#42: This Is Definitely Something Si Tingyan Would Do...

Cheng Mi and Li Chu stayed in Jiacheng for a day.

They landed back in Fengxun early the next morning.

Si Huiru, concerned that they might not eat well, had specifically taken the day off work to prepare breakfast and wait for them to return.

Li Yeheng was also home, on a two-day vacation after returning from a business trip.

Li Chu was so exhausted when she entered the house that she didn’t wait for Si Huiru to come out of the kitchen and went straight to Cheng Mi’s room to sleep.

It was obvious she hadn’t slept well the night before.

Although they hadn’t done much in Jiacheng besides going to the cemetery, Cheng Mi also felt a little tired.

Every year on these particular days, she would always retrace the events of that year.

Regardless of whether the memories were good or bad, as long as they were profound, a person would always lose a layer of skin when they wallowed in those memories.

Cheng Mi had only asked her homeroom teacher, Wei Xiangdong, for one day off, so she had to go to school after breakfast.

She was wearing her usual clothes, and since it was getting late, she went back to her room to change into her school uniform.

Back in the room, Li Chu was already asleep, with half her face buried in the pillow. Her breathing was steady and calm, and she had fallen asleep very quickly.

Cheng Mi was a little surprised. She had expected Li Chu to take some time to fall asleep.

The curtains were drawn, and the room was dim.

Li Chu was a heavy sleeper, so Cheng Mi didn’t turn on the light. She just left the door half-open to let some light in.

Si Huiru had folded and put her clothes on a chair in her room.

The sunlight from the hallway cast a half-shadow on the floor.

Cheng Mi took off her jacket and draped it over the back of the chair, then peeled off her close-fitting sweater.

As she was pulling her sweater down past her elbows, there was a sound of a door opening outside the room.

Cheng Mi was facing the door. She paused and looked up.

Si Tingyan saw her, too.

He had just opened his door, his hand still on the doorknob. The zipper of his school uniform kept his pristine spirit in check, and there wasn’t a single wrinkle on his black collar.

Even his gaze seemed to carry a hint of cold indifference, and his skin looked frigid.

Cheng Mi hadn’t seen those eyes for half a day. She didn’t know why Si Tingyan was still at home at this hour; normally, he would have already left for school.

The air was utterly silent, with an occasional low whisper from Si Huiru and Li Yeheng in the kitchen.

Her clothes were not completely off. The sunlight from the hallway climbed onto the small section of her waist, which was glaringly pale.

Their gazes met, and they were both silent.

The air was subtly mixed with something sharp.

After a long while, Si Tingyan’s gaze turned away from her face, and he closed his door.

His figure disappeared from Cheng Mi’s sight.

Cheng Mi’s movements didn’t stop. She turned her face back and, as if nothing had happened, took off her clothes.

When she was ready and went out, only Li Yeheng was at the dining table.

Based on the sounds in the room earlier, Si Tingyan had finished eating and gone back to his room. Si Huiru was still busy in the kitchen, and a fragrant aroma wafted out.

Cheng Mi walked to the dining table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Across from her, Li Yeheng was still busy even on vacation. His laptop was on the table, and the food in front of him was untouched. He was probably waiting for Si Huiru.

Hearing Cheng Mi sit down, Li Yeheng’s eyes left his laptop and looked at her with a concerned elder’s tone: “Are you keeping up with your studies lately?”

Cheng Mi picked up the transparent glass of water nearby, took a small sip, and said, “I’m keeping up.”

Li Yeheng nodded: “That’s good. You should also remember to get enough rest.”

He added: “If you need more money, remember to tell your uncle.”

Cheng Mi had never spent any of the money Li Yeheng had transferred to her bank account.

But she didn’t say much and just nodded: “Okay.”

Just as she finished speaking, Si Tingyan came out of his room.

Only Cheng Mi and Li Yeheng were at the dining table, and Cheng Mi had just finished talking to Li Yeheng.

This time, Si Tingyan’s gaze didn’t linger on Cheng Mi’s face. It swept past her, not stopping at all, and he walked toward the door.

Li Yeheng saw Si Tingyan walking away and was about to ask him something when Si Huiru also heard the noise and hurried out of the kitchen.

“Xiao Yan, did you take your medicine with you?”

“I did.”

Compared to his usual voice, Si Tingyan’s was a little colder.

Cheng Mi watched him.

Si Tingyan had already reached the front door. After his words fell, there was the sound of a door closing.

The sound of the door closing was very normal, without any hint of anger, but for some reason, it made Cheng Mi feel that in the unseen, hidden corners, something was quietly and crazily growing.

It lived in madness, fed on destruction and desire, and dragged people into hell.

Cheng Mi’s gaze returned from the door. She lowered her eyes and continued to eat her food unhurriedly.

Si Huiru returned to the table, her face full of worry: “I don’t know what Xiao Yan was busy with last night, but he was still awake late into the night.”

Cheng Mi paused for a moment.

Li Yeheng moved the chair next to him: “You were up last night?”

Compared to Si Huiru, Li Yeheng had a much stronger presence.

But their dynamic was surprisingly not too oppressive. The credit for that had to go to Li Yeheng. Even when facing him, Si Huiru didn’t act pampered. She maintained her gentle and timid nature, guided and reassured by Li Yeheng.

These two, in terms of personality and social status, would normally have no interaction and would never have gotten together.

Si Huiru didn’t sit down. Her voice was gentle: “That dish in the kitchen hasn’t been served yet. I’ll go get it.”

Li Yeheng said: “These dishes are enough. You don’t have to make so many in the future.”

He probably spoke this way to his subordinates so often that it had become a habit.

Seeing Si Huiru’s slightly flustered hands and feet after hearing this, he sighed softly and softened his tone: “If you like making these things, then make them. I quite enjoy eating them.”

This was the first time Cheng Mi had witnessed their private interactions so closely.

She had thought about it before, but she hadn’t expected Li Yeheng to be so tolerant.

Her fingers drooped, holding her chopsticks loosely. She glanced back and forth between the two of them.

As a mere observer, she found it interesting and had no other thoughts.

But then again, Li Yeheng had always been this way, strict when he needed to be and gentle when he needed to be. He was the same with both her and Li Chu.

Before long, Si Huiru came out of the kitchen and placed the seafood dish on the table.

She then worried about Si Tingyan again: “I don’t know if the pressure from his studies is too much. He has homework, and he also has to do competitions. He was held up from the competition in September, but staying up all night to study will wear out his body. His computer was on all night.”

Hearing Si Huiru say this, Cheng Mi carefully recalled Si Tingyan’s expression just now.

He did seem a bit more unwell than usual, with faint dark circles under his eyes, though they weren’t very noticeable.

Si Tingyan’s heart couldn’t handle staying up late. The reason for him being late to school was obvious, but he hadn’t shown any signs of discomfort.

However, it must be said that Si Huiru understood Si Tingyan even less than Cheng Mi did.

Si Tingyan was indeed never sloppy with his studies, but he would never stay up all night to study.

Every minute and second of Si Tingyan’s life was planned. He would complete his tasks within a specific timeframe, not a minute more or less.

Cheng Mi had already noticed this before. When she studied with Si Tingyan, she would sometimes get stuck on a difficult problem for half a day, while Si Tingyan could accurately predict and control his problem-solving time.

It was impossible for such a person to drag out his learning tasks for an entire night.

Si Huiru continued: “I wonder if I should ask his teachers if Xiao Yan can stop doing the competitions.”

Li Yeheng smiled when he heard that, and put his laptop aside: “Isn’t the competition a path Xiao Yan wants to take himself?”

Si Huiru fell silent; that was indeed the case.

Li Yeheng said: “You can tell that Xiao Yan is a very opinionated person. Even if you don’t let him do it, if he wants to, he’ll still do it.”

After speaking, he told Si Huiru to sit down: “Let’s eat. After you eat, get a good night’s sleep. Did you spend the whole night worrying about Xiao Yan? You should also take care of your own health.”

They both knew Li Chu was asleep and didn’t disturb her, but they left some food for her.

Cheng Mi finished her meal unhurriedly, accepted a cup of freshly squeezed juice from Si Huiru, and then left the house.

________________________________________

After not coming to school for a day, when she returned, her treatment hadn’t changed at all.

Every second that passed, the rumors became more and more twisted, more dramatic, and more sickeningly ingrained in everyone’s minds.

“Underage, a nightlife girl, into cigarettes, alcohol, and sex, maybe even doing drugs.”

“Every move she makes is that of a foxy vixen; it can’t be something she was born with.”

What terrified people that age the most was that she was associated with the word “crime.”

The photo of Cheng Mi in the detention center wasn’t fake; it had actually happened.

Even if they weren’t sure if she had really killed someone, when they passed her, it was as if she might stab and kill them at any moment. They would rush to get away from her in fear.

In their eyes, Cheng Mi was already a heinous sinner.

She was still the center of attention as she walked through the school, encountering all sorts of stares.

When she got to the classroom, her classmates were no exception.

In the past, Cheng Mi wasn’t without her share of gossip. She was too easy to notice, and the topics were always endless. But the small grudges of the past couldn’t compare to the current ones. Previously, the good students in the class who weren’t interested in gossip all looked up this time, their eyes on her.

The team leader who collected homework for Cheng Mi’s group was known for being cheerful and easy to get along with.

Even her attitude seemed a bit cold when she came to collect Cheng Mi’s homework.

For the entire morning reading session, Cheng Mi’s mouth never opened for a second.

The bell for the first class rang. Zheng Hongkai entered the classroom just as the bell rang, plopped down on his seat, and reached out to pat Cheng Mi’s shoulder.

His action was in stark contrast to everyone else in the class.

Cheng Mi turned her face slightly and asked him, “What’s wrong?”

Zheng Hongkai crossed his legs and bounced his knee, saying, “They’re talking about you like this, and you’re not going to explain yourself?”

“Like what?”

“What else could it be,” Zheng Hongkai said. “You don’t know?”

“Would it even work?” she asked Zheng Hongkai in return.

Zheng Hongkai twirled his pen: “Who cares if it works? At least you can shut up one person at a time.”

Cheng Mi smiled, not saying anything.

Zheng Hongkai nudged her shoulder again: “Hey, did you really do those things?”

Cheng Mi said: “No.”

A relaxed smile was on her face. She glanced at Zheng Hongkai: “See, you don’t believe it either, do you?”

Zheng Hongkai immediately retorted: “I didn’t say that! Don’t slander me.”

Explanations were not that easy. What’s more, the photos of Cheng Mi drinking in a bar and being in a detention center were all facts.

She had tried before, to stand up and say it wasn’t true, to deny it.

At that time, there weren’t even these photos, and no one would believe her.

But she would still say that she didn’t do it when people asked her.

She didn’t work as a hostess, didn’t fall into depravity, and didn’t kill anyone.

Zheng Hongkai said: “By the way, have you noticed that fewer people are discussing you on their phones today?”

“What?”

“You really haven’t looked at the school forum, have you?”

The forum—why would she go there to make herself unhappy?

She didn’t say anything.

The class was English. The teacher entered the classroom and told them to get their vocabulary notebooks out because they were going to have a spelling quiz.

Cheng Mi took her vocabulary notebook from under the table.

Zheng Hongkai, however, acted as if he hadn’t heard the English teacher’s words and continued to talk to her: “The forum was taken down last night. Isn’t that weird?”

“The school was willing to shut it down?” Cheng Mi was already uninterested in this topic.

Although the school forum had long become a wasteland of gossip, the school had never shut it down because it had some study-related posts.

Zheng Hongkai joked: “Maybe you have a lot of pull.”

Her issue had gotten too big.

Cheng Mi couldn’t be bothered with him.

Zheng Hongkai thought she was angry: “Are you mad?”

The teacher was already getting ready to start the spelling quiz.

Cheng Mi smiled and replied subtly: “If you keep talking, can I copy your spelling words?”

Unfortunately, Zheng Hongkai didn’t understand and said again: “But I don’t know if the school did this to the forum. A friend of mine who works with computers said that if the school shut it down, they would have just closed the forum directly, or at most, stopped us from posting.”

The English teacher read out a word.

Cheng Mi wrote it down. Her pen moved smoothly on the paper. After she was done, she twirled her pen.

Zheng Hongkai: “But now our forum is so slow it’s about to die. There’s no way to get in. That friend said it was obviously something someone did on purpose.”

At this point, the hand Cheng Mi was using to write the next word suddenly paused.

Zheng Hongkai was still talking: “Some kind of ‘go to hell’ server. I didn’t understand what he said.”

Even though he didn’t finish the sentence, Cheng Mi had already thought of Si Tingyan.

The collapse of the forum and the person of Si Tingyan had no connection in Zheng Hongkai’s words. He hadn’t mentioned Si Tingyan at all.

But Cheng Mi suddenly connected the two things in her mind in an instant.

Si Tingyan hadn’t slept late last night. His computer was on for an entire night.

Leaving Cheng Mi’s subjective speculation aside, if you didn’t think about it carefully, these two things had no connection.

But it was because Si Tingyan’s actions last night were a little unusual.

It was this unusualness, combined with the sudden collapse of the forum, that made Cheng Mi instantly understand what he had been doing last night.

This was indeed something Si Tingyan would do.

And Cheng Mi was firmly convinced that taking down the forum to shut those people up was 100% something Si Tingyan did.

His way of solving problems was never gentle; it was always direct and extreme.

And before this, the two of them had a big fight. At home just now, he had also completely ignored her.

Behind her, Zheng Hongkai’s mouth still hadn’t stopped. The English teacher called his name and told him to be quiet and not to disturb the other students.

After the English teacher was done, she read another word.

Cheng Mi wrote it down, but she got stuck in the middle, even though she had just memorized it during morning reading.

This wasn’t like her. She rarely got so irritated by a person that her actions were affected.

Si Tingyan had always been one of those people.

The letters of the word she wrote down were reversed. Cheng Mi crossed it out and rewrote it correctly.

________________________________________

At the end of the last class in the morning, Cheng Mi went to the cafeteria only to find that she hadn’t brought her meal card.

Meng Yin often went to the cafeteria with her for lunch. Cheng Mi asked her: “Meng Yin, can I borrow your meal card for lunch? I’ll treat you to a meal tomorrow.”

Meng Yin was doing her homework. Her pen paused after hearing what Cheng Mi said.

But she didn’t look at her immediately. Her movements were a little flustered.

It wasn’t out of fear, but a bit of awkwardness. Her round eyes darted away several times, and the word “I” got stuck for a long time.

Only then did Cheng Mi realize that something was wrong with Meng Yin and remembered that Meng Yin had been unusually quiet that morning.

With the intense classes, the two of them hadn’t said much in the morning.

But Meng Yin had always been like this, with a quieter personality. When she had first transferred to the school, they shared the same desk but didn’t say a word to each other for several days.

So Cheng Mi hadn’t found it strange.

Until now, when she realized something was off.

Meng Yin seemed to be trying to build up her courage. Cheng Mi didn’t bother her and just watched her profile from the side.

After a while, Meng Yin looked at Cheng Mi, her eyes very clear.

Cheng Mi knew she had made a choice in her heart and was about to smile and say “sure” like she usually did.

But before she could even utter the word “sure,” a girl’s voice suddenly rang out from the window beside Cheng Mi.

The girl called Meng Yin’s name through the window.

Meng Yin’s face froze for a moment, and she looked at the window.

It was her friend who had a bubble tea shop outside the school and had grown up with her since childhood.

Her friend waved and told her to come out: “Meng Yin, let’s go, let’s go to the cafeteria for lunch.”

Meng Yin looked at Cheng Mi.

Her friend called her: “Hurry up, Meng Yin, what are you sitting around for? Come out quickly.”

If Cheng Mi remembered correctly, Meng Yin had told her that this friend was in her second year of high school.

Because they were on different floors and had other friends at school, they wouldn’t eat together in the cafeteria for lunch.

It was Cheng Mi who often took Meng Yin to the cafeteria.

But today, Meng Yin’s friend had come up to call her.

Cheng Mi immediately understood. She also knew why Meng Yin had told her not long ago that she had had an argument with her friend.

And she knew what those words her friend had said, that she didn’t like, were.

Now, everyone was avoiding Cheng Mi. Getting close to her was undoubtedly pushing oneself into a pit of fire.

But because it was Cheng Mi, Meng Yin seemed to have the courage to do so.

Her friend was still calling her from outside, as if rushing to drag her away from a patch of mud.

Everyone around them was looking their way. The people in the class all knew that she was the closest to Cheng Mi, and their gazes seemed to be filled with disgust.

In the end, Meng Yin lowered her head.

The courage she had was replaced by a white flag as she slowly lowered her head.

Seeing that she wasn’t moving, her friend came in to find her directly, looking like a good best friend.

After a long time, Meng Yin, with her head down, picked up her meal card.

She didn’t dare to look at Cheng Mi again, stood up, and left with her friend.

Cheng Mi’s gaze lingered on her back for a few seconds before she looked away.

At that moment, Zheng Hongkai spoke up from behind, having watched the whole show for a while: “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Didn’t she used to get along with you pretty well?”

“It’s just ridiculous. She fell over after a few words from someone.”

Cheng Mi knew he had nothing good to say: “Alright, don’t say anything more.”

Zheng Hongkai said: “Do you want me to teach her a lesson for you?”

Cheng Mi glanced at him: “How childish.”

Zheng Hongkai laughed: “Just kidding. I don’t hit girls.”

He then asked: “Are you still going to eat?”

“Of course.”

Why would she take it out on herself?

Cheng Mi took her phone and wallet: “I didn’t bring my meal card, but I can still eat outside.”

“Damn, you’re disrespecting me now. I was just about to offer you my meal card.”

Cheng Mi had already guessed he would say this and smiled.

Zheng Hongkai saw that she was about to leave: “I’ll go eat outside with you?”

Cheng Mi left her seat: “Whatever you want.”

________________________________________

Feng Gao didn’t have a curfew, and students could come and go freely.

The cafeteria was crowded every day, but a lot of people also ate outside of school.

Cheng Mi hadn’t eaten a light breakfast. Si Huiru had prepared a huge spread, so she now wanted something light.

She went to a home-style restaurant. Zheng Hongkai said he regretted coming out with her.

Cheng Mi said: “You can go back if you want.”

Yet, everyone was avoiding her right now.

Zheng Hongkai said: “What are you doing? You’re looking down on me, aren’t you?”

“Of course not.”

Surprisingly, when they got to the home-style restaurant, there were quite a few students eating there.

Many of the seats were already full.

Cheng Mi and Zheng Hongkai chose a table against the wall and sat down.

The waiter came over. After looking at the menu, Cheng Mi ordered a few of her favorite dishes, then pushed the menu over to Zheng Hongkai.

Even here, Cheng Mi couldn’t escape the scrutinizing glances.

There were many people eating in the restaurant, so the wait time for their food was likely to be quite long.

Cheng Mi didn’t avoid those gazes. She sat there and waited, bored, playing with the plastic menu on the table.

After a short while, someone came in from outside the restaurant, accompanied by a familiar voice.

It was Qi Yunmiao.

With her back to the door, Cheng Mi could hear every word she said next clearly.

“Si Tingyan, what do you want to eat?”