The subconscious physical reflex could not lie. Before Lin Shuxue could even think, she instinctively tilted her head to the side.
She could feel Jiang Zong’s soft lips lightly brushing past the stray strands of hair by her cheek.
A body caught right between boyhood and manhood radiated a faint scent of orange blossoms, rubbing off on the tips of her hair.
Jiang Zong did not get angry at her evasion. He tilted his head up slightly, the line from his jaw to his Adam’s apple stretching into a beautiful silhouette, as his tongue lightly nudged the inside of his cheek.
“Didn’t you say you liked me? Why did you dodge?”
As he spoke, his fingertips unconsciously twirled that same lock of stray hair he had just kissed. His voice carried a low, deep timbre, sounding just like a lover’s whisper.
“It’s… it’s too fast.” Flustered, Lin Shuxue sat up straight from his embrace and quietly shifted half a step backward to distance herself.
Hiding the guilt in her eyes, she gazed at him with her clear, cool eyes.
Jiang Zong’s eyebrows arched imperceptibly, and he let out a low chuckle.
“I thought you would be more than eager.”
An amused, mocking look lingered in the corners of his eyes, waiting to see how Lin Shuxue would explain away her instinctive reaction.
“It’s too intimate…” Lin Shuxue explained in a soft, hushed voice.
Jiang Zong lowered his eyelashes and spoke in a casual, nonchalant manner, “You call this intimate?”
He sized up Lin Shuxue’s entire body with a blunt, explicit gaze. Those peach-blossom eyes, with their slightly upturned outer corners, seemed written all over with complete indifference.
Lin Shuxue almost forgot what kind of reputation this man had.
She fell silent for a long moment before responding gloomily, “But you have a girlfriend.”
Jiang Zong raised an eyebrow. “Who said so?”
Lin Shuxue replied, “The confession wall.”
The corners of Jiang Zong’s mouth twitched. He instinctively licked the root of his teeth with the tip of his tongue, his eyes shimmering like rippling water.
“Knowing I have a girlfriend, yet you still dare to say you like me?”
Seeing that he didn’t deny it, Lin Shuxue blinked slowly and averted her gaze from him.
“Just now, you were the one who asked.”
“Now, I won’t be a third party.”
After saying that, she made a move to get up.
Jiang Zong’s eyes darkened. He grabbed her by the wrist, yanked her back into his arms, and coaxed her from behind, his voice pressing against her earlobe.
“Isn’t it more thrilling this way?”
Lin Shuxue frowned. She had initially thought Jiang Zong just played around a lot, but she hadn’t expected him to be so utterly unscrupulous and devoid of boundaries.
She struggled desperately to break free from his embrace.
Yet, she heard him let out a faint, low laugh.
“How are you so easily fooled?”
Lin Shuxue felt the restraint on her body suddenly loosen. She snapped her head back to look.
Jiang Zong had lazily slumped back against his side of the piano legs, his head resting against the wall.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Lin Shuxue’s departing figure froze.
“I’ve only met her once at the school gate. She came to pick up some things from Pei Tianyang.”
Jiang Zong’s tone was casual and indifferent as he stared at her at his own leisurely pace.
The tension in Lin Shuxue’s expression eased.
The corners of Jiang Zong’s lips curved upward. “You can rest assured.”
Lin Shuxue asked, “Rest assured about what?”
Jiang Zong replied, “Rest assured and like me.”
Lin Shuxue was choked up by his words. Belatedly, she remembered her current identity as his “pursuer,” realizing she could find no further excuse to leave.
Besides, she didn’t feel safe leaving him alone.
Although Jiang Zong had shed that crazy, desolate melancholy from moments ago, who knew if this was just another layer of disguise?
Seeing her stop in her tracks, Jiang Zong lowered his eyes with a low chuckle, straightened up, and sat on the piano bench.
“What do you want to hear?”
Lin Shuxue didn’t speak.
Her knowledge in the field of music was profoundly lacking; a grand instrument like the piano was entirely foreign to her.
Jiang Zong tilted his head, his gaze inquiring.
“Two Tigers,” Lin Shuxue answered honestly and perfunctorily.
Jiang Zong burst out laughing.
“Your taste is quite childish.”
He sat up straight, his wrists dropping. Unexpectedly, he began to play the prelude to Two Tigers with absolute seriousness.
This noble piano had probably never suffered such an insult in its entire life. Cooperating with every step Jiang Zong took on the pedals, a low, deep rumble echoed, as if it were protesting.
Lin Shuxue quietly watched Jiang Zong’s composed features and the focus in his eyes, before speaking softly.
“Jiang Zong. Why did you choose this major?”
The piano music gradually faded to a halt. For a rare moment, he fell silent, his eyelids drooping.
Half of the sunlight cascaded across his face, creating a sharp boundary between light and shadow. The emotions in his eyes were inherently concealed within the shadows cast by the sunlight, making them impossible to discern.
His voice remained exactly the same as usual.
“Probably because my dream since childhood was to become an engineer.”
From the lower half of his face exposed to the bright light, Lin Shuxue saw the corners of his mouth split into a grin—wild, stubborn, and unruly.
Liar. She kept these words in her heart, not uttering a sound.
She looked at Jiang Zong’s cynical features; within those eyes that permanently carried a blurred smile, there brewed a deep pool of un-dissolvable loneliness.
Noticing Lin Shuxue’s silence, he raised an eyebrow. “What’s with that expression? You don’t believe me?”
Lin Shuxue spoke hesitantly, “No. I just think…”
“Your childhood dream was quite pragmatic.”
Jiang Zong burst into a bright smile. It felt as though half of the sunlight melted onto his face—unrestrained and cheerful.
He looked down to check the time.
“What should we do? It looks like we won’t make it to the lecture now.”
His tone carried a faint hint of regret on Lin Shuxue’s behalf, yet the sly glint drifting through the depths of his eyes showed absolutely zero sincerity.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lin Shuxue said softly. “I can just participate in other activities later to make up for the academic credits.”
“Then, do you want to come with me?”
His invitation came abruptly, yet it felt as if it were expected.
Unbeknownst to them, the piano room door had been blown open a crack by the wind. A draft howled through, causing the hem of his shirt to billow. With his back to the sun, the touch of debauchery naturally carried by his slightly upturned eyes reflected a warm gentleness against the backlight.
Lin Shuxue stared straight at him, her chest feeling as though ten thousand birds were about to fly out.
She didn’t speak, taking it as a silent agreement.
It wasn’t until she followed him into the car that Jiang Zong spoke with a faint smile.
“Just following me like this, aren’t you afraid I’ll kidnap you and sell you off?”
During the ride, Lin Shuxue took some time to reply to messages from both Meng Shuyin and Pei Tianyang.
First, she told Meng Shuyin that something urgent had come up on her end and she wouldn’t be able to make it to the lecture. Then, she informed Pei Tianyang that the person had been found, telling him not to worry.
On Pei Tianyang’s end, he was naturally filled with endless gratitude and tactfully refrained from asking for any further details.
Her mind was packed with too many things, to the extent that when Jiang Zong spoke to her, her brain failed to resume full operation immediately.
She stared at the person in front of her with his blurred, smiling eyes, pondering how this man flirted with so many girls, effortlessly causing the campus confession wall to stack up massive threads of popularity.
No matter how she looked at it, selling him would yield a much higher price than selling herself, right?
Thinking this way, Lin Shuxue’s mouth didn’t filter her thoughts, and she mumbled her internal monologue out loud.
Hearing the girl in the back seat utter such a listless remark, Jiang Zong let out a sharp laugh from sheer amusement.
Without a shred of courtesy, he turned his torso around and aggressively scanned his eyes over her entire body, biting his jaw as his tongue pressed against his lower teeth.
“Yeah, thin arms and thin legs. You really aren’t worth much.”
He straightened his body and spoke in an eerie, teasing tone, “Let’s raise you a bit longer.”
The unspoken implication vividly spelled out “settling accounts when the time is ripe.”
The driver in the front seat looked straight ahead, keeping his mouth shut and remaining absolutely silent.
Leaving Lin Shuxue to quietly let her earlobes flush red.
She carefully peeped at Jiang Zong’s condition out of the corner of her eye.
Actually, there was another reason why she decided to get in the car.
Although his earlier desolation and hostility had receded, a heavy, intense anxiety still brewed within him. She didn’t know where this anxiety stemmed from.
Moreover, Lin Shuxue had noticed a small quirk of Jiang Zong’s.
The more flustered or anxious he was internally, the more he liked to talk nonsense.
It was as if he used an absurd, untamed facade as a natural shield to conceal the instability deep in his heart.
The car drove over a very long and steep slope. The pedestrians on the roadside grew scarcer. Lin Shuxue took note of the changing surroundings, inevitably growing curious about what kind of place Jiang Zong intended to take her to.
The vehicle finally pulled up in front of a wild, overgrown fence.
Lin Shuxue raised her brows and straightened up slightly.
Familiar with the place, Jiang Zong directed the driver to swipe the card for access. The peeling barrier squeaked and lifted a corner.
The car drove smoothly into a tunnel ahead. Lin Shuxue discovered that the inside was actually an underground parking lot.
Compared to the desolation seen outside just now, the interior of the parking lot was much more grand and imposing.
Hydraulic jacks and car wash stations were fully equipped.
Except, it was completely devoid of people.
Lin Shuxue frowned.
“What are you dazed for?” Jiang Zong didn’t miss the girl’s micro-expression. “You’ve already boarded the rogue ship; even if you want to run, you can’t.”
Utterly ignoring appearances, he slung his arm around Lin Shuxue’s shoulder, guiding her forward.
They arrived at a place that resembled a front reception desk.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the daylight was vast and open. Lin Shuxue realized belatedly that it wasn’t that there was no one around, but rather that this was the main entrance of the establishment.
She pursed her lips and looked around her surroundings: pool tables, various types of helmets, protective gear… and many items she couldn’t even name.
It looked like a massive indoor sports complex.
“Yo? You’re here?”
A slightly mature man’s voice with a raspy, smoky edge echoed by her ears.
Lin Shuxue followed the sound and looked over. She saw a man with a headband across his forehead, his hair dyed half-red. He held an unlit cigarette between his fingers. With prominent eyebrows and large eyes, he greeted Jiang Zong.
“Yeah,” Jiang Zong replied lazily. He halted his steps, and Lin Shuxue, who had been hidden in the shadow of his side, was revealed.
The man was clearly a bit surprised. His coarse eyebrows arched. “You brought such a well-behaved one this time?”
Lin Shuxue instinctively looked up at Jiang Zong’s drooping eyelids.
She only saw him jerk his chin toward the man, unceremoniously raising his middle finger at him.
He didn’t deny it.
Lin Shuxue felt a trace of a faint, tingling, and trembling current densely flow through her heart. She blinked.
The sound of a lighter clicking open echoed in the air.
Out of habit, Lin Shuxue was about to hold her breath.
Then she heard a cold, indifferent voice come from above her head.
“If you want to smoke, go outside.”
Jiang Zong still maintained that entirely lazy and exhausted demeanor, his half-closed eyes looking somewhat weary, but the words leaving his mouth carried an inexplicable weight.
“Understood.” The man bared his large teeth, mumbling with the cigarette in his mouth, “Little sister can’t stand the smell of smoke, huh.”
He pushed the door open and left, leaving the entire world to just Lin Shuxue and Jiang Zong once again.
Jiang Zong adjusted to this perfectly well, even pursing his lips to gesture to Lin Shuxue.
“Have a seat wherever you like.”
Lin Shuxue couldn’t help but ask, “Where is this place?”
Jiang Zong answered her, “An indoor sports arena.”
Having said that, he prepared to walk inside, but noticed the girl behind him wearing a completely silent expression.
He paused in his tracks and pointed to the business license hanging on the wall by the entrance. “It has formal permits. I didn’t kidnap you into some black-market industry.”
The thoughts deep in Lin Shuxue’s heart having been exposed, she awkwardly rolled her eyes around.
“Then, why are there no other people in the store?” she asked in a small voice, as though speaking any louder would cause them to be discovered by others.
Jiang Zong turned his head to look at her, his eyes harboring a lazy, casual smile.
He spoke neither warmly nor coldly, “Probably because… I booked out the entire venue?”
Lin Shuxue’s eyelids gave a hard throb.
Yet, she heard that person follow up with:
“Did you think I was going to say that?”
Lin Shuxue opened her mouth wanting to deny it, but the moment her clear, cool eyes met his cynical, smiling face, she gave herself away. She pursed her lips and remained silent.
Jiang Zong’s Adam’s apple rolled, and a few more stray fragments of laughter escaped him.
“I won’t tease you anymore.” He pulled the stationary Lin Shuxue toward him with a swift motion, his fingertips seemingly inadvertently brushing past her earlobe. “This place is closed every Tuesday for equipment inspection and maintenance.”
Lin Shuxue felt a bit annoyed and glared at him.
Fooled again.
Jiang Zong accepted this expression completely.
“I’m going to change clothes. Why don’t you wander around casually?” he said softly against her shoulder, sounding as if he were coaxing her.
“Go ahead, I’ll wait for you here.” She pointed casually toward the location of a sofa.
The red-haired man came back after finishing his cigarette, and this was the scene that greeted his eyes.
The little girl Jiang Zong brought over was sitting quietly on the lounge sofa, her pair of clear eyes fixed intently on the shooting range not far away.
Because they were closed for business today, the lights in the shop weren’t fully turned on. The resting area only had two faint yellow overhead lights lit. The surroundings were pitched in dim darkness; at a glance, the imagery actually possessed a rather atmospheric quality.
“He just threw you here alone?”
Someone speaking out of the blue caused Lin Shuxue to tilt her head toward the sound. She saw it was the man who had greeted Jiang Zong earlier.
Probably the store owner, she thought to herself.
“He went to change his clothes,” Lin Shuxue explained in a gentle tone.
“What a scoundrel,” the man said, shaking his head and evaluating him with a look of disdain on his face.
Immediately after, he familiarly sat down on the other side of Lin Shuxue’s sofa, chatting up a conversation with her intermittently.
From his self-introduction, Lin Shuxue learned that his name was Guo Peng, and he had been running this place for about three or four years.
She also learned that the reason they had to close every Tuesday was because there was a go-kart track inside the facility, requiring regular inspections of the vehicles and track safety.
“Then why not just close one area and keep the other venues open?” Lin Shuxue couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity.
Guo Peng laughed and scratched his head. He wanted to pull a cigarette out of his pocket, but remembered something and forcefully held back.
“We aren’t strapped for this little bit of money. If customers come later and ask why they can’t play go-karts, it’s a hassle to explain.”
“Too troublesome.”
Then it really was a bit more troublesome than earning money.
Lin Shuxue added another trait to her impression of this store owner: eccentric.
“The changing room is a bit far from here. He probably still needs a while. Shall I show you around first?”
Seeing the little girl sitting so properly and well-behaved, Guo Peng proposed the idea, fearing she might be bored.
Lin Shuxue smiled and waved her hand, asking curiously, “Does he come here often?”
Taking advantage of their dialogue just now, based on the store name she had glimpsed earlier, she had quickly searched it up, only then finding out that this establishment was actually quite famous.
It was even on a member-reservation basis.
No wonder he didn’t care about this single day’s turnover.
“Not that often. His major keeps him busy,” Guo Peng answered, then recalled something a moment later. “You and he should be classmates, right? Then you definitely know better than I do.”
Lin Shuxue nodded.