Perhaps it was the heat.
Warmth spread across Zhu Zhixi’s face.
A flush crept up from her jade-like earlobes.
She lifted her eyes, looking at Xie Jin with an innocent, obedient gaze, momentarily at a loss for how to retort. The teenage Xie Jin was full of aggression, sharp and relentless.
Xie Jin’s handsome face wore a careless, unrestrained expression.
Why did it feel like he was bullying a little girl?
He bit the tip of his tongue, straightened up, and softened his voice: “If you really want to apologize, let Zhu Huaiqian come himself. There’s no grudge between you and me—no need to force yourself, understand?”
Zhu Zhixi understood, of course. These things were gratitude—gratitude for the twenty-eight-year-old Xie Jin.
And an apology—an apology to the seventeen-year-old Xie Jin.
These feelings, she alone needed to know.
“Little boss!” Someone called Xie Jin away.
Wu Liang stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Xie Jin, curiosity written all over his face: “The young lady didn’t take the things with her. She meant well—are you really not going to accept them?”
“You think I’m not up to it?”
Xie Jin hooked an arm around Wu Liang’s neck, enunciating each word clearly: “Xie. Dai. Yu.”
Wu Liang’s flattery couldn’t be hidden even by his broadcaster-like tone: “Dad, I was calling you Dad! Next time I’ll shout louder so you won’t mishear?”
Xie Jin released his arm.
Wu Liang commented, “The young lady is pretty nice. How could someone like Zhu Huaiqian have such a… special sister?”
He couldn’t quite find the words—sweet yet sharp-tongued.
Xie Jin replied in a lazy drawl, “Uncle Li still has a son like you.”
Wu Liang clicked his tongue and sighed: “Nice or not, it doesn’t matter. She’s Zhu Huaiqian’s sister, Gu Qishen’s childhood sweetheart.”
“She’s not one of us.”
Xie Jin’s hand paused, his eyes darkening.
Yes, they weren’t the same kind of people.
Zhu Zhixi brought the leftover fried noodles back for Zhu Huaiqian.
The boy ate quickly—Zhu Zhixi suspected his teeth would still be brand new even at eighty.
Zhu Huaiqian drank a glass of iced milk, ate the meal Zhu Zhixi had packed, and then downed another glass of iced cola.
He curled up on the sofa to play video games.
Bliss.
“Taste is okay, but too plain, too little. The boss isn’t generous,” Zhu Huaiqian smacked his lips in critique.
Zhu Zhixi threw a cushion at him—pushing his luck.
“Zhu Huaiqian, have you ever heard the saying ‘he who accepts food is softened’?”
Zhu Huaiqian: “What does that mean?”
Zhu Zhixi looked at him with innocent eyes: “It means the meal you just ate was made by Xie Jin.”
Zhu Huaiqian frowned, his face looking as if he’d eaten something foul.
The next second, he threw down his phone and rocketed into the bathroom like a launched missile.
“It can’t be that bad—are you planning to throw up what you just ate?” Zhu Zhixi slowly followed, curious to see how Zhu Huaiqian would manage it.
“Not throwing up—it’s coming out the other end.”
Zhu Huaiqian’s voice sounded strained: “Xie Jin must have put laxatives in it.”
“Oh, I ate it too, from the same batch,” Zhu Zhixi leaned against the wall, her soft voice carrying through the door.
Zhu Huaiqian felt even worse—so he’d been eating leftovers.
When he emerged from the bathroom, half his face was pale.
Zhu Zhixi, curled up on the sofa playing his game for him, looked at him with only a sliver of sympathy. She pointed to a carton of milk in the trash: “Don’t blame everything on others. You’re wronging Xie Jin.”
“The milk was expired. But you already finished it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me after I died?”
Zhu Huaiqian clutched his stomach and turned back into the bathroom: "If it was expired, why didn't you throw it out earlier?"
Zhu Zhixi: "You have eyes, don't you? Don't blame me. Couldn't you check the production date before drinking it?"
Zhu Huaiqian: "Who checks the production date before drinking?"
Anyway, he never did.
When something went wrong, he always found someone else to blame—truly, no internal conflict at all.
Zhu Zhixi knocked on the door and asked him, "Zhu Huaiqian, why do you hate Xie Jin?"
After a few seconds of silence, Zhu Huaiqian's voice drifted out: "You should ask Ah Shen. He's the one who hates Xie Jin."
Zhu Zhixi: "Why?"
Zhu Huaiqian: "Two tigers can't share one mountain, unless one's male and the other's female."
Zhu Zhixi didn't respond. Gu Qishen wasn't the type to compete for first place in everything. Deep down, he was indifferent, not driven by a need to win, so he wouldn't be jealous of someone like Xie Jin, who was inferior to him in every way.
Zhu Huaiqian had a binary, black-and-white way of thinking and knew nothing. Zhu Zhixi silently criticized him in her mind.
"Brother, could you please stop giving Xie Jin a hard time from now on? He's really had it tough, and besides, he helped me once."
Through the door, Zhu Zhixi's voice was soft and earnest.
Zhu Huaiqian thought he must have misheard—this was the first time Zhu Zhixi had ever seriously called him "brother."
Somewhere in his heart, he inexplicably softened.
His stomach didn't even seem to hurt anymore.
He cursed under his breath: "Damn."
The first time she called him brother was for Xie Jin's sake.
He even had to thank Xie Jin.
It felt like eating shit wrapped in sugar—sweet yet disgusting.
Monday was a disaster day for both students and working people.
Morning reading started at seven. Zhu Zhixi, who usually arrived just in time, was reciting English vocabulary when Li Yaozi placed a bottle of milk on her desk: "Gu Qishen gave this to you."
As she pulled out her textbook, Li Yaozi asked, "You didn't come together today—haven't you made up yet?"
Today, Zhu Zhixi had left early by herself. Not wanting to fall too far behind, she could only invest more time.
Zhu Zhixi looked up: "We've made up. It wasn't a big deal anyway."
Li Yaozi felt something was off about Zhu Zhixi—distant and aloof.
Maybe she was in a bad mood after a fight with Gu Qishen.
With the Weekly Test on Saturday, Zhu Zhixi didn't dare slack off. The advanced class was already highly competitive, and last night, when she tried a practice test, her confidence was shattered.
In Chinese, English, and math, Zhu Zhixi wasn't exactly weak. She just needed to catch up on what she'd learned in those subjects as quickly as possible so she could devote more time to biology, physics, and chemistry.
The first two periods were English and Chinese. Even though they were seniors, no one had much energy on a Monday.
During the half-hour long break.
"Come play badminton downstairs, Xi Mei," Li Yaozi called to her.
"Not going. I'm going to work on some math problems."
In the class, Zhu Zhixi was one of the younger students. The group close to Gu Qishen and Zhu Huaiqian liked to call her Xi Mei.
Students from other classes teasingly called her "Miss Bottom Three"—pretty, delicate, and academically weak, always hovering around the bottom three in rankings.
Even Gu Qishen and Zhu Huaiqian, the two aces, couldn't drag her up.
Zhu Zhixi didn't mind. Gradually, the nickname "Miss Bottom Three" lost its teasing edge and became a fitting title for a genuine young lady.
During the long break, half the classroom emptied out. The remaining students were either sleeping or chatting, with very few studying.
Zhu Zhixi studying during break was a first.
In her past life, she never endured the hardships of studying. This lifetime was making up for it.
"Zhu Zhixi, I have something I want to talk to you about."
Zhu Zhixi looked up.
It was Qiao Baifei.
The Arts and Sciences Advanced Class had been divided since the second half of the first year of high school. Over the two-plus years of studying alongside Qiao Baifei, Zhu Zhixi had exchanged only a handful of words with her.
If it weren’t for being seated next to Gu Qishen this time, Qiao Baifei wouldn’t have taken the initiative to speak to Zhu Zhixi.
Qiao Baifei was a pure science-oriented girl, straightforward in her thinking: “I can ask the homeroom teacher to switch seats. You can continue sitting next to Gu Qishen.”
Zhu Zhixi: “No need.”
Seats in the class were chosen based on rankings, starting from the top scorer and going down one by one.
Gu Qishen was almost always first, so he got to pick his seat first.
In the past, whenever someone wanted to sit next to Gu Qishen, he would always say one thing: “This seat is taken.”
Over time, everyone knew that the seat next to Gu Qishen was reserved for Zhu Zhixi.
Qiao Baifei pursed her lips and explained softly: “Deputy Director Zhang is my cousin’s uncle. My grades dropped a few places in the last monthly exam, and my mother took it upon herself to try and get me a high-achieving deskmate. I didn’t know.”
She didn’t believe that Zhu Zhixi truly didn’t mind.
Perhaps because she had disrupted Gu Qishen’s routine, these past few days, some girls had been looking at her with more scrutinizing and judgmental gazes.