Chapter 30: Isn't This Also a Kind of NTR?

"What do you mean by—"

Weng Jilin was just about to stand up for Chen Ye, but a crisp, sweet voice cut him off before he could finish.

"Chen Ye isn't even the top student. There are quite a few others in the class with better grades, and I don't see you inviting them," Su Siyun said with a sweet smile as she walked up to Chen Ye. Under his shocked gaze, she wrapped her arms around his and hugged it tightly against her chest.

It was an incredibly affectionate gesture.

Now, Chen Ye wasn't the only one stunned. Weng Jilin and Yu Mengmeng's eyes widened in disbelief, with Yu Mengmeng's mouth dropping into a perfect 'O' shape.

Su Siyun had been pursued by boys for three years and had never even held hands with one. Yet now... she was actively hugging Chen Ye's arm against her chest?!

And so tightly, too!

Zhao Qimin's smile froze on his face. Down by his sides, his hands clenched into tight fists, the veins on the back of his hands bulging.

He felt as if he had just been thoroughly cuckolded, even though the relationship only existed in his own head. Still, seeing the woman he coveted nestled against another man was a bitter pill for anyone to swallow.

Before Zhao Qimin could even speak, Su Siyun continued, "You said he can't afford the food here, but I can. I'll just treat him, won't I?"

She looked up to meet Chen Ye's eyes, her smile growing even sweeter. The deep affection in her gaze made it seem as though they were truly a passionately in-love couple.

But only Chen Ye knew the truth.

He could clearly feel her fingernails nearly piercing through his jacket into his flesh. He could hear her voice trembling on the verge of breaking. He could feel her body temperature running several degrees hotter than normal, the soft, bouncy sensation pressing against his arm, and her uncontrollably racing heartbeat.

Everything about her screamed that she was incredibly nervous.

He wondered what she meant by this.

"What the hell does she mean by that?!" Zhao Qimin roared in his mind, his eyes locked dead on the spot where their bodies touched.

But he had to suppress his fury. He kept up a facade of nonchalance, though his tone inevitably leaked a sour, biting edge.

"I suppose you're right. With someone like him, who doesn't have his parents around, I'm relieved he has a classmate like you to help him out. After all, we're all in the same class. As the class monitor, I naturally have to pay a bit more attention to these things." Zhao Qimin maintained his smile. He then used a finger to brush away the bangs falling over his nose, sweeping the hair to the side until it just barely covered half of one eye.

Hearing this, Chen Ye's expression gradually turned icy. Even the smile on Su Siyun's face slowly faded.

However, Zhao Qimin seemingly didn't notice. Instead, he shifted his gaze from Su Siyun to Chen Ye, still beaming brightly. "You're pretty lucky to have a good classmate like Siyun helping you. But you should know, her family's background is one of the best in our class. So, as your class monitor, let me give you a little advice. Work hard in college. Try to make something of yourself so you can be worthy of Siyun. After all, you don't have parents to rely on, do you?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Chen Ye suddenly looked down and chuckled.

He gently pried Su Siyun's hands apart and slowly withdrew his arm from her embrace. He patted his sleeve a few times, as if dusting off some invisible dirt.

"It's nice that our class monitor cares so much about us poor students. But you got one thing wrong." Chen Ye wore a faint smile. He was about to deliver his next line, but before the words could leave his mouth, Su Siyun caught him off guard and wrapped her arms around his arm once again.

"What did I get wrong?" Zhao Qimin asked, forcefully suppressing his impulses.

"Because my parents judge people based on their character and ability, not their family background," Su Siyun answered, beating Chen Ye to the punch.

The moment she said that, Chen Ye's heart seemingly skipped a beat.

In his previous life, when Su Siyun had sought him out again, she had said those exact same words to him.

Word for word.

For a brief moment, he genuinely wondered if the twenty-eight-year-old Su Siyun had also reincarnated into this moment.

"Alright, enough of this nonsense. Go have fun with your little girlfriend, Zhao Qimin. We won't bother you anymore." Suddenly feeling a bit flustered, Chen Ye decided not to waste any more breath on this idiot.

He shook off Su Siyun's hands once more and waved at the dumbfounded Weng Jilin and Yu Mengmeng behind him before walking away first.

According to his memories, Zhao Qimin's father would be investigated for corruption, abuse of power, and using his position for personal gain in the spring three and a half years from now. All of his illicit gains would be confiscated, and he would be thrown in prison for over a decade.

From that point on, Zhao Qimin's life would be even more miserable than his own. At the very least, Chen Ye used to have a salary of over twenty thousand yuan a month.

Facing someone like this, Chen Ye didn't even harbor the desire to argue. It was just like a saying he often heard in his past life: "He's already hard-stuck in Silver, why don't you just humor him?"

Seeing this, Weng Jilin and Yu Mengmeng hurriedly followed. Yu Mengmeng even took the opportunity to drag along Su Siyun, who was still standing in place, puffing her cheeks with her fists clenched.

Meanwhile, seeing the group leave, the woman in yellow—who had been waiting on the sidelines for quite a while—hurriedly sidled up to Zhao Qimin.

"Hubby, let's go inside and eat our steaks. We'll need the energy to get busy on the Ferris wheel later..."

"Piss off!"

Zhao Qimin swatted the woman's hand away and cursed.

Thinking he was just playing hard to get, the woman in yellow relentlessly shook his arm, whining in a high-pitched, cutesy voice. "Hubby, don't be so mean to me. You were never like this to me before."

"What 'before'? We literally met yesterday, you dumb bitch!"

Watching his favorite girl practically throw herself at another man—and an orphaned, dirt-poor country bumpkin at that—was a massive blow to Zhao Qimin. As the son of a state-owned enterprise executive, it felt no different than coming home to find his wife sleeping with the garbage collector from downstairs. Worse, the garbage collector then ignored him completely, finished the deed right in front of him, and had the gall to ask, "How much per pound for this trash?"

In this state of mind, this woman he had only met last night actually still wanted to eat steak and go screw on a Ferris wheel? She didn't even look in the mirror to see if she was even half as pretty as Su Siyun!

After cursing her out, he ignored the strange looks from the bystanders and stormed off alone in the opposite direction.

He didn't have the guts to go cause trouble for Chen Ye, either. After all, of the four of them, Chen Ye's best friend, Weng Jilin, came from a complicated background that Zhao Qimin couldn't afford to provoke. He had no choice but to swallow this bitter grievance.

Meanwhile, Chen Ye had already walked out of the park and was standing by the entrance.

Weng Jilin was the first to catch up to him.

"Holy shit, that stupid prick was spewing pure venom. He's always acting so passive-aggressive! I swear, karma is going to ruin that miserable bastard one day," Weng Jilin cursed as soon as he saw Chen Ye. "If Su Siyun hadn't interrupted twice, I would've ripped him a new one!"

But in the very next second, his tone drastically shifted. Leaning in close, bursting with curiosity, he whispered, "Are you seriously that much of a god? How long were you even up there? Did you actually manage to bag Su Siyun just like that? Every guy in our grade has been chasing her for three years, and they still lose out to your thirty minutes?! What exactly did you do in those thirty minutes?"

Weng Jilin wondered if she had been the one to initiate it. Su Siyun had been the one actively displaying affection, after all! When had anyone ever seen something like that before?! And most importantly, she was flaunting it right in front of Zhao Qimin, the guy who had a massive crush on her. In a way, wasn't this basically NTR?!

Weng Jilin looked at Chen Ye with an expression of absolute awe, as if he were gazing upon a god.

But Chen Ye simply waved his hand.

"Let's stop talking about her. Tell me about your situation."