Chapter 29
Jiang Cheng pulled a piece of paper from his briefcase and pushed it in front of Jiang Ci. It was the overall ranking list of the senior year in the mock exam of No. 9 Middle School. After Jiang Ci's name was a glaring number—487th. In an ordinary high school with nearly 600 students, this ranking was nothing short of a public humiliation for Jiang Ci in the past.
"Explain," Jiang Cheng said, his voice devoid of emotion, as if he were evaluating a substandard financial statement.
Jiang Ci's gaze lingered on the ranking for a moment before shifting away, his face expressionless: "There's nothing to explain. It's just this score."
"Nothing to explain?" Jiang Cheng's voice suddenly rose an octave, his fingertips slamming heavily on the ranking list. "Jiang Ci, what do you think you transferred schools for? I should have sent you abroad from the start! Instead of letting you continue to slack off at No. 9 Middle School and get these garbage grades?! 62 in Chinese? Barely passing math? Is this your explanation to me? What happened to your previous abilities? Did you feed them to the dogs?!"
The harsh questions came crashing down like icicles. Jiang Ci's hand, which was under the table, slowly clenched, her nails digging into her palm, bringing a clear pain, barely maintaining a facade of numbness.
"Before?" He looked up, meeting his father's angry gaze, a cold, indifferent, almost mocking smile curving his lips. "Wasn't the Jiang Ci who used to be number one in exams already ruined by your own hands? Transferring schools, monitoring, controlling... and now you're asking me for your former abilities? Mr. Jiang, don't you think that's ridiculous?"
"You!" Jiang Cheng stood up abruptly, his face ashen. His son's gaze and words were like a poisoned dagger, precisely piercing his most unchallengeable authority.
"Oh, Lao Jiang, calm down. The child is still young and doesn't understand." Wang Lihua spoke up at the right moment, her voice gentle but carrying a subtle hint of adding fuel to the fire. "Xiao Ci, it's not that I'm criticizing you, your father is just doing it for your own good and has high expectations for you. Look at your grades now, not to mention compared to before, even in this school now, it's not acceptable. Is it because you're not focusing on your studies and are only thinking about people and things you shouldn't be thinking about?" She drew out her words meaningfully.
People and things that shouldn't be thought about.
Jiang Ci suddenly looked at Wang Lihua, and for the first time, a clear, sharp, almost predatory glint flashed in her eyes, which were always filled with gloom or coldness. The gaze was so terrifying that Wang Lihua's fake smile froze for a moment.
"My affairs are none of your business." Jiang Ci's voice was soft, but every word was like a knife.
"Jiang Ci! How dare you speak to your aunt like that?!" Jiang Cheng was furious. "Looks like I've really spoiled you rotten! From today onwards, you're not allowed to leave the house except for school! Hand over your phone! Restrict your computer! If you do this badly again on the next exam, you're fired! The Jiang family doesn't keep good-for-nothings!"
"Get out?" Jiang Ci repeated in a low voice, then suddenly laughed, a short laugh filled with endless desolation and mockery, "I couldn't ask for more."
He refused to look at his furious father and his disapproving stepmother, and abruptly pushed the chair away. The solid wood legs scraped against the marble floor, making a sharp, piercing noise.
Then, amidst Jiang Cheng's angry shout of "Stop right there!" and Wang Lihua's hypocritical words of comfort such as "Old Jiang, don't get so angry you'll ruin your health," Jiang Ci strode away from the restaurant without looking back.
"Bang--!!!"
A deafening roar.
He returned to his room and slammed the door shut with all his might. The heavy solid wood door seemed to tremble, completely shutting out all the roars, scheming, coldness, and hypocrisy from the outside world.
Leaning against the closed door, Jiang Ci breathed heavily, his chest heaving. The indifference and mockery he had just maintained vanished, leaving only a raging fire of anger, a suffocating sense of oppression, and a deeper, inescapable despair.
He slowly slid down to the ground, hugged his knees, and buried his face in his arms. His shoulders trembled almost imperceptibly, but he couldn't make a sound.
The room was dark, with only the neon lights of the city outside casting shifting, cold, and eerie light spots on the floor through the gaps in the loosely drawn curtains.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but his legs were starting to go numb. Finally, as if he had exhausted all his strength, he staggered to his feet, walked to his desk, and turned on the lamp.
The warm yellow light dispelled a small patch of darkness, but it couldn't illuminate the deeper gloom in his eyes.
He needed something, anything, to distract himself from the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him. He instinctively reached for his phone—only to remember that his father had seemed to threaten to take it away. He subconsciously turned on the screen.
Thankfully, the phone is still there. There are a few unread messages on the screen.
From [Wen Heng].
He blankly swiped the page, his gaze sweeping over the few lines of text.
At first, I was numb, until the name "Xie Qingyan" caught my eye.
Like a pebble thrown into a lifeless swamp, the impact was faint, yet it stirred up ripples that were difficult to quell.
Article 1 (20:15):
Today at Moyunzhai, I met a rather interesting senior high school student named Xie Qingyan. His keen eye and intuition are quite remarkable; he helped me find some useful clues.
Jiang Ci's gaze lingered on the name "Xie Qingyan," his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly. Moyunzhai? He's already working part-time? And he even ran into Wen Heng?
Article 2 (20:17):
[Oh, I remember now. Young Master Jiang specifically borrowed my junior high school textbooks and notes; I gave them to him, right?]
The last address carried a familiar, playful tone typical of old classmates, but at this moment, it felt strangely jarring to Jiang Ci.
A subtle, almost imperceptible, sense of unease crept into his heart. It was like a feather gently scratching an area he usually ignored but which had suddenly become unusually sensitive.
Wen Heng met Xie Qingyan.
They even looked for books and discussed them together? Wen Heng used phrases like "quite interesting" and "their insight and intuition are exceptional." He rarely praised others in this way.
Jiang Ci stared at the two messages, his finger hovering above the screen, motionless for a long time. The warm glow of the desk lamp fell on his face, outlining his tightly pursed lips and slightly hardened features.
He didn't want to reply to Wen Heng's message.
What does it have to do with him? Who Xie Qingyan meets, or who Wen Heng finds interesting, has nothing to do with him.
Frustrated, he tossed his phone aside, grabbed the book "Advanced Problems in Core Mathematics" from the table, and tried to immerse himself again in those cold and safe competition problems.
However, the complex formulas that usually calmed him down seemed to have lost their magic now. The letters and numbers floated before his eyes, unable to form a clear logical chain in his mind.
What will Wen Heng and Xie Qingyan talk about in the bookstore? Will they discuss those worn-out books? Or will they chat about other things? Does Xie Qingyan know those textbooks belong to Wen Heng? What will he think? And how will Wen Heng view him? The Wen Heng who is always immersed in the world of astronomy actually finds Xie Qingyan interesting…
All sorts of random thoughts kept popping up uncontrollably.
"Smack!"
Jiang Ci slammed the book shut. The sound seemed particularly abrupt in the quiet room.
With a tense expression, he picked up his phone again, his fingertips hovering over the cold screen for a longer time. Finally, with an almost reckless impulse, he quickly typed a few words and clicked send.
What did you say?
The moment he sent it, Jiang Ci regretted it. What was this? A question? Curiosity? Concern? No matter which one it was, it was completely different from his usual indifferent image, making him seem ridiculously concerned.
He could almost picture Wen Heng's expression when he saw the message: pushing up his glasses, deep in thought, and probably with a hint of amusement.
Sure enough, Wen Heng replied incredibly quickly, almost the next second after he sent the message.
This falls under the category of personal privacy.
Seven simple words, followed by a period. Polite, distant, and with a businesslike, Wenheng-esque sense of boundaries. Completely blocking any possibility of Jiang Ci continuing to ask questions.
Jiang Ci: "..."
A surge of even greater irritability suddenly rushed up, mixed with an indescribable sense of suffocation. He felt his breath catch in his throat, as if something was blocking his chest, making him feel restless and anxious, yet with nowhere to vent his frustration.
He stared at the words as if he wanted to burn them through. His knuckles turned slightly white from the force.
Just as he was about to throw the phone away again, or simply block the annoying guy, the screen lit up again.
Wen Heng's message popped up immediately afterward:
If I had known you were asking me for the book to lend to him, I should have charged higher interest.
Jiang Ci's brows furrowed even more. Interest?
Immediately following, the third message, the one that truly froze Jiang Ci in place, arrived:
However, this doesn't seem like you.
This isn't like you.
These words, like two precise needles, unexpectedly pierced the shell that Jiang Ci had carefully constructed with indifference and aloofness.
Why did he help Xie Qingyan? Why did he go to the trouble of borrowing textbooks? Why did he repeatedly break his own principles of being alone and avoiding trouble?
Is it merely out of sympathy? Because of that ridiculous feeling of shared misery? Or because of the "Don't be afraid" wrapped in that candy wrapper? Because of that understanding and response from the orchid growing in the secluded valley?
A jumble of emotions churned and pounded in my chest, but I couldn't find an outlet or a clear answer.
He stared at the three messages in silence for a long time.
In the end, he didn't reply.
He simply turned off his phone screen and placed it face down on the table.
It's like a final isolation from all the disturbances of the outside world, and also like a powerless suppression of the suddenly surging and unfamiliar tide within one's heart.
The lamplight fell on his pale face, illuminating the complex emotions surging in his eyes, emotions he himself couldn't decipher: anger, frustration, a hint of being seen through, and deeper still, a burning throbbing and panic that even he himself didn't understand.
Then, he picked up the thick competition book again and forced his gaze to focus on the densely packed symbols.
This time, however, he turned the pages much faster and harder than usual, as if he were struggling against something unseen.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the city, Wen Heng, who had just put down his phone and was about to continue studying the book "Shouzhuozhai Xingkong Suilu" (Random Notes on the Starry Sky from the Shouzhuozhai Studio), pushed up his glasses, looking thoughtful.
Jiang Ci's reaction is quite interesting.
For Jiang Ci, that boy named Xie Qingyan was probably more than just a classmate.
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