After Shi Bei agreed to help her secretly investigate, she said it was getting late and sent her away.
Hearing the door close, she immediately went to turn on her computer, retrieved her backup mobile hard drive from her file box, and began to review the saved personal information of students in the same grade.
She went through everything very meticulously for a long time, but no one capable of drawing attention appeared.
Shi Bei basically had an impression of anyone who had been relatively familiar with Kong Lingrou.
However, Kong Lingrou had attended countless interest classes and summer camps in the past… Even Shi Bei wouldn’t know every single person who had come into contact with her.
Two and a half hours later, Shi Bei—still without any clues—rested her face flat on the desk, her temples throbbing with a dull pulse.
Unconsciously, she raised her fist and pressed it lightly against her chest.
Is being a homosexual really such a special thing? Why care so much about it?
She lay there quietly for a while, then climbed back up to continue looking through entries related to lesbians. After observing a wide array of netizens’ comments, she finally built a rough impression of the entire demographic.
Until her stomach let out a huge, exaggerated rumble.
Shi Bei, who was already so hungry she couldn’t move, snapped back to reality. She grabbed her crutches to prop up her body, quickly cooked herself a bowl of instant noodles, and returned to the computer.
Slurping down the instant noodles—which she had eaten for so many consecutive days that she could barely taste them anymore—she kept her eyes glued to the forum posts.
[Got played by a straight girl at school. She clung to me every day saying she liked me, making my heart flutter for half a year until I finally confessed, only for her to say it was just pure straight friendship??]
[Being played by a straight girl is the destiny of every lesbian.]
[Straight girls playing with lesbians—effortless (miserable).]
Shi Bei’s movement came to a halt. After reading through it again with utmost seriousness, a peculiar surge suddenly welled up inside her heart, making her bite off the noodles in her mouth with a snap.
Since Kong Lingrou was a lesbian, and she herself was a straight girl…
Then if she put in some effort, wouldn’t she be able to play with her?
For some reason, this idea—which had only just taken a vague shape—felt exceptionally feasible. Her mind instantly turned into a chaotic mess as all sorts of thoughts came rushing in…
That’s right, she was a girl too.
After pondering for a long time without finding any reason why it wouldn’t work, she couldn’t help but treat it as a brilliant idea—the excitement in her heart was an even stronger omen that her grand revenge would be exacted.
Once her mind was set, Shi Bei took a deep breath to force herself to calm down.
She immediately searched for all kinds of information, starting to look for clues on her next move.
She wasn’t good at being likable, so she had to start learning from the most basic framework.
The theoretical knowledge of any subject was always vast; after spending half the day copying down basic theories, she suddenly realized that researching “the biological and evolutionary reasons behind attraction” wouldn’t directly help her attract Kong Lingrou as a person.
She thought for a moment, then switched to reading a small amount of theory to determine her overall strategy, while collecting a large number of quick and effective methods tested out by netizens as tactics.
In the past, she had always communicated and learned in technical forums, so this was her first time specifically visiting emotional gossip boards to read posts. She began browsing through a massive amount of interpersonal content.
“Must-read for middle-aged and elderly people! Emojis you shouldn’t send casually—”
The meaning of [Smile]: Heh, get lost.
The meaning of [Goodbye]: Get lost quickly.
When only sending [OK]: Indicates impatience, reluctance, or being forced to accept.
…
Shi Bei instantly closed this post.
How strange that someone was talking nonsense with such a straight face, even ranking her favorite emojis in the top three.
A long time passed. In the quiet dark night, only the light from the computer screen illuminated Shi Bei’s intently focused face.
Bursts of wind beat against the window.
She stood up to look outside to see if it was raining, catching a glimpse of a pot of begonias planted under a neighbor’s eaves, its plump, nearly heart-shaped leaves swaying gently.
Without realizing it, she had stayed up all night once again.
The next day, having been asleep for less than three hours, Shi Bei heard the doorbell ring and turned over in agony, throwing off the blanket to run limping to open the door.
After opening the door, without making a single sound, she turned around and limped back to bed at lightning speed.
The moment Kong Lingrou stepped inside, she saw Shi Bei already fast asleep with the blanket covering her face.
Kong Lingrou: “…”
Not until the last rays of direct sunlight in the sky retracted.
Shi Bei had been sleeping fitfully, having countless dreams. The last clear dream involved her holding a Golden-Hooped Staff, performing a tightrope walk between two cliffs.
The audience down below consisted entirely of monkeys.
The monkeys clapped while throwing bananas onto the stage.
Soon, it transitioned into a very shallow dream, like a memory recalled while awake, where she could even hear the sound of the wind in her ears.
A patch of darkness mixed with confusion.
Two little girls were chatting face-to-face.
“Beibei, do you think the opposite of love is hate, or indifference?”
“Indifference, probably.”
“Mm, our personalities really are very different.”
The very next second after realizing she was dreaming, Shi Bei opened her eyes.
What greeted her vision was the dim, dark ceiling.
For some reason, her entire being felt very serene, lacking the damp coldness she used to feel after dreaming about the past.
However, she always felt like she had forgotten something.
Shi Bei slowly sat up. As she was lost in thought, she raised her face and met Kong Lingrou’s eyes, which were as calm as still water.
“Awake?”
Shi Bei’s brain, smoothed over from sleep, lagged by a few seconds before finally reacting to the situation.
At the same time, she remembered that the posts she stayed up reading yesterday—whether guidebooks for girl-pursuing-girl, guy-pursuing-girl, or girl-pursuing-guy—unanimously emphasized one point: Make the other person feel your respect for them, and never let them think you only care about yourself.
Leaving the teacher who promised to tutor her aside while she slept soundly herself—what did that count as?
Could it count as just being fond of sleeping?
“…Why didn’t you wake me up?” Shi Bei raised her hand to rub her nose. The inexplicable nervousness caused her voice to be a bit loud: “If you had given me a call, I definitely would have gotten up right away.”
Kong Lingrou: “My fault.”
Shi Bei: “Yes.”
Shi Bei: “N-No, it’s not!”
Kong Lingrou closed the book: “Kong Lingyu will be coming over in a bit. New supplementary handouts were distributed in your class; she wants to come over to hang out with you, and bring the handout with lecture notes written on it while she’s at it.”
“Your class?” Shi Bei couldn’t help muttering softly: “It’s clearly your elective.”
Kong Lingrou asked, puzzled: “How do you know it’s my class?”
Shi Bei: …
She could hear even when spoken so softly.
The accounts generated by the school followed a pattern; if one was good at searching for information, a little deduction would reveal which one belonged to Kong Lingrou. At the same time, her habit regarding password settings had never changed.
But these words couldn’t be said out loud.
Shi Bei opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Fortunately, Kong Lingrou today was unexpectedly generous, not even pursuing this question further.
She raised her hand to place the Japanese reference book back in its original position. Shi Bei couldn’t find any anger on her face over having her time wasted.
“The key points are marked. Come over and memorize them directly.”
Shi Bei walked over cautiously, took a glance at her own notebook, and was startled once more: Not only were the key points highlighted in the book, but even the notes were fully organized.
Could it be that she hadn’t woken up yet and was dreaming right now?
She sat down silently, reading the book for a while, then looking at the notebook.
The handwriting on the white paper notebook remained neat and tidy, with line spacing controlled as if set on a computer. Worthy of someone who came from an art background.
Apart from that, their handwriting was very similar; the newly added content didn’t look out of place in the notebook at all.
“It looks quite similar to my own handwriting.”
The moment Shi Bei finished saying that, she immediately regretted speaking out of line.
It wasn’t that Kong Lingrou wrote like her; it was that she had constantly practiced writing like Kong Lingrou when she was young.
Fortunately, the doorbell rang. Without looking at Kong Lingrou’s expression, she immediately hopped over to open the door for Kong Lingyu.
Entering the room and seeing Kong Lingrou sitting leisurely inside, Kong Lingyu immediately said with a bitter face: “Sis, since you’re not too busy lately, can’t you just write the homework yourself?”
“No.”
“Then at least don’t judge my homework even more strictly than the teacher.” Kong Lingyu opened her shoulder bag and handed the new handout to Shi Bei: “Look, the assignment grade is our final grade. It’s so troublesome—why can’t they just hold an exam directly!”
True, if it were an exam, only Kong Lingrou herself could take it.
Shi Bei took the handout and took a brief look.
Seeing that there were only two chairs in the room and not wanting to steal a seat from the disabled Shi Bei, Kong Lingyu had no choice but to stand and say: “Sis, do you have time to grab a drink with me recently?”
“No time.”
If you have no time, why are you here every time I visit?
Kong Lingyu curled her lip slightly, glanced at Shi Bei again, and forcibly created an atmosphere of casual chat: “I’ve met a lot of new friends participating in activities recently.”
Kong Lingrou picked up the new handout Shi Bei had casually placed on the desk, then glanced over at Shi Bei’s notebook.
If one only looked at the Kanji portions, it was indeed hard to tell the handwriting apart without looking closely.
However, their level of familiarity with writing Hiragana and Katakana in Japanese was different; the Hiragana and Katakana written by Shi Bei were exceptionally round and plump, like a child’s.
Rarely, Kong Lingrou found herself drifting off into thought.
In the past, Shi Bei was afraid of being caught by teachers for ghostwriting, so she would study her handwriting diligently.
She often needed to imitate based on things written in Kong Lingrou’s own hand, and was too lazy to carry all the books and test papers over to her own desk, so she would always sit in Kong Lingrou’s seat to write.
Occasionally, Kong Lingrou would get up to yield her desk.
But more often than not, she would let Shi Bei sit on her lap.
She would hold her, watching and guiding her on how to write so it would look even more similar.
Watching the clumsy imitation become harder and harder to distinguish from her own, stroke by stroke.
…
“She participated in the national competition back in high school, just a short step away from becoming an Olympic athlete. Sis, don’t you like watching fencing matches…”
Last time’s incident had made Kong Lingyu give up on introducing a partner to Kong Lingrou, but even though she didn’t bring it up, the other girl had proactively asked twice, begging Kong Lingyu to organize a gathering, even if just as friends.
Kong Lingyu agreed to give it a try, but after beating around the bush for half a day, no one paid any attention to her.
She could only drag along Shi Bei, who was at least still listening, to chat, seeing if they could come up with some appropriate topic to arrange a dinner.
“By the way, did you join any clubs back then?”
She asked Shi Bei.
Shi Bei remained silent, shaking her head.
Kong Lingyu: “…”
There was truly no tougher conversation venue in the world than this.
Kong Lingyu took a secret deep breath and persevered: “I was in a relationship once when I was in high school, and after breaking up, I didn’t date again. When they heard about it, their reactions were super exaggerated, saying they’d drag me along to a mixer right away. Is dating only once really that exaggerated? Shi Bei, you’ve probably never dated even once, right?”
What trashy topic.
Even Kong Lingyu felt she was talking nonsense and was about to switch to something else.
Unexpectedly, Shi Bei actually picked up the conversation and said: “I was extremely popular in high school. I dated the most popular guy in the entire school and then dumped him. I’ve dated three times in total.”
Kong Lingyu froze for a second, then said in an excited, supportive voice: “Wow, so impressive!”
Shi Bei recalled the point consistently highlighted in the countless online strategy guides she browsed last night: Create an impression that you are very popular; nobody likes someone who is unpopular.
She thought to herself: They don’t understand the situation in ordinary high schools anyway, nor do they know that early romance is universally forbidden domestically. Even less could they guess that during my three years of high school, besides doing problem sets, I was just doing problem sets, without a single friend.
Kong Lingrou raised her gaze from the handout, looking at her with a half-smile that wasn’t quite a smile:
“Is that so? I thought Beibei was also gloomy and eccentric in high school, with no one within a ten-mile radius daring to come near.”
Shi Bei: …Pretty much.