Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Wei Yan sat diagonally in front of me. I could see him whenever class began.
The lines of his profile were clean-cut, his lips pale pink. He stared straight ahead, never glancing aside.
Every time I saw him, I remembered the novels I had read the night before: *Secret Tutoring After School—Not One Wrong Answer Allowed*, *The Failing Student’s Answer Time*, *Punishment After Class*…
The more I thought, the hotter I became.
And the hotter I became, the more I wanted to…
Study.
Somehow, I genuinely listened through every class that day.
Even after school, I was still turning over the solution to the final problem our math teacher had explained. I pulled out my textbook and worked it through again.
“There has to be a simpler way,” I murmured.
Someone beside me scoffed.
I jumped and looked up to find Wei Yan.
Everyone else had left. We were alone in the classroom.
My face heated.
“Pretending to love studying until you’ve fooled yourself?” he asked with a cruel curl of his lips.
“No…” I weakened my voice by reflex. “I’m just a silly little dummy…”
“Barf,” said the system.
What was wrong with it?
I blinked up at Wei Yan. “Could you… teach Ruanruan?”
He glanced at the place I was pointing and gave an almost derisive laugh.
“You think this will make me look at you more?”
I froze.
“A delusional little prince. Tear him apart,” the system sneered.
Wei Yan reached out. One knuckle pressed beneath my chin, tipping my face up with gentle force.
The boy’s warmth was like a small tongue of flame, but his gaze dropped below the hem of my skirt.
The uniform skirt I had shortened by two centimeters barely covered more than half my thighs. Smooth, pale skin lay exposed beneath the fluorescent lights.
“Pretending to study only makes you look even stupider,” he said, condescending pity in his voice. “Save those little schemes of yours for where they belong.”
His fingers moved, gliding from my jaw to the side of my neck. They paused, then traveled lower.
“Big chest, no brains.”
His palm finally settled at the edge of my thigh.
Heat seeped through the thin cloth, making me tremble uncontrollably. A faint sound escaped my throat.
I tilted my flushed face toward him, my breathing quickening.
The system spoke icily inside my head. “If I could electrocute you, I would kill you with a shock right now.”
You don’t understand a thing, I thought.
This was… what did they call it? Dirty talk.
It was foreplay!
Wei Yan bent closer. The clean scent of him swept over me, and the cool tip of his nose brushed mine.
My heart hammered wildly.
Yet the desire flooding my head was something else entirely.
I wanted a pen.
I wanted to solve the problem.
I wanted to find the more elegant method.
I wanted to finish every piece of homework immediately.
He came closer.
Ants seemed to crawl all over my body. A dense itch worked its way out from my bones, and a craving a hundred, a thousand times fiercer than lust stampeded through my blood.
Hold it in.
“I can’t…” I whimpered. “I can’t hold it anymore…”
“What?” Wei Yan stopped and frowned at me.
I shoved him away.
“Sorry!”
I seized the pen and notebook on the desk, bent over, and began writing furiously.
Formulas and derivations raced across the scratch paper. Auxiliary line. Unknown variable. Substitute. Simplify…
There.
I found the shorter solution.
That felt amazing.
No.
Why did that feel amazing?
I refused to remember how I got home, let alone imagine the look on Wei Yan’s face.
Mom said boys didn’t like girls who were too clever. Smart girls were harder to control.
Would Wei Yan stop liking me if he thought I had become smart?
I trudged home.
Jiang Zhan returned a little later.
Sniffling, I changed into a soft nightdress trimmed with lace and threw myself into his arms for a cuddle.
He wrapped an arm around me and rubbed his chin lightly against the top of my head. “What’s wrong, Ruanruan?”
I felt terribly wronged.
That stupid system was jealous and wouldn’t let me get close to men, when all I wanted was to be a sweet, soft little princess.
Jiang Zhan’s hand settled at my waist. His fingertips pressed, not too hard, into the hollow of my lower back.
“Mm…”
My body went limp at once.
I lifted damp eyes to him. “Jiang Zhan… you…”
He looked down with a tender smile, though his voice had gone slightly hoarse. “Ruanruan really is sensitive.”
Yes.
This was what I wanted.
I raised my face and leaned closer.
“Jiang Zhan…”
The itch.
Hold it in.
I had to hold it in this time. The mood was perfect.
He lowered his head.
My face red, I breathed, “You’re so wicked…”
Desire surged past its threshold and nearly overwhelmed my mind. My eyes lost focus.
He leaned closer.
Closer still.
At last, he made out what I was muttering.
“Wicked—all… all acts that undermine ethnic unity or incite separatism… shall be punished by law…”
It was from the politics worksheet I had done that day.
“Ruanruan?”
Jiang Zhan released me.
I shuddered back to my senses. “S-sorry…”
“What’s gotten into you lately?” His hand caressed my cheek. “Did you forget? You don’t need to work that hard. I told you we could attend university abroad together someday.”
“Mm?”
“Just the two of us…”
His voice was so gentle.
I wanted desperately to agree, but the burning need thrashed inside me. With no outlet, it was turning into agony.
I pushed him away. “I’m sorry.”
Then I fled into my room, locked the door, and studied.