Chapter 47 My Heart Aches for You

Xia Zhen added, "If you deceive my feelings, it doesn't matter. There are many people who like me, and I can find someone who likes me even more."

He gripped her hand tighter, "Zhenzhen, I won't give you that chance."

Her appearance was an accident for him, like a shooting star streaking across the night sky. There are so many people in this world who hope to make a shooting star stay, but he was the only one who managed to catch her.

During this wonderful accident, he often had the illusion that he was dreaming, and when he woke up, she had slipped away from his grasp.

Lu Jin knew very well that he was not good enough for her.

His reason kept reminding him that he was a monster and had no right to be with her until the end. From a very young age, he knew that he was not entitled to dream. But when she appeared, even the most rational person could not help but be led by the emotions that had been building up in his heart.

Xia Zhen's hand ached from being gripped so tightly, but she didn't complain. Instead, a hint of smugness shone in her eyes. "So you have to be good to me from now on, or else I'll run away. If I tell you to go east, you can't go west. If I tell you to kiss me, you can't just hug me. Understand?"

He nodded. "I understand."

His answer was quite clever.

Xia Zhen asked him cautiously, "Don't you think I'm being unreasonable?"

Sometimes, she's quite self-aware.

A smile flickered across Lu Jin's relaxed expression. "No."

Xia Zhen was finally relieved. She had to admit that she did have a bit of a spoiled princess temper. She was used to throwing her weight around, but she had toned it down since coming to No. 1 High School.

Xia Zhen felt a few chocolates in her school uniform pocket. She took them out; they were the chocolates she had given him, not one was missing. "Why aren't you eating them?"

"I'm reluctant to part with it."

A sweet feeling welled up inside her, but she pretended to be dissatisfied and said, "It will expire even if I don't eat it, and it's all crushed..."

He must have crushed the chocolate in his pocket when he fell.

He apologized in a very good mood, "I'm sorry, I didn't protect them well."

Xia Zhen couldn't help but laugh out loud, "Lu Jin, will you be the first person in the world to apologize for not protecting the chocolate?"

He thought for a moment and gave a cautious answer, "Perhaps."

Xia Zhen noticed that he seemed to have a sense of humor, but after laughing for a while, she couldn't laugh anymore. "When you fell to the ground, did it hurt a lot?"

Lu Jin didn't expect her to bring the topic back again. He gently stroked the corner of her eye with his fingertips and smiled slightly. "It really doesn't hurt. Don't be fooled by how hard I looked in the surveillance footage. I actually took good care of myself."

"Is this the result of you protecting yourself?" She looked at the scratches on his face and felt that Lu Ci was becoming more and more hateful.

Lu Jin also felt a little guilty.

She said angrily, "Didn't that Lu Ci often treat you like this before?"

“No,” Lu Jin said slowly. “He rarely takes action.”

"That's because someone else attacked you."

“Zhenzhen…”

Xia Zhen grew angrier as she spoke, a fire burning within her. "Lu Jin, none of them are good people."

The "they" she was referring to were Lu Huiming and Hao Hui, a married couple.

Lu Jin comforted her in a low voice, "Don't be angry, they wouldn't dare to do anything too outrageous."

Xia Zhen pursed her lips tightly, "Your studies are clearly very good, but you can only perform so-so, is it because you can't steal Lu Ci's thunder, right?"

Don't let her princess-like behavior fool you; she can be as innocent and pure as a white flower as she is. In fact, she is often remarkably perceptive.

Lu Jin knew that if he didn't say something, she would probably imagine him as a pitiful little cabbage in the autumn field. After a moment of silence, he said gently, "When I was in elementary school, my grades were pretty good."

"How good is 'good'?"

"First in the grade."

Xia Zhen looked at him with a complicated expression.

Is this not bad?

A faint smile appeared in Lu Jin's eyes. He didn't think there was anything to brag about, but he did feel a sense of pleasure when he mentioned it to her.

This is a small kind of vanity that belongs to teenagers.

Xia Zhen grabbed his hand and shook it, urging, "And then?"

“Even if I get first place, they won’t be happy. Instead, they will take Lu Ci to the amusement park to cheer him up because he is unhappy.”

Xia Zhen's eyes widened. "You're the one who should be getting the reward!"

Lu Jin brushed the girl's hair aside and gently kissed her forehead. "I don't care about rewards, Zhenzhen, don't be angry."

Xia Zhen's emotions gradually calmed down, and she waited with a straight face for him to say next.

He said, "Even if I know that no one will be happy for me if I bring home the test paper with the highest score, I still have to study hard to keep my grades at the top. That way, if they refuse to let me go to high school because of my poor health after I graduate from junior high school, there will be teachers in the school who will persuade them to change their minds."

Nine years of compulsory education is a fact that the Lu family couple cannot change. They cannot prevent Lu Jin from going to school. If he drops out of school and stays at home, the school and relevant departments will come to their door repeatedly to investigate the situation and persuade Lu Huiming and Hao Hui. In order to avoid trouble, Lu Jin successfully attended primary and junior high school.

But high school is different.

Therefore, he had to achieve outstanding results in the high school entrance examination, and in fact he did. When Hao Hui gently told him that for the sake of his health, he should not go to high school, Lu Jin did not resist at all.

Not long after, school officials and relevant department staff came to the parents' home again to try and persuade them.

For the sake of their good reputation, Lu Huiming and Hao Hui had no choice but to put on the act of being good parents and agree to let Lu Jin go to No. 1 Middle School.

Lu Ci was different. His grades weren't very good; he barely made it into the top high school. He already disliked Lu Jin and hated it when people talked about Lu Jin's good grades.

Lu Jin wasn't just blindly optimistic. He knew that Lu Ci's thoughts always influenced his parents' decisions. In order to make his life a little better, Lu Jin's grades remained above average shortly after entering high school.

Such grades were just right—neither making the Lu family threaten to expel him nor overshadowing Lu Ci.

Xia Zhen stared at him for a long time without saying a word.

Lu Jin suddenly realized that he might have revealed too much, and he felt inexplicably nervous. "I know it's wrong of me to have been scheming about this since I was a child. I won't do it again..."

Before he could finish speaking, the girl's body crashed into his arms.

She hugged him tightly, buried her face in his chest, and said in a muffled voice, "Lu Jin, I feel sorry for you."

He had to work hard for his life when he was so young.

After a slight pause, Lu Jin relaxed his tense body and gently stroked the girl's back with his large hand. His eyes were filled with tenderness as he looked down. "Zhenzhen, I'm fine now."

It's really good.