When returning to the apartment, the heating had already been adjusted, and hot water had been prepared in the bathroom. When Long Qi entered, she happened to run into Jin Yiken leaving. He had added a new jacket and was listening to a phone call. Long Qi used her eyes to ask him “Leaving?” He nodded. When leaving, he helped close the door for her. She used her hand to block the door, asking, “When are you going abroad?”

***

Jin Yiken’s day to go to England was set for after the Spring Festival.

Things like exams were all settled. The university application process was also quite smooth. Long Qi even felt his family had planned this all along. The whole process was so efficient. All the needed grades and materials could be produced. The more she looked, the more it seemed like this matter had been set early on.

Actually, logically speaking, Jin Yiken didn’t even need to go to school anymore, but he didn’t do that. The reason he gave was that he felt she was quite heartless. If he wasn’t in front of her, she wouldn’t think of him even once a week. But of course that was exaggerated. Jin Yiken just wanted her to accompany him more before going abroad. She knew that.

As for Bai Aiting, she stopped coming to school.

Long Qi understood this approach—wanting to avoid the awkward situation to preserve some right to remain silent for herself. Speaking of it, Bai Aiting truly liked Jin Yiken, more than anyone else. Although she was unrighteous first in the Dong Xi incident, she was later badly screwed over by Long Qi. She should have come looking for Long Qi full of anger, but she didn’t, not at all. Who knew whether it was a kind of desperate mentality of letting things go to ruin, or like usual, an ostrich mentality thinking Jin Yiken would ultimately still marry her.

Jin Yiken didn’t bring up anything related to Bai Aiting.

School started classes on the fourth. Classes went until mid-month when winter break began. That morning, Long Qi went together with him.

At that time, the campus was filled with gossip and idle talk targeting the two of them. Some was inclusive, some was aggressive, but he completely didn’t take it to heart. When the two went up the stairs, they were being stared at by some people. Long Qi was combing through her long hair at that time. Two female students coming down the stairs ran into her at the corner. Long Qi’s steps slowed slightly. She was tall. When looking at the two female students, it was more like looking down at them. Jin Yiken behind her was also blocked. He used his hands to hold Long Qi’s shoulders, bringing the lazy-to-move her toward the other side. Then Long Qi continued up the stairs, and he also continued pacing leisurely.

The two didn’t have any eye contact or verbal communication that “looked like a couple,” but the gray chunky-knit scarf around Long Qi’s neck and the cardigan sweater he wore were the same style. Probably from this moment on, everyone discovered that any gossip was futile for these two people.

Together was together. Even if he was a genius from the top class and she was just a demoness from the bottom class, when they got together wasn’t important. How they got together also couldn’t be investigated. Although people couldn’t help but exclaim “your circle is really messy,” beneath the gossip tone inevitably lay some feeble jealousy. And recalling the “demoness and weak scholar” immediate impression from Long Qi and Zhuo Qing’s period (she was criticized most severely at that time), Jin Yiken’s advantage was that his personal aura could cover her, so her image wasn’t one-sidedly demonized in this public opinion. Plus he had publicly confessed first. Her reputation was protected properly.

The reopened school forum seemed not to have recovered yet. For a time, there were no posts about this matter. Most of the main force still lingered on the campus network, at most just frequently visiting the homepages of the “quadrangular relationship” parties—Jin Yiken, Long Qi, Bai Aiting, and Zhuo Qing.

Bai Aiting had closed her homepage.

There was also a small portion of people who still remembered that history between Jin Yiken and Dong Xi, remembering that Dong Xi and Long Qi had a good relationship. However, Dong Xi’s homepage had originally been closed off. She became the person who got the most peace and quiet among these five people.

Moreover, she had changed classes, from the original bottom class to the excellent class, completely cutting off the public opinion interference from the other four people. Plus with the baptism of the previous cheating scandal, her personality invisibly transformed to become even more pure and indifferent than before, carrying a trace of detachment toward worldly affairs and human relationships. Almost no one was willing to speak ill of her anymore, because everyone owed her.

Long Qi learned about Dong Xi changing classes that day.

At that time, she was looking down at her book. After her deskmate mentioned this matter in a casual tone, she didn’t speak, nor did she look at the desk and chair in Dong Xi’s direction. She only heard the girls’ fragmentary chat sounds coming from that direction. She heard their voices occasionally lower a bit, because at those times they were chatting about her, just like most students in this school, guessing about the unknown “private affair” between her and Jin Yiken. While listening, she slowly turned the page.

The one who replaced Dong Xi’s seat was the female class monitor who had transferred back to this class due to declining grades and who had always found Long Qi distasteful.

From this day on, no female students in the class spoke to Long Qi, and Long Qi didn’t speak to them either. It wasn’t that she was isolated—she struck first, becoming even more aloof.

She now only spoke to Jin Yiken.

Jin Yiken wanted Long Qi to go to the library once every day during lunch self-study.

At that time, most students went to the cafeteria to eat. Those truly reviewing were very rare, all some usually inactive model students who didn’t participate much in gossip. While Long Qi scrolled through part-time job information in the same city on her phone, she waited for him. At that time, the hall was filled with winter sunlight—peaceful and serene. Her lunch as usual was a can of yogurt and a small portion of a sandwich. She pressed her knees against the table edge.

When Jin Yiken arrived, she locked her phone screen. He took away the last bite of sandwich from her hand. Long Qi looked at him. He placed several takeout boxes of dishes on the table, also placing two cups of warm milk tea. Looking at these dishes, one could tell it was that restaurant she especially liked to eat from. She looked back at the library front desk and asked, “The auntie in charge isn’t here?”

“Not here. She’s at the cafeteria.”

Long Qi immediately put down the yogurt. Jin Yiken put chopsticks in her hands and placed a bowl of rice he had already served in front of her. The glasses-wearing guy at the next table, smelling the food aroma, glanced over here, then silently turned his head away.

While Long Qi ate, Jin Yiken flipped through a few pages of her practice book, asking what university she wanted to test into. She told the truth, “My grades now are unstable. Whether I can get into an undergraduate program is still uncertain.”

“What major do you want to study?”

“Don’t know. I haven’t planned.”

Jin Yiken sat with his legs crossed, watching her eat like this, then said, “Let me tell you something.”

“Mm?”

“This lord will tutor you.”