The Campus Heartthrob Keeps Winning Himself Over

On the night of his seventeenth birthday, Jiang Che gained a strange ability:

Whenever Lin Xiaoman came near, his gaze would automatically lock onto the Affection Rating floating above her head:

5% when she got caught climbing over the wall; -30% when she received a love letter; 97% when their fingertips touched...?!

The entire school witnessed the anomaly surrounding its science whiz:

She climbed over the wall, and he docked her points, yet on a stormy night he altered the security camera routes for her.

He confiscated the sketchbook she'd filled with drawings of him, but the code for his locked cabinet was her birthday.

He claimed he hated the strawberry hair tie she gave him, yet wore it to the awards ceremony even with his arm in a cast.

Transfer student Shen Xingye tore through his perfect facade:

"The care manual in the third locker, the one you keep locked away, lists 76 of Lin Xiaoman's likes?"

"That pet influencer you liked at three in the morning... Why is the IP address from the next city over?"

When Lin Xiaoman finally saw the mark burned into Jiang Che's palm:

The eyes of the teddy bear that had shielded her during the earthquake held a fragment of his student ID.

"Jiang, the System must be malfunctioning, right?"

She poked at the newly trending topic about their synchronized heart rates.

The boy sealed his protest with a kiss. "Love can't be controlled."

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any similarities are coincidental. Do not imitate.