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The campus after school in the afternoon.
The swift drop in temperature froze out the noise, leaving only sparse figures in the academic buildings.
Beyond the walls, buildings were scattered unevenly, with power lines trailing across alleys from utility poles.
The corridors of these experimental building classrooms were visible at a glance. Cheng Mi stood with her back to these buildings, one arm propped on the desk, her chin resting on her hand.
After saying that, she just looked at Si Tingyan.
Directly, without evasion.
She wasn’t sure what “consequence” he was referring to.
But she was interested in bearing it, and willing to see it through.
Time seemed to reverse, and the atmosphere between them abruptly returned to the corridor this morning.
He told her not to provoke him again.
And she, not only provoked him, but became even more brazen.
Cheng Mi rested her chin on her hand, lightly tapping her cheek with a few fingertips.
She looked into his eyes, a faint smile playing in their depths.
“You were secretly watching me, and I found out. How can you still tell me not to provoke you?”
“Si Tingyan.” She called his name, all three characters.
“You’re provoking me. I can’t help but look at you.”
Si Tingyan had always been as cold as possible towards Cheng Mi.
But this very face, this very person, was watching her where she couldn’t see.
Just like now.
Tiny blue veins almost pierced Si Tingyan’s pale skin, giving him a sickly, fragile look.
His dark eyes were fixed tightly on her face.
Silence spread in their breathing.
His eyes were very dark, like a vortex about to suck someone in.
Cheng Mi didn’t move an inch, staring straight ahead.
They were so close that everything could be seen through. The surrounding voices seemed to fade away, leaving only the person in front of her.
Cheng Mi suddenly spoke: “You want to kiss me right now, don’t you?”
Desire, tentative and restless, stirred.
Si Tingyan’s expression in his eyes remained unchanged; he simply stared at her intently.
His gaze hadn’t shifted from beginning to end, yet somehow, Cheng Mi felt there was something deeper, endless, within it.
Si Tingyan suddenly said, “You guessed wrong.”
Cheng Mi felt there was more to this sentence than its surface meaning.
“Did I guess wrong,” she looked at him, “or did I not guess completely?”
Their gazes met.
Si Tingyan said: “You can’t guess.”
“Then tell me the correct answer?”
What do you want to do to me? What is this consequence?
They both understood what she meant.
A voice entering from outside the classroom interrupted their gaze, yet neither of them looked away.
It was their math competition teacher, tall and thin, with a buzz cut and a blue shirt.
He slapped a thick stack of test papers onto the classroom door: “Get ready for the exam now, put away all other homework and such. Finish all questions in half an hour, then we’ll go over them.”
Cheng Mi didn’t disengage from the atmosphere between them.
Her voice mingled with the teacher’s words, slow and deliberate.
“The correct answer, I’ll wait for you to tell me.”
What he wanted to do to her, she was waiting.
After the teacher entered, he clapped the podium again.
Cheng Mi finished speaking, no longer disturbing him, and rose from her chair.
She twisted the cap back onto the mineral water bottle in her hand, remembering to place it by his desk, and only after doing all this did she leave the classroom.
Stepping out of the back door of the classroom, a cold gust of wind met her.
Cheng Mi, however, didn’t feel cold; she felt nothing.
As she was about to leave, she ran into an unexpected person in the corridor.
Qi Yunmiao stood by the window diagonally behind the classroom, her small face framed by her black hair, which was styled into tight inward curls.
Her eyeliner was drawn a bit high today, making her look already fierce, and now even more so.
She held a can of soda in her hand, her fingertips white from clenching, her eyes glaring at Cheng Mi.
Cheng Mi knew that look was directed at her, and since Qi Yunmiao was blocking her way, she didn’t pretend not to know and walk away.
She met Qi Yunmiao’s piercing gaze head-on.
Qi Yunmiao’s look suggested she could pour the soda on her at any second.
Even knowing she dared to do it, Cheng Mi didn’t back down.
Out of the corner of her eye, a figure walked out of the classroom’s back door.
The tense atmosphere suddenly shattered.
It was Si Tingyan.
Seeing the two of them, his expression was indifferent.
What surprised Cheng Mi was that after Qi Yunmiao saw Si Tingyan, her prickly demeanor significantly softened, though she still glared at Cheng Mi with an unfriendly look.
Si Tingyan didn’t speak. He walked between the two of them, heading towards the restroom at the end of the corridor.
Qi Yunmiao watched Si Tingyan leave, gave Cheng Mi one last look, then ignored her and followed him, holding her soda.
Cheng Mi watched their retreating figures.
One after the other, Qi Yunmiao quickly caught up to Si Tingyan and was saying something to him.
It wasn’t until they turned the corner that Cheng Mi averted her gaze.
She didn’t linger and turned to walk in the opposite direction.
________________________________________
School life, with its endless repetition and monotony, slipped by in a week.
Cheng Mi received a call from Zhang Lingyin early in the morning.
“Good news! Our latest issue of the magazine is out!”
Cheng Mi had just woken up, her eyes still clouded with a soft, lazy sleepiness. She turned onto her side, one arm half-draped over the pillow.
She hummed in response, then chuckled: “I guessed as much.”
“I almost forgot to tell you, it came out yesterday, but it takes some time to transport. You should be able to see it at newsstands and bookstores this morning.”
Zhang Lingyin then complained: “Ugh, honestly, this issue had so many problems, one after another. It took until now to be published, and people online have been complaining every day.”
GR magazine had a fixed publication date each month, usually mid-month. But this month, major and minor issues cropped up one after another, causing the magazine to be delayed by several days.
Many students saved their pocket money each month just to buy this magazine. After eagerly waiting until mid-month and it didn’t arrive, they would certainly call and ask online.
Zhang Lingyin had received many such calls in the past few days, apologizing until her ears were numb.
Cheng Mi told her: “Being missed is a good thing.”
Not being missed is the real hardship.
By then, it would already be death.
Zhang Lingyin: “That’s true. Don’t even mention it, every time readers urge us to publish, I actually get quite happy.”
Cheng Mi smiled.
“Are you up for school yet?” Zhang Lingyin asked.
“I’m up,” Cheng Mi was just getting out of bed.
“Then hurry and have breakfast and go to school.”
Cool air brushed against her bare skin as Cheng Mi got dressed: “Mhm, I’ll hang up now.”
She came out of her bedroom for breakfast, Si Tingyan had already left.
Cheng Mi remembered Si Tingyan wasn’t on duty today.
Before she could ask, Si Huiru told her herself.
Si Tingyan wasn’t having classes today. He was representing the school in a robotics competition and had already advanced from the preliminaries to the finals. Today was the finals.
Cheng Mi wasn’t just finding out about Si Tingyan’s robotics skills.
She first learned about it from the [Confessions] thread on the school forum.
As she sat down for breakfast, she took out her phone and opened Si Tingyan’s text messages.
After getting Si Tingyan’s phone number from Si Huiru that day, Cheng Mi often sent him texts.
Their message conversation from top to bottom was only one color; all messages were sent by Cheng Mi, and Si Tingyan hadn’t replied to a single one.
Of course, what she sent wasn’t anything particularly meaningful.
For example, now, she sent Si Tingyan two words.
[Good luck.]
It was a bit insincere, because “good luck” was useless; it was purely to bother him.
But there was also a tiny bit of genuine sincerity in it; she really did want to wish him good luck, in a very cliché way.
After finishing breakfast and leaving home, Cheng Mi walked to school.
Today, the dean of students was still at the school gate, relentlessly catching students. Cheng Mi had replaced her lost ID badge, so she never had to stand in that line again.
She arrived a bit late today. As she entered the school gate, the school path was teeming with people.
She blended into the crowd, walking towards the academic building.
Halfway, by the flowerbeds of the school’s academic building, she encountered some familiar faces she wasn’t particularly close with.
Qi Yunmiao and her group of friends.
Cheng Mi didn’t pay much attention to them. Feng Gao was just one high school, not particularly large, so running into them was inevitable.
The surroundings were filled with crowds in black and white school uniforms, bustling and noisy.
It was in this clamor that the high-pitched voice of the slightly dark-skinned girl Cheng Mi had seen many times before pierced through the human wall.
“So annoying, it’s so hot.”
It was not mid-summer weather for wearing long-sleeved school uniforms.
They were talking very loudly, and many people passing by would glance at them.
“Why is it so hot?”
“Aren’t you all hot?”
Qi Yunmiao said: “It’s scorching.”
Fu Xinyi picked up her words: “Miaomiao, do you want a fan?”
“Duh, if there is one, of course I want it! You don’t have one, why are you even asking?”
Her other friends echoed her.
Fu Xinyi: “Who says I don’t? Look, I have a pile!”
As she spoke, the rustling sound of thick, heavy book pages turning could be heard.
Cheng Mi was about to pass them.
“This magazine paper quality is so good, it’s much cooler than a fan. Anyway, I can’t even stand to look at it—”
Before she finished speaking, there was a tearing sound of paper.
It was very grating, one tear after another, torn violently.
“Ugly b*tch, so ugly!”
Several sharp, sweet voices burst into laughter.
Many people looked at them.
Cheng Mi ignored them and walked straight past.
________________________________________
On her way to the classroom, gazes continuously stuck to her.
Cheng Mi could sense it; this feeling was not new to her.
Walking into the classroom didn’t shake off this feeling either. As she entered the classroom door and walked towards her seat, several glances were cast her way.
Cheng Mi walked through the aisle between the desks, went to her seat in the second-to-last row, then pulled out her desk chair and sat down.
Meng Yin was in her seat, memorizing English vocabulary.
Seeing Cheng Mi arrive, she stopped her soft murmur of English words, her eyes leaving the vocabulary book to look at Cheng Mi.
Cheng Mi noticed her in her peripheral vision and slightly turned her head to look at her.
“What’s wrong?”
Meng Yin’s fingertips scratched at the vocabulary book. Her eyes were round, and even her distress looked cute.
After a moment, she squeezed out: “Did you check the forum?”
“What?”
Meng Yin said: “I think you probably rarely look at that thing, but...”
Cheng Mi looked at her like this, smiled, and softly asked.
“Is someone badmouthing me?”
Meng Yin slowly gasped: “How did you know? Did you see it?”
Cheng Mi found it amusing: “Hasn’t that always been the case?”
She didn’t really care.
Humans, how could everyone like them from birth?
As long as it’s a person, someone will hate them.
Meng Yin was speechless by Cheng Mi’s words. Cheng Mi was right; since she came to Feng Gao, there hadn’t been a day when she didn’t appear on the forum.
Everyone debated her freely: her face, her person, her “past” that she might not even have experienced.
But these were the intriguing topics that people could chew on for days.
Meng Yin could tell that Cheng Mi genuinely didn’t care.
She didn’t care what people said about her, or to put it another way, she wasn’t interested in knowing.
How could someone live so freely and openly from birth?
Meng Yin asked her: “Have you always been like this?”
“Like what?”
“You don’t care when others badmouth you.”
Cheng Mi thought for a moment, then smiled: “Not entirely, I’m not as perfect as you think.”
In life, there’s no true carefree existence.
It’s just that one difficulty is greater than another. This step is far less painful than a certain step taken in the past, so it’s nothing significant.
Of course, it could also be a lesson learned.
After listening, Meng Yin suddenly said: “Then you shouldn’t look at the forum.”
“Why?” Cheng Mi took out her phone. “Sometimes you can go there to hear ‘stories’.”
For a good student like Meng Yin, who might not even visit the forum once a month, Cheng Mi knew that since she actively brought up the forum, something must have happened there.
And it concerned her.
Cheng Mi was extremely calm, not rushing to see what everyone was saying about her.
Even at the moment she opened the forum, her attention was first drawn to someone’s post.
The topic was about his robotics competition today.
It was a very large competition, and winning an award could add points to one’s college entrance exam score.
Only after glancing at this post did Cheng Mi shift her attention to the one about herself.
Her and Si Tingyan’s names were very close, hers directly above his.
There were two consecutive posts, both with very high reply counts.
[GR’s cover this issue isn’t Qi Yunmiao anymore! Why is it Cheng Mi?!]
[It’s Cheng Mi, the scheming b*tch, who took advantage of the situation to snatch Qi Yunmiao’s magazine!]
Upon seeing these two titles, Cheng Mi’s fingertips paused slightly, and then she frowned.
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