Open your mouth to speak

The afternoon sun was even stronger, but Bai Yixia stubbornly held on until the handover time before taking off her doll costume.

This shop sells desserts and ice cream. At this time, tourists either choose to continue playing or sit indoors to escape the heat, and the shop is almost full.

If Zhou Qingchi hadn't found a seat earlier, Bai Yixia wouldn't even have a place to sit right now.

She went to the back to return the clothes and washed her face. When she came back, there were still water droplets on her eyelashes.

As soon as Bai Yixia sat down, Zhou Qingchi placed a box of ice cream scoops in front of her. She looked over in surprise, and Zhou Qingchi gestured to her with his hand, "Little Bear, you've worked hard, you deserve to enjoy this."

"I'm really tired of talking." Bai Yixia shook her head and smiled. "You're so kind, Brother Zhou."

Zhou Qingchi smiled and said, "Try it. I picked out flavors you like."

Bai Yixia looked into the box and sure enough, there were three round little snowballs. She picked up a spoon, "Then I won't be polite!"

Zhou Qingchi watched as her cheeks bulged from eating, and his smile deepened.

After the meeting in the restroom, Bai Yixia began to put a label on herself. After all, work is work, and life is life; even beautiful women have their inhibitions.

One shouldn't, at least not, appear with a head full of sweat in front of their crush. Thinking of this, Bai Yixia's hand holding the spoon trembled. What exactly did she look like in front of Zhou Qingchi when they were outside?

Click—

"Hiss." Bai Yixia gasped softly, spitting out a few pieces of spoon fragments from her mouth under Zhou Qingchi's gaze.

Zhou Qingchi and she stared blankly at each other for three seconds, then Zhou Qingchi shook his head helplessly. "Xia, promise me, if the zombie virus ever strikes, you'll bite someone else first, okay?"

That's so embarrassing.

Bai Yixia quickly lowered her head. The blush that had just started from the heat was now fading, only to turn red again from embarrassment. Fortunately, she was never one to suffer internally, and within half a minute, she accepted the fact that she had embarrassed herself in front of Zhou Qingchi. After all, even without today's incident, Zhou Qingchi had already seen her in various forms.

They grew up together, after all.

Lost in thought, Bai Yixia felt her hat brim being gently lifted. Following the force, she looked up to see Zhou Qingchi standing up, bending down to look at her: "I'll go get you a new spoon. Is there anything else you'd like to eat?"

This question really hit Bai Yixia where it hurts. One of the reasons she chose to work part-time here was because she wanted to eat the desserts here.

Before she could even say her name, someone leaned close beside her. "Excuse me, I'm Bai Yixia from this afternoon?"

Bai Yixia looked up at the sound of the voice, somewhat surprised, and asked, "Lucy?" She quickly realized, "Are you working part-time at the afternoon session?"

Compared to Bai Yixia's surprise, Lu Xi seemed more displeased. She pursed her lips, gave a low "hmm," and awkwardly said, "Sister Qian asked me to come and get that tie from you."

Sister Qian is the person in charge. Bai Yixia didn't immediately recognize what the tie was. "Huh?"

Lucy gestured with a straight face in front of her neck, "It's the bow in front of the teddy bear."

"Oh, that thing." Bai Yixia stood up and reached into her pocket, explaining, "It came loose for some reason when I finished, so I put it in my pocket."

When Bai Yixia handed the ties to Lucy, she suddenly remembered that the hood wasn't very comfortable to wear, so she added, "By the way, there's a hard spot on top of that hood. You can put some paper or a towel under it, otherwise it will hurt a lot."

As she spoke, Bai Yixia remembered her hair, which had been flattened and shaped like a clump, and couldn't help but chuckle. Unexpectedly, Lucy's expression changed drastically as if she had triggered something, and she roughly snatched the ribbon from Bai Yixia's hand, coldly saying, "Is it that funny?"

Bai Yixia was completely bewildered by her sudden change in attitude, but still replied, "A little." Especially since Zhou Qingchi had mischievously taken a picture of her, which was almost unbearable to look at.

Lucy's eyes flashed with cold light. She sneered and turned her head away. She murmured a couple of times, but perhaps because Zhou Qingchi was still there, she didn't say anything harsh. Instead, she said self-deprecatingly, "Yes, compared to you, I am indeed ridiculous."

“What—” Bai Yixia understood what she meant and quickly explained, “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at myself.”

Seeing that Lu Xi remained silent, Bai Yixia gave Zhou Qingchi a pleading look.

Zhou Qingchi spoke up promptly, "I'll go get something, I won't disturb your conversation." He looked at Lu Xi and pointed to his seat, "Hey classmate, you can sit here."

Lucy was unwilling to sit any longer. She grabbed the seatbelt and tried to leave, but Bai Yixia was stronger than her. She grabbed Lucy's arm and pressed her back into the seat, then sat down next to her.

Before speaking, Bai Yixia had rehearsed her words several times in her mind, but when she turned her head and saw Lucy's gloomy expression, she swallowed back her sharp words and only asked, "Lucy, do you have a big problem with me?"

This time, Lucy's reaction was even stronger than before. She abruptly looked up at Bai Yixia and replied incredulously, "I have a problem with you? Wasn't it you who disliked me first?"

"That's completely unfounded," Bai Yixia frowned. "How could that be? I didn't say that."

“You don’t need to say anything, the two of them will speak up for you anyway.” Lucy snorted coldly, then lowered her head and said in a very low voice, “They’ll say I’m disturbing you, that I’m turning on the light and making you feel uncomfortable. They’ll say it openly and secretly, but they’ll always say that I’m bothering you.”

The two they were referring to were Bai Yi'an and Chen Wanyi. Bai Yixia recalled in a daze, but couldn't remember when they had said those words. "Lucy, are you misunderstanding something?"

Bai Yixia and Lu Xi did have a scheduling conflict, but she personally felt it wasn't serious enough to cause them to dislike each other.

Lucy said, "Misunderstanding? What could I possibly misunderstand? You just look down on me and can't stand me..."

Perhaps yesterday's events had provoked Lucy, as she was unusually talkative and emotionally agitated today. Her eyes were red as she glared at Bai Yixia, saying, "You never call me or talk to me when you do anything. Every time I return to the dorm, I can clearly hear your voices outside the door, but you stop talking as soon as I go in."

"And you, you didn't want to talk to me from the beginning, even though I really wanted to talk to you."

Lucy was not good at expressing herself. Looking at the tears in her eyes, Bai Yixia suddenly remembered what happened when she first entered school.

On the day of registration at school, Bai Yixia was the second to arrive at the dormitory. When she pushed open the door, Lu Xi was on the phone making a call. At that time, Lu Xi was using a very old model of smartphone, which had serious sound leakage, and Bai Yixia could clearly hear the voice of the person she was talking to.

It was Lucy's mother, her rough voice scolding her harshly on the other end of the phone, complaining that she was wasting the family's money and threatening not to give her any living expenses for college.

Back then, Lucy looked quite young and inexperienced, wearing a faded blue T-shirt. She blankly called out "Mom" into the microphone, only to be met with the sound of the phone being hung up. Helplessly, she lowered her hands, her eyes filled with unease as she looked at Bai Yixia.

Bai Yixia was startled. She thought Lucy was embarrassed and turned her back to pack her luggage, thinking she was being very understanding. However, she didn't see Lucy's bewildered and disappointed expression.

"I...I didn't..." Bai Yixia felt a headache coming on when she thought about what happened back then. She didn't want to argue that her actions were to protect Lucy's self-esteem. After all, bringing it up again would only reopen Lucy's wounds.

So she took Lucy's hand and said seriously, "I really didn't! I felt like I was overhearing someone's phone call, and I felt so bad that I didn't dare to talk to you." She made up a couple of sentences, half true and half false.

"Later, after military training, we found out that we weren't in the same major, and you were always busy with part-time jobs, so Xiaobai and Xiaowan and I couldn't find any free time for you," Bai Yixia said with frustration.

At that time, the three of them always thought that Lucy was inconvenient and might not accept these expensive dinner invitations, so they took it upon themselves to refuse on her behalf.

Great, so it turns out that the silent female protagonists in those domineering CEO novels actually have three, no, four, in their dorm room.

Bai Yixia didn't know if Lu Xi believed her explanation, but her expression clearly softened.

Lucy's hand, which had been held by Bai Yixia, loosened. She glanced at Bai Yixia, perhaps bewildered by her expression, and lowered her eyes, confessing, "I've never stayed in a dormitory before, and I have very few friends. At first, I wanted to be good friends with you all, but..."

But who could have imagined that it was all a misunderstanding from the start?

Taking advantage of Lu Xi's heightened emotions, Bai Yixia also said, "Me too! I didn't expect such a misunderstanding to happen, but Xi Xi, believe me, we don't look down on you or dislike you."

The affectionate nickname she uttered naturally startled Lucy, who looked away somewhat embarrassedly. "I...I understand."

Bai Yixia sighed, "Actually, we also thought you didn't like us."

Lucy was even more baffled. "Me? How could I?"

Bai Yixia blinked. "You study very hard. You make your days very fulfilling. On the other hand, we... play games, watch dramas, and go out to play. Compared to you, we seem a bit lazy and uneducated."

Lu Xi actually knew that the situation wasn't as serious as Bai Yixia made it out to be. Otherwise, Bai Yi'an and Chen Wanyi wouldn't have been in the study room yesterday.

However, she also understood that Bai Yixia was just saying this to comfort her. Looking at Bai Yixia's smile, Lu Xi felt her heart burning and couldn't help but grin back.

Lucy said, "I know I have many flaws." This was the first time she had spoken like this. She looked directly at Bai Yixia and nervously licked her lips. "From now on, let's talk more. Let's avoid any more misunderstandings."

Bai Yixia naturally had no objections, and nodded vigorously while holding Lucy's arm, the little cat ears on her hat twitching with her movements.

Seeing the two of them close together from a distance, Zhou Qingchi guessed that the conflict must have been resolved, so he walked back at the opportune moment.

He placed the two small cakes on the table and said softly, "I didn't know what your taste was like, so I ordered one that was the same as Xia's."

Lucy had been secretly trying to touch the cat ears on Bai Yixia's hat when she suddenly heard Zhou Qingchi's voice, which startled her so much that she almost jumped up. Bai Yixia, on the other hand, looked delighted and held up a cake plate to recommend it to her: "Oh! It's the flavor I wanted the most! Lucy, you should try it, it's delicious."

Lucy smiled gratefully at Zhou Qingchi, took a small fork and carefully tasted it. Her eyes lit up. "Delicious."

Bai Yixia shook her head with satisfaction, squinting her eyes as she said, "Brother Zhou, how did you know I wanted to eat this?"

Zhou Qingchi sat opposite her, resting his chin on his hand, looking at her with a smile, and scoffed, "Who knows? Maybe I live in the world of social media."

There was an awkward silence between them. Lucy sat quietly eating her cake, listening to their childish bickering. It wasn't until her phone beeped that Lucy snapped out of her reverie. She quickly finished her cake, tugged at Bai Yixia's sleeve, and said, "Xiaxia, I have to go to work now. See you at school."

Bai Yixia followed her all the way to the door of the staff room before stopping. "It's still very hot in the afternoon, so you should take care to avoid the heat."

Lucy nodded and said, "I understand. Thank you for forgiving me. The cake was delicious. Please thank your boyfriend for me."

Bai Yixia was stunned. She only heard the words "boyfriend" and her ears turned red instantly. She waved her hands and explained, "No, no, he is not my boyfriend."

This was something Lu Xi hadn't expected. Seeing Zhou Qingchi looking at Bai Yixia with such seriousness and tenderness, she had preconceived the idea that the two were a couple. Just as she was about to express her own thoughts, she heard Bai Yixia say with a silly smile, "However, I do like him."

This was between the two of them, and Lucy felt it would be presumptuous of her to suddenly say, "He seems to like it too," especially since she had only spent a few minutes with the young man. She swallowed her words and said, "Then I hope you get what you want. Talk to him properly, just like you did with me."