Liu Xia (the student) was dumbfounded, truly stunned.
What did she say? What did she say just now?!
She wanted to kill the version of herself that existed one second ago.
“Ha… haha… Where did you go just now? I thought you left.”
The awkwardness was beyond what a silly laugh could resolve.
Gu Lingluo (the patron) held a steaming paper cup and looked down at her. The patchy light of the crescent moon fell on the side of her face, reflecting her calm, waveless eyes, her brow furrowed with frost.
“Can you get up?”
Liu Xia nodded frantically, “I can get up, I can get up! It’s just a fall! I’m not that delicate… Hiss!”
The moment she tried to exert force, the pain in her ankle made her forget her own name.
Gu Lingluo’s frown deepened a few degrees. She bent down, easily picked Liu Xia up in a cradle carry, and turned toward the spectator stands.
Liu Xia was stunned—no, she was petrified—she even forgot the pain.
Wh-what exactly was going on?
Was the patron not angry? Or did she simply not hear the reckless complaining just now?
And this princess carry (a romantic/chivalrous way of carrying someone)—what did it mean? If she remembered correctly, she was at least one hundred eighty pounds (a common, exaggerated Chinese phrase for ‘a lot of weight’); how could the patron’s slender arms have so much strength?
Gu Lingluo’s figure was tall and slim, yet her steps were steady and measured. She carried a whole person all the way, and the boiling hot water in the paper cup did not spill a single drop.
Bending down, she settled Liu Xia onto the spectator bench. She first took off her own jacket and helped Liu Xia put it on. Only then did Gu Lingluo squat down and roll up her pant leg.
“Hiss!”
It didn’t hurt until it was touched; then, the pain was agonizing.
Gu Lingluo’s hand paused, and her movements became a bit gentler. The track was already pitch black, and with Gu Lingluo blocking the only faint residual light, it was even darker. Liu Xia genuinely did not understand what she was looking at so closely. As if she could really see anything clearly.
“It’s already swollen. It needs immediate treatment.”
“I-is that so?” Liu Xia chuckled awkwardly.
Are all top students nowadays equipped with such sharp eyesight? Or was she too ignorant? Such good eyesight; she wouldn’t even need to turn on the lights at night. How much electricity would that save?
Gu Lingluo put down the pant leg and stood up. She glanced at Liu Xia’s silly smile, then reached out, tucking the damp hair sticking to her face behind her ear. She pulled out a tissue to wipe the mud from her face. Yes, that was correct: sweat mixed with dirt, turning it into mud.
Liu Xia felt a little embarrassed and tried to take the tissue to wipe herself, but Gu Lingluo subtly moved her hand away.
Gu Lingluo looked down, pulled out another tissue, and began to wipe Liu Xia’s scraped palms, blowing gently as she wiped, extremely careful.
Liu Xia suddenly felt a little guilty.
The patron is so gentle…
She had been too unkind to curse her just now.
“Um… I…”
“How incredibly stupid are you? You don’t even know how to run. What do you need these two legs for?”
Liu Xia: “…”
Take back everything she just said! What tenderness? Nonsense!
She had to refute that now, even if she had to make something up!
“What does this have to do with being stupid? It’s because it was too dark! I—I have nyctalopia (night blindness)! I’m terrified of the dark! When it gets dark, my legs go weak, I get anxious, and I can’t move straight!”
Gu Lingluo looked up and glanced at her, though it was impossible to tell if she believed her. She only said, “Car key!”
“Eh?”
“Give it to me.”
“Oh, oh!”
Liu Xia quickly fumbled for the car key and handed it over. To appear convincing, Liu Xia specifically instructed: “Hurry up! I’m afraid of the dark!”
The bike shed was a bit far from the track. No matter how fast one ran, it would take at least ten minutes round trip. Liu Xia endured the throbbing pain in her swollen ankle and looked at the paper cup that was still steaming.
The closest hot water dispenser to the track was in the library, and she had to go up to the sixth floor to get it. Over such a long distance, for the water to still be this hot, the patron must have been incredibly fast. It was a waste that she didn’t join the track team.
Before she could finish her internal complaints, the sound of bicycle wheels rolling came closer.
Liu Xia was dumbfounded. How many minutes had passed? Two minutes? In such a short time, even running at the speed of a 50-meter world champion, she might not have reached the shed, let alone turned back. How did she do it?
Or was it that her ankle injury had also warped her biological clock, and it had actually been over ten minutes?
It was truly strange.
Gu Lingluo rode up and got off the bike. Without deploying the kickstand, she held it with one hand, extended her arm, and lifted Liu Xia up. She moved her to the back seat, then picked up Liu Xia’s shoulder bag and hung it on the handlebars.
Liu Xia quickly glanced left and right, “Where are your books?”
She had seen her holding them when they left the library. How could they have vanished in the blink of an eye?
Gu Lingluo ignored her and drove her all the way home.
The house was completely dark. The little kitten was meowing and scratching the glass door of the balcony. Liu Xia, holding her scraped paws, didn’t even turn on the light, immediately shouting: “Good baby~~ Mommy’s home~~ I’ll get your dried fish right away~~!”
The words were barely out when there was a click, and the lights came on.
Gu Lingluo carried her to the sofa and set her down. Liu Xia blinked, suddenly realizing something.
“How did you turn on the light just now? Where did your hands come from?”
“You turned it on.”
“I didn’t turn it on!”
The patron repeated without changing her expression, “You turned it on.”
“Really?”
She distinctly remembered that because her hands hurt, she had kept them up and still…
Liu Xia looked down at her two little paws. Tell me, which one of you turned it on? You’re too thoughtful!
Gu Lingluo rolled up her sleeves and pulled off Liu Xia’s shoe and sock. “Do you have any medicinal wine (a traditional Chinese liniment)?”
Liu Xia shook her head.
“Regular white spirits will work too.”
She continued to shake her head.
Wait! She did have some!
She quickly nodded, “Yes, yes, yes! It’s in the refrigerator!”
Gu Lingluo opened the refrigerator, looked back at her, maintaining a neutral expression, though her gaze was not particularly friendly.
Liu Xia blinked rapidly, trying to project an innocent expression that conveyed: I am kind, I am well-behaved, I have a fridge full of alcohol, but I am absolutely not an alcoholic.
Heaven was her witness; she truly wasn’t an alcoholic. Pineapple Beer (a low-alcohol beverage) was the highest concentration of alcohol she had ever consumed!
The fridge full of alcohol—red, white, yellow, sorghum, grape, soy-sauce-aroma, soft-bodied—was all purchased because she had believed the bad advice of Hao Yan and Gai Gai, planning to get Gu Lingluo drunk. Since she didn’t know what her patron liked to drink, she had bought so many varieties.
Gu Lingluo pressed her lips together, took a deep breath, and casually picked a bottle with a high alcohol content. She opened it and poured a small amount into a porcelain bowl.
“Do you have a lighter?”
“No, I don’t smoke! Really! Eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, and smoking—I only cover the ‘eating’ part! I’m an absolutely upright citizen!”
Gu Lingluo rubbed her forehead. She shouldn’t have bothered asking.
She stood up and went into the kitchen to turn on the gas stove. A moment later, she returned, and a faint blue flame danced over the mouth of the white spirits bowl.
Only then did Liu Xia belatedly realize why she wanted a lighter.
“Aren’t you burning yourself? Why didn’t you use a towel to hold the bowl?”
Gu Lingluo placed the porcelain bowl on the floor. Without a low stool, she squatted down, pressing her right knee to the ground and lifting her heel, cradling Liu Xia’s ‘disabled’ foot in her lap.
Liu Xia blurted out, “What are you doing?”
She was suddenly being so nice to her; she felt uneasy inside, similar to the feeling of a death row inmate eating their final meal.
Could this be her last act of tenderness? Massaging her foot before her public execution?
Gu Lingluo’s slender fingers passed through the faint blue flame, quickly scooped up a bit of white spirits, and swiftly began rubbing it onto Liu Xia’s ankle.
As the bruising was soothed and the swelling was massaged away, an unspeakable warmth and relief spread from the injured area. Liu Xia sighed in satisfaction.
“That feels amazing~~ You are so skilled, a genuine polymath (expert in many fields)~~ You’ve even dabbled in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) massage!”
Such simple knowledge—the one who doesn’t know it is the fool.
Gu Lingluo resisted the urge to snap and ignored her.
She’s so stupid, so clumsy, and also… fickle (referencing the earlier boy trouble). She didn’t know what to say about her.
She’s ignoring me? Liu Xia smacked her lips, just about to chatter a bit more to provoke her into speaking, but then her eyes fell upon Gu Lingluo’s dark, glossy long hair.
This was the first time she had ever looked down on her patron from above, and the first time she had seen her hair whorl (crown). It was a novel feeling.
The patron’s hair was black and straight, the strands naturally and smoothly falling from the hair whorl. It was completely different from the purposefully straightened hair of that person named Xiao (a placeholder name mentioned elsewhere in the series). The hair was full, and the sheen was fine and moist. It clearly hadn’t been ravaged by any chemical products, flowing naturally and softly—indescribably beautiful.
The falling hair obstructed her view, and Gu Lingluo casually tucked it aside, revealing the elegant, streamlined curve of her neck and her delicate earlobe.
What was that? An ear piercing?
Ear piercings were essential for fashion-lovers, but Liu Xia was afraid of pain and had never considered them. She never expected that the patron, who didn’t even wear face cream, would have an ear piercing!
Her hand unconsciously reached out.