
Yet Chi He said that after only two days, he had discovered several people who harbored very intense feelings for him.
That was very strange.
A man with no rumors or gossip surrounding him was secretly enjoying the passionate pursuit of others.
Was there something wrong with Zhong Guochao's persona?
"Which people are they?"
Chi He sat on the table, his legs swinging. He wasn't tall and had a baby face; he didn't look like a malicious person at all.
One really couldn't judge a person by their appearance.
"I've received quite a lot of love letters, over thirty of them. However, it's just the same three or four people writing again and again."
"Liu Qian, Yang Xufen, Song Chunhua..."
Nan Yue raised an eyebrow at the mention of Song Chunhua, the female Scavenger who had nearly failed to keep up the act yesterday.
Chi He drew out his words, his eyes shifting to the side.
Zhu Xi Ning felt a bad premonition rising within her.
"...Me?"
Chi He gave a penguin-like clap. "How clever, Comrade Zhao."
Zhu Xi Ning's expression looked as if she had swallowed a fly.
Out of the four people, two were Scavengers, and both were deeply infatuated with Zhong Guochao.
The probability was a bit high.
Looking at it now, the interpersonal relationships between the roles played by the Scavengers didn't seem to have deep connections; they were just comrades working and living together.
But this pattern had been broken between Chi He and Zhu Xi Ning's group.
Was it an isolated case?
"So I hope that since Comrade Zhao has feelings for me, we should communicate more often in our daily lives."
Zhu Xi Ning rolled her eyes at Chi He, but her mind didn't stop working.
"Zhao Mingming's face is ruined, and she's on bad terms with everyone. Given her personality, even if she really liked Zhong Guochao, she wouldn't have any contact with him now."
Zhu Xi Ning looked at Chi He, her eyes lighting up. "When did the love letters from Zhao Mingming stop?"
Clap!
Chi He struck his hands together. "There really are no weaklings under Little Yueyue's command! Your mind certainly turns fast."
Chi He looked over. "This past February."
"And another thing. After Zhao Mingming stopped writing, the love letters from the other two stopped as well."
Chi He sighed. "Now only Song Chunhua is left. It makes me feel quite lonely."
Nan Yue and Zhu Xi Ning exchanged a look. Zhao Mingming stopped writing because her face was injured and she felt it was hopeless.
What about the other two?
"Thank you."
Nan Yue thanked Chi He solemnly. This clue was extremely important for Zhu Xi Ning.
Chi He toyed with a fountain pen. "Since my thread intersects with Little Ningning's, Little Yueyue won't just sit idly by, right?"
"I can coast through this mission now!"
Nan Yue didn't take Chi He's words seriously. A Scavenger like Chi He would analyze clues even if he had to find them himself; he was definitely not someone who disliked using his brain.
He just wanted to know other people's clues, preferably the messy ones—the messier, the better.
Nan Yue followed the flow and told Chi He about her clues. Chi He opened his mouth in an exaggerated gasp.
"Wow, your thread is so complicated too."
Chi He patted his chest with a look of lingering fear. "But your thread doesn't seem to have much to do with us."
"It's so difficult."
Even as he said this, his eyes betrayed his envy.
Nan Yue's plotline was clearly very complex. Why wasn't it his?
If only it were his; he was truly so curious.
Zhong Guochao's thread was quite obvious; it was related to those four women.
But look at Nan Yue's thread.
Yang Hua, Huang Ya Nan, Xiang Guang, and Zhao Dayong could all be related to Li Hui.
Envy!
He was so envious!
After hearing the story, Chi He walked away, looking back with every step. This time, it was genuine, not an act.
Chi He was too eccentric; it was possible he would forcibly increase the mission's difficulty just for the sake of his own experience.
Fortunately, the difficulty of a mission with Nan Yue would naturally be higher anyway, and Chi He wasn't the type to actually seek death.
She would just watch the show.
"It's not easy for you to ask around the factory with your persona, so we'll all help you look into it."
Rate on N.U.
