The news that Lu Zhiye had been called to the Academic Affairs Office spread like it had grown wings. As soon as class ended, it quickly spread noisily throughout the entire classroom.
No one knew who started it, but a group of students suddenly swarmed around the desks in the back row, creating a commotion.
Even the top student, who usually buried themselves in practice problems and ignored everything outside, squeezed over as well, chattering and placing bets.
“I’ll bet a bag of spicy strips! I say the School Bully won’t last three days!”
“Pfft, I’ll bet one week! With Su Nuonuo’s stubborn personality, she’ll definitely melt that iceberg!”
Amid the noisy discussions, Lu Zhiye remained seated without moving.
The pen in his fingers spun rapidly. His face showed no expression, but the tips of his ears had quietly turned a faint red. From beginning to end, he never once looked up.
The boys grew more and more excited, their voices rising by several notches.
“I’ll add another bag of chips! Still three days! Su Nuonuo even dared to storm the Academic Affairs Office this morning—taking down Lu Zhiye would be a matter of minutes!”
“You’re underestimating the School Bully’s willpower! I’ll bet two weeks!”
A boy wearing glasses adjusted his frames, looking confident as he said, “But if Su Nuonuo really succeeds, I’ll treat the whole class to soda!”
As soon as those words came out, laughter erupted all around.
Lu Zhiye’s spinning pen suddenly stopped. The pen tip dragged across the draft paper, leaving a long, heavy ink streak.
He slowly lifted his gaze. His pitch-black eyes swept coldly over the noisy boys, his expression icy, as though frozen.
The noise abruptly cut off. The boy who had been the loudest instinctively shrank his neck, awkwardly shutting his mouth, not daring to breathe too loudly.
The classroom quieted for only a few seconds before someone else couldn’t hold back and snickered behind their hand.
At that moment, Chen Che walked over holding a stack of papers. He lightly tapped on Lu Zhiye’s desk.
With a faint, half-smiling expression, he said in a voice neither too loud nor too soft—just enough for everyone nearby to hear clearly: “Brother Ye, your ears have been red all day.”
As soon as those words were spoken, the class exploded into laughter again. Cheers and whistles rose and fell.
Lu Zhiye’s face instantly darkened. He lifted his eyes and shot a cold glance over.
The surrounding noise immediately died down significantly, leaving only a few fearless ones still trying to stifle their laughter.
Feeling irritated by the commotion, Lu Zhiye grabbed his jacket and headed straight for the rooftop.
As soon as he took out a cigarette and put one between his lips, the flame of the lighter had not yet reached it when he heard soft footsteps behind him.
Turning around, he saw Su Nuonuo standing there, holding a piece of milk candy. The setting sun fell upon the soft ends of her hair, outlining them with a fluffy golden glow.
“Don’t smoke.”
Su Nuonuo walked up to him and handed him the candy. Her voice was gentle, but carried a firmness that allowed no refusal. “Smoking is bad for your health.”
Lu Zhiye removed the cigarette from his lips and held it between his fingers. His brows furrowed slightly as he refused to take the candy, his tone stiff. “Mind your own business.”
Su Nuonuo didn’t get angry. Instead, she blinked her bright almond-shaped eyes and deliberately imitated his earlier cold tone to tease him: “Shouldn’t you say, ‘What, you want to control me?’”
Lu Zhiye’s throat rolled hard as he looked at the faint starlight in her eyes. The ash on his cigarette fell lightly into the wind.
He turned his face away and said in a deeper voice, “I won’t say it.”
He would not give her the chance to keep clinging to him.
But Su Nuonuo suddenly stepped forward, lifting her head to meet his gaze.
All traces of teasing disappeared from her tone, leaving only sincerity. “Lu Zhiye, I want to control you.”
The wind swept across the rooftop, carrying fallen leaves as they spun by. The cigarette between Lu Zhiye’s fingers slipped and dropped to the ground with a soft “tap.”
He immediately stepped on it to extinguish it, then looked down at the girl in front of him. His heartbeat became chaotic, missing a beat as though it had struck his very core.
His throat rolled again uncontrollably, and his hand at his side clenched slightly without him noticing.
He stared at the candy in her palm, still wrapped in its paper, then looked back at her serious expression. His throat felt blocked, as if stuffed with cotton, and he couldn’t force out a single word.
The wind blew her loose strands of hair against her cheek. She didn’t mind at all, still holding out her hand, her eyes bright and stubborn as she waited quietly for him to take it.
“…Childish.”
After a long silence, Lu Zhiye finally squeezed out those two words through his teeth.
Yet he still awkwardly reached out, his fingertips quickly brushing past her warm palm as he snatched the candy away.
He crumpled the candy wrapper in his grip, but didn’t open it, just held it tightly in his hand.
Seeing his reddened ears, Su Nuonuo couldn’t help but smile. She stepped closer on tiptoe and spoke softly, like cotton candy: “It’s sweet. Better than smoking.”
Lu Zhiye turned his face away, his ears turning even redder. His voice was barely audible, like a mosquito’s hum: “I know.”
The wind swept across the rooftop, carrying the coolness of early spring, yet it could not disperse the faintly sweet and lingering atmosphere between them.
After school that evening, he watched as Su Nuonuo walked away laughing and chatting with Chen Che and Su Xiaoyu. Only then did he put the unopened candy into his pocket and slowly head home.
The dim streetlights of Old Alley stretched his shadow long.
He took out the candy again, staring at the wrinkled wrapper. The scene on the rooftop during the day—Su Nuonuo looking up at him and saying “I want to control you”—clearly surfaced in his mind once more.
His fingers absentmindedly rubbed the ring on his left thumb.
The ring resembled a pull-tab from a soda can. Since he could remember, it had never left his hand. As his fingers grew thicker with age, the ring had been replaced several times.
When he was a child, it had been a ring made from an aluminum pull-tab taken off a soda can. By middle school, when his fingers no longer fit it, he had specially gone to a jewelry store to have it remade into a silver ring.
His throat rolled again. He carefully tucked the candy beneath his pillow, then stared at the ring for a long while, his eyes filled with an indescribable emotion.
That night, Lu Zhiye’s sleep was shallow. His dreams were filled with fragmented memories from his childhood.
A little girl with twin pigtails stood on tiptoe, prying a pull-tab off a soda can and slipping it onto his finger. In a soft but fierce voice, she ordered, “This is a gift from me! You must wear it for your whole life and never take it off!”
Back then, he had found the little girl noisy, frowning as he tried to take it off, only for the girl to grab his wrist tightly. Her eyes were red as she cried, “No taking it off! If you take it off, you’re a bad dog! From now on, I’m your little master—you have to listen to me!”
The soft voice in the dream gradually overlapped with the daytime words on the rooftop—“I want to control you”—intertwining gently and sinking into the softest part of his heart.
Lu Zhiye suddenly opened his eyes. Moonlight from outside the window fell precisely on his ring finger, and the silver ring emitted a faint, gentle glow.