Lin Shuang used to call him Teacher Zhou, then switched to calling him Zhou Zheng—now it had shifted back to Teacher Zhou.
Her voice sweet and broken.
Zhou Zheng refused to listen, refusing all the more to let her keep saying such strange things, doing everything he could to seal her lips.
She had a bit of a mischievous streak sometimes—loved stirring the pot, refused to simply comply, and wanted more than anything to test where his limits lay. She touched his burning-hot ears, her eyes swimming with spring-like color.
“I really love Teacher Zhou’s punishment… the ruler… mmph…”
Professional ethics were sacred to him—he was always serious and proper—yet she insisted on muddying the waters. Zhou Zheng lost his composure entirely, his eyes going red, his temples throbbing, and in the end a gentle, gradual rain turned into a raging wildfire.
He couldn’t keep her cherry lips sealed; she always found some way for alarming words to slip out. Zhou Zheng freed one hand to cover her mouth, and released from his restraint, she slid like a beautiful serpent—no fangs but plenty of sinuous cunning—coiling around him again and again until he could barely breathe, drawing him taut like a bow about to snap, until at the very last moment the string released and the arrow flew, striking deep, drawing blood.
After being proper for so many days, it turned out she’d just been storing it all up, saving it to tease him with, to watch him lose control in shame, and to turn his daytime propriety completely upside down.
Given Zhou Zheng’s personality—steady, calm—he should have been the type for a slow-burn romance, an orderly life, gentle in bed and considerate out of it. Where had this strange pace come from, this jumping, wild, utterly uncontrollable life and self?
Zhou Zheng wrapped her and the soiled sheets together, cocooning her like a silkworm, and carried her to the chair to wait while he changed the sheets. When he turned back around, she was lying on the desk, quietly flipping through his book page by page—all those formulas and diagrams she couldn’t understand—yet reading with great concentration. On the desk sat the A4 sheets of practice problems he’d worked; she was gripping a ballpoint pen and doodling: “An old man named Ding owes me two eggs. I said return them in three days, he said four days…”
“Back when I was in school, any blank space in my class notes—I’d fill it with stickers and doodles, made them prettier than the class bulletin board,” Lin Shuang said, grinning.
He looked at his solved problem sheets, now transformed into childlike scribbles—and yet the doodles were oddly good-looking. Something softened in his chest; he ruffled her messy hair and carried her to bed to sleep. She rested her head on his shoulder, asking slyly, “Do you like it?”
Zhou Zheng kept a straight face: “No, I don’t. Don’t do that again.”
Lin Shuang burst into giggles, looking thoroughly pleased with herself: “Hey, I’ve found someone’s weak spot.”
Zhou Zheng blushed, his mind gone fuzzy, mortification off the charts—he didn’t even have the courage to think back on it.
This round had gone on so long that Lin Shuang was already exhausted, too lazy to go back to her own room. She yawned in his arms and settled into position to sleep.
Without makeup, though her skin was still fair and lips still red, lashes long and brows dark, the coloring wasn’t as vivid, and her features looked gentler somehow—clean and simple.
Zhou Zheng touched her cheek and pulled her into his embrace.
This round of dating was a little different from before—more like living out ordinary, quiet days.
This semester, Zhou Zheng had seventeen class periods across six days a week, plus three and a half evening study sessions—not as busy as before.
On evening study days, Zhou Zheng basically left early and came home late, spending the whole day at school. Besides regular teaching, he also had the math competition class and his own online teaching training—genuinely not much free time.
On days without evening study, there was more slack in his schedule. Lin Shuang would leave the milk tea shop to Nana and Kevin and wait for him to finish up at school so they could go home together.
The two of them rarely went out to dinner anymore, no longer keen on restaurants outside—partly because Beiquan was such a small place with limited options for eating, drinking, and entertainment, and Lin Shuang had already grown tired of the same handful of restaurants and that whole dating routine; and partly because the two of them preferred spending more time at home now.
When buying the apartment, Zhou Zheng had picked the largest unit within his means. After paying the down payment, he had almost nothing left, though it was a completed unit, and the transfer had gone through and keys handed over the previous month. Fortunately the teacher’s housing fund subsidy was enough that the mortgage payments weren’t a strain—renovation money he’d just earn gradually.
Over the three months of summer break he’d picked up some freelance work through Daxun, earning a bit over thirty thousand, but between that and getting Lin Shuang back, his saving pace had slowed again. After paying Lin Shuang the rent, he put whatever money he had left into their joint account.
Financial matters were a real issue Zhou Zheng couldn’t avoid, but precisely because he had so little, he felt he ought to be all the more generous with what he gave.
The two of them had opened a joint account, mainly for handling daily expenses—clear amounts, transparent statements. Lin Shuang knew he didn’t have much money on hand, knew this was probably close to his entire savings.
Ever since that day Zhou Zheng had lightly commented on her extravagance, she’d consciously cut back on how often she shopped—buying things had mostly been a form of leisure and release for her, and there was no need now to keep pouring energy into shopping urges.
After the two of them got home, they’d go together to the supermarket at Fountain Plaza to buy groceries and make dinner. With Zhou Zheng around, Lin Shuang’s quality of life had gone up—at the very least, all three meals a day were hearty, and she was spared from doing any housework at all.
After buying groceries, Lin Shuang stopped by Miao Cai’s shop for a bit, to say hello.
Seeing the two of them, Miao Cai couldn’t help but laugh. This outcome wasn’t surprising—there’d been signs of it back when Lin Shuang broke her arm; a rekindled romance had been nine parts certain.
“Congratulations to you two—harmonious society achieved.”
Zhou Zheng looked a bit lost, but Lin Shuang knew the reference and smiled brightly.
Seeing the lush greens poking out of the shopping bags, Miao Cai exclaimed, “Heading home to cook?”
“Teacher Zhou has time to make dinner today,” Lin Shuang said, inviting her, “Want to come over for dinner later?”
“Won’t intrude on you two lovebirds,” Miao Cai said, not wanting to play third wheel, though she extended an invitation of her own. “Some other day—we should all get together for a meal.”
“Sure.” Both being near Fountain Plaza, arranging a meal was easy enough.
The two of them walked home hand in hand; Miao Cai watched their backs and shook her head with a smile.
It wasn’t dark yet. A clay pot simmered a soybean-and-pork-trotter soup, the kitchen filled with the fragrance of meat broth.
The other stir-fry ingredients had already been sliced and plated, just waiting for Lin Shuang to get hungry and start cooking. He set up his laptop by the kitchen doorway, keeping an eye on the pot on the stove while getting some work done.
Lin Shuang curled up on the lazy sofa watching an idol drama; during a commercial break she came out for some fruit, saw Zhou Zheng’s laptop screen, and asked him, “Picked up another freelance gig?”
“I have free time this year, so I’ve been taking them steadily.”
That was part of the reason for not being a homeroom teacher too—he could carve out time during the day for other things, at least not needing to stay up half the night on his laptop crunching data.
“Is it hard?” Lin Shuang asked, looking at the dense text on his screen.
“Not really.”
Simple data analysis, one case a week, one or two thousand yuan of income—didn’t take much effort or focus, well-suited to these scattered pockets of time keeping watch by the kitchen.
He really was working hard at life, carrying all the responsibilities of family and living squarely on his own shoulders.
Lin Shuang popped a grape into his mouth and kissed his cheek.
Occasionally she also wanted to do something good for him, something genuine.
Setting aside the exchange of bodies, the mutual investment of time and shared material things—she thought about it for a while and couldn’t come up with a good way to treat him well, then had a flash of inspiration and patted his shoulder: “Want to come to the beauty salon with me? I’ll treat you to some pampering.”
Zhou Zheng looked up from his laptop, his expression subtle.
Was she already sick of him not taking care of his appearance?
“The salon just launched a program for male customers—it’s called the Brain-Calming, Energy-Restoring Wellness Spa, or something like that. Perfect for someone like you who overworks their brain. If you keep using your brain without any maintenance like this, you’re going to end up bald and it’ll look terrible.”
He scratched his own head, expression a bit odd: “My family doesn’t go bald—decent genetics on that front.”
Lin Shuang’s fingers sank into his hair too, thick strands, coarse and black; sweaty, it looked especially sexy. She gave it a rub: “Really not going bald? That’s great, then.”
She couldn’t imagine herself walking arm in arm with a bald old man.
Though that would presumably be a scenario many years down the line.