Chapter 73: The Love-Brain Female Lead Awakens 16

Yin Xiaoxin saw that she truly no longer cared about Zhou Yan.

She probed, “You really don’t like him anymore?”

“As if I’d lie about that?”

Yin Xiaoxin stared at her for a few seconds before reaching a conclusion.

“You really don’t. If this were before, you’d be heartbroken to death.” Then, growing curious, she added, “No, but how did you suddenly wake up and realize he was a scumbag? It’s like your Ren and Du meridians¹ got opened all at once.”

“Whether you love someone or not, I guess it can happen in an instant.”

Sang Ruo told Yin Xiaoxin what had happened when she fell and got hurt at the subway station.

Yin Xiaoxin grabbed a huge plush pillow and beat it up furiously.

“Ahhh, damn it! Zhou Yan is such an idiot! Good riddance. I support you, sis!”

Yin Xiaoxin looked even angrier than Sang Ruo.

The gossip at school didn’t really trouble Sang Ruo, and she had no intention of paying it any mind. This kind of juicy rumor was hard to prove and even harder to disprove. Besides, the people eating it up didn’t necessarily care that much about the truth. To them, it was just something to chat about after meals.

If Sang Ruo, the person at the center of it, got involved, it would only make the topic flare up even more. It might even make things worse the more she tried to explain. If she ignored it, then once the initial heat died down, if there was no follow-up, it would quickly be replaced by fresher gossip.

Still, it was very unpleasant, especially during big lecture classes, where she could clearly feel quite a few people sneaking glances at her from time to time, pretending it was casual. The same went for the hallways. People would walk past her, then start whispering among themselves.

Several times, the girls in her dorm had run into scenes like that and been so angry they wanted to go argue with those people, but Sang Ruo had stopped them with great difficulty.

Back in the dorm, Yin Xiaoxin slapped her book onto the desk with a loud smack and grumbled indignantly, “What is wrong with these people? Do they love gossiping about others that much?”

Sang Ruo truly didn’t care. She took the blueberries she had just bought to wash them, and even had the mood to joke while doing it. “That’s only because I’m the one being gossiped about. If it were someone else, you’d be discussing it with great enthusiasm too.”

Yin Xiaoxin choked on that and only managed to say after a while, “I’m standing up for you, and you’re still coming at me.”

Sang Ruo handed her a handful of blueberries, thanking and placating her with a bright smile.

She also gave some to their other two roommates, Le Xian and Shang Xiliu, before putting the rest into a breakfast cup and squeezing in a serving of frozen yogurt to mix together. Then she scooped it up with a spoon and ate.

Cold, sweet, and tangy, it was exactly the kind of treat summer deserved.

Ex-boyfriend? Rumors? All of it could move aside.

Le Xian said, “Ruoruo, how about you stop going to the big lectures for a while and let things cool off? The teachers don’t take attendance that often anyway.”

“Why shouldn’t I go? I didn’t do anything wrong, so there’s no need for me to hide. If anything, that might be exactly what whoever started the rumor wants. If I run from it, they’ll say I’m feeling guilty, and that’ll only make the rumor seem true.” Sang Ruo had no intention of doing that. Avoiding problems wasn’t her style. “Besides, all the professors have started final review lately. Missing even one class would be a huge loss for me.”

“That’s true.”

Shang Xiliu, who had been quiet the whole time, suddenly spoke up in her adorably earnest way. “Now that I think about it, could it be that the ones spreading rumors aren’t Chi Qing and Zhou Yan like you guessed, but some scholarship competitor who’s trying to make Ruoruo do badly on her finals and lose her eligibility?”

That angle was bizarre enough to make all three of them laugh.

The name Shang Xiliu sounded very seductive, but in reality she was a tiny, absentmindedly adorable girl. She usually didn’t talk much and always seemed cute and dazed, but whenever she did speak, she naturally had comedic timing. Everyone else would be laughing, and she wouldn’t even understand why. In her own mind, she had been perfectly serious.

–

With less than a month left until finals, Sang Ruo began her review preparations. The dorm was too noisy, and it was too hard to get a seat in the library.

A senior from her club gave her a tip: she could go to the teaching buildings and find empty classrooms with no classes scheduled to study in. She tried it, and it did work well enough. The problem was that she would often be halfway through a set of practice questions or memorizing material when the classroom would suddenly be needed for a class, forcing her to relocate. Fighting this kind of guerrilla war back and forth, getting interrupted over and over whenever she was deeply focused, really affected her study rhythm.

After making it through a tense and exhausting week step by step, Sang Ruo packed up early on Friday and planned to head over to Yi Chen’an’s place.

At the very least, it was a rare quiet place where she could study, as long as she didn’t get sidetracked admiring his looks.

Because she had messaged him in advance, she didn’t have to wait that long this time.

Sang Ruo went straight upstairs and waited outside his door.

When she got there, she discovered she wasn’t the only one waiting outside a door on that floor. By the neighboring door was a snowy white, well-behaved Samoyed. It was lying obediently in front of the door. Hearing footsteps, it lifted its head off its paws to glance at her, and probably because she wasn’t its owner, it lowered its head and lay back down.

It was so well-behaved. One look and you could tell its owner had trained it well. It didn’t fawn over strangers at all. It was just a little too big and intimidating.

She wanted to pet it, but she was scared.

In the end, she restrained herself from petting a strange dog and walked over to Yi Chen’an’s door.

The layout of this building happened to be two units per elevator, so Sang Ruo and the Samoyed each occupied one doorway, quietly keeping watch.

She couldn’t waste the waiting time either, so Sang Ruo forced herself not to look at her phone and not to look at the fluffy dog.

She hurried to memorize her notes.

Today she was wearing a pair of jeans, so moving around was convenient. After standing in front of Yi Chen’an’s door for a while, she couldn’t resist sitting cross-legged on the carpet. Her backpack was just too heavy. Besides textbooks and review materials, she had also brought her laptop in case she needed it.

With the materials spread across her lap and a pen in hand, Sang Ruo began reading quietly under her breath.

Every now and then, she would lift her eyes and sneak a look at the neighbor’s Samoyed to satisfy the craving a little, and the dog would occasionally look back at her too.

It gave Sang Ruo the strange illusion that she was the same as this fluffy creature. After all, they were both waiting for someone at a doorway.

The elevator gave a ding, and Sang Ruo and the dog both looked up at the same time, hope in their eyes, their movements perfectly synchronized.

Perhaps because the scene before him was too unusual, the person stepping out of the elevator paused and looked stunned for a moment.

It wasn’t Yi Chen’an. It was the neighbor next door.

He was a man dressed head to toe in trendy brands, neat and impeccably polished.

The Samoyed got to its feet and wagged its tail as it went over to rub against him. It even rose up on its hind legs, lifting its front paws as if it wanted to drape them over the man’s shoulders for a hug.

The man took a step back and pointed at the dog as he ordered, “Xiong Zai², sit!”

Though clearly reluctant, the dog named Xiong Zai still sat down, but his eyes never left his owner for even a second.

With an outsider here, Sang Ruo couldn’t very well keep sitting on the floor. She dusted off her pants and stood up.

The man greeted her, “Hello, classmate.”

“Hello.”

“Are you waiting for Yi Chen’an?” the man asked.

So they knew each other? That wasn’t surprising. They were neighbors right across the hall.

“Ah, yes.”

“Do you want me to call him for you?”

Sang Ruo waved her hand. “No need, thanks. I already messaged him. He’ll be here in a bit.”

The man opened the door, and the Samoyed slipped inside ahead of him.

He asked politely, “Why don’t you come in and wait?” Then he added, “I’ll leave the door open, so he’ll see you the moment he gets back.”

Of course Sang Ruo wasn’t about to casually walk into a strange man’s home, so she declined at once.

The man went inside for a moment, then came back out with a chair for Sang Ruo and a bottle of water.

Sang Ruo couldn’t refuse again, so she took the water in her hand without drinking it.

While the man was doing all this, Xiong Zai busied himself trotting back and forth beside him the whole time. It was hard to tell what exactly he was busy with, but he was doing his utmost to make his presence known in front of his owner every second.

Sang Ruo said politely, “Your dog is really cute.”

The man chatted with her for a couple of sentences and introduced himself as Zhang Yang. He said he often played soccer with Yi Chen’an.

He had gone downstairs to buy something and had originally left Xiong Zai shut inside. Since the front door had a keypad lock, opening it from the inside required bracing against the handle and pushing outward. Somehow, Xiong Zai had learned how to do it at some point, and he often let himself out to walk himself.

Since the lock automatically bounced shut again, after walking himself he would often come back only to end up locked outside, waiting for his owner to rescue him.

Looking at Xiong Zai, sitting between her and Zhang Yang with his tongue hanging out and that handsome, fluffy white coat, Sang Ruo was deeply convinced that appearances could be deceiving. He wasn’t obedient at all.

Even after Zhang Yang went back inside, he didn’t close the door. “Anyway, if you need anything, just call me.”

Xiong Zai occasionally came over to the doorway to look at her, but he didn’t get any closer than that.

In a situation like this, Sang Ruo couldn’t actually focus on reading, but she still held the book in her hands.

Before long, Yi Chen’an came back.

Sang Ruo stood up and walked toward him.

Even she herself felt that the movement looked exactly like the way Xiong Zai reacted when he saw his owner, and the thought made her want to laugh.

Yi Chen’an smiled too. “What, were you tired of waiting? You’re this happy to see me?”

Sang Ruo let out a soft little huff, almost like she was acting spoiled, and replied, “Obviously.”

Zhang Yang came out as well and called out to Yi Chen’an, “You’re finally back. Your little kid’s been waiting here who knows how long. When I got back just now, she was squatting at your door with Xiong Zai.”

Yi Chen’an handed the chair back to Zhang Yang. “Thanks.”

Then he opened the door and brought Sang Ruo inside.

He was carrying a whole box when he came back, and once they got inside, she saw it was full of blueberries. After settling Sang Ruo in, he opened the box and took a few cartons next door for Zhang Yang.

Xiong Zai was obviously very familiar with him and acted especially affectionate.

From just inside the doorway on this side, Sang Ruo poked her head out and secretly watched.

She really felt like she was Yi Chen’an’s child, left at home and looked after by the neighbors. Now that he, the parent, was back, he even had to go return the favor and thank them.

Even though the roles felt a little off, the more she thought about it, the sweeter it felt.

When Yi Chen’an came back, Sang Ruo was spacing out and didn’t pull her head back in time. He pressed a hand to her forehead and pushed her back inside like a whack-a-mole, looking down at her as he said, “What are you peeking at, sneaking looks like that?”

The palm against her forehead was dry and warm, and Sang Ruo unconsciously rubbed against it.

Yi Chen’an froze for a moment, then quietly withdrew his hand and shut the door behind him as he came in.

Sang Ruo was also stunned by her own reflexive reaction. How had she really started acting like Xiong Zai?

After the man pulled his hand back, she pretended nothing had happened and searched for a topic. “How about giving me a spare key to your place?”

Yi Chen’an looked at her without saying anything.

How to describe that look? It wasn’t refusal, and it wasn’t agreement either. He was just looking at her, as if he were thinking, or as if there were nothing on his mind at all.

Sang Ruo couldn’t read him, so she forced herself to keep going. “Or you could switch the lock to a smart one and just tell me the code.” Seeing that he still wasn’t speaking, she joked, “What, are you afraid if I get your key, I’ll rob your place while you’re not home?”

Yi Chen’an pressed his lips together and looked at her the way Zhang Yang looked at an overly lively, unreasonable Xiong Zai.

So she found herself a way out and pretended to be unhappy. “Hmph. Fine, don’t give it to me.”

Then she put on a pitiful act. “Then I’ll just wait outside your door every day. Having Xiong Zai with me wouldn’t be so bad. Summer’s fine, but when winter comes, who knows whether I’ll have built up enough brotherhood with him for him to let me hug him for warmth. Sigh… no matter how I think about it, I sound as pitiful as the little match girl³ with nowhere to go…”

She even faked a couple of sobs.

Translator’s Notes