Chapter 112 The Troublesome Friend Hua Diao

Chapter 112: The Meddlesome Friend Diao Diao

Back home, Zhu Bin rubbed his hands together, his face alight with excitement, clearly unable to wait.

Xie Tingsheng ignored him, shooing him directly into the kitchen to make breakfast. He, meanwhile, pulled Hua Diao to sit on the sofa.

Zhu Bin: "..."

*Bro Sheng, you ditch your bro the moment you get a girlfriend.*

In the end, he couldn't withstand Xie Tingsheng's death glare. With a dejected face, he trudged into the kitchen, looking back every few steps.

But even then, he didn't give up. As he washed vegetables, he strained his ears to catch any sound from outside. Before he could hear anything, however, he heard his Brother Sheng order him to close the door.

Zhu Bin wore a grumpy face but obediently complied.

*Well, this door is soundproof. Shut tight, it blocks everything. Now he can truly focus on cooking.*

On the sofa outside.

Hua Diao’s gaze darted over Xie Tingsheng, scanning him up and down as if trying to discern something extraordinary.

Xie Tingsheng helplessly pinched her soft cheek. "If you have something to say, just say it. Why keep staring at me? Keep staring, and I’ll kiss you."

Hua Diao coughed, startled, then quickly covered her mouth with her hands, glaring at him. She then peeked at the kitchen, confirming the door was tightly shut and Zhu Bin hadn't emerged before letting out a relieved sigh.

Xie Tingsheng chuckled at her antics, then pulled her arm, drawing her onto his lap to straddle him. He pulled her hands away, wrapped an arm around her waist, and brought her back against his chest. His handsome face leaned in, giving her small mouth an affectionate kiss.

Feeling her shy resistance, he didn't push further, stopping after a light peck.

Afterward, Xie Tingsheng nuzzled her flushed cheek, his voice low and husky as he teased, "Don’t worry, he won’t be staying with us anymore." *No need to feel embarrassed.*

*Zhu Bin’s usefulness had run out—of course, he’d be kicked out to avoid disrupting their couple time.*

Toolman Zhu Bin: "..." *Used and tossed aside? Brother Sheng, you’re heartless.*

Unfortunately, Zhu Bin was still toiling away in the kitchen, making breakfast, completely unaware of these cruel words.

Hua Diao grumbled a little, mollified, but still insisted on slipping off his lap to sit on the sofa beside him. Then she asked the question she’d been dying to ask: "Did you hack the system?"

Xie Tingsheng raised an eyebrow, a faint smile playing on his lips. Without hiding anything, he took this opportunity to spill everything—his life before crossing over, what happened afterward, and the accompanying Armory.

Hua Diao, however, zeroed in on something else. "So you’re saying that after waking up, you had the post-apocalyptic memories of the original Xie Tingsheng, and that’s how you discovered the Armory?"

Last time Xie Tingsheng had revealed his past identity, he hadn’t mentioned this. She had always assumed he, like her, knew the apocalypse’s plot from reading the novel.

Moreover, the way he obtained his cheat was different from hers—she had gotten the Lucky Koi Space first, which then brought her here.

"Mm." Xie Tingsheng glanced at her, his thin lips parting. "Where did you learn about the apocalypse?"

Clearly, he had also noticed the differences in their circumstances.

Hua Diao rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I read a novel."

Then she summarized the plot of the novel she had read before crossing over.

A trace of surprise flickered in Xie Tingsheng’s deep black eyes, his brows furrowing in contemplation.

His situation was different from Hua Diao’s. She had died before crossing over, whereas he had simply fallen asleep and inexplicably woken up here. The Armory and the memories of the original Xie Tingsheng now seemed more like compensation.

After hearing Hua Diao’s description of the novel and the fantastical world it depicted, he felt that his transmigration might be related to that world.

The magic of that world was mysterious, with many intelligent races and unknown spells. The idea of a soul crossing into another world didn’t seem far-fetched.

However, the fusion between that world and Earth wasn’t yet complete, and his understanding of it was minimal. For now, he had no concrete explanation and could only set the matter aside.

Meanwhile, Hua Diao noticed another inconsistency. "You said you saw the trending news about my death, then fell asleep and crossed over. In our past life, trends changed fast—someone like me, a Z-list celebrity, would only stay on the trending list for three days at most. That means you must have crossed over within three days of my death. But Peach had to cremate me and deal with my legal stuff—that would’ve taken at least ten days to half a month, if not longer. Yet Big Peach said she crossed over after her boss called her to work overtime and she got into a car accident on the way. The timing doesn’t add up. If you were already dead by then, how could you have called her to work overtime?"

Xie Tingsheng narrowed his eyes. "Big Peach?"

*She’d been hiding a lot from him.*

Hua Diao froze, then quickly covered her mouth, her big eyes blinking innocently at him as if to say, *I know nothing, saw nothing.*

Xie Tingsheng sighed and mussed her hair. "That’s Tao Fu, right?"

Hua Diao’s eyes widened in shock—*he guessed it?*

Then Xie Tingsheng met her gaze, confirming her thoughts. "I know the exact time of your death. The day I fell asleep was the same day you died."

"As for Tao Fu’s overtime, that’s normal. The order might not have come from me. In my past life, even if I died, the date of my death wouldn’t have been made public immediately. If the Xie family lost me, it would cause huge chaos, even affecting the national economy. Underlings would do everything to conceal the incident and keep the company running smoothly—unless it became impossible to hide."

"Tao Fu wasn’t part of the Xie family’s core circle. It’s only natural she wouldn’t have known about my death."

Hua Diao suddenly understood and muttered under her breath, "So when she cursed you to have instant noodles without seasoning packets, she cursed the wrong person."

A vein popped on Xie Tingsheng’s forehead as he gritted his teeth and smirked coldly. "Oh? She cursed me to have instant noodles without seasoning packets?"

This had actually happened to him before—when he was eating instant noodles with Zhu Bin at the villa.

Hua Diao shrank back slightly, offering a silent apology in her head to her poor bestie: *Ah, Big Peach, I might’ve just gotten you into trouble… Hahaha…*

Far away in Shengjing, Tao Fu suddenly sneezed. Frowning, she muttered with a bad feeling, "Did that meddlesome Diao Diao just set me up again?"

But soon, her attention was diverted by other matters, completely unaware that a "big surprise" awaited her in Qingcheng.

After laying everything out, Hua Diao didn’t immediately reveal her own cheat but decided not to hide her luck attribute from Xie Tingsheng anymore. Though even if she didn’t demonstrate it today, he had probably already guessed.

"Alright, time to open the loot boxes! Should we start with your ten or mine first? The living room’s too small—let’s open them in batches."