Just Had to Meet You - Chapter 1

Tong Yao felt awkward. She had launched a barrage of attacks without discrimination, and she felt it was somewhat unfair to that guy. But unable to resist Xu Jiaojiao’s persistence, she ended up telling the whole story. Feeling guilty, she deliberately emphasized the messy and dirty state of the bathroom.
“You say, if it weren’t for being so nosy, how could anyone play games in such an environment?”
However, Xu Jiaojiao was no longer listening to any more details. Her eyes lit up, and she stared at Tong Yao intently.
“What are you doing?” Tong Yao was startled.
That expression was not unfamiliar to her. It would appear whenever Xu Jiao Jiao encountered her favorite collectible figures, when eating hot pot, when enjoying an all-you-can-eat barbecue, or when meeting her male idols in the cosplay world… So, had she accidentally triggered something?
“Who did you just say you ran into?” Xu Jiaojiao pronounced each word slowly. “Qin Zhan?”
Tong Yao hesitated for a moment before answering, “I heard Zeng Yijie call him that.”
Xu Jiaojiao screamed, “Ah, ah, ah!” as she lay on the sofa and started rolling around. “Fate is definitely punishing me for not going to the bathroom with you! Why didn’t I go with you?!”
“Who is Qin Zhan?” Tong Yao was confused.
“Qin Zhan! The big talent from the finance department! Xu Jiaojiao’s eyes practically turned into hearts. He’s fluent in English, French, German, Japanese, and Korean. He’s also great at debates and is a member of the elite Eagle Society. I heard that even his daily reading materials are all foreign-language poetry and literary works. He’s simply elegant and charming.”
Tong Yao immediately got goose bumps. “Wait a minute, how come I never knew you were one of his fans?”
“Since…” Xu Jiaojiao seemed to remember something, then she waved her hand dismissively. “Forget about the details. A high-quality man like Qin Zhan, everyone will eventually become his fan.”
Tong Yao listened to Xu Jiaojiao showering him with praise and then thought back to their earlier confrontation. She couldn’t help but pat Xu Jiaojiao on the head. “What do you mean, someone with a charming appearance and elegant tastes? He’s just a seasoned nerd! In relationships, what’s the most important thing? Of course, it’s a sunny boy with a six-pack!” Tong Yao clenched her fist and nodded, affirming her thoughts. “Mm, our target is the muscle—man!”
Xu Jiaojiao lay there, still looking sad, as she opened her phone. With a pained expression, she used the money she had saved for a bowl of braised noodles to top up her campus internet fee. Then she climbed onto the BBS and anonymously posted: “The greatest distance in life is not between life and death, but between your best friend going to the bathroom, running into your idol, solving the ‘scumbag’ you’ve been wanting to teach a lesson to, and you not going with her—this is for the idol I passed by, and my distant dream of the world of the jianghu.”
It was peak internet usage time, and many people were online. As soon as Xu Jiaojiao posted the thread, replies flooded in immediately—
“OP is the idol you’re talking about, Qin Zhan? Please drop the location, begging for a chance encounter!”
“Chance encounter +10086!”
“Chance encounter + ID number!” “Chance encounter + ID number!”
……
The gossip board on P University’s BBS had two prized stars: one was Tong Yao, and the other was Qin Zhan. The former had a devilish figure and alluring presence, yet possessed a temperament and martial prowess that clashed completely with her looks. This contrast was so cute it charmed a whole crowd of boys and girls alike. The latter was the perfect combination of looks and brains, with a gentle nature and warm heart—he had stolen more than a few girls’ hearts. Because of this, a student in the computer science department once wrote a script using the characters “Tong,” “Yao,” “Qin,” and “Zhan” to monitor the BBS website. Whenever any of these words appeared, the script would alert the user. That student even shared the script publicly for others to download. Ever since, whenever those four characters popped up, it would stir a storm on the forums.
So the moment someone typed “Qin Zhan” in the comments, the post’s views and replies skyrocketed.
Xu Jiaojiao wailed with heartbreak, “You guys totally derailed the topic! Can’t someone spare a little sympathy for the original poster?”
But she could only watch helplessly as the comments section filled up with: “OP drop location and give some love.”
“OP drop location and give some love.”
“OP drop location and give some love.”
……
Xu Jiaojiao declared that she was not okay at all.
“Why are you sighing one moment and chuckling bitterly the next?” Tong Yao asked in confusion.
“I didn’t get to see my male god. I’m devastated. Right now, I just want a little more love,” Xu Jiaojiao said weakly.
Tong Yao responded with an “Oh,” but couldn’t fully understand the young woman’s sorrow. She fiddled with the karaoke screen for a while, and before long, the speakers played the song: “If everyone would just give a little love…”
Xu Jiaojiao completely collapsed into a sad little quail.
Just then, from the room next door, someone suddenly started singing in French—it sounded like that sarcastic guy from earlier. Though they didn’t understand the lyrics, the voice was warm, gentle, and laced with lingering affection. It was genuinely pleasant to listen to.
“Singing this kind of song at a KTV… quite the breath of fresh air,” Tong Yao joked.
“Shh!” Xu Jiaojiao tilted her head, listening carefully, then her eyes lit up again. “Listen, isn’t that Qin Zhan’s voice? Isn’t it? Turns out he was right next door to us!”

Tong Yao tilted her head and listened for a while too, then replied uncertainly, “Maybe?”
“It has to be! Except for him, who else could sing in French that fluently?” Xu Jiaojiao gave her a mischievous grin. “But wow, that mood switch was fast. Just watched him in a scene straight out of Judge Bao Executes Chen Shimei, and now he’s back here singing a love song with all his heart.”
Tong Yao didn’t quite catch her deeper meaning and just gave an awkward laugh.
As fate would have it, the people next door were Qin Zhan and his good friend Ren Yue.
As the “face” of the broadcasting department, Tong Yao naturally had a distinctive and pleasant voice. When Qin Zhan was in the bathroom earlier, the moment he heard her speak, he instantly recognized her as the bold heroine who had been singing The Song of a Hero. Then he remembered he’d immaturely egged Ren Yue on for a singing battle… and returning to the room now, he felt unwell.
Unfortunately, Ren Yue had learned the fine art of roasting from Qin Zhan himself: “Qin Zhan, you were gone so long in the bathroom. Don’t tell me… you’ve got that?”
Ren Yue waggled his eyebrows and made a face that practically begged for a punch. Qin Zhan rolled his eyes and glanced pointedly at Ren Yue’s slightly protruding belly. “That’s a question I should ask you. How far along are you?”
Ren Yue, prone to gaining weight, had slacked off on exercise recently, and his belly was starting to show. He instantly straightened his back and sucked in his stomach, grinning sheepishly. “Been eating a little too much at night lately. Couldn’t help myself. What I mean is… I have hemorrhoid cream, if you need it…”
Qin Zhan’s face darkened even more.
Ren Yue quickly jumped over to the song screen. “Haven’t heard you sing in forever. Come on, let the folks next door experience what a real karaoke king sounds like.”
That comment instantly sparked something inside Qin Zhan: The next room can hear us! Delighted, he said, “Pick ‘L’amour Est Bleu’ for me.”
Having grown up wearing the same pair of pants, Ren Yue could instantly sense something was off with Qin Zhan. Outsiders might rave about Qin Zhan as an elegant scholar and heartthrob, but in reality, you could sum him up in three words: lazy (a homebody), fake (a pretender), and uptight (a bit of a diva). He was almost twenty and hadn’t even had a girlfriend. Now suddenly, after one trip to the restroom, he was back and singing a romantic ballad?
Qin Zhan ignored Ren Yue’s probing gaze and finished the song seriously. Then, lazily, he said, “You’ve got something to say? Spit it out.”
“So… did you just meet your other half out there? Oh wait, no, more likely you ran into a UFO or something.”
“Crude.”
“You really met your other half?” Ren Yue was completely shocked.
Qin Zhan nodded modestly and said, “To be precise, I’ve met my ideal girlfriend.”
“You’re sure you’ve found your ideal type—a King Kong Barbie?” Ren Yue was dumbfounded.
“Mm. Don’t forget to hand over the bet,” Qin Zhan replied with a lofty expression.
Collecting Transformers toys, especially limited editions, was a game the two had been obsessed with since childhood. When they found themselves with only one limited edition model, they made a deal: whoever found their ideal girlfriend first would get to keep it.
Ren Yue’s “ideal type” was down-to-earth: hot body, pretty face. Qin Zhan’s was… more niche—a buff Barbie who could fight (Ren Yue’s commentary: destined to die alone). Unsurprisingly, once college started, Ren Yue went through several girlfriends, all meeting his “ideal type,” so he always won the bet.
But now, the tables had turned. Still, Ren Yue resisted. “No pic, no proof. Who is she?”
“Her name is Tong Yao, she’s in the private room next door—the one you sang ‘The Naughty Little Crocodile’ to.” Qin Zhan said unhurriedly.
“That was the song you picked for me to shut them up!” Ren Yue jumped in protest.
Qin Zhan said, “Oh, as long as they know I wasn’t the one singing, that’s fine.” A textbook case of “better you than me.” What he really wanted to say was: the moment Tong Yao kicked, it was like Cupid shot an arrow straight through his heart when he least expected it. But the mood wasn’t right, and if Ren Yue knew, he’d probably never let him live it down.
Who would’ve thought—Ren Yue still found out, and very quickly.
Few people frequented the BBS, especially the gossip board. Those who did were either eccentric oddballs or the hot topics themselves. Tong Yao was the latter, and Qin Zhan was even more so. Ren Yue, ever skilled at using campus resources, quickly dug up the anonymous post and saw the keyword—“bathroom.”
Connecting the dots with Qin Zhan’s reaction, Ren Yue suppressed his laughter and said to him, “Come on, and tell me the details of your downfall.”
“Downfall? It was fate, clearly fate. We met just as the stars aligned. She was there, I was there—everything was just right.” Qin Zhan dodged the word “details” and took the poetic route instead.
But Ren Yue was never one to fall for his artsy nonsense. He pressed on, refusing to let go: “Where exactly is there?” His lips twitched, struggling to hold in his laughter.
Qin Zhan stared at him steadily, immediately sensing something was off. He snatched the phone from Ren Yue and saw the post.
The post had been up for only ten minutes, but it already had hundreds of replies. Qin Zhan picked up where Ren Yue had left off and flipped through page after page with a blank expression, while internally it felt like a stampede of mythical beasts was trampling over him. In his ears, dramatic background commentary echoed endlessly: A bolt from the blue… thunder crashing from all sides… the heavens want me dead…
Until he saw a reply that said: ‘Now that the male god has appeared, can the goddess be far behind?’ The “goddess” was clearly referring to Tong Yao, the renowned beauty of the Broadcasting Department.
From there, the tone of the replies took a sudden turn. Some people started discussing Tong Yao, others focused on Qin Zhan. Eventually, someone commented: “The male god and female goddess look perfect together.” Qin Zhan practically wanted to track down the person who wrote that comment and have a serious talk about life. Was the other person the worm in his stomach?
His expression went from pale to purple to pitch black—and then, suddenly, it was all sunshine and rainbows. Honestly, it was more thrilling than a horror film.
“Aniki (big bro),” Qin Zhan said in a gentle, smiling tone.
Ren Yue dropped into a half-kneeling pose and said, “Qin the Great Handsome, please put away your divine powers—let’s talk this out like normal people.”
“You don’t want to give me that wager, right?”
“Of course I don’t!” Ren Yue blurted out, then glanced warily at Qin Zhan. “What do you want me to do?”
Qin Zhan handed his phone back and pointed to that particular comment. “See that?”
“Y-yeah, I see it…”
Better to offend a petty person than offend Qin Zhan. Ren Yue now just wanted to slap the version of himself who had dared scroll through the post right in front of Qin Zhan.
But the nightmare had only just begun.
“Make some alt accounts and spam that comment. If you do that, I’ll let you keep the wager.”
“Qin Zhan, you realize there’s no such thing as alt accounts on the BBS? One student ID equals one account!”
“So—wager, or spam?”
“Spam!” Ren Yue resigned himself to fate, nodding furiously before turning around and jumping into action with a dramatic “joyful spamming dance.”
If time could rewind, Xu Jiaojiao would’ve definitely chopped off the hand that posted that anonymous thread. It would’ve been fine if people in the comments were just gossiping about Qin Zhan. But why drag Tong Yao into it? Worse, the thread quickly went off-topic and started pairing Tong Yao and Qin Zhan together.
As the heat of the discussion stayed sky high, someone in a neighboring board posted a thread titled: “On the Sufficient and Necessary Conditions for a Beauty to Be Promiscuous.” It slandered Tong Yao, accusing her of being indecent and morally corrupt.
These two forum threads seemed to be competing with each other. In less than a day and a night, both had amassed over ten thousand replies. The level of attention and the sheer breadth of discussion were beyond imagination.
What a mess…
In the end, Xu Jiaojiao channeled General Lian Po, carrying a feather duster on her back, and crawled onto Tong Yao’s bed.
Tong Yao touched her forehead, then asked her to stick out her tongue. “You don’t have a fever,” she said. “So, who are you cosplaying as this time?”
Xu Jiaojiao grabbed Tong Yao’s hand, looking utterly miserable. “Your Majesty, this humble concubine has sinned. This humble concubine has wronged you.” As she spoke, she handed her phone to Tong Yao.
When Tong Yao saw her own name, she was startled. But as she read the content, she let out a sigh and got so absorbed in reading it that she clapped and laughed out loud from time to time. Xu Jiaojiao watched nervously, her heart skipping with every reaction. After Tong Yao finished reading, she asked softly, “Are you… okay?”
“I’m doing great! Hahaha! Other than the fact that the female lead has my name, which feels a little weird, this novel is actually not bad—full of twists and turns. Like, I have a boyfriend A but still flirt around, then I hook up with B, dump A, then go after B’s friend C, and end up splitting a pair of best friends… The web of relationships is as complicated as Dream of the Red Chamber!”
“Babe…” Xu Jiaojiao took a deep breath. “They’re talking about you.”
“Ah?” “I have such a rich love history and I didn’t even know? We should drag the author out to the rooftop for a proper chat!”
“Don’t be mad. I already contacted the forum moderator to lock the thread.” Xu Jiaojiao said, exasperated. “The whole thing actually started because of a post in another thread…” To avoid any misunderstandings, she explained to Tong Yao the full backstory behind the CP (character pairing) post.
“Who even is that? Some nerd? I don’t have anything to do with him, right? It’s not like we’re actually a couple.” Tong Yao looked confused.
However, the onlookers weren’t interested in the truth. Someone posted a screenshot in the comments showing that a user named “Qin Zhan” had liked the comment “They look perfect together.” So they firmly believed that was the truth, not even considering the possibility that it might have just been Qin the great talent’s first time on the forum—and that he had accidentally liked the comment with a slip of the finger.
That day, Qin Zhan also wanted to chop off his own hand.
He was the one who’d told Ren Yue to stir up the CP hype, never expecting it to blow up that post instead. The thread had tons of high-definition photos of Tong Yao—her figure was flawless; her looks stunning. Every picture was perfection, radiating irresistible beauty. The descriptions that followed were a mix of detailed and vague, with just enough specifics to leave readers stunned, as if the person involved had actually been present at the scene. Qin Zhan read the entire thread from beginning to end, repeatedly comparing and cross-checking the details. He identified about two-thirds as logically inconsistent, but the remaining third… he had no way of confirming.
And since he’d already opened the door to the BBS world, Qin Zhan also stumbled upon gossip and photos about himself. The content was downright ridiculous.
“What does it mean when they say, ‘Though I’m no longer in the jianghu, the jianghu is still full of my legend’?” It was the same for both Qin Zhan and Tong Yao.
High combat power, matching temperaments, the absolute “ideal type”! “I just didn’t expect things in this scene to be this deep…”
After quietly climbing to the top of the massive thread, Qin Zhan let out a quiet sigh. “There’s still time.”