As the final exam week approached, Cen Xuan’s training tasks also became heavier, and everyone focused on their own studies.
Ji Shu moved her study spot from home to the library. She would arrive about half an hour earlier than the scheduled study group time, find a seat by the window, get organized, and start studying. Five minutes before the agreed start time, Xie Zhoulin would arrive. After greeting each other, the two would first focus on their own subjects. About an hour later, Lu Mingxi would arrive, fashionably late.
He had bought the assigned books for the group, for the conceptual chemistry reference book he couldn’t find, he simply sat beside Ji Shu and studied it with her.
Occasionally, after they finished working on problems, Xie Zhoulin would go over them with the group. He often pointed out mistakes, but when it came to Ji Shu explaining something, he would quietly pay attention, saying nothing, as if completely absorbed in the words and formulas flowing from her pen.
He hadn’t practiced many SAT tests yet, so he couldn’t join the discussions when Ji Shu and Xie Zhoulin worked on past exam questions.
Ji Shu’s weak area was essay writing, while Xie Zhoulin excelled at argumentative writing. After she finished an essay, he would sit beside her and patiently explain, speaking calmly, breaking down points and evidence, marking connections and transitions sentence by sentence, even providing his own essays as templates for reference.
Occasionally, Ji Shu would glance up and notice Lu Mingxi sitting across from her, twirling a pen, his expression faintly amused. Whenever their eyes met, he would quickly smile, sliding his completed work in front of her as if to show his answers, or perhaps to invite her corrections.
Sometimes, they would run into Chi Yaoxing passing through the library.
He remained cold and aloof, frequently walking past their table. When he found a book he wanted, he’d put on headphones and sit several seats away to read, if he couldn’t find the book, he would lie down in the sun and nap.
In the vast library, Chi Yaoxing was the only one wandering around all day during finals week, reading leisurely or napping.
Lu Mingxi would occasionally notice him, smirking and commenting, “If this guy weren’t a top student, someone would’ve dragged him out and beaten him long ago.”
Ji Shu wanted to say that, actually, he was a top student too.
Sometimes, when Lu Mingxi’s spinning pen fell onto the table and woke Chi Yaoxing, the latter would turn and glare coldly. Lu Mingxi would grin mischievously and stare back. Xie Zhoulin ignored their antics, focusing only on teaching Ji Shu.
Despite these minor clashes, having the three top students at one table kept other classmates from coming near. Only members of the student council occasionally came by for work, making the environment much quieter. The strong academic atmosphere also improved Ji Shu’s focus, she gradually became more immersed in her studies than when at home.
What surprised Ji Shu was that she expected Lu Mingxi wouldn’t last long, yet throughout the week, although he was often late, he never missed a session.
She didn’t know what Xie Zhoulin had said to him later, but although the atmosphere between the two remained slightly tense, they had returned to their old pattern of going home together after school.
During the weekend’s five-hour study session, Lu Mingxi would arrive an hour late and spend an hour sleeping, yet still managed nearly three hours of study. His grades improved significantly, and his gaze toward Ji Shu gradually began to change.
After a week of group study, Ji Shu compiled her score improvements in a chart. Short-answer scores increased by around 3%, while essay scores showed a more significant rise of 6–7%, largely thanks to Xie Zhoulin’s patient guidance. To show her gratitude, she bought him a new wristband as a gift.
Xie Zhoulin was pleasantly surprised. His eyes lit up for a moment as he received the gift, accepted it respectfully, and thanked her, promising to wear it next time he attended a tennis club activity.
Because it wasn’t anything expensive, Ji Shu felt a little embarrassed by his reaction.
Only Lu Mingxi watched them awkwardly from the side, his gaze deep and contemplative, as if he were pondering something.
The next day, he followed her lead and called her over, handing her a black envelope with gold embossing and sealed with red wax. Pressed into the dark red wax was the emblem of the Duke’s family.
Ji Shu didn’t open it immediately. She glanced at Lu Mingxi and asked, “What’s this?”
Lu Mingxi put his hands in his pockets and smiled casually, “A thank-you gift for tutoring.”
Ji Shu opened it and saw that it was an invitation to Lotus’s COB birthday dinner. She immediately shoved it back, saying, “I don’t want it.”
Lu Mingxi froze for a moment in surprise. He picked up the envelope that had fallen to the floor, then grabbed the wrist of the girl who was about to turn and leave. “Do you realize what this is?”
Ji Shu felt baffled. “What does your grandfather’s birthday have to do with me?”
“You can attend the banquet as my companion.”
“So?”
“…Everyone will see you,” Lu Mingxi exhaled, seemingly trying to summon all his patience. “They’ll know that the person standing next to you is me.”
“Last time I thought I made it very clear.” Ji Shu shrugged off his hand and looked him straight in the eyes. “Even if you helped me before, I’m not part of your circle. My family background and my character aren’t worthy of standing beside you.”
She emphasized the last two words, not worthy, and immediately noticed his expression darken.
He seemed on the verge of anger but restrained himself. His eyebrows twisted for a moment before he finally forced a smile that was more tense than relaxed. He raised his hands toward Ji Shu. “Fine, I respect your decision.”
He crumpled the invitation, clearly written with her name, yet she hadn’t even looked at it carefully, and tossed it into the trash, putting on a nonchalant, indifferent expression. The atmosphere remained slightly awkward, just as Chi Yaoxing walked over. He glanced at the two of them, then went to toss a can into the trash, noticing the crumpled invitation inside.
Ji Shu had already returned to her seat to study. Chi Yaoxing asked Lu Mingxi, “She refused you?”
Lu Mingxi didn’t know why he could detect a trace of gloating in that eternally icy voice.
He ran his hand through his hair, lifted his eyelids, shot him a sharp, annoyed glare, and said coldly, enunciating each word:
“Go.”
Chi Yaoxing left with light, brisk steps.
A few minutes later, Lu Mingxi seemed to have composed himself and returned to his seat, resuming his studies as if nothing had happened.
Xie Zhoulin, however, noticed something. He looked up at him, slightly surprised, and quickly understood what Lu Ruqing had meant when she said, “The young duke hasn’t been acting right lately.” His temper had improved considerably.
Xie Zhoulin had mostly seen him in bed when he was sick. As a child, Lu Mingxi was often ill and had a bad temper. Unlike other children, he rarely went outside to play. At an age when other kids were running wild on the grass, he could only spend his days in the hospital bed, smashing vases and teacups.
Ji Shu was quite surprised that Xie Zhoulin would bring this up to her on his own.
After the weekend afternoon study session, he specifically drove Ji Shu home and told her about Lu Mingxi’s past while in the car.
He took an old DV camera from the car, which contained a video with rather low-resolution pixels.
On the screen were two young boys. One looked neat and obedient, clever and cute, wearing a vest over a shirt and shorts, clearly Xie Zhoulin. Next to him was a slightly taller boy, pouting, his face full of coldness and reluctance, arranged by his parents to stand alongside Xie Zhoulin.
The two kids were squeezed together in a hospital room, linking arms. A voice off-camera encouraged them, pointing at a small mound on the nearby hospital bed that was slowly moving. After a long while, the cold, reluctant boy finally lost patience, grabbed the blanket covering the mound, and pulled it away, revealing a frail, pale boy curled up on the bed.
He was panting, his eyes red, with adhesive bandages covering the backs of his hands and feet from needles. It seemed he didn’t expect his little fortress to be dismantled so suddenly. Bewildered and timid, he looked at the camera and then suddenly burst into tears.
The off-camera voice panicked, and the screen went black for a moment. All that could be heard were the clattering of objects being thrown and the soft sound of crying.
After roughly five or six minutes of frantic comforting and coaxing, the sobbing gradually subsided, and the image returned.
This time, the three boys reluctantly stood together, jostling slightly, facing the camera and offering awkward but cooperative smiles.
The video’s lighting was chaotic, the sound somewhat distorted, clearly a product from many years ago.
Ji Shu tapped the screen with her fingertip, identifying each figure one by one: “The one in the middle is you, President. The taller boy is Chi Yaoxing, and the one on the hospital bed…”
Xie Zhoulin nodded. “That’s Lu Mingxi. He was born with a congenital heart condition that skipped a generation. He nearly didn’t survive. His health remained poor for many years, and he spent most of his childhood in and out of hospital beds. It wasn’t until he got a bit older that his condition improved. The Duke has always worried about him, so he asked me to keep an eye on him while we were at school.”
Ji Shu didn’t respond. She was silent for a while, then asked softly, “Why are you telling me this?”
Xie Zhoulin tilted his head to look at her. “I just wanted to explain why I’ve tolerated Lu Mingxi’s behavior and temper all these years at school.”
He spoke while keeping an eye on the road, his voice calm and measured. “Everyone found it hard to put up with him at first, but then we’d remember the countless nights he nearly died from high fevers as a child, and our hearts softened. We became more patient, more forgiving.”
Ji Shu recalled her first day at this school. In that dim storage room, even though she had hit Lu Mingxi in a fit of uncontrollable anger and sent him to the hospital, he had fainted far too easily.
Looking back now, it hadn’t seemed like he was knocked out, it seemed more like a faint brought on by illness.
She lowered her head and searched the disease on her phone’s browser.
Even as an adult, there was a significant chance of sudden collapse, and in severe cases, it could be life-threatening. She entered the names of members of the Duke’s family one by one, discovering that Lu Mingxi’s grandfather had the same medical history. This hereditary heart disease, running through the family line, was like a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any moment.
But with modern medicine, Lu Mingxi was likely not as fragile as they feared, and the illness was not necessarily incurable in the future.
Xie Zhoulin glanced at her with his peripheral vision. She was staring down, lost in deep thought.
After a long moment, she lifted her head, steady and calm, and said:
“Even knowing this, I cannot change my attitude toward him, and I will certainly not forgive him because of it.”
Xie Zhoulin replied, “You never had to.”
After dropping Ji Shu off at her destination, he drove home. On the way, he answered a few calls, handled some messages while waiting at traffic lights, and slowly recalled the tone in which Ji Shu had said that sentence:
“I will not forgive him.”
He pressed his lips together.
He returned calls to his family, responding briefly, then slowly called Lu Ruqing back. He meticulously described Lu Mingxi’s day, downplaying Ji Shu’s presence.
After hanging up, he absentmindedly ran his fingers over the DV camera. The multicolored glow from the city lights and LED screens outside cast patterns through the car window, falling across his hair and eyelids like faint ripples on water.
The secret of Lu Mingxi’s illness, revealed to Ji Shu in advance by him, would have far less impact than if the Duke or the young Duke had told her themselves later.
By learning this hidden truth at the moment she disliked him the most, no one would ever be able to exploit her pity again.