MTLY | Chapter 4

◎Quite a fanciful idea.◎

On a late spring night, the weather was still a little cool. The pretty girl looked at Song Tinghuan, who had somehow appeared out of nowhere, and her beautiful eyes were practically about to catch fire.

It was already this late, and she was still hanging around at Jiang Yu’s house, speaking in that cutesy, sugary voice.

She had seen plenty of girls like this, all scheming and tea-scented.

And the scheming girl herself was also burning with anger right now.

Jiang Yu clearly hadn’t understood what she meant. Song Tinghuan blinked at him quickly, then lowered her soft, fluffy voice. “Shutang auntie is at home.”

One cheek puffed up a little, and when she spoke, there was a sweet peachy fragrance to her voice.

“So?” Jiang Yu said, suppressing a smile.

So?

Song Tinghuan did not understand why this person could still sound so righteous at this exact moment. If she weren’t worried that Song Mingcheng would find out she and Jiang Yu did not get along well, she originally had no intention of meddling in this business.

Song Mingcheng had been working himself to the bone lately, trying to raise money, and she could not let him worry about her little problem too.

Song Tinghuan glanced quickly at the girl behind Jiang Yu, then lowered her voice even more. “So you can’t bring people home.”

Seeing that Jiang Yu still didn’t seem to understand, she pressed her lips together and said seriously and quietly, “No matter how much they give you.”

“And if Shutang auntie finds out you secretly do this kind of thing, she definitely will…” Song Tinghuan paused, not knowing how to finish.

“Will what?”

Song Tinghuan thought she should scare Jiang Yu a little. Only then would he realize how serious the problem was.

“Will… break your legs.”

“?”

The surroundings were quiet, with only sparse insect cries sounding out in the damp spring night, especially clear and cold.

Jiang Yu looked down at her, and even the pretty girl beside him wore an expression of utter confusion.

Song Tinghuan subconsciously swallowed.

She… she hadn’t said anything wrong, had she?

Why did her neck feel so chilly?

“Say that again.” There was a thin layer of amusement in Jiang Yu’s eyes, but his voice was wrapped in cold.

Instinct told Song Tinghuan that this was not good.

“Is… is there something wrong?”

Jiang Yu was so exasperated he laughed. He had run into evening rush hour in Beicheng just to buy her this broken schoolbag, been stuck in a traffic jam so bad the road was completely blocked, and then got blocked at his own front door too. He was already full of fire, and now this heartless little thing was telling him what?

The girl’s almond-shaped eyes were dark and round, and she was looking at him with utter helplessness.

Jiang Yu let out a low laugh, almost through clenched teeth. “Go on, tell me, what did I secretly do?”

Song Tinghuan: “…”

Was it really okay to bring this kind of thing up?

Song Tinghuan hesitated for a moment, then said tactfully, “You said it on the phone during the day.”

Jiang Yu: “?”

“Just… that you’d do it if they paid more.” Song Tinghuan swallowed and managed to force out the rest. “You’d… take good care of them.”

Jiang Yu: “…”

Fuck, he really was–fuck.

It felt like he had punched cotton. All that fire in him had nowhere to go.

Then he looked at this little girl, who had been arguing so confidently just a moment ago and was now wearing an innocent expression, and amusement rose in his cool eyes. “So, you think I’m doing what?”

A rent boy.

But Song Tinghuan was too embarrassed to say it out loud, and didn’t have the guts to say it either.

“Just doing… um, that kind of job.”

What the hell was “that kind of job”. What kind of nonsense was that tiny thing’s head full of?

Jiang Yu bent down slightly so his gaze was level with Song Tinghuan’s. The evil fire in his stomach churned, but a faint smile hooked at the corner of his beautiful eyes. “Oh.”

“Oh…?”

“What do we do now, we’ve been found out.”

Song Tinghuan’s breath caught, and her throat made a small swallowing motion.

Jiang Yu looked like a total hoodlum. “You came to tip me off?”

“I…”

“Are you just trying to help me cover it up, or were you planning to blackmail me into splitting the money with you?”

“?”

“Oh.” Jiang Yu nodded. “Then help me keep it secret. I’ll split half of whatever I make with you in the future. How about that?”

Song Tinghuan: “!”

What was this, an accomplice?

Jiang Yu had already straightened up. The tea-dark eyes in his face were overflowing with laughter, as if he was very satisfied with this partner.

Song Tinghuan hurriedly shook her head, clearly frightened badly. “N-no, no need, I was just reminding you…”

Her forehead was suddenly tapped, using the edge of a phone. Song Tinghuan raised a hand to rub it, looking at Jiang Yu in confusion.

“You’re not old, but your ideas are pretty fancy.” Perhaps the fear in the girl’s dark, soft eyes had stirred up the faintest scrap of his conscience. Teasing her like this did seem pretty bastardly.

Jiang Yu opened his phone and pulled up the call log. “Come, take a look at the one who helped me line up my pimp.”

On the screen, there was only one call from this morning, from “Meng Shutang.”

Song Tinghuan: “…”

If there really was a crack in the ground, let her disappear into it on the spot.

But… but how could someone talk to their own mom like that?

“Jiang Yu.”

A sweet voice sounded from behind them. Only then did Jiang Yu and Song Tinghuan realize there was a third person nearby.

Jiang Yu frowned. The teasing good mood from just now vanished in an instant. Looking at Song Tinghuan, who was still standing there dazed, he tossed out two words with no real emotion. “Let’s go.”

He had already walked past Song Tinghuan and was heading straight back to the villa. Song Tinghuan glanced at the pretty girl who had been left coldly at the garden gate, then quickly turned and followed.

As she walked, she kept looking back.

A hand suddenly landed on the top of her head. Song Tinghuan tried to duck away, but Jiang Yu firmly fixed her gaze straight ahead.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

“She’s really beautiful,” Song Tinghuan answered honestly.

Jiang Yu narrowed his eyes slightly.

“Aren’t you going to see her off?” Song Tinghuan tilted her head again, trying to escape from beneath Jiang Yu’s hand.

Jiang Yu obediently let go and strode toward the villa. “Why should I?”

“That’s gentlemanly manners.”

Jiang Yu stopped and looked at her from the side.

The boy was very tall. Being looked at like that brought that same pressure back again. Song Tinghuan swallowed and took half a step back, only to see Jiang Yu suddenly hook his lips. “Oh, then sorry, I’m a bastard.”

Song Tinghuan: “?”

Why did he seem kind of proud of that?

Song Tinghuan was about to say something else when something was suddenly stuffed into her arms. She looked down. It was the paper bag Jiang Yu had been carrying all this time.

“What is this…”

“Your schoolbag.”

“?”

Song Tinghuan looked into the bag. Under the pale moonlight, she could see very clearly the off-white canvas schoolbag inside, almost exactly like the one she had before, with a little bear hanging from the zipper.

Song Tinghuan looked up. The bright light spilling from the villa stretched the boy’s shadow long and thin, lean and tall, yet somehow a little careless.

Song Tinghuan tightened her grip on the schoolbag in her arms.

*

The next day was Monday, and also the day Song Tinghuan officially went to school for the first time since arriving in Beicheng.

The school had been arranged by Meng Shutang. It was Qinde Middle School, the best school in Beicheng. In its early years it had been privately run, later becoming public. Qinde was a century-old prestigious school, and the students who could get in were either from wealthy families or top scorers.

Song Tinghuan’s grades were not especially good, just above average. Thinking about being surrounded by rich heirs and academic stars, she was a little nervous.

She bit into her egg pancake while listening to Meng Shutang’s instructions across from her. “Tingting, go to school with Jiang Yu later. He’s in Class 9, Year Two. If anything happens at school, you can go to him.”

A snort came from behind them, the tone thin and light.

Song Tinghuan turned around and saw Jiang Yu coming down the stairs, wearing a somewhat loose white and purple school uniform that made him look even taller and straighter.

The zipper of his uniform jacket wasn’t pulled up, and he was still wearing a black hoodie underneath, with a purple earphone cable coiled out from it.

Meng Shutang had always disliked Jiang Yu’s unrestrained, nonchalant attitude, and there was a hint of dislike in her gentle voice. “Tingting just got here, and it’s a new school and a new environment. What’s wrong with taking care of her?”

Jiang Yu didn’t answer. He passed by Song Tinghuan.

The girl was quietly eating breakfast. Her bangs were soft and thin, and her low twin ponytails had been brought forward from behind her ears.

Maybe she was hungry, maybe she was in a hurry, but she stuffed the whole egg pancake into her mouth. Her pale cheeks puffed up, moving up and down like a little hamster.

For no reason at all, Jiang Yu let out a low laugh.

That very low, very faint laugh made Song Tinghuan stop chewing all at once, looking even more like a startled little hamster.

Sensing the gaze from above and across the table, Song Tinghuan didn’t bother to eat breakfast slowly anymore. She forcefully swallowed the egg pancake in her mouth, gulped down half a glass of milk, wiped her mouth, and picked up the schoolbag beside her.

“Let’s go.” She looked at Jiang Yu, her movements crisp and neat.

Jiang Yu looked at her but said nothing.

When had he ever agreed to send her to school?

“You… aren’t going?” Song Tinghuan asked again, lowering her voice a little, returning to her usual soft tone.

Her gaze was steady, those eyes black as polished ink.

She looked like some untutored young beast, testing and asking.

Meeting the girl’s soft, harmless gaze, Jiang Yu coughed once. “Let’s go.”

Just one very low word.

“Do you have evening study hall?” Meng Shutang called after him from behind.

Jiang Yu: “No.”

“Oh, then pick Tingting up after school and come back together.”

Jiang Yu: “…”

Take her to school, and also pick her up after school?

Jiang Yu gave a cold laugh. Was he her dad or something?

Song Tinghuan had been following at a diagonal behind Jiang Yu. The boy was tall and long-limbed, the line of his profile clean and sharp. He only wore one of his electroplated purple earphones, his posture loose, but his bearing was upright, a little like the boys in the manga books girls had secretly passed around in class before.

It would have been better if he hadn’t just made that sarcastic, mocking laugh.

Song Tinghuan didn’t dare breathe too loudly. She quietly followed behind Jiang Yu.

The Jiang family’s driver was already waiting at the door. The two of them got into the car together, and it slowly drove toward Qinde.

Jiang Yu didn’t speak, and Song Tinghuan had no intention of chatting with him either. She looked silently out the window at the bustling traffic of the city in the early morning.

This place was a little different from Lingcheng.

The buildings were taller, there were more cars on the road, and pedestrians walked faster too.

Before long, the bold, powerful characters for “Qinde” came into view.

The campus covered a huge area, with buildings rising step by step, the middle school section connected to the high school section.

“Uncle Guan, stop the car.”

The boy beside her finally spoke, his voice cold and faint.

Jiang Yu had already opened the car door, and Song Tinghuan didn’t daze around either. She quickly opened the door on her side too.

There was still some distance to the school, and Song Tinghuan quietly followed behind Jiang Yu the whole way. It wasn’t until the boy in front of her turned around and looked down at her with lowered lashes that she finally stopped.

His brows and eyes were sharp, a little impatient, as he asked in a low voice, “What time do you get out?”

“Huh?” Song Tinghuan froze for a moment. “I don’t know yet.”

Jiang Yu: “…”

Their eyes met, and Song Tinghuan felt a little at a loss.

It was her first day at school today, how was she supposed to know what time she’d be dismissed?

Jiang Yu’s patience seemed to have finally run out too.

“Can you get home by yourself after school?”

Song Tinghuan nodded.

Back when she was in Lingcheng, she always went home from school alone.

“Fine, go.”

Song Tinghuan: Hm? Go where?

Looking at the crowd gathered at the entrance to Qinde Middle School, Song Tinghuan finally realized something very serious.

The girl’s red-soft lips pressed together, and for the first time her obedient little face showed an emotion somewhat like “anger.”

“Jiang Yu, I’m in Year One of high school.”

Jiang Yu: “…”

Author’s note:

Song Xiaohuan: Jiang Yu didn’t behave properly again today.

Jiang Yu: ?

School life begins~