Aunt Zhao followed his gaze and looked down, then smiled. “Miss Gu said she’ll be staying here for a few days. I thought since she has to leave early for her internship, she probably won’t want to have breakfast at home. So I’m making some steamed buns and stuffed buns for her to take on the road.”
That got her talking. “Kids these days have it tough in school, and even tougher when they start working. Miss Gu said her commute is usually an hour long, and she often doesn’t get back to school until nearly seven. And at night, her roommates keep her awake. So she thought she’d stay here temporarily.”
Perhaps afraid the boss might be displeased, she couldn’t help defending Gu Xi. “She actually wanted to wait for you to come back, but I told her you sometimes work late. She has to get up early tomorrow, so I urged her to go upstairs and rest. A girl like her, living alone out there—it’s just not safe…”
Bai Shulin gave her a faint glance and let out an “mm.”
Aunt Zhao wanted to say more, but the man had already turned and gone upstairs.
Gu Xi hadn’t gone to sleep yet. She was sitting at her desk grading journals when she heard voices from downstairs—she knew he was back. She paused her pen, hesitating over whether to go say something. After all, it was his house.
But when it came down to actually finding him, she didn’t know how to start. In the end, she decided to pretend she hadn’t heard anything.
The next day, Gu Xi left at 6:30. When she arrived at the school office, the others hadn’t arrived yet.
Yesterday, Gu Xi hadn’t gone back with them, and some of her groupmates were envious. One complained to her that she had nearly missed the subway that morning because it was too crowded. Another came in, dropped off her bag, and went straight to the classroom to manage order. Yet another didn’t show up at all—she had gone to take her supervising teacher’s child to school.
Gu Xi knew about that classmate. The supervising teacher was divorced, and ever since the interns arrived, she had been helping with school drop-offs every day. The child was very unruly and often threw tantrums along the way.
When asked where she was staying, Gu Xi said she was staying with relatives, about a twenty-minute walk from the school.
Upon hearing that, the others were less envious—staying with relatives always came with its own awkwardness.
At noon, Gu Xi brought out the steamed buns and gave one to each person. Aunt Zhao had told her that even if she wasn’t going back to school, she should still maintain good relationships with her groupmates—that way, she’d be in the loop if anything came up.
The weather wasn’t great today either. After lunch, a drizzling rain began to fall, the gloomy, heavy atmosphere blending with the school’s mood. The school had organized monthly exams that day.
The first subject tested was Chinese. Several interns were assigned to proctor different classrooms, standing for nearly two class periods. As soon as the test papers were collected, before anyone could even take a sip of water, they were split up to start grading.
Gu Xi and another girl were assigned to grade the essays. By noon, no one had eaten yet, so they ordered takeout.
There were nine classes in the first year of middle school, totaling several hundred test papers. The rankings had to be tallied that same day, as the school needed to distribute the results the next day.
They worked until six in the evening before finishing grading. Seeing that it would be late by the time they got back to school, Gu Xi knew they still needed to go eat dinner. When roughly half the papers had been tallied, she suggested the others head back first and leave the rest to her.
The others were deeply grateful. “Xixi, thank you! I’ll bring you breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Great. Remember to get me a red bean bun.”
“Will do, will do.”
Outside, the rain was pouring heavily. Aunt Zhao had walked to the door several times to check outside. Seeing her boss sitting on the sofa watching the news, she couldn’t help but say, “It’s almost 6:30. Their school lets out at 5:30—they should have been back by now.”
“And what’s with the school, keeping them so late? Surely they didn’t forget to bring an umbrella?”
“I don’t even know where the school is, or I’d go pick her up myself.”
As she spoke, she kept sneaking glances at the man not far away. Seeing that he still wasn’t moving, she couldn’t help adding, “Maybe you should eat first, sir. Who knows how much longer we’ll be waiting?”
The man turned his head to look at her. Meeting his indifferent gaze, Aunt Zhao shrank back and slipped away in fright.
The living room fell silent once more. The man looked up at the window, his long brows pressing together slightly. Finally, he rose to his feet. “I’ll go check on her.”
By the time he reached the entryway, Aunt Zhao craned her neck to watch and called out, “It seems like the first-year office—third floor.”
Actually, there was no need for the reminder. Gu Xi and the others were just interns, and No. 7 Middle School was considered one of the better schools in the area—they wouldn’t assign interns to second- or third-year classes and risk disrupting the progress.
Bai Shulin walked to the school with an umbrella. He quickly found the office. Standing by the window, he saw at a glance the girl inside, bent over a desk, calculating scores one by one. After finishing each paper, she recorded the number on a chart.
Her long hair was casually tied back, with stray strands falling across her cheeks, partially blurring her delicate features. She seemed to feel an itch and raised her arm to brush the hair away from her face. In that slight tilt of her profile, she happened to spot the man standing outside.
Their eyes met, and her eyes instinctively widened. Bai Shulin noticed the unconscious flash of surprise and closeness in her gaze—but it vanished in an instant. As if thinking of something, her expression became more restrained and distant.
For a moment, he seemed to hear the sound of his own heart pounding, almost ready to burst forth.
Bai Shulin pushed open the door and entered. The warmth inside drove away some of the chill. The office wasn’t large, with six desks arranged in pairs facing each other. Gu Xi stood at the desk by the window, which was piled high with books and test papers.
The man was tall, and standing beside her made him impossible to ignore. Gu Xi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why are you here?”
Bai Shulin didn’t explain. He felt that at this point, any explanation would be unnecessary. He wasn’t the type to do something just because someone else suggested it—he had come because he wanted to.
He picked up a test paper, his eyes scanning the score. He quickly gave the answer: “Liu Yunchao, 107.”
He put that paper down and picked up another. “Lai Xin, 112.”
Gu Xi snapped to attention and quickly bent down to record the scores. The calculator on her phone beside her was still lit. The office was very quiet, broken only by the man’s calm, deep voice.
The two worked in seamless coordination, quickly finishing the last stack of papers.
Before leaving, Gu Xi organized the test papers, placed the score tally sheet on top, and turned off the air conditioner. The two walked out one after the other.
The spring rain fell like silk threads. Through the hazy, dim mist, the man’s tall, upright silhouette stood out. Usually at this hour, Gu Xi would walk quickly—walking alone at night always made her uneasy. But today, her heart felt much calmer.
Suddenly, Gu Xi remembered another similar scene from her past life. It was on the day of her engagement banquet with Bai Yuzhou. Unfortunately, it poured rain as they left the hotel. Bai Yuzhou said he had matters to attend to and asked where she wanted to go.
Gu Xi knew perfectly well—he was going to find Song Rumeng. The sour, bitter feeling in her heart gradually dissipated as she watched the back of the man walking ahead.
That time too, he had walked ahead with a black umbrella, and the two of them had entered the car one after the other.
It wasn’t a happy memory. Every time she thought back on it, it felt like she was comforting herself after being abandoned.
But now, looking at him again, Gu Xi realized that what she had wasn’t bad at all. The man’s muscles were smooth and defined, with strong arms and a lean, narrow waist. When the mood struck, he could spend an entire night with her—she barely had time to feel heartbroken over Bai Yuzhou.
She might have been thinking of some less-than-appropriate images, as her gaze lingered on the man’s narrow waist and long legs ahead of her. Perhaps her look was too obvious, because before she could look away, the man suddenly turned his head and glanced back. Meeting his calm eyes, Gu Xi instinctively averted her gaze out of guilt. “What’s wrong?”
The man’s dark eyes deepened slightly. Suppressing the complex emotions churning inside him, he said in a flat voice, “Come here. I’ll carry you across.”
Gu Xi stepped forward to look and saw that a section of the road ahead was flooded, the water reaching mid-calf.
She only had one pair of shoes, and she needed them for tomorrow.
The man had already closed his umbrella and half-knelt down. Gu Xi hesitated for only a moment before reaching out and climbing onto his back. The man beneath her stiffened slightly, then hooked his arms under her knees and stood up.
He stood up a little too quickly—the momentum made Gu Xi instinctively wrap her arms around his neck, her face pressing against his ear. The touch of their skin sent a shiver through both of them at once, their breath almost mingling into one. The steady warmth radiating from him seeped into her, warming her body too.
Such close contact seemed to draw them a little nearer to each other.
Gu Xi looked down at the side of his face beneath her and held her breath as she asked, “Why didn’t you drive?”