Chapter 67: Like A Little

After Sunday passed, the school days returned to normal.

Su Huaizhou’s schedule was full. In addition to a full course load, she had numerous responsibilities in the Youth Association and the debate team, as well as art commissions. Now, she hadn’t even finished drawing the character design of the male lead in Jiang Miao’s novel.

Of course, it was mainly because she had drawn several versions but wasn’t satisfied with any of them.

Her expertise was actually in drawing voluptuous anime-style female characters. After all, she just had to look in the mirror when she couldn’t find the right feeling.

However, it was a bit difficult to draw male characters.

These matters completely filled up her days, leaving her with no time to tease Junior Brother.

The only thing she could do was chat with Jiang Miao on WeChat under the pretense of urging him to release faster.

But the most annoying thing was…

She didn’t know if Peach Jam was really more composed than her. Every time they chatted for a while, he would say, “Senior Sister, I have to write. Let’s talk later.” And then he really stopped chatting!

For a moment, Su Huaizhou could actually relate to the disappointment of a licking dog being ghosted by his goddess after she said, “I’m going to take a bath. Bye-bye.”

Damn it!

She was so busy every day, while Junior Brother’s schedule was so relaxed, and yet he never took the time to come by the Youth Association to see her!

And to think she even helped him gather material earlier!

Ingrate!

Scumbag!

Heartless jerk!

Su Huaizhou cursed inwardly.

But whenever she had a free moment, she still couldn’t resist sending him a message on WeChat.

[Zhouzhou Loves Congee]: Junior Brother, what are you doing?

About half an hour later, she received his reply. seaʀᴄh thё Nôvelƒire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

[Miaomiao is Deep in Thought]: Sorry, Senior Sister. I was writing. What’s up?

What could it possibly be?

Can’t I miss you?

Su Huaizhou was frustrated one moment and disappointed the next. She felt that she had fallen into the trap of love before even starting a relationship.

“Have you finished checking the volunteer list?” Qi Lianyue asked in the office.

“Ah.” Su Huaizhou returned to her senses and quickly returned to her work. “Almost done, right away!”

“Zhouzhou, why have you been so absent-minded these past two days?” Qi Lianyue looked at her suspiciously. “Did you get into a fight with Junior Brother again?”

“…” Su Huaizhou spat out a retort, “We’re not even at that stage yet.”

“Huh?” Qi Lianyue looked surprised. “So, are you admitting that you’re pursuing him?”

“No!” Su Huaizhou was exasperated. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

“Then what’s going on? Just tell me whether you like him or not.”

“Hmm…” Su Huaizhou twirled her hair shyly with her fingers. She hesitated in front of her dear best friend and whispered, “I like him a little…”

“So, are you pursuing him?”

“No!” Su Huaizhou replied seriously. “I’m thinking of a way to get him to pursue me.”

Qi Lianyue: “…?”

…

Jiang Miao was indeed thinking of a way to pursue Senior Sister.

But lately, there were too many things going on, so he really didn’t have the time or energy to focus on anything else.

Just preparing for his novel to go premium was already torturing him.

How should he describe this feeling?

Almost every author who had their novel go premium had experienced this.

But it was very difficult for readers to truly empathize.

To give an imperfect analogy, it was like the days after the college entrance examination until the exam results were out.

There was a lot of anxiety about not knowing what you scored.

Once the results were out, it basically determined the ceiling for which universities you could choose.

However, having a new novel go premium was different from checking your college entrance examination results.

First, as the release date approached, Jiang Miao still had to write a minimum of 3,000 words every day.

But the college entrance examination was over in just a couple of days, and then you were free.



Second, even though there were metrics such as reading lists, follow-up reads, recommendation votes, and so on to refer to before novels went premium, there were still many cases of the subscription results of new novels not matching up to the follow-up reads data.

But the college entrance examination had standard answers.

Although there might be some differences between the results you got when you compared answers and your actual score, there was generally a clear range in mind so that you could mentally prepare yourself.

However, nothing was certain when a new book went premium.

Perhaps everything seemed to be going well, but suddenly, you accidentally released a chapter with problematic content on the eve of going premium.

Overnight, your follow-up reads could plummet in half.

The first-day subscription results were poor, and the subscription numbers would continue to decline.

This was a common occurrence.

So the closer it was to the premium release date, the more anxious Jiang Miao became.

Besides writing, playing basketball with his team to train their coordination became his way of alleviating his anxiety.

As for Senior Sister, he wanted to find time to meet her.

But he didn’t have a particularly good reason to do so.

He had said he wouldn’t participate in the debate team this week, so he definitely couldn’t use that as an excuse.

Could he say he wanted to meet her to get material?

That would be too utilitarian.

It was absolutely impossible.

Should he invite her to watch his match on Tuesday?

That probably wouldn’t work.

His debate team planned to discuss the debate topic on Tuesday, so Senior Sister surely wouldn’t have time to come.

So for the past two days, Jiang Miao’s ‘develop feelings with Senior Sister over time plan’ was temporarily put on hold.

At this moment, he suddenly realized that, since the beginning of the school year until now, it seemed like it was always Senior Sister who had taken the initiative to look for him.

After all, he had avoided her before because he had been afraid that she would find out his identity as Peach Jam.

Once his Peach Jam identity had been discovered, he had been even more eager to avoid her.

But in the end, somehow, he was captured by Senior Sister…

Just thinking of it gave him a headache.

What happened to avoiding romance and focusing on writing?

But he still couldn’t resist the charms of a beauty.

The only problem now was how to make Senior Sister develop feelings for him over time and give up on the idea of not dating.

He could only take it slow and gradually create opportunities.

…

“Brother Jiang, what’s on your mind?”

On the outdoor basketball court beside the west sports field, Xun Liang returned to the sidelines, took a sip of water, and asked Jiang Miao, who was looking at his phone.

“Nothing much, just checking this week’s debate topic.” Jiang Miao stood up, put away his phone, and walked towards the court. “Let’s warm up a bit. The game’s about to start.”

“There’s still fifteen minutes.” Xun Liang looked at the time and grinned. “Last week, I watched the other teams. They all seem pretty average, so I think we can enter the finals.”

“You make it sound like we’re very strong,” Jiang Miao joked.

On their team, Xun Liang was solid and strong, so he mainly played the role of center. His ability to control the ball and grab rebounds was quite good.

Among the other three, one was a thin guy who was skilled at dribbling and layups. He was usually the main focus during fast breaks. Because his last name was Sun, everyone called him Brother Monkey.

As for the remaining two, they were similar to Jiang Miao—both casual players.

They could play basketball but only knew the basics, such as dribbling, shooting, and layups. In the past, they had only played half-court games and had virtually no experience in full-court play.

So their tactics were quite simple. On defense, they used man-to-man coverage with Xun Liang as the core, focusing on controlling rebounds as much as possible.

On offense, they relied on Brother Monkey for fast breaks. If they managed to get the ball, they would attack quickly. If Brother Monkey missed, they wouldn’t try to keep the ball but would get into position to defend. If anyone managed to snatch the ball, he could take a shot, but he had to ensure he could get back on defense.

In the Department of Accounting, it was already not easy to find boys who knew how to play basketball, let alone skilled ones. Having one or two on each team was a blessing.

In many previous matches, it was one god carrying four drags.

In the end, the center was panting heavily, but the four supports were fine.



Jiang Miao’s team had two carries, Brother Monkey and Xun Liang, so they indeed had the strength to enter the finals.

Regarding this, Jiang Miao could only sigh and hope that their opponents would put up a good fight.

[Zhouzhou Loves Congee]: We’ll be done in about an hour. Will it be too late to make your game?

Jiang Miao’s phone vibrated.

However, he was warming up now with the ball and didn’t notice the vibration in his pocket.