Who could have guessed that in the next second, Guo Peng would drop a flat-out bombshell in a casual, gossiping tone.
“But these past few days happen to be his mother’s death anniversary. His mood is probably lousy, so he likely came over today to clear his mind.”
Lin Shuxue’s pupils contracted violently.
Jiang Zong’s mother… passed away?
Seeing the girl’s shocked expression, Guo Peng was somewhat surprised.
“You didn’t know?”
Lin Shuxue opened her mouth blankly. She wanted to say something but swallowed it back down. The syllables tumbled and turned in her throat several times before she managed to piece together a complete sentence.
“Is… is it okay for you to tell me this?”
Guo Peng hadn’t expected Lin Shuxue to be entirely clueless about this matter, much less that her immediate consideration would actually be for him.
He suddenly understood why Jiang Zong would bring this girl over during such a specific, sensitive timeframe.
“It should be fine. Since he could bring you here, it means there’s nothing he can’t tell you.”
Guo Peng’s tone was relaxed and indifferent.
“But…”
But doesn’t he frequently bring other girls here?
Lin Shuxue wanted to say this, but stopped herself right as the words formed. These words sounded entirely too much like jealousy; what grounds did she have to say something like that?
As Jiang Zong’s junior? Or as some illegitimate, un-entitled “pursuer”?
No matter which identity was pulled out, it seemed to induce a sense of guilt.
Seeing her stay stuck on “but” for ages without any follow-up, Guo Peng frowned, unable to figure it out.
Unfortunately, while he was more than proficient at handling those wealthy young ladies, he was utterly helpless against a little girl who looked so profoundly obedient and proper. He pondered for a long time but still couldn’t guess what she was trying to say.
A man built so big and rough unexpectedly softened his disposition, carefully recalculating every single sentence he had uttered from the moment they walked through the door.
Finally, it clicked.
“Ah!” Guo Peng let out a hollow laugh. “We just met and I just spoke off the cuff, talking nonsense.”
“Jiang Zong does bring people here, but he has never brought a girl alone. He usually brings a whole crowd of people to introduce business to me.”
“Their wealthy circles have a lot of connections; they’re active.”
“I have this flaw of having a loose mouth. Little sister, don’t take it to heart, okay?”
Guo Peng rubbed his nose, his tone rare in its earnest explanation.
Seeing Lin Shuxue remain silent without speaking, he grew so anxious that he wished he could time-travel back to ten minutes ago and slap his own fast mouth twice, terrified that he had ruined things with the girl Jiang Zong had finally brought back.
Lin Shuxue parted her lips, wanting to open her mouth to explain.
Her appearance here was a pure accident, a stroke of luck—she had simply guessed the meaning behind Jiang Zong’s WeChat profile picture, and it wasn’t the kind of special uniqueness that Guo Peng was misunderstanding.
But she couldn’t withstand Guo Peng’s sudden wave of displaying loyalty. Like beans spilling out of a bamboo tube, he emptied everything, starting from his history of making a fortune.
Lin Shuxue originally wanted to stop him, but later on, her selfish desires acted up.
As a result, that story in which she had only participated in the beginning finally pieced together its complete ending today.
“What are you two doing, looking so serious?”
Jiang Zong walked over at an unknown juncture, poking fun at them with a hint of a smile.
Guo Peng was still seizing the opportunity to badmouth Jiang Zong’s lack of tact when, hearing his movement, he became so frightened that his hands and feet flailed randomly. He straightened his back and forced a smile.
“I was afraid Sister Lin would be bored, so I was keeping her company and chatting.”
Jiang Zong’s mouth twitched. “What ‘Sister Lin’? Have you been reading Dream of the Red Chamber too much?”
Guo Peng shook his head with an expression of absolute seriousness. “What Red Chamber or Green Chamber, I have only one criterion for addressing people here: append ‘sister’ after their surname.”
“If you want, I can also call you Sister Jiang?”
Jiang Zong shot him an annoyed glare.
Lin Shuxue spoke up at the right moment, “It’s fine, any name works.”
Seeing that she didn’t object, the tightened line of Jiang Zong’s lips turned upward slightly, letting Guo Peng have his way.
He tilted his head to look at Lin Shuxue. Seeing the girl’s body facing the direction of the shooting range, his eyebrows arched imperceptibly.
“Want to go play in the shooting range?”
This could actually be deduced. Lin Shuxue quietly lamented in her heart, pulling herself together as she nodded her head.
Seeing this, Guo Peng hurriedly said, “You take Sister Lin to have a good time. I’ll head to the back first to see how the vehicle maintenance is going.”
The shooting range was highly professional, divided into an archery section on the left and an air gun section on the right.
Without any hesitation in her steps, Lin Shuxue walked toward the direction of the air gun section.
Jiang Zong followed unhurriedly behind her, finding a wall to lean against, watching her with leisurely interest.
During military training a while back, the school’s military skills training also included shooting. Lin Shuxue hadn’t recovered from low blood sugar back then; her head was swimming and her vision was blurry, missing three or four shots out of ten. Her results had been highly unsatisfactory.
She had always held a lingering regret about it. Since there happened to be a shooting range here, she wanted to try again.
Following the instructions on the display board, she lifted the placed air rifle, aligned it with the scope, and tentatively pulled the trigger.
“Bang!”
The massive recoil accompanying the gunshot shook her shoulder bone until it felt numb.
She instinctively knit her brows tightly.
A faint laugh sounded from behind her.
Jiang Zong had changed into an all-black tracksuit. The loose, skin-hugging fabric caused the muscular contours of his chest and abdomen to loom indistinctly.
He crossed his arms and ambled over to Lin Shuxue’s side, his tone straying and careless.
“This is different from the laser shooting guns used in your military training. The recoil is larger.”
Lin Shuxue snapped her eyes up. “How do you know?”
Jiang Zong’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “Guessed it.”
He casually picked up the air rifle resting at the adjacent spot. Propping up the gun, chambering a round, and pulling the trigger were all executed in a single, fluid motion. Lin Shuxue even suspected he hadn’t aimed at all.
Dead center of the target.
“Interested in this?”
Jiang Zong tilted his head, meeting Lin Shuxue’s eyes, which appeared exceptionally watery due to being overly focused.
Lin Shuxue nodded, then slowly shook her head.
To call it interest wasn’t quite accurate; her score back then had simply been too unsightly. She felt it was embarrassing and wanted to wipe away the disgrace, nothing more.
Thus, she spoke softly, “I just wanted to try.”
Jiang Zong set down the air gun in his hand, walked up behind her, and patted Lin Shuxue’s rigid shoulders.
“Relax. Separate your feet to be shoulder-width apart.”
He reached out to correct Lin Shuxue’s erroneous gun-holding posture. The moment his fingertips brushed the back of her hand, he clearly felt the girl’s body stiffen for an instant.
“Adjust your breathing. Even the slightest breath will cause a deviation in the gun barrel’s alignment.”
Lin Shuxue followed his words and exhaled softly, but the sense of the man’s presence behind her was far too powerful.
In the next second, she felt her own hand being covered by another hand.
Jiang Zong supported Lin Shuxue’s wrist with one hand, while his other hand covered her knuckles, pulling the trigger together.
Lin Shuxue discovered with astonishment that, whether it was because her wrist was supported or for some other reason, the sensation of the vibration this time was significantly smaller than the last.
Noticing the girl’s eyes in front of him visibly lighting up, the corners of Jiang Zong’s mouth hooked up gently. He added nonchalantly:
“The motion of pulling the trigger should be as steady and smooth as possible. This can maximize the reduction of muzzle shaking and recoil.”
“Want to try it once by yourself?”
Having finished speaking, Jiang Zong took three steps back, lowering his eyes to look at her.
Lin Shuxue followed what Jiang Zong had just described and attempted it once more.
An eight.
Although she didn’t hit the bullseye, it was much better than her performance during military training.
Lin Shuxue asked tentatively, “How do you know how to do all this?”
Jiang Zong raised an eyebrow. “Hasn’t Guo Peng’s leaking mouth gotten to this part yet?”
Lin Shuxue was choked up.
In his display of loyalty, Guo Peng had indeed mentioned that Jiang Zong used to live right next door to a police academy when he was young, running into the academy to train alongside those students from a very tender age.
Supposedly, his physical training scores could even rank in the top three among that group of students.
Jiang Zong found his answer from Lin Shuxue’s face, drawing out his syllables.
“Oh, asking despite already knowing.”
“Is this a newly learned tactic to pursue me?”
His features were weary and lazy, his peach-blossom eyes looking as though a lake were pooled inside them. His tone was incredibly provocative, causing a rare spark of annoyance to surge within Lin Shuxue.
“When did I say I was pursuing you?”
Jiang Zong’s Adam’s apple rolled slightly as he let out a faint laugh. “Didn’t you just say you liked me earlier? If this isn’t pursuing me, then what is it?”
He bent his upper body forward slightly, tilting his head to look at Lin Shuxue. A few locks of stray hair fell over his deep brow bone. His naturally favored looks ensured that even this deathly angle didn’t diminish his handsome appearance in the slightest.
Consequently, even though the words were utterly narcissistic, coming out of his mouth, they sounded entirely logical and natural.
Choked by his continuous retorts, Lin Shuxue remained silent with pursed lips, looking up at him with a gaze that carried a hint of rebuking anger.
Little did she know that her current demeanor took on an entirely different meaning in Jiang Zong’s eyes.
Jiang Zong gazed down at the girl before him—a melon-seed face, deer-like eyes, her black hair half-tied and cascading loosely behind her neck, her cherry lips tightly pressed as she stared straight at him.
It truly was the most harmless appearance.
At the thought of Pei Tianyang’s phrase “both obedient and pure,” as well as Guo Peng’s first-glance evaluation of “so well-behaved,” Jiang Zong couldn’t help but find it amusing deep down.
Well-behaved?
A person who could tell lies without her face changing or her heart skipping a beat. Even a reason as clumsy as “liking him” could be hauled out…
A certified little swindler.
He shifted his gaze away, picked up the air rifle beside him, and pulled the trigger repeatedly.
A rapid succession of nines and tens produced a beautiful score.
Lin Shuxue didn’t understand why he was throwing another random tantrum for no good reason.
Suddenly, she heard the person beside her speak.
“You’ve seen me in Yizhong.”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.
Lin Shuxue’s eyelids gave a fierce throb. She raised her eyes to look into a pair of deep, pitch-black eyes.
Under this kind of scrutinizing gaze, she had nowhere to flee, leaving her with no choice but to nod her head extremely slowly, extremely gradually.
“I’ve seen you.”
Lin Shuxue saw Jiang Zong forcefully tug the corner of his mouth, looking like a sneer.
“In Yizhong?”
Without any hesitation, Lin Shuxue nodded again.
Jiang Zong let out a faint laugh.
“What did they say I was like?”
“A favored son of heaven? An excellent student of top character and academics?”
He read out his own words of praise without a single blush on his face. His tone was calm to the point of near-indifference, as if he were discussing an outsider.
Lin Shuxue didn’t know why Jiang Zong brought this up, but the Jiang Zong of Yizhong was indeed exactly as he described—his name held a permanent spot on the grade’s top-scorer board, a single name capable of causing numerous girls to secretly pledge their hearts.
She let out an “mm” sound as her response.
“Do you think these words have anything to do with the current me?”
How strange. Clearly, it was still a flat, emotionless tone, yet Lin Shuxue could detect the coldness within his words.
That pair of permanently upturned peach-blossom eyes also lowered, revealing a trace of sharpness.
Lin Shuxue was stunned.
She recalled the evaluation of Jiang Zong given by the welcoming senior sister upon her enrollment: dissolute, affectionate but fickle, not a good person. She recalled the prior record he carried on his back of allegedly beating up his roommate. Every single event, save for that flawless face, carried negative evaluations that far outweighed the positive.
Lin Shuxue suddenly understood what Jiang Zong’s sentence meant.
Her silence served as evidence to corroborate Jiang Zong’s suspicion.
She saw Jiang Zong slightly raise his jawbone, the line from his jaw to his Adam’s apple pulling out a sharp, elegant contour. As if completely indifferent, he spoke in a lazy voice.
Yet the words leaving his mouth seemed to be laced with a dry bitterness, though she couldn’t tell if it was an illusion.
“Lin Shuxue, I am no longer the same person you used to know.”
“If you haven’t thought it through, don’t come and provoke me.”