She became a heartthrob among internet celebrities.

The departments at Imperial University are very efficient; the initial interviews were yesterday, and the second-round interview notices are today. Li Xiangyue was confirmed to be included in the school newspaper yesterday, while Jiang Lai and Tang Li went for another interview today, and luckily, both of them passed.

Jiang Lai and Tang Li were walking along the road, preparing to buy food for the other two to take back home.

Just then, Jiang Lai's phone rang; it was an unfamiliar number calling.

"Hello, who are you?"

"It's me." The voice on the other end was a slightly spoiled female voice.

Jiang Lai knew it was Qin Yifan as soon as she heard it; her delicate yet imperious tone was hard to forget.

She pretended not to know who was on the other end of the line and said, "May I ask who you are? Do we know each other?"

Tang Li asked from the side, "What's wrong? Is it a spam call? Just hang up."

Qin Yifan overheard her words on the other end of the phone.

Qin Yifan immediately said, "Don't hang up! I'm not making a nuisance call!"

Jiang Lai covered her phone and said to Tang Li, "It's nothing, it's that girl from that day."

Then he said to the person on the other end of the phone, "I didn't hang up. May I ask who you are?"

The person on the other end of the phone softened their tone a bit, "My name is Qin Yifan, and I'm the girl you and your classmates helped at the KTV that day."

Jiang Lai let out a long "Oh," her voice tinged with amusement, and asked, "It's you. What's up?"

"I—" the person on the other end stammered, "I want to have dinner with you! I'm in a coffee shop on the back street of your school right now, can you come over?"

Jiang Lai glanced at Tang Li beside her, "Okay, but I have a roommate with me..."

"No! Come here by yourself!" The little girl's bad temper flared up again. "Come here by yourself."

"Alright, Miss~" Jiang Lai teased deliberately.

Sure enough, the person on the other end immediately retorted angrily, "Don't you dare call me Miss!"

"Okay, little sister, tell me which store it is, I'm coming right now."

Having learned Qin Yifan's location, Jiang Lai looked at Tang Li and said, "Lizi, someone is looking for me. I need to go to the back street, so I'll probably be back to the dorm late. Is it okay if you go to the cafeteria by yourself?"

"It's alright, it's alright. I'll go eat by myself, and I'll bring them some too," Tang Li said casually. "Go ahead if you need to!"

"I'm off then! Bye-bye!"

-

Jiang Lai arrived at the place Qin Yifan had given her, which was a maid café. The whole place was decorated in pink, full of girlish charm, but it was a bit too empty and there were no customers.

Jiang Lai quickly found Qin Yifan, who was wearing a green Lolita dress with intricate and exquisite patterns, clearly indicating that it was expensive.

She sat in her seat, looking even more like a porcelain doll than I had seen her that day—beautiful and adorable.

"Qin Yifan?" Jiang Lai walked up to her and asked.

The girl looked up, her pretty face full of displeasure. "Who are you? Oh, you're the one who helped me the other day..."

Jiang Lai had a headache and asked, "What's wrong with that 'I owe you something' look on your face?"

Qin Yifan did not answer, but gestured with his chin to the seat opposite him, "Sit."

That irritating tone...

Jiang Lai hesitated for a moment, then sat down and forced a smile, asking, "Miss Qin, is there anything you need?"

Qin Yifan placed a package next to her seat on the table. "This is a thank-you gift."

"Hmm?" "Thank you for helping me that night, this is my thank-you gift."

Jiang Lai glanced at the items on the table; they were clothing and accessories from a major brand.

“My brother’s assistant said he saw eight people that day. These are eight gifts. Could you please give them to them for me?”

"Let's put that aside for now. How did you get my phone number?" Jiang Lai pushed the gift aside, stared at Qin Yifan, and asked leisurely.

The young lady's eyes darted around a couple of times, "So, it was my brother's assistant who investigated..."

"Do you realize this is an invasion of my privacy?"

The girl opposite him widened her eyes, "Are you serious?!"

Jiang Lai didn't speak, but looked at her with a stern face.

Qin Yifan's momentum immediately weakened. "Okay, I'm sorry."

Jiang Lai shook her finger, "Don't do that again."

"Okay—" Qin Yifan wasn't completely spoiled and unreasonable. She said, "Then let's add each other on WeChat."

"?" Jiang Lai looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Are we that close?"

"You've already accepted my gift, I've thanked you and apologized, and I've listened to you. Aren't we close enough?" She said anxiously, her face turning red.

"Pfft—" Jiang Lai couldn't help but laugh out loud at her flustered appearance.

"You did this on purpose!" Qin Yifan saw Jiang Lai laughing at her and realized that she was teasing her. She was both ashamed and angry, and tears fell down her face.

Jiang Lai, puzzled, pulled a tissue from the table and said, "Hey, why are you crying? Wipe your tears. It's not that bad, is it?"

Qin Yifan pushed her hand away, turned to the side, and continued to cry.

Jiang Lai sighed and could only step forward to wipe away her tears herself. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have teased you. Don't cry, okay?"

She was still patient with the little girl. Considering that Qin Yifan was just a spoiled young lady and also the object of her affections, she could be a little more patient, but only a little.

"That's enough, if you cry again I'm leaving."

"Hmph." Qin Yifan gave her a harmless glare.

Jiang Lai sat back down and asked, "Since you know my phone number, you also know my name?"

“I know, your name is Jiang Lai!” Qin Yifan looked at her with red eyes.

"Besides bringing a thank-you gift, is there anything else you need today?"

"No, that's all. I just brought a thank-you gift. Also, you're not allowed to tell anyone about what happened that day!"

"I've forgotten, is that alright?"

"Then, when you helped me that day, did you see anyone else?" Qin Yifan's face was full of anticipation.

"Others? Who?" Jiang Lai asked her back, then suddenly remembered the boy next to her when she ran into him in the corridor.

"Ah Chen?" Jiang Lai asked tentatively.

"How could you call him A-Chen! Only I can call him that!" Qin Yifan started to get angry again.

"Alright, that handsome young man isn't here. When you were drunk and almost got taken away, there was no one else with you, neither women nor men."

Qin Yifan pouted, about to cry again.

"Stop! Don't cry!"

Qin Yifan looked at her with tears in her eyes, "Why should I listen to you!"

Jiang Lai threatened, "My patience with you is limited. If you cry again, I'll take a picture of you and post it online!"

"You're so vicious!" "Hmm?" "Hmph!"

Ignoring the fluctuating weight of Qin Yifan's favorability rating in her head, Jiang Lai asked directly, "I'll say it one last time, if you don't have anything else to say, I'm taking my things and leaving."

Qin Yifan remained silent, her head bowed, the cake in front of her almost mashed into a paste with her spoon.

"Alright, since I have some free time today, I'll be your dumping ground. So, what's on your mind?"

Qin Yifan looked up and said, "That's what you wanted to hear, not something I insisted on telling you."

"Yes, yes, I begged the young lady to tell me."

The story goes like this: Qin Yifan liked the boy named "Achen" that day. She and Achen had known each other since they were little, they were childhood sweethearts. She liked to chase after him since she was a child, and she didn't know when it started, but she fell in love with Achen, sticking to his side and driving away any girls who might attract his attention.

She originally thought that Ah Chen would eventually fall in love with her too, but unexpectedly, Ah Chen became more and more impatient with her, and recently he even got very close to another girl.

Qin Yifan couldn't help but go to find Achen, wanting to know about Achen's relationship with that girl. Unexpectedly, Achen was very impatient with her, telling her to stay away from him, and even dumped her, leaving her alone in the KTV.

Qin Yifan was crying her eyes out on the other side, sobbing as she poured out her girlish feelings.

Jiang Lai felt embarrassed to interrupt her, and could only advise, "Don't cry, what if someone sees you?"

"I can't see it, I've booked the whole place. Waaaaaah."

Jiang Lai was speechless: "Fine, then continue, you evil capitalism."

"We grew up together, why doesn't he like me?"

"That girl isn't as rich as me, as cute as me, or as pretty as me. She's just a little better at studying than me!"

"Achen is starting to yell at me now!" "The other classmates ignore me too, waaaah, I don't care, as long as Achen talks to me, that's enough, but he ignores me too!"

"But I really like him so much! So much that the thought of him not liking me makes my heart feel like it's dying." "Every year on his birthday, I throw him a really lavish birthday party, and I tell him I like him every time, but he doesn't like me at all!"

"The adults have been telling me since I was little that I would be with him in the future, sob sob sob."

Her delicate little face was now covered in tears and snot. Jiang Lai looked at it with disgust and finally couldn't help but slap another piece of paper on her face.

"Don't cry!"

Qin Yifan sobbed, "But I'm so sad! I didn't expect him to leave me there alone. If something really happened to me, would he be sad? Even if he doesn't like me, we've been friends for many years! Our parents know each other too. Why would he leave me there alone?"

Jiang Lai gently wiped away her tears, saying, "Wipe your own snot!"

"Oh," Qin Yifan replied pitifully. "Alright."

She looked at Jiang Lai expectantly.

Jiang Lai hesitated for a moment, then clapped her hands: "Great job?"

"What?!" Qin Yifan said with dissatisfaction, "It's your turn to comfort me."

"what?"

"In TV dramas, when the female lead is heartbroken, her best friend always comforts her."

"You're the female lead, but I'm not your best friend! This is only the third time we've met. The second time we met, you were completely drunk."

"But I don't have a best friend." (She looked pathetic.)

"Impossible, fair-weather friends are still friends."

“I don’t want them; they’ll laugh at me behind my back.”

Jiang Lai rolled her eyes: "You're quite self-aware. But just how bad are you at interpersonal relationships that I have to comfort you?"

Qin Yifan retorted, not to be outdone: "Judging by your speaking skills, aren't you just as good as me?"

Jiang Lai: "Hehe."

The two looked at each other for a while, then Jiang Lai gave up.

"Alright, how do you want me to comfort you?"

"do not know."

Jiang Lai looked at her seriously and said, "You like someone because you haven't met enough people yet. Once you meet more boys, all kinds of boys, you won't like Achen anymore."

"Could I fall in love with someone else?"

"Not necessarily, but you might like Ah Chen while also liking someone else."

Jiang Lai opened Douyin and said, "I'll pick out a few handsome guys for you to look at."

She sat down next to Qin Yifan. "Look at this guy in a suit and tie, a refined scoundrel. Do you like him?"

"I don't like it. My brother dresses like that too." Qin Yifan said with disdain.

"Okay, then take a look at this kind... If you don't want someone older, then look at someone younger. But you're only a senior in high school now, someone younger than you won't do. You have to look at your peers. Do you like a 1.93-meter-tall sports student? This one plays basketball... Look at this cool type, the gentle type, or the roguish type..."

"Wow, this is so oily!" "I think so too!!"

After the two of them scrolled through Douyin (TikTok) together for a while, Qin Yifan felt much better.

Jiang Lai teased, "You weren't thinking about A-Chen when you were looking at the handsome guy, were you?"

Qin Yifan: "Oh dear, what kind of comfort is that! It'll only work for a short while!"

"You seem to be enjoying this very much!"

"But I still like him! Liking to look at handsome guys and liking a person are different."

"May I ask why you contacted me?"

Qin Yifan answered hesitantly, "One is to thank you for helping me that night, and the other is that I can't find any girls around me to talk to about these things. Also, you saw Achen that night, so I wanted to ask you something."

Jiang Lai adjusted her posture and said leisurely, "Okay, I see."

"Sometimes it's really sad that the people we like don't like us, and you have to admit we can't do anything about it. We can't force others to like us. Liking and loving are both a matter of luck. You're just not lucky enough, but maybe one day you'll meet someone who really likes you and likes everything about you, including your bad temper."

Does saying that make you feel any better?

Qin Yifan nodded, "You're feeling better now, that's more like comfort!"

Jiang Lai smiled crookedly, "Actually, there's another possibility, do you want to hear it?"

"what?"

"So, you're actually a supporting female character in a romance novel. You and the male lead are childhood sweethearts, but you, as a supporting female character, can't beat the female lead who suddenly appears out of nowhere. You're wicked, arrogant, domineering, big-breasted, and brainless. You bully the female lead several times, giving the male lead the chance to be a hero and save the beauty. This also lets the male lead see your ugly face. In the end, not only can you not win the man from the female lead, but your family company is also suppressed and swallowed up by the male lead, eventually going bankrupt. You go from being a rich heiress to a destitute heiress living a miserable life. How about that? Isn't that tragic?"

Qin Yifan stared at Jiang Lai with her mouth agape in astonishment. It took her a long time to recover before she finally managed to say, "Are you crazy?!"

Jiang Lai laughed: "I was just saying, do you think it's possible?"

"Absolutely impossible! My brother may be a complete idiot, but he's very good at managing the company. My family can't possibly go bankrupt."

"Hahaha, okay, I was just kidding. Are you feeling better now?"

"You're so crazy!" Qin Yifan retorted. "Who would be happy to find out they're the female supporting character?"

"I already said it was a joke!" Jiang Lai looked at her with a smile.

Qin Yifan had calmed down by now, her face slightly flushed, as if she also felt that her behavior was a bit embarrassing. She said softly, "Thank you."

"what?"

"I said thank you! Thank you for spending time with me today." Qin Yifan probably rarely said these words, and felt a little awkward.

Girls' friendships sometimes come out of nowhere, and it was only at this moment that Jiang Lai and Qin Yifan could truly be called "friends".

The two chatted for a while longer in the coffee shop, talking about all sorts of things. When Jiang Lai saw that it was almost time, she said she had to go back.

"Can I contact you again next time?" Qin Yifan asked, but pretended to be nonchalant.

"I'm a bit busy..." Jiang Lai drawled out.

"You can't refuse!" Qin Yifan said urgently.

"Okay, okay." Jiang Lai smiled and patted her head. "You can come visit me when you have time."

"Yay!" Qin Yifan made a gesture, her skirt swaying slightly. "Then you should hurry up and go! I'll ask you out next time!"

“Okay.” Jiang Lai waved to her, picked up her things, and walked back to school.