After a brief moment of stunned silence, Zhao Yi flashed two rows of white teeth in a grin. “You want that? Need a bodyguard?”

Still playing dumb.

Xu Huaishi had summoned every ounce of courage she had to pierce through that paper-thin barrier between them — and now she choked on her own breath. She grabbed the test papers off the table and shoved them into her bag. “Yes, I need a bodyguard, and you need a brain!”

Having flung that at him, she stood up and walked out, shoving open the bubble tea shop door. The cold wind hit her and she shuddered, but she’d barely taken two steps outside when someone grabbed her hand from behind.

A broad, warm palm closed around her wrist. She recognized the feel of it — it wasn’t nearly as rough as she’d claimed. On the contrary, surrounded by wind howling from all directions, it carried a faint warmth.

Xu Huaishi stopped walking. Then she heard the person behind her speak, unhurried: “I do. I want to get into the same university as you.”

It was like a feather brushing against the shell of her ear — so light, yet because it grazed so close to her eardrum, it sent a tremendous reverberation through her entire hearing.

Not I like you. Not I want to be with you. But I want to get into the same university as you.

Ten short words — yet at their age, it was the most precious vow either of them could offer.

Xu Huaishi didn’t turn around. In that moment, everything her eyes could see became a close-up frame.

The people on the street, moving past in hurried streams. The girl in the red dress standing by the newsstand across the road, waiting for someone. The Route 19 bus rolling slowly toward them, finally pulling up to the stop a little ahead and to one side.

And then — a single white flake drifting down in front of her, landing on the toe of her shoe.

She lowered her gaze with it and watched it melt in an instant into a drop of snow-water. Completely out of nowhere, she said: “It’s snowing.”

“Yeah.” Zhao Yi tilted his head back, looking up at the white flurries falling above them. “It’s snowing.”

After the New Year’s holiday, every teacher in the year group heard the news: the good-for-nothing boy from Class Seven had turned over a new leaf.

The rumor started leaking from the dormitory supervisor’s mouth.

One evening during room checks, the dorm auntie heard voices drifting from the balcony of the second-floor boys’ dormitory and stormed up in a fury — only to find Zhao Yi standing there with dark circles under his eyes, flashlight in hand, reciting aloud: “Peaceful reunification, one country, two systems.”

The next day, the auntie went to find Class Seven’s homeroom teacher, dabbing tears of emotion from her eyes.

The homeroom teacher was moved — until she asked for the name, at which point her face darkened. “Don’t let that boy fool you. He keeps leisure reading stashed inside his politics textbook.” Then she called Zhao Yi to the office for a talking-to.

Zhao Yi couldn’t be bothered to argue back. He mentally recited history notes throughout the entire lecture, responding with a distracted stream of “mm-hmms” and “yeahs” until it was over. On his way out, he ran into the history teacher and suddenly asked: “Sir, what year was the world’s first car invented again?”

The history teacher blinked. “1885.”

He made a fist with his right hand and smacked it into his left palm. “Right, 1885 — that was the year ‘your daddy’ invented the automobile…”

Every teacher in the office looked at one another. The history teacher slowly turned his head, watching Zhao Yi stride off at full speed, and reached up in disbelief to steady his glasses.

Once might be a coincidence — but with one tale after another about Zhao Yi’s “glorious deeds” making its way to the office, even the homeroom teacher couldn’t dismiss it anymore.

Then, one day close to the end-of-term exams, the math teacher arrived five minutes early to go over test papers — only to hear the dozing Zhao Yi bellow from his sleep: “Nonsense! Ulaanbaatar is obviously a temperate continental climate!”

After that, the homeroom teacher became genuinely alarmed, suspecting the boy had been driven to the brink by exam pressure. She called Zhao Yi’s mother in on a Friday evening after school.

Most students had gone home by then; a handful of Year Threes had stayed behind to study on their own, Zhao Yi among them.

The homeroom teacher and Zhao’s mother finished talking in the office and made their way anxiously toward the classroom. As they reached the window of Class Seven, they suddenly heard a girl’s voice from inside: “You drew the auxiliary line in the wrong place — of course you can’t solve it. It should go like this…”

The two adults instinctively softened their steps and peered in through a gap in the window. There in the back row, a girl in a school uniform skirt had pulled a chair up beside Zhao Yi and was bent over a test paper, drawing in an auxiliary line. When she finished, she tilted her head toward him. “Do you get it now?”

Zhao Yi gave an “oh.” “I think so — let me try again.” He picked up his pen and started working through it. Three minutes later, he smacked the desk with a resounding thwack.

The girl jolted, pressing a hand to her chest and glaring at him. “What are you doing?!”

Zhao Yi looked elated. “I got it! It really is 45 degrees!”

“It’s such a simple problem — what are you so worked up about…” She gave him a sideways glance, then turned her head away — and broke into a smile. The moment he looked back at her, she straightened her face again and said, in her most stern voice: “Is there anything else you don’t understand? Ask now. I’m going home.”

The two adults by the window exchanged a glance, then quietly slipped away.

By the time Xu Huaishi finished going through the entire math test paper, the sun had already set.

Watching her sling her bag over her shoulder and head for the door, Zhao Yi called after her: “How are you getting home? Calling a cab?”

“Cabs aren’t safe, my mom won’t allow it. I’m taking the Route 19, same as always.”

“Then I’ll walk you to the stop. Wait a second.”

“What are you being dramatic about — like I don’t know the way?” Xu Huaishi scoffed at him and left the classroom first. When she reached the school gate, she suddenly heard the rush of wind behind her, and then Zhao Yi pulled up in front of her, bike and all, slightly out of breath.

“I told you to wait,” he said.

Xu Huaishi blinked. “Since when did your bike have a back rack?”

“It’s been almost a month. What, are your eyes glued to your Li Shican-gege all day?”

“…”

Was that even a fair comparison?

Xu Huaishi lifted her chin and deliberately needled him: “Well, yes — because you ride a two-wheeled bicycle while he drives a four-wheeled Carrera.”

Zhao Yi let out a scoff. “A Carrera? My family drives a Reventón.”

“Oh, please. A globally limited supercar like that rolls by once, and the whole school would be talking about it the next day. It’s been nearly three years — how come I’ve never heard a word about it?”

“That’s because my family keeps a low profile. If it actually showed up, I’d have people swarming around me every day — way too distracting for my studies.”

Having long since grown accustomed to his nonsense, Xu Huaishi was completely unconvinced. “You think you’re filming a drama?”

Zhao Yi couldn’t be bothered to argue further. He clicked his tongue. “Are you getting on or not?”

She turned and walked away. “Not getting on. It’s freezing — walking is warmer than that.”

Zhao Yi stepped in front of her, unwound the scarf from around his neck, and wrapped it around her — neck, face and all. “Hurry up. The last bus leaves in five minutes.”

Xu Huaishi glanced down at her watch and let out a small “ah.”

So that was why he had insisted on seeing her off.

She hopped onto his back rack in one motion. “Why didn’t you just say so earlier? What was all that nonsense about brooding billionaire melodramas — let’s go, go!”

“In a hurry? Then just hold on tight.”

He pushed down on the pedal and shot forward. Xu Huaishi lurched sideways and threw her arms around his waist in a death grip. “Are you trying to kill me?!”

Zhao Yi, barely able to breathe with her clinging onto him, yelled back: “You’re the one trying to kill someone!”

Three minutes of frantic cycling and they arrived at the stop — nothing like the unhurried, romantic slow-burn of the film Comrades, Almost a Love Story. Both of them were gasping for breath.

Xu Huaishi unwound the scarf and was about to hand it back to him when she spotted, in the distance, a silver-grey sports car gliding toward them and pulling up right in front of them.

Speak of the devil — was that the Reventón?

She stared for a moment. The window rolled down to reveal a woman’s face — one that looked vaguely familiar.

Zhao Yi’s hand paused mid-reach for the scarf. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

Xu Huaishi: “…”

Her face stung a little.

And — was she about to be mistaken for an underage girlfriend and have her parents called in again?

Zhao Yi had clearly thought the same thing, and rushed to explain: “Mom, I didn’t—”

“I know.” His mother laughed instead, and looked over at Xu Huaishi. “You must be Huaishi. Get in — auntie will drive you home.”

“…”

The same woman who, outside the police station last time, had looked at her with eyes that said I’ll give you five million yuan to leave my son — those same eyes now said: What a bright little girl, I’d love to bring her home as a daughter-in-law.

Xu Huaishi looked at Zhao Yi. He looked just as bewildered as she was. She hurriedly waved her hands. “It’s alright, auntie, my bus should be here any minute.”

Zhao’s mother smiled pleasantly. “Which route?”

“The 19.”

“I just saw the last one pull away.”

Xu Huaishi let out a quiet “ah” and looked at Zhao Yi again.

Zhao Yi jutted his chin toward the car. “Just get in.”

She gave a small “oh,” thanked Zhao’s mother, and climbed in — then immediately felt something was off. She pointed at Zhao Yi and asked his mother: “Auntie, if I’m riding with you, then he…”

There was no back seat in this car.

“We don’t usually pick him up anyway — cycling is good exercise for him. He’ll find his own way home.” Zhao’s mother said this pleasantly, then pressed the accelerator with a smile.

Xu Huaishi came to her senses, grabbed the scarf she’d been using to warm herself, and tossed it out to him.

The scarf came sailing through the wind of a fifteen-million-yuan supercar and smacked Zhao Yi directly in the face.

He nearly choked, tore it off — and looked up just in time to see a Route 19 bus trundle languidly to a stop directly in front of him.

Author’s note: Zhao Yi: I must be adopted.

There’ll be one more update a bit later!