You're dumping me, huh? Fine, then I'll just pick up the school beauty and make her my wif

She knocked on the door again.

Jiang Che resumed his normal voice and made a door-opening gesture: "Who are you?"

"Hello, senior. We are a student team participating in the Challenge Cup and we are building a platform for the circulation of second-hand textbooks."

Do you have any old, unused textbooks that you'd like to transfer or donate?

Every word was correct, and the pauses were right, but it sounded like a classroom recitation test.

Jiang Che told Su Qinghe about this problem: "After you say that, your senior might think that you were forced by someone."

"Oh, is it too stiff?"

"A little bit, don't memorize the lines, just speak normally."

"oh."

Su Qinghe glanced at the memo and tapped it twice more.

"Hello, senior, we are...we are participating in..."

The more she tried to think it through, the more chaotic the sentences she had memorized became. "We collect used books, no, not collect, we register them..."

As she spoke, she lost her confidence, grabbed Xiaoman and hugged her, hiding half her face behind the cat's head.

Xiaoman was sandwiched in the middle, and she reached out her paw to push her chin.

"Look, even Xiaoman thinks I'm not good enough."

"It just thinks you're pressing down on its ears."

Jiang Che rescued Xiaoman, cleared his throat, and said, "Let's try again. Be careful, this time your senior is in a bad mood."

Su Qinghe looked at him suspiciously, but still raised her hand and knocked on the bedside table.

Jiang Che immediately crossed his arms, speaking quickly and sharply: "What are you doing here? I don't want your sales pitches, I don't want any memberships, I don't need anything, don't try to fool me again!"

Su Qinghe froze for two seconds, then her shoulders trembled: "What kind of senior is this?"

"Of course you have! Who hasn't had a few credit cards they never used during their four years of university?"

"Then we won't get a card." She continued with a smile, "Senior, we are students from Peking University. We are currently participating in a Challenge Cup entrepreneurship competition and want to create an on-campus second-hand textbook trading platform."

"If you have any books you don't need, you can set a price for them yourself, or you can give them away for free to junior students who need them."

"We only register information; we don't force you to buy books, nor do we try to lower the price."

"Why should I believe you?"

"We can show our student ID and our registration information for the Challenge Cup."

"It's okay if you don't want to participate for now; we won't keep bothering you."

This time, she didn't look at her phone or think about where to pause; the whole speech flowed smoothly.

Jiang Che leaned back against the headboard: "Isn't that how you do it?"

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name 1110 ...

Su Qinghe then realized that the previous paragraph had already made all the key points clear.

She lowered her head to revise the memo, deleting the slashes and tone marks one by one, leaving only a few keywords: explain the purpose, voluntary participation, do not bargain, leave politely.

"Isn't this much simpler?"

"Yes, we're going to ask people if they're willing to get rid of their old books, not to steal them from their homes."

Jiang Che took the phone and added another message, "Also, we can't just ask if they have it. We need to give them the instruction manuals in advance so they can set their own prices. They can give them away for free if they want."

"Our team is only responsible for registration and matching; we do not buy old textbooks at low prices."

Su Qinghe nodded, tapped the screen a few times, and then stopped.

"What if some senior students don't want to hand in their books to us now?"

"Then I won't take it."

"No." She took the phone back. "What I mean is, she might be willing to sell, but she's not comfortable handing the book over to a stranger."

"Could we just take a picture of the book title and edition, and note down her contact information? Once the page is set up, we can let her publish it herself."

Jiang Che thought for a moment. The book was still in the original owner's hands, which saved the team the trouble of moving and storing it. The senior sister also didn't have to worry about the book being handed over and then disappearing without a trace.

This method is indeed more convenient for collecting the first batch of information.

"Okay, write down the textbook cover, edition, and condition." Jiang Che opened the project group. "I'll ask Lao Song in the group."

Less than half a minute after the message was sent, Song Mingxuan replied with "Feasible".

Immediately afterwards, another message popped up in the group.

Song Mingxuan: However, I do not recommend registering your personal mobile phone number directly. Instead, leave your WeChat or campus account first to avoid your contact information being leaked.

Song Mingxuan: It's best to have a unified option for the book status so that everyone can choose their own, instead of having each person fill in something randomly.

Xu Wenbin: Lao Song, you replied so quickly in the middle of the night, did you set the group chat to "special attention"?

Song Mingxuan: I'm revising the plan.

Xu Wenbin: You're working so hard! You were still revising the plan at 11 p.m. on Saturday night.

Song Mingxuan ignored him.

Lu Ziang did not participate in the bickering between the two.

A few minutes later, he sent a link to an online form to the group.

Jiang Che opened the spreadsheet and saw that it already listed the book title, author, publisher, edition, condition (new or used), transfer method, expected price, and contact information.

Even whether or not negotiation is allowed has been made an option.

Jiang Che: Let's use this. Everyone keep a copy tomorrow morning, and we'll register them together when we collect the books.

Lu Ziang: I added automatic numbering to avoid duplication. You can fill it out offline if the network is bad, and then sync it after recovery.

Xu Wenbin: Can you two give an ordinary person like me a way to make a living?

Su Qinghe leaned on Jiang Che's shoulder, smiled for a while while looking at the messages in the group, and then revised her speech for tomorrow.

After confirming that nothing was missing, she put down her phone and prepared to go to sleep.

A soft sound came from beside the bed.

Jiang Che looked down and saw Xiao Man with a light blue hair tie in her mouth, sliding down the foot of the bed.

"Hey, that's mine." Su Qinghe reached out to grab it.

Xiaoman kicked off with her hind legs and crawled under the bed with her hair tie.

Jiang Che lay down on the carpet, lifted the sheet, and looked inside.

It was pitch black under the bed, and the only sound was the occasional ringing of the little bell on the hair tie.

"Xiaoman, come out."

There was no movement inside.

"Give the stuff back, and I'll open the can for you tomorrow."

The bell rang twice more, and the position was moved further in.

Jiang Che stretched out his arm and touched the cat for a long time, but only found a few cat hairs.

He shifted his position and tapped the floor with his fingers: "This is your last chance. Come out now, and we'll still be father and daughter."

"If you don't come out now, your dad's going to take away your cat treat, you believe me?"

Su Qinghe squatted down beside it, suppressing a laugh as she reminded it, "It doesn't understand."

"It knows better than anyone else when it's stealing."

Jiang Che tried to coax her a few more times, but Xiao Man ignored him completely.

His arms were numb from lying down, and he was about to find a clothes hanger when he suddenly heard the sound of a plastic bag being torn open next to him.

Su Qinghe was seen holding a piece of freeze-dried chicken and gently waving it along the edge of the bed.

The next second, Xiaoman crawled out from under the bed, abandoning her hair tie, and twirled around her ankles.

Jiang Che propped himself up on the floor and brushed the dust off his pajamas: "So all my talk was less useful than a piece of meat."

"You cat only cares about food, not your father."

"It was terrified of hunger before, so it's normal for it to like to eat."

Su Qinghe broke the freeze-dried food into small pieces, put them in her palm and fed them to Xiaoman. "Besides, it's not like it doesn't recognize you. It even slept on your slippers today."

"Besides, isn't it enough that I acknowledge you?"

After saying that, Su Qinghe stopped feeding the cat.

Jiang Che was silent for two seconds.

Her ears slowly turned red. She grabbed the hair tie that Xiaoman had thrown away, got up, and burrowed into the blanket: "Going to sleep. I have to get up early tomorrow."

"Wait, what did you just say?"

"I didn't say anything."

Jiang Che turned off the bedside lamp, lifted the covers and lay down, reaching out to pull the person curled up beside the bed into his arms: "I heard you, you said you acknowledge me."

You misheard me.

"I'm young and my hearing is excellent. Hurry up and say it again."

Su Qinghe buried her face in his chest and gently pinched his waist: "If you ask again, I won't admit it."

Jiang Che gasped in pain, but ultimately stopped teasing her and simply pulled her closer into his arms.