Chu Yanyan froze.
An octopus?
What octopus?
She looked down at the pen in her hand. The end of the barrel was an open ballpoint refill socket, and the ink cap had fallen off at some point.
And she had just been sucking on the exposed refill the whole time.
She stuck out her tongue and licked her lips. Bitter.
She really had sucked ink into her mouth.
“Ah!”
Chu Yanyan shrieked, shot up from her chair, clapped a hand over her mouth, and bolted out of the study, clattering into the bathroom.
In the mirror, her mouth was black as if she’d been poisoned.
The ring of her lips was smeared with ink stains, and there were streaks of black across her teeth.
Her tongue, when she stuck it out, was even more horrifying. She looked like a witch who ate children.
Chu Yanyan stared at herself in the mirror, wishing she could shove her head into the toilet and flush it away.
How could a person be this embarrassing?
She really was an idiot.
An IQ on par with an adult border collie.
No, not even that smart.
At least a border collie wouldn’t suck ink into its mouth.
She twisted open the faucet, cupped water in her hands, and rinsed her mouth frantically, over and over.
The water came out black. She rinsed again—still black.
After several minutes of this back-and-forth, her mouth finally returned to a roughly normal color.
When she came out of the bathroom, Chu Yanyan kept her head down, wishing she could bury her face in her collar.
She walked back into the study and sat down in her chair, not daring to look at him.
Bai Zhiyuan had already placed a new pen at her hand.
His expression had returned to calm, as if the person who had laughed out loud just now hadn’t been him.
But there still seemed to be a trace of an unfinished curve at the corner of his mouth.
She didn’t dare look up at all.
Bai Zhiyuan opened the textbook and continued explaining the problems.
His voice was low and steady, every concept explained with perfect clarity.
Chu Yanyan listened obediently, not daring to let her mind wander this time.
At the end, Bai Zhiyuan wrote a problem on the paper and pushed it toward her.
“Solve this, and today’s lesson is over.”
Chu Yanyan looked at the problem—a page full of formulas and symbols that she only half understood.
She bit her lip, then suddenly raised her head, a sly glint in her eyes.
“If I solve this, will you agree to one request from me?”
Bai Zhiyuan’s hand paused.
He looked at her, his expression complicated, an emotion she couldn’t read flashing through his eyes.
What was she about to say?
Did she want to go back to Bai Xu’s place?
The thought pierced him like a fine needle, quick and sharp.
He was silent for a moment, but in the end he nodded. “Name it.”
Chu Yanyan took a deep breath, her eyes bright, and was just about to speak. “Tomorrow’s the weekend, and I want to—”
“Sir.”
There were three soft knocks on the study door.
A servant’s voice came from outside, respectful and restrained. “Miss Hua is here to visit.”
He lowered his eyes and closed the book in front of him, his voice returning to flat.
“Have her wait in the living room.”
“Yes.”
Footsteps receded.
The words on the tip of Chu Yanyan’s tongue were swallowed back. Her mouth hung slightly open as she stared blankly at Bai Zhiyuan.
He rose to his feet, his voice heavy. “We’ll stop here for today.”
He walked out of the study, his back straight and tall.
Chu Yanyan sat in the chair, still holding that pen, watching the study door slowly close on its own with a soft click.
Before long.
A woman’s laughter drifted in from the direction of the living room, crisp and composed.
Soft. Pleasant to hear.
Chu Yanyan looked down at the problem in front of her that she hadn’t even started, then looked up at the closed door.
Miss Hua.
Who’s that?
Chu Yanyan had been sitting in the study for half a minute, feeling like she was sitting on pins and needles.
She couldn’t hold back.
She quietly stood up and cracked the study door open.
Slipping out, she hunched over, hugging the corridor wall, inching her way to the stairwell.
The stairwell lights were off, dim and shadowy.
She tucked herself into the corner and peered down through the gaps in the railing.
The crystal chandelier in the living room was lit, and two people stood in its glow.
Bai Zhiyuan had his back to the stairs, his expression unreadable.
Opposite him stood a woman whose face Chu Yanyan could see perfectly from her angle.
Her skin was luminously fair, her coffee-brown hair falling in loose curls over her shoulders. She wore a sharply tailored beige dress, a small bag dangling from her wrist. Standing there, she looked like she’d stepped straight out of a magazine.
When she smiled, it was gentle and gracious, and she carried the refined air of someone raised in a scholarly family.
Intellectual.
Clearly a high-brow intellectual at that.
Chu Yanyan’s gaze stayed glued to the woman, and an unexpected sourness welled up inside her.
She looked down at herself.
Still in the same clothes, her shirttail stuffed messily into her waistband, ink smudges on her cuffs from working on problems earlier.
Suddenly her haunted-house plan felt a little ridiculous.
People like the two of them—that was what “well-matched” looked like.
Hua Shuling sat down on the sofa and took out an elegantly wrapped gift box from her bag, presenting it with both hands and a perfectly measured smile.
“Mr. Bai, an important guest is coming to my home tomorrow—the founder of Flamingo Resort.”
She looked at him with soft eyes. “He admires you greatly and would like to discuss a partnership with you.”
Bai Zhiyuan didn’t respond right away.
He stood beside the sofa, one hand in his trouser pocket, eyes lowered to the gift box, making no move to take it.
A few seconds of silence.
Seeing no reaction from him, Hua Shuling added, “I know you’ve been trying to land this project for a long time. This happens to be an opportunity.”
He nodded, his voice steady. “All right. Send me the time and location.”
“Right away.”
When Hua Shuling looked at Bai Zhiyuan, her eyes were full of little stars.
Chu Yanyan saw it all, crystal clear.
This Miss Hua was very interested in him.
Outstanding men like him always had full schedules.
Hua Shuling said a few more things, but Chu Yanyan didn’t catch them—and didn’t want to.
She shrank back, tiptoed out of the stairwell, and made her way back along the corridor.
Back in the study, she sat down in her chair.
The unsolved problem still lay spread out on the desk.
Bai Zhiyuan’s seat was empty, the desk lamp casting a lonely glow over half the tabletop.
Chu Yanyan picked up her pen and stared at the problem.
She lowered her head and began working through it on scratch paper.
The pen tip scratched steadily across the page, her expression focused—a completely different person from the fool who’d been chewing on her pen and sucking up ink earlier.
Faint voices and Hua Shuling’s laughter drifted in occasionally from the living room, soft as wind chimes in a breeze.
Chu Yanyan poked at her scratch paper with her pen tip, pushing those sounds out of her head.
Solve the problem first.
Don’t think about anything else.
An hour later.
The sound of a car engine came from the estate’s entrance.
Bai Zhiyuan saw Hua Shuling off and walked back to the study.
He pushed the door open. The desk lamp was still on, but the chair was empty—the person already gone.
Her textbook and scratch paper lay spread on the desk, the pen set aside, and beneath the problem, the page was densely filled with her calculations.
He walked over, picked up the paper, and lowered his head to check it.
Every step was written out clearly, the derivation complete, with the final answer at the bottom, circled.
All correct.
Bai Zhiyuan looked at that circle, the corner of his mouth curving up slightly as he let out a soft laugh.
This little head of hers was quite clever.
He set the paper back on the desk, his fingers lingering on its edge for a moment.
Suddenly he remembered what she’d said in the study tonight.
What did she want to do tomorrow?
Bai Zhiyuan turned and walked out of the study, following the corridor to the door of Chu Yanyan’s room.
A thin line of light showed beneath the door, but it was dim, as if the bedside lamp were turned to its lowest setting.
He raised his hand, and just as his knuckles were about to touch the door, he stopped.
He glanced at his watch—it was almost eleven.
Better to wait until tomorrow.
He withdrew his hand, stood at the door for two seconds, then turned and left.