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Psst! We're moving!
The moment Si Tingyan pinned her against the wall, Cheng Mi felt no urgency or nervousness.
Instead, it was as if she merely leaned into it.
Her fingertips curled around her phone, which was tucked behind her waist, and her fingers pressed against the cool wall.
She just looked up at Si Tingyan in front of her.
Si Tingyan’s features were actually very refined; his lines weren’t harsh. Everything about him exuded a beautiful, delicate quality; there wasn’t a single superfluous or inferior detail.
Dark eyebrows, deep-set eyes, a high nose, and thin lips—though his sickly appearance slightly diminished his commanding aura, he was still remarkably handsome.
Cheng Mi gazed at this face, which countless girls fell in love with at first sight, and spoke one of his secrets.
“The top friend request is mine. You clicked on it and saw it.”
Friend requests have a red dot notification, and in those few seconds Cheng Mi looked at his phone earlier, it had already been clicked on.
After saying this, Cheng Mi didn’t elaborate further.
She made her point and didn’t utter an unnecessary word.
The atmosphere suddenly became ambiguous; something was stirring in the air.
They looked at each other, their gazes locked, neither moving away.
The old window at the end was quite a distance away, and sunlight couldn’t reach the long corridor.
The light wasn’t very bright, and Si Tingyan’s face seemed veiled in a faint frost.
Cheng Mi saw his thin lips open and close.
“Cheng Mi, don’t provoke me.”
This was the first time Cheng Mi heard Si Tingyan call her name; his voice was cool, like ice.
It reminded Cheng Mi of snow on a high peak, untouchable.
She had imagined it more than once, and now hearing it.
Indeed, her name sounded deadly beautiful when he spoke it.
Now, not only her name, but also the latter half of his sentence, was incredibly captivating.
Cheng Mi leaned slightly against the wall, her tone subtly teasing: “So, I’m provoking you?”
Si Tingyan’s expression was unreadable; the daytime corridor felt as if night had fallen.
Cheng Mi stared straight at him, her gaze a blend of allure and aggression.
She said: “Si Tingyan, you’ve been paying attention to me.”
Every word carried certainty, like tangible pebbles, each one heavily thrown into the air.
The world seemed so quiet that only their eyes felt alive.
The moment was short, yet it felt as long as a century.
Si Tingyan’s voice broke the silence: “If you don’t want me to get physical, give me my phone back now.”
Anyone else would have already made a move.
But Cheng Mi didn’t.
“What if I don’t? What will be the consequence?”
As she spoke, her gaze never left his eyes.
It then dropped to his lips, moved upwards to his nose, his eyes, then back to his lips.
Unlike his pale complexion, Si Tingyan’s lips weren’t dull in color.
Cheng Mi slowly leaned closer.
The lips in front of her didn’t retreat.
Thin lips slightly closed, appearing somewhat delicate.
They imprisoned desire, yet made one even more frantic, with desires growing wildly within the cage.
And now, subtle, undefined emotions flickered in his eyes. Beneath that cold, handsome face and his neatly worn school uniform, he was gazing at her with such a look.
Cheng Mi’s thin lips parted slightly: “Has anyone ever told you not to look at people like that?”
It makes one want to shatter your asceticism, to see you fall into the madness of the human world.
Their breaths grew closer, mingling, so near that she could feel his breath.
The scent of fireworks vaguely permeated the corridor through the window, along with human voices, car sounds, and even the hurried footsteps above their heads.
It was rush hour for school and work. Every ordinary person in this small city was busy living and striving.
Their old residential building was no exception.
A few meters away, the door of the resident in apartment three clicked open.
After they came out of their home, they hadn’t encountered anyone in the corridor, which was exceptionally quiet. This sound was especially noticeable at this moment.
Cheng Mi showed no surprise at the sound, steadily looking at Si Tingyan, still moving closer.
And Si Tingyan, too.
Like her, he remained unmoved.
The door had opened a crack, and voices vaguely drifted through.
It was a woman speaking: “You’re just someone who works for others, why are you so bad-tempered? A bad temper won’t feed you. They’ll just fire you.”
Now it was a man’s voice: “Fire what, fire what? He doesn’t have that ability. He’s just a small director, acting so high and mighty every day, not doing proper work. It just makes me angry.”
“You’re not the only one unhappy with him. Why do you have to be the one to stick your neck out? He has a position, which is better than you who doesn’t.”
Trivial daily chatter, incessant.
The back-and-forth conversation was about to move out of the door.
Cheng Mi wasn’t worried about being seen, nor did she care about others’ gazes.
But because these people were neighbors whom she and Si Tingyan would often see, and they would surely recognize Si Tingyan, she was considerate. She slightly reined herself in, no longer pressing towards Si Tingyan, and took a small step back.
Just then, a hand suddenly took control of the back of her neck.
Cheng Mi hadn’t expected Si Tingyan to do that. She froze for a moment.
She couldn’t retreat, and they maintained the same distance as a second ago, their breaths mingling.
Si Tingyan said: “Weren’t you curious about the consequences?”
The voices from apartment three grew closer.
Cheng Mi couldn’t move an inch.
“I told you, Cheng Mi, don’t provoke me.”
On his pale left cheek, there was still a faint mark left by yesterday’s name tag.
It still didn’t suggest anything sinister, but rather somehow suited his face, making him look slightly sickly, yet exceptionally handsome.
And Cheng Mi had already forgotten about the phone in her hand behind her.
When she came back to her senses, it had already been taken by him.
Si Tingyan stood up and walked forward.
At that moment, the residents from the nearby apartment also came out. As soon as they stepped out, they saw two people by their doorstep and glanced at them.
Cheng Mi didn’t pay attention. She turned to look at Si Tingyan’s back.
He didn’t mind her and walked towards the stairwell.
Cheng Mi’s neck still felt the warmth of his palm.
She looked at him, and after a long moment, also lifted her feet and walked towards the stairwell.
________________________________________
The weather forecast was accurate this time; as Si Huiru had said, the temperature dropped significantly at noon, and the sky turned much darker.
During her time in Fengxun, Cheng Mi’s biggest impression of the weather here was that there were rarely clear days, and the air always felt humid.
When she mentioned this to Meng Yin on their way to the experimental building for class, Meng Yin said that Fengxun’s weather wasn’t always like this, and Cheng Mi just happened to catch it recently, but the humidity truly never dried up all year round.
Today’s physics class was an experiment, not held in the classroom. The entire class moved to the experimental building for lessons.
After tinkering with the instruments for one period, forty minutes quickly passed.
The teacher on the podium asked everyone to put away the instruments on their desks and bring them to the front.
Meng Yin lightly patted Cheng Mi’s hand. Cheng Mi turned to look at her.
Meng Yin was a little apologetic: “My stomach feels a bit uncomfortable, I need to go to the restroom.”
“You go, I’ll pack up.”
After packing up, Meng Yin didn’t return for a long time.
Cheng Mi left the classroom to look for her in the restroom.
This class was the last one in the afternoon. Looking down from the experimental building, students carrying school bags were walking everywhere on campus.
The experimental building had few people, making it exceptionally empty and quiet.
The corridor was already deserted. Cheng Mi held her and Meng Yin’s physics textbooks under her arm.
Halfway there, a figure turned the corner of the corridor.
This was the first time Cheng Mi had seen Si Tingyan since they left home this morning.
Both of them saw each other at first glance.
The words from the corridor this morning still echoed in her ears.
Across the long corridor, and the sky outside the building, one was in the west, one in the east.
Only their two sets of footsteps echoed in the corridor.
The two sets of footsteps separated, then overlapped again.
The distance between them shortened, moving towards the intersection in the middle of the corridor.
Cheng Mi held her books and walked towards that side.
Soon, they were face to face. Cheng Mi glanced at Si Tingyan but didn’t speak to him.
They brushed past each other.
Cheng Mi went to the restroom to find Meng Yin, who was washing her hands at the faucet.
Few people came to the experimental building’s restroom, so the floor tiles and stalls looked very clean, just a bit chilly.
Cheng Mi walked towards Meng Yin: “Feeling better?”
Meng Yin only then saw Cheng Mi in the mirror and nodded: “Mhm, much better. I probably drank too much bubble tea yesterday and got a stomach ache.”
Speaking of bubble tea, Cheng Mi remembered the bubble tea she had promised Meng Yin yesterday and hadn’t gone to drink yet.
She smiled: “I forgot to go yesterday. I’ll go later to support your friend’s shop.”
Meng Yin shook her head: “No need.”
The mention of yesterday reminded Meng Yin of the things she had heard and seen at her friend’s bubble tea shop yesterday afternoon.
Things related to Cheng Mi.
Those unsavory gossip and prejudices.
Her friend said Cheng Mi painstakingly snatched Qi Yunmiao’s GR magazine modeling resources, but Meng Yin only asked if it might be a misunderstanding.
Even though her friend still insisted that Cheng Mi deliberately took Qi Yunmiao’s things, Meng Yin still firmly believed it was a misunderstanding.
She believed it was a misunderstanding, so she wouldn’t doubt her friend, nor would she ask her.
Instead, she asked Cheng Mi: “Did you run into Qi Yunmiao yesterday?”
Cheng Mi didn’t understand why she asked: “Mhm, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing happened, right?”
Cheng Mi found it amusing: “What could happen?”
She then asked her: “Why are you asking this?”
Meng Yin hesitated whether to tell Cheng Mi those things, but then felt that saying them would only upset her. It was better not to, so she just shook her head: “Nothing.”
Cheng Mi didn’t ask further: “Oh, right.”
She handed her the two physics textbooks: “Can you take these books back to the classroom for me?”
It was dismissal time now, but Cheng Mi’s school bag was still in the classroom.
Meng Yin asked: “Aren’t you going back to the classroom?”
Cheng Mi said: “Yes, but I have something to do first.”
Meng Yin didn’t ask further and took the books: “Okay.”
________________________________________
Cheng Mi left the experimental building for a while and went to the convenience store to buy two bottles of water.
Returning to the experimental building, she familiarly made her way to the third floor.
Each floor of the experimental building had a large classroom. Si Tingyan, who was on the third floor earlier, must have gone to the large classroom on the third floor for his competition class.
She wasn’t mistaken. Several people were already seated in the large classroom on the third floor, but the teacher hadn’t arrived yet, and the class hadn’t started. The talking was quiet.
Cheng Mi spotted Si Tingyan at a glance.
In the large classroom, desks were arranged in rows, with five seats connected in each row.
Cheng Mi entered and walked down the aisle by the window.
There was an empty seat next to Si Tingyan. Cheng Mi twisted open the cap of her mineral water bottle as she sat down beside him.
She rested half her hand on her chin, extending the water bottle towards his lips.
Si Tingyan stopped writing and looked at her.
They were very close, only an arm’s length apart, almost touching.
Cheng Mi tilted her head slightly, her chestnut-colored long hair falling from her shoulder. Her gaze climbed to his eyes, a faint smile playing on her lips.
“Si Tingyan, I’m very interested in the consequences.”
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