CM - 53

If it weren’t for the class bell ringing, Zhou Shuirong wouldn’t have known how to get out of Shen Tingwen’s clutches.

Shen Tingwen didn’t take his ID card back before returning to his seat. It was still on Zhou Shuirong’s desk. The face was truly handsome, and the name truly shocked her.

Her heart was pounding. The name Shen Zhou was being repeated in her mind. From his premeditated approach to her, to his relentless pursuit, to his open rebellion for her, and now taking her last name as his first name...

He never cared from the start about letting the whole world know: “I, Shen Tingwen, love Zhou Shuirong. I want her. The world is fine, but I only want her!”

Zhou Shuirong pressed her lips together, covering his face on the ID card with a book. She covered her ears and tried to recite her English lesson.

But she couldn’t. As she recited, she started thinking of “Shen Zhou,” “Shen Zhou,” “Shen Zhou,” “Shen Tingwen,” “Shen Tingwen,” “scoundrel! scoundrel!”

She slammed her book on the desk and put her head down. She’d sleep. A nap would make everything better and less messy.

Her deskmate quietly asked her, “Zhou Shuirong, can I see your English essay?”

Zhou Shuirong wasn’t good at Chinese compositions, but no one in the class could beat her in English essays. She spoke Chinese with Zhou Yan and Si Wen; Chinese was her first language. But with everyone else, she spoke English.

She handed her deskmate the English test she’d written over the two days of the weekend and didn’t say anything else.

After a while, her deskmate whispered, “You made a mistake in your English essay. The topic was about Shen Ming’s experiences in Los Angeles, but you wrote Shen Tingwen’s name everywhere...”

Zhou Shuirong shot up, grabbing the paper. Where it was supposed to say “Shen Ming,” she had written “Shen Tingwen” everywhere.

Her deskmate tried to comfort her. “It’s okay. I’ll tell you a secret: a lot of people act like they think Shen Tingwen is weird, but they secretly like him. A few girls in my dorm do. There’s nothing wrong with liking Shen Tingwen.”

This deskmate had been like Jing He during the incident where Zhou Shuirong was framed, choosing to stay out of it. Now that she knew Zhou Shuirong was innocent, she was willing to talk to her.

Many of the fickle students, and those who had misunderstood Zhou Shuirong, didn’t apologize, but they did start talking to her. To them, this was a way of admitting their mistake.

When Zhou Shuirong was abroad, “sorry” was a word she heard often. If you made a mistake, you apologized. In China, half the people admitted their mistakes by being silent, as if silence counted as an apology.

This showed that they weren’t used to expressing themselves, which made Shen Tingwen, who was always expressive, seem very different from them.

Zhou Shuirong had long wanted to return to China to see her parents’ roots and understand their love.

The end of her friendship with Vanessa had left her in a state of confusion. She couldn’t figure some things out, but she couldn’t articulate what those things were. So she came back, and finally, she was here.

After returning to China, so many things had happened, one after another, and her thoughts seemed to be clearing up.

She realized that what she had with Vanessa wasn’t friendship. True friendship was how Shen Tingwen, Zhou Xiyou, and the others had stood firmly behind her, even knowing they would be cursed along with her.

These lessons helped her grow rapidly, and she found her direction almost instantly.

She had naively thought that love was insignificant and not as proactive as these things.

But Shen Tingwen’s annoying face kept creeping into her heart, repeatedly showing her what love could be, making her realize that this kind of feeling was equally important.

He, Shen Tingwen, was also important.

Zhou Shuirong knew this wasn’t right, good, normal, or okay, but it was addictive, like a drug.

She stubbornly edited the names on her essay and then handed it back to her deskmate.

Her deskmate seemed to think Zhou Shuirong was embarrassed. She cupped her hands to her mouth like a megaphone and whispered, “I won’t tell anyone.”

Zhou Shuirong could accept people getting close to her, but not if they did so after weighing the pros and cons. People who saw the situation clearly and decided that siding with her was the popular thing to do, only to then come closer, she was sure she didn’t want.

She didn’t respond and put her head down to sleep.

She woke up when class was over. The class president woke her up to collect homework. She handed in her homework, still thinking about Shen Tingwen. She secretly glanced in his direction and locked eyes with him across the busy classroom.

She quickly turned her head away, pretending to be casually touching her face, as if she had just glanced back unintentionally and wasn’t looking for anyone. The eye contact was just an accident.

Shen Tingwen smiled, taking in all of her small gestures.

After school, Shen Tingwen was waiting for Zhou Shuirong at the school gate. As soon as she came out, he blocked her path.

Zhou Shuirong tried to get away from him, but she couldn’t. She looked up and glared at him. “Do you have a purpose or not?”

Shen Tingwen held out his hand. “My ID card. Aren’t you giving it back? Do you want to keep it to yourself? Would you rather have a different picture of me?”

“Who wants to keep it? You’re the one who left it on my desk.” He was twisting things around, and Zhou Shuirong couldn’t help but argue with him.

“I left it on your desk, but you could have given it back to me. Why didn’t you? Isn’t it because you want it?” Shen Tingwen said seriously. “If you want a picture of me, I can take one for you right now, okay? Just give me back my ID card.”

His words were already annoying enough, but he kept adding “okay?” to the end. His acting pitiful was a specialty of his! She slapped the ID card against his chest. “Take it, and get lost!”

Shen Tingwen didn’t get lost. He followed her to the gym.

Zhou Shuirong silently recited various formulas the whole way, trying to ignore Shen Tingwen beside her. But his presence was too strong. On the subway, people were whispering about him. They were saying his nose, his eyes, and his lips were all handsome.

As she recited, she couldn’t help but glance at his nose, his eyes, and his lips.

Yes, Shen Tingwen was good-looking, but Zhou Shuirong had seen her parents’ faces every day and was already immune to good looks. Her feelings for Shen Tingwen didn’t start because he was handsome, but recently, every time she saw him, her heart would race.

She couldn’t control herself. So she decided to change train cars and not get off at her stop. She wouldn’t go to the gym!