“Surprise~”
Through the curtain of rain, Meng Shuyin, dressed in a one-piece pajama set, waved at Lin Shuxue while holding up an umbrella. She jogged over to the front of the convenience store and stuffed another folding umbrella she was holding into Lin Shuxue’s arms.
Beaming with high spirits, her expression was written all over with pride. “Are you surprised? Is it unexpected? I guessed you didn’t bring an umbrella, so this Lady Meng came to deliver charcoal in the snow!”
Lin Shuxue froze at first, a warm current flowing through her heart. “How did you know I was here?”
Meng Shuyin tilted her chin up. “You’re the only one in the entire dorm who’s willing to run all the way to this convenience store. I got it on my very first guess.”
Lin Shuxue curved her eyes, smiling gently. “Thank you.”
A beautiful person looked even more striking when smiling; the down-turned outer corners of Lin Shuxue’s eyes tilted up slightly, and her eyes curved into crescents, making her look as if an exquisitely crafted porcelain doll had suddenly come to life.
Meng Shuyin stared blankly for a second before snapping out of it, smiling playfully as she linked arms with her. “You’re welcome, you can just promise your hand in marriage to me.”
Having said that, she asked curiously, “Why didn’t you wait inside instead of standing outside the shop? I saw there are chairs to sit on in there.”
Hearing this, Lin Shuxue froze imperceptibly, then spoke in a gentle voice. “It’s a bit stuffy inside. I wanted to come out and get some fresh air.”
Meng Shuyin thought it made sense after listening. “True, rainy days do get stuffy easily. Then come inside with me for a bit, I happen to want to buy some oden!”
Upon hearing the sound of the door being pushed open, Jiang Zong quietly shifted his position to the innermost part of the convenience store.
He couldn’t figure out why he was hiding from Lin Shuxue. His chaotic thoughts hadn’t been sorted out yet, so he instinctively chose to distance himself from the source that caused him to lose control.
The two girls left while chatting and laughing, and a WeChat message from his senior sister popped up on Jiang Zong’s phone: [I’ve arrived, where are you?]
He lowered his head and replied: [Coming out right now.]
His senior sister had likewise just pulled an all-nighter in the lab. The moment she saw Jiang Zong, she let out a massive, unreserved yawn and threw the two umbrellas in her hands into his arms without letting him argue. “Here, my mission is complete. Go take over my shift.”
She stretched, looking around left and right. Confused, she asked, “Didn’t you say there was another person? Where are they?”
Jiang Zong’s reaction was somewhat delayed. Beneath the shadow of the umbrella, his dark pupils made it difficult to discern his expression, and his tone was flat. “She left first.”
Sensing a trace of gossip from his unusual tone, his senior sister poked her head forward to press further, “She ditched you and left first?”
Jiang Zong glanced at her, tilting his jaw up, his throat feeling a bit dry. “We weren’t heading the same way, so she left. It’s a perfectly normal thing.”
“Come off it, drop the sour talk,” his senior sister rolled her eyes at him. “You drove the little girl away in anger, didn’t you?”
Jiang Zong was choked up by her words.
Seeing his expression, his senior sister knew she had guessed correctly. She independently offered a piece of advice: “It’s fine, young girls are soft-hearted. Just apologize nicely and coax her a bit.” She sized up his expression as she spoke. Seeing that he had no intention of stopping her, she continued, “Still, it looks like that handsome face of yours isn’t completely invincible after all. A little girl actually managed to get angry at you?”
These words were true. Even after being in the same laboratory with him for so long, she would still occasionally be struck by Jiang Zong’s face. Granted, those slight romantic thoughts of youth had been completely ground away through the cumulative days and months of spending time together, but in the past, she had always seen a whole basket of young girls chasing after him. It was rare to see him suffer a setback because of someone else.
She couldn’t help but gloat over his misfortune again.
Unwilling to let her act so arrogant, Jiang Zong half-lidded his eyes, his thin lips parting as he adopted his usual lazy demeanor, speaking unhurriedly. “Did I say it was a girl?”
His senior sister rolled her eyes in her heart, secretly thinking that she hadn’t seen him object earlier either. Got poked right in your sore spot so now you’re acting up, huh. An absolute poser.
A person walking through the curtain of rain while holding an umbrella couldn’t read minds, so he didn’t know his senior sister’s inner thoughts that had pierced through everything. He pondered over the advice to “give in and apologize.”
After a long while, he dropped it.
Forget it. The imagery shifted before Jiang Zong’s eyes, flashing to Lin Shuxue’s clear, clean pupils. She ought to be an unattainable white moonlight in someone else’s heart. How could a person with a notorious reputation like him be fit to defile her?
“What kind of drink is that bottle in your hand?”
As soon as they returned to the dorm, Meng Shuyin was nibbling on her hot oden, her eyes drifting over to Lin Shuxue.
“This?” Lin Shuxue raised the apple soda in her hand.
“Mm-hmm!” Meng Shuyin had food in her mouth, nodding indistinctly as she swallowed a bite of the fish cake she had bitten into. “I’ve been holding it in the whole way back. The green color on the outer packaging is so refreshing!”
Lin Shuxue held it out in front of her. “Apple soda.”
“Is it good?”
Lin Shuxue laughed helplessly. “Why don’t you try some?”
Meng Shuyin’s eyes lit up, and she fished out her own water cup. “I’ll just drink a tiny cup lid’s worth to taste it,” she muttered. “Do you run all that way to that convenience store every single time just to buy this?”
Lin Shuxue nodded.
Meng Shuyin carefully took a sip.
“How is it?”
“Hmm…” Meng Shuyin put on a show of evaluating it. “The initial taste is the crisp fragrance of apple, and the aftertaste is…” Unable to make anything else up, Meng Shuyin stuck her tongue out and blinked. “I’ll still choose green apple-flavored Mirinda!”
Lin Shuxue curved her eyes. Apple soda was heavy on carbonation and low on sweetness; most of her previous friends weren’t used to drinking it either, so it was normal for Meng Shuyin to say that.
Faint carbonated bubbles burst inside her oral cavity, followed by the unique tart, sweet fragrance of apple permeating her heart. The fine rain drifted sideways, and a few strands of rain dripped down the gap of the umbrella onto Lin Shuxue’s collar. Wetted by the rain, the faint scent of mint and tobacco turned heavy and oppressive, clinging to her lapel.
Jiang Zong’s final sentence, “Are we even that close?” echoed in her ears once more. Through the dissipating smoke, she had seen his cold, stern eyes—those peach blossom eyes with slightly upturned corners that were sharp and piercing.
Lin Shuxue felt that at that moment, the lines on Jiang Zong’s body had been shattered and reorganized, piecing together into the notorious figure from the rumors.
Fruit fragrance spilled from the unsealed mouth of the apple soda bottle. Meng Shuyin curled up on her bed wearing headphones to watch a TV drama, and the surroundings fell into utter silence. Only the sound of the rain pattered continuously, forcing and dragging Lin Shuxue into the past without allowing any argument.
Back then, Yijiang was a small county town that hadn’t really been developed yet, and the streetlights threw out dim lines of light. The ground, which had just been rained on, was slick and wet, and a heavy, oppressive odor blanketed the air.
Underneath the pitch-black night sky where the path ahead couldn’t be seen clearly, Lin Shuxue stumbled and bolted forward. She couldn’t remember how long she had been running. The staggered sounds of pursuit behind her hadn’t stopped, and she didn’t dare to halt. The wound on her arm throbbed with a dull ache, and she had no choice but to fiercely force back her tears. If she let tears blur her vision, it would be even harder to see her direction clearly.
The shops along the surrounding streets were all locked and closed for the night; she couldn’t find a single place to take shelter. The physical stamina of a ten-year-old girl was obviously far inferior to that of an adult man. Even if this adult man was in a heavily intoxicated state, he could still catch up with ease.
Listening to the footsteps drawing closer and closer behind her, Lin Shuxue grew anxious. Catching her foot carelessly on a small pebble, she tripped and fell heavily to the ground.
The curses the man kept muttering in his mouth became clearer and clearer.
“Money-losing piece of trash.” “You still dare to run?” “I’m your old man!” “It’s only right and proper for your old man to beat you!”
Lin Shuxue wanted to stand up again, but the rough concrete road had scraped her knees raw. She swayed and walked two steps, only to collapse once more. Before falling, she caught sight of the half-moon and the scattered stars in the deep blue night sky, closing her eyes powerlessly.
Forget it, she thought. It’s just getting a beating. I’ll just hide the wounds for a few days so Mom won’t find out.
The footsteps gradually closed in. She closed both eyes, resigning herself to her fate.
It was right at this moment that Jiang Zong appeared.
She didn’t know what had happened. When she opened her eyes again, the anticipated punches and kicks hadn’t descended. Instead, a young boy, clutching his injured forehead, stood blocking the space in front of her.
Subsequently, a gentle-looking woman whose appearance shared a few similarities with the young boy ran over in a rush, throwing her arms around him. Her tone was elegant and gentle, yet she spoke sharply and severely: “Committing an affray in the middle of the street, I have already called the police.”
Though the two of them didn’t state it explicitly, they both firmly shielded Lin Shuxue behind their backs.
Lin Qixuan had no brains and was a coward; he only dared to throw tantrums and rage with alcohol at home, a textbook definition of a domestic tyrant. The moment he encountered an outsider, his momentum automatically weakened. Not daring to take any further action, he indistinctly muttered some foul words in his mouth.
The police sirens wailed as they approached upon hearing the news. Lin Shuxue saw beads of blood dripping from the corner of the young boy’s forehead down his cheek. The police asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital to get it treated first.
Clutching his head, he shook it, speaking with clear and round pronunciation: “I’m fine. Police uncles, go catch the bad guy first!”
That was Lin Shuxue’s very first impression of Jiang Zong and his mother.
Later on, Lin Shuxue pieced together the course of events from her mother’s retelling and the fragments of words at the police station.
Lin Qixuan had pulled out a baseball bat—a silver one. The night was dark and dim, and Jiang Zong hadn’t seen it clearly, assuming it was a knife. In a moment of desperation, he had rushed straight over to knock the man aside. He failed to brake in time himself and wiped out. His brow bone slammed into a corner of the broken stones of an old, neglected flower bed, which was why it bled.
The young Jiang Zong bared his teeth and grimaced from the pain while being disinfected and bandaged. Jiang’s mother knit her brows tightly, scolding him even as her heart ached for him. “It’s good that it hurts! Let’s see if you still dare to be so reckless in the future!”
Lin Shuxue stood at the doorway of the hospital room which was filled with the smell of disinfectant, silently watching the two of them. She felt she ought to go up and offer her thanks, but an emotional system that had been deprived for too long had already stripped away her ability to speak. She remained frozen in place for a long while before lowering her eyes.
A packaging bag was stuffed into her hand. It was a piece of candy.
“My dream is to be a people’s policeman who eradicates violence, peaceably addresses evil, and promotes the good! My mom actually praised me secretly just now, you know~”
The young Jiang Zong’s head was wrapped in gauze, and his eyes were dark and bright, as if they were emitting light. It turned out he thought Lin Shuxue’s silence was due to self-blame.
“Than…” Lin Shuxue muttered under her breath, “Thank you.”
“So you’re not a mute after all!” the young Jiang Zong exclaimed in pleasant surprise.
The very next second, the uninjured side of his head took a swat from Jiang’s mother. “You just have too many words!”
The young Jiang Zong wrinkled his small face and grumbled, “Who doesn’t even make a sound when they cry! Then I definitely would have thought…” Before he could finish speaking, he took another swat. He resentfully shut his mouth.
Terrified that he might have poked at Lin Shuxue’s sore spot, he carefully glanced sideways to watch her reaction.
Lin Shuxue let out her very first sincere and genuine smile in a long, long time. She lowered her head and popped the candy into her mouth, a continuous blend of green apple fragrance instantly saturating her lips and teeth.
It was sourer than candy of other flavors. But it was sweeter than every single day she had lived through in the past.