Zongman: Evolution Paradise Chapter 025

“That’s a shame. I was thinking that since I don’t have experience managing clubs, I’d hand the management over to you.”

“Really?”

Yukino Yukinoshita’s hope rekindled.

Xu Lun walked to the window, looking at the blooming cherry blossom trees outside, and let out a sigh.

“Yukinoshita-club member, you’re not even willing to call me president.”

“Is this cosplaying The Godfather?”

Hachiman Hikigaya secretly grumbled.

After a moment of hesitation, Yukino Yukinoshita chose to save her Service Club, calling out “President” in a cold voice.

Shizuka Hiratsuka, who was hiding outside the door, breathed a sigh of relief. She had been about to pretend to pass by and ease the atmosphere, but Xu Lun had taken a step back, preventing the conflict from escalating. Teacher Hiratsuka felt that inviting him to dinner hadn’t been in vain.

The situation had stabilized. Yukino Yukinoshita was reading, Hachiman Hikigaya was spacing out, and Xu Lun was looking for part-time jobs online, waiting for afternoon classes.

After achieving his strategic goal of gaining power, Xu Lun decisively began to retreat.

He wanted to be a ghost club member who could slack off freely, not actually the hardest-working club president.

Xu Lun held the title of president but returned all club affairs to Yukino Yukinoshita.

Yukino Yukinoshita was surprised and confused by his strange behavior. If he wasn’t going to manage club affairs, what was the difference between that and giving up the presidency?

She couldn’t have imagined that Xu Lun did all this just to slack off.

“Perhaps he just wanted to teach me a lesson.”

“He never intended to take over the club. It was just because I called him a gorilla with my poisonous tongue that he made this bet with me.”

Yukino Yukinoshita, with her top-of-the-class brain, came up with this explanation.

This left Yukino Yukinoshita a little flustered. She sat in her chair, looking at a literary book, but couldn’t settle down, constantly looking up at Xu Lun.

“Saying he has no experience managing clubs.”

“Is he trying to spare my pride? Is that why he’s returning the Service Club to me in this way?”

Thinking of this, Yukino Yukinoshita gently bit her lip, her sense of guilt growing stronger.

But she couldn’t bring herself to apologize. After a moment of internal struggle, she finally decided to get up and make a cup of black tea for Xu Lun and Hachiman Hikigaya.

“Thank you, Yukinoshita-san,” Xu Lun politely took the teacup.

“Thank you, Yukinoshita-san,” Hachiman Hikigaya also thanked her.

“You’re welcome,” Yukino Yukinoshita felt a little better, resuming her usual calm demeanor.

…

It was afternoon dismissal time. Xu Lun bid farewell to Megumi Kato and walked towards the Service Club. He remembered that this afternoon was Yukino Yukinoshita’s famous scene.

Xu Lun’s classroom was next to Hachiman Hikigaya’s, so they met on the way and arrived at the Service Club together.

Yukino Yukinoshita was still sitting by the window, reading.

Seeing Xu Lun and Hachiman Hikigaya enter, she politely greeted them.

“Hello, President, and Hikigaya-kun.”

Yukino Yukinoshita looked at Hachiman Hikigaya with some surprise and said, “I thought you wouldn’t come. Are you a masochist or a stalker?”

In Yukino Yukinoshita’s self-fabricated narrative, her attack power against Xu Lun was low, but she was still venomous towards Hachiman Hikigaya.

“Why are the premises always based on me having feelings for you?”

Hachiman Hikigaya found a seat and sat down, quite displeased.

“Aren’t they?”

Yukino Yukinoshita tilted her head, showing confusion.

“Your narcissistic attitude, even I can’t stand it.”

“Do you really have any friends, you guy?”

Hachiman Hikigaya questioned Yukino Yukinoshita.

Yukino Yukinoshita turned her head and said seriously, “First, let me define what can be considered a friend…”

This made Xu Lun unable to help but laugh.

“To say something like that, you really don’t have any friends, do you?”

Hachiman Hikigaya also couldn’t help but laugh, asking with even more confusion, “Aren’t you very popular? How can you not have friends?”

Yukino Yukinoshita closed her book and stood up.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’ve been cute since I was little.”

“Boys who approached me all had feelings for me.”

Hachiman Hikigaya suppressed his laughter, listening to Yukino Yukinoshita’s rather narcissistic words, then interrupted and asked, “If you’re liked by everyone, why don’t you have friends?”

“If I were truly liked by everyone, perhaps that would be for the best.”

Yukino Yukinoshita said somewhat dejectedly.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Hachiman Hikigaya asked, confused, while Xu Lun silently turned on his phone’s recorder, planning to record Yukino Yukinoshita’s famous scene to show her later and make her cringe.

“In elementary school, my slippers were hidden about sixty times.”

“Fifty of those times were done by girls.”

“Because of this, I had to bring my harp and slippers home every day.”

Yukino Yukinoshita slowly recounted the outrageous events.

“Is that bullying?”

Hachiman Hikigaya suddenly felt a little sympathy for Yukino Yukinoshita.

“No, those idiots didn’t dare to bully me openly.”

Yukino Yukinoshita said scornfully.

This broke Hachiman Hikigaya’s sympathetic state. The person in front of him was still the defiant and sharp-tongued Yukino Yukinoshita. Aside from some minor acts, no one really dared to bully her.

Yukino Yukinoshita stared out the window, continuing her narration.

“Because I’m cute, there’s nothing that can be done about it.”

“No one is perfect.”

“Both pathetic and weak.”

“It’s easy to become so jealous that you want to set traps for others.”

“It’s incredible that the more excellent a person is, the harder it is for them to survive.”

“That’s too strange.”

“So it needs to change.”

“Changing this world, along with its people.”

“That’s why I established the Service Club.”

“That sounds too grand.”

Hachiman Hikigaya thought for a moment, then tactfully expressed his opinion.

For ordinary people, simply maintaining their original self and not being changed by the world was already quite remarkable.

And Yukino Yukinoshita wanting to change the world sounded quite arrogant.

Only naive and arrogant youths who haven’t experienced the world would hold such ideas, right?

“Even so, it’s better than you being lazy and doing nothing. Easily affirming your own weakness, that’s why I dislike you.”

Yukino Yukinoshita retorted to Hachiman Hikigaya without mercy, leaving him in silence.

Xu Lun turned off the recording.

He felt some emotion regarding Yukino Yukinoshita and Hachiman Hikigaya.

In his previous life, he was inferior to Hachiman Hikigaya, because he was helplessly swept away by the world, gradually becoming a stranger to himself.

Fortunately, he gained a second life. Xu Lun glanced at the Paradise bracelet on his wrist.

This was what Paradise called “aptitude.”

Breaking the limitations of the world, and even truly changing the world.

“So neither of you has friends?”

Xu Lun asked them.

Yukino Yukinoshita and Hachiman Hikigaya fell silent because they truly had no friends.

“Don’t you not have friends either?”

Hachiman Hikigaya was no longer as afraid of Xu Lun. After some time together, he felt that Xu Lun wasn’t as difficult to approach as rumored.

“Just to clarify, even not counting my old friends, I have Megumi Kato as a friend at Soubu High.”

Xu Lun’s words shattered Hachiman Hikigaya’s illusion.

He and Yukino Yukinoshita, let alone at this school, didn’t even have friends before.

Meanwhile, Yukino Yukinoshita was thinking: Who was this Megumi Kato Xu Lun was talking about? Was there such a person at Soubu High?

Three people, and they could only collectively muster one friend, Megumi Kato, at school.