Lin ChuSui sat at the small table in the inner room, slowly chewing and swallowing the bowl of hot broth and braised food, staring intently at Xiao Yan's busy back.
What was with this guy?
Previously, he had flirted more discreetly, but recently, with his "I’m in charge of you" and calling her “boss lady”... wasn’t this a direct frontal attack?
As Lin ChuSui stirred the piping hot food in her bowl, she felt somewhat complicated.
It was getting harder and harder to refuse him.
How annoying.
At eight o'clock in the evening, Xiao Yan put up the closed sign and started tidying up the tables and taking out ingredients from the cupboards to prepare the braising liquid for tomorrow in advance.
"Where's your sister?" she asked with concern.
"She runs the shop during the day and goes to night school in the evening to take classes, so she comes back very late."
"Then doesn't that mean you have to work late into the night, finish your homework, and stay up until the early morning?!"
With the amount of homework that Rocket Class B got, if Lin ChuSui did it properly, each subject would take her at least 4 hours.
"Let me help you," she said enthusiastically as she rolled up her sleeves and walked over. "That way you can save some time to do your homework and go to bed earlier."
"No need." Xiao Yan glanced at her indifferently. "It seems that someone who's attending class has already finished her homework."
"..."
Self-inflicted humiliation!
Lin ChuSui walked to the braising pot, picked up the ladle, and helped him stir the liquid as she muttered in a muffled voice, "Xiao Yan, don't go work at places like the Xiting Club."
Xiao Yan's dish washing hands paused, his expression unchanged. "Why?"
"I don't know, I just feel uncomfortable about it."
Places like that were heaven for the rich and hell for the poor. Lin ChuSui couldn't bear to see someone as proud as him get bullied there.
"If you're short on money or have an urgent need, I can get 50,000 yuan if I win the marathon..."
"No need."
"Why?"
"Because with your little short legs, you might not even get the championship."
"..."
Looking to battle again, huh! Come on then!
Xiao Yan's dark eyes lowered, turbulence churning within. "Lin ChuSui, don't pity me."
I'm not worth it, not deserving of it.
She didn't know of his intentions in getting close to her at all.
Lin ChuSui muttered, "I'm just treating you like a friend."
"Would you use the marathon prize money to help Lu Chi or Zhang Chengyu pay off debts?"
"Uh..."
Probably not.
"But you're not Zhang Chengyu or Lu Chi. You're Xiao Yan."
He smiled bleakly, "What's the difference with Xiao Yan?"
"How would I know?!" Lin ChuSui was a little angry being questioned like this and threw down the ladle. "If you don't want it, then forget it. Who's begging you?"
Xiao Yan looked deeply at her, and the mission progress bar in the lower right corner jumped again.
He knew that this girl was starting to like him, to fall in love with him, at a speed she wasn't even aware of herself.
His heart felt stuffy, and he no longer had the same pleasure as before from moving the progress bar forward.
Xu Jianing was a hypocrite, but Xiao Yan...
Had always been a true villain.
He was a worm that crawled out from the mud, never honorable.
When he was young at the orphanage, in order to get adopted faster, he learned to paint and play chess better than the other kids...to stand out from them.
After getting adopted, he tried to do everything to please his parents...
But all of it was futile.
After that terrifying surgery, he lost the chance to be a healthy child. Hatred consumed his everything, and he endured for many years before taking revenge for himself.
And this time, similarly, he would stop at nothing to gain the right to live.
Clearly, the progress bar was moving faster and faster.
But his heart...was getting more and more uncomfortable.
Xiao Yan took a deep breath, looking steadily at her as he said in a low voice, "50,000 is far from enough."
"Still not enough?" Lin ChuSui exclaimed in surprise. "Uh, just how much do you owe exactly?"
"A lot, and a life too."
But I don't plan on repaying it.
...
At night, Lin ChuSui walked along the street pushing her bike, while Xiao Yan sat on the back with his long legs dangling playfully against the ground.
"You're supposed to be sending me home, yet I'm the one pushing the bike!" Lin ChuSui grumbled, "You should be the one giving me a ride, got it?"
"I'm not well physically," Xiao Yan said. "I can't do anything too strenuous."
"Earlier you were saying your body was perfectly fine."
"Earlier, I was afraid you'd mind." His voice was light as he smiled. "I overthought it. You don't actually mind at all."
Lin ChuSui turned back to rub his head. "No matter what you think, it's just wishful thinking! A goddess does not regret falling for a mortal!"
"Is that so?"
The moonlight was cold as water. There were few pedestrians on the street, only their lone shadows slowly moving forward under the moonlight, one walking and one sitting.
Lin ChuSui seemed to intentionally walk very slowly, and Xiao Yan didn't rush her either, dangling his feet tipsily against the ground.
She couldn't help but glance back at him. The shallow black eyes of the youth looked at her with a hint of tenderness in his smile.
She immediately turned her head back around, her heartbeat inexplicably speeding up.
Just then, several men blocked their way ahead.
Lin ChuSui recognized one of them, Zhao Xiaolu.
She had taken off her school uniform and wore a punk-style cropped tank top showing her navel, laughing coldly as she beckoned to Lin ChuSui.
The few men also looked like small-time gangsters, their expressions unfriendly as they stood around Zhao Xiaolu.
The man beside Zhao Xiaolu was her sworn brother, a student from the vocational high school next door and a juvenile delinquent.
"What do you want?" Lin ChuSui said coldly. "Zhao Xiaolu, looking to get revenge?"
Zhao Xiaolu laughed. "Where are those inseparable followers of yours? I was planning to have my brothers practice with them, but unexpectedly you're alone tonight."
She looked Xiao Yan up and down. "Oh, out on a date with the class genius?"
Xiao Yan parked the bike at the roadside, seeming completely unconcerned about the group as he moved lazily.
Lin ChuSui looked around and saw that Zhao Xiaolu had come prepared for a group fight, calling over seven or eight people who were clearly experienced brawlers.
If it was just her alone, she naturally wouldn't be afraid of these guys, but now Xiao Yan was with her.
She didn't want the class genius to get dragged into these fights, so she said, "This has nothing to do with my deskmate. Let him go. We can resolve our own grudges."
Zhao Xiaolu said, "Can't do that. Since you two are together tonight, consider it his bad luck."
Lin ChuSui said irritably, "If he hadn't shown up to save you today, you would've met King Yama in the underworld already!"
Zhao Xiaolu clicked her tongue. "Did he save me? Wasn't it because he was afraid you'd get in trouble? You wicked creatures, if one is cursed, you should suffer it together. Anyway, nothing good ever happens to those around you. You're a jinx!"
Lin ChuSui instinctively blocked Xiao Yan behind her, eyeing the men warily.
She could tell these tattooed big brothers were definitely not upstanding characters.
"Zhao Xiaolu, I won't fight you tonight. Next time when we're free, we can meet up again. You've brought all these people today, I'll face you alone."
Zhao Xiaolu realized Lin ChuSui was backing down this time, purely for the sake of her weak, powerless little boyfriend behind her.
The more she cared about him, the more Zhao Xiaolu was unwilling to let her off easily.
In all these years, she'd never seen Lin ChuSui afraid of anything.
"We'll settle today's grudges today. Either you let my brothers beat you two up to get back at me for the humiliation I suffered today, or..."
"You kneel and apologize."
Lin ChuSui stared fixedly at Zhao Xiaolu. After a moment, the corners of her lips quirked up as she casually said, "Fine, it's just an apology, isn't it? You said that after I apologize, you'll let us go."
Zhao Xiaolu thought she would stubbornly refuse to the end, but didn't expect her to give in so easily. "To avoid your little boyfriend getting beat up, you're pretty decisive huh."
"My deskmate's health isn't good." Lin ChuSui looked her in the eye. "My apology is enough, right?"
Zhao Xiaolu emphasized, "I said, kneel and apologize."
"I heard you." Lin ChuSui pretended to be relaxed. "I really don't get why you people always like making others kneel. It's just kneeling for a bit, not like I'm losing any flesh right?"
"Whether you'll lose any flesh or not, that'll be clear after you kneel."
Xiao Yan's gaze lowered to see the girl's hands clenched into trembling fists beneath her sleeves.
Yet she still smiled easily, and sank to her knees. "I apologize..."
However, before her knees could touch the ground, she was lifted up by the shoulders by the man behind her, effortlessly.
Lin ChuSui was slightly shocked, but saw Xiao Yan strolling over slowly, with his straight back completely shielding her behind him, like a solid mountain range.
"First of all, I'm not small, I'm not her 'little' boyfriend." The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. "Secondly, I'm not in good health, but I do know some fighting skills."
What happened next really shocked and astonished Lin ChuSui, it really opened her eyes.
She had seen several boxes of medicine in Xiao Yan's locker before, and had always thought he was a sickly academic nerd who didn't like sports, and didn't even like playing basketball.
She didn't expect that when he made a move, he was so smooth and accurate, hitting all the vital parts. His moves were definitely trained, and he knocked down those little gangsters in no time.
What surprised Lin ChuSui even more was that he treated males and females equally. After taking care of those gangsters, he grabbed Zhao Xiaolu's hair and heavily slammed her against the wall.
Zhao Xiaolu was even more surprised, she didn't expect the usually gentle academic star to be so vicious. She was slammed dizzy and her head was buzzing.
"Xiao Yan, you bastard!"
Xiao Yan's eyes were cold, and his voice was even colder. "You're the one who should apologize."
"Dream on!"
"The ID that posted on the forum was yours, right? I traced it back to your other little account. You had exposed many people's secrets on the forum before, including a video of a girl's restroom. The girl who got filmed has dropped out of school now, right?"
Zhao Xiaolu looked at him in disbelief. "How...how do you know..."
The man in front of her smiled so gently and harmlessly, but his eyes were so cold, it sent chills down her spine.
What a demon!
"You gathered so many people to cause trouble for my little ChuSui, you didn't even check your phone right?"
As he said that, he let go of Zhao Xiaolu. "Why don't you take a look now?"
Zhao Xiaolu ran a few steps after getting free, then looked back at Xiao Yan suspiciously.
Xiao Yan and Lin ChuSui still stood in their original spots.
She took out her phone with trembling hands.
There were several missed calls, from the class advisor and her parents. The class group chat had also exploded -
"Damn, all these IDs are Zhao Xiaolu's?"
"I'd call her the Queen of Sock Puppets."
"So the restroom peeping incident was done by her too, how disgusting!"
"I can't believe a girl would do this to another girl, gross!"
"She made Wang RuXin drop out from shame, ruined someone's life!"
"People like her should be chopped into pieces."
...
Zhao Xiaolu's face turned pale purple as she trembled, she could barely stand, and knelt down in the corner, scared out of her wits.
Xiao Yan was too lazy to bother with her. He pushed his bike and said to Lin ChuSui, "Get on, let's go home."
Lin ChuSui still hadn't recovered. At his words, she glanced at him.
Under the moonlight, Xiao Yan no longer had that fierce and cold look when fighting. As he looked at her, his dark eyes were exceptionally gentle, in a way she had never seen before.
Her heart started racing again.
Task progress: 27%, 28%, 29%, 30%...
Seeing the progress bar rising like crazy again, Xiao Yan lowered his eyes and looked at the bike handlebars.
A light breeze blew by, his mood...was unusually gentle for once -
"Let's go, my good girl."
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