At this time, He Jinxing was completely surrounded by a cold aura. Hearing Gou An’s voice, he raised his eyes and glanced towards the door to see her.

In front of Gou An, he slowly closed an open web page. Reflected on the glass window behind him, Gou An clearly saw the heading stating ‘Jiangcheng University A Campus Forum’ in big, bold characters before it closed.

She pursed her lips. What was said there didn’t mean anything to her; she just felt a little embarrassed that he found out about it.

After all, the people on the forum wrote vividly about how she betrayed He Ran and bullied Lu Wan—which was the same in both her past and present lives. The truth was mixed with not a little falsehood… 

She didn’t care how she was painted by other people, but now that she was exposed like this to the real male protagonist, she didn’t know how he would settle the accounts against her in the future. 

At that time, would this matter be enough to add another few months or even years to her life of tears behind bars?

But it seemed strange to defend herself at this time. 

Gou An carefully glanced at He Jinxing’s favorability level. It had increased to [20] since he sent her home that day from the hospital. It moved slower than a snail, but fortunately there seemed to be no sign of it falling.

“Gou An.”

“……Uh, yeah?”

Gou An’s confusion was half scared away.

“Old Liang told me in advance that the Department’s rank No. 1 student will come to show the speech to be delivered later.” The man sitting behind the desk waved at her to come over, “Let me take a look.”

Gou An didn’t understand how this matter had to be handled personally by this ancestor, the scholarship sponsor, but she still obediently and very politely handed over her speech with both hands.

He Jinxing took it, glanced at it a few times, and actually corrected a few unsuitable words for her.

“This here, ‘ten years of hard study’—if someone asks you, as someone who came from a prestigious family in Jiangcheng,  ‘isn’t studying useless’?”, He Jinxing asked her, “How are you going to answer?”

Gou An raised her head and looked at him blankly.

If this was in his company, and a subordinate answered one of his questions with this kind of expression, he or she should at least be prepared to be suspended for a month, go home, and spend the time thinking about it behind closed doors.

But He Jinxing felt that he was really in a good mood today, and he didn’t even bother to get angry, “If you don’t know how to answer, then just delete this sentence.”

“If I don’t want to delete it, how should I answer it?”

“Think about it yourself.”

“…”

During the whole process that followed, Miss Gou hung her head, obediently holding a pen and quickly writing things down, nodding her head like a chicken pecking at rice while the man across the desk occasionally raised his fingertip to tap on the areas that needed to be revised.

When the changes were almost complete, she took a deep breath and read the entire speech again silently from beginning to end.

She heard the person say, the voice coming from right above her head, “Are you nervous? The atmosphere outside is not very good right now. There might be some unexpected incidents happening tonight.”

Gou An paused, the pen in her hand stopped writing, and raised her head.

Only then did she realize that He Jinxing had stood up from his chair at some point. At this time, he was leaning over the desk, supported on one hand, and was looking down at her—

The man’s breathing was slow, and his dark eyes were calm, reflecting Gou An’s anxious face.

Too close.

His warm breath almost brushed her lips. When Gou An’s hair stood up one by one, He Jinxing smiled, leaned back, turned his face away from her, and said calmly, “Compared to those people outside, I think you are more afraid of me.”

She was completely unable to tell from his tone whether he was happy or angry.

But his favorability score was flickering dangerously.

Gou An only felt that something was wrong, her scalp was numb, and she stammered until her tongue was all knotted, “No, Mr. He, Mr. He—“

“I said, don’t use honorifics.”

“…”

Help!

“Young… Young Uncle?”

The young miss’ breath was unsteady, trembling with fear and uneasiness. Her fair cheeks were stained with crimson every time she took a breath.

She bit the corners of her lips, and her pale lips turned into a watery rose color.

But the voice was soft and sounded intimate enough.

The man’s head turned back.

“Yeah.”

The favorability level successfully jumped to [22] and the alarm klaxons in her head finally quieted.

From The Day The Engagement Was Broken translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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T/N: This chapter part is a bit short but the next ones are longer so I guess they even out 😅

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Chapter 12.1 — Conflict During the Welcome Speech
Chapter 12.2 — Conflict During the Welcome Speech
Chapter 13.1 — He Ran Makes an Official Announcement on Weibo
Chapter 13.2 — He Ran Makes an Official Announcement on Weibo
Chapter 14.1 — The Gears of Fate Rumble
Chapter 14.2 — The Gears of Fate Rumble
Chapter 15.1 — Soft and gentle
Chapter 15.2 — Soft and gentle