TFS | Chapter 4

Qiyue didn’t care at all how wronged the girl felt. He grabbed her by the back collar with one hand and tossed her aside like trash, all but disgusted. Jiang Mian struggled hard, but his grip was too strong, and she couldn’t break free at all. Even her neck had been rubbed raw red by the collar.

In the chaos, no one knew what her fingers had pressed. All at once, a series of messages sent successfully sounded, followed immediately by the ringing of a call connecting. After a few “beeps,” the other end actually picked up.

“Hello?”

The voice coming through the receiver was delicate and gentle, slow and unhurried, carrying a kind of untouchable coolness. Because the connection was poor, it sounded a little hoarse and blurry.

Holy shit!

A vein jumped at Qiyue’s temple.

Why had he never noticed before that this wretched woman’s voice sounded… sounded like it could kill someone?

The private room fell silent for several seconds.

The voice from the phone wasn’t loud, but because everyone’s attention was fixed on the two of them, Xu Linruan’s voice came through especially clearly.

Qiyue cursed under his breath, shoved Jiang Mian hard, then stretched out his hand in front of her. “Hurry up, give me the phone!”

The girl froze and didn’t move. With a hurt look, she said, “You’re being so fierce, so what if I don’t give it to you…”

Jiang Mian’s eyes were red with grievance. If this had been any other time, Qiyue might have shown a bit of broad-minded tolerance and let it go, but lately that woman Xu Linruan had been provoking him endlessly, and he had no spare tenderness left in him at all.

After answering the call, Xu Linruan heard the sound of a bunch of ridiculous meme stickers Qiyue had sent in the chat. The other end was noisy, with a faint girl’s angry crying and cursing. She understood a little, and remembering the plot, guessed that this was probably the scene of the male and female leads’ first meeting.

The girl lifted her fine brows slightly, her tone somewhat cool. She lowered her voice and called his name, “Qiyue?”

When she didn’t hear a response, there was another burst of chair legs and bottles crashing to the floor. The noise hurt Xu Linruan’s eardrums, and she disgustedly moved the phone away from her ear.

When the argument on the other end finally died down a little, she raised her brows ever so slightly, as if she had just watched a farce. Her pale fingers tapped the screen as she said lightly into the receiver, “I still have things to do, I’m hanging up first!”

The end of her sentence curled with an almost maddening sweetness.

Damn it!

Qiyue was so angry his eyebrows nearly shot off his face.

What did that mean, what the hell did that mean, that wretched woman hung up on him again!

He hadn’t even spoken yet, not a single word, and she had actually just hung up like that. Did she have to be this arrogant?

The boy glared at Jiang Mian, who had fallen to the floor. To the others, that scene looked a little like displaced anger, after all, it was because of her fluke that she had dialed Xu Linruan’s number, and the other side had probably misunderstood something, which was why she had hung up on Qiyue in a fit of anger.

This led to the bizarre situation now. The young master kept calling his girlfriend over and over, but the other end kept showing that no one answered…

What the hell was this, haunted or something.

Qiyue felt a wave of irritation rise in his chest. What right did that woman have? Who did she think she was? Hanging up on him and ignoring his messages, and if it weren’t for the bet, he would never have treated her with such careful attention.

As one of the school’s most talked-about figures, Qiyue had never been shut down by a girl in all his life. It had to be said, Xu Linruan’s careless attitude had completely stirred up his competitive spirit.

The young master kicked over a small stool. After thinking it over, he still felt unwilling to let it go, so with a belly full of anger and frustration, he stormed out of the room alone.

But halfway there, he gradually came back to his senses. Why had that wretched woman hung up on him? If she hung up, didn’t that mean she was really angry? And if she was angry, didn’t that mean she cared about him?

With Qiyue’s brain, which was always a bit short on intelligence, he couldn’t think too far into the twists and turns. The most he could come up with was that Xu Linruan was jealous because of another girl, which was why she didn’t answer his call.

Even though that woman said she didn’t care, who knew how much she might secretly like him. Maybe when she mentioned breaking up before, it had also just been a tactic to keep him on edge, which was why she had gotten angry over such a small thing.

Thinking of this, the young master’s lips curled up smugly, and the earlier fury vanished in an instant. Although he still felt a tiny bit unhappy, his face had already changed into a rather self-satisfied expression. As expected, this damn charm of his, nobody could resist it!

Qiyue reached up and raked his fingers through the strands falling over his forehead, then strode toward the school with great swagger.

To be fair, it really was rare. By the time this young master had spent in school over an entire semester, it still hadn’t added up to as much as these two weeks. Usually, he did nothing but fight or skip class, finding a new trick to play every day. Yet because of this bet, he had become diligent. That was truly rare.

By the afternoon, Qiyue ran to the door of Class One to block her.

Although he knew that woman liked him to death in her heart, she refused to admit it, and she also refused to take his calls. Soft tactics and hard tactics both failed, and that was really infuriating.

For the sake of the bet, Qiyue had no choice but to lower himself and come find her first. He might as well show off the newest flirting tricks he had learned. Once she took the bait, he would see how he was going to bully her, hmph!

Thinking like that, another plan formed in Qiyue’s mind. Didn’t that wretched woman have pretty good grades? Surely she couldn’t refuse if he asked her to tutor him. Seventeen was exactly the age when a girl’s heart started to stir. By then, if he put in a little more effort, wouldn’t Xu Linruan be right in his grasp?

The boy lifted his brows with a rather pleased look, as if he could already see his plan succeeding.

He even took a detour back to his classroom to get a test paper, then tucked it under his arm and headed for Xu Linruan’s classroom.

It was lunch break now, and there were hardly any people in the classroom. Qiyue walked over and sat beside the girl. His tall frame blocked most of the sunlight. “Hey, um… you’re Xu Linruan, right? I heard your grades are pretty good. There’s a problem here I can’t figure out, so I came specially to ask you about it.”

Xu Linruan lifted her head slightly.

The boy in front of her had exquisite, flamboyant features. Even though he was clearly speaking in request, there was an air of righteous entitlement in his eyes.

Xu Linruan looked at him with a very subtle expression, as if asking, “Are you sure?”

Qiyue felt slightly offended. He ground his teeth in secret, held back his temper, then squeezed out a not-too-ugly expression. “Why are you looking at me like that? Am I not allowed? Are people with good grades not allowed to let people with bad grades have a little ambition in life?”

“My grades may be a little bad, but at least I’ve got a smart brain, so I want to find someone with good grades to help me make up lessons and try to get a decent score on the final exam to bring honor to the class.”

Even he didn’t believe that after saying it. But he had hinted so obviously already. Wretched woman, weren’t you going to cooperate already?

Xu Linruan glanced at Qiyue, who was clearly impatient but pretending to be patient, and her fine brows lifted slightly. Following his line of speech, she asked, “Sure. Which problems don’t you know how to do?”

So the young master happily handed over the test paper and casually pointed to a few questions, indicating that he couldn’t do any of them.

Actually, asking for help was fake, flirting was real. This was something Qiyue had just learned online. Seemingly accidental, unconscious acts of flirtation could increase the other person’s attention toward you.

So while Xu Linruan was explaining the questions, the young master watched her with a faint, lingering gaze. The more he looked, the harder it was to tear his eyes away. This wretched woman was quite pretty, her nose was beautiful, her mouth was beautiful too, and even her voice sounded better than most people’s. This absolutely wouldn’t do. He was here to go on the offensive, not to get counterattacked.

The boy coughed lightly and, without making a sound, moved closer to Xu Linruan. A strong hormonal presence rushed at him. The young master deliberately lowered his voice and said ambiguously beside her ear, “Classmate Xu, you’re talking too fast like this, I can’t really understand you…”

Before he could even finish, a pair of slender, soft hands quickly covered his mouth. The girl pushed him hard, smiling as she looked at him, as if she had seen through his intentions. “You’re too close.”

The scent of the girl’s body filled his nose, and the breath she exhaled was warm and enticing.

Qiyue stiffened. His gaze fell on the girl’s slender wrist bones. A girl’s fingers were softer and finer than a boy’s, and when they pressed against his mouth, there was also a faint, cool fragrance. It made him unable to come back to his senses for a moment.

Without thinking, Qiyue licked his lips. The soft pad of her finger accidentally brushed his tongue, cool and tingling, carrying a hint of the girl’s scent, like the fresh, tender lotus root he used to eat as a child, with a bite that somehow made it feel unexpectedly satisfying.

The young master absolutely would not admit that his heart had skipped a beat for an instant.

This was deadly!

He had actually flirted with a girl until his own heartbeat sped up. Qiyue quickly put some distance between them and pretended to be perfectly calm, though his eyes were a little unfocused.

Xu Linruan, sitting beside him, calmly withdrew her hand. As if nothing had happened, she gave him a detached look and, before he had even recovered, quickly pulled away.

That made Qiyue feel very uncomfortable.

Even the atmosphere he had deliberately created turned strange.

He stole a sideways glance at her. The girl wore a curtain of jet-black hair, and her long, butterfly-wing eyelashes were slightly curled. Her eyes were bright and clear, especially when she looked at someone, making them want to reach out and touch her.

Qiyue linked his fingers together, feeling as if a cat had scratched his heart. It was a little itchy, making him want to reach out and touch her, but her expression remained cold as she stared straight at the test paper, apparently not caring at all about the ambiguity that had just occurred.

Qiyue, who had been inexplicably flirted with, now only felt a chest full of resentment with nowhere to vent, an odd emotion of being fully immersed in the role while the other person remained utterly unmoved.

Because of that little episode, Qiyue became a lot more obedient after that, though whenever he met those clear eyes of hers, there was still a strange, unspeakable awkwardness in his heart.

It wasn’t as if Qiyue had never flirted with girls before. There had even been girls cuter than Xu Linruan, and because of his looks and family background, he had always been extremely popular at school. But in his interactions with girls, Qiyue had always been the one in the dominant position. He never needed to spend any effort pleasing or winning over the other side, whereas this Xu Linruan in front of him gave him a frustrating sense that she could not be easily caught.

The young master, who had always been lucky in love, inevitably felt a little wronged by this and unconsciously took an interest in her. He refused to believe it. With all his smartness crammed into his head, was he really unable to take down one Xu Linruan?