Chen Luzhou was dazed at that moment, pressed against the sofa, and kissed until his mind went blank. Seemingly unaware of the danger, he asked, either out of naivety or disbelief: “What? What do you want to see?”
Xu Zhi’s body curved gracefully as she lay on top of him, displaying the softest and most shapely figure of a young woman – like a flower on the verge of full bloom, perfectly lush. She propped herself up on the sofa back with both hands, then very directly glanced down at his lower body.
With her pressing down on him like this, Chen Luzhou had never before noticed the curves of her back. He was surprised to find her figure so attractive, but was still at a loss for words: “…”
Is this something a high school student should be looking at?
“Are you sure you’re a high school girl?” Chen Luzhou almost wanted to pick her up and throw her out.
“How boring,” Xu Zhi said as if she had found his weak spot.
As their mingled scents dispersed, both regained some awareness. Chen Luzhou lifted her off, no longer allowing kisses or even sitting on his lap. He coldly grunted, utterly exasperated, “I’m just boring. Even if I weren’t, I still wouldn’t let you see. Have you gone mad?”
The result of this provocation was Chen Luzhou refusing to meet her for two days.
Xu Zhi sent him messages on WeChat, to which Chen Luzhou replied quickly.
Xu Zhi: Shall we meet today?
Cr: No.
Xu Zhi: …
Xu Zhi: One day of sulking is enough. If you keep it up for two days, I won’t have the patience to coax you. I’m starting as a tutor tomorrow. Li Ke said it’s 200 yuan per hour, four hours a day. It’s a better deal than you tutoring Chen Xingqi.
Cr: Middle school student?
Xu Zhi: Mm-hmm. Li Ke said if you’re willing to do it, he’d even pay us the agency fee! Wow, Chen Luzhou, you’re so valuable.
Cr: Come on, Li Ke is a swindler. Do you believe what he says? Here’s my second piece of life advice: stay away from provincial top scorers, especially those who know how to do business.
Xu Zhi nodded obsequiously while replying to the message, as if she were right in front of him, “Mm, I’ll keep the provincial top scorer’s lesson in mind.”
Cr: …
Perhaps due to Chen Luzhou’s influence, Li Ke didn’t charge Xu Zhi an agency fee, and her daily wages went entirely into her pocket. But as Chen Luzhou had predicted, earning that 800 yuan wasn’t easy. Regular student tutors only charge 150 yuan per hour. Xu Zhi’s extra 50 yuan meant she also had to handle the student’s dinner. The student’s parents were too busy with work and usually had business dinners, and they didn’t want to spend extra money on a nanny. So they asked the tutor to take care of the student’s dinner. Li Ke readily agreed, promising to find them a suitable tutor.
As a result, during that period, even when Chen Luzhou wanted to see Xu Zhi, he might not be able to. After finishing her afternoon lessons, she still had to take the students out for dinner. The middle school student was only a year or two older than Chen Xingqi, but not as sunny and troublesome. Probably due to academic pressure, he was thin and tall, looking quite withered. He had an eating disorder, and when it was mealtime, he would listlessly say to Xu Zhi, “Teacher Xu, don’t worry about me. I can’t eat anyway, you can go home.”
In the past, Xu Zhi might have just left. But for some reason, ever since meeting Chen Luzhou, that boy of frost and propriety, she found her sympathy overflowing, and she started meddling in affairs. She vaguely thought that he might like this kind of kind-hearted, meddlesome girl.
So, for those few days, Xu Zhi often took the boy with an eating disorder through the city streets and alleys, looking for various strange delicacies. Most were recommended by Chen Luzhou, and it was then that Xu Zhi realized Chen Luzhou had eaten his way through the entire city of Qingyi.
The restaurants Chen Luzhou recommended were quite obscure, but the food was surprisingly good. Xu Zhi walked ahead wearing Bluetooth earphones, while the boy stumbled along behind her. He didn’t go out much; even a cat lounging on a wall at the entrance of an alley could startle him. His eyes darted around curiously. Xu Zhi looked back at him, stopped to wait, and said to Chen Luzhou on the phone, “Don’t tell me you’ve eaten at all these places.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was characteristically lazy. He seemed to be visiting some kind of human sculpture exhibition with friends today. He had originally invited Xu Zhi, but she couldn’t easily take time off, so she didn’t go. He said, “Half of them I’ve eaten at, the other half are sincere recommendations from a group of foodies.”
“Like who? Zhu Yangqi?”
He chuckled on the other end, “In your eyes, is Zhu Yangqi my only friend? Zhu Yangqi had a bit of an eating disorder when he was little. His parents used to invite me over for dinner all the time. I thought they were just being nice to me, but later I found out it was because they saw how heartily I ate. Every time Zhu Yangqi watched me eat, he’d end up fighting me for food.”
“… So you two have been fighting over food like dogs since you were little.”
“Not just that, we even marked our territory. Unlike you girls,” he teased, his voice clear and proper, yet meaningful, “who just need to act coy to stake your claim.”
Xu Zhi saw the little brat catching up, so she turned and continued walking into the alley, laughing along, “Then you have a misunderstanding about us girls.”
“Is that so? Who was it acting coy on my sofa the other night?” Xu Zhi felt that his voice was more attractive than usual over the phone, and intriguing too. It was as if an electric current passed through her body. Especially when that usually clean and clear voice said such things, it created a different kind of stimulation. The tingling sensation seemed to shoot straight up her back.
So her face flushed hot. Xu Zhi didn’t think that was acting coy. She had just asked to borrow his computer and sofa, maybe in a slightly softer tone. Chen Luzhou insisted she was acting coy, and Xu Zhi had laughed at him then, saying, “You’re such a big campus heartthrob, yet so inexperienced.”
“How’s the exhibition?” Xu Zhi didn’t want to continue that topic with him. She had just entered the restaurant with the middle school student and found a table to sit at. The call hadn’t been hung up, so she brought the conversation back.
At that moment, Chen Luzhou was standing in front of a sculpture of an ancient Roman knight. The knight’s hands had been cut off, and he was kneeling before his beloved. Unable to hold a spear or shield, he tightly gripped a fresh, dewy rose between his teeth. A pea-sized dewdrop was perfectly set on the edge of a petal, seemingly about to fall but not falling. He looked at the inscription below – “I am a knight with severed hands, but that doesn’t stop the rose from being fresh.”
This sculpture was one of the most famous works in the entire exhibition that day. Every couple passing by would involuntarily stop in front of it. Usually, the girl would silently fall into thought for half a minute, then without hesitation, heavily punch her boyfriend in the chest.
“Look at that! I ask you to grab me a peach, and you don’t even know how to peel it!”
…
“It’s alright. I think you might like it,” Chen Luzhou said, looking at the nude male sculpture next to the knight.
After spending this time together, the two had developed a tacit understanding, but it made conversation a bit difficult because they could somewhat guess each other’s meaning from just a few words. “Why do I feel like you’re mocking me? Are there some stimulating works there?”
Chen Luzhou laughed, “You’re being sensitive, Miss Gatekeeper Philosopher.”
Xu Zhi had been asking all sorts of random questions lately, like “Who am I?”, “Where do I come from?”, “Where am I going?” – summarized as gatekeeper philosophy. So Chen Luzhou teased her by calling her a gatekeeper philosopher. She was dying of curiosity and couldn’t stand being kept in suspense, so she couldn’t help but soften her tone again: “Come on, tell me what you saw.”
Chen Luzhou thought for a moment and casually mentioned a few things, “Nude man, knight, rose. You can use your imagination.”
Xu Zhi, of course, only heard one of them: “Nude man? Is it that kind of… explicit one?”
Chen Luzhou replied with eight words at the time, “Detailed in every aspect, lifelike and vivid.”
Xu Zhi whistled and once again persistently extended a sincere invitation: “Shall we meet today?”
Chen Luzhou lazily hummed in agreement, “I’ll tell you when I get home.”
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps because Chen Luzhou had been teasing her for two days, they started kissing as soon as they entered the door. Usually, their interactions were quite restrained and proper. Chen Luzhou tried his best not to touch her unless he really couldn’t resist Xu Zhi’s advances. Most of the time, they would lean against the sofa, watch movies, and just chat. At most, Xu Zhi would sit on his lap. They were both quite controlled, only kissing when overcome by emotion. Today, when she said she was coming over, Chen Luzhou had planned to help her revise her speech draft again before agreeing. Xu Zhi really couldn’t write this kind of speech draft; she had written the whole thing like a meaningless award acceptance speech. So that night, after she left, he stayed up late and revised it for her again.
But as soon as they entered the door before Chen Luzhou could even take off his baseball cap, Xu Zhi suddenly hugged his waist, pressed him against the back of the door, tilted her head back, and showered him with kisses. She slowly pecked from his chin to his lips. Chen Luzhou was like snow touched by a red-hot furnace. Knowing what she wanted to do, he actively embraced her, his sinewy arms still loosely and restrainedly encircling her slender waist. He rarely took the initiative, but this time he lowered his head and lazily bit her lip, “I’m going to take a shower—”
Xu Zhi wouldn’t let him. She kept trying to kiss him, so the two of them were like little mice stealing cheese, pecking at each other’s lips lightly and tentatively.
Xu Zhi was very tired today. Dealing with kids was not easy. She suddenly realized how amazing he was. Even though her student was considered obedient, teaching was still exhausting. After lecturing for several hours, her mouth was dry, but the middle schooler still had a bewildered look on his face. Mainly, when he looked at her with those innocent eyes, Xu Zhi’s mind was filled with a sense of defeat, thinking, “Alright, I’m not cut out to be a tutor.” She thought about someone like Chen Xingqi and realized she would probably question her life choices if she had to teach him. Yet Chen Luzhou could handle it so easily.
It was at this moment that she suddenly understood. If she became a corporate slave in the future, doing a job hundreds of times more tiring than this one, how could she manage without a handsome guy like Chen Luzhou by her side, who was not only pleasing to the eye but also handy to have around?
So, she couldn’t help but snuggle harder into his warm, broad embrace, her whole body going limp as she said weakly, “I’m so tired. Let me hug you a bit longer.”
Chen Luzhou didn’t move then. He leaned against the door, serving as a human tree trunk for her. He lowered his head and kissed the top of her head, asking in a rare moment of tender concern, “Did that middle schooler bully you?”
Xu Zhi lay in his arms, raising her messy head of hair to look at him. When she first came in looking dispirited, Chen Luzhou couldn’t bear it. He had come over and ruffled her hair hard, saying she looked like she’d been working for two years instead of just two days.
Looking into his clear, dark eyes, full of clarity and strength, Xu Zhi couldn’t help but sigh. These eyes truly filled one with hope, impossible to fool, with intelligence written in them. She sighed and spoke frankly, her words both direct and piercing, “He’s just a bit slow. In four hours, we could only go through half a test paper. If it were our teachers, they’d have worn through the podium with their triangular rulers by now—” As she spoke, her gaze fell on a small brown stain on his collar. She touched it and asked, “What’s this?”
The room lights weren’t on. They were at the entrance, illuminated only by the small floor lamp in the foyer. Chen Luzhou looked down, “Coffee, I guess. I just bought a cup of coffee on the way. The lid wasn’t on properly, and when I drank it, it spilled right onto me. Otherwise, I’d have thought my chin was leaking.”
Xu Zhi looked at him with a smile, “Your chin doesn’t leak. It’s just that your mouth is closed too tightly.”
Chen Luzhou looked down at her with a smirk: “You would know.”
“Because I’ve kissed you,” she said.
“Who sticks out their tongue when drinking coffee?” Chen Luzhou couldn’t help but laugh.
“I do,” Xu Zhi said shamelessly. “Your sister Xu Zhi has always stuck out her tongue when drinking coffee since she was little, licking it bit by bit. Is that not allowed?”
The lights outside suddenly brightened, instantly casting some light into the room. Although it mainly lit up the living room, with only a dim glow reaching the foyer, they could still clearly see the ambiguous and heart-pounding look in each other’s eyes. Neither knew when the fire in their hearts would extinguish. It was like a seed of flame; once planted, it would come back to life even from death.
Chen Luzhou was leaning against the back of the door at that time, one hand still coolly tucked in his pocket, the other restrainedly hooked around her waist. He looked down at the person in his arms, and for once, unable to control himself, he pinched her waist a bit roughly, saying word by word: “Only the pig raised by your Chen Luzhou brother sticks out its tongue when drinking coffee.”
Xu Zhi suddenly realized and looked at him with her hands around his neck: “…Chen Luzhou, you’re the pig.”
Not to be outdone, Xu Zhi could only take the upper hand in action at this moment. So without another word, she pounced on him and kissed him hard. The feeling of their lips touching was still unfamiliar and raw, still in the stage of exploration. Like a reckless little beast eager to break free from its cage, her kisses were forceful and dry, lacking finesse. It was then that Chen Luzhou finally took his other hand out of his pocket, embraced her fully, and naturally deepened the kiss.
The room suddenly fell silent. That night, the moon hung in the sky like an unripe fruit, round yet hard, like a youth’s most unattainable dream – impossible to pluck or kick away. The two had originally been playfully kissing back and forth by the door, as if in a mock fight. As they continued, their breaths became completely entangled, their hearts racing wildly. Their eyes were filled with hazy images of each other that they couldn’t quite make out. They searched for themselves in each other’s gazes. No other sound remained in the air. When Chen Luzhou’s tongue entered her mouth, Xu Zhi trembled lightly in a daze, her scalp tingling—
“Chen Luzhou, so you do know how to kiss.”
“What can’t Chen Luzhou do?” the young man laughed.
Xu Zhi: “You won’t show me that thing. How will I have a standard for future boyfriends?”
Chen Luzhou: “…”