The footsteps gradually faded away, but Chao Youye remained where he was. He knew Wu Zeyu wouldn't give up so easily. This must be another trick.
———————————————
When Jiang Zhiran returned home, the entire house was as dark as an abandoned cardboard box. She fumbled in the dark, flicking a switch. The sensor light in the entrance hall lit up, illuminating a sticky note on the shoe cabinet: [Evening study session, there's food in the fridge.]
The handwriting was dazzlingly neat, with the same smooth, rounded strokes as Cheng Hong's. Jiang Zhiran crumpled the sticky note and threw it into the trash can. When he opened the refrigerator and saw the curry rice sealed in plastic wrap, his fingertips hovered over the microwave button for five seconds.
Amid the hum of the microwave, she heard the sound of a key turning. Cheng Xiao stood at the door, clutching a plastic bag from the convenience store. Her school uniform was stained with night dew, and the ends of her hair were still wet with moisture.
The two looked at each other across the dining table, and the sound of a microwave oven "ding" broke the silence.
"I'm much hotter." Jiang Zhiran said suddenly.
Cheng Xiao blinked away the water droplets on his eyelashes, took out a carton of milk from a plastic bag and pushed it over: "It's just right to relieve the spiciness."
The dining table pendant lamp cast a warm yellow halo on the curry, and the steaming heat blurred the boundary between them. Jiang Zhiran noticed that he had a Band-Aid on the base of his right hand, with a faint red oozing around the edge.
"A fight?" She scooped up a spoonful of curry.
Cheng Xiao held the spoon awkwardly in his left hand. "Physics experiment, the fuse blew." He pulled a glass jar from his schoolbag, a copper coil floating inside. "Here."
Jiang Zhiran recognized it; it was an exhibit from last week's physics competition. She'd taken a closer look at it through the glass case, only to discover it was a demonstration model of an electromagnetic damper.
The copper coil slowly sank into the liquid, just like something hard in her heart was slowly dissolving.
"...Thank you." Her voice was softer than the heat of the curry.
Cheng Xiao's spoon suddenly stopped in mid-air. This was the first time Jiang Zhiran had said thank you to him since he came to this house.
While washing dishes, their arms occasionally bumped, and Jiang Zhiran noticed flour on the cuffs of Cheng Xiao's school uniform. She inexplicably opened the freezer and, sure enough, saw rows of pre-wrapped dumplings, each with its own identical folds.
"Breakfast tomorrow." Cheng Xiao's voice came from behind, with a hint of hesitation, "If you don't mind..."
Jiang Zhiran closed the refrigerator door and saw him standing in the warm light of the kitchen, his shadow stretched so long that it almost touched her toes. This realization made her throat tighten, and when she turned around, she knocked over the glass jar on the counter.
The moment the copper coil sank to the bottom, Cheng Xiao caught the falling can. Their fingers touched briefly on the cold glass, and Jiang Zhiran could smell the faint mint scent on him, mixed with the aroma of curry from the kitchen, inexplicably reminiscent of a morning after a rain.
"I'm going to correct the papers." She retreated in a hurry, but heard the sound of Cheng Xiao turning on the gas stove at the corner of the stairs.
The blue fire puffed up, illuminating his drooping eyelashes and casting fine shadows under his eyes.
The math test lay spread out on the desk, and Jiang Zhiran stared at the last question, unable to put pen to paper. The rhythmic sound of chopping vegetables outside reminded her of her mother making midnight snacks when she was a child.
By the time she realized she was counting the number of times the knife fell, the tip of the pen had already made a dark hole in the draft paper.
At eleven o'clock sharp, there was a gentle knock on the door. Cheng Xiao stood outside with a tray. In a porcelain bowl lay two perfectly cooked, soft-boiled eggs, their golden liquid rimmed with a crispy, lace-like edge.
"Brain nourishment." He put down the tray and was about to leave.
Jiang Zhiran suddenly grabbed his wrist, her fingertips touching the rough surface of the Band-Aid: "...The medicine box is under the TV cabinet."
Cheng Xiao froze in his tracks. Moonlight filtered through the gap in the curtains, illuminating Jiang Zhiran's tense profile. The shadow cast by her eyelashes trembled slightly.
He hummed softly and stuffed something into her palm with his backhand.
It was a mint candy, the wrapper softened by body temperature.
As Jiang Zhiran peeled back the candy wrapper, she heard the sound of a medicine box opening and closing downstairs. The coolness of mint exploded on her tongue. As if possessed, she walked to the window and saw Cheng Xiao sitting on the steps, changing her medicine.
The moonlight illuminated his bandaging movements clearly, clumsy yet serious, like a child secretly practicing bandaging a teddy bear.
The night wind lifted a corner of the test paper, revealing the physics notes underneath - it was Cheng Xiao's handwriting, neatly annotating every question that Jiang Zhiran got wrong.
She remembered that during the rainstorm last week, this notebook suddenly appeared in her desk, and she thought that the class monitor had put it there by mistake.
There was a soft clatter of ceramics colliding downstairs. Jiang Zhiran peeked in and saw Cheng Xiao tidying up the kitchen. As he tiptoed to put the bowls into the wall cabinet, a sliver of skin, marked by an old scar, appeared on his lower back, like a centipede crouching in the pale moonlight.
When Jiang Zhiran came to her senses, she found herself standing at the kitchen door. Cheng Xiao turned around in surprise, holding a half-cleaned glass in his hand, with water droplets sliding down his wrist into his sleeve.
"..."
"..."
Silence stretched between the two of them, finally broken by the sound of the refrigerator. Jiang Zhiran reached out and turned off the ceiling light, leaving only the dim glow of the wall lamp.
"It's too bright." She muttered, but saw that Cheng Xiao's ears were slowly turning red.
He lowered his head to continue wiping the cup, his eyelashes casting a trembling shadow under his eyes: "...Would you like some hot milk?"
Jiang Zhiran looked at the two mugs side by side on the kitchen counter, and suddenly found that one of them had a faded strawberry pattern printed on it - it was the one she used when she was a child.
Cheng Xiao followed her gaze, his Adam's apple moving. "I found it in the storage room during the last cleaning."
The night wind blew through the screen window, blowing away the sweet aroma of boiling milk. Jiang Zhiran looked at Cheng Xiao's earlobes, which were red from the heat, and remembered his scorching forehead that night when he had a fever.
A strange emotion swelled in her chest, forcing her to turn around and pretend to pack her schoolbag.
"Tomorrow..." Cheng Xiao's voice was mixed in with the gurgling sound of boiling milk, "It will rain tomorrow."
Jiang Zhiran looked out the window at the bright starry sky and suddenly understood what he really meant. She grabbed her schoolbag and headed upstairs, stopping halfway up the stairs. "...Remember to bring an umbrella."
Behind her, there was the sound of glasses clinking gently, like some kind of tacit signal. Jiang Zhiran turned around the corner and saw Cheng Xiao standing in the warm light of the kitchen, carefully placing her used cup into the dryer.
The moonlight slanted in from the floor-to-ceiling window, dividing his figure into two halves of light and dark.
At the junction of light and shadow, the boy's drooping eyelashes cast fine shadows under his eyes, so gentle that it makes people's hearts tremble.
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