Chapter 20

Of course not!

Bai Zining was startled and immediately began to reflect. This summer had been so enjoyable that it had genuinely given him the illusion that he was in a romantic relationship with Zhu Shizhou. But that wasn’t his original intention at all.

What had he wanted to do in the first place?

Right, he wanted to take revenge on Zhu Shizhou. Zhu Shizhou was a self-righteous, hypocritical guy who loved mocking others. Bai Zining wanted him to experience the pain of being played with.

Having reaffirmed his goal, Bai Zining suppressed the strange feelings in his heart and silently reassured himself. Although there had been some deviations along the way, it wasn’t too late to pull back. His purpose was to make Zhu Shizhou unhappy. If Zhu Shizhou was upset, he would feel happy; if Zhu Shizhou was frustrated, he would feel satisfied.

He wanted to make Zhu Shizhou sad, to hurt him, and to taste the bitter fruit of heartbreak.

So, he opened the chat and replied coldly with two words: 【No.】

Ferry: 【Why?】

Ferry: 【Are you feeling shy?】

After months of putting up with this charade, now was the perfect time to break up. Bai Zining typed rapidly:

【I want to break up with you. I don’t like you at all. I’ve been playing with you this whole time. You’re so dumb, it’s ridiculously easy to fool you, and yet you’re inexplicably confident. Your gaming skills are terrible, I can’t understand a single thing you say about computer problems, and I hate perverts who drool over other people’s legs!】

But just before hitting send, Bai Zining’s hand froze.

Over the two months of summer vacation, he hadn’t sent Zhu Shizhou a single picture of his legs, yet Zhu Shizhou still kept calling him “baby” this and “baby” that, maintaining a warm and enthusiastic attitude, providing all kinds of emotional support. This clearly showed that Zhu Shizhou genuinely liked him.

Such a sudden breakup would be too much for Zhu Shizhou to handle. He might not accept it and could become clingy. Worse, he was a computer science major, what if he used some method to trace the real identity behind this account and discovered that Bai Zining was the one tricking him? That would spell disaster.

No, no, this had to be done step by step, slowly and carefully.

He deleted all the words he had typed and came up with a different excuse: 【I’m not ready yet. If one day I’m ready, can we meet then?】

【Okay, I’ll wait for you.】

Putting away his phone, Bai Zining’s thoughts wandered to other things. During the two months of interaction over the summer, he had discovered that Zhu Shizhou wasn’t the person he had thought he was.

It wasn’t that Zhu Shizhou was hiding his true self online, but he genuinely treated “Cai Ning” well.

And now it seemed like Zhu Shizhou had genuinely improved as a person. Should he still go through with his original plan? Bai Zining began to waver.

But if he didn’t continue, then everything he had done so far would be meaningless. All his effort would have been in vain, and the sunk cost was just too great to ignore.

Maybe he didn’t need to make Zhu Shizhou extremely heartbroken, just moderately heartbroken would suffice.

Heartbreak was heartbreak, after all.

Because of all these inexplicable thoughts and factors, Bai Zining ultimately decided that he couldn’t be the one to initiate the breakup with Zhu Shizhou.

But he could flip the situation and make Zhu Shizhou be the one to ask for a breakup instead.

He would start to change, become bad, petty, and unrecognizable, cutting ties with everyone. He would make Zhu Shizhou watch helplessly as the person he liked turned into an unreasonable stranger. That would hurt, too.

Just like when he first planned the online relationship, Bai Zining spent two days researching and drafting a “bad girl breakup plan.”

The six major taboos in relationships: being overly demanding, throwing tantrums, emotional coldness, being overly controlling, unreasonable behavior, and excessive jealousy or paranoia.

Now, he just needed to take it step by step.

Hawthorn Porridge: 【I don’t feel like doing my Marxism assignment. You do it for me.】

The next day, he would receive a neatly formatted Word document, detailed and flawless, leaving no room for criticism.

During a ranked match, Zhu Shizhou made a misplay and was left with just a sliver of health after being ambushed by an opponent hiding in the bushes. Bai Zining immediately typed out a scolding: 【Are you dumb? Didn’t you see the enemy hiding in the bushes? You’re so bad at this game. I’m done playing.】

Bai Zining immediately exited the game, and Zhu Shizhou obediently followed him out.

Holding Zhu Shizhou’s class schedule, Bai Zining started nitpicking: 【Why didn’t you reply to my message earlier? You weren’t in class, so were you chatting with another girl?】

Ferry: 【No, baby. I’ve been busy preparing for a competition lately, but I’ll make sure to reply to you promptly in the future.】

Bai Zining then screenshotted one of Zhu Shizhou’s Moments posts. In a group photo, the edge of the frame showed a glimpse of a girl. He asked: 【Why is there another girl in this post? I don’t like it.】

Zhu Shizhou immediately deleted the post.

Then Bai Zining moved on to emotional coldness. When Zhu Shizhou sent him messages, he would take hours to reply, and even then, his responses were brief, devoid of tone, emojis, or any stickers.

After a week, Bai Zining was the first to crack.

It was too exhausting. Being someone who was demanding, unreasonable, short-tempered, and jealous all the time—it was just too much to handle.

What was even more frustrating was that, despite everything he had done, Zhu Shizhou didn’t show a hint of impatience or anger.

There were several times when Bai Zining thought he had gone too far, convinced they were bound to have a fight. But Zhu Shizhou didn’t react that way. Instead, he patiently asked if Bai Zining was in a bad mood, offered to get him something delicious, or suggested talking through the problem together to find a solution.

Bai Zining was truly at his wit’s end. If Zhu Shizhou had treated him with even a fraction of this kindness and tolerance back then, he wouldn’t have resorted to using online dating as a way to deceive and take revenge on him.

It really was a case of one wrong step leading to another.

But the one who made the first mistake was still Zhu Shizhou, Bai Zining was absolutely sure of that.

That afternoon, with no classes scheduled, Bai Zining lay on his bed scrolling through breakup advice posts. Zhu Shizhou had sent him a message earlier, letting him know that he was discussing plans with his competition group, giving Bai Zining a moment to relax.

Meanwhile, Zuo Xingwei was calculating the countdown to his girlfriend’s birthday on a calendar, planning a big surprise for her. As he worked out the details, he suddenly asked, “Hey, by the way, isn’t Brother Zhou’s birthday coming up soon?”

“No, it’s not,” Bai Zining said, turning over. “Zhu Shizhou’s birthday was a long time ag—” He abruptly stopped mid-sentence, realizing something. The only people who knew Zhu Shizhou’s real birthday were his parents and “Cai Ning.”

That was close, he’d almost exposed himself.

“What?” Zuo Xingwei didn’t catch it and pressed for clarification.

“Nothing,” Bai Zining replied in a deliberately indifferent tone. “His birthday has nothing to do with me anyway.”

.

Over the next week, while continuing to employ the six major relationship taboos, Bai Zining escalated his behavior. He accepted every single transfer Zhu Shizhou made to him.

He even started proactively asking for money, using excuses like spotting a pretty dress, wanting to go out for seafood, or needing snacks and fruit.

As Bai Zining watched the balance in his account grow larger and larger, he felt increasingly anxious. He had taken so much money from Zhu Shizhou and behaved so badly, so why hadn’t Zhu Shizhou broken up with him yet?

Originally, he had planned to withdraw all the money as cash after the breakup and secretly leave it on Zhu Shizhou’s desk. But now, things had taken a turn, if Zhu Shizhou didn’t bring up breaking up soon, Bai Zining might actually end up being arrested for fraud.

In a panic, he decided to test Zhu Shizhou’s attitude: 【Do you feel like there’s been a bit of a problem in our relationship lately?】

Ferry: 【Baby, if there’s anything bothering you, you can tell me directly.】

Hawthorn Porridge: 【Actually, the way I’ve been acting recently is the real me. I’m someone who’s demanding, jealous, money-loving, petty, and vengeful. Do you still like me like this?】

He tried his best to paint himself in the worst light, hoping Zhu Shizhou would finally see his true colors.

Ferry: 【I like you no matter how you are.】

Ferry: 【Very cute.】

Bai Zining stared at the two lines, nearly fainting. How could Zhu Shizhou’s persona in a relationship be that of a lovesick puppy?

He had never realized Zhu Shizhou liked this sort of thing, and now he was completely stuck, unable to back out.

Could it be that Zhu Shizhou was so in love with the idea of “her” that he was willing to accept anything? But then again, Zhu Shizhou didn’t even know what Cai Ning looked like.

To pour his heart out to someone he’d never met, well, in the end, it must be because Bai Zining was just too charming!

Bai Zining, oh Bai Zining, you really are such a fox spirit.