"What!?" Mo Aini protested, standing up. "I thought you said you like her!"
"I do. But what you are suggesting is an abuse of my authority." She Haoran straightened his maroon coat. "Also, I have a reputation to uphold. I like her a lot, but I don't want to give up my reputation for her. There must be a way to gain her admiration without resolving to brash means."
"You're not even abusing your authority! Just think of it as being cunning and manipulative like you did just now!" Mo Aini snapped.
"What do you mean? Me? Cunning and manipulative?" She Haoran tilted his head to the side innocently.
"Dude, don't give me that bullshit. I heard you talking earlier."
Wang Jing who had been staying quiet on the side, took a cutter out of nowhere and aim it at Mo Aini. "How much did you hear!? Are you threatening to blackmail the president!?"
"Whoah, there!" Mo Aini raised his hand. This girl is crazy, is she She Haoran's bodyguard or something!? What's with the cutter!???
"Settle down, Wang Jing." She Haoran told her. "You can't just bring out a weapon to someone, that would be harassment. Besides, he has nothing to blackmail us with."
"What do you mean? I heard how you came up with this one-on-one interrogation to gain the favor of both the students and the teachers." Mo Aini knitted his eyebrows.
"Yes. I did. And is there anything wrong with that?" She Haoran clasped his fingers together, smiling. "You must have gotten the wrong impression of me, Mr. Mo. I may sometimes use the situation to my advantage, but I also believe that everything I do must be in mutual benefit. I have good intentions, and the sake of the whole school always comes first. How is that cunning and manipulative?"
"Look, bro. All I'm saying is you have to let go of your goody-two shoes facade around my sister for her to like you and show her more of your evil side." Mo Aini then corrected himself. "I meant your 'truer' side."
She Haoran narrowed his eyes with a fake plastered smile. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Ugh, you're unbelievable!" Mo Aini stomped to the ground. "I'm just helping you out here!"
The secretary suddenly peeked out her small head at the door. "Is everything alright? Why is it taking so long, the students are complaining to me, sir."
"We're done questioning you, Mr. Mo." She Haoran waved him off. "You may now take your leave."
"All you guys suck! Fuck! I'm just asking you to be an asshole to my sister, what's so difficult about that!? " He mumbled as he stormed outside of the posh student council office.
Wang Jing was even baffled by this. "Is he alright in the head?"
She Haoran shrugged. "Next student, please."
Though Mo Aini was frustrated beyond belief with his conversation with She Haoran, he hid at one of the corridors and watched how his interrogation with Mo Jiagei would go. He saw his own sister go inside and come back after a few minutes. When she went outside, he watched her expression carefully.
It was bored as fuck. She Haoran was definitely nice to her.
[Mo Jiagei's Impression of She Haoran: 22%
Possibility of Route Being Chosen: Highly Unlikely
Cupid Points: 0
Please do better next time.]
Mo Aini gripped at his hair. "Ugh, it's so damn difficult! I just want to go home! These guys never listen to me, and even if they did, they just fail horribly!"
In the end, Mo Aini was complaining to empty air and the system did not answer him. He was exasperated and headed back to the dorms to sulk.
Eventually, Gou Manchu also came back to their room. He was holding a plastic bag of sweet sesame chicken. "Hello~ Have you eaten yet, Mo-gongzi?"
"I'm not hungry. " Mo Aini laid on his stomach on his bed, head buried on the covers. "Anyway, how was Shu Chuanli?"
"He's alright, I guess." Gou Manchu closed the door and shrugged. "He took some rest at the clinic and when he woke up, he screamed at me. The nurse thought I did something to him and chased me out of the clinic."
"Wow, he literally screamed at you? What were you doing?" Mo Aini finally lifted his head up just a small bit.
"Nothing!" Gou Manchu said sincerely. "I was just observing his hair and clearing out the tangles. He have a lot of split ends, he should get it cut soon."
Mo Aini snorted and said sarcastically: "That's not creepy at all."
"I know, right? I don't know why he's so scared of me!" Gou Manchu, being the dense puppy he is, took it literally.
He set out his food and gave thanks to the meal, then ate the chicken with his own hands. "You sure you don't want some? It tastes delicious! I bought it from that nice grandma's store outside."
Mo Aini shook his head. "No, thanks for the offer. I have no appetite."
"Are you sick?" Gou Manchu asked worriedly. "I could run to the drug store to buy medicine for you."
"I'm fine. It's just.... I had a tiring and frustrating day, that's all." Mo Aini sat up from his bed and took a pen and paper from his school bag. He rechecked his game plans and remembered all his fails since this morning, getting more annoyed.
Gou Manchu kept eating not knowing what to say. His Mo-gongzi had been distracted since this morning. He wasn't like this before, he now felt so... distant. He remember....
Wait, why can't he remember?
Mo Aini had been his friend since they became roommates in... He can't remember the date, but he was sure they have known each other for a long time. They have shared laughs and talked about stuff, but he can't tell what they were about.
He racked his brain for memories with Mo Aini, but they were empty. He started to panic. No, not again. He hate this feeling. Could it be that he's—
"Gou Manchu, can I ask you a question?" Mo Aini's tired voice disrupted his thoughts.
"S-Sure! You can ask me anything, Mo-gongzi!" He responded cheerfully.
"Say you are having a soccer match.... And you're the team's coach." Mo Aini tapped his pen on the desk. "You have tried many game plans but your teammates suck.... I mean, your teammates are not that good. You're down to the final half of the match with a very low score. How will you win in the end?"
"Are you planning to join the soccer team? You didn't tell me you were interested in it before."
Mo Aini smacked his own forehead. "That's not—"
"I know, I know!" Gou Manchu laughed. "I'm just teasing you, Mo-gongzi. To answer that question...."
"If it was me, there's nothing I could do." Gou Manchu admitted, slumping his shoulders. "But I had experienced to be on the opposite side of that situation before. My team was good and the other team was not that skilled. The coach of that team, to win at the last minute, he...."
"What did he do?" Mo Aini prodded him on.
"He sabotaged our team." Gou Manchu gritted his teeth. "I still remember that day, that was the first and only time we lost. He spiked our drinks with alcohol to worsen our performance."
"That's horrible." Mo Aini nodded.
"The coordinators of the game learned about it, and their winning was forfeited." Gou Manchu munched at his chicken angrily. "But it was still wrong. No matter how much you want to win, you should never cheat. Karma will eventually catch up to you anyway, sometimes in ways you don't expect."
Mo Aini bit the cap of his pen. "Sabotage, huh? Hmm.... I never thought of that."
"That's because you're a good person, Mo-gongzi." Gou Manchu finished up and brought his plate to the sink.
Gou Manchu's answer gave him a lot to think about.
One, he is not a good person. He would do anything to get the hell out of this otome game world.
Two, sabotage seems to be the right answer here. If all the route choices are not up to Mo Jiagei's standard, then why not spoil the chances of the enemy here? Why was he so focused on forcing these guys to be bad boys when he could be doing the other way around to Hu Chuntian?
Three....
Who is this Hu Chuntian? He know his profile info, but he haven't met with him before. And if they did meet, how would he approach him?
Mo Aini couldn't sleep that night. He kept thinking of arduous strategies to sabotage Hu Chuntian. That man is a delinquent, and he must be way stronger than him. He was also said to be arrogant and easily irritated, so Mo Aini must approach him carefully if he doesn't want to get beaten up.
Mo Aini sighed, cursing all his life choices that brought him to this day. He had so many questions running around in his head, but the most important one at the moment is:
How do you turn a bad boy into a good one?
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Read The Mafia Boys' Contract Marriage which is joining WPC right now XD
I know it's shameless of me to advertise like this but I'm desperate :)))) Plus it'll be a pretty fun book, I guarantee you.
If you're a fan of mafia, criminal investigations and detective stories, please check it out and support it.
PS: It will also be a whole lot more spicier than any of my books so far cough cough How much spice? You'll see.