Ji Shu returned to class during the break.
She sat stiffly at her desk, recalling the gaze Lu Mingxi had cast from across the room. Most people assumed he was there looking for Ruan Si’an, but Ji Shu could feel that he was looking at her.
That gaze made her uneasy. Compared to these constant “accidental” encounters, Ji Shu would rather go back to running errands for him like before.
Perhaps, as Ruan Si’an had said, rather than acting out of affection for the heroine, his behavior was more a way to vent his boredom.
More than liking someone, he seemed to enjoy tormenting someone.
Before long, the class bell rang. Lu Mingxi entered after the teacher, and those on the podium were unfazed.
He lazily passed behind Ji Shu, paused briefly behind her, and then returned to his seat, listlessly listening to the lesson.
In the afternoon, Ji Shu had no electives, so she went to Xie Zhoulin’s crew to watch their musical rehearsal.
His performance was excellent, classical singing segments were especially captivating, and the duet dance sequences were stunning and moving. Ji Shu clapped along with the audience.
After the rehearsal, the crowd surged forward to give Xie Zhoulin flowers. Ji Shu had intended to go up and offer a few words of encouragement, but the crowd was too dense, so she decided to leave.
Suddenly, someone called her name.
She looked up and saw Cheng Qiuyuan. He seemed to be playing a prince in the musical, his costume was still on, and he waved at her.
Ji Shu looked around, then walked over. “Are you looking for me?”
The theater’s air conditioning was strong, but Cheng Qiuyuan was sweating. He wiped his forehead and nodded. “Yes. It’s too crowded and cramped here right now, not very safe. Come with me to our crew’s lounge for a bit.”
Ji Shu, who had almost been knocked over earlier, didn’t refuse and followed him to the lounge. It was spacious, and the crew members were noisy and laughing inside.
Cheng Qiuyuan went off to his own work once Ji Shu arrived. She looked around and saw Xie Zhoulin working alone.
She greeted him, and he wasn’t surprised, replying simply. Ji Shu remembered that previously, when she had greeted him, he had only nodded.
“Your performance today was really wonderful,” Ji Shu said sincerely. “It could be recorded and added to the library’s annual archive.”
Xie Zhoulin pressed his lips together, his eyes still on the screen, and said, “My suggestion from last time still stands.”
Ji Shu remembered his suggestion last time about “joining the Elizabeth crew to handle moving props.” She sighed and shook her head regretfully. “Exactly because of that, I definitely can’t join Elizabeth.”
“Why not?”
“The professor has seen your performance. If they check my name and see my role, just forget about B, I’m not even sure I could keep C.”
Ji Shu wasn’t sure if she’d actually heard him laugh, the lounge was too noisy, and she had never seen Xie Zhoulin laugh before. Maybe it was just her imagination.
She continued, “Besides, Ruan Si’an has already invited me to her crew. It’s Rock Heathers, the musical I saw last week. The lines are simple and natural, my role doesn’t have much stage time, and I’m sent off halfway through with a poisoned cup of wine. It’s perfect.”
Xie Zhoulin asked, “Ruan Si’an?”
“She’s a vocal scholarship student and also took this course. There are a lot of students who specialize in vocals in the crew, so I think that gives me some advantage.”
After speaking, she suddenly remembered that Xie Zhoulin was also one of the original male leads in the story. He probably knew Ruan Si’an even better than she did, which made her previous explanation seem a little redundant.
Xie Zhoulin asked, “Have you already signed up?”
“Yes. The registration form was sent to your email last night.”
“…I don’t check email that promptly. I told you, if there’s anything, you can send it to me on Line.”
Ji Shu shook her head politely. “It’s not urgent anyway. If the president’s busy, handling it later is fine.”
The screen in front of Xie Zhoulin stayed still for a long while. After a moment, he asked again, “Ji Shu, are you busy this weekend?”
Ji Shu replied, “Saturday I’ll be at home doing homework, and Sunday I’ll study with friends.”
A few crew members passing by overheard and gawked. “Monster! You’re not going out to any parties?”
“Yacht? Beach? Gatherings? None of it?”
“I thought only the president himself would be this focused on studying and work… didn’t expect a second-in-command!”
“What does your family do? The president’s family is strict, no one ever throws a party at his house, and you basically can’t invite him either. Are your parents strict too?”
The group was curious about Ji Shu’s family background. When they learned her family was just ordinary wealthy merchants, they muttered in disappointment and left, “…so she really is just a bookworm.”
Xie Zhoulin didn’t react at all to her answer.
Ji Shu asked, “Are you looking for me this weekend for something?”
She assumed the student council had another errand for her to run.
But Xie Zhoulin shook his head. “Nothing.”
Ji Shu said, “Oh,” glanced at her watch, and stood up. “It’s getting late, there shouldn’t be many people outside. I’ll head off first.”
After saying goodbye to Xie Zhoulin, she left the lounge.
Not long after stepping outside, her phone buzzed with a message.
A distinctive notification sound played, and Ji Shu felt a little thrill, as if “this moment had finally arrived.” It was drizzling outside. She opened her umbrella and began walking, swiping her way to the top of her message list.
Lu Mingxi asked her, 【Where are you?】
Ji Shu froze.
In her memory, this was the first time he had sent her a question like this.
Holding the umbrella with one hand, she slowly typed back with the other: “At home.”
When she reached the driver, she closed the umbrella and got into the car. Suddenly, a horn blared behind her, a loud woo, clearly trying to get the attention of the car in front.
Ji Shu turned and saw the signature silver-pink supercar parked about a hundred meters behind her vehicle.
Her phone buzzed again.
He didn’t press her about lying, he simply sent another brief message:
【Get out. Come here.】
Ji Shu walked to the car door, and the window slowly rolled down. Lu Mingxi sat inside, just stubbed out a cigarette, lifted his eyelids to look at her, and tilted his chin. “Front passenger seat.”
She put away the umbrella and slid into the passenger seat.
The moment she entered, the dense, expensive perfume invaded every corner of the car, leaving no escape.
Soon after she sat down, Lu Mingxi leaned over from the driver’s seat, long arms reaching across her front. Ji Shu stiffened for a moment, then realized he was simply taking her umbrella, which had dripped water from her shoes, and tossing it into the back seat.
Ji Shu asked, “Where’s the driver?”
“Went home first,” Lu Mingxi said, glancing at her. “Are you nervous?”
Ji Shu said, “No, it’s nothing. I just didn’t expect to run into you when I went out.”
Lu Mingxi let out a low laugh, repeating her words: “…What a coincidence.”
Ji Shu thought he might confront her later about lying, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached over and pulled out an intricately designed gift box, tossing it onto her lap.
Ji Shu asked, “What’s this?”
The box was black with gold-edged Lotus lotus logos embossed on it. Just touching the luxurious packaging made her a little nervous.
“Open it and see,” Lu Mingxi said.
Ji Shu lowered her head and carefully unwrapped the box.
Inside was a bottle of perfume. The bottle was a pale blue, with a cap shaped like a dolphin fin, accented by delicate pink detailing at the connection point. The design was elegant, high-end, and petite.
She glanced at him, then slowly opened the cap and sprayed some on her wrist.
The top notes of fresh orange blossom with a hint of sea salt evoked a summery, seaside feeling, as if she were walking along a cool, blue beach. After a moment, the middle notes of fig and pink pepper drifted in softly, ethereal like nighttime bubbles, fleeting, yet lingering in memory.
Lu Mingxi raised his head and watched her through the central rearview mirror, her gaze lowered as she smelled the fragrance.
“It’s ‘Night at the Aquarium,’ a new Lotus release that’s currently the most popular among young women,” he said. “How does it feel?”
Ji Shu didn’t answer. She closed the bottle, looking at him in confusion. “This… is for me?”
“If you like it, keep it,” Lu Mingxi said with an ambiguous, teasing smile.
Ji Shu recognized the perfume. Earlier that morning, while half-asleep in the back seat of the car at a busy intersection, she had seen the LED billboards flashing ads for this perfume.
The marketing played up that it was launched by the youngest grandson of Lotus’s COB, the future heir to the title, a debut fragrance with six-figure price tags at launch. Each time she saw it, she had been stunned awake, eyes wide, jaw dropped.
Ji Shu hesitated. “I can’t accept this.”
“It’s not expensive,” he replied.
“…If you need something, just say it directly,” she added.
Lu Mingxi met her gaze, smiled softly, and slowly said, “I’ve been reflecting these past few days, and I realize I may have been a bit too harsh with you before. It’s normal for you to seek help from someone, I understand that.”
Ji Shu was stunned. “Seek help… for what?”
“You’ve been seeing Ruan Si’an so often, isn’t it just to go through her to speak well of you to me, to plead on your behalf?” Lu Mingxi rolled up his sleeves and rested a hand on the steering wheel. “And you keep talking to Xie Zhoulin, trying to get along with the others in class…”
He shrugged. “All that effort is really exhausting, but I think you don’t actually need to bother with it.”
Ji Shu paused for a moment, feeling both incredulous and amused. She looked at him and asked, “You really think all I’m doing is trying to seek help or curry favor with you?”
Lu Mingxi stopped tapping his knuckles on the wheel and glanced at her sideways. “You’re telling me it’s not for that reason?”
Ji Shu closed her eyes. She felt there was no way to explain the logic behind her actions to Lu Mingxi, he just wouldn’t understand.
Yet Lu Mingxi took her silence as confirmation.
“I’ll take back what I said before,” he continued slowly.
“Let’s just say everything I said at the hospital was nonsense. From now on, if you have to deal with anyone around me, or if someone comes bothering you, go to Jiang Zhaoming and the others. Once they know whose circle you’re in, they won’t touch you anymore.”
Ji Shu almost laughed. “…Weren’t you going to make me prove my sincerity, make me pay for past mistakes?”
“Being around me, your sincerity will naturally show over time. You don’t need to prove it by pleading with others,” Lu Mingxi leaned back, half-smiling. “As for the past…”
He said casually, “Once you’re in my circle, do whatever you want, just don’t go too far. Jiang Zhaoming isn’t very sharp, some cleanup work is tricky.”
A chill ran down Ji Shu’s back. She felt the anger building in her chest, nearly exploding. She gripped the perfume in her hand, knuckles whitening, and after a long moment whispered, “Is it always like this?”
“What?”
“Your… so-called friends.”
Lu Mingxi’s expression tightened slightly at her choice of words, though he didn’t show it. “Do you have a problem with the authority I’ve given you? Or do you want more?”
Then he remembered something, sounding a little irritated. “I didn’t continue seeing Ruan Si’an, Jiang Zhaoming was the one delivering the flowers. I just… forgot about it.”
He paused suddenly.
He didn’t know why he was explaining all this to Ji Shu.
But she wasn’t listening anymore. She turned to pull the car door handle, getting ready to step out.
Instinctively, Lu Mingxi stood and grabbed her wrist. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Her wrist was icy and delicate, small enough for him to grip with one hand. When he tugged her back, her face went pale and she had no choice but to fall back into the seat. Lu Mingxi’s other hand locked the door switch as he frowned. “You’re getting out before I even finish talking?”
He saw her chest rising and falling, as if she were suppressing something. She turned her head, lips pale, her dark eyes fixed on him. “Yes. I have to get out.”
“Exactly what are you dissatisfied with?” Lu Mingxi wanted to snap, but he restrained himself and asked patiently.
“I’m asking you, what exactly are you dissatisfied with me?” Ji Shu’s voice was heavy and rapid, like a torrent of raindrops pounding on a car window.
“I’ve been doing my best to show you my determination to make amends. I was wrong to Ruan Si’an, so I went to compensate, I put you in the hospital, so I followed your orders. I thought I could gradually change your impression, atone for the past, but you’ve always treated it like a game, fine, I let that slide. And now, just because you think it’s fun, you want to drag me into it with you.”
She asked, “Have you ever considered how I felt being the victim in that game? Are you so certain I’d be eager to join you and the others as perpetrators?”
Lu Mingxi froze.
For a moment, the car was silent except for the sound of rain pelting the roof and her somewhat rapid breathing.
Outside, the downpour blurred the scenery, and pedestrians without umbrellas ran along the street with their heads wrapped in clothing.
Finally, Ji Shu broke the tense silence.
Her breathing was gradually calming. She looked at him coldly and asked, “Now, have you finished?”
“…”
“My answer is no.”
She steadied herself against his headrest, leaned over, her black hair brushing against his cheek, her icy shoulder and arm grazing his waist. With a soft click, she unlocked the switch on his left side, then turned and got out of the car without a backward glance.
The expensive “Night at the Aquarium” perfume bottle was left abandoned on the seat, its cap rolling off. The faint scent of bitter orange and vetiver drifted out, tinged with a melancholy and blue-tinged bitterness.
Lu Mingxi stared in disbelief. He looked up.
Her umbrella had been left in the back seat, dripping water. She walked straight into the torrential rain without it, disappearing quickly into the misty curtain of downpour.