Meng Shuyin rolled her eyes behind his back and muttered under her breath, “If you’re thirsty, just drink some water. Why call out to Shuxue?”
Lin Shuxue blinked.
Jiang Zong possessed an innate cold arrogance. Whenever his gaze swept past people, it was always lazy, casual, and drifting without a fixed point—much like his reputation. Rumors of his girlfriends came one after another, as if he would never stay for anyone. Yet, when he stared intently at someone, it was incredibly hard for anyone to resist the deep affection flowing within those uniquely favored peach-blossom eyes.
She was still holding Jiang Zong’s jacket in her arms. His signature orange blossom scent seemed to have rubbed off on the hem of her own clothes, smelling a bit sweet.
“I only brought milk tea,” Lin Shuxue said softly.
He shamelessly stretched out his hand. “I happen to like drinking milk tea.”
Lin Shuxue raised her eyebrows in confusion.
Pei Tianyang, who had rushed over just in time, heard this and immediately exposed him without mercy. “You like it? Who was the one who said before that they don’t drink such sweet and greasy things?”
Jiang Zong lowered his eyes, pierced open the sealing film, and took a sip.
It was very sweet. He used all his strength to manage his expression and maintain a calm face. After a moment, a crisp taste of green apple gradually spread across his palate, neutralizing the cloying sweetness of the milk tea base.
He glanced at the label on the cup. Apple Milk Green.
She really liked apple-flavored things as much as always.
Jiang Zong tilted his chin up, half-squinting his eyes as his gaze darkened with a hint of a threat, looking toward Pei Tianyang. “I changed my taste. Is that not allowed?”
Pei Tianyang repeatedly begged for mercy. “It’s allowed, it’s allowed. My lord, whatever you say goes.”
Jiang Zong glanced sideways at him. “What are you here for?”
Pei Tianyang blinked and said in a clear, resonant voice, “Peng Yanzhe asked me to beg you to go back and finish the second half of the game.”
Jiang Zong shifted his gaze away in slight disgust. “Just speak normally. Don’t blink.”
On the other side, Lin Shuxue, who frequently blinked out of habit: “…”
Peng Yanzhe was the name of the captain of the Automation College’s school basketball team.
Jiang Zong lazily took another sip of the apple milk green in his hand and said nonchalantly, “Didn’t Xiao Tian already arrive? Why do you still need me out there?”
Pei Tianyang had no choice but to keep his voice down and coax him nicely, “Brother, you played too well in the first half. Old Peng is afraid that if Xiao Tian comes on and the gap between you two is too wide, losing will look bad.”
“Not going,” Jiang Zong refused very decisively. “Saving the first half of the game was done in exchange for the favor he owed me before. I leave as soon as his guy arrives. I made that clear from the very beginning.”
Pei Tianyang guessed that this would be his answer, so he didn’t persuade him further.
With one wide stride, Jiang Zong bypassed Zhuo Li and stood right in front of Lin Shuxue. He turned his head to look at Zhuo Li, who was next to Lin Shuxue, and said lazily.
“Excuse me, please move aside.”
Zhuo Li chuckled softly and didn’t move. “For this kind of thing, shouldn’t it be first come, first served?”
Jiang Zong curved his eyes, looking as if he were sneering. “Then I was the one who came first.”
His gaze pointedly landed on the jacket in Lin Shuxue’s arms.
The atmosphere between the two of them was inexplicably off, but the smile on Zhuo Li’s face remained completely unshaken.
“Aren’t you going to take charge of the basketball tournament?”
Jiang Zong didn’t buy into his act. “The department head is Pei Tianyang. Go find him.”
“On the contrary, as for you, I’ve never heard of a Student Union President inspecting a department’s work by coming down to the spectator stands to do it.”
Zhuo Li had plenty of excuses. “Communicating work with department members is also a part of my inspection task.”
The gunpowder smell between the two of them was too strong, and both of them would drift their eyes toward Lin Shuxue from time to time.
Lin Shuxue felt that being caught in the middle was a torment, and the jacket she was holding in her arms felt like a hot potato. She silently gave Meng Shuyin a meaningful look. Understanding her intent instantly, Meng Shuyin moved one seat over to the right.
She tugged at Jiang Zong’s sleeve, gesturing to the empty seat beside her. Jiang Zong raised his eyebrows at Zhuo Li provocatively, wrapped his arm around Lin Shuxue’s shoulder, and pulled her a bit further away from Zhuo Li.
So childish, Lin Shuxue thought to herself.
Seeing that a large portion of the shirt on Jiang Zong’s back was soaked through with sweat, leaving water stains, she picked up the jacket resting on her lap and asked him.
“Are you going to wear it now?”
Jiang Zong shook his head. “It’s too hot. I don’t want to wear it.”
In order to physically supervise Lin Shuxue and keep her away from Zhuo Li, he sat very close to her. The heat from the boy’s body right after exercising was surging, and Lin Shuxue felt it firsthand.
Meng Shuyin had a lot of complaints, but she didn’t dare to throw a tantrum in front of everyone. She fiercely opened her chat box with He Xicun and typed furiously with her newly done manicured nails to curse him out.
After the player substitution in the second half, the entertainment value was noticeably inferior to the first half. To be fair, the newly substituted player’s strength wasn’t bad either, but it lacked the kind of wild and arrogant playstyle that Jiang Zong brought to the court.
For sports competitions, it naturally had to be competitive and intense enough to make people want to watch.
The audience in the stands started leaving in twos and threes.
Without Jiang Zong on the court, Lin Shuxue lost what little interest she had in the basketball game—which she couldn’t understand anyway. After staring down at it for a while, she began to feel sleepy.
She had woken up early today, and she had originally planned to take an afternoon nap.
“Tired?” Jiang Zong noticed the exhaustion creeping into the corners of her brows.
Lin Shuxue straightened her back and shook her head. “A bit bored.”
Jiang Zong curved his eyes. “Then let’s go. Let’s look at something that isn’t boring.”
“Huh?”
Without a word, her wrist was grabbed by him, and she was led all the way out of the basketball court from the stands. When they passed by, she noticed that the seat where Zhuo Li had been sitting was empty at some point.
Jiang Zong noticed her line of sight and said seemingly casually, “Caring about him that much?”
Lin Shuxue: “I just think it’s a bit of a pity.”
A pity that Meng Shuyin hadn’t had the chance to interact with him more.
However, when these words reached Jiang Zong’s ears, the meaning completely changed.
A pity? A pity about what? A pity that she didn’t get to chat a few more words with that dog Zhuo Li?
Jiang Zong recalled that every time the whistle blew, whenever he lowered his ball and looked up at Lin Shuxue, she was always chatting and laughing merrily with Zhuo Li. He couldn’t help but secretly grit his teeth in anger again.
He said resentfully, “Do you like guys like him?”
Lin Shuxue hastily shook her head, her look of resistance showing no signs of being faked. “What are you thinking about?”
Thinking about you, of course. What else could I be thinking about?
Naturally, Jiang Zong didn’t say these words out loud. Seeing that he couldn’t find any fault with the expression on her face, Jiang Zong let out a light snort from his nose and dropped a line.
“Stay away from him. You’re no match for his games.”
He didn’t explain any further, and Lin Shuxue sensibly didn’t press for answers. It wasn’t until the car pulled up in front of an apartment building that Lin Shuxue snapped out of her daze.
“Where is this?”
The man in the driver’s seat spoke in a flat tone, “My house.”
He leaned over toward her to unbuckle Lin Shuxue’s seatbelt. He explained deliberately, “I’ll take a shower first, and then I’ll take you there after I’m done.”
“Then should I wait for you in the car?” Lin Shuxue strictly abided by her duty as a clothes hanger. She hadn’t returned that troublesome jacket the entire way, keeping it draped over her lap. When she said this, she tilted her face upward. The top-down perspective softened the sharp lines of her pointed chin, making it look round and cute.
“Wait for what?” Jiang Zong frowned and pulled open the car door for her. “I live alone. There’s no one at home.”
Jiang Zong’s apartment wasn’t large, but it was kept very tidy. The black-and-white decor color scheme, just like his favorite black-and-white shirts, faintly revealed a cold and detached aura.
Lin Shuxue sat on the sofa, turning her head to look at the massive floor-to-ceiling window in the living room. The sound of rushing water from the bathroom echoed in her ears.
The windbreaker she had held all the way here finally found its true hanger, but because they had been in contact for so long, Lin Shuxue felt as though that orange blossom scent had clung to her embrace, winding its way into her nose thread by thread.
Before long, the sound of water gradually stopped. Jiang Zong walked out with damp hair, wearing a loose bathrobe.
The bathrobe was held together only by a single belt around his waist, and the collar was wide open. Crystal clear water droplets slid from his wet hair across his sharp jawline, dripping onto his collarbone. Further down, one could faintly catch a glimpse of the abdominal muscle lines that Pei Tianyang had so loudly bragged about.
Jiang Zong found that Lin Shuxue was a very interesting person. In some matters, she seemed so oblivious that she didn’t seem like an adult, yet in other matters, she would stare straight at him without avoiding his gaze in the slightest.
Even he couldn’t tell whether she was truly pure or just acting pure.
Take right now, for instance.
Although coming out in a bathrobe did have an intentional element to it, this girl’s eyes were practically glued to him, completely unfazed. She truly was the only one who would do that.
Jiang Zong’s Adam’s apple rolled slightly. He lifted his thin eyelids and spoke with a slightly raspy voice.
“Does it look good?”
Lin Shuxue wanted to blink, but halfway through closing her eyes, she remembered his words criticizing Pei Tianyang today. She quickly braked and strained to wide-open her eyes, answering honestly.
“It’s alright.”
Seeing the unfulfilled and lingering look plastered openly on her face, Jiang Zong couldn’t help but let out a low, muffled laugh. He stepped forward and sat down right next to Lin Shuxue, leaning his head over with a curl of his lips.
“Then come a bit closer to look.”
The scenario he anticipated of the girl blushing didn’t happen. Lin Shuxue approached calmly and slowly raised her wrist.
Jiang Zong raised an eyebrow.
This is… looking isn’t enough, she wants to get her hands on me too?
It was just that the direction of this hand didn’t seem quite right.
A moment of hesitation cost him the optimal window to dodge. Lin Shuxue swiftly rolled up the loose sleeve of his bathrobe.
Perhaps due to spending a long time in the lab, Jiang Zong’s skin was very fair. Lin Shuxue had noticed it earlier on the court, he was a shade paler than everyone else. And at this moment, on the porcelain-white skin of his arm, aside from the clearly defined network of blue veins… there were several knife scars of varying depths.
Two of them were noticeably brighter in color; they should be recent additions.
Lin Shuxue still had those clear, cold eyes. She stared unblinkingly at the scars on Jiang Zong’s arm, her thick eyelashes drooping slightly. Even though she didn’t do anything, it caused Jiang Zong to feel inexplicably flustered and hot.
He used force to pull his arm back, his gaze darkening by a few shades.
Lin Shuxue spoke in a calm voice, “Have you seen your stepmother recently?”
She had hesitated before speaking, but in the end, she chose to use the term “stepmother.”
Jiang Zong chuckled in anger upon hearing this. The faint, ambiguous thoughts in his heart were dispersed by her flat words. Pressing his tongue against his lower jaw, he lowered his eyes to look at her. “You are very bold.”
“No one else has ever dared to refer to her as my stepmother in front of me.”
As if venting his frustration, he reached out and pinched Lin Shuxue’s left cheek, not letting go until that patch of skin deformed.
“How did you tell?”
Based on Jiang Zong’s understanding of Guo Peng, he shouldn’t have mentioned that woman in front of Lin Shuxue.
Lin Shuxue said softly, “On the day I found you, Professor Shu was giving a lecture at our school.”
Jiang Zong’s eyes shifted slightly. It seemed that the blade he failed to hide well in his panic had still been seen by her.
“Furthermore, your medication packaging box was exposed.”
Following Lin Shuxue’s gaze, he looked toward the side of the TV box. There was a medicine bottle cap. There were no markings whatsoever on the cap.
Jiang Zong was surprised by Lin Shuxue’s attentiveness. “You recognized it just from a cap?”
Lin Shuxue spoke unhurriedly, “Sertraline tablets. My mother used to take them.”
Jiang Zong recalled the woman he had caught a fleeting glimpse of outside the restaurant that day. Time had left marks at the corners of her eyes, but it didn’t diminish her grace in the slightest. At that time, she seemed to be chatting and laughing with the man beside her, her brows overflowing with happiness.
He noticed that the way Lin Shuxue looked at him had changed; it seemed to carry a faint hint of trying to please him.
She said warmly, “So, did you meet Professor Shu recently?”
Did this mean she wanted to exchange her own family secrets with him? The corners of Jiang Zong’s brows rose imperceptibly.
He said in a low voice, “I went home once the day before yesterday.”
The beautiful eyes of the girl knit tightly together upon hearing his answer, looking vivid and alive.
Deliberating over her words, she opened her lips: “Next time, you can go out to clear your mind, or find someone to talk to. Don’t do this kind of thing to hurt yourself.”
“Finding me is fine, too.”
Lin Shuxue realized that the man in front of her fell silent for a very long time. His pitch-black eyes, which upturned slightly at the corners, were fixed intently on her.
Jiang Zong discovered that Lin Shuxue always possessed this abilityto suppress the surging desire for destruction in his heart with just a few words. Even though she stepped on his untouchable deadlines time and time again, he couldn’t bear to push her away.
Jiang Binghuai’s nauseating expression and greed-driven words from that day, Shu Yu’s hypocritical reminders, and the affection the two of them put on display in front of him like a farce, all of it seemed easily scattered away by the vast blanket of setting sun outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
He heard his own voice tremble slightly as it came out.
“Do you want to be my psychologist?”
Lin Shuxue thought Jiang Zong’s long silence was the prelude to an impending volcanic eruption. She had already prepared herself to be pushed away harshly by him just like last time. She didn’t expect.
She raised her eyes. Her apricot eyes, which resembled those of a deer, seemed to have a galaxy flowing within them. Her brows curved into a smile, filled with the joy of surviving a disaster. The corners of her mouth curved high up into a bright, radiant smile she had never shown before.
“Yes,” Lin Shuxue smiled gently, and then repeated.
“Only yours.”