Chapter 32

◎Isn't that your deskmate?◎

There wasn't much sun today, and a gentle breeze was blowing. Zhan Xinyue ordered a coffee with an iced topping and sat under a parasol, lost in thought.

Xie Wanzhi asked her to go out in the morning, but she deliberately didn't answer the phone. Unexpectedly, she called the home landline directly, and Pang Yun answered.

Zhan Xinyue didn't want her parents to suspect anything, so she agreed in front of them. However, she really didn't want to go out alone with Xie Wanzhi, so she secretly texted her back to cancel after returning to her room. To her parents, she pretended to go to the appointment, but still went out and ended up wandering around the mall alone.

Feeling a bit tired after leaving the mall, and seeing that it was still early, she found a shop outside the mall to rest.

She had only been sitting for a short while when a pair of brown ankle boots stopped in front of her. She looked in that direction and saw a pretty young girl staring at her; the girl looked somewhat familiar.

"Hello, sister, it's nice to see you again," the other person said first.

Zhan Xinyue recognized her as Shi Ziqian's sister, whom she had met just yesterday. She was surprised that she would come over to greet her, so she waved and said, "Hello, are you shopping around here too?" She looked behind her. "Are you alone?"

Shi Qiyue looked a little aggrieved: "Sister, could I borrow your phone? I want to call my brother. He was the one who brought me out today, but he left so fast that I couldn't find him in the blink of an eye."

"Did he take you to get the injection?" Zhan Xinyue remembered this. She handed her the phone and comforted her gently, "Don't worry, do you remember his phone number?"

"I can memorize it," Shi Qiyue said obediently. She took the phone, quickly dialed a string of numbers, and held the phone to her ear.

The beeping on the phone went on and on, but no one answered.

Shi Qiyue clicked her tongue and pressed the redial button.

After calling for the third time, Zhan Xinyue said, "Why don't we call again later? He might be busy and didn't hear us."

"No, sister, I'll call him a few more times and he'll be able to hear me."

Not far away, Shi Ziqian stood quietly behind the flower bed, watching the scene, his expression unreadable. His phone rang again and again before he finally answered.

"Hey, brother, where did you go? I can't find you," Shi Qiyue said into the phone.

There was no response from the other end, but she continued, seemingly unconcerned: "What, you'll be picking me up in a while? Okay, then I'll wait for you here, right next to McDonald's. You'll see me as soon as you get here. Don't worry, a kind lady is with me and even lent me her phone."

After hanging up the phone, Shi Qiyue returned the phone to Zhan Xinyue and said somewhat nervously, "Sister, when are you leaving? Can you stay here with me and wait for my brother for a while? He's worried that I'll get lost if I'm alone."

Zhan Xinyue quickly comforted her, "Of course you can, don't worry, I'll be with you."

Shi Qiyue sat down on the chair next to her, her legs dangling in the air, looking quite adorable. She turned her head and asked, "Sister, what's your name?"

"Zhan Xinyue, I remember you said your name was Shi Qiyue yesterday?"

"Sister, you have such a good memory."

She kept calling her "sister," which made Zhan Xinyue's eyes crinkle with delight. She wasn't really good at interacting with children, so she thought for a moment and asked Shi Qiyue, "Are you hot? How about I treat you to ice cream?"

"Okay! Thank you, sister!" Shi Qiyue said happily.

Zhan Xinyue got up, but after taking two steps, she suddenly remembered something: "But aren't you sick? You shouldn't be able to eat anything cold, right? Can I get you a glass of room temperature juice?"

Shi Qiyue had shot himself in the foot, and could only say "okay" with a long face.

Zhan Xinyue ordered a pomegranate juice and brought it to her. Shi Qiyue took it and smiled at her, saying, "Sister, you're so kind." She was already pretty, and when she smiled so sweetly, she looked like a little angel, easily winning people's hearts. Yesterday, Zhan Xinyue had seen her and thought this girl looked cool and had a strong personality, but she hadn't expected her to actually be so sweet and adorable.

Before Zhan Xinyue could answer, she added, "He's much better than my brother. He never buys me juice."

Zhan Xinyue comforted her, "Don't say that. Your brother is very good to you. He even took you to get your shot."

“That’s true.” Shi Qiyue readily accepted, “Then I’ll take back what I said.”

Zhan Xinyue found her even more adorable and asked, "By the way, are you feeling better?"

"It's almost done." Shi Qiyue turned her head away, vaguely changing the subject.

When she turned her head, a signature wisp of orange hair behind her ear and a tiny earring on her earlobe were revealed. Zhan Xinyue couldn't help but ask curiously, "Does your class allow dyed hair and pierced ears?"

She wasn't sure about the junior high section, but the senior high section was very strict about this under Lao Fang's pressure. Not to mention dyeing your hair, you couldn't even have a slightly flashy hairstyle.

“It’s not allowed,” Shi Qiyue said. “But I’m a bad student, so the teacher doesn’t bother with me.”

She so frankly admitted that she was a poor student, which made Zhan Xinyue a little uncomfortable. She choked up for a moment and said, "Don't say that about yourself. Even if your grades aren't that good, it doesn't mean you're a poor student."

Shi Qiyue smiled and nonchalantly drank her juice, one leg casually propped up.

Looking at it this way, Shi Ziqian and his younger sister's personalities are truly two extremes. Shi Ziqian not only excels academically but is also quite well-behaved in all aspects. Apart from his ruthless rejection of Gao Qiang, he is rarely seen doing anything too outrageous. When sitting, he always sits with his back ramrod straight, and his school uniform is always impeccably neat, as if he has obsessive-compulsive disorder, with even the zipper zipped all the way up.

Shi Qiyue tilted her head and looked over: "Hey, sister, you said yesterday that you and my brother were deskmates? When did you two start sitting together?"

Zhan Xinyue calculated: "It's been more than a semester, this is the second semester."

"That must have been quite an achievement." Shi Qiyue lowered her head and took another sip of juice, then casually asked, "How's your relationship?"

As for their relationship... In front of someone else's sister, she couldn't very well say that although she and her brother had been sitting at the same desk for so long, they were still like strangers, especially since their relationship had inexplicably plummeted to a freezing point recently. So she carefully said, "It's not bad."

"Really?" Shi Qiyue looked at her curiously. "Then what do you think of my brother?"

"He's doing well. He gets good grades, and he's also... well, he gets along well with everyone."

Shi Qiyue's lips twitched slightly. "Why does this sound so official, like you two aren't very familiar with each other?"

"No, I think he's a bit like... Little Dragon Girl?" Zhan Xinyue quickly tried to think of a way to phrase it, and after thinking for a long time, a thought suddenly struck her. She hesitated and said, "I think he's a bit like... Little Dragon Girl?"

Shi Qiyue almost spat out her juice with a "pfft".

"The one from The Return of the Condor Heroes?"

Zhan Xinyue nodded shyly, which made Shi Qiyue laugh uncontrollably for a long time.

Zhan Xinyue pursed her lips at her laughter, realizing that her description might be a bit far-fetched. But she absolutely did not think Shi Ziqian was being effeminate; for a moment just now, the image of Little Dragon Girl had indeed inexplicably popped into her mind.

If you ignore gender, they really do look alike; both have stunning looks and a cool, aloof demeanor, appearing as if they are untouched by worldly affairs.

Shi Qiyue's eyes glistened with laughter, and when she looked over, her pupils were bright and stunningly beautiful: "I didn't expect that my sister, who looks so quiet and gentle, would have such a good sense of humor."

Zhan Xinyue stared at her for a few seconds, silently retracting her earlier thought that she and Shi Ziqian didn't look alike. They really did look somewhat similar, although Shi Ziqian would never smile like that.

After she had finally finished laughing, she suddenly turned to Zhan Xinyue with a gossipy look on her face and said, "By the way, sister, I have a question for you."

"Um?"

"Is there anyone in your class who likes my brother?"

Zhan Xinyue was slightly taken aback when she heard her ask that question.

Shi Qiyue looked at her with her beautiful eyes, seemingly expecting her answer. She thought for a moment and said, "I guess so."

She wasn't really sure if there were any in her class, but there were definitely many in the grade, and even more in the entire high school.

Shi Qiyue laughed: "Right, I think so too. Although he's a man of few words, with a personality as cold as a stone and no sense of humor, well..." She winked at Zhan Xinyue, "but he's very handsome and very rich, so it's good to like him."

Her way of thinking was completely like a child's, Zhan Xinyue smiled gently.

Seeing her smile, Shi Qiyue leaned closer mysteriously: "Sister, let me tell you a secret. My brother may seem a bit cold-hearted, but he's actually very soft-hearted and has a good temper, so... anyone who falls in love with him will definitely be very happy."

Good-tempered? Are you referring to Shi Ziqian?

It seems he treats this younger sister quite well.

Zhan Xinyue smiled at her with her eyes slightly curved: "You just said yesterday that you have to apply for compensation for emotional distress if you sit with him."

Shi Qiyue shrank back, her two thin legs dangling, and said, "I was just kidding."

I don't know if the "soft-hearted and good-tempered" part was a joke, or the "compensation for emotional distress" part was a joke.

She then looked up at Zhan Xinyue and asked, "Sister, you're so pretty, what kind of boy do you like?"

Zhan Xinyue smiled and blurted out, "The kind that's more musically talented, I guess."

As soon as the words left her mouth, her expression turned somber. Shi Qiyue's question had come too suddenly; she hadn't thought much about it and had blurted out the answer from her past life. In truth, she herself didn't know whether she liked Xu Shen because she liked boys with musical talent, or whether liking Xu Shen naturally led her to like boys with musical talent.

She didn't really want to continue the conversation, but fortunately Shi Qiyue didn't press her for details. She just tilted her head, seemingly deep in thought.

The two sat for a while longer, then Shi Qiyue seemed to get bored and looked around. "Sister, why hasn't my brother come to pick me up yet?"

Zhan Xinyue took out her phone and glanced at the time. More than ten minutes had passed, so she handed the phone back to her. "Why don't you call him again and ask where he is?"

Shi Qiyue said, "Actually, I think I made him a little angry today, so he might not want to pick me up. Sister, could you call him and talk to him for me?"

Zhan Xinyue was still holding the phone, and for some reason, she felt uncomfortable as soon as she heard that she was to call Shi Ziqian.

Perhaps because she had just told the other person that their relationship was "not bad," she couldn't find a reason to refuse, so she nodded in the end, opened the call log, found the most recent call, and called back.

After a brief beep, a calm male voice came from the other end: "Hello."

Like him, Shi Ziqian's voice carried a slight coolness even in the height of summer. Now, through the microphone, it sounded slightly different from usual, with a slightly lower pitch.

She pursed her lips and said, "Are you Shi Ziqian? I'm Zhan Xinyue."

The person on the other end didn't seem surprised to hear her voice and didn't react. She continued, "Your sister is next to me. She just called you using my phone... When are you coming to pick her up?"

The male voice on the other end of the phone paused for a few seconds before speaking again: "I've arrived."

Zhan Xinyue's heart suddenly stirred, and she looked up blankly, holding her phone.

A dozen meters away, Shi Ziqian was also holding up his phone, quietly watching this side.

This was the first time Zhan Xinyue had encountered Shi Ziqian outside of the campus. No matter where he was, he always possessed this ability: amidst the bustling crowds in the square, he simply stood there, dressed in a simple white shirt and black trousers, making everyone else fade into the background. So, the moment Zhan Xinyue looked up, she saw him immediately, and only him.

Zhan Xinyue stared at him for a few seconds, then looked away. Remembering Shi Qiyue's comment that he was "exceptionally handsome," she couldn't help but secretly click her tongue in her heart.

Tsk, how can anyone look like that?

He's incredibly handsome.