—”I’m not envious of her, I want her.”

—”Just like how you wanted me before.”

The air on Wednesday morning was thin. Accompanied by the silent atmosphere of morning self-study, it was stifling to the point where one could barely breathe. Long Qi leaned against her desk, spinning a ballpoint pen. Outside the classroom, Jin Yiken walked through the corridor toward her classroom.

One hand in his uniform pants pocket, his steps leisurely and slow, weaving through passing students while swinging the thermos in his hand. His figure passed through the first-tier honors class area, passed through the second-tier advanced class area, then strolled into the third-tier regular class area. Students in the corridor all watched him.

When he walked into Long Qi’s classroom, half the classmates looked up. Then came an unexpected silence. Dozens of eyes watched him walk toward Dong Xi’s seat. The instant Long Qi noticed him, he happened to stop in front of Dong Xi’s desk in the first row, placing the thermos in his hand on her desk.

Dong Xi was looking at her notes. Disturbed by this commotion, when she looked up at him, he leaned down with both hands supporting the sides of her desk. His gaze made direct contact with hers. His male presence also oppressively descended over her head. The entire class was silent as the grave.

When he spoke, his eyes looked at her alone, telling her: “I heard drinking this helps. I brought it for you.”

Long Qi stared at that direction. Her heart rose and fell slightly. She pressed the end of her ballpoint pen against the desktop.

Dong Xi didn’t speak. She sat in the front row. No one could see her expression when facing Jin Yiken. But everyone saw Jin Yiken’s gaze.

Everyone heard what he said and the undisguised implication in his tone. No one knew what relationship he and Dong Xi had, but his current behavior was like a big move suddenly unleashed after lying in wait for a long time. From his gaze to his tone, everything expressed… an obvious intent to pursue.

When he was there, the class was utterly silent, as if only the faint breathing sounds of him and Dong Xi remained.

When he left, almost all the students stared at his figure.

Immediately after, uncontainable discussion and exclamation began spreading from the back row, surging toward Dong Xi row by row like ocean waves. The second Jin Yiken left the classroom, he looked toward Long Qi’s position. Long Qi stared at him. The instant she saw his face disappear from the front door, the fighting spirit of “your man’s going to play with you” was in his eyes.

A stark contrast to his complete lack of reaction after she’d confessed to him yesterday.

The ballpoint pen pressing against the desktop suddenly flew from her hand, bouncing onto her deskmate’s uniform. Her deskmate wanted to speak. She said lowly: “Shut up!”

Long Qi then looked toward Dong Xi in the front row. The pen in her hand wasn’t writing. She too was looking at Jin Yiken’s retreating figure. But her face had almost no excess expression. She looked at Jin Yiken as if looking at a male student whose name she temporarily couldn’t recall. Aside from feeling a bit of a situation, feeling a slight inexplicable furrowing of her brow, her entire person remained as quiet as before—especially obvious surrounded by the restlessness around her.

What Jin Yiken brought Dong Xi was jujube and Sichuan pepper soup, which had a relieving effect on menstrual pain.

And his pursuit of Dong Xi also seemed to openly appear on the table starting from this day. During lunch break, a girl brought hot sea rock milk tea to her desk, saying it was from Jin Yiken. In the afternoon, a male student delivered chocolate and tiramisu and cherry sabayon that little girls liked, saying they were from Jin Yiken. After school, someone else brought warm honey pomelo tea, saying it was from Jin Yiken.

These were all things Dong Xi had mentioned in her campus network account. He didn’t have her account, but he’d obviously already gotten through her friend circle, learning everything mentioned in her account.

The next morning, before Dong Xi arrived, blueberry cheese cake and authentic Hong Kong-style double-skin milk were already arranged on her desk, with an additional new thermos. Inside the thermos was pearl barley and mugwort porridge, which also had a relieving effect on menstrual pain.

The third morning was ginger and lamb soup with motherwort boiled eggs, next to which lay a limited edition art collection she’d mentioned with “regret at not finding.”

After a weekend, Monday morning was hawthorn and cinnamon twig brown sugar soup with Japanese matcha cake. That day, students continuously delivered white sugar cookies, mousse cake, crème brûlée, and other desserts. Each time, the person delivering was different—sometimes even Dong Xi’s friends from when she was in the honors class. The recipients weren’t limited to her alone either. Any girl with a slightly good relationship with her received “special attention.”

The thermoses on Dong Xi’s desk increased day by day. She never drank what Jin Yiken sent, but Jin Yiken showed no sign of slacking. He changed up the variety every day. And he had methods—besides personally delivering things the first day, for the following days he no longer appeared. He kneaded intense feelings into these gifts he sent her, yet he himself continued living leisurely as usual, as if deliberately creating distance and space, also with a confidence of “you’ll fall in love with me sooner or later.” This way of pursuing was most heart-scratching.

Not until the second week began, when someone again placed a new thermos on Dong Xi’s desk, did her face turn slightly red. This manifestation became more and more obvious as the thermoses increased.

After attentive people noticed, it became “evidence” that Dong Xi was gradually becoming interested in Jin Yiken, and after exaggeration, spread through campus.

On Friday of the second week, Long Qi finally couldn’t bear it anymore. During midday break, she found Jin Yiken playing basketball at the school gymnasium. The two met in a secluded gap between stands. He hadn’t played enough yet, full of athletic vigor, staring at the court while drinking water. Long Qi’s words didn’t register with him until she seized the water bottle from his hand and splashed it on him.

He immediately instinctively turned his face aside. Water wetted the collar of his basketball jersey and his arm. Only after coming to his senses did he redirect his attention to her. He smiled. The look in his eyes was bright, as if discovering a new continent, or as if he’d successfully developed the violent factor within her. He could hardly wait to see her next reaction.

“You’re sick!” Long Qi cursed.

He said: “The sick one isn’t me, Qi. It’s you. I’m treating you.”

“She finds you annoying.”

He took the water bottle from her hand, leaning close to tell her: “Her face turned red.”

“Her face is red not because of you, but because the things you send constantly remind her of her period. You’re making her feel embarrassed!”

He pressed his index finger against her shoulder: “Not necessarily.”

Long Qi slapped his hand away: “Why are you so shameless?”

He not only nodded but immediately added provocation: “It took me one week to win you over. Guess how long it’ll take me to win her over, hm?”

Their gazes clung tightly together, their mutual distance no more than ten centimeters. She shook her head: “What won me over wasn’t you—it was your money. She doesn’t lack money.”

“She lacks love, so she’s easier to win over than you.”

A voice calling for him came from the court—Zhuo Qing’s. Jin Yiken and she simultaneously looked at the court. Zhuo Qing was looking for him, not noticing them here. Long Qi immediately looked at Jin Yiken. Their gazes met for a second. Then she made as if to rush toward the court. Jin Yiken immediately pressed one hand against the wall behind her, blocking her.

“So you can be afraid too, Jin Yiken,” she turned back to mock him. “Don’t block me. Let me tell Zhuo Qing what his good brother has been doing behind his back.”

His expression was as relaxed as before. He replied: “If you really tell him, who would suffer the greater loss between us? Would Dong Xi be willing to be friends with a woman who two-timed with two brothers?”

She was momentarily speechless. He said: “Qi, you’re very smart, very very smart, but you’re too impulsive.”

What he said next, Jin Yiken said with his forehead pressed against hers, in almost a murmur. He said: “Last May when you quarreled with the magazine company boss and deliberately keyed his car, who handled it?”

…

“In July when you cracked open some rich kid’s head with a bottle, who suppressed it?”

…

“Early this year when you had a conflict with an event organizer and smashed a room full of their collectibles, who compensated them for you?”

…

Long Qi said nothing. Her eyes were full of heavy stubbornness and fighting spirit. Jin Yiken stroked her face with his thumb: “And before, when you smashed your brother’s computer, if I hadn’t spent money buying a computer to shut him up, he was planning to sell your video to magazines for money. If my eyes leave you for even one second, you could be torn apart alive by others. Now you say you want to go straight. How do I settle this whole body of dirty water you’ve implicated me in?”

Her pressure was in her heart, just as Jin Yiken’s anger had been suppressed for the previous two weeks. Now he’d finally released it. Her hands clenched into fists by her skirt hem, listening to him continue by her ear: “After I get together with Dong Xi, you’ll understand what you were doing back then. What you’re pushing away now is what will break your heart in the future.”

“Moreover,” he continued, “Dong Xi will too.”

…

“She’ll love me to the bone, but I’ll treat her like she’s at my beck and call, make her haggard, make her cry, turn her into someone even you would look down on.”

Zhuo Qing’s shout came from the court again. Jin Yiken left Long Qi to leave. Her heart rose and fell minutely. She used all her strength to suppress the irritability in her blood.

When he walked outside the stands, she looked at him again: “What about Bai Aiting?”

Jin Yiken stopped.

“You’re pursuing Dong Xi. What does Bai Aiting think?”