Chapter 14, Chapter Fourteen: Liking
It was a drizzly day when I changed seats.
When her new deskmate silently brought over stacks of books, Luo Xincheng went to her own desk first, gathered up the most frequently used textbooks, and piled them high at the edge where the two desks met, like building an insurmountable wall.
The other person paused for a moment when they saw the thick barrier between them, then placed a stack of books in the middle as well, further eliminating the possibility of their arms accidentally touching.
Seeing that he was quite sensible, Luo Xincheng's resistance to her new deskmate lessened.
Because she had never paid any attention to this classmate before, Luo Xincheng took a few extra glances at his face as he quietly tidied his desk.
This school doesn't have strict requirements for students' hairstyles. As long as they don't dye their hair or have strange styles, it doesn't matter if their hair is long or short. Unlike some schools, which actually have explicit rules that students' bangs cannot be longer than their eyebrows.
Fu Zhiheng's hair was a bit long, with wisps of hair brushing against his eyelids and the ends of his hair covering most of the upper frame of his glasses.
The glasses he wore were a very common style, black, with thick frames and thick lenses that completely covered his eyes. When Luo Xincheng looked at them, his gaze was immediately drawn to those old-fashioned glasses, and then to the unexpectedly superior nose bridge and the slightly pursed lips beneath the frames.
Her gaze was direct and open, blatant and undisguised.
Perhaps he had never been looked at like this before. His originally straight back gradually bent, and his head drooped lower and lower. In the short ten seconds that her gaze lingered on him, he adjusted his glasses several times for no apparent reason.
Luo Xincheng didn't expect her new deskmate to be even more shy than she had imagined, so she immediately looked away and stopped staring at him so openly.
In addition to the textbooks provided by the school, Fu Zhiheng also bought a lot of supplementary teaching materials and workbooks. While Luo Xincheng was busy packing her things, she caught a glimpse of the books he had brought over, which were twice the size of hers.
Luo Xincheng: ...
She compared the books on both sides and realized she was getting a little dizzy from reading.
At the same time, she noticed that Fu Zhiheng's supplementary teaching materials were all very neat.
The books weren't brand new, like they hadn't been touched since they were handed out. The covers of the books on the table had obvious creases, indicating that they had been frequently read. But apart from that, there were no ink marks or oil stains on the covers, and the pages weren't curled. So Luo Xincheng thought that he must be a very clean person.
Sure enough, after all the books were moved, he took out a pack of wet wipes from his bag and bent down to carefully wipe the holes in the table.
Luo Xincheng wasn't that particular; he just folded the books and stuffed them in.
She stared at the pack of wet wipes in his hand for a long time, so long that he misunderstood. After quickly pulling out two wipes, he generously handed her the remaining half pack.
"Want it?"
This was the first thing Fu Zhiheng said to her, just two simple words, spoken in a soft voice, but not so soft that it would be hard to hear unless one listened carefully.
Luo Xincheng took the wet wipe. "Thank you."
After carefully wiping the chair I was going to sit on with a wet wipe, I returned the rest of the chair.
After this series of brief interactions, Luo Zhiheng's resistance to his new deskmate had almost completely disappeared.
Quiet, clean, and with good grades, he fits all of Luo Xincheng's ideal characteristics for a deskmate.
It was at this moment that she truly realized that her homeroom teacher's promise to arrange a good seat for her was not just empty talk.
*
After changing seats, Luo Xincheng and her new deskmate entered a period of adjustment.
But actually, there's not much of a need for adjustment, because Fu Zhiheng has really good lifestyle habits.
He arrives very early every day; basically, as soon as she steps into the classroom, she can see him buried in his work next to her seat.
"You really are... always coming this early."
One morning, Luo Xincheng finally couldn't help but say, "You don't stay in bed at all? You're not sleepy at all?"
On his way to his seat, many classmates were eating breakfast, and surrounded by the aromas of various foods, his clean, soapy scent seemed exceptionally refreshing.
Luo Xincheng rarely saw him eating in the classroom. Even when he did eat, it was just some bread or biscuits to fill his stomach. The taste was very bland and sweet, which was very pleasant to her nose.
"I'm used to it."
As Fu Zhiheng spoke, he stood up and gave her his seat.
She sat in the seat against the wall, just like that for both semesters. Before, when she went in, her deskmate would usually move the chair forward so that she could squeeze through the narrow passage between the chair and the desk behind her.
After Fu Zhiheng became his deskmate, he would stand up and give up his seat whenever Luo Xincheng walked to his desk.
When Luo Xincheng went in, she glanced at his desk, where a physics textbook was spread out.
She couldn't help but sigh, "No wonder you were first in your grade."
He didn't say anything. After she went in, he sat back in his chair, picked up his pen, and started working on the problem again.
Luo Xincheng took out the homework she needed to hand in from her bag. There was a part of it that she found difficult, so she left it unfinished to copy in class. But the deskmate she usually copied from hadn't arrived yet. After thinking for a moment, she tentatively asked her deskmate, "Can I borrow your homework to copy?"
He paused slightly with his pen and asked her, "What homework?"
Luo Xincheng waved the workbook in his hand. He glanced at it, then looked down and took out the corresponding workbook from the desk drawer.
She raised her eyebrows, somewhat surprised, "Thanks."
As she opened his workbook, a patch of printed-looking handwriting caught her eye.
"Wow," she exclaimed, though it didn't really make any sense.
Perhaps because her own handwriting is not very good and she has no desire to practice, she always has a greater fondness for people with beautiful handwriting.
Actually, the handwriting of the student in front of her that she often copied was also very beautiful, a very elegant and flowing regular script, which showed that she had put in a lot of effort to practice. However, she may be naturally lacking in sensitivity to handwriting. Faced with such beautiful handwriting, reading became a little more difficult, and she had to stop and identify some characters.
Fu Zhiheng's handwriting is completely different from the one in front of him.
His handwriting was neat and orderly, each stroke precise and tidy, allowing Luo Zhiheng to clearly understand what he had written at a glance. This made copying homework much easier and faster than before.
After copying the homework and returning the workbook, she reached into her schoolbag and pulled out a handful of wafers.
"Want to eat?"
After saying that, without waiting for his answer, she threw everything she was holding onto his table.
Fu Zhiheng paused for a moment, then stammered, "Too many..."
Luo Xincheng shrugged. "If you don't want to eat it, you can share it with someone else. If you really can't, you can just throw it away."
She definitely wouldn't bring it back to eat again; she'd gotten tired of it.
Seeing her resolute attitude, Fu Zhiheng hesitated for a moment before gathering the scattered wafers and finally putting them into his schoolbag.
Fearing she might misunderstand, he added a special explanation, "We'll eat when we get back."
Luo Xincheng nodded indifferently, indicating that she didn't care.
Anyway, I've already given him the things, so he can do whatever he wants with them.
To her surprise, when she arrived at school the next day, she found that Fu Zhiheng had arrived later than her for the first time ever.
Luo Xincheng was so startled that she almost thought her alarm clock was broken, which made her wake up early.
But he wasn't too late. Before she could even warm up her chair, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and went into the classroom.
Hearing him panting, Luo Xincheng couldn't help but tease, "Is the alarm clock at home broken?"
He shook his head, and before he could even sit down properly, he eagerly pulled a takeout bag from his backpack and gently placed it on Luo Xincheng's desk.
"Please have this."
Through the semi-transparent packaging bag, she could see the bright yellow butterfly cookies inside.
Why are you suddenly treating me to this?
She reached out and her fingertips touched something steaming hot; it was freshly baked.
Could it be that he came so late today just to wait for this?
Fu Zhiheng said simply, "You treated me to cookies yesterday."
"But that was to thank you for letting me copy your homework," Luo Xincheng said, puzzled. "There's no need to treat me to this again, is there? Otherwise, things will just get complicated."
“But…” Fu Zhiheng hesitated, as if he didn’t know how to say it.
Luo Xincheng looked at him, puzzled, waiting for his answer.
After a long pause, he seemed to give up on choosing his words, lowered his head, and murmured, "Too expensive..."
Luo Xincheng didn't hear clearly at first, so she leaned closer and asked, "What?"
“I said,” he took a deep breath, his breathing gradually calming down, and he tried to appear composed, “the cookies you treated me to yesterday were too expensive, and I felt bad about it, so I thought I’d treat you to butterfly cookies instead.”
Late last night, after finishing all the homework in his study plan, he felt hungry and ate the wafers she had given him from his schoolbag.
This was the first time he had ever tasted this type of wafer biscuit. The outer layer was a thin layer of dark chocolate that melted in his mouth, and the wafer inside was light and crispy. Although it was a bit too sweet to eat too many, he was probably too hungry at the time, and he ate three or four biscuits in one go and still felt a little unsatisfied.
After drinking some water to dilute the sweetness in his mouth, he flattened the cookie wrapper and searched for the largest letters, BABBI, on an online shopping app, wanting to buy some of the same kind to keep at home for when he got hungry later.
This brand has an official flagship store on the platform. When he clicked in, he was shocked to find that the cheapest cookies in the store cost more than 20 yuan each. The ones he had just eaten were not even available in the flagship store.
Completely unaware that the cookies he had just eaten were worth over a hundred yuan, Fu Zhiheng's mind went blank, and his first reaction after regaining his senses was shame.
His parents died early, and his tuition and living expenses from childhood to adulthood were covered by his grandparents' retirement pensions. Two years ago, his grandmother also passed away, leaving him and his grandfather to depend on each other. In order to save money for his future college expenses, his grandfather has always been very frugal, reluctant to eat or wear anything nice. The few biscuits he just ate were enough for two days' worth of food for them.
Fu Zhiheng was surprised that Luo Xincheng would treat him to such expensive cookies. He was flattered but also felt unworthy.
His family had always taught him not to take advantage of others, so the next morning he went to a well-regarded pastry shop nearby and queued up to buy their signature butterfly cookies.
"Although this isn't as expensive as the cookies you gave me, it's still very delicious, and there's a long line of people waiting for it every morning..."
Luo Xincheng never expected that the cookies she casually gave out would trigger such a troublesome chain reaction.
"It's just a few cookies, there's no need to give a special return gift."
This is so troublesome.
But she didn't know how to describe this inexplicable pressure, even though it was just a few cheap cookies...
She tore open the packaging of the butterfly pastry, picked one up, and popped it into her mouth. As she chewed, her previously lifeless eyes suddenly lit up.
This was certainly not a polite compliment meant to appease him; she wasn't the kind of person who was considerate and attentive to other people's feelings.
She genuinely thought the butterfly cookies were delicious; the balance between crispness and softness was perfect, and the aromas of caramel and butter were rich and equally appealing.
I got a little tipsy while eating.
Seeing that she was eating with gusto, Fu Zhiheng breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm glad you like it."
After he finished speaking, he curved his lips into a smile, and the dimples on his cheeks appeared and disappeared.
This was the first time he had ever shown such an open and uninhibited expression in front of her.
Luo Xincheng chewed on a butterfly pastry, her gaze lingering on his lips and cheeks.
She even has dimples.
She's kind of cute.
...
After this little incident, Luo Xincheng and Fu Zhiheng's relationship gradually became closer without them even realizing it.
The most obvious example is that every morning when Luo Xincheng arrives at the classroom, as soon as she has her homework in her hand, Fu Zhiheng will automatically take out his own homework and let her copy it without her having to say anything.
Later, because she felt she didn't have enough time in the mornings to catch up on her homework, Luo Xincheng even added Fu Zhiheng on QQ so that if she had any homework she couldn't do, she could ask him to do it, take a picture, and send it to her.
What time do you usually go to bed at night?
Luo Xincheng loved playing tennis back then. Every day after school, she would play tennis for an hour first, then eat, take a shower, play on her phone for a while, and only then would she dawdle and start doing her homework.
She was afraid it would be too late by the time she sent the message, and Fu Zhiheng would already be asleep.
I usually go to bed at 11 p.m.
"That's alright..."
Luo Xincheng subconsciously clicked into his profile and found it to be completely blank.
Maybe good students don't bother with these superficial things.
Fu Zhiheng had already turned off his phone and put it in his handbag after confirming that she had accepted his friend request. He felt a little embarrassed when he saw his account space displayed on her screen.
"There's nothing to see." He looked down at the books on the table and started refilling his pen, looking extremely busy. "I don't post on social media."
Luo Xincheng nodded in understanding.
Copying his homework every day, even someone as shameless as Luo Xincheng would feel a little embarrassed after copying it so many times.
So sometimes when she passed by the school convenience store, she would go in and buy some snacks and drinks for him.
He was naturally unwilling, but the snacks from the convenience store weren't expensive, so his resistance wasn't too strong. Seeing that Luo Xincheng's expression wasn't good after he refused, he felt bad, so when she pushed the snacks towards him again, he didn't refuse anymore.
After this happened several times, Fu Zhiheng started to feel a little obligated to help him.
So one day when Luo Xincheng came to the classroom again, she had just sat down when Fu Zhiheng asked hesitantly, "The questions you asked me last night were all very easy to understand. Do you want me to explain them to you?"
Luo Xincheng looked at him with a horrified expression.
"If you don't want me to copy your homework, just say so. Don't try this trick."
If she wanted to hear the questions, she would have already asked her family to find ten or eight tutors to teach her in turn. Why would she need you?
Fu Zhiheng shook his head repeatedly, "It's not that I don't want you to copy my homework, I just think it's better to teach someone how to fish than to give them a fish, so..."
Luo Xincheng sighed, "But I don't like fishing. I only like it when someone feeds me cooked fish directly."
"Besides, explaining problems is tiring and troublesome, wouldn't it be better to use that time to do more problems yourself?"
He immediately replied, "I don't find it troublesome."
"You don't find it troublesome, but I do," Luo Xincheng complained. "Suddenly having to do something so thankless..."
A thought flickered in her mind. She lowered her head, wanting to look into his eyes through his thick glasses, and asked, half-jokingly and half-threateningly, "You wouldn't happen to have fallen for me, would you?"
"Clatter"
Fu Zhiheng's tightly gripped pen suddenly fell onto the table, making a sharp, abrupt sound.
Luo Xincheng's playful smile suddenly froze.
"No way..." she murmured in disbelief, "You really like me?"
"Think it through before you speak."
Luo Xincheng's voice suddenly turned cold.
"I like what I like, and I don't like what I don't like. No matter if it's because of shyness or something else, I will never accept someone who can't express their true feelings."
Fu Zhiheng blushed with embarrassment as he met her cryptic scrutiny.
"like."
A soft but firm "I like you".
A note from the author:
-------
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
The next chapter is going to be a paid chapter, and I'm starting to tear my hair out looking at my almost empty drafts. [crying emoji]
Because this isn't a background or character design I'm good at, it's been very difficult to write. Seeing that the number of favorites hasn't increased much each day, I feel bad asking for more favorites [laughing and crying emoji].
But every day I see many familiar IDs commenting and showering me with supportive messages. I'm so grateful, I feel like I'm being pampered. [pity]
The midnight VIP chapter will be a pretty generous one, with lots of red envelopes dropping! Thank you all for your continued support! [cat paw]
Let me release my Western fantasy pre-orders:
After being forcibly raised by a younger snake-eater
Bad news: They were in a plane crash.
Good news: The person didn't die, but inexplicably traveled to another world.
Bad news: This world is in chaos, with constant wars between intelligent species, making it extremely dangerous.
Even worse news: It's wearing :)
As expected, Guan Nila, who was powerless to even kill a chicken, lived a miserable life of fear and hunger after transmigrating to another world. Every morning, after waking up and feeling grateful for having survived another day, she would start worrying about what she would eat next.
She was starving, couldn't sleep well, and was surrounded by rampaging and tyrannical monsters. Guan Nila counted down the days, feeling that she would soon die a violent death.
Until that day, a red-haired, green-eyed alien boy descended from the sky and killed the monster in front of Guannila with a single blow, saving her from dire straits.
Guan Nila: "!!!"
I'm so hard to kill! I'm still alive!!!
afterwards,
The boy claimed to have fallen in love with her at first sight and wanted to invite her to join his team. They planned to travel across the continent together and develop their relationship until they fell in love.
Guan Nila: "?!"
Gazing at the other's flamboyant and beautiful face, radiant honey-colored skin, and strong yet not overly muscular physique, Guan Nila painfully closed her eyes, and tears, uncontrollably, streamed down her face.
“If I were a few years younger, at the age when I longed for love the most, I might have been happy to accept your request,” Guan Nila said weakly. “But it’s really not possible now; I’m too weak.”
Having had her edges smoothed out by harsh reality, Guan Nila has completely lost all worldly desires in that area.
Red-haired boy: "...?"
"I don't understand, but whatever, you're mine now!"
*1v1, both are each other's first love, younger man/older woman, non-human, age difference is about four years.
*This is a Western fantasy novel with numerous personal settings. It's a daily diary, and the plot serves the romance entirely.
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