Liu Xia cleared her throat, stating with great authority, “Then you’ve come to the right person! I was the only one there that day, and the situation at the time was simply earth-shattering and god-weeping! It’s a good thing I’ve been brave since I was a child. Anyone else would have absolutely wet their pants from fright!”
Gu Lingluo twitched an eyebrow. “Get to the point.”
“Ahem!” Liu Xia scooted her bottom closer to her, cautiously asking, “Is this important to you?”
Gu Lingluo looked at her with an eye-freezing glare of negative fifty degrees.
Liu Xia immediately caved, the threat that was about to roll off her tongue dying a sudden death.
“Since you asked, Junior, then it must be very important! With my worship for you—which is like the continuous flow of the great river, reaching up to the highest heavens and down to the deepest spring, never ceasing—I must immediately, right now, and without reservation, tell you everything I know!”
After declaring her loyalty, Liu Xia then added fuel to the fire by dramatically recounting the scene from that day.
“You wouldn’t believe it! It was utterly terrifying and shocking, almost a dark horse racing straight to the No. 1 spot in world paranormal events! It was just a blink of an eye, truly, just a blink—like this—and then you open your eyes, and the originally lush green towering tree was completely dead! The dead leaves rained down all over my head and body, almost burying me on the spot!”
“A blink of an eye?”
“A blink of an eye!” Liu Xia nodded emphatically to confirm.
Gu Lingluo lowered her gaze. Fine blue veins were visible through her thin eyelids, and her long lashes concealed the flicker in her eyes.
“Your hand.”
“Huh?”
“Give me your hand.”
Heavens! This development is too fast!
Had she and Patron Mom become close enough to hold hands and walk home together in the blink of an eye?
This old locust tree was truly a divine wingman, sacrificing itself to help others. It was magnificent! She shouldn’t have been so afraid of it earlier!
Liu Xia happily extended her hand.
Gu Lingluo rolled up her sleeve and placed two fingers on her pulse point.
“Close your eyes.”
“Huh?”
What was the meaning of this? Taking her pulse like traditional Chinese medicine?
Why take her pulse for no reason? Was she showing off that as a top student, she was not only knowledgeable but also skillful with her hands?
But why close her eyes to take a pulse?
“Did you hear me? Close your eyes.”
“But why?”
Gu Lingluo couldn’t explain and was too lazy to. She glared at her. “Close them when I tell you to. Why all the nonsense?!”
“But you have to give me a reason!”
“Someone of your intelligence wouldn’t understand even if I explained it.”
“I don’t like hearing that! What kind of intelligence do I have? To get into Imperial University, I must be one of the country’s top students, right?”
Gu Lingluo gave her a cold look. “A top student with 19 points?”
Liu Xia: “…”
Speechless and tearless.
That accursed 19 points! Regret × 3!
Liu Xia took a deep breath, channeling the spirit of a warrior.
“Yes! That’s right! My intelligence is worrying, and my German is precarious. To avoid dragging you down to a failing grade with me, I’ve decided to study hard and proactively strive for both of us to pass! I believe an excellent student like you, who excels in character and academics, will definitely cooperate fully, encourage me, and sincerely teach me! ‘Among three people walking, I am sure to find a teacher.’ With two people, you are my teacher. Allow me to offer my respect first: Hello, Teacher! Please teach me well! I will absolutely follow your every word, turning East when told to turn East, and West when told to turn West, obediently like a marionette doll!”
Speaking a rapid-fire string of words, not giving Gu Lingluo a chance to refuse, Liu Xia tipped her head back and closed her eyes like a hero ready for execution.
“Come on! ‘If the sovereign commands his subject to die, the subject cannot but obey.’ If the teacher commands the apprentice to close her eyes, the apprentice will die before opening them! After you’ve taken my pulse, let’s properly discuss the study plan—no! Your plan for instructing me!”
Gu Lingluo had lived for ninety thousand years. What kind of person hadn’t she met? But she had never encountered someone so brazen!
Or rather, no one had dared to be brazen in front of her before being thoroughly subdued and too intimidated to ever step out of line again.
Frowning, she suppressed her annoyance and said in a cold voice, “You are not allowed to open your eyes until I say, ‘Okay.'”
“A teacher’s command is as heavy as a mountain! Don’t worry, little teacher! I’ll die before opening them!”
Liu Xia tightly closed her eyes. A faint, icy chill rose from the wrist Patron Mom was holding. It felt like flowing water or swirling mist.
The cold instantly guided its way from the wrist to all her limbs and bones. She couldn’t help but shiver, and Gu Lingluo’s voice rang next to her ear.
“Lean on the sofa back, relax. Don’t think about anything. Answer whatever I ask.”
Liu Xia obediently leaned on the sofa, relaxing completely—so relaxed she was about to fall asleep.
“Was there truly no one else present besides you at the time?”
“No.”
“What about other living things? Like a stray cat or a sparrow?”
“Definitely no stray cat! Sparrow… I didn’t hear any bird chirping, so probably not.”
“Did any other flowers or plants wither besides the old locust tree?”
“No, just that one old locust tree.”
A moment later, the chill gradually faded, and Patron Mom’s warm hand left her wrist. Liu Xia wanted to open her eyes, but remembering that Patron Mom hated people who broke their promises, she forcibly resisted.
Drip, drop, drip, drop—
Time ticked by, second by second.
The “Okay” that would lift the seal from Patron Mom never came.
Liu Xia finally couldn’t take it anymore and cautiously asked, “Is it done?”
The air was silent as a chicken’s egg (a metaphor for absolute silence).
“Teacher?”
“Junior?”
“Gu Lingluo?”
“Lingluo?”
“Lolo?”
Liu Xia licked her lips. “Hey! Patron Mom!”
Still absolutely no response.
Something seems… not quite right…
“I’m opening my eyes now, I’m really opening them!”
I don’t care!
She suddenly flung her eyes open!
“…”
The quiet apartment was empty.
Thump, thump, thump. She rushed to the door and flung it open.
The corridor was empty, and the autumn wind rolled dead leaves.
WOC!
She actually ditched her and ran off!
Even a civilized person like her wanted to curse!
Is being a top student a big deal?!
Is being the campus belle a big deal?!
Is being Patron Mom a big deal?!!!
So infuriating!
She was fuming.
Gu Lingluo, you just wait for me!
And… was she a cat? How did she run off without making a single sound?!!
The weekly German class arrived as scheduled. Qi Fei had already saved a seat for Liu Xia early on. A girl with a straight perm in the back row said sourly, “Campus Cutie, you haven’t fallen for that ‘flower vase former campus belle,’ have you? Why are you always saving a seat for her?”
Qi Fei frowned. “Watch your mouth! What ‘flower vase’? What ‘former’? Can you show some class?”
“Why am I not showing class? Everyone calls her that, right, Jia Li?”
The girl with the straight perm looked at the former former campus belle, Deng Jiali.
It was Liu Xia who had snatched Deng Jiali’s campus belle title, causing Deng Jiali to lose face and feel depressed for a long time. Later, Gu Lingluo arrived and took the title from Liu Xia, which finally made Deng Jiali feel a little better.
But before she could fully recover, Liu Xia was shamelessly trying to snatch Deng Jiali’s crush, Qi Fei!
As Deng Jiali’s best ‘Ji-you’ (gal pal), this was insupportable!
The girl with the straight perm took a deep breath and waved a hand in front of Deng Jiali. “I’m talking to you. What are you thinking about?”
Deng Jiali slightly raised her chin. “Look.”
Only then did the straight-perm girl shift her gaze to the classroom entrance.
Huh? What was going on?!
Not just her, but the gazes of half the classroom were fixed there.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Liu Xia entered the classroom with a bandage wrapped around her eyes, tapping a cane for the blind, with Hao Yan and Gai Gai supporting her on either side.
Qi Fei paused for a moment and then rushed over. “What happened?”
Gai Gai sighed deeply, her voice neither too loud nor too soft, just enough to reach Gu Lingluo’s ear in the third-to-last row.
“Who would have thought? Acute conjunctivitis!”
Qi Fei looked worried. “Why are you taking class when you’re like this? You should take leave and go home immediately.”
Hao Yan subtly raised the corner of her eye, smiling without a trace of malice. “That’s what we advised, but she insisted on coming, saying she was afraid of dragging her group member down to a failing grade.”
The students’ eyes turned to Gu Lingluo, who lowered her head and flipped through her notes, pretending not to hear.
Qi Fei said, “Mr. Seider will definitely understand this kind of situation. He won’t deduct points from your overall grade. You don’t have to worry about failing.”
The straight-perm girl’s eyes darted around. She took out her phone, searched for acute conjunctivitis, and suddenly snickered.
“I wondered what acute conjunctivitis was. Turns out it’s just pink eye!”
The pun brought a burst of laughter to the lecture hall.
Deng Jiali glanced at Qi Fei, who was raising his hand to help Liu Xia but didn’t dare to touch her. Suppressing her jealousy, she said, “I remember that pink eye needs to be kept clean and ventilated. You absolutely can’t wrap it up and cover it like this; it will worsen the infection. We’re all classmates, and no one will laugh at your pink eye. Hurry up and take the bandage off.”
The straight-perm girl was eager to take a few embarrassing pictures of Liu Xia to help her friend take revenge and chimed in, “Exactly! Take it off! Nothing is more important than your eyes. What if it really gets worse?”
Liu Xia couldn’t see anything with her eyes covered, but the straight-perm girl’s voice sounded familiar—it was the same person who had previously mocked her.
[I heard she’s been secretly following the campus belle lately. Has she finally made a move, planning to infiltrate the enemy camp and reclaim the campus belle title?]
Yes, it was that voice, that person!
The straight-perm girl scoffed again. “Why don’t you take it off? Could it be that you’re faking it? I was just wondering which quack doctor told you to wrap it up. Turns out you’re pretending to be sick.”
“No, I’m not!”
Liu Xia stood rooted in place, leaning on her cane for the blind, looking like a weak, pathetic daughter-in-law being harassed by an evil mother-in-law.
“If you’re not faking, why won’t you take it off? Classmates, you can check online. You really can’t cover up pink eye!”
Indeed, a few busybodies pulled out their phones to search on Baidu.
“I found it, I found it. You really can’t cover it.”
“Is she really faking it?”
“Why would she fake something like this for no reason?”
“I heard she failed the last exam. Is she trying to look pitiful to save her overall grade?”
“It shouldn’t be that bad, should it? Plenty of people failed.”
“Who knows?”
“I think she might be trying to save her image in front of the campus belle. She failed and dragged the other girl down to a fail, too.”
“Ah? Really? Could it not just be that she saw a quack doctor?”
Some students stood up for Liu Xia.
Some students complained on Gu Lingluo’s behalf.
Some students were just curious and guessing wildly.
And some were simply indifferent.
A few like-minded people exchanged smiles: This smells so gay. Is there really a lesbian affair going on?~
In any case, most people thought: Campus life is too boring. Bring on more intense gossip!~~
The straight-perm girl chose to ignore everything except what supported her view.
“Did you hear that? Everyone said you can’t cover it! Since you’re not faking, take off the bandage! I’m doing this for your own good. I want your eyes to breathe properly.”
Deng Jiali’s close friends also joined the clamor. “Exactly! Since you’re not faking, take off the bandage~”
“If you don’t dare to take it off, you must be faking it!”
“I can’t believe the former campus belle is not just a flower vase but a drama queen, too. It’s hilarious.”
The lecture hall was filled with a buzzing discussion.
Liu Xia was like a weak, pitiful figure targeted by a thousand fingers. She bit her lower lip, her shoulders trembling, still unable to see anything through the bandage.
“I… I…”
The straight-perm girl: “What ‘I, I’? Take it off!”