I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

"Okay, actually, that's not what I'm confused about."

Showing no intention of getting up—after all, it was winter break—Chen Junqian remained lying in bed with his eyes open, staring at the familiar ceiling as he continued speaking:

"My sister's attitude was very strange last night."

"Indeed, after all, I was already mentally prepared for you to send me a message telling me I didn't need to wake you up this morning. Wait, brother, you didn't just run back from there in the early hours of the morning, did you?"

As she said this, Chen Xi's hand, as if to confirm, slipped directly under the blanket from under her armpit. Her slightly cold hand touched Chen Junqian's leg, and she instinctively pulled away for a moment. But then, as if to feel the warmth inside, she placed her hand back on his leg, groped around in the warm air for a while, and finally withdrew it.

"It's still quite warm, so it probably didn't just run back."

"...If it were summer, you would have already touched my thigh."

"In the summer, I don't need to reach under the covers."

Chen Xi spoke with conviction, quickly tucking the blanket around Chen Junqian, then unconsciously moved closer, slowly lowering her head towards him, her warm breath tickling his neck.

"what?"

"Check for lipstick marks. Isn't that how it's always shown on TV?"

"I don't need lipstick, okay?"

"Then look for the strawberry mark; that's what it says in the book."

As his younger sister nuzzled his neck with her head down, her hair brushing against his nose and lips, Chen Junqian felt a little relieved. He simply reached out from under the covers and wrapped his arms around her back.

Chen Xi could clearly feel his body stiffen for a moment because of his sudden movement, but he immediately relaxed, his little head stopped moving, and he was half-lying, half-embraced by Chen Junqian, leaning against him. After a long while, he said leisurely:

"My brother smells of another woman..."

"Don't learn to say things like that from Lin Guo, hey. It just makes people think that this person is unhygienic or hasn't showered. I took a shower as soon as I got back last night."

"Oh, I just suddenly felt that this sentence was very suitable for the current situation."

"So how many sentences did you actually learn, huh?"

As the saying goes, if there's no one to criticize, then you have to be the one to criticize. Although he was criticizing like that, Chen Junqian really hoped that his sister would say a few more classic quotes to help him boost his achievements.

Just as Chen Junqian was about to continue his rant, his phone on the bedside table vibrated, displaying a message from Shen Nianqiu:

"Is my little brother awake yet? I'm about to head to your house."

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Take a day off

The Spring Festival holiday was more tiring than I expected...

Wishing everyone good health and all the best.

-

Chapter 58: Use your younger sister on your childhood friend! (Two chapters combined)

It turns out that for a housewife who enters semi-retirement too early, the greatest meaning of her life can easily be reduced to taking care of and raising her children. And if her own child clearly doesn't need her care, and even if the semi-retirement life that saved her twenty years of detours was brought about by her partner, then naturally only the last thing will remain.

Even though Chen Junqian is over the New Year this year, he can still only be considered a sixteen-year-old minor.

But there was nothing she could do. She couldn't worry about her child's academic performance, the other party's mental health, guide her son's future direction, or interfere with Chen Junqian's asset flow. So she could only jump directly to a few years later.

Anyway, her son was precocious, so a precocious child falling in love wouldn't be considered early love. Besides, the girl named Shen Nianqiu wasn't attractive enough for Wang Hongling to immediately think they were dating; there was almost no sense of incongruity.

That's why, after hearing that Chen Junqian had brought Shen Nianqiu home for the New Year as his girlfriend, Wang Hongling readily fulfilled her old joke. It could even be said that she had planned it all along. At least Chen Junqian himself was quite surprised when he saw that she had actually made a huge red envelope out of cash.

After being woken up by his younger sister, Chen Junqian first went out of his room to inform his parents that Shen Nianqiu would be coming soon. Then he washed up. Chen Xi, on the other hand, did not intend to go home today. Instead, she stayed behind with great interest, seemingly wanting to see what kind of scene it would be later.

As a result, her staying behind undoubtedly provided Wang Hongling with someone to talk to, or rather, someone to relieve her nervousness. While Chen Junqian was washing up, she was pulled over and subjected to a barrage of questions. By the time Chen Junqian finished washing up and came out, the girl looked utterly hopeless, responding to every question with a listless "uh-huh" or "yeah."

Unfortunately, Wang Hongling and Chen Jun were not as familiar with Shen Nianqiu as they were with the girls from Guoning in any way. Although they had heard about her family situation last year, that was a year ago. Right now, they only had a vague impression that her family had treated her badly.

Frankly speaking, although there have been popular topics on the internet such as "if you find a boyfriend/girlfriend whose parents have passed away, you can avoid dealing with the troubles of dealing with your in-laws and not having to discuss which family to visit during the New Year", in fact, compared to these positive points, more people are more concerned about whether children raised in such families will have any psychological or personality defects.

Wang Hongling is currently doing just that, and the topics she keeps asking Chen Xi, who is "one of her own in the family," are basically all related to this.

In fact, parents are probably all like this. They say "as long as you like it" all the time, but in reality, they still can't help but judge their partners in their hearts and on the surface. It's like how they teach everyone from a young age not to be materialistic and to be snobbish, but the first thing they ask your boyfriend or girlfriend is how well her family is doing.

However, as a family that has only become wealthy in the last five or six years and whose assets are mostly controlled by Chen Jun and his son Chen Junqian, Wang Hongling's values ​​are still very simple. Otherwise, she wouldn't have prepared such a large red envelope in advance. She just had some doubts in her heart, since her most desired daughter-in-law was definitely one of Guo Ning's.

Ultimately, for someone like her who has rarely left Guoning in her life, the locals' familiarity with her hometown is a huge advantage. It's just that Lin'an isn't far away; otherwise, she would have asked Chen Junqian about any special customs or taboos in his hometown first.

With roughly this mindset in mind, upon hearing the knock on the door, Wang Hongling immediately stood up, went over, and opened the door. Then, without realizing it, she began to compare Shen Nianqiu in front of her with the other three from Guoning.

After all, she used to be just her son's friend, but now she's his girlfriend, so she definitely has to treat her like a daughter-in-law.

The most direct impression of a girl standing in front of you is naturally her height and appearance. Compared to Lin Mu, whom Wang Hongling likes the most, Shen Nianqiu in front of her is undoubtedly more likely to win the mother-in-law's favor in this regard. There is no need to worry about any messy things like "the father is short and the mother is short and the whole family is short", nor will it give people the feeling that the two are just children playing house.

Because Shen Nianqiu has a very beautiful and elegant appearance, especially since she made some special effort to groom and dress up before coming here today.

"Nianqiu is here! Come in quickly. Why are you carrying things? Let me take them. Change your shoes over here. These are new cotton shoes that I just bought yesterday."

Wang Hongling smiled and accepted the fruit basket from the other person. She didn't think anything of it. After all, the child was still a high school student. Bringing a gift to express his feelings was enough. If he brought something particularly valuable, she would think that the child had borrowed money from her son to satisfy his vanity.

"Okay, thank you, Auntie. You can rest now. I'll put it in in a bit."

Despite suffering setbacks at Lin Mu's hands yesterday, Shen Nianqiu was in good spirits today. After all, she really needed to make a good impression on Chen Junqian's parents, even though she knew she couldn't compare to Lin Mu, her childhood sweetheart...

No, you shouldn't be thinking about that right now.

Moreover, even Lin Mu should never have enjoyed this kind of treatment.

She comforted herself with this established fact for a moment, but as she reached for her cotton shoes on the shoe cabinet, Shen Nianqiu subconsciously thought of the things Zhu Wenyun had written about countless times in her books: childhood sweethearts would always have a pair of special slippers ready for each other at home. For a moment, her hand movements froze, and then she changed her shoes and went into the house.

"Nianqiu is here. Sit down. Junqian, go make some tea for him."

It has to be said that the biggest challenge in cosplaying an old father reading a newspaper on the sofa in this situation is actually not finding a newspaper. So Chen Jun just kept wiping his glasses with a glasses cloth. And it seems that if Shen Nianqiu doesn't come, he will keep wiping them until she does.

"Xiao Xi, get up and give me your seat, then bring the scrambled plate."

Chen Xi, who was also sitting on the sofa, naturally couldn't escape it either. After all, the price of being considered family was that she had to devote herself wholeheartedly to serving guests when they visited. Fortunately, it was already just a couple of days before the New Year, and all kinds of melon seeds, peanuts, nuts, fruits, and snacks were prepared at home, so it was easy to set up a whole table.

Shen Nianqiu originally wanted to go up and help, but Wang Hongling's idea was for her to sit on the sofa and watch, and then she quickly stuffed the big red envelope she had prepared into her hands.

Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine yuan in cash definitely carried a lot of weight, especially for Shen Nianqiu, a girl who had rarely received red envelopes in her life. She was undoubtedly taken aback and immediately tried to refuse, but Wang Hongling spoke up directly:

“This is something my son and I have been talking about for a long time. If he brings a girlfriend home in the future, I will give her a very special red envelope, one in a million.”

Chen Junqian smiled and stepped forward from behind, putting his arm around Shen Nianqiu's trembling shoulder. He forcefully pressed the red envelope into her hand, gripped her hand tightly, and said:

“Nianqiu, just accept it. Consider it a deposit from my mom. Once you accept the money, it means my mom has decided on you. This will prevent her from disagreeing later. She's investing in you in advance, investing in her future daughter-in-law.”

After all, she was already his girlfriend, and it would feel strange in various ways to call her "sister" in front of his parents, so Chen Junqian changed his form of address for the first time.

"Okay, thank you, Auntie."

After giving away the money, Wang Hongling began to observe Shen Nianqiu again.

As a former dance student, Shen Nianqiu's posture is undoubtedly excellent, which is significantly better than Chen Junqian, who is often considered by Wang Hongling to have "no proper posture when standing or sitting." Moreover, unlike Lin Mu's serious demeanor in front of adults, Shen Nianqiu's posture is undoubtedly much more natural. Sitting side by side with her son, they do indeed look exceptionally well-matched.

Having considered appearance and demeanor, the remaining question naturally turned to personality, which was the area she had been most worried about. So Wang Hongling quickly steered the conversation toward that.

However, since they knew about part of Shen Nianqiu's family situation beforehand, they naturally didn't ask those idiotic questions like, "Aren't your parents worried about you coming to visit us for Chinese New Year this year?" They mostly talked about school, the future, and their experiences with their son, with Chen Jun occasionally chiming in.

Shen Nianqiu's answer was also very appropriate in all aspects. However, the shadow of Mu Mu was indeed lingering, and it couldn't be entirely said to be her illusion, because the person sitting in front of her at this moment was indeed unconsciously putting her and Lin Mu together in various ways.

This doesn't mean that Wang Hongling looked down on Shen Nianqiu; it's just that in their family's usual conversational style, mentioning Lin Mu was perfectly normal.

After all, we can't bring up Shen Nianqiu's family matters right now, so Wang Hongling can only talk about her own family matters. Chen Junqian's family matters will inevitably involve Lin Mu's family, which is something everyone is used to. The same applies to Lin Mu's family.

Here are a few simple examples.

When Wang Hongling asked Shen Nianqiu about his hometown and learned that it was Lin'an, she wondered if they could also grow hickory nuts there, and then naturally led the conversation to Lin Mu.

When asked about the relationship between Shen Nianqiu and Chen Junqian, and learning that they received help from their son, they would say that their son has always been very helpful since he was a child, and that he volunteered to cook for Lin Mu for a week when he was in elementary school.

When asked where Shen Nianqiu now lives, the first thing that comes to mind is which road she used to live on. They would pass by that road when they went to Lin Mu's house, and they could see it with just a glance.

Having probably anticipated this situation from the beginning, Shen Nianqiu's reaction was quite calm, and she was even able to keenly glean another layer of information from these conversations.

That is to say, Chen Xi was mentioned about the same frequency as Lin Mu.

This is not because Chen Xi is sitting next to Wang Hongling right now, but because in the other person's chat mode, the two of them are both a kind of marker that has been used for a long time.

Whether it's topics related to pecans and the company, or topics related to Chen Junqian and the Lunar New Year, the same applies.

In many cases, the latter is even more frequent, because, in terms of the length of time they have known each other, excluding their children, the two of them have known Chen Xi's parents, who are Chen Junqian's god-aunt and uncle, for decades.

Although she had thought about this before she learned that Chen Xi and Chen Junqian were not related by blood, Shen Nianqiu did not really think about it before she truly felt the pressure from Lin Mu. After all, she did not know whether the other party could overcome Lin Mu in terms of childhood friendship, and she was also unsure whether Chen Xi truly had feelings for Chen Junqian.

Chen Xi, who was watching this scene with her chin propped up on her hand, was unaware that she had been targeted. She was now more inclined to throw a copy of "Dearest Forever" on the bookshelf for the two of them, but when she thought about the extreme descriptions of Shen Nianqiu's psychology in the early and middle parts of the book, she suddenly felt that this was actually quite good.

After all, she didn't think Chen Jun and Wang Hongling would want to know that the son they had raised for more than ten years was actually being fantasized about by others as their younger brother for so many years. Shen Nianqiu, who seemed more confident and sunny in every way, was more suitable for them.

After all, in Chen Xi's own view, if it weren't for the fact that he would have to live with his parents after marriage, his girlfriend would essentially still be someone he would live with. So even if Shen Nianqiu still had some problems in her mind or personality, it was something that her brother would have to deal with himself. It was perfectly fine not to show it in front of their parents.

However, Chen Xi couldn't stay out of it either, because Shen Nianqiu soon called her name.

"Time flies! It's almost Chinese New Year again. It feels like Xiaoxi has grown up a lot and become even more beautiful after a year apart."

The younger sister, who had been looking relaxed, froze instantly.

In any other time in the past, Chen Xi would not have thought much of this praise and would have accepted it readily.

But these past two days have been the days when she least wanted to hear this comment.

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Chapter 59: One-third of the progress has been achieved (Two chapters combined)

The phrase "having a sister, a house, and parents who are both busy or dead" is often used to describe or joke about romantic comedies in the anime and manga world. The reason why it has become a classic and enduring setting for many romantic comedies is that it has its underlying logic.

Although the "both parents are busy or deceased" setting was initially just to give the male protagonist more personal time, from the perspective of the female protagonists, it is essentially to make room and time for the younger sister characters to appear, which is the first part of the sentence, "having a younger sister and a house".

Even in the context of a romantic comedy, it's hard for parents not to notice or even question the way their two children interact and the distance between them. As adults with common sense, they naturally wouldn't allow their daughter to consistently be in their son's bed every morning.

Of course, there are works that directly use this as a background to describe secretly dating under parental pressure. For example, "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute" has similar passages and plot descriptions. However, writing it this way would make the overall tone of the story depressing and even realistic. Therefore, most romantic comedies will directly jump into the classic setting.

But the reality is different.

Rather, it's more accurate to say that one of the underlying reasons why Chen Junqian initially rejected the system's invitation to travel back in time and wanted to return to reality was to save his parents' lives. What he wanted was never the standard character setup of a romantic comedy protagonist with a sister, a house, and both parents dead.

However, for a real-life female protagonist with a younger sister-like personality, it simply increases the difficulty for her to achieve a romantic comedy or get close to Chen Junqian, just like the aspect that Shen Nianqiu is pointing out now.

Sixteen might be the age when the male protagonist of a romantic comedy officially begins his romantic comedy journey, but in reality, it's more like the end. After all, children don't have much of a concept of personality, and adults don't care much. But things are different when you get to middle school or high school.

Last year, Chen Xi had already used all her charm and cuteness to achieve what was a common occurrence a few years ago. Now, another year has passed, and as Shen Nianqiu said, neither she nor Chen Junqian can be described as childish anymore.

This year, she probably won't be able to sleep in the same bed with Chen Junqian on New Year's Eve.