“You seem to care about her a lot.”
A deep male voice reached Lin Wei’s ears, calm at first glance but carrying an unmistakable tinge of displeasure. Having just been transported, Lin Wei felt a pang of unease upon hearing those words. His previous mission took a little longer to wrap up, and now it seemed he had walked straight into a battlefield of romantic rivalry.
He glanced at the girl on the bed, pale and seemingly fragile, who was the protagonist of a tragic romance: Fu Xiaoqing. The male lead, Huo Qijun, stood nearby, his features striking and sharply defined, with his frameless glasses giving him a cold aura that starkly contrasted with their cramped apartment.
Processing this information, Lin Wei’s mind raced as he recalled the current plotline. In this world, Lin Wei’s original form had run into Fu Xiaoqing, who was clearly experiencing a sugar crash. As he was a doctor, he couldn’t simply ignore her state. Having developed feelings for her due to his previous interactions as the best friend of the male lead, he had offered to take her home, only to be interrupted at her doorstep by Huo Qijun, who had come to apologize to Fu Xiaoqing.
It was then that Huo Qijun discovered his friend had feelings for the girl he fancied, thus marking the beginning of their rivalry—a development that severely hindered Lin Wei’s mission.
Lin Wei’s primary task was to maintain stability in this small world, particularly in romance novels characterized by melodrama, with love interests often resorting to extreme measures, including subverting empires and causing untold chaos in their wake. His goal was to rectify these situations, preventing male leads from becoming outlaw characters in the pursuit of love.
In the tale, Huo Qijun and Fu Xiaoqing’s love story evolved from a chase caused by their differing social standings into one fraught with melodrama, including unexpected pregnancies, accidents, amnesia, and forced seclusion leading to mutual harm. As the male lead took drastic actions to protect the female lead from rivals, he increasingly violated lawful boundaries, blurring the line of legality—something that would eventually lead to chaos in the world they inhabited.
In a typical world, such actions would land someone in deep trouble with the law. Yet, this was a world shaped around the protagonists, and the ordained heroes could hardly be expected to abide by legal constraints. Thus, once the male lead crossed the line, the world would selectively erase legal awareness among other characters, and without intervention, this could spiral into chaos.
Lin Wei calculated that he could not allow Huo Qijun to truly see him as a rival. Leaving aside whether Huo Qijun might prioritize romance over friendship and take action against him, he also recognized that to complete his mission, he could not lose Huo Qijun’s trust right from the start of the story.
“She needs to rest. Let her sleep for a while, and we can talk outside,” Lin Wei finally turned away from Huo Qijun’s earlier comment, showing concern for Fu Xiaoqing while maintaining an air of direct honesty.
Huo Qijun’s suspicion wavered, his expression somewhat uncomfortable. He muttered an “mm” and exited the room, taking a seat on the living room sofa. Only after Lin Wei gently closed the bedroom door did he come over, revealing Huo Qijun’s darkening demeanor again.
Lin Wei allowed a hint of a helpless smile to appear as he mockingly stated, “You still haven’t won her over, yet you’re already brooding over her.”
The straightforwardness of his remark broke the tension, exposing the truth of the situation.
Huo Qijun’s face darkened, anger and embarrassment mingling as he shot Lin Wei a glare and adjusted his glasses, falling silent.
Lin Wei recognized that his original form’s unusually attentive actions when he had escorted Fu Xiaoqing only fueled Huo Qijun’s growing suspicion. Now, while Huo Qijun might feel that he was overreacting, once he reflected on today’s interactions, the seeds of doubt would surely take root again.
This was not enough to resolve the situation entirely.
Therefore, Lin Wei pressed on, seizing the moment to persuade Huo Qijun, “If you really like her, stop making things difficult for her. Do something nice instead! She’s struggling because of you after getting fired from her job.”
Technically, it was due to the Huo family behind Huo Qijun. At this time, the male and female leads were not yet together, but Huo Qijun’s astonishing level of concern for Fu Xiaoqing had already caught the attention of the Huo family.
In Huo Qijun’s mother’s eyes, even a fairy would only be deemed slightly adequate for her son. How could she not swoop in to keep the plain Fu Xiaoqing at a distance?