Chapter 5

“Xu Dusui, let’s talk.”

The moment class ended, Xie Huai walked up to me.

Before I could answer, I suddenly felt a subtle emotion stirring in my heart.

I turned my head. Chen Qingsong wasn’t looking at me.

He was bent over a practice paper instead.

While I was still puzzled, Xie Huai seemed provoked by the movement.

He leaned down to my ear. “You’re really something, Xu Dusui. Just because of what I said yesterday, you actually went to Chen Qingsong to get a rise out of me?”

His warm breath tickled my ear. Uncomfortable, I tilted my head away and asked the question burning in my soul: “What are you talking about?”

“Playing dumb again?” Xie Huai’s mouth twitched. “All because I said you and Chen Qingsong were a good match? Xu Dusui, I was only joking…”

Screech—

A chair scraping across the floor interrupted his baffling speech.

Chen Qingsong walked over.

“Miss Xu.” He looked at me. “You asked me last week to go see Grape together. Shall we go at noon?”

Grape was the stray cat Chen Qingsong fed.

It had a very distinctive heart-shaped marking on one paw.

I’d fed it before too. I’d just never run into Chen Qingsong.

“At noon?” I was confused. Grape liked its afternoon nap, and I’d never seen Chen Qingsong feed it at midday.

Then I met Chen Qingsong’s eyes.

He seemed to have been born in a different palette from Xie Huai—a cooler one, even in his gaze.

His eyes never brimmed with affection, and he rarely smiled.

But whenever I looked up, I knew he was listening to me seriously.

And speaking to me seriously too.

Just like now.

Xie Huai gave a cold laugh and straightened. “Dude, there’s something you don’t seem to understand. Who are you trying to impress with that icy face all day? And why make up that stuff about last week? Did Xu Dusui even glance at you last week? Let me tell you, Xu Dusui and I grew up together. I know exactly what she’s…”

I interrupted him before he could finish.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go after lunch.”

Xie Huai looked at me in disbelief. “Xu Dusui!”

I looked at him too, and said very seriously, “He’s the person I was chatting with yesterday. So I was really unhappy when you bad-mouthed him.”

“Xu Dusui.” Xie Huai froze for a few seconds, then took a deep breath. “Because of Luo Min? You’re using yourself to get back at me?”

Me: “?”

What did this have to do with Luo Min?

Honestly, the older we got, the less I understood anything Xie Huai said.

I often wondered whether we lived in different worlds.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking either.” In the end, I chose to ignore his nonsense and honestly announced, “Because I started pursuing Chen Qingsong last week.”

Xie Huai’s mouth hung open. His face went blank.

The classmates watching the drama were equally stunned: OAO!

My heartbeat began to accelerate.

Thump, thump, thump.

I looked at Chen Qingsong.

His expression hadn’t changed at all—but his heart was an erupting volcano.

Hot, vigorous, fierce.

Yet very soon, that volcano went dormant.

As it did so often.

Chen Qingsong’s feelings were like a snail retreating into its shell.

Whenever I thought I was about to touch something real, he would hide them away.