Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I turned around and met Shen Dongye’s brilliant smile. “How about that? Was your big brother fast enough? Accurate enough?”

He had actually come back with the umbrella after seeing Zhou Dazhuang off on the bus.

My heart felt heavy, and my eyes stung. “Shen Dongye, has anyone ever told you… you’re like the sun?”

It was a rainy day, and the bus was incredibly crowded.

I was being jostled back and forth, struggling to keep my balance.

Shen Dongye grabbed the handrail and gave me a tug. “Stand here!”

Just as my mother had done for my older sister, he used his body to shield me, carving out a tiny sanctuary in the crowd.

Shen Dongye got off first, but he insisted on leaving the umbrella with me.

“I’m a man. What’s a little rain to me!”

When I got home, my mother was shaking the rainwater off her own umbrella.

Seeing me, a flicker of embarrassment crossed her face, but she quickly recovered. “I was just about to go pick you up. I didn’t expect you to be back already.”

My hair and clothes were soaked through anyway.

It was already late October, and I was shivering from the cold. I wanted to take a hot shower.

Just then, my father returned with my younger brother.

He shouted at the top of his lungs, “If you need the bathroom, hurry up. Your brother’s pant legs are wet; he needs a hot shower.”

I recalled what Shen Dongye had said to me earlier.

“Li Linlin, it’s not that I’m like the sun. It’s that you’re too timid. You should learn to speak up and fight back.”

I took a deep breath. “My hair and clothes are soaked. I’m going first.”

“Your brother’s health isn’t great…”

I enunciated every word: “I am going first. I’ll be quick.”

I shut the bathroom door and turned on the faucet.

As the hot water hit my freezing skin, I shuddered.

I was out in five minutes.

My mother frowned. “Your brother is younger than you. You really don’t know how to give in to him.”

“I’m younger than my sister, but I didn’t see you coming to pick me up.”

My mother opened her mouth several times before finding an excuse. “Your sister is in her senior year of high school.”

I looked at her quietly. “You didn’t do it before, either.”

In the middle of the night, I got up to use the bathroom.

Through the door, I heard my mother complaining to my father, “What’s wrong with Linlin lately? She’s getting more disobedient the older she gets.”

“Forget it, ignore her. We still have Zhenzhen and Congcong.”

Speaking up wouldn’t change the situation.

But at least I felt a little better.

The next day, I went to find Jiayi so we could go to school together, but Aunt Jia said she had already left.

When I reached school, she wasn’t in the classroom.

Li Lang was there, though.

She called me outside.

The sky had cleared after the rain, and the air was thick with the scent of damp earth.

She was aggressive. “Do you like Shen Dongye?”

“No, I don’t…”

“Don’t think that just because he shared an umbrella with you, he’s interested. He’s always had a soft spot for the weak. If your grades stay at the bottom of the barrel, you won’t be deskmates next semester anyway.”